MONTREAL — The Edmonton Oilers have begun to figure out how to defeat teams like Boston, Toronto and Vegas. The best of the best.
What they still cannot do is beat themselves.
And by “themselves” we mean the bottom feeders. The teams that are not going to make the playoffs; that are scuffling along like the Montreal Canadiens are today, fresh off their third loss to the lowly Detroit Red Wings this season.
Teams that are what Edmonton is trying so desperately not to be anymore.
“I know how it feels to be on the other side,” said Oscar Klefbom, who is in his seventh season with Edmonton. “You’re on a long losing streak, and you’re desperate. I know how it is, and I know what they are thinking.
“Now we’re on the other side,” he said, his Oilers hanging around first place in the Pacific all season long. “To be a good team, we have to take care of business tomorrow.”
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There’s no other way to put it: The Montreal Canadiens are a mess.
They are without several top players — Brendan Gallagher, Jonathan Drouin, Joel Armia, Paul Byron — and have lost seven straight games.
Carey Price’s game is dipping, and his frustration level is rising. His save percentage is down to .902 this season, and his career numbers against Edmonton are emphatically poor: 3-8-1, with a .859 save percentage and a 3.70 goals against average, his worst GAA against any NHL opponent.
“I’m beyond frustration now,” Price said after a loss to Winnipeg on Monday. “I’m just going to play and do the best I can and try and get past any kind of frustrations or negative attitudes.
“You focus on the next game. Whatever’s happened to this point is irrelevant now and you got to focus on the next game.”
The Montreal writers are trotting out stats that outline the unrealistic record the Habs will have to post for the rest of the season to make the playoffs, calling for general manager Marc Bergevin’s job, and bemoaning a team that will likely miss the playoffs for the third straight spring — a drought that has happened just twice in Canadiens history.
It’s Doom vs. Gloom, fighting itself out inside the heads of a Montreal roster that has lost three times to the worst team in the NHL this season.
“Like Oscar said, that was us,” Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. “We’d have really good games against really good teams, and then you’d face a team where even when you felt like you had a lot of energy, but you didn’t really feel like you got much from them.”
What does he mean by that?
Nugent-Hopkins has seen his Oilers lose in Detroit this season against a Red Wings team that had lost seven straight, and get stomped at home by a last place Ottawa club. If the Oilers are ever going to become anything more than an average team themselves, they have to become the team Nugent-Hopkins is talking about.
The bully that rolls into town and just never gives a team like Montreal the tiniest bit of belief that they can win. A team like this is used to losing — no one knows that more than Edmonton. So make them lose.
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“Kind of like Vancouver in my first couple of years, or L.A.,” Nugent-Hopkins recalled. “They wouldn’t give you anything to get you energized, and (losing) teams can be a little fragile. If things aren’t going your way right away, it’s tough to keep the momentum going for 60 minutes.
“That’s got to be our mentality, that even when the other team is flying, we’re not going to give up much. We’re not going to give them a ton of chances, or great opportunities. And offensively … keep it simple. It makes it harder for those teams to have breakout games against us.”
The Oilers had two pretty good months and one awful one in December. But in the new year they’ve won 4-1 at Boston — just the Bruins’ second regulation loss at home this season — and got Connor McDavid’s first ever win at Scotiabank Arena in a 6-4 win over Toronto on Monday.
They’re rested, playing their best hockey of the season, and Montreal is vulnerable.
“All the consistent playoff teams, they find a way to win games like this,” Klefbom said. “If you’re a really good, consistent playoff team, you might not always play your best game. But you find a way to win games like this.
“We know this is a tough league, where everybody can beat everybody — and it’s a long season — but you’ve got to find a way to win games like this.”
Talk is cheap.
Let’s find out if this Oilers team is for real, shall we?
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Canucks announced Tuesday that defenceman Alex Edler will sign a one-day contract in order to officially retire as a member of the NHL team.
The signing will be part of a celebration of Edler’s career held Oct. 11 when the Canucks host the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Canucks selected Edler, from Ostersund, Sweden, in the third round (91st overall) of the 2004 NHL draft.
He played in 925 career games for the Canucks between the 2006-07 and 2020-21 seasons, ranking fourth in franchise history and first among defencemen.
The 38-year-old leads all Vancouver defencemen with 99 goals, 310 assists and 177 power-play points with the team.
Edler also appeared in 82 career post-season contests with Vancouver and was an integral part of the Canucks’ run to the 2011 Stanley Cup final, putting up 11 points (2-9-11) across 25 games.
“I am humbled and honoured to officially end my career and retire as a member of the Vancouver Canucks,” Edler said in a release. “I consider myself lucky to have started my career with such an outstanding organization, in this amazing city, with the best fans in the NHL. Finishing my NHL career where it all began is something very special for myself and my family.”
Edler played two seasons for Los Angeles in 2021-22 and 2022-23. He did not play in the NHL last season.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The sixth-ranked Canadian women will face World Cup champion Spain in an international friendly next month.
Third-ranked Spain will host Canada on Oct. 25 at Estadio Francisco de la Hera in Almendralejo.
The game will be the first for the Canadian women since the Paris Olympics, where they lost to Germany in a quarterfinal penalty shootout after coach Bev Priestman was sent home and later suspended for a year by FIFA over her part in Canada’s drone-spying scandal.
In announcing the Spain friendly, Canada Soccer said more information on the interim women’s coaching staff for the October window will come later. Assistant coach Andy Spence took charge of the team in Priestman’s absence at the Olympics.
Spain finished fourth in Paris, beaten 1-0 by Germany in the bronze-medal match.
Canada is winless in three previous meetings (0-2-1) with Spain, most recently losing 1-0 at the Arnold Clark Cup in England in February 2022.
The teams played to a scoreless draw in May 2019 in Logroñés, Spain in a warm-up for the 2019 World Cup. Spain won 1-0 in March 2019 at the Algarve Cup in São João da Venda, Portugal.
Spain is a powerhouse in the women’s game these days.
It won the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2022 and was runner-up in 2018. And it ousted Canada 2-1 in the round of 16 of the current U-20 tournament earlier this month in Colombia before falling 1-0 to Japan after extra time in the quarterfinal.
Spain won the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2018 and 2022 and has finished on the podium on three other occasions.
FC Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmati (2023) and Alexia Putellas (2021 and ’22) have combined to win the last three Women’s Ballon d’Or awards.
And Barcelona has won three of the last four UEFA Women’s Champions League titles.
“We continue to strive to diversify our opponent pool while maintaining a high level of competition.” Daniel Michelucci, Canada Soccer’s director of national team operations, said in a statement. “We anticipate a thrilling encounter, showcasing two of the world’s top-ranked teams.”
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024
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.
