MONTREAL — It’s a reasonable price to pay for a parachute.
If that’s all Eric Staal ends up being for the Montreal Canadiens, a third- and a fifth-round pick was well worth it — especially with the Buffalo Sabres retaining half of his prorated $3.25-million salary in the deal and the Canadiens owning two more picks in both of those rounds in the 2021 draft. Because relying on 20-year-old Jesperi Kotkaniemi, 21-year-old Nick Suzuki and rookie Jake Evans up the middle made it so that if veteran centre Phillip Danault went down, the season would go down with him, and there’s far too much invested in this season to take such a gamble.
This one feels like shoving in a stack with a guaranteed return; a sure thing considering the cost and relatively low expectations.
Staal isn’t coming here to be an incarnation of his former self, to jump into a first-line role and average close to 20 minutes a game. No, Staal is here to be a fourth-line centre who potentially moves up the lineup if an injury hits or if another centre is having a tough night. At worst, he’s insurance. On most nights, he’ll just be a better depth option than what the Canadiens already possessed.
And at his best?
“I think he’s a good two-way guy,” said an East Division executive we connected with after Friday’s trade was announced. “He’s going to get you more goals with Montreal than he would’ve with Buffalo, more of them than people expect, and he’s a big body that can win pucks. I mean, you can use that type of player on any line.
“I think he gives you more heaviness, without being a physical/killer type. But he’s a heavy guy who’s smart with his puck protection, and if you need him to get you some goals, he’ll get you some goals. If you need him to be in a different role, he’ll do that, too.”
It was anticipated the six-foot-four, 207-pound former Stanley Cup winner wasn’t likely to provide any of that for a team north of the border, at least not as of two weeks ago, when Elliotte Friedman reported he would probably remain in the United States if traded.
But the 36-year-old Staal waived his 10-team no-trade list to accept the deal to Montreal, and it’s assumed the Canadian government softening its quarantine laws — albeit, not formally as this is being typed — helped him change his mind.
Then again, perhaps with the way things have gone with the Sabres, losers of 16 consecutive games, he’d have taken a one-way ticket to literally anywhere else.
Still, Staal will wear the stench of a three-goal, 10-point, minus-20 output over 32 games with Buffalo, at least until he washes it out and shows something different in bleu, blanc et rouge.
“I’m not even looking at that,” said a long-time West Division scout. “Buffalo has been a total tire fire, and I don’t think Staal has just lost it completely after his last three seasons with the Wild. I watched him a ton there and, even if he’s not quite the same player, he can’t have fallen off as much as the numbers with the Sabres suggest he has.”
The Canadiens will have to hope that’s true. Staal had 19 goals and 47 points in 66 games in Minnesota last season, and that was after he produced 22 goals and 52 points in 81 games in 2018-19 and 42 goals and 76 points in 82 games during the 2017-18 season. If he’s a fraction as good as that, even a smidgen as good as the guy who captained the Carolina Hurricanes for years and was a dominant player as part of the gold-medal winning Canadian team at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, he’ll be much better than he was in Buffalo.
And that’s all the Canadiens really need from Staal, as he centres fellow Triple Gold Club member Corey Perry and whoever else remains on Montreal’s bottom line. They don’t need more as he spots in for some power-play duty and a faceoff win here or there in the defensive zone.
Granted, Staal has only won 48 per cent of his draws this season and is at 49.1 per cent over his 1,272-game career. But the Canadiens are 24th in the NHL in the category and they won’t do worse with him in the fold.
Now the question is: What else does Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin have cooking?
We suspect it’s more than one thing. And yes, we know what he said on Thursday.
“We have no cap space, so it’s money in, money out,” Bergevin stated, just 24 hours before not trading any money off the books in the deal to acquire Staal at half-pay.
“Expectation to do something at the deadline is probably very unlikely,” he added, and there might be more truth in that than he intended.
Because the Canadiens might move again well before April 12. They currently have $486,095 in cap space, and that’s with Paul Byron and his $3.4-million cap hit on the taxi squad while the team is idle through Monday due to their activities being suspended by the league after one of their players tested positive for the variant of COVID-19. That’s not even enough to get Cole Caufield, the highly-touted prospect whose season ended just minutes after the Staal trade was consummated, signed to his entry-level contract.
That Bergevin wasn’t prepared to meet with media Friday to discuss the Staal trade — or plans for Caufield, the 15th overall pick in the 2018 Draft who had 30 goals and 52 points in 31 games — only lends to speculation that he’s got more cooking to free up some much-needed space.
For what it’s worth, Caufield’s coach at Wisconsin, former NHLer Tony Granato, said he feels Caufield authored one of the greatest seasons ever seen in the NCAA and that the sophomore should be a shoo-in for the Hobey Baker Award as the top collegiate hockey player of the year.
Granato, who was shell-shocked after his fourth-seeded Badgers were upset 6-3 by unranked Bemidji State Friday, also didn’t exactly soft-sell his belief that Caufield is already prepared to be an impact player in the best league in the world.
