DENVER — Even the best in the world can have his bad moments.
Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final marked the first time Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy had given up three goals in the first period of a playoff game. Two of those Colorado Avalanche tallies uncharacteristically trickled through him for what could be termed “soft” goals, at least by his standards.
But being the best in the world comes with an unparalleled confidence in one’s abilities. He stopped every shot he faced until the Avalanche won in overtime, challenging attacking players with a ferocity undeterred by his first-period struggles. “He’s an all-world goaltender. He stood tall and gave us a chance to win it,” captain Steven Stamkos said.
The Lightning don’t worry about Andrei Vasilevskiy. Frankly, they’re in awe of him.
“It’s pretty cool to play with a player that’s going to go down as one of the best that’s ever played the game,” Tampa Bay Lightning winger Alex Killorn said of his goaltender.
At this point in his career, trying to contextualize the inherent greatness of Andrei Vasilevskiy is like awarding an Oscar for best picture halfway through a movie’s premiere. He turns 28 next month. He’s finishing his eighth NHL season, all with the Lightning. He led the NHL in regular-season wins in five of those seasons, capturing the Vezina Trophy in 2018-19 as the league’s top goaltender.
But it’s the postseason accomplishments that have players like Killorn anointing Vasilevskiy the GOAT before he turns 30.
Entering Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Colorado Avalanche, he had played in 98 postseason games. He won 61 of them. He has a career postseason save percentage of .925, tied with Dominik Hasek, which is .001 away from the best of all time. His stats in games in which the Lightning eliminated opponents are legendary: He has six career series-clinching shutouts, the most in NHL history.
If coffee is for closers, Vasilevskiy would be Starbucks.
Oh, and he was the backbone for consecutive Stanley Cup championships and potentially a third in a row, collecting a Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP in 2021.
That too.
There has been some “Goalie Mount Rushmore” talk about Vasilevskiy this postseason. Perhaps you’ve heard it or seen it. So I asked someone whose visage is already chiseled on that cliffside about whether Vasilevskiy belongs there at this juncture.
“The way he’s been playing for the last three years has been unbelievable. Some of his stats, those Game 7s and clinching games. It takes a special goalie to be that dominant for so many years,” he said. “How many times would it have been easy for him to say, you know what, I had a good run. I won these Stanley Cups. But he just perseveres, you know?”
In case you couldn’t tell, Marty is a bit enamored with Vasilevskiy. So is his son, as Vasilevskiy is his favorite goaltender — Brodeur told me that he has acquired a few autographed items through Tampa Bay goaltending coach Frantz Jean for the young fan in his life. For years, Brodeur put Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens on a pedestal as the NHL’s greatest modern day goaltender. Vasilevskiy changed that.
“Since he’s been on this run, it switched it for me,” Brodeur admitted.
Brodeur knows a thing or two about postseason success. Or three, actually, as in the number of Stanley Cups he won with the New Jersey Devils en route to 113 career postseason wins, second all time to Patrick Roy (151).
Three Cups. But not three in a row as Vasilevskiy is attempting to achieve.
“I never had the chance. I went to three Stanley Cup Finals in four years. I went back to back [in 2000 and 2001] and lost to Colorado in seven games,” Brodeur said. “What he’s on the verge of doing, it’s crazy.”
Let me get out my chisel for the Mount Rushmore of playoff goalies. Roy is on there — I mean, with 151 playoff wins, four Stanley Cups and a Conn Smythe paired with three of them, one could argue Roy deserves his own mountain.
I’d chisel Brodeur next to him. That third spot could go to a number of players: New York Islanders dynasty goalie Billy Smith, six-Cup winners Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden, Edmonton Oilers legend Grant Fuhr among them. Pick any of them and you’re golden.
And then I’d chisel Vasilevskiy next to them.
It’s not just the potential three Stanley Cup wins in a row. It’s the four trips to the conference finals in five years. It’s putting up elite numbers in an era that’s not the friendliest for goalies, against the greatest offensive talent we’ve ever seen. It’s the way he has done it: 13 series-clinching wins in his playoff career, trailing only Marc-Andre Fleury (16) among active goalies, with a .991 save percentage in his past eight series-clinching wins, dating back to the 2020 Stanley Cup Final.
