EDMONTON — It was the type of highlight-reel move Dillon Dube has seen play out at Rogers Place many times before.
The man performing it is usually Connor McDavid, the fastest skater alive.
Yet, there was Dube, in just his fifth NHL playoff game, gaining speed through the neutral zone with a sudden urge to try going wide around Dallas defenceman Andrej Sekera.
It worked, suddenly springing the 22-year-old Flames winger to cut towards the net and in alone on Anton Khudobin, who he deftly danced around before depositing it into an empty net.
It came seven minutes after he’d opened the scoring with a world-class one-timer, allowing the lad from nearby Cochrane, Alta., to host a second-consecutive breakout party.
One game after his first NHL playoff goal eliminated the Winnipeg Jets, his two-spot was instrumental in a 3-2 series-opening win over the Stars that also required plenty of his defensive moxie to solidify the result.
“I came through with some speed and, at that point, I just wanted to challenge him,” said Dube of the nifty net-finder. “If worst came to worst, we’d just kind of battle it into the corner. Luckily enough, I got a step on him and was able to take it to the net.”
And take it to the Stars, who saw Dube open the night with a monster hit, before closing it as one of many defensive stalwarts on a team impressively dedicated to the defensive cause.
“He’s got great speed, but what I liked about him was there was no fear in him cutting to the net,” said coach Geoff Ward of the goal that put Calgary up 2-0 late in the opening period.
“He just cut right in there as soon as he saw his seam and he’s been dialled in for us this whole playoffs and (Tuesday) he had a couple of real big moments for us. He actually could have had a hat trick in the first period, he had that breakaway that he missed. He does an awful lot of things with his speed but we really liked the fact he’s got some sandpaper with his skill level. He’s not afraid to go to the hard areas to make plays.”
It’s sizeable praise for the five-foot-11, 185-pounder who started the first 13 games of the season in the minors with instructions to work more on his play along the wall.
Now he’s dominating them, with a little help from co-stars Milan Lucic and Sam Bennett, who made up the Flames’ best line for the second game in a row.
It’s a development few could have predicted, especially after Dube missed the first four days of training camp 2.0 and was believed by some to be behind the eight ball.
Not so.
“He showed up in training camp in great shape — it was almost as if his game was at another level when he came to camp, and he’s just carried that into games,” said Ward, adding that speed isn’t the only thing he’s been building of late.
“I think every game he plays, he’s gaining more and more confidence, so that allows him to play freely and get to his skill. So, now we’re seeing him make some really, really key plays. Maybe for some people that haven’t watched us a lot, he stands out as a surprise, but to his teammates and coaches, we’ve seen this building for a while now and he’s an important part of our lineup.”
By virtue of his captaincy and success for Canada at the world juniors, many believed Dube could be a difference-maker for the Flames in due time.
This is ahead of schedule, coming against the Dallas team that gave Calgary the second-round pick they used to draft Dube 56th overall in 2016, in exchange for pending UFA Kris Russell.
Dube’s goals were erased midway through the afternoon when the Stars were the beneficiaries of two fortuitous bounces within nine seconds that tied the affair.
It was a Rasmus Andersson roof job of the tip off Sekera’s stick that broke the deadlock with four minutes left in the second period, setting the stage for the Flames to try holding onto the type of playoff lead that was their ultimate undoing a year earlier against Colorado.
“Just playing simple — when there’s no play there, we get pucks in and get pucks out, and be on the forecheck,” explained TJ Brodie of their newfound second-half success, based largely around a defence-first mantra.
“That’s the biggest difference — last year we tried to make plays when they weren’t there and got into the rush game, and when you get into that, you never know what is going to happen. It feels good. You can feel the chemistry in the room and the trust between the guys knowing guys are going to do their job and make the right play. And if they don’t, there’s going to be guys to back him up. It definitely feels different than the previous years.”
Untested following relatively meaningless round-robin play, the Stars were physically dominated and on their heels early, prompting Corey Perry to try shifting momentum by picking a fight with his fellow London Knights alum, Matthew Tkachuk.
To no one’s surprise.
Tkachuk got the better of the 35-year-old veteran, pushing him to the ice, drawing rousing stick taps and love from the bench.
