EDMONTON – They promised this time it would be different.
They were right.
This time, instead of going out with a whimper the Calgary Flames exited the bubble with a thud – a final game collapse so monumental the reverberations are sure to be felt until the league drops the puck again who-knows-when.
Until then GM Brad Treliving will have no choice but to put in motion significant personnel changes.
He’s likely played his last game as a Calgary Flame.
From the Stanley Cup Qualifiers to the Stanley Cup Final, livestream every game of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, blackout-free, on Sportsnet NOW.
Predictably, the core just couldn’t get it done, but no man was more of an enigma than No. 13.
Gaudreau’s annual disappearance can best be explained by the simple fact his style of game doesn’t mesh with playoff hockey.
When time and space get taken away, and when teams collapse their defence and the intensity gets ramped up, the 5-foot-7, 165-pound Jersey native has been neutralized year after year.
Gaudreau’s best showing in the Dallas series came in the first period of Thursday’s 7-3 humiliation when his power play goal was one of three Flames tallies in the opening six minutes. Exhibiting noticeable jump in his step in their do-or-die moment, he was thwarted on two great wraparound chances and would later turn on the jets to catch and stop Corey Perry’s breakaway.
Too little, too late.
When the final horn sounded on the six-game series, Gaudreau didn’t have a single even-strength point.
His only contributions all playoff long came on the power play, where six of his seven points came. (The other point came on an empty-net goal).
Five-on-five, he might as well have been on the fourth line, which is the latest in a series of indictments on a former 99-point regular season player who makes $6.75 million a year.
Although he has two years left at a price tag considered team-friendly when he was a Hart Trophy candidate two years ago, it’s not going to be easy to move him now.
Every GM in the league saw his latest playoff disappearance, and while there’s merit for some teams to acquire marketable players like Gaudreau who can sell plenty of jerseys during the season, most teams try building for playoff success.
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He can’t help there in a leading role.
One playoff assist last year.
Two years earlier he had just two helpers.
He’s not an emotional leader, nor can he contribute defensively or kill penalties.
He’s an offensively dynamic player who has shown an enraging inability to have a positive impact when it matters most.
Healthy debate has raged since the team’s last playoff faceplant around whether his linemate and best pal, Sean Monahan, should also be shopped as part of the necessary altering of the team’s core.
Perhaps he should, but in a flat cap world it’s going to be hard enough to swap out Gaudreau for any meaningful return, let alone a man making $6.375 million.
Potentially, a perennial 30-goal scorer like Monahan needs to be included in any deal involving Gaudreau to sweeten the take.
That would be a blockbuster in a cap era where moves of that significance rarely occur.
They really are the two most obvious candidates to go, but surely Treliving would rather keep the 25-year-old centre here to see if he can build chemistry with someone other than Gaudreau.
Other core pieces seem far less apt to be moving, like soon-to-be 37-year-old captain Mark Giordano or Mikael Backlund, who is an integral player still in his prime.
TJ Brodie remerged as a solid, top-pairing defenceman this year, which may have priced him out of Calgary as an unrestricted free agent.
Bennett’s stock and popularity just rose to a point where trading him would prompt pitchfork-toting mobs outside the Dome. Not happening.
Youngsters like Dillon Dube and Andrew Mangiapane are clearly destined to be big parts of the future here, alongside Matthew Tkachuk and Lindholm, who also has plenty to atone for after coming up empty offensively this summer.
Which brings us back to Gaudreau, who turned 27 during the team’s 10-game bubble run.
It wasn’t all that long ago the Flames organization learned a valuable lesson about waiting too long to trade a star like Jarome Iginla.
Shortly afterward they had nothing to show for it.
There is no chance Gaudreau would re-sign in Calgary when his contract expires in the summer of 2022, which means he needs to be dealt well before then.
Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman talk to a lot of people around the hockey world, and then they tell listeners all about what they’ve heard and what they think about it.
Now is the time.
If the Flames wait another year, Gaudreau has a modified no-trade clause that allows him to limit the Flames options by submitting a list of five teams he would agree to go to.
Iginla all over again.
And while the return almost certainly won’t include anyone with the type of gaudy numbers Gaudreau has posted in recent regular seasons, the goal would almost certainly be to acquire character, moxie and leadership.
Gaudreau has been a top-line player and regular season offensive leader on this team for six years, but he’s too often been a passenger in the playoffs. After 30 playoff games with Calgary amounting to just 19 points, it’s time for him to get off the bus.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
