The Toronto Raptors have officially limped their way through the regular season to qualify for the postseason. It was more a slog than a step forward, more a stumbling through a series of misfortunate events than a step forward. But now the game(s) are about to matter.
They’ve been mostly good since acquiring Jakob Poeltl, although there have been some extreme moments of letdown. That’s particularly been the case recently — and, hopefully, we can explain that by saying Toronto has mostly been aiming for a play-in spot anyway, and so there hasn’t been huge incentive to try hard. Hopefully. That’s not super convincing for a bunch of reasons, but it’s possible.
Some early caveats: I had planned for this to be much shorter than my usual comprehensive previews, such as my work season in preparation for the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers. This season, Toronto is not playing a seven-game series with the Chicago Bulls, so I did not want to go into the same level of depth. Much of the detail in the past has been about adjustments, and though there can be in-game adjustments here, it can’t be to the same depth. And yet, this is as long as my usual ones for whole series. Whatever, I can’t stop myself. I need to be committed. Real caveat though: If the Raptors do happen to win, I reserve the right to not do this for the second play-in game, as the turnaround would be difficult for me. Please God save me from myself.
Injuries
Toronto has a pretty clean bill of health in the rotation, outside of Otto Porter jr. Siakam’s legs have seemed tired for a while now, and Gary Trent jr. is still working his way back from injury, but in general things are as good as they’ve been all season.
Outside of Lonzo Ball, who hasn’t played all year, the Bulls are in a pretty similar situation. Zach LaVine was held out recently for knee management, which was a bigger issue for him earlier in the year but has limited him much less recently. He exploded in March, and the Bulls have known their play-in fate for a while, so I doubt LaVine was held out for a real reason.
These are, more or less, two teams at their healthiest coming into the postseason.
The Basic Numbers
The Raptors and Bulls are remarkably similar teams in terms of season-long performance. Both are completely average on the season — and have been significantly better than that since the trade deadline. Their net ratings have been plus-3.4 for Toronto since that time period and plus-3.2 for Chicago, good for 10th and 11th in the league. Both have massively underperformed their expected win totals based on net rating, so models consider both teams stronger than their win-loss records or their seeds.
Both teams also have a few small areas of strength and many areas of weakness. Crucially, some of those areas intersect, providing the best hints we can find for the key battlegrounds upon which the game will be decided.
The Raptors force a lot of turnovers, and the Bulls don’t commit many turnovers. The Raptors snatch many offensive rebounds, and the Bulls don’t allow many offensive rebounds. Those two components, more than any others, should go a long way to determining the game. In many ways, they did in the regular-season series between the two teams.
Season Series Numbers
The Raptors did win the season series, though Toronto’s wins were close while the Bulls had a blowout in their lone win. That’s why the net rating is so close.
The two teams split a back-to-back in Toronto in early November, and there were plenty of mitigating factors. Pascal Siakam missed Toronto’s loss, and Zach LaVine missed Chicago’s. So, not a whole lot to take away; both teams look very different without their best players. Of course, that was before Toronto added Poeltl, so Toronto in particular looked different then.
When the two teams met in late February, both teams were much healthier, looking significantly like the two teams that will meet on Wednesday. The Raptors handled LaVine and DeMar DeRozan spectacularly, as O.G. Anunoby’s defense was maybe the most important component of the game. Plenty went wrong for Toronto, but it won mostly by playing hard. One hopes the same will be true in the play-in game, but it’s not necessarily a guarantee.
In general, the series has looked as Toronto has dictated. The Raptors pounded the glass and forced plenty of turnovers. Because Chicago’s defense is so stout, that didn’t end the game. But it gave the Raptors a huge edge — enough to overcome the efficiency gap that has plagued Toronto so devilishly this season.
