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Analyzing Ottawa’s North Division impact as Flames hit crucial stretch – Sportsnet.ca

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4 years ago

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Despite (still) being the bottom-feeder of the North Division, the narrative is starting to change — at least a little — around the Ottawa Senators.

Maybe they aren’t the pushovers they once looked to be, on a pace to be one of the worst outfits in league history, hearkening back to their expansion season. Maybe Matt Murray, who barely survived January with a .845 save percentage, will recover well enough to be closer to his .900 February save percentage the rest of the season.

Maybe they will turn out closer to the team that gave Toronto a heck of a fight in an unexpected 5-3 season-opening win, and less like the one that got outscored 16-3 in a three-game set against Vancouver last month.

Or, maybe, their current 4-2-0 run is a deepfake and they’ll revert back to another form.

Whatever we get from the Senators in the next week and a half could greatly impact many aspects of the Calgary Flames. At 9-9-1 and fifth in the North Division — three points out of a playoff spot — Calgary will meet the Senators for five of their next six games. Everyone else has already played the Senators more than once, and usually to good results.

Except for their most recent opponent.

At a most crucial time in Calgary’s season, here is an overview of how the non-Toronto North Division teams have played the Senators in certain key stretches, and what followed after.

WINNIPEG JETS

Overall record vs. Senators: 4-1-0

Sitting second in the North Division by points percentage (.639), I don’t know if we’ve gotten a full view of the Jets yet. Patrik Laine played one game before he was injured then traded and the player he was dealt for, Pierre-Luc Dubois, got injured, has played three games and spent the last one on the wing rather than his usual centre.

Some things haven’t changed here from last year, though. They still allow a pile of 5-on-5 scoring chances each game, which puts added pressure on Connor Hellebuyck — it also hasn’t changed that Hellebuyck is fully capable of dealing with his workload.

But the Jets chug on and haven’t hit the lulls we’ve seen from some others around them in the standings. They’ve been steady, not losing back-to-back games in regulation yet, but also haven’t strung together a monster winning streak. They’ve won two in a row on a couple of occasions and their longest streak of the season came when they won three in a row… against Ottawa from Jan. 19-23.

That stretch got Winnipeg off to a 4-1-0 start to the season. The closest of those results was a 4-3 overtime win that came the day after the Jets played Toronto, so Laurent Brossoit was in net. The others were 4-1 and 6-3 wins.

Playing the Sens didn’t really change Winnipeg’s track at all. After their 6-3 win, they played the very next day against Edmonton and lost 4-3 with Brossoit in net. Two days later they beat Edmonton 6-4 and had a three-day break.

Winnipeg later met Ottawa again on Feb. 11 and 13, winning one 5-1 and losing the other 2-1. In fact, Ottawa’s win on Feb. 13 was the beginning of this respectable little stretch they’re on right now.

VANCOUVER CANUCKS

Overall record vs. Senators: 3-0-0

The Canucks were the first panic team to meet Ottawa this year and were, at least briefly, able to get off the mat.

Vancouver started its season 2-5-0 before first meeting Ottawa. The three-game set they played from Jan. 25-28 inspired hope that the Canucks could get back on track towards the exceedingly high expectations surrounding them following Canada’s best playoff run last summer.

The Canucks won all three of those games convincingly, with an aggregate 16-3 score in their favour. The Lotto Line, which had been in a rut, woke up a bit. Elias Pettersson scored his second and third goals of the season and added a couple of assists, J.T. Miller scored his first two of the season, and Brock Boeser recorded his third two-goal game of the month.

Vancouver came out of it fourth in the North and believing that perhaps the worst of the season was behind them. Their first game after the Senators series reinforced the belief, a 4-1 win over a Winnipeg Jets team fresh off a three day break.

Those starry-eyed days were short-lived, though. The Canucks followed that Jets game with a horrible trip through Montreal and Toronto, and even though they’ve measurably been playing better in the last two weeks than at any other point this season, Vancouver is still quickly sliding out of the race.