Again, just my opinion. Others don’t necessarily share it.
“It’s a little early to be talking about the Mount Rushmore of goalies because I’ve got a lot of respect for guys going back to the Johnny Bower days,” said Brian Engblom, a former NHL defenseman who has been a broadcaster for the Lightning during Vasilevskiy’s career. “It’s a hard question. You’re talking about the whole history of the NHL. You have to take longevity into it, right? He can’t have done any better than he has up until this point, and I fully expect him to keep doing the same thing.”
What does Vasilevskiy do that makes him better than everyone else?
“He is a machine,” Engblom said. “He’s got the best legs of any goalie I’ve ever seen in the National Hockey League. He’s so fast. They call him the Big Cat for a reason. I’ve seen so many plays where guys come in and give a million-dollar move and then he shoots out a leg. You can see the expression on the forward’s face: ‘C’mon, you didn’t stop that one, that’s impossible.’ He does the impossible.”
What does that mean?
“He can go both directions at the same time.”
Like Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four?
“Watch him in the warm-ups. He’ll sit in the splits for like 30 seconds, like a gymnast. He’s a phenomenal athlete, incredibly powerful and all the attributes. But more than anything, he’s driven to be a winner. He’s driven to be the best.”
I asked Vasilevskiy’s backup, Brian Elliott, about that drive to succeed.
“It’s pretty special. It’s something that when I signed here I was really happy to be partnered up with him. One of the best guys to do it,” Elliott said. “I was lucky enough to have one of those stints when Marty Brodeur was with us in St. Louis. It’s something you never forget, being at a practice and looking at a legend at the other end. [Vasy] is making himself into one of those guys that’ll go down in history. That’s pretty special to me.”
Does he belong on the Mount Rushmore of playoff goalies?
“I don’t put him there. He puts himself there,” Elliott deadpanned. “I don’t get into that whole debate. He’s proven, and still proving, what he can do.”
The mind boggles at what Vasilevskiy could end up proving when all is said and done. His first full season as a starter was 2017-18. He has gotten 188 wins in the five-year span since then out of 372 possible games due to shortened seasons (winning 50.5% of his team’s games). According to ESPN Stats & Information, five more seasons at that win rate would mean 207 victories; 10 more seasons would be 414 more victories. The latter would put him at 643 career wins, or 48 behind Brodeur’s all-time record of 691.
Hypothetically, even if we dock Vasilevskiy 10 wins in Years 6-10 due to his age and/or playing with lesser teams, he’d still be approaching 600 wins and easily be in second place in NHL history.
Does Brodeur hear the footsteps?
“Not yet,” he said. “He’s got a little ways to go, but that’s fine. Like I told you before, if someone gets to the record, they’re going to deserve it.”
As I admire my masonry work in putting Andrei Vasilevskiy on my Mount Rushmore of playoff goalies, I agree with Brodeur. Vasilevskiy is not quite there on the Mount Rushmore of regular-season goalies.
Not yet, at least.
“You’re getting maybe half his face on Mount Rushmore,” Engblom said, metaphorical chisel in hand. “I’ll reserve the other half for when he plays for another eight or nine years.”
Until then, we’ll continue to witness the burgeoning legend of Andrei Vasilevskiy.
“That’s how you gauge players: how they play in big-time games,” Killorn said. “He’s been nothing but tremendous in these games.”
There was some debate among Lightning fans as to why this celebration of Phil Esposito, the Hockey Hall of Famer who was a driving force in expansion to Tampa, should be considered a Foul.
At a minimum, it’s because this is a hockey jersey, not a billboard, and should be treated as such. But also, from a design standpoint, that giant blue ocean of color under the nameplate is just aesthetically distracting. At least put a No. 92 there in honor of when the team was founded. Although it would still be a Foul.
Video of the week
The Avalanche are in the Stanley Cup Final. It’s about time this gets unearthed.
