Sports
Inside Byfield's breakthrough and why the best is yet to come – TSN
TSN Hockey Reporter Mark Masters reports on the World Junior Hockey Championship. Team Canada practised at the Downtown Community Arena inside the Edmonton bubble on Wednesday.
Quinton Byfield posted just two assists in his first nine games at the World Juniors. On Tuesday, the Sudbury Wolves centre exploded for six points, including two goals, as Canada blanked Switzerland 10-0.
“We’re all real happy to see him have a night like that,” said alternate captain Dylan Cozens. “We needed him to step up and he did. I think that’s just the start for him and he’ll keep getting better from here on out. He will keep improving and take his game to the next level. We know that’s just a glimpse of what he can do.”
Those words were enough to make the big man blush.
“That’s a lot to ask, but I’m definitely feeling good about my game now and got the monkey off my back and there’s a lot more to come,” Byfield vowed.
Byfield threw the metaphorical monkey off his back at the bench after scoring his first goal against the Swiss.
“When either Connor McMichael or I score we always give a smile to each other and I think he said something about the monkey and I threw it off,” Byfield said. “Finally.”
In the wake of the game, Byfield described the breakthrough as a relief. Last year, he started in a top-six role in Ostrava and finished as the 13th forward. This year, he admittedly started slow at the selection camp in mid-November while adjusting to the 10-plus pounds of muscle he put on during the pandemic pause.
Head coach Andre Tourigny pushed him to be better early on, but also applauded the Newmarket, Ont., native for being coachable and improving his puck management.
“He’s a more mature man than last year,” said Tourigny, an assistant coach a year ago. “He’s easier to coach. When I say, ‘Easier to coach,’ I mean it’s easier for him to make adjustments. Last year, at 17-years-old, at some point it can be a tough situation, but this year, even though he’s the youngest guy on the team, he’s real easy to coach.”
Byfield was the second overall pick by the Los Angeles Kings in October’s National Hockey League draft and has a dynamic blend of size, speed and soft hands. But that combination also comes with added pressure to produce.
“Definitely wears on you a little bit, but not too much,” he said. “I knew it was going to come. I was playing the right way and playing how they wanted us to play. I was still feeling good about my game.”
Byfield sat down with TSN on Wednesday to go over all six of his points and share some insight on his game.
First point – Primary assist on an even-strength goal by Phil Tomasino
“I miss a check there, which isn’t good (smile), but try and get on the back-check and [Jack] Quinn strips a guy and I hear Tommy calling for it coming from the bench and I know he’s hot so I threw him the puck.”
On the broadcast, TSN analyst Ray Ferraro applauded the way Byfield delivered the puck into Tomasino’s wheelhouse.
“I knew he was coming from the bench on a little bit of a weird angle so I made not too hard of a pass and gave him the opportunity to shoot without stick handling. He didn’t have to dust it off and could get a quick release off and it fooled the goalie.”
Even though he missed the check at the start of the sequence, Byfield’s ability to be a disruptor on the forecheck has made him an even more dangerous player.
“It’s gotten a lot better. Instead of just reaching for the stick and doing stick lifts to grab the puck I’m being more physical and that creates more turnovers and allows the second guy to come in and support the puck.”
Second point – Secondary assist on an even-strength goal by Jakob Pelletier
“I saw the defender coming at me, but then he kind of backed up and wasn’t coming fully at me. I looked at his skates and saw he was turning the other way and I knew I had the middle to cut in and I saw [Connor] Zary coming off the bench and him and Pelts were going to the net pretty hard and I think it was just the right play to give them the puck and the rest happened from there.”
Third point – Primary assist on power-play goal by Ryan Suzuki
“Me and Zukes were working them low for a little bit and then really opening them up. He put a nice shot down low and I tried to put in the rebound and tried kicking it to myself, but kind of messed up and Zukes was in the right spot and buried it nicely.”
What’s the key to being a good net-front guy on the power play?