They are 2-8-2 in their past 12, sixth in the division, and closer to seventh place than fifth in points percentage. And there’s no more games against Ottawa to save them in the near future — they won’t face them again until a couple of road games in mid-March.

EDMONTON OILERS

Overall record vs. Senators: 4-0-0

When the Oilers first played the Senators this season, it was nearly panic time.

A 4-6-0 start had Edmonton fifth in the division by points and sixth by points percentage. They had split a couple home games with Toronto earlier in the week that dialled down the temperature a degree, but a bad series against the last place Sens and who knows how bad things could begin to spiral?

Still finding themselves after a really disheartening playoff elimination to Chicago, Edmonton was facing the same questions about commitment to defence and whether or not their goaltending was good enough to keep them afloat. Mike Smith was still injured when the Oilers first played the Sens, and Mikko Koskinen was beginning to show signs of fatigue.

From Jan. 31 to Feb. 9, the Oilers played five games and four of them were against Ottawa. They won all four by an aggregate 18-10 and, on the morning of Feb. 10, found themselves third in the North and with brand new life.

Since that series of games, the Oilers are 5-1-0 with wins against each of Montreal, Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver all in that stretch. There are still questions about defence, but in their past six games Edmonton’s opponents have been held to two goals or less four times. Smith is back and, between him and Koskinen, the net split is uneasily settling as expected.

The depth players have made an appearance and been key reasons for a couple of these wins while Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl…well…they keep doing what they’ve always done.

Edmonton has gone from sheer panic to second in the North and the NHL’s hottest team since playing the Senators.

MONTREAL CANADIENS

Overall record vs. Senators: 1-1-2

While other teams have been able to spin positives, real or temporary, out of their meetings with Ottawa, the Montreal Canadiens have gone another route.

Oddly enough, the Sens have been a momentum killer for the Habs. Between Feb. 4-6, the teams played two games and the Habs entered with a 7-1-2 record, a North Division juggernaut, and had just scored 11 goals in two games against Vancouver. Montreal’s only regulation loss to that point, a 2-0 decision to Calgary, was played well enough to be a win.

But the two-game split Montreal had with Ottawa turned out to be an ominous sign of things to come.

This series is where the percentages suddenly and abruptly started catching up to Montreal. The NHL’s most high-event, high-powered offence at the time went ice cold, scoring four goals on 70 shots against Matt Murray — it was the first time all season Murray had allowed less than three goals in a game and he did it in back-to-back starts against Montreal.

The Habs followed these two games with losses to Toronto and Edmonton before barely scratching out a come-from-behind 2-1 win against Toronto in a rematch on Feb. 13. In those three games, Montreal scored just three times.

Following that win, Montreal went on a six-day break and returned to play Ottawa on Sunday night and again on Tuesday. The Habs were outshot in both games, dropped both in extra time and have now fallen to fourth in the division.

Given where the Canadiens were at the start of this month, just before their first game against Ottawa, it’s unfathomable that Claude Julien became the first coaching casualty of the 2021 season.

“It’s an NHL team, it’s a good young team, they work extremely hard and they have a good young coach,” Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin said after letting Julien go Wednesday. “They’re a good hockey team and they’re up and coming.”

CALGARY FLAMES

Overall record vs. Senators: 0-0-0

So what’ll it be for the Flames, whose coach has also been a target for criticism amidst their own slide? More than the coach even, Calgary is a team with bigger player personnel questions to ponder if things go sideways this season. And if it really goes wrong soon, maybe Brad Treliving will feel a need to be proactive and make a splash before long.

This is why the next two and a half weeks could be season-defining ones for Calgary. After a three-game winning streak earlier this month, they have won just two of their past six and were humiliated in a 7-1 drubbing to Edmonton on Saturday night. They allow the first goal of the game far too often and slow starts are unfortunately a defining characteristic about this group right now.

At the end of last week their GM went on Calgary radio to say the Flames’ effort just wasn’t good enough and challenged them to be a harder team. But it never seemed any big change was imminent.