There’s a lot of sweat. And lip-syncing. And sweaty lip-syncing. There’s also a clip of then-head coach Patrick Roy trying to fight Bruce Boudreau between the benches, which was truly radioactive.
“Imagine Avs,” as it was known, was a collaboration between the team and Imagine Dragons. The Avalanche actually deleted it from their official YouTube channel some time ago. You can watch it above or on Streamable.
We demand a remake if they win the Stanley Cup. Or, if they lose, force the players to sweaty-lip-sync to “Thunder.”
Bruce Cassidy is a terrific coach and a straightforward one. He’s as candid as they come. His hiring will benefit the Golden Knights, who could use someone to slice through the nonsense and take a fresh look under the hood to see what’s wrong with their engine. For Cassidy, he takes over a contender on the way up instead of a fading one in Boston. Good news all around with this hire.
Loser: Secrecy
I like John Tortorella with the Philadelphia Flyers, a hiring that ESPN’s Kevin Weekes said is in the works. You couldn’t cook up a better aesthetic and philosophical fit than Seething Man and the Broad Street Bullies. That said, it’s a tough look for the Flyers to have reports that Barry Trotz was (a) their first choice and (b) turned down $7 million annually (!) to coach the team.
Find me anyone who loves anything more than Gary Bettman loves the Arizona market for the NHL. At his state of the league news conference, the commissioner once again went to bat for the Coyotes’ three-year (plus an option for a fourth!) plan to play in an arena at Arizona State University that seats no more than 5,000 fans.
“It’s not unprecedented. You do what you have to do if you believe in the market long term. We remain excited and optimistic about the [Tempe] project,” he said, citing the possible arena project that would be constructed while the Coyotes play at ASU. Bettman even cited several examples of teams playing in smaller venues temporarily, like the San Jose Sharks at the Cow Palace and Tampa Bay Lightning at Expo Hall. Never mind those were expansion teams, and that those placeholder venues still hold twice the capacity of ASU.
Loser: San Jose Sharks
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly revealed that the Evander Kane contract termination grievance with the San Jose Sharks “has been delayed due to scheduling conflicts with the case’s arbitrator, and may not be reached before free agency opens July 13.”
Kudos to the NHL for quickly and sternly addressing the elephant in the room: What happens when the Lightning or Avalanche win the Cup and one of their Russian players wants to take the chalice to their homeland, which is currently being ostracized by the NHL for its invasion of Ukraine?
“We made both clubs aware already with respect to this summer, the Cup is not going to Russia or Belarus,” Daly said. “We may owe a Cup trip in the future, just like we did with the pandemic. But it’s not happening this summer.”
Loser: Gerard Gallant
I received a few text messages from hockey public relations professionals who were stunned by the Rangers coach’s fumbling of Kaapo Kakko‘s healthy scratch in Game 6 against the Lightning. Gallant refused to address it during the game or after the game.
It was only later that he revealed it was only a decision meant to give his team the best possible lineup. But by refusing to engage on the matter, Gallant opened up the spigot for a flood of speculation about Kakko and the “real” reason he was out of the lineup, from an incident with the coach to other more extreme theories. That’s a shame and something completely unwarranted. It’s such an unforced error.
On an all-Black hockey team in Minnesota. “To have a team like this come through here is no better way to say, ‘We’ve arrived. We’re here. Hockey is literally for everyone.’ This proves it.”
The only way the World Cup of Hockey can be a success is if it’s held during the season. Happy to hear this is the plan.
What the scouts are saying about top NHL prospects. “I would take Slafkovsky. He’s a difference maker, you saw it at the Hlinka, the Olympics, the Worlds. I’m not sure Wright is a difference maker type of player. There were a lot of games I wondered where the effort and drive to take over the game was from him.”
“Despite overtures and flirtations, especially with Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta once expressing adding a major league hockey franchise to the Toyota Center, anything resembling an outright NHL-to-Houston move is purely rumor and speculation in 2022.” Oh, OK, glad we cleared that up.
