Defenseman Rasmus Andersson made sure he hugged or high-fived each of his teammates after his Calgary Flames disposed of the New York Islanders 4-2 Friday.

It was the action of a player who knew he had played his last game for Calgary.

A deal was completed Sunday with Andersson going to the Vegas Golden Knights. They gave up defenseman Zach Whitecloud, a 2027 first-round pick and a 2027 second-round pick that becomes a first if Vegas wins the Stanley Cup. Prospect Abram Weibe, a 6-foot-3 college defenseman at North Dakota, is also going to Calgary. 

It was the strong return the Flames had been seeking from the moment they decided to move Andersson.

Throughout the day, reports said the Bruins were the favorites but apparently their deal fell through and the Flames accepted the Vegas offer. One of the keys: the Golden Knights accepted the deal as being a rental. In other words, they don’t have any promises from Andersson about signing there. They will talk to him as signing there at a later date. 

Hockey Insider Darren Dreger was the first to report the deal was done, while Elliott Friedman reported that the Flames are retaining 50% of Andersson’s salary hit

The Flames, who have won three of their last four, wanted to complete the deal before the Olympic break starts

2. Power Play Boost: How important is the power play to NHL success?  Eight of the top nine power play units belong to teams currently in a playoff spot. The only top power play unit that isn’t on a playoff team belongs to the Ottawa Senators who have had goaltending and penalty killing issues.

3. Fashionably Late: The NHL offered a statistic this week supporting the idea that late-game comebacks are in style this season. Through Friday’s games, there were 90 game-tying goals scored in the final five minutes of regulation in 766 games. That’s more late tying goals than the NHL has ever had at this point in a season. It means that 11.7% of all games have a late tying goal.

4. Broadcaster on IR: Popular Detroit Red Wings broadcast analyst Mickey Redmond, 78, will undergo cervical spinal fusion surgery next week. That will keep him out of the television booth until after the Olympic break. Stu Grimson, Chris Osgood and Frankie Corrado will fill in for him.  Tuesday was the 55th anniversary of the trade that brought Redmond to the Red Wings from the Montreal Canadiens.  The Red Wings sent Frank Mahovlich to the Canadiens for Redmond, Bill Collins and Guy Charron. Redmond was Detroit’s first 50-goal scorer.

5. Gretzky’s Greatness: Boston forward David Pastrnak recently registered his100th career NHL multi-assist. It was in his 800th career game, which made him the second-fastest Czech player to reach that milestone. The Czech player who had 100 multi-assist games the quickest was Jaromir Jagr who did it in 516. 

That means as a young player Jagr, wearing his mullet hair style. was picking up two assists in 19.3% of his games. That’s roughly a two-or-more assist game every five games.

That’s impressive, but not nearly as impressive league record holder Wayne Gretzky who reached 100 multi-assist games in his 229th game (on March 13, 1982). He was 21 and racking up two or more assists in 43.6% of his games.

6. Tough Love: Flyers captain Sean Couturier offered a brutal assessment of his team after they lost their sixth consecutive game Friday. “We sucked, plain and simple,” Couturier said. “…We can’t show up down 3-1, 10 minutes in.”

He added: “We’re putting together a couple of good shifts, and then we make big mistakes that cost us, and we can’t play that type of hockey. . . As a group, we’re in a funk. We’re trying, I think we’re just not smart right now.”

7. Former Cup Winner Dies:  Former NHL player Phil Goyette, 92, has died, according to the Montreal Canadiens. Goyette was a member of four Stanley Cup winners in Montreal and had been the second-oldest Canadiens alumnus. He was also the New York Islanders’ first coach. 

In 1969-70, he won the Lady Byng award as a member of the St. Louis Blues to become the first player from an expansion team to win a major NHL award. 

8.Goalie Woes:  Ottawa’s .865 save percentage is the worst recorded by an NHL team, at this point in the season, in more than 30 years. After Montreal beat Ottawa goalie Leevi Merilainen 6-5 Friday, Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson said: “You’ve got to make more than 10 saves to win the game.”