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The Edmonton Oilers knew what the storyline would be. They knew the way they’d be branded going forward if they didn’t win Game 6:
Three straight seasons in the playoffs. Three consecutive years eliminated in the First Round.
The Edmonton Oilers knew what the storyline would be. They knew the way they’d be branded going forward if they didn’t win Game 6:
Three straight seasons in the playoffs. Three consecutive years eliminated in the First Round.Celebrate their Game 6 win all you want. That’ll still be the storyline. It will still be how they’ll be branded if they don’t win Game 7.
That’s the reality.What happened Thursday in L.A. was wonderful. But there is no trophy for winning Game 6. All the win amounts to is getting a 48-hour stay of execution.
The gallows will now be relocated 3,317 kilometres north. The electric chair will be plugged in at Rogers Place in Edmonton instead of the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
Yes, the Oilers have given owner Daryl Katz another $3 million gate. Yes, they’ve given Edmonton’s fans the fourth occasion this season to create the most exceptional environment existing anywhere in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
But just because the Oilers dug down deep and found the will to win Game 6 doesn’t mean that they’ll be able to use the scene their fans create for all it’s worth to actually win a series. They haven’t really used it yet.
This is a team that scored the first goal of the game to win three series games and didn’t show up for the first period of the other three.
This is a team that won Game 2 by a score of 6-0 and won Game 3 by a count of 8-2 and came out as if they figured the series had been won and allowed a team with 11 players that had never performed in a Stanley Cup playoff series before to outshoot them by a combined count of 36-15 in the first period of the next two games.
How can the Oilers claim home ice advantage? They’ve lost two of three in Rogers Place. And for the record, you should know that Los Angeles is 7-4 in Game 7 and have won four straight while the Oilers are 6-4 and haven’t won a Game 7 since 1990.
Yes, the win was a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card for Darnell Nurse who allowed himself to take a head butt penalty in Game 5 and get suspended for Game 6.
Yes, it allowed coach Jay Woodcroft to get a do-over for his decision to pair a never-played together before combination of Brett Kulak and Duncan Keith for the ill-fated first shift of the overtime loss in Game 5.
Yes, it gave future Hall of Famer Keith an additional chance to prove, after he’d played so poorly, that he could give the Oilers what general manager Ken Holland believed he could bring to this group in the playoffs like he did in playing so well in Game 6.
And, yes, it extended the opportunity to prove to a couple of other players that their careers could continue here next year that probably wouldn’t have been the case if the Oilers hadn’t given themselves the opportunity to play in Game 7 and win the series.
Got all that?
OK then.
Now think about what it might mean if the Oilers returned home and duplicated that performance and won Game 7.
Now imagine what it would mean for Edmonton as a city that played host to 81 Stanley Cup playoff games in the Hub City bubble and won only one game and then was eliminated in a four-game sweep in empty arenas in Edmonton and Winnipeg.
Nobody said ‘Gee, I hope the Oilers gas the next two games so we can play a Game 7’ after the Oilers won 6-0 and 8-2.
The Oilers should have been home resting up the Dynamic Duo. Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid should have watched this spectacular bounce-back year of first round Stanley Cup playoff games instead of getting battered and bruised attempting superhuman feats. Instead, they’re involved in a trio of Game 7s Saturday on Hockey Night In Canada.
It doesn’t take away from what this could mean for the fans of Edmonton who suffered through the Decade of Darkness with 11 years out of the playoffs should the Oilers repeat the feat.
Imagine what it might mean in terms of the future and keeping this team together if they do?
Connor McDavid scored a wrap-around goal on his first shift and drove the bus. He now has an NHL-leading 12 playoff points in six games. He’s been awesome all over the ice.
And Leon Draisaitl has five goals and eight points and has been an absolute warrior while now clearly playing hurt.
What if Evander Kane can have another game Saturday like the two-goal game he had in Game 6? It resulted in a special scene of the controversial serial offender the Oilers gambled on at mid-season. Kane held up seven fingers after he scored the empty-netter to put it away and had to explain it represented Game 7. You could tell he hadn’t even thought of seven goals. He’s been building a relationship he’s never had before.
All of that could be super-significant if the Oilers can do it again.
But if they don’t win, sorry. It won’t mean much.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tom Wilson, Dylan Strome and Taylor Raddysh scored to help the Washington Capitals end the Dallas Stars’ season-opening winning streak at four with a 3-2 victory Thursday night.
Wilson’s goal was his third in three games, Strome his second of the season and Raddysh his first since joining the team in free agency last summer. Charlie Lindgren made 22 saves as the Capitals wrapped up this early homestand with back-to-back wins.
The Stars fell from the ranks of the league’s unbeaten teams despite a short-handed goal by Colin Blackwell and one at even strength from Jason Robertson. Rookie Oskar Bäck set up Blackwell for his first NHL point.
Casey DeSmith was screened on two of the three goals he allowed on 26 shots.
LIGHTNING 4, GOLDEN KNIGHTS 3
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nikita Kucherov scored the winning goal with less than a minute to play just 1:27 after Brandon Hagel had tied it and Tampa Bay rallied to beat Vegas.