What a potential Alex DeBrincat trade could look like for the Chicago Blackhawks. “If the Blackhawks do decide to go all in with a rebuild and deal DeBrincat there should be no shortage of interested teams. New Jersey, Buffalo, and Detroit need something to jumpstart their rebuild. Calgary might have to replace Johnny Gaudreau. Los Angeles and the New York Islanders need another star. What that trade looks like though remains to be seen. But there is at least a potential framework out there based on similar deals in the salary cap era.”
Christine Sinclair scored one final goal at B.C. Place, helping the Portland Thorns to a 6-0 victory over the Whitecaps Girls Elite team. The soccer legend has announced she’ll retire from professional soccer at the end of the National Women’s Soccer League season. (Oct. 16, 2024)
At his first news conference as England’s newly appointed head coach, Thomas Tuchel – a German – was asked on Wednesday what message he had for fans who would have preferred an Englishman in charge of their beloved national team.
“I’m sorry, I just have a German passport,” he said, laughing, and went on to profess his love for English football and the country itself. “I will do everything to show respect to this role and to this country.”
The soccer rivalry between England and Germany runs deep and it’s likely Tuchel’s passport will be used against him if he doesn’t deliver results for a nation that hasn’t lifted a men’s trophy since 1966. But his appointment as England’s third foreign coach shows that, increasingly, even the top countries in the sport are abandoning the long-held belief that the national team must be led by one of their own.
Four of the top nine teams in the FIFA world rankings now have foreign coaches. Even in Germany, a four-time World Cup winner which has never had a foreign coach, candidates such as Dutchman Louis van Gaal and Austrian Oliver Glasner were considered serious contenders for the top job before the country’s soccer federation last year settled on Julian Nagelsmann, who is German.
“The coaching methods are universal and there for everyone to apply,” said German soccer researcher and authorChristoph Wagner, whose recent book “Crossing the Line?” historically addresses Anglo-German rivalry. “It’s more the personality that counts and not the nationality. You could be a great coach, and work with a group of players who aren’t perceptive enough to get your methods.”
Not everyone agrees.
English soccer author and journalist Jonathan Wilson said it was “an admission of failure” for a major soccer nation to have a coach from a different country.
“Personally, I think it should be the best of one country versus the best of another country, and that would probably extend to coaches as well as players,” said Wilson, whose books include “Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics.”
“To say we can’t find anyone in our country who is good enough to coach our players,” he said, “I think there is something slightly embarrassing, slightly distasteful about that.”
That sentiment was echoed by British tabloid The Daily Mail, which reported on Tuchel’s appointment with the provocative headline “A Dark Day for England.”
While foreign coaches are often found in smaller countries and those further down the world rankings, they are still a rarity among the traditional powers of the game. Italy, another four-time world champion, has only had Italians in charge. All of Spain’s coaches in its modern-day history have been Spanish nationals. Five-time World Cup winner Brazil has had only Brazilians in charge since 1965, and two-time world champion France only Frenchmen since 1975.
And it remains the case that every World Cup-winning team, since the first tournament in 1930, has been coached by a native of that country. The situation is similar for the women’s World Cup, which has never been won by a team with a foreign coach, though Jill Ellis, who led the U.S. to two trophies, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in England.
Some coaches have made a career out of jumping from one national team to the next. Lars Lagerbäck, 76, coached his native Sweden between 2000-09 and went on to lead the national teams of Nigeria, Iceland and Norway.
“I couldn’t say I felt any big difference,” Lagerbäck told The Associated Press. “I felt they were my teams and the people’s teams.”
For Lagerbäck, the obvious disadvantages of coaching a foreign country were any language difficulties and having to adapt to a new culture, which he particularly felt during his brief time with Nigeria in 2010 when he led the African country at the World Cup.
Otherwise, he said, “it depends on the results” — and Lagerbäck is remembered with fondness in Iceland, especially, after leading the country to Euro 2016 for its first ever international tournament, where it knocked out England in the round of 16.
Lagerbäck pointed to the strong education and sheer number of coaches available in soccer powers like Spain and Italy to explain why they haven’t needed to turn to an overseas coach. At this year’s European Championship, five of the coaches were from Italy and the winning coach was Luis de la Fuente, who was promoted to Spain’s senior team after being in charge of the youth teams.