“He’s going to get a call, I’m sure, from his agent and from Montreal real soon,” Granato said. “The Canadiens watched him play this year, the scouts all watched him play this year, so they have a plan. I don’t know that plan. I’m assuming that plan is to try to get him up there as fast as they can, so he’ll have to answer to some calls really quick.”
In the event the Canadiens can’t clear enough space to sign Caufield immediately — and they might have to wait a few days until he’s ready anyway, since he said after Friday’s devastating loss, in which he scored two goals and an assist, that he might take a few — they could potentially bring the 21-year-old to Montreal to quarantine and then sign him at any point after that. They’ll accrue more space by the day in managing their roster and taxi squad and there’s no clock ticking on having him put pen to paper, with Caufield being on the team’s reserve list to enable him to sign and play with the Canadiens post-trade deadline.
Whether he does or not, the move for Staal made Montreal a better team on Friday. At worst, it provided the Canadiens with a much-needed safety valve in the middle of their roster — and only for a pittance.
EDMONTON – The Edmonton Oilers signed defenceman Travis Dermott to a professional tryout on Friday.
Dermott, a 27-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., produced two goals, five assists and 26 penalty minutes in 50 games with the Arizona Coyotes last season.
The six-foot, 202-pound blueliner has also played for the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Toronto drafted him in the second round, 34th overall, of the 2015 NHL draft.
Over seven NHL seasons, Dermott has 16 goals and 46 assists in 329 games while averaging 16:03 in ice time.
Before the NHL, Dermott played two seasons with Oilers captain Connor McDavid for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. The team was coached by current Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, led the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan vote her first year on the ballot — an important part to possible selection to the hall’s next class.
The organization released the voting results on Friday. American doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan finished second with Canada’s Daniel Nestor third.
The Hall of Fame said tens of thousands of fans from 120 countries cast ballots. Fan voting is one of two steps in the hall’s selection process. The second is an official group of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers from the sport who vote on the ballot for the hall’s class of 2025.
“I am incredibly grateful to the fans all around the world who supported me during the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan votes,” Sharapova said in a statement. “It is a tremendous honor to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and having the fans’ support makes it all the more special.”
Sharapova became the first Russian woman to reach No. 1 in the world. She won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. She also won the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014.
Sharapova was also part of Russia’s championship Fed Cup team in 2008 and won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012.
To make the hall, candidates must receive 75% or higher on combined results of the official voting group and additional percentage from the fan vote. Sharapova will have an additional three percentage points from winning the fan vote.
The Bryans, who won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, will have two additional percentage points and Nestor, who won eight Grand Slam doubles titles, will get one extra percentage point.
The hall’s next class will be announced late next month.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The driver charged with killing NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew as they bicycled on a rural road had a blood-alcohol level of .087, above the .08 legal limit in New Jersey, a prosecutor said Friday.
Gaudreau, 31, and brother Matthew, 29, were killed in Carneys Point, New Jersey, on Aug. 29, the evening before they were set to serve as groomsmen at their sister Katie’s wedding.
The driver, 43-year-old Sean M. Higgins of nearby Woodstown, New Jersey, is charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle. At a virtual court hearing Friday, a judge ordered that he be held for trial after prosecutors described a history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving.
“’You were probably driving like a nut like I always tell you you do. And you don’t listen to me, instead you just yell at me,’” his wife told Higgins when he called her from jail after his arrest, according to First Assistant Prosecutor Jonathan Flynn of Salem County.
The defense described Higgins as a married father and law-abiding citizen before the crash.
“He’s an empathetic individual and he’s a loving father of two daughters,” said defense lawyer Matthew Portella. “He’s a good person and he made a horrible decision that night.”
Higgins told police he had five or six beers that day and admitted to consuming alcohol while driving, according to the criminal complaint. He also failed a field sobriety test, the complaint said. A prosecutor on Friday said he had been drinking at home after finishing a work call at about 3 p.m., and having an upsetting conversation with his mother about a family matter.
He then had a two-hour phone call with a friend while he drove around in his Jeep with an open container, Flynn said. He had been driving aggressively behind a sedan going just above the 50 mph speed limit, sometimes tailgating, the female driver told police.
When she and the vehicle ahead of her slowed down and veered left to go around the cyclists, Higgins sped up and veered right, striking the Gaudreas, the two other drivers told police.
“He indicated he didn’t even see them,” said Superior Court Judge Michael J. Silvanio, who said Higgins’ admitted “impatience” caused two deaths.
Higgins faces up to 20 years, a sentence that the judge said made him a flight risk.
Higgins has a master’s degree, works in finance for an addiction treatment company, and served in combat in Iraq, his lawyers said. However, his wife said he had been drinking regularly since working from home, Flynn said.
Johnny Gaudreau, known as “Johnny Hockey,” played 10 full seasons in the league and was set to enter his third with the Columbus Blue Jackets after signing a seven-year, $68 million deal in 2022. He played his first eight seasons with the Calgary Flames, a tenure that included becoming one of the sport’s top players and a fan favorite across North America.
Widows Meredith and Madeline Gaudreau described their husbands as attached at the hip throughout their lives. Both women are expecting, and both gave moving eulogies at the double funeral on Monday.