Kucherov’s second goal of the game with 55 seconds left was his sixth of the season.
Janis Moser had a goal and two assists for the Lightning, who remain unbeaten. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves.
Brayden McNabb, Pavel Dorofeyev and Ivan Barbashev had goals for Vegas. Adin Hill turned aside 21 shots.
Jack Eichel, with two assists on Thursday, now has 10 points this season in five games and reached reached double-digit points faster than any other player in Vegas history. He is the 10th U.S.-born player to accomplish the feat.
After Barbashev put Vegas up 3-2 early in the second, Hagel pulled Tampa Bay even at 3 with 2:22 remaining in the third.
BLUE JACKETS 6, SABRES 4
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Kirill Marchenko and Mathieu Olivier each had a goal and an assist and Daniil Tarasov made 21 saves to help Columbus to a win over Buffalo.
Yegor Chinakhov, Adam Fantilli, Zachary Aston-Reese and Damon Severson also scored for Columbus, and Zach Werenski added two assists.
Ryan McLeod, Owen Power and JJ Peterka scored for Buffalo, and Jiri Kulich added his first NHL goal. Devon Lev stopped 19 shots for the Sabres (1-5-1), who have lost two straight road games and five of their first six overall.
CANUCKS 3, FLORIDA 2, OT
SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — J.T. Miller scored 2:09 into overtime and Vancouver got their first win of the season, beating Florida.
Teddy Blueger and Quinn Hughes had goals for Vancouver, with Kevin Lankinen stopping 26 shots.
Anton Lundell got his fourth goal in the last three games for Florida and Jesper Boqvist also scored for the Panthers, who got 30 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky.
Florida remained without forwards Aleksander Barkov (lower body) and Matthew Tkachuk (illness).
DEVILS 3, SENATORS 1
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Jacob Markstrom stopped 30 shots and lost his shutout bid in the final minutes as New Jersey beat Ottawa.
Erik Haula, Nathan Bastian and Paul Cotter scored for the Devils, who won for the third time in four games and improved to 5-2-0.
The Senators, who were coming off an 8-7 overtime victory against Los Angeles on Monday, struggled to beat Markstrom.
Brady Tkachuk was the only scorer for the Senators, beating Markstrom, with a power-play goal with 65 seconds remaining in the third period.
Anton Forsberg, making his second straight start and hoping to rebound after getting pulled Monday, made 32 saves in the loss.
Haula opened the scoring early in the second period and Bastian added a short-handed goal, giving New Jersey a 2-0 lead after 40 minutes. Cotter scored midway through the third.
RANGERS 5, RED WING 2
DETROIT (AP) — Artemi Panarin had his eighth career hat trick and New York rolled to a victory over Detroit.
Panarin became the first Rangers player to have multiple points in the first four games of a season. He scored twice on the power play. Vincent Trocheck also had a power- play goal and assisted on all of Panarin’s goals.
Jonathan Quick made 29 saves in his season debut. Victor Mancini also scored.
The Rangers have won the last five meetings, including twice this week. New York had a 4-1 home victory over Detroit on Monday night.
Moritz Seider and J.T. Compher scored for Detroit. Red Wings goalie Cam Talbot was pulled in the second period after allowing five goals.
KINGS 4, CANADIENS 1
MONTREAL (AP) — David Rittich made 26 saves a night after being benched in the second period in Toronto, helping road-weary Los Angeles snap a three-game losing streak with a victory over Montreal.
Los Angeles improved to 2-1-2 on a season-opening, seven-game trip necessitated by arena renovations.
Rittich rebounded after allowing four goals on 14 shots in a 6-2 loss to the Maple Leafs. Alex Laferriere, Mikey Anderson, Andreas Englund and Adrian Kempe scored.
Justin Barron scored for Montreal (2-3-0). Sam Montembeault stopped 28 shots. He made a save on Kevin Fiala on a penalty shot.
BLUES 1, ISLANDERS 0, OT
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Joel Hofer made 34 saves and assisted on Jake Neighbours’ goal at 2:04 of overtime in St. Louis victory over New York.
Hofer had his second career shutout in his and the team’s second overtime victory of the season.
Philip Broberg carried the puck into the New York zone and made a centering pass to Neighbours for the winner.
Islanders goalie Ilya Sorkin made 29 saves.
Blues defenseman Nick Leddy sat out because of a lower-body injury, the first game he has missed this season. Leddy played in all 82 games last season.
OILERS 4, PREDATORS 2
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Brett Kulak scored twice and Connor McDavid added his first goal of the season to lead Edmonton to a victory over reeling Nashville.
Jeff Skinner also scored and Calvin Pickard made 25 saves for the defending Western Conference champion Oilers, who have won consecutive games after beginning the season with a three-game skid.
Filip Forsberg and Jonathan Marchessault scored and Juuse Saros made 32 saves for Nashville (0-4).
Forsberg’s goal midway through the first period gave Nashville its first lead of the season. That lasted less than six minutes before Kulak tied it.