Portugal for the first time looked outside its own borders or Brazil, with which it has historical ties, when it appointed Spaniard Roberto Martinez as national team coach last year. Also last year, Brazil tried — and ultimately failed — to court Real Madrid’s Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti, with Brazilian soccer federation president Ednaldo Rodrigues saying: “It doesn’t matter if it’s a foreigner or a Brazilian, there’s no prejudice about the nationality.”
The United States has had a long list of foreign coaches before Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentine former Chelsea manager who took over as the men’s head coach this year.
The English Football Association certainly had no qualms making Tuchel the national team’s third foreign-born coach, after Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson (2001-06) and Italian Fabio Capello (2008-12), simply believing he was the best available coach on the market.
Unlike Eriksson and Capello, Tuchel at least had previous experience of working in English soccer — he won the Champions League in an 18-month spell with Chelsea — and he also speaks better English.
That won’t satisfy all the nay-sayers, though.
“Hopefully I can convince them and show them and prove to them that I’m proud to be the English manager,” Tuchel said.
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AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire in Paris contributed to this story.
TORONTO – Bobby McMann watched from the press box on opening night.
Just over a week later, the Maple Leafs winger took a twirl as the first star.
McMann went from healthy scratch to unlikely offensive focal point in just eight days, putting up two goals in Toronto’s 6-2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday.
The odd man out at the Bell Centre against the Montreal Canadiens, he’s slowly earning the trust of first-year head coach Craig Berube.
“There’s a lot of good players on this team,” McMann said of his reaction to sitting out Game 1. “Maybe some guys fit better in certain scenarios than others … just knowing that my opportunity would come.”
The Wainwright, Alta., product skated on the second line with William Nylander and Max Domi against Los Angeles, finishing with those two goals, three hits and a plus-3 rating in just over 14 minutes of work.
“He’s been unbelievable,” said Nylander, who’s tied with McMann for the team lead with three goals. “It’s great when a player like that comes in.”
The 28-year-old burst onto the scene last February when he went from projected scratch to hat-trick hero in a single day after then-captain John Tavares fell ill.
McMann would finish 2023-24 with 15 goals and 24 points in 56 games before a knee injury ruled him out of Toronto’s first-round playoff loss to the Boston Bruins.
“Any time you have success, it helps the confidence,” he said. “But I always trust the abilities and trust that they’re there whether things are going in or (I’m not) getting points. Just trying to play my game and trust that doing the little things right will pay off.”
McMann was among the Leafs’ best players against the Kings — and not just because of what he did on the scoresheet. The forward got into a scuffle with Phillip Danault in the second period before crushing Mikey Anderson with a clean hit in the third.
“He’s a power forward,” Berube said. “That’s how he should think the game, night in and night out, as being a power forward with his skating and his size. He doesn’t have to complicate the game.”
Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz knew nothing about McMann before joining Toronto in free agency over the summer.
“Great two-way player,” said the netminder. “Extremely physical and moves really well, has a good shot. He’s a key player for us in our depth. I was really happy for him to get those two goals.
“Works his butt off.”
ON TARGET
Leafs captain Auston Matthews, who scored 69 times last season, ripped his first goal of 2024-25 after going without a point through the first three games.
“It’s not going to go in every night,” said Matthews, who added two assists against the Kings. “It’s good to see one fall … a little bit of the weight lifted off your shoulders.”
WAKE-UP CALL
Berube was animated on the bench during a third-period timeout after the Kings cut a 5-0 deficit to 5-2.
“Taking care of the puck, being harder in our zone,” Matthews said of the message. “There were times in the game, early in the second, in the third period, where the momentum shifted and we needed to grab it back.”
PATCHES SITS
Toronto winger Max Pacioretty was a healthy scratch after dressing the first three games.
“There’s no message,” Berube said of the 35-year-old’s omission. “We have extra players and not everybody can play every night. That’s the bottom line. He’s been fine when he’s played, but I’ve got to make decisions as a coach, and I’m going to make those decisions — what I think is best for the team.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
