VANCOUVER — For Blake Wheeler and the Winnipeg Jets, it truly was the best of times. Followed by the worst of times.
A banner night for the captain that included his long-awaited first goal of the year ended with him writhing on the ice in agony, clutching his right knee after suffering a serious third-period ailment. That added injury to the eventual insult of a 4-3 shootout loss to Vancouver in which Winnipeg had numerous glorious chances in overtime to snatch the bonus point from the hosts.
“It’s going to be a while. We’ll get him looked at (Saturday). I’m not a doctor, but it’s going to be a while,” a grim Jets coach Paul Maurice said following the game at Rogers Arena. “We’ll get him healed up, we’ll find other players and we’ll find a way to do it without him.”
Concern was echoed by numerous teammates, who had just celebrated Wheeler and his notorious durability when he skated in his 1,000th career regular-season game last Sunday.
“It was tough to see him down on the ground like that. We just gotta hope and pray for good news when we gets more results. That’s all we can do,” said linemate Mark Scheifele. “We know he’s a warrior, he plays through pretty much everything. Obviously there’s always hope he comes back. Hopefully we get some better news when we get home and get the doctors to look at it. All we can do is pray for good news.”
Vancouver Canucks’ Bo Horvat checks Winnipeg Jets’ Mark Scheifele during the first period. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Winnipeg, playing on the road for a second straight night following Thursday’s 3-0 victory in Seattle, drops to 13-9-5 but are back above the Western Conference playoff line with the single point. Vancouver improves to 11-15-2, including 3-0-0 under new coach Bruce Boudreau.
Maurice wasn’t lying when he said the work from Wheeler, along with Scheifele and Kyle Connor, might have been “as fine as I’ve seen that line play.” They were absolutely dominant until Wheeler went down in a heap near the midway mark of the third period, the result of Jets defenceman Nathan Beaulieu accidentally sliding into him after getting tangled with Vancouver forward Vasily Podkolzin during a chaotic scramble in front of the Winnipeg net.
“They were playing great. They were buzzing,” is how Jets forward Andrew Copp described the play of the top trio.
Vancouver Canucks’ Tanner Pearson is stopped by Winnipeg Jets goalie Eric Comrie, centre, during the first period. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Indeed. After Nils Hoglander opened the scoring 6:29 into the first period, Wheeler finally broke a regular-season scoring drought that stretched all the way back to last May 11, when he sniped twice against the Canucks in the second-last game of the abbreviated 2021 campaign. That’s a span of 22 games, including all 21 he’d played this season up until Friday. A wrist shot on the power play snuck by Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko, who was screened by the imposing Pierre-Luc Dubois, and the monkey was off his back. Wheeler actually pantomined reaching back and tossing the imaginary burden into orbit.
“Long time coming. He had how many assists? It wasn’t a worry for us. He’s been dishing left and right,” said Copp.
Turns out, he was just getting warmed up including some more dishing to come. Wheeler was robbed of a sure goal on the very next shift when Demko got a glove on the puck just before it crossed the goal-line. He was also denied on a breakaway near the end of the period, which Vancouver quickly turned around for the go-ahead goal, a softie given up by Jets backup goalie Eric Comrie off a Hoglander shot.
Winnipeg Jets’ Pierre-Luc Dubois and Vancouver Canucks’ Luke Schenn collide during the first period. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Wheeler had a direct hand in getting the game knotted up again, setting up Connor for his team-leading 18th 6:09 into the second period. Vancouver regained the lead just 57 seconds later, as Conor Garland came off the bench on a line change, got in behind Winnipeg’s defence and scored on a breakaway dash.
But then the first line did it again, with Wheeler and Connor setting up Scheifele for a rocket of a one-timer at 11:08, his seventh goal of the year.
Then came some controversy. The Jets appeared to have taken a 4-3 lead when Andrew Copp scored a few minutes later, but it was wiped off the board when Boudreau challenged for goaltender interference. Replays showed Dubois came in contact with Demko just prior to the puck going in.
Winnipeg Jets’ Blake Wheeler’s leg bends sideways at the knee as he vies for the puck against Vancouver Canucks’ Vasily Podkolzin, front right, during the third period. Wheeler left the game with an injury and did not return to the ice. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Maurice was livid on the bench, no doubt thinking back to a call that went against them last week when playing Carolina. Connor Hellebuyck got spun around during a crease battle shortly before the Hurricanes scored, but the goal was allowed to stand based on the NHL’s ruling that it was incidental contact during a loose puck battle.
“Well, that’s it. I don’t like one of those two calls. I can’t tell you which one. But one of those two calls is wrong,” Maurice said following the game.
Winnipeg Jets’ Blake Wheeler clutches his knee as he lies on the ice after getting injured during the third period against the Canucks in Vancouver, on Friday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
“You just never know what to expect, honestly. And it’s not just that, it’s just the full lack of clarity on what is goalie interference and what is not. That could have been goalie interference, for sure. If that one is, than probably the Hellebuyck once against Carolina probably is. So, I don’t think it’s just one call, it’s just lack of clarity overall,” he said.
“Try and not put it in their hands, I guess. The one today, it’s a 50-50 puck, Dubie is going backdoor tap-in and that’s the ruling that we got from the league, that incidental contact on a 50-50 puck around the net is not goalie interference. That’s where we are confused.”
After a scoreless third period, a wild overtime session ensued in which the Jets had the puck for pretty much the first four minutes but couldn’t solve Demko despite numerous glorious chances. They survived a last-minute tripping call against Nikolaj Ehlers — which set the stage for a shootout.
