After the Canadiens had their third win over the Leafs in as many meetings this season, the excuses were flowing out of Hogtown almost before Ilya Kovalchuk’s OT shot was in the net.
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Jack Todd: Toronto didn't 'let' Canadiens do anything — Montreal simply did it – Montreal Gazette
For two periods at the Bell Centre on Saturday night, the legendary Canadiens-Maple Leafs rivalry was enough to make any hockey fan feel sick.
The Canadiens had a flu epidemic going through the room and captain Shea Weber on the shelf. The Leafs were missing their goaltender and a couple of key defencemen and their vaunted offence hissed and sputtered like a string of wet firecrackers.
Heading into the third period, it was like watching the Canadiens and the New Jersey Devils play on a Tuesday night around 2001, when the only sensible thing to do was to find a bar where the liquor was cheap and they weren’t showing the game.
Then the third period started. The Canadiens had a scoring chance, the Leafs counter-attacked. John Tavares scored. 1-0 Leafs. Game on.
Maple Leafs goaltender Jack Campbell looks on as Canadiens’ Ilya Kovalchuk celebrates his overtime goal at the Bell Centre on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020, in Montreal.
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Tavares scored one minute and six seconds into the period. At the end of the frame, shots for the period stood at Canadiens 16, Leafs 1. Throw in the overtime session and the Leafs were outshot 19-2 when it mattered most.
Yet when it was over, newbie Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe would say “we let them hang around.” It was a stunning bit of arrogance on the part of Young Sheldon. The Leafs didn’t let the Canadiens do anything. The Habs simply did it, Toronto be damned.
Leading the way was Ilya Kovalchuk — always dangerous, always a threat to score. When he’s on the ice, the eye follows No. 17 the way a moth trails a flame. Kovalchuk carved out three or four chances in the third period. With a bit of luck or a little less Jack Campbell in the Toronto net, the game might have ended in regulation.
It was left to local hero Marco Scandella to tie it at 1-1 with time winding down. Then it was overtime and there was the brilliant and shifty Nick Suzuki bearing down on the Leafs goal, with Toronto star Auston Matthews labouring in his wake. Campbell made the save on Suzuki, but with Matthews paying no attention Kovalchuk sailed past him and pounced on the rebound.
Goal! And another of those Kovalchuk celebrations that have become a stamp of his brief tenure in Montreal. Think about it: the man hasn’t even had time to unpack and he already has two overtime winners and a shootout winner for the Canadiens. For a banged-up, ailing team, the big Russian has been the perfect cure-all.
If you want to know what effect Kovalchuk has had on the hockey-mad fans in this city, check the three-star selection. When Carey Price was announced as the game’s first star and Kovalchuk was ignored altogether, Price was greeted with some groans from the cheap seats.
For this one night, Price, a guy who has won the Molson Cup for 4,617 successive months and is worshipped this side of idolatry by the Montreal mob, was no longer the favourite. The fans wanted Kovalchuk to win that first star and they wanted him bad.
Mind you, Price put in a solid body of work on the evening, as did Campbell at the other end. As always when you’re winning, there were plenty of others: Jeff Petry stepping boldly into the Weber role as he always seems to do, Max Domi finding some fire, Nate Thompson killing penalties, Tomas Tatar making it all but impossible to offer him on the trade market.
When it was over, the Canadiens had their third win over the mighty Leafs in as many meetings this season, and the excuses were flowing out of Hogtown almost before Kovalchuk’s shot was in the net: back-to-back games, backup goaltenders, blah-blah-blah.
This is something Toronto has to learn, from the upper brass to the broadcast crews, the fan base, the players and Young Sheldon himself: teams are not going to simply step back and let you win because you signed a bunch of high-priced offensive talent. You’re going to have to fight and scratch and claw for every point — and efforts like Matthews’s half-hearted overtime backcheck are not going to get it done.
The Leafs are a very talented, but flawed team. The Canadiens are a somewhat talented, but flawed team. They’re more talented with Kovalchuk on the roster and Jonathan Drouin back on the ice, but they have some of the same holes, like backup goaltender.
Where the Canadiens have the edge is in sheer grit. If you must give an inch, as the great Red Fisher used to say, make sure it’s only an inch. This team has fought through a wave of injuries to key forwards followed by a flu epidemic. They’ve been counted out a dozen times already and yet here they are, still on the outside looking in but firmly in the rear-view mirror of teams like the Leafs and the Panthers.
The Canadiens may not get there. The odds are still against them. But with big No. 17 leading the way, they’ve been able to light up February in Montreal, which is no mean feat. By now, we can assume Marc Bergevin has got the message that Kovalchuk himself appeared to hurl to the rafters after that overtime goal:
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TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced cookie brand Oreo as the team’s helmet sponsor for the upcoming NHL season.
The new helmet will debut Sunday when Toronto opens its 2024-25 pre-season against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena.
The Oreo logo replaces Canadian restaurant chain Pizza Pizza, which was the Leafs’ helmet sponsor last season.
Previously, social media platform TikTok sponsored Toronto starting in the 2021-22 regular season when the league began allowing teams to sell advertising space on helmets.