The momentum continued, making it three straight wins for a Flames team that seemed to flip a switch in the second period of Game 3 against Winnipeg, playing with a confidence and completeness not exhibited by the bunch all season.
“Especially in the first period, I thought we did a good job of establishing our physicality, similar to what we did last series against Winnipeg,” said Noah Hanifin.
“It’s a strong asset for our team and it’s important to get to that each game.”
Although he let in the first soft goal of these playoffs, Cam Talbot bounced back well, stopping 24 shots, including a game-saver off the stick of Joe Pavelski with nine second left in the game, while the Flames killed off a last-minute penalty to Mark Giordano for flipping the puck over the glass.
“I think the biggest thing for us is I think we gained some confidence tonight,” said Ward, whose team plays the first four games of the series in five and a half days.
“I think we learned some things as a team that we can certainly apply through the series. So, for us, it was a good first game. (Andersson and Dube) both have a lot of confidence in their games right now. They’re playing pretty loosely out there. I don’t think the size of the stage intimidates them at all — they actually look forward to it. Because they are gaining confidence and experience on a game-by-game basis, they’re feeding off it and using it to motivate themselves in the right way.
“We’re seeing right now, they’re creating some awfully big moments for us in hockey games.”
Game 2 goes Thursday night at 8:30 p.m. MT.
The Olympic rings are set up at Trocadero plaza that overlooks the Eiffel Tower in Paris.Michel Euler/The Associated Press
In the middle of a record haul at the Tokyo Olympics, Canada’s women’s swim team had one letdown – the 4×200-metre freestyle relay.
Canada had taken bronze in the event at Rio 2016 and again at the 2019 world aquatics championships. The team looked good for another medal.
On the day of the final, a Chinese team that was not considered a contender surprised everyone, winning in world-record time. Canada came fourth.
A battling result, but still disappointing. It looks a little worse than that now.
Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that nearly half the Chinese swim team failed a drug test seven months before the Tokyo Games. Twenty-three swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine, or TMZ.
TMZ is a synthetic substance. You’re not going to pick it up because you’ve chosen the wrong hot-dog vendor.
China was allowed to do its own investigation into the mass positive. That probe determined the athletes had been exposed to TMZ in tainted food at a team hotel. How exactly so many of them ingested it, while others did not, wasn’t explained.
Unusually, no announcement was made about the positive tests, and no one was suspended while the investigation was under way. The World Anti-Doping Agency knew what was going on, but decided the best way to determine if China had done anything wrong was to ask China to look into it. When China gave China the all clear, WADA signed off.
One of those who tested positive was Zhang Yufei. Zhang won three medals in Tokyo, one of them as part of the 4x200m relay team.
The swimming world is now playing doping leapfrog throughout those Games. The Canadian relay team is on a long list of unlucky losers. Had China’s violations stuck, the medal table would look very different.
It would also have pushed a Games that was on the edge closer to the drop. Few in Japan were super stoked about the world dropping by en masse during what would become that country’s first mass COVID wave.
The main reason the Tokyo Games happened was that so much money had been spent, much more was still owed, and insurers were not willing to write down 10 or 15 billion.
Picking a fight with China in that precarious moment could not have seemed like a great idea. Even more precarious – the next Games, to be held six months later in Beijing.
As an event, at absolute best, Beijing 2022 was going to be a very expensive bummer (which it absolutely was). That’s the sort of party that’s easy to call off.
You don’t need to be a Reddit obsessive to see what happened here. The Chinese swim team got caught mid-purge, and the people in charge had to prioritize their response.
Priority No. 1 – the Olympic business.
Priority No. 2 – the Olympic ideals.
They picked money over fairness.
It’s easy to lash them now, so plenty of people are. The head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency called it “a devastating stab in the back of clean athletes.”
(Is it possible to be undevastatingly stabbed in the back?)
The stickiest criticism involves Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva. She also tested positive for trace amounts of TMZ before an Olympics. She also had one of those ‘maybe the dog gave me steroids’-type excuses.