“Being able to get in the goalie’s eyes and goalie’s presence is definitely huge and then puck recoveries when the flank is shooting and the D is shooting and getting your stick on as much as you can and always being an option and being open for a tip or shot pass. There’s a lot to do down there.”
Fourth point – Power-play goal off a Jamie Drysdale point shot
“It was a really good shot by Drysie. He noticed I was kind of alone in front and he put a perfect shot there and I was lucky to get my stick on it. I was a little shocked, almost, you know, because I haven’t scored in a while. I think that was my first goal since February so you’re still super excited, but you have to respect your opponent and respect the score and tried to keep it as humble as I could there.”
Fifth point – Even-strength goal off a pass from Quinn
“Me and Quinner were a little late on the back check there. We were early on the forecheck, but trying to get on the back check. Pelletier makes a good play there and gets the puck up to Quinner. Then a great pass by Quinner, a little saucer pass over the stick. I was trying to go far side along the ice and it worked out going far side, but not along the ice.”
Sixth point – Primary assist on even-strength goal by Pelletier
“It started off with a won draw and then Pelts makes a good play along the wall on the far side with the D pinching down and then I drive the net there. Quinner doesn’t get a shot off but creates a jam in the corner and we win the battle there and Pelts throws it to the net and I stripped it off the Swiss guy and got the puck to Pelts and I knew he was going to bury that one.”
—
Byfield is actually the second Canadian player to notch a six-point night at this year’s World Juniors. Cozens accomplished the feat with three goals and three assists in the opener against Germany. The Lethbridge centre was asked where he improved the most during the lengthy off-season.
“Moving the puck up the ice,” the Buffalo Sabres’ first rounder said, “just skating with it and having the confidence on zone entries and creating offence in the zone, creating offence from nothing.”
How do you create offence from nothing?
“Sometimes it’s just beating a guy, you know, spinning off him in the O-zone and creating a lane to the net or a passing lane,” Cozens said. “That’s the biggest thing is just kind of beating a guy one-on-one and taking it to the net.”
Cozens had nine points in seven games last year in his first World Juniors and is even more confident this time around.
“I do feel stronger and faster and bigger in every aspect of my game,” he said. “I’m happy with a lot of the work I’ve put in this off-season and it’s starting to pay off.”
Cozens has exchanged texts with Sabres forward Sam Reinhart, a World Junior gold medallist in 2015, throughout the tournament.
“When I got to [Sabres] camp, you know, he was a great leader for me right away and kind of took me under his wing,” Cozens said. “I got to meet him at the draft and he’s a guy I kept in touch with a bit and he’s been with Team Canada at the World Juniors and knows what it’s like.”
—
After three games at World Juniors and four games as a group overall, Tourigny feels Team Canada is starting to get in a groove.
“We have more chemistry,” the coach observed. “We have less hesitation in our game. We have more structure. We have more confidence. We know more who we are. We’re a hard forechecking team who has the ability to counterattack really quickly with a quick strike. We have big bodies who can get on the forecheck and create a lot of turnovers. Our D skates really well and can kill plays in the neutral zone. So, we know better who we are than a week ago.”
What’s the identity of this year’s Team Canada?
“We’re very relentless,” said defenceman Kaiden Guhle. “We’re big. We’re fast. Our forecheck is very tough to play against. We’re very resilient, very relentless. We’re a big, fast team that makes it tough for the other team and we’re trying to build on that every game.”
—
Maple Leafs prospects Mikko Kokkonen, Roni Hirvonen and Topi Niemela spoke with TSN about the improvements they’ve made this season, the direction they’ve received from Toronto’s player development staff and how Team Finland matches up against Canada.
The following is a transcript of the interview.
TSN: Where do you feel your game has improved the most this season?
Hirvonen, a forward with Assat: “I’ve improved my all-around game and my skating. I’ve gotten more scoring chances this season because I have more speed in my game and that’s the biggest thing.”
Niemela, a defenceman with Karpat: “I have improved my defensive game. I’ve watched videos and improved also my shot.”
Kokkonen, a defenceman with Jukurit: “I have improved my defensive game and the most important thing that I have to improve is my offensive game right now.”
