The Columbus Blue Jackets' surprising season of exceeding expectations and contending for the playoffs is still going after beating the Eastern Conference-leading Washington Capitals twice this weekend.

The race for the two wild-card playoff spots in the NHL’s Eastern Conference is full of surprises.

The second half of the NHL season begins Saturday with 14 games coming out of the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Johnny Gaudreau’s Columbus teammates were given a few options for how to handle their emotions during the Blue Jackets’ home opener.

Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek scored on a strong night for the second line, Mats Zuccarello added a power-play goal and the Minnesota Wild opened the season by beating former coach Dean Evason and the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-2.

There were eight coaching changes around the NHL this past offseason.

The Columbus Blue Jackets opened training camp still weighed down by the grief of losing star forward Johnny Gaudreau three weeks ago.

Bill Guerin didn’t want to fire Dean Evason.

The Minnesota Wild have fired coach Dean Evason and assistant Bob Woods.

Dallas coach Peter DeBoer hasn’t been shy to point out Minnesota was one of the most penalized teams in the NHL this season,.

Minnesota Wild center Joel Eriksson Ek was scratched for Game 4 of their first-round NHL playoff series against Dallas because of an injury that cut short his Game 3 after just one shift.

The Minnesota Wild have delivered a forceful and punishing performance to take the first-round NHL playoff series lead from the Dallas Stars.

Jordan Binnington made 25 saves and the St. Louis Blues beat the Minnesota Wild 5-1 in Game 6 to advance to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs.

Comebacks are hard to come by so far in the NHL playoffs after they were so commonplace during the regular season.

The Minnesota Wild are preparing to play in the NHL's Winter Classic for the first time.

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)With COVID-19 problems cropping up and four teams currently idled, the NHL has revised its virus protocols in a bid to keep the shortened season on track. Commissioner Gary Bettman said the league is mindful there might be “more aggressive transmission of the virus and will continue to make adjustments" to protocols. That's a key tweak to the original interpretation of the rule preventing early arrivals, which didn't go over well with some players. The moves were made as the NHL sees some concerning trends, including 40 players on the COVID-19 unavailable list. Bettman said fewer than half the players in protocol have been because of a confirmed positive test and many of those were asymptomatic.

In a unique situation like this, youre going from not playing to playing playoff-style hockey, so youve got to embrace the grind mentally, physically.This is a different kind of grind after four-plus months off the ice. Eddie Olczyk won and lost one best-of-five series early in his playing career with Chicago and remembers the nerves of being 18 and 19 years old in those moments. Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour understands that urgency despite being drafted two years after the NHL moved to all best-of-seven series. His Hurricanes face the Rangers, whose president, John Davidson, won the only two best-of-five series he played in with New York. In a short series, Quenneville said, anything can happen.___AP Hockey Writer John Wawrow contributed to this report.