But since everybody hates Russia, Valieva did not get the benefit of an in-house probe. She was dragged upside-down and backward through the global press and stripped of her medals. There’s your fairness.
It’s fitting that WADA take a reputational beating here. That is its most useful function – to absorb stakeholder rage after another own goal has been scored by the Doping Police.
But out in the real world, no one cares. Of course the Olympics is dirty. The Olympics has spent the last half century repeatedly reminding us of that.
Between Games, the Olympics makes news only two ways – ‘Upcoming host city X is having serious second thoughts’ and ‘So-and-so cheated their way to gold.’
These stories have become so numerous that the only people registering them are the ones who make their living in an Olympics-adjacent business, like sports administration or media.
Those people are happy to complain – complaining is good for trade – but they don’t want things to change. Change is dangerous. Who knows where change will land you?
In this specific instance, real change in the form of zero tolerance could have hobbled one Olympics and gotten the next one cancelled. Then what?
You start cancelling Olympics and people learn to live without them. Sponsors find new things to sponsor. Broadcasters move on.
Better to compromise. Chinese swimmers did a little TMZ. So what? Figure skaters, tennis players, breaststrokers – everybody’s doing it nowadays. It’s like weed for the Marx and Engels crowd.
With all that in mind, here’s something you won’t often read in this space – WADA made the right call.
It’s not like it was going to go swanning into Guangdong province in early 2021, right in the teeth of the pandemic, to figure out what was what. The only way to get any sort of answers was to rely on Chinese investigators. How do you know if they’re on the up and up? You don’t. WADA had two choices – take China’s word for it, or go scorched earth right before the two most tenuously assembled Games in history.
The proof that WADA made the correct choice is that those Games happened. Maybe it would make a different call now, and that might be right, too.
As far as fairness goes, it doesn’t belong in this conversation.
If a Belgian or a Tanzanian gets caught cheating, don’t even bother asking for consideration.
An American? Probably not.
An American everyone knows? Maybe.
A lot of Americans everybody knows? Let’s talk.
This can’t be discussed because once that discussion gets going, it points toward the sort of change no current stakeholder want to think about. If someone who tests positive can negotiate their way out of it and fairness is the goal, isn’t it fairer to stop testing altogether?
Was it an alley-oop? A Hail Mary? A Jerry Rice post route? Catch and ReLeaf?
Article content
Whatever it was, it was the goal Toronto Maple Leafs fans were waiting for.
Article content
If the Leafs go on to beat the Boston Bruins and make it out of the first round for the second year in a row, fans will look back at Max Domi’s flip pass and Auston Matthews’ catch and finish as the moment it all became possible.
Matthews’ 70th goal of the season (69+1 if we’re splitting hairs) was maybe his finest.
The play: Incredible. The catch: Immaculate. The finish: Nasty. The timing: Perfect.
Social media had plenty to say about Monday’s game-winning goal, but first let’s listen to calls of the play from every corner of the playoff series:
Chris Cuthbert on Hockey Night in Canada:
Article content
Retiring voice of the Boston Bruins Jack Edwards:
Article content
Of course, nothing can compare to Joe Bowen’s call on Toronto radio. Any Leafs moment isn’t complete until fans hear what the High Priest of Holy Mackinaw said, and he didn’t disappoint:
Article content
It didn’t take long for Matthews’ game-winner to go viral across social media, with fans, media and ex-players weighing in on the incredible goal. The Leafs and Bruins resume their first round series on Wednesday in Toronto at 7 p.m.
Share this article in your social network
It was a game of big numbers at Rogers Place that featured 82 shots, 72 faceoffs, 112 hits and 11 goals. Connor McDavid scored 5 points, Zach Hyman and Evan Bouchard 4 each. Adam Henrique scored his first playoff point in 12 years. And the Edmonton Oilers won the opening game of a playoff series on their home ice for the first time in 12,409 days.
Article content
But win it they did, cruising to a 7-4 win over Los Angeles Kings to establish a 1-0 series lead in the 2024 edition of the seemingly annual opening round series between the two.