Kulak sealed it with an empty-netter in the final minute for the defenseman’s first career two-goal game.
BLACKHAWKS 4, SHARKS 2
CHICAGO (AP) — Tyler Bertuzzi and Nick Foligno each scored a power-play goal, and Chicago beat San Jose.
Taylor Hall and Jason Dickinson also scored for Chicago. Connor Bedard and Teuvo Teravainen each had two assists.
Hall, who missed most of last season because of right knee surgery, put the Blackhawks in front 4:20 into the first period. It was Hall’s first goal since Nov. 5 and No. 267 for his career.
Tyler Toffoli and Fabian Zetterlund scored for San Jose, which trailed 3-0 early in the second. William Eklund and Mikael Granlund had two assists each.
The Sharks dropped to 0-2-2 under Ryan Warsofsky, who was promoted to head coach in June.
Petr Mrazek had 20 saves for Chicago, and Vitek Vanecek made 23 stops for San Jose.
KRAKEN 6, FLYERS 4
SEATTLE (AP) — Eeli Tolvanen, Jordan Eberle, and Shane Wright scored three goals in less than three minutes in the second period and Seattle held off a Philadelphia rally in a victory.
Tolvanen’s goal broke a 2-2 tie at the 14:57 mark. Eberle made it a two-goal game with a goal at 17:44. Eight seconds later, Wright scored to give Seattle a three-goal lead.
Jared McCann tied the game at 2-2 with the first of Seattle’s four second-period goals.
Cam York and Jamie Drysdale scored to pull Philadelphia within 5-4 in the third period, but Oliver Bjorkstrand responded with a goal to push Seattle’s lead to two with just over five minutes left in the game.
Scott Laughton scored twice for the Flyers in the first period, while Brandon Montour scored one in for the Kraken.
Chandler Stephenson had an assist in his 500th NHL game. Seattle’s Philipp Grubauer had 21 saves.
OSAKA, Japan – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe are out of the Japan Women’s Open tennis tournament.
Spain’s Cristina Bucsa and Romania’s Monica Niculescu advanced to the final on Thursday by way of walkover.
The fourth seeds were supposed to play the top-seeded Dabrowski and Routliffe in the semifinals.
Bucsa and Niculescu will next face third-seeded Ena Shibahara of Japan and Laura Siegemund of Germany in the final.
Dabrowski and Routliffe defeated Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Eri Hozumi in the quarterfinals 6-2, 6-4 on Wednesday to advance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Mountain West Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said Thursday the forfeitures that volleyball teams are willing to take to avoid playing San Jose State is “not what we celebrate in college athletics” and that she is heartbroken over what has transpired this season surrounding the Spartans and their opponents.
Four teams have canceled games against San Jose State: Boise State, Southern Utah, Utah State and Wyoming, with none of the schools explicitly saying why they were forfeiting.
A group of Nevada players issued a statement saying they will not take the floor when the Wolf Pack are scheduled to host the Spartans on Oct. 26. They cited their “right to safety and fair competition,” though their school reaffirmed Thursday that the match is still planned and that state law bars forfeiture “for reasons related to gender identity or expression.”
All those schools, except Southern Utah, are in the Mountain West. New Mexico, also in the MWC, went ahead with its home match on Thursday night, which was won by the Spartans, 3-1, the team’s first victory since Sept. 24.
“It breaks my heart because they’re human beings, young people, student-athletes on both sides of this issue that are getting a lot of national negative attention,” Nevarez said in an interview with The Associated Press at Mountain West basketball media days. “It just doesn’t feel right to me.”
Republican governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming have made public statements in support of the cancellations, citing a need for fairness in women’s sports. Former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee in this year’s presidential race, this week referenced an unidentified volleyball match when he was asked during a Fox News town hall about transgender athletes in women’s sports.
“I saw the slam, it was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head,” Trump replied before he was asked what can be done. “You just ban it. The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”
After Trump’s comment, San Diego State issued a statement that said “it has been incorrectly reported that an San Diego State University student-athlete was hit in the face with a volleyball during match play with San Jose State University. The ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.”
San Jose State has not made any direct comments about the politicians’ “fairness” references, and Nevarez did not go into details.
“I’m learning a lot about the issue,” Nevarez said. “I don’t know a lot of the language yet or the science or the understanding nationally of how this issue plays out. The external influences are so far on either side. We have an election year. It’s political, so, yeah, it feels like a no-win based on all the external pressure.”
The cancellations could mean some teams will not qualify for the conference tournament Nov. 27-30 in Las Vegas, where the top six schools are slated to compete for the league championship.
“The student-athlete (in question) meets the eligibility standard, so if a team does not play them, it’s a forfeit, meaning they take a loss,” Nevarez said.
Ahead of the Oct. 26 match in Reno. Nevada released a statement acknowledging that “a majority of the Wolf Pack women’s volleyball team” had decided to forfeit against San Jose State. The school said only the university can take that step but any player who decides not to play would face no punishment.
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AP college sports:
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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