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Beauvillier embracing new challenge following trade to Canucks

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VANCOUVER — Anthony Beauvillier likes the timing of his trade to the Vancouver Canucks because he’s not the only one looking to start over.

After being acquired from the New York Islanders for Bo Horvat on Monday, the 25-year-old forward joins a team that has a new coach in Rick Tocchet, who was hired Jan. 22 with assistant coach Adam Foote and defensive consultant Sergei Gonchar; is still trying to establish a new culture under general manager Patrik Allvin, who was hired Jan. 26, 2022; and now needs a new captain to replace Horvat.

“Honestly, I think [the] timing is perfect,” Beauvillier said Tuesday. “Having a new coach and new coaches, I feel like it can start a new page for everyone. Having the chance to start from scratch with everyone, it’s exciting. I feel like everyone wants to do good and everyone wants to play good for the new coaches and staff with the changes they made, so it’s definitely exciting.”

That doesn’t make it easy, however, for Beauvillier, especially having to say goodbye to close friend Mathew Barzal, who he met at a hockey camp in 2012 and roomed with at Canada’s Under-18 camp in 2015 before each was selected by the Islanders in the first round of the 2015 NHL Draft (Barzal 16th; Beauvillier 28th).

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Barzal, who is from the Vancouver area (Coquitlam, British Columbia), even joked that Beauvillier can have his old room back home.

“It’s been a [heck] of a ride with him and he’s going to stay one of my best friends forever,” Beauvillier said. “It’s very emotional and sad to leave these guys, but at the same time, [you] don’t want to beat yourself up too much because there’s something exciting ahead.”

Vancouver also received forward Aatu Raty and a conditional first-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft that becomes a first-round pick in 2024 if it ends up in the top 12, for Horvat.

For Allvin, it was the start of a promise to get younger, and Raty, who’s scored two goals in 12 NHL games as a 20-year-old rookie this season after being a second-round pick (No. 52) in the 2021 NHL Draft, was an important part of that.

“We felt strongly here that Raty was a key piece in this deal, along with the first-round pick,” Allvin said.

There may be more moves coming for the Canucks (20-26-3), who are sixth in the Pacific Division, 14 points behind the Colorado Avalanche for the second wild card from the Western Conference, and on pace to miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for a third straight season and the seventh time in the past eight.

“We’re definitely sitting in the bottom of the standings, so we need to improve our team,” Allvin said. “As we said when we got here, we’re trying to get younger, and this might be the start. We’ve got what, five weeks to the (March 3) trading deadline? So, I would assume that more calls will come along here.”

Video: Canucks’ captain Bo Horvat dealt to the Islanders

Vancouver has three players who can become unrestricted free agents after the season: defensemen Luke Schenn and Kyle Burroughs, and goalie Collin Delia. Allvin said a decision on Schenn won’t be easy, partly because of his leadership.

“I have a lot of respect for Luke Schenn as a person and what he brings in terms of winning habits,” Allvin said. “So, that’s definitely a hard one for us, but we also understand that he’s UFA. We’ll see if there is another deal to be made or what our decision will be here over the next couple of weeks.”

Even with forward Ilya Mikheyev out for the season after having ACL surgery earlier this week, Allvin still has a glut of wings with term left on their contracts who could be traded by the Canucks to shed salary.

The list includes Brock Boeser, who has two more seasons left on a contract with an average annual value of $6.65 million, Conor Garland, who has three left ($4.95 million AAV), and Beauvillier ($4.15 million AAV), who can become a UFA after next season.

Allvin was asked if trading from that depth could address other needs.

“It could,” he said.

Replacing Horvat’s team-high 31 goals this season, including 11 on the power play, won’t be easy. Neither will be replacing his work in the face-off circle, where he leads the NHL in face-offs taken over the past five seasons (7,317), winning 55.3 percent, which ranks eighth among the 38 players with at least 4,000 face-offs.

Allvin does, however, have two players in mind to replace Horvat as captain.

“It’s hard to move your captain away,” Allvin said. “There is a lot of younger players, in particular [Elias] Pettersson and Quinn Hughes, that have shown they’re capable of being leaders of this team. We’ll sit down as a staff and talk about it here over the next couple of days. … I do think that Pettersson and Quinn Hughes have shown they’re capable of taking over this team.”

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Shane Pinto has a goal, three assists as the Senators roll over the Sabres – Sportsnet.ca

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Here’s what we know about the allegations against Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara

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LOS ANGELES –

Only a week has passed since the Los Angeles Dodgers abruptly fired Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter and constant companion of their new $700 million slugger, Shohei Ohtani.

But the biggest story of baseball’s spring is still murky — and shocking — as the regular season begins in earnest Thursday.

The scandal encompasses gambling, alleged theft, extensive deceit and the breakup of an enduring partnership between the majors’ biggest star and his right-hand man. Investigations are underway by the IRS and Major League Baseball, and Ohtani publicly laid out a version of events Monday that placed the responsibility entirely on Mizuhara.

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Here are the basics as Ohtani and the Dodgers prepare for their home opener against St. Louis on Thursday:

Why was Ippei Mizuhara fired by the Dodgers?

Ohtani claims his close friend repeatedly took money from his accounts to fund his illegal sports gambling habit. Ohtani also says he was completely unaware of the “massive theft,” as his lawyers termed it, until Mizuhara confessed to him and the Dodgers last week in South Korea, where the team opened its regular season against the San Diego Padres.