Advertisement 2
Article content
It wasn’t always pretty, but several of the goals sure were. The Oilers held the advantage in play, outshooting the Kings 45-37 with an 18-10 advantage in Grade A Shots as recorded by the Cult of Hockey (running count). 8 of those Grade A shots came on a red-hot powerplay that produced 3 goals in a combined time of 4:50.
#2 Evan Bouchard, 7. Moved the puck well for the most part and had 4 secondary assists to show for it, not to mention a tertiary that doesn’t show up on the scoresheet. But was among the defensive culprits on both LA goals that cut a 4-0 lead in half before the end of the second period. Way more good than bad on the night. Contributions to Grade A Shots (GAS): Even Strength +3/-2, Special Teams +1/-0.
#5 Cody Ceci, 6. Played a rock solid defensive game, landing 5 hits and winning the lion’s share of battles. Victimized on a couple of unlucky goals against in garbage time, and in the spotlight himself on 1 of them when his stick exploded making a routine D-to-D pass after a won neutral zone faceoff. His 19:00 at even strength led the team. GAS: ES +2/-3; ST +1/-0.
Headline News
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
#13 Mattias Janmark, 5. Classic Janmark game in which not a whole lot happened during his 10 minutes of action, pro or con. Tagged with an undeserved -1 on the Ceci-stick-explodes goal. GAS: +0/-0; ST 0.
#14 Mattias Ekholm, 6. Solid with a couple of shaky moments. Made a couple of lunging stops on the same dangerous sequence. His neutral zone turnover led to a Viktor Arvidsson breakaway early in the second, then he was unable to contain Adrian Kempe on the 4-2. Delivered a great stretch pass to Hyman for a breakaway chance. Led the D with 2:00 on the penalty kill. GAS: ES +4/-2; ST 0.
#18 Zach Hyman, 9. All over it from the get-go, driving hard to the net time and again. Scored a goal in each period by materializing in a dangerous spot and converting a McDavid pass from close range. Added a primary assist on Henrique’s goal. Took a goalie interference for another net drive gone wrong. Later drew a call the other way. Hit a post in a scramble. Robbed by Talbot’s best save of the game on a breakaway. Took a knock on the continuation of that play and was in pain, but returned for another shift and appeared to be OK. May have set a record for most hats on the ice for a hat trick. 9 shots on net to lead both teams. Also added 5 hits and was a central figure in the battle all night long. GAS: ES +7/-1; ST+3/-0.
Advertisement 4
Article content
#19 Adam Henrique, 7. His first playoff game in 6 years and his first playoff win in 12. Won a battle leading to the first Oilers goal, scored the second himself with a strong wrist shot from range, then earned an assist on the third. Made a great aerial deflection of Ceci’s outside shot. Took a penalty. Among those beaten on the first Kings goal. GAS: ES +4/-1; ST +1/-1.
#25 Darnell Nurse, 6. Played a solid 2-way game with 7 shot attempts, 2 blocks, and 6 hits. Won a lot of battles along the way. Pasted Kempe in the early going with a booming open-ice hit. Safe and sound behind his own blueline until the very late going, when a cross-ice pass caught his skate and found the net to make it 6-3. GAS: ES +0/-2; ST 0.
#27 Brett Kulak, 5. Low event game including no goals at either end of the sheet during his 16 minutes. GAS: ES +0/-2; ST 0.
#29 Leon Draisaitl, 8. Nearly wrecked himself on his opening shift when he took a run at a King and missed, but thankfully survived. Did his best work on the powerplay, setting up an RNH tally with a brilliant pass and scoring the winning goal himself with a brilliant shot. Also made a superb pass to RNH on an even-strength 2-on-1 that wasn’t converted. Strong defensively. Drew a penalty. Rock solid on the faceoff dot at 15/24=63%. 3 shots at one end, 2 blocks (!) at the other. GAS: ES =0/-0; ST +5/-0.
Advertisement 5
Article content
#37 Warren Foegele, 6. Mashed Drew Doughty with an excellent hit in the very early going. Played a simple, solid game. Scored the empty netter that finalized the score line, after first stealing the puck in the neutral zone.