Why? Because this stretch of games coming up is where the Flames should be making up ground. It’s maybe not the time to make a move and wait on a replacement through quarantine. Instead, we could learn a lot about Calgary’s chances here.

Currently fifth in the division and just three points out of a playoff spot, a strong week could vault them back into the picture and calm calls for change.

But a bad run against the last place team? That could all but end the Flames, and maybe start shifting them into a tier with Vancouver instead of Edmonton or Winnipeg or Montreal.

It’s interesting timing for sure. The Flames must have had this stretch marked on their calendar for some time, but just as they get here the Senators aren’t playing like a soft touch anymore. They’ve been mostly hanging around games recently, been tough to compete against, have strung together a respectable record for a week and a half, and were the tip of the spear in this year’s first coach firing.

The softest portion of Calgary’s first half schedule has suddenly turned into a nail-biter.

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Washington Capitals 3-2 win ends Dallas Stars’ winning streak

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10 hours ago

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October 18, 2024

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Tom Wilson, Dylan Strome and Taylor Raddysh scored to help the Washington Capitals end the Dallas Stars’ season-opening winning streak at four with a 3-2 victory Thursday night.

Wilson’s goal was his third in three games, Strome his second of the season and Raddysh his first since joining the team in free agency last summer. Charlie Lindgren made 22 saves as the Capitals wrapped up this early homestand with back-to-back wins.

The Stars fell from the ranks of the league’s unbeaten teams despite a short-handed goal by Colin Blackwell and one at even strength from Jason Robertson. Rookie Oskar Bäck set up Blackwell for his first NHL point.

Casey DeSmith was screened on two of the three goals he allowed on 26 shots.

LIGHTNING 4, GOLDEN KNIGHTS 3

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nikita Kucherov scored the winning goal with less than a minute to play just 1:27 after Brandon Hagel had tied it and Tampa Bay rallied to beat Vegas.

Kucherov’s second goal of the game with 55 seconds left was his sixth of the season.

Janis Moser had a goal and two assists for the Lightning, who remain unbeaten. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves.

Brayden McNabb, Pavel Dorofeyev and Ivan Barbashev had goals for Vegas. Adin Hill turned aside 21 shots.

Jack Eichel, with two assists on Thursday, now has 10 points this season in five games and reached reached double-digit points faster than any other player in Vegas history. He is the 10th U.S.-born player to accomplish the feat.

After Barbashev put Vegas up 3-2 early in the second, Hagel pulled Tampa Bay even at 3 with 2:22 remaining in the third.

BLUE JACKETS 6, SABRES 4

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Kirill Marchenko and Mathieu Olivier each had a goal and an assist and Daniil Tarasov made 21 saves to help Columbus to a win over Buffalo.

Yegor Chinakhov, Adam Fantilli, Zachary Aston-Reese and Damon Severson also scored for Columbus, and Zach Werenski added two assists.

Ryan McLeod, Owen Power and JJ Peterka scored for Buffalo, and Jiri Kulich added his first NHL goal. Devon Lev stopped 19 shots for the Sabres (1-5-1), who have lost two straight road games and five of their first six overall.

CANUCKS 3, FLORIDA 2, OT

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — J.T. Miller scored 2:09 into overtime and Vancouver got their first win of the season, beating Florida.

Teddy Blueger and Quinn Hughes had goals for Vancouver, with Kevin Lankinen stopping 26 shots.

Anton Lundell got his fourth goal in the last three games for Florida and Jesper Boqvist also scored for the Panthers, who got 30 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky.

Florida remained without forwards Aleksander Barkov (lower body) and Matthew Tkachuk (illness).

DEVILS 3, SENATORS 1

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Jacob Markstrom stopped 30 shots and lost his shutout bid in the final minutes as New Jersey beat Ottawa.

Erik Haula, Nathan Bastian and Paul Cotter scored for the Devils, who won for the third time in four games and improved to 5-2-0.

The Senators, who were coming off an 8-7 overtime victory against Los Angeles on Monday, struggled to beat Markstrom.