Starter Matchup
Toronto
PG: Fred VanVleet
SG: O.G. Anunoby
SF: Scottie Barnes
PF: Pascal Siakam
C: Jakob Poeltl
Chicago
PG: Patrick Beverley
SG: Zach LaVine
SF: DeMar DeRozan
PF: Patrick Williams
C: Nikola Vucevic
This is very possibly, bordering on probably, wrong. If the Bulls want extra point-of-attack defense, Alex Caruso could start in place of Patrick Williams. Both are phenomenal defenders — for my money, the two best on the Bulls, and probably the two best after Anunoby in the series. (You could make a case for Caruso ahead of Anunoby.) Caruso is more usually the starter for Chicago, and there hasn’t been much indication that will change. (For what it’s worth, Bulls reporters have said Chicago is very open to starting Williams in place of Caruso. We’ll find out.)
But I am guessing Williams starts the game; he is the better shooter and gives Chicago more size to bang with Toronto’s plethora of forwards. I love Caruso as a defender, and Chicago hasn’t had a problem sticking him on all three of Siakam, Anunoby, and Barnes this year. Siakam scored pretty well in that matchup, though; Williams just makes defense more natural for Chicago. Caruso is best at the point of attack, dissuading drives, and gapping; Toronto doesn’t really do that a whole lot, and instead prefers to attack in the post. That’s where Williams might have a defensive advantage. Both, of course, will play plenty of minutes, but I’m leaning towards Williams. (Ultimately, if I was Chicago, I would start both in place of Beverley. That lineup has been very good, plus-8.0 per 100 possessions, and Caruso and Williams together have played ferocious defense. But that’s even less likely to happen in a singe-game series. Perhaps if it were a long series we could see it.)
Toronto’s current starters have a plus-minus differential per 100 possessions of plus-9.1. The offense and defense have both been good. It’s not the best high-minute lineup, but it’s a very good one. (Sixth-best among groups with its number of possessions or more.) Given Nurse’s propensity to play his starters big minutes, and the fact it’s an elimination game, I would expect the starters to play something like 20 or more minutes together. Virtually half the game.
Chicago’s starters (that I’m listing) have a plus-minus differential per 100 possessions of … negative-31.6. Lol. That’s the worst group in the league with so many possessions. With Caruso in place of Williams it’s plus-12.9. I still think Williams starts because of the specific matchup against Toronto, but just about everything has gone wrong with Williams starting in place of Caruso. The minute total isn’t quite enough to say it’s a bad lineup, but it’s not a trivial minute total, either. Tough decisions for the Bulls. Significantly, Toronto could have an edge in either case: either Caruso starts, and Toronto has a big size advantage on the glass and in the post. Or Williams starts and the Bulls promise at least 10 minutes in an elimination game to a lineup that has been poor. The fact of the matter though is that Chicago doesn’t have both successful and gigantic lineups — Toronto does. That will be a boon for the Raptors.
Let’s look at some individual matchups, starting with the Raptors on offense.
TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced cookie brand Oreo as the team’s helmet sponsor for the upcoming NHL season.
The new helmet will debut Sunday when Toronto opens its 2024-25 pre-season against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena.
The Oreo logo replaces Canadian restaurant chain Pizza Pizza, which was the Leafs’ helmet sponsor last season.
Previously, social media platform TikTok sponsored Toronto starting in the 2021-22 regular season when the league began allowing teams to sell advertising space on helmets.
The Oreo cookie consists of two chocolate biscuits around a white icing filling and is often dipped in milk.
Fittingly, the Leafs wear the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s “Milk” logo on their jerseys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
MacKenzie Weegar wasn’t bitter or upset as he watched friends live out their dreams.
The Calgary Flames defenceman just hopes to experience the same feeling one day. He also knows the road leading to that moment, if it does arrive, will likely be long and winding — much like his own path.
A seventh-round pick by the Florida Panthers at the 2013 NHL draft, Weegar climbed the ranks to become an important piece of a roster that captured the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s top regular-season club in 2021-22.
Two months later following a second-round playoff exit, he was traded to the Flames along with Jonathan Huberdeau for Matthew Tkachuk. And less than two years after that, the Panthers were hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“Happy for the city and for the team,” Weegar said of Florida’s June victory over the Edmonton Oilers. “There was no bad taste in my mouth.”
His sole focus, he insists, is squarely on eventually getting the Flames to the same spot. The landscape, however, has changed drastically since Weegar committed to Calgary on an eight-year, US$50-million contract extension in October 2022.