#39 Sam Carrick, 5. Played his first career playoff game at age 32 and got the job done. His line with Holloway and Janmark lost the possession battle but held their own on the scoresheet until the late fluke. He did get tagged with a -1 on the 4-2, but his “mistake” there was to do the job hjje was sent out to do and win a d-zone faceoff. 1 shot, 2 blocks, 4 hits, and 10/18=56% on the dot. GAS: +0/-0; ST 0.
#55 Dylan Holloway, 5. Held his own in his second career playoff game. GAS: +0/-0; ST 0.
#71 Ryan McLeod, 6. Played a fine defensive game between the vets Kane and Perry. 2 takeaways, 2 blocked shots. GAS: ES +2/-0; ST 0.
#73 Vincent Desharnais, 6. Rock of Gibraltar on the blue, with 6 hits and 5 shot blocks. On the receiving end of a nasty low-bridge hit by Trevor Moore that left him in obvious pain as the second period wound down, but returned in the third to finish the job. Best of all, the Oil scored the game winner on the resultant powerplay. GAS: +0/-1; ST 0.
Advertisement 6
Article content
#74 Stu Skinner, 6. Very good in the first half of the game. Contributed the TSN Turning Point when he got a tiny piece of his pad on Viktor Arvidsson’s breakaway shot, with the Oilers subsequently scoring on the continuation. The game that could have been 2-1, was instead 3-0. The back half of the game went less well with 4 official GA and a fifth which was gloved in and correctly called back after a couple of nervous minutes. Struggled a bit with rebound control. 37 shots, 33 saves, .892 save percentage.
#90 Corey Perry, 5. Put the puck in good places, including on Kane’s stick for a couple of great chances in tight. 3 hits, 2 takeaways. GAS: ES +2/-0; ST 0.
#91 Evander Kane, 6. Was visible throughout, mostly in good ways. Fired 6 shots on net including a couple of powerful wristers. nearly squeezing one through Talbot. Did have a couple of issues suppressing outside shots from the point. Led EDM forwards with 15:45 TOI at even strength. GAS: ES +3/-1.
#93 Ryan Nugent Hopkins, 6. Set up perfectly by Draisaitl for what apepared to be a wide open net, but the puck rolled off his stick. Made up for it a few minutes later with a strong goal mouth finish of another sweet Draisaitl feed. 4 shots, 2 blocks, 2 hits, 1 takeaway, and a team-high 2:04 on the 2-for-2 penalty kill. GAS: ES +0/-0; ST +1/-0.
Advertisement 7
Article content
#97 Connor McDavid, 9. Became just the 15th player in NHL history with 5 (or more) assists in a playoff game, joining dynasty Oilers Wayne Gretzky (2x), Paul Coffey, Glenn Anderson and 10 others from other teams. 4 of them were primary assists, including all 3 of Hyman’s tallies. Twice McDavid beat defenders with brilliant spin moves before dishing. Threaded a bullet pass through Matt Roy’s skates for Hyman’s hat trick goal. 3 shots, 3 hits, and uncounted passes. GAS: ES +3/-0; ST +6/-0.
STAPLES: Big questions about Nurse-Ceci pairing
STAPLES: Hitting is way up in playoffs. Are Oilers up to it?
McCURDY: Kane, Janmark, Holloway all look good to go for Game One
McCURDY: Oilers vs. Kings anything but a foregone conclusion
STAPLES: Kane, Janmark missing from practice. What are the implications?
STAPLES: Pretty much every NHL commentator is picking Oilers over Kings
Article content
Osoyoos commuters invited to celebrate Earth Day with the Leg Day challenge – Oliver/Osoyoos News – Castanet.net
Haberman on why David Pecker testifying is ‘fundamentally different’ – CNN
Freeland defends budget measures, as premiers push back on federal involvement – CBC News
The Fed's Forecasting Method Looks Increasingly Outdated as Bernanke Pitches an Alternative – Bloomberg
It's possible to rely on plant proteins without sacrificing training gains, new studies say – The Globe and Mail
Gildan replacing five directors ahead of AGM, will back two Browning West nominees – Yahoo Canada Finance
Meta Expands VR Operating System to Third-Party Hardware Makers – MacRumors
We tried these three beauty products this week. Here are our thoughts – Vancouver Sun
Comments