TSN: How are you working on that?
Kokkonen: “I have watched lots of videos with [director of player development] Stephane Robidas and our own staff and I have learned so much.”
TSN: What’s been the message from the Leafs to you this season?
Hirvonen: “We talk about small things in my game like how to get more open in the offensive zone and how to get more pucks.”
Niemela: “I have to get stronger. I have to play faster and play defence more.”
Kokkonen: “I have to be better in the offensive zone and, of course, my skating has to be better if I want to play in the NHL. I have worked a lot on that so I’m on my way.”
TSN: How do you think Finland matches up against Canada?
Kokkonen: “We have a really good team right now. We are, like, really all-around team. We have offensive guys and guys to PK and we can play every situation really good.”
Hirvonen: “We are a good all-around team with good defensive players and everyone has played in the Liiga one or two years so we’re really good and we’ll minimize their scoring chances and score a few goals and I think that way we can win.”
Niemela: “They have a good team, but we have also. It’ll be a tough game but I think we’re going to beat them.”
—
In the weeks leading up to selection camp, goalie coach Jason LaBarbera sent video clips of Carter Hart, Mikey DiPietro and Joel Hofer playing at the World Juniors to the group of five netminders looking to secure Canada’s starting job.
“Devon Levi wanted more,” said LaBarbera. “He wanted full games. He wanted the full gold-medal game from last year. He’s trying to get better and learn every day.”
That approach allowed Levi to stand out immediately at the camp even though he was stuck in a cohort quarantine with two other NCAA players during the first week and didn’t play a game until the third of four intra-squad scrimmages.
“I really liked where he was at and he’s just done nothing but trend in the right direction,” LaBarbera said. “I like his demeanour and how he approaches things.”
LaBarbera admits that it’s “pretty wild” that a kid who hasn’t played any major junior or NCAA games has won Canada’s No. 1 job at the World Juniors. The Northeastern University freshman also wasn’t invited to Canada’s summer virtual camp.
So, what separated him from the pack?
“His edge work is elite,” said LaBarbera. “When you watch him in games, practice, goalie drills, his ability to hold his edges and be able to move but also be able to change directions and grab his edges and get where he needs to go is elite. It’s a big reason why Florida drafted him and a big reason why he’s played at a high level here.”
There’s still areas that need to improve. A good chunk of Wednesday’s practice, for example, was focused on puck handling.
“Just getting on the same page with our D,” said LaBarbera. “We haven’t had a lot of practice time to work on those things. In a normal season you’re on the same page and the calls are dialled in and the sharpness of that stuff. You want to make sure everyone is on the same page. The more you can be clean with those things the easier it is for everybody.”
—
Lines at Canada’s practice on Wednesday:
Forwards
Holloway – McMichael – Cozens
Perfetti – Newhook – Krebs
Quinn- Byfield – Pelletier
Mercer – Suzuki – Tomasino
Zary
Defencemen
Byram – Drysdale
Harley – Schneider
Guhle – Barron
Korczak (R) – Spence
Goaltenders
Levi
Garand
Gauthier
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The LA Kings tried every trick in the book to get the Edmonton Oilers off their game last night.
Hacks after the whistle, punches to the face, and interference with line changes were just some of the things that the Oilers had to endure, and throughout it all, there was not an ounce of retaliation.
All that badgering by the Kings resulted in at least two penalties against them and fuelled a red-hot Oilers power play that made them pay with three goals on four chances. That was by design for Edmonton, who knew that LA was going to try to pester them as much as they could.
That may have worked on past Oilers teams, but not this one.
“We’ve been in a series now for the third year in a row with these guys,” Kane said after practice this morning. “We know them, they know us… it’s one of those things where maybe it makes it a little easier to kind of laugh it off, walk away, or take a shot.
“That type of stuff isn’t gonna affect us.”