Brady Tkachuk was the only scorer for the Senators, beating Markstrom, with a power-play goal with 65 seconds remaining in the third period.

Anton Forsberg, making his second straight start and hoping to rebound after getting pulled Monday, made 32 saves in the loss.

Haula opened the scoring early in the second period and Bastian added a short-handed goal, giving New Jersey a 2-0 lead after 40 minutes. Cotter scored midway through the third.

RANGERS 5, RED WING 2

DETROIT (AP) — Artemi Panarin had his eighth career hat trick and New York rolled to a victory over Detroit.

Panarin became the first Rangers player to have multiple points in the first four games of a season. He scored twice on the power play. Vincent Trocheck also had a power- play goal and assisted on all of Panarin’s goals.

Jonathan Quick made 29 saves in his season debut. Victor Mancini also scored.

The Rangers have won the last five meetings, including twice this week. New York had a 4-1 home victory over Detroit on Monday night.

Moritz Seider and J.T. Compher scored for Detroit. Red Wings goalie Cam Talbot was pulled in the second period after allowing five goals.

KINGS 4, CANADIENS 1

MONTREAL (AP) — David Rittich made 26 saves a night after being benched in the second period in Toronto, helping road-weary Los Angeles snap a three-game losing streak with a victory over Montreal.

Los Angeles improved to 2-1-2 on a season-opening, seven-game trip necessitated by arena renovations.

Rittich rebounded after allowing four goals on 14 shots in a 6-2 loss to the Maple Leafs. Alex Laferriere, Mikey Anderson, Andreas Englund and Adrian Kempe scored.

Justin Barron scored for Montreal (2-3-0). Sam Montembeault stopped 28 shots. He made a save on Kevin Fiala on a penalty shot.

BLUES 1, ISLANDERS 0, OT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Joel Hofer made 34 saves and assisted on Jake Neighbours’ goal at 2:04 of overtime in St. Louis victory over New York.

Hofer had his second career shutout in his and the team’s second overtime victory of the season.

Philip Broberg carried the puck into the New York zone and made a centering pass to Neighbours for the winner.

Islanders goalie Ilya Sorkin made 29 saves.

Blues defenseman Nick Leddy sat out because of a lower-body injury, the first game he has missed this season. Leddy played in all 82 games last season.

OILERS 4, PREDATORS 2

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Brett Kulak scored twice and Connor McDavid added his first goal of the season to lead Edmonton to a victory over reeling Nashville.

Jeff Skinner also scored and Calvin Pickard made 25 saves for the defending Western Conference champion Oilers, who have won consecutive games after beginning the season with a three-game skid.

Filip Forsberg and Jonathan Marchessault scored and Juuse Saros made 32 saves for Nashville (0-4).

Forsberg’s goal midway through the first period gave Nashville its first lead of the season. That lasted less than six minutes before Kulak tied it.

Kulak sealed it with an empty-netter in the final minute for the defenseman’s first career two-goal game.

BLACKHAWKS 4, SHARKS 2

CHICAGO (AP) — Tyler Bertuzzi and Nick Foligno each scored a power-play goal, and Chicago beat San Jose.

Taylor Hall and Jason Dickinson also scored for Chicago. Connor Bedard and Teuvo Teravainen each had two assists.

Hall, who missed most of last season because of right knee surgery, put the Blackhawks in front 4:20 into the first period. It was Hall’s first goal since Nov. 5 and No. 267 for his career.

Tyler Toffoli and Fabian Zetterlund scored for San Jose, which trailed 3-0 early in the second. William Eklund and Mikael Granlund had two assists each.

The Sharks dropped to 0-2-2 under Ryan Warsofsky, who was promoted to head coach in June.

Petr Mrazek had 20 saves for Chicago, and Vitek Vanecek made 23 stops for San Jose.

KRAKEN 6, FLYERS 4

SEATTLE (AP) — Eeli Tolvanen, Jordan Eberle, and Shane Wright scored three goals in less than three minutes in the second period and Seattle held off a Philadelphia rally in a victory.

