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Leon Draisaitl has chance to prove he can carry Oilers without McDavid – Sportsnet.ca

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TAMPA, Fla — It’s a tough night for aftermarket ticket sales here in Tampa, as the Connor McDavid-less Edmonton Oilers meet a Tampa Bay Lightning team that’s minus several of its top players.

“Stamkos is out. Cirelli is out. Kucherov is out. McDonagh is out. Rutta is out,” is how Lightning head coach Jon Cooper opened his morning press conference.

That’s Steven Stamkos, Anthony Cirelli, Nikita Kucherov, plus defencemen Ryan McDonagh and Jan Rutta, all announced as lower body injuries. McDavid is out with a quadriceps injury in his left leg, so that means Edmonton’s second leading scorer, and Tampa’s top two scorers, are all absent from tonight’s contest, which opens a three-game road trip for Edmonton.

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“You’ve heard me say this before,” began Cooper. “The 22 guys who make your team out of camp aren’t the guys you’re going to play with the whole year. You need depth in your organization.

“It’s playing to a system and ultimately, playing hard. We can’t change,” he said. “You can’t expect someone who scores five or six goals in this league to score 50. But one of our staples is … it’s really not how many you put in the net. It’s how many you keep out.”

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What it also provides is a chance to see who rises to the challenge. A night where a young guy might get a little more of a chance to stake his claim on a roster, with the playoffs around the corner.

“It might be an opportunity to get a little power play time, or a couple of offensive zone starts,” said Oilers rookie defenceman Caleb Jones. “Look at Yamo (Oilers winger Kailer Yamamoto). He’s on the power play last game and he gets one. There’s a guy right there who gets an opportunity to jump up on that unit, and he takes advantage of it.

“We’re going to need that mentality of guys stepping into bigger roles and doing the job. It was Yamo last game, and we’ll see if it’s someone else tonight.”

With McDavid out against Chicago on Tuesday, Leon Draisaitl piled up four points in a 5-3 win. In theory, McDavid’s absence should change the matchup, meaning Draisaitl will see Tampa’s No. 1 defenceman, Victor Hedman, on every shift, rather than Cooper having to make a matchup choice between McDavid’s or Draisaitl’s line.

Did Draisaitl notice a difference versus Chicago on McDavid’s first