The Edmonton Oilers extended their amazing winning streak to 15 consecutive games Thursday with a 3-0 blanking of Chicago.
Goaltender Calvin Pickard was excellent, stopping 27 for the shutout, his first in the NHL since November of 2018 and 5th of his career.
The Oilers top line was the best unit on the ice, producing all 3 goals. Then Edmonton shut it down late, allowing just 2 shots over the final 10 minutes.
Here is the tale of the tape…
CALVIN PICKARD. 10. Pickard made the most of his 100th career NHL start. Was strong early. Made an important save early when he managed get a blocker on a shot by Entwistle (which then also kissed the post) off a Chicago 2-on-1. Another stop off another Chicago 2-on-1. Then an even better glove save on Kurashev later on in the 1st. Shortly after the 1-0 Pickard made a stop up high to help preserve the lead. The next shift, nabbed a short side attempt from Entwistle. Then denied Entwistle on a penalty shot attempt 5-hole (and had blocked the shot on the breakaway that led to the call as well). He squeezed a dangerous deflection by Johnson late in the 3rd. We do not hand out “10’s” lightly at The Cult of Hockey but Pickard earned it and then some. What a great story.
CONNOR McDAVID. 8. Three-point night, his first multiple point game in some time. His line mostly dominated over the first 20 but did not get much to show for it. Set up Leon Draisaitl for a good look early. Thumped Dickenson with a heavy hit halfway through the 1st. Just missed a high chip that climbed over the Black Hawks cage late in the 1st. Denied by the blocker on an early 2nd Period chance. Back-handed home a Nugent-Hopkins pass into a gaping net for the 1-0. Darted wide & then slung a perfect pass across to Hyman for the 2-0. Potted the empty-netter late.
LEON DRAISAITL. 8. Was throwing darts all night for a well-earned 3 assist performance. Could not convert an early set-up from McDavid. Terrific cross-ice pass to a hard-charging McLeod in the slot but the latter was denied. Strong 1st Period backcheck. Funneled a pass through to a pinching Ekholm for a chance that skiffed just wide. Late 1st Period turnover. Fed 97 for a chance early in the 2nd. Started the sequence that led to the 2-0. Early 3rd, fanned on a hi-to-lo pass from McDavid. Delicate pass from the wall on the 2-0. Dished one to Hyman in the slot but Zach was denied. Slick little pass led to the 3-0.
ZACH HYMAN. 7. 2 hits and a shot in the 1st. Charged hard to the net and was rewarded when he slapped a one-touch over Mrazek’s outstretched pad for the 2-0, his 29th of the campaign. Almost had his 30th on a fine Draisaitl pass but Mrazek’s blocker was a shade quicker. This line was dominant most of the time they were on the ice together, a pile of O-zone time.
DARNELL NURSE. 6. 1st period shot, one of 3. Pretty much broke even in shot shares. Solid performance.
CODY CECI. 7. 50% CF 5v5, High Dangers 5-4. Battled hard.
EVANDER KANE. 6. 2 hard 2nd Period hits. Threaded a fine pass to Nugent-Hopkins whose deflection just skipped wide. Fired a Warren Foegele feed into the slot high. Drilled a wrister shot high that the goalie just got a glove on. Led the club with 4 hits and was dangerous around the net.
WARREN FOEGELE. 5. Fine pass put front to Kane for a 1-timer in the 2nd. Worked hard, especially along the walls and behind Chicago’s goal line.
MATTIAS EKHOLM. 8. Strong defensive play to cover up for a Bouchard on a Chicago 2-on-1. Darted in from the point and just missed the net with a fine Draisaitl feed. +2. Was the best defenceman on the ice. 5v5 CF 23-13, 64%. High Dangers were 8-2 with him on the ice. In other words: Dominant. A literal and figurative tower of power.
EVAN BOUCHARD. 5. A poor 1st Period. Early turnover. Allowed Foligno to get in behind him for an odd man rush but Ekholm & Pickard managed to clean it up. Then, lost a brief puck battle along the wall, forcing his goalie to make a sharp save. Did draw a penalty late in the 1st. And evened out as the night went on. Sharp play deep in his own zone to kick off the rush on the 2-0. Ended up +2.
DYLAN HOLLOWAY. 6. A big part of the above-mentioned shifts by Line 3. Good chance off a McLeod pass in the 2nd. Could not slip a wrist shot past Mrazek short-side early in the 3rd. High skill on display as he wove through the Hawks defenders and set up Mcleod for a 1-timer. Looks terrific, like he has a new lease on life.
CONNOR BROWN. 6. A good back check deep into his own zone in the 1st to help alleviate pressure from the Chicago forecheck. Effective member of this trio in the Chicago zone. Moving very well these days.
BRETT KULAK. 7. His speed showed well against the hard-working Hawks. Beat two Black Hawks at the offensive blueline to help set up a terrific Janmark chance in front. 63% CF 5v5, High Dangers 4-2.
VINCENT DESHARNAIS. 5. Sharp deny on a dangerous developing Chicago rush in the 2nd. Handed away a puck at the attacking blueline and then fouled the puck carrier leading to a penalty shot…which Pickard stopped. HDSC 4-2 with him on the ice 5v5.
DEREK RYAN. 5. Putted a pass over to Janmark for a late 2nd Period chance. 50% on draws. Solid.
MATTIAS JANMARK. 4. Spin-a-round shot late in the 2nd. But did not have a lot else going on.
SAM GAGNER. 5. Won a board battle to help clear his own zone early in the 2nd. Did it all over again a shift later. Solid shot shares with him on 5v5.
Edmonton’s record now sits at 28-15-1, 57 points…3rd in the Pacific. Nashville is next up on Saturday.
Find me on Threads @kleavins, on Instagram at LeavinsOnHockey, Mastodon at KurtLeavins@mstdn.social, and X @KurtLeavins.
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)
The question was inevitable.
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 author Christoph 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.
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AP soccer:
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.
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The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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