Tolvanen’s goal broke a 2-2 tie at the 14:57 mark. Eberle made it a two-goal game with a goal at 17:44. Eight seconds later, Wright scored to give Seattle a three-goal lead.

Jared McCann tied the game at 2-2 with the first of Seattle’s four second-period goals.

Cam York and Jamie Drysdale scored to pull Philadelphia within 5-4 in the third period, but Oliver Bjorkstrand responded with a goal to push Seattle’s lead to two with just over five minutes left in the game.

Scott Laughton scored twice for the Flyers in the first period, while Brandon Montour scored one in for the Kraken.

Chandler Stephenson had an assist in his 500th NHL game. Seattle’s Philipp Grubauer had 21 saves.

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Canada’s Dabrowski, New Zealand’s Routliffe out of Japan Women’s Open after walkover

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October 17, 2024

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OSAKA, Japan – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe are out of the Japan Women’s Open tennis tournament.

Spain’s Cristina Bucsa and Romania’s Monica Niculescu advanced to the final on Thursday by way of walkover.

The fourth seeds were supposed to play the top-seeded Dabrowski and Routliffe in the semifinals.

Bucsa and Niculescu will next face third-seeded Ena Shibahara of Japan and Laura Siegemund of Germany in the final.

Dabrowski and Routliffe defeated Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Eri Hozumi in the quarterfinals 6-2, 6-4 on Wednesday to advance.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Mountain West commissioner says she’s heartbroken over turmoil surrounding San Jose State volleyball

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October 17, 2024

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Mountain West Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said Thursday the forfeitures that volleyball teams are willing to take to avoid playing San Jose State is “not what we celebrate in college athletics” and that she is heartbroken over what has transpired this season surrounding the Spartans and their opponents.

Four teams have canceled games against San Jose State: Boise State, Southern Utah, Utah State and Wyoming, with none of the schools explicitly saying why they were forfeiting.

A group of Nevada players issued a statement saying they will not take the floor when the Wolf Pack are scheduled to host the Spartans on Oct. 26. They cited their “right to safety and fair competition,” though their school reaffirmed Thursday that the match is still planned and that state law bars forfeiture “for reasons related to gender identity or expression.”

All those schools, except Southern Utah, are in the Mountain West. New Mexico, also in the MWC, went ahead with its home match on Thursday night, which was won by the Spartans, 3-1, the team’s first victory since Sept. 24.

“It breaks my heart because they’re human beings, young people, student-athletes on both sides of this issue that are getting a lot of national negative attention,” Nevarez said in an interview with The Associated Press at Mountain West basketball media days. “It just doesn’t feel right to me.”

Republican governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming have made public statements in support of the cancellations, citing a need for fairness in women’s sports. Former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee in this year’s presidential race, this week referenced an unidentified volleyball match when he was asked during a Fox News town hall about transgender athletes in women’s sports.

“I saw the slam, it was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head,” Trump replied before he was asked what can be done. “You just ban it. The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”

After Trump’s comment, San Diego State issued a statement that said “it has been incorrectly reported that an San Diego State University student-athlete was hit in the face with a volleyball during match play with San Jose State University. The ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.”

San Jose State has not made any direct comments about the politicians’ “fairness” references, and Nevarez did not go into details.

“I’m learning a lot about the issue,” Nevarez said. “I don’t know a lot of the language yet or the science or the understanding nationally of how this issue plays out. The external influences are so far on either side. We have an election year. It’s political, so, yeah, it feels like a no-win based on all the external pressure.”

The cancellations could mean some teams will not qualify for the conference tournament Nov. 27-30 in Las Vegas, where the top six schools are slated to compete for the league championship.

“The student-athlete (in question) meets the eligibility standard, so if a team does not play them, it’s a forfeit, meaning they take a loss,” Nevarez said.

Ahead of the Oct. 26 match in Reno. Nevada released a statement acknowledging that “a majority of the Wolf Pack women’s volleyball team” had decided to forfeit against San Jose State. The school said only the university can take that step but any player who decides not to play would face no punishment.

___

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