The Oreo cookie consists of two chocolate biscuits around a white icing filling and is often dipped in milk.
Fittingly, the Leafs wear the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s “Milk” logo on their jerseys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
MacKenzie Weegar wasn’t bitter or upset as he watched friends live out their dreams.
The Calgary Flames defenceman just hopes to experience the same feeling one day. He also knows the road leading to that moment, if it does arrive, will likely be long and winding — much like his own path.
A seventh-round pick by the Florida Panthers at the 2013 NHL draft, Weegar climbed the ranks to become an important piece of a roster that captured the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s top regular-season club in 2021-22.
Two months later following a second-round playoff exit, he was traded to the Flames along with Jonathan Huberdeau for Matthew Tkachuk. And less than two years after that, the Panthers were hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“Happy for the city and for the team,” Weegar said of Florida’s June victory over the Edmonton Oilers. “There was no bad taste in my mouth.”
His sole focus, he insists, is squarely on eventually getting the Flames to the same spot. The landscape, however, has changed drastically since Weegar committed to Calgary on an eight-year, US$50-million contract extension in October 2022.
Weegar has watched a list that includes goaltender Jacob Markstrom, defencemen Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin and Nikita Zadorov and forwards Elias Lindholm and Andrew Mangiapane shipped out of town since the start of last season — largely for picks, prospects and young players as part of a rebuild.
Despite that exodus, he remains committed to the Calgary project steered by general manager Craig Conroy.
“It’s easy to get out of all whack when you see guys trying to leave or wanting new contracts,” the 30-year-old from Ottawa said at last week’s NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas. “I just focus on where I am and where I want to be, and that’s Calgary.
“I believe in this team. The city has taken me in right away. I feel like I owe it to them to stick around and grind through these years and get a Stanley Cup.”
The hard-nosed blueliner certainly knows what it is to grind.
After winning the Memorial Cup alongside Nathan MacKinnon with the Halifax Mooseheads in 2013, Weegar toiled in the ECHL and American Hockey League for three seasons before making his NHL debut late in the 2016-17 campaign with the Panthers.
He would spend the next five years in South Florida as one of the players tasked with shifting an organizational culture that had experienced little success over the previous two decades.
“There’s always going to be a piece of my heart and loyalty to that team,” Weegar said. “But now I’m in a different situation … I compete against all 32 teams, not just Florida. There’s always a chip on my shoulder every single year.”
Weegar set career highs with 20 goals — eight was the most he had ever previously registered — and 52 points in 2023-24 as part of a breakout offensive performance.
“I think my buddies cared a lot more than I did,” he said with a smile. “All I hear is, ‘fantasy, fantasy, fantasy.'”
Weegar was actually more proud of his 200 blocked shots and 194 hits as he looks to help set a new Flames’ standard alongside Huberdeau, captain Mikael Backlund, Nazem Kadri, Blake Coleman and Rasmus Andersson for a franchise expected to have its new arena in time for the 2027-28 season.
“You have to build that culture and that belief in the locker room,” said Weegar, who pointed to 22-year-old centre Connor Zary as a player set to pop. “Those young guys are going to have to come into their own and be consistent every night … they’re the next generation.”
Weegar, however, isn’t punting on 2024-25. He pointed to the NHL’s parity and the fact a couple of teams surprise every season.
It’s the same approach that took him from the ECHL a decade ago to hockey’s premier pre-season event inside a swanky hotel on Sin City’s famed strip, where he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the game’s best.
“From the outside — media and even friends and family — the expectations are probably a bit lower,” Weegar said of Calgary’s outlook. “But there’s no reason to think that we can’t make playoffs and we can’t be a good team (with) that underdog mentality.
“You never know.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept 17, 2024.
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The Northern Super League has fleshed out its front office with four appointments.
Jose Maria Celestino da Costa was named vice-president and head of soccer operations while Marianne Brooks was appointed vice-president of partnerships, Kelly Shouldice as vice-president of brand and content and Joyce Sou as vice-president of finance and business operations.
The new six-team women’s pro league is set to kick off in April.
“Their unique expertise and leadership are crucial as we lay the foundation for not just a successful league in Canada, but one that stands among the top sports leagues in the world,” NSL president Christina Litz said in a statement. “By investing in top-tier talent and infrastructure, the Northern Super League is committed to creating a league that will elevate the game and set new standards for women’s professional soccer globally.”
Da Costa will oversee all on-field matters, including officiating. His resume includes stints with Estoril Praia, a men’s first-division team in Portugal, and the Portuguese Soccer Federation, where he helped develop the Portuguese women’s league.
Brooks spent a decade with Canucks Sports & Entertainment, working in “partnership sales and retention efforts” for the Vancouver Canucks, Vancouver Warriors, and Rogers Arena. Most recently, she served as senior director of account management at StellarAlgo, a software company that helps pro sports teams connect with their fans
Shouldice has worked for Corus Entertainment, the Canadian Football League, and most recently as vice-president of Content and Communications at True North Sports & Entertainment, where she managed original content as well as business and hockey communications.
Sou, who was involved in the league’s initial launch, will oversee financial planning, analysis and the league’s expansion strategy in her new role.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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