Winnipeg Jets’ Nikolaj Ehlers trips Vancouver Canucks’ Elias Pettersson during overtime. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Elias Pettersson was the only one who could score on a nifty deke from in-tight. Connor, Scheifele and Dubois were all denied by Demko.
“We pretty much dominated that overtime. Breakaways, two-on-ones. I think one went off his cup on and on to the post or whatever. We had our chances, sometimes you have to tip your cap, Demko made some big saves and held them in it,” said Scheifele.
“We played a great game. Did a lot of really great things. It sucks shootouts are the way to end it. You wish you could just play three on three forever, until someone scores. That’s just the way it is, we have to be happy with our game and look at the good things. Now we got a little bit of time to rest, which is nice. We have to take that to our advantage and be ready for a little bit of a homestand here.”
Vancouver Canucks’ Elias Pettersson scores the game-winning goal on Winnipeg Jets’ goaltender Eric Comrie during the shootout, Friday. (TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)
Comrie finished the game with 33 saves in regulation and overtime, while Demko made 34 stops.
The Jets are now off until Tuesday, when they open a three-game homestand against the Buffalo Sabres at Canada Life Centre. Washington and St. Louis will also pay visits.
An investigator gave the World Anti-Doping Agency a pass on its handling of the inflammatory case involving Chinese swimmers, but not without hammering away at the “curious” nature of WADA’s “silence” after examining Chinese actions that did not follow rules designed to safeguard global sports.
WADA on Thursday released the full decision from Eric Cottier, the Swiss investigator it appointed to analyze its handling of the case involving the 23 Chinese swimmers who remained eligible despite testing positive for performance enhancers in 2021.
In echoing wording from an interim report issued earlier this summer, Cottier said it was “reasonable” that WADA chose not to appeal the Chinese anti-doping agency’s explanation that the positives came from contamination.
“Taking into consideration the particularities of the case, (WADA) appears … to have acted in accordance with the rules it has itself laid out for anti-doping organizations,” Cottier wrote.
But peppered throughout his granular, 56-page analysis of the case was evidence and reminders of how WADA disregarded some of China’s violations of anti-doping protocols. Cottier concluded this happened more for the sake of expediency than to show favoritism toward the Chinese.
“In retrospect at least, the Agency’s silence is curious, in the face of a procedure that does not respect the fundamental rules, and its lack of reaction is surprising,” Cottier wrote of WADA’s lack of fealty to the world anti-doping code.
Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and one of WADA’s fiercest critics, latched onto this dynamic, saying Cottier’s information “clearly shows that China did not follow the rules, and that WADA management did nothing about it.”
One of the chief complaints over the handling of this case was that neither WADA nor the Chinese gave any public notice upon learning of the positive tests for the banned heart medication Temozolomide, known as TMZ.
The athletes also were largely kept in the dark and the burden to prove their innocence was taken up by Chinese authorities, not the athletes themselves, which runs counter to what the rulebook demands.
Despite the criticisms, WADA generally welcomed the report.
“Above all, (Cottier) reiterated that WADA showed no bias towards China and that its decision not to appeal the cases was reasonable based on the evidence,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli said. “There are however certainly lessons to be learned by WADA and others from this situation.”
Tygart said “this report validates our concerns and only raises new questions that must be answered.”
Cottier expanded on doubts WADA’s own chief scientist, Olivier Rabin, had expressed over the Chinese contamination theory — snippets of which were introduced in the interim report. Rabin was wary of the idea that “a few micrograms” of TMZ found in the kitchen at the hotel where the swimmers stayed could be enough to cause the group contamination.
“Since he was not in a position to exclude the scenario of contamination with solid evidence, he saw no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities,” Cottier wrote.
Though recommendations for changes had been expected in the report, Cottier made none, instead referring to several comments he’d made earlier in the report.
Key among them were his misgivings that a case this big was largely handled in private — a breach of custom, if not the rules themselves — both while China was investigating and after the file had been forwarded to WADA. Not until the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported on the positives were any details revealed.
“At the very least, the extraordinary nature of the case (23 swimmers, including top-class athletes, 28 positive tests out of 60 for a banned substance of therapeutic origin, etc.), could have led to coordinated and concerted reflection within the Agency, culminating in a formal and clearly expressed decision to take no action,” the report said.
WADA’s executive committee established a working group to address two more of Cottier’s criticisms — the first involving what he said was essentially WADA’s sloppy recordkeeping and lack of formal protocol, especially in cases this complex; and the second a need to better flesh out rules for complex cases involving group contamination.
The French league’s legal commission has ordered Paris Saint-Germain to pay Kylian Mbappé the 55 million euros ($61 million) in unpaid wages that he claims he’s entitled to, the league said Thursday.
The league confirmed the decision to The Associated Press without more details, a day after the France superstar rejected a mediation offer by the commission in his dispute with his former club.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former football star Reggie Bush was at his Encino home Tuesday night when three male suspects attempted to break in, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
“Everyone is safe,” Bush said in a text message to the newspaper.
The Los Angeles Police Dept. told the Times that a resident of the house reported hearing a window break and broken glass was found outside. Police said nothing was stolen and that three male suspects dressed in black were seen leaving the scene.
Bush starred at Southern California and in the NFL. The former running back was reinstated as the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner this year. He forfeited it in 2010 after USC was hit with sanctions partly related to Bush’s dealings with two aspiring sports marketers.
