VANCOUVER – One thousand games as a National Hockey League coach, and never a weekend like this one for Bruce Boudreau.
The Vancouver Canucks’ 66-year-old head coach learned Friday that star goalie Thatcher Demko was following backup Jaroslav Halak into COVID-19 protocol, then watched that night as minor-league callup Spencer Martin was outstanding in his first NHL game in nearly five years, allowing only one goal in a 2-1 shootout loss to the Florida Panthers. Martin followed that up by testing positive for the virus on Saturday.
Boudreau’s starter on Sunday against another powerful opponent, the St. Louis Blues, was minor-leaguer Michael DiPietro – the last of five goalies on the Canucks’ organizational depth chart not quarantining somewhere.
But on the coach’s 1,000-game anniversary, there wasn’t enough Spencer Martin-like magic for DiPietro.
In his second NHL start, and first in nearly three years since he was an emergency recall from junior, DiPietro lost 3-1 to the Blues despite Vancouver outshooting St. Louis 39-17.
The 22-year-old former third-round pick from Windsor, Ont., was far from responsible for the loss. But DiPietro was a distant second-best to Blues goalie Ville Husso, who is badly outperforming St. Louis starter Jordan Binnington this season.
For the record, DiPietro’s emergency backup on Sunday was University of British Columbia goalie Rylan Toth. Another student-athlete, Trinity Western University goalie Talor Joseph, was the emergency backup Sunday when the Canucks’ minor-league team played an hour east in Abbotsford.
And just so you fully understand the depth of the Canucks’ almost-comical netminding crisis, the Abbotsford Canucks’ starting goalie in a pair of weekend wins against the San Diego Gulls was someone named Joe Murdaca, a 23-year who is now on his fourth professional tryout in the minors this season but who until Saturday had never played a game above the ECHL level. (Or made it past one game on his tryouts).
This might all be easier to laugh about if the Canucks were not also missing again on Sunday three of their top four forwards in J.T. Miller, Bo Horvat and Conor Garland, who are scattered across three cities while quarantining for Covid.
If all goes well in recovery and testing, Demko should be available to play Tuesday against the Edmonton Oilers.
Halak is supposed to rejoin the Canucks when they start a four-game road trip Thursday in Winnipeg.
“I’m hoping,” Boudreau said Sunday after Vancouver’s first regulation loss in four games amid the team’s Omicron surge. “My fingers are crossed (like): OK, we’ve finished this part of our history of the Vancouver Canucks, let’s move on to something else.”
There was still some magic dust drifting around Rogers Arena at the start of Sunday’s game when DiPietro, whose only other NHL start was Feb. 11, 2019 when he was literally thrown to the Sharks in a 7-2 loss to San Jose, saved the first nine St. Louis shots.
But the 10th was an unstoppable top-corner deflection by Justin Faulk that tied the game 1-1 at 18:33 of the first period, and DiPietro also had little chance on Brayden Schenn’s net-side redirect of Vladimir Tarasenko’s pass on a Blues’ power play at 3:26 of the middle period. The goalie missed Jordan Kyrou’s stick-side shot from distance at 16:43 of the second.
Tanner Pearson scored the Canucks’ only goal at 16:30 of the first period from power-play pressure after the expiration of what had been a pretty dismal two-man advantage for a full two minutes.
“They tried their butt off,” Boudreau said of his depleted lineup. “I mean, there’s no doubt. Anytime you can hold this team to 17 shots or St. Louis to seven shots (over the final 40 minutes), and that’s including a power-play goal… you’ve done what you’re supposed to do. It’s just right now we’re having a hard time scoring. A couple breakaways here and there and we have a couple of great looks, and the one time we do score we have two guys jump on the ice (for a penalty).
“Really, really happy with the way they worked and the way they cared. Just, I expect to win every time we go on the ice, so I’m unhappy with that result.”
So was DiPietro.
“It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind,” the prospect said of his weekend. “I just tried to stay in the moment as much as I can. Yeah, it has been a while between starts. I think my comfort level was definitely a lot more comfortable this time around. But, obviously, I got outplayed tonight by the other guy. The guys played great in front of me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the win.”
Husso twice stuffed Canuck Jason Dickinson on breakaways, and stopped Quinn Hughes on a two-on-one rush in the third period.
Elias Pettersson did not register a shot on net for Vancouver but had the second assist on Pearson’s goal. Brock Boeser, the other front-line Canuck forward still in the lineup, had six shots on net and 12 attempts. Hughes had five shots and nine attempts in 28:55 of ice time.
Hughes said the Covid situation on the Canucks is “crazy,” but “everyone’s gone down with Covid once this year, so it is what it is. You’ve just got to keep playing.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