Weegar has watched a list that includes goaltender Jacob Markstrom, defencemen Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin and Nikita Zadorov and forwards Elias Lindholm and Andrew Mangiapane shipped out of town since the start of last season — largely for picks, prospects and young players as part of a rebuild.
Despite that exodus, he remains committed to the Calgary project steered by general manager Craig Conroy.
“It’s easy to get out of all whack when you see guys trying to leave or wanting new contracts,” the 30-year-old from Ottawa said at last week’s NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas. “I just focus on where I am and where I want to be, and that’s Calgary.
“I believe in this team. The city has taken me in right away. I feel like I owe it to them to stick around and grind through these years and get a Stanley Cup.”
The hard-nosed blueliner certainly knows what it is to grind.
After winning the Memorial Cup alongside Nathan MacKinnon with the Halifax Mooseheads in 2013, Weegar toiled in the ECHL and American Hockey League for three seasons before making his NHL debut late in the 2016-17 campaign with the Panthers.
He would spend the next five years in South Florida as one of the players tasked with shifting an organizational culture that had experienced little success over the previous two decades.
“There’s always going to be a piece of my heart and loyalty to that team,” Weegar said. “But now I’m in a different situation … I compete against all 32 teams, not just Florida. There’s always a chip on my shoulder every single year.”
Weegar set career highs with 20 goals — eight was the most he had ever previously registered — and 52 points in 2023-24 as part of a breakout offensive performance.
“I think my buddies cared a lot more than I did,” he said with a smile. “All I hear is, ‘fantasy, fantasy, fantasy.'”
Weegar was actually more proud of his 200 blocked shots and 194 hits as he looks to help set a new Flames’ standard alongside Huberdeau, captain Mikael Backlund, Nazem Kadri, Blake Coleman and Rasmus Andersson for a franchise expected to have its new arena in time for the 2027-28 season.
“You have to build that culture and that belief in the locker room,” said Weegar, who pointed to 22-year-old centre Connor Zary as a player set to pop. “Those young guys are going to have to come into their own and be consistent every night … they’re the next generation.”
Weegar, however, isn’t punting on 2024-25. He pointed to the NHL’s parity and the fact a couple of teams surprise every season.
It’s the same approach that took him from the ECHL a decade ago to hockey’s premier pre-season event inside a swanky hotel on Sin City’s famed strip, where he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the game’s best.
“From the outside — media and even friends and family — the expectations are probably a bit lower,” Weegar said of Calgary’s outlook. “But there’s no reason to think that we can’t make playoffs and we can’t be a good team (with) that underdog mentality.
“You never know.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept 17, 2024.
Jose Maria Celestino da Costa was named vice-president and head of soccer operations while Marianne Brooks was appointed vice-president of partnerships, Kelly Shouldice as vice-president of brand and content and Joyce Sou as vice-president of finance and business operations.
The new six-team women’s pro league is set to kick off in April.
“Their unique expertise and leadership are crucial as we lay the foundation for not just a successful league in Canada, but one that stands among the top sports leagues in the world,” NSL president Christina Litz said in a statement. “By investing in top-tier talent and infrastructure, the Northern Super League is committed to creating a league that will elevate the game and set new standards for women’s professional soccer globally.”
Da Costa will oversee all on-field matters, including officiating. His resume includes stints with Estoril Praia, a men’s first-division team in Portugal, and the Portuguese Soccer Federation, where he helped develop the Portuguese women’s league.
Brooks spent a decade with Canucks Sports & Entertainment, working in “partnership sales and retention efforts” for the Vancouver Canucks, Vancouver Warriors, and Rogers Arena. Most recently, she served as senior director of account management at StellarAlgo, a software company that helps pro sports teams connect with their fans
Shouldice has worked for Corus Entertainment, the Canadian Football League, and most recently as vice-president of Content and Communications at True North Sports & Entertainment, where she managed original content as well as business and hockey communications.
Sou, who was involved in the league’s initial launch, will oversee financial planning, analysis and the league’s expansion strategy in her new role.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