EDM LAK G1. April 22, 2024. Pierre-Luc Dubois interference penalty on Connor McDavid. 🎥: Sportsnet | NHL pic.twitter.com/15zrQX3D6Q
— Nation Network Media (@NationNMedia) April 23, 2024
Once upon a time, this type of play would get under the Oilers’ skin and result in retaliatory penalties. Yet, with a few hard-knock lessons handed down to them in the past few seasons, it seems like the team is as determined as ever to cut the extracurriculars and focus on getting revenge on the scoreboard.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the longest-tenured player on this Oilers team, had to keep his emotions in check with Kings defender Vladislav Gavrikov, who punched him in the face early in the game. The easy reaction would be to punch back, but the veteran Nugen-Hopkins took his licks and wound up scoring later in the game.
“It’s going to be physical, the emotions are high, and there’s probably going to be some stuff after the whistle,” Nugent-Hopkins told reporters this morning. “I think it’s important to stay poised out there and not retaliate and just play through the whistles and let the other stuff just kind of happen.”
Nuge on the doorstep pots one on the power play! 🚪 pic.twitter.com/6nUeQJZASl
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 23, 2024
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch also noticed his team’s discipline. Playoff hockey is full of emotion, and keeping those in check to focus on the larger goal is difficult. He was happy with how his team set the tone.
“It’s not necessarily easy to do,” Knoblauch said. “You get punched in the face and sometimes the referees feel it’s enough to call a penalty, sometimes it’s not… You just have to take them, and sometimes, you get rewarded with the power play.
“I liked our guy’s response and we want to be sticking up for each other, we want to have that pack mentality, but it’s really important that we’re not the ones taking that extra penalty.”
There is no doubt that the Kings will continue to poke and prod at the Oilers as the series continues. Keeping those retaliations in check will only get more difficult, but if the team can continue to succeed on the scoreboard, it could get easier.
Thatcher Demko returned from injury just in time for the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs but now is injured again.
After the Vancouver Canucks’ victory in Game 1, Demko was not made available to the media as he was “receiving treatment.” This is not unusual, so was not heavily reported at the time. Monday’s practice was turned into an optional skate — just nine players participated — so Demko’s absence did not seem particularly significant.
But when Demko was also missing from Tuesday’s gameday skate, alarm bells started going off.
According to multiple reports — and now the Canucks’ head coach, Rick Tocchet —Demko will not play in Game 2 and is in fact questionable for the rest of their series against the Nashville Predators.
Demko made 22 saves on 24 shots, none bigger — and potentially injury-inducing — than his first-period save on Anthony Beauvillier where he went into the full splits.
While this is not necessarily where Demko got injured, it would be understandable if it was. Demko still stayed in the game and didn’t seem to be experiencing any difficulties at the time.
Demko is a major difference-maker for the Canucks and his injury casts a pall over the team’s emotional Game 1 victory.
Tocchet confirmed that Demko will not start in Game 2 but said Demko did skate on Monday on his own. He also said that Demko’s injury is unrelated to the knee injury he suffered during the season that caused him to miss five weeks. Instead, Tocchet suggested Demko was day-to-day, leaving open the possibility for his return in the first round.
TSN’s Farhan Lalji, however, has reported that Demko’s injury could indeed be to the same knee, even if it is not the same exact injury.
If Demko does indeed miss the rest of the series, the pressure will be on Casey DeSmith, who had a strong season when called upon intermittently as the team’s backup but struggled when thrust into the number-one role when Demko was injured. Behind DeSmith is rookie Arturs Silovs, who has come through with heroic performances in international competition for Latvia but hasn’t been able to repeat those performances at the NHL level.
DeSmith played one game against the Predators this season, making 26 saves on 28 shots in a 5-2 victory in December.
While DeSmith has limited experience in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, his one appearance was spectacular.
On May 3, 2022, DeSmith had to step in for the injured Tristan Jarry for the Pittsburgh Penguins, starting their first postseason game against the New York Rangers. DeSmith made 48 saves on 51 shots before leaving the game in the second overtime with an injury of his own, with Louis Domingue stepping in to make 17 more saves for the win.
The Canucks will look to allow significantly fewer than 51 shots on Tuesday night.
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?
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