Mizuhara has given more than one version of his path to this trouble, which was catalyzed by the IRS’ investigation of Mathew Bowyer, an alleged illegal bookmaker. Mizuhara has consistently said he has a gambling addiction, and he abused his close friendship with the Dodgers superstar to feed it.

Did Shohei Ohtani ever bet on sports?

That’s the biggest question to be answered in Major League Baseball’s investigation, and the two-time AL MVP emphatically says he has never gambled on sports or asked anybody to bet on sports for him.

Further, Ohtani said Monday he has never knowingly paid a bookie to cover somebody else’s bets. Mizuhara also said Ohtani does not bet, and Bowyer’s attorney said the same.

Mizuhara told ESPN on March 19 that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter’s request, saying the bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. If that were true, Ohtani could face trouble even if he didn’t make the bets himself — but ESPN said Mizuhara dramatically changed his story the following day, claiming Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers.

MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering — even legally — on baseball. They also ban betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.

What’s next for Ohtani?

Ohtani has played in every Dodgers game since the story broke, and he is expected to be their designated hitter in most regular-season games this season while baseball’s investigation continues.

Ohtani says his legal team has alerted authorities to the theft by Mizuhara, although his team has repeatedly declined to say which authorities have been told, according to ESPN.

Ohtani’s new interpreter is Will Ireton, a longtime Dodgers employee and fluent Japanese speaker who has filled several jobs with the team in everything from game preparation and analytics to recruiting free-agent pitches. But Ireton won’t be Ohtani’s constant companion, and manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday he’s optimistic that Ohtani will become closer to his teammates without the “buffer” provided for years by Mizuhara.

What don’t we know?

MLB’s investigation of Ohtani’s role in the events could last weeks or months, and it’s unlikely to be publicized until it’s complete. No one outside of Ohtani’s inner circle knows what it will find or how serious any repercussions could be, and nobody outside the circle is making informed speculation about the process.

One major question looms: How did Mizuhara have enough access to Ohtani’s bank accounts to get the alleged millions without Ohtani knowing? Is the slugger overly trusting, or is he wildly negligent in managing his vast fortune, which includes years of lavish endorsement deals in addition to his baseball salaries? Why didn’t the team around him, including his agent, do more to prevent the possibility of the theft he claims?

Finally, where is Mizuhara? Anybody who knows isn’t saying. He was fired in South Korea and apparently didn’t travel home with the Dodgers. Japanese media have visited his home in Southern California to look for him. Although he was born in Japan, Mizuhara’s life is in the U.S. — but his life will never be the same.

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NHL analyst gets absolutely roasted for ‘insanely rich’ take on Zach Hyman

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They say everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you’re a member of the media and you share a truly awful take, you’re going to get called out for it.

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That’s what happened when NHL analyst/podcast host Andrew Berkshire decided to post a video on X (formerly known as Twitter) mainly attributing Zach Hyman’s success to the fact that he grew up “insanely rich.”

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The post came on the heels of the Oilers winger reaching the 50-goal milestone for the season and was rightly ripped apart by several notable colleagues, former players and fans in general.

In the video, which has been viewed more than 5.4 million times as of Wednesday morning, begins by stating that he has been in the sports media industry professionally since 2012 and that the industry “has to do a better job of telling truthful stories,” before discounting Hyman’s accomplishment.

“The story that’s being sold right now … is that, you know, if you work hard, if you stick to it, you can get there too, 31-year-old guy finally hits the 50-goal mark, harder worker, all that,” Berkshire said.

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“Yeah, great, except you’re missing the part of the story where Zach Hyman grew up insanely rich.”

Berkshire, who works as an analyst and host with the Steve Dangle Podcast Network, then details how Hyman’s parents bought a league to “guarantee him playing time,” and that he did “exclusive training that only a rich person … could afford.”

“This is a person that has had every single possible advantage to get where they are today,” Berkshire continued, before also bringing up the fact that Hyman has been fortunate enough to play on teams and lines with Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid most of his career.

While Berkshire does state that Hyman is a hard worker and brings grit when he plays, he also discounts it almost immediately.

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“Working hard, everybody works hard. You think every NHLer didn’t get there by working hard?” he asks. “Let’s not build this stupid narrative of ‘work hard, you’ll succeed.’ It’s just not true.

“There are people who’ve worked as hard as Zach Hyman their entire lives and never got a sniff of the American Hockey League, let alone the NHL because they didn’t have the advantages he had.”

Former Leafs defenceman turned NHL analyst Carlo Colaiacovo thought the whole take was ridiculous, posting the following: “Let me tell you something Andrew. You can’t buy your way to the NHL. You definitely can’t buy your way to having the career Hyman has had which includes scoring 50. Pretty ridiculous thing to say.”

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Retired NHLer Bobby Ryan was one of the first to weigh in, calling the opinion “purely false.”

“As someone who has maybe lived on both ends of the ‘financial edge’ I can say this is just purely false. Who cares, he accomplished a feat not many do and to downplay the way it’s reported is just wrong. You show up, do the work, good things happen,” Ryan posted on X.

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Jonathan Goodman, who claims he was Hyman’s personal trainer and tasked with getting the budding pro ready for the combine, had a glowing review of his former pupil’s work ethic.

“Yes, he had advantages. His family was wealthy and father obsessed with his success,” he said. “But the dude worked hard. Harder than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

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But, perhaps another former NHLer, Jason Strudwick said it best, replying to the video by asking: “Did Hyman not sign an autograph for you one time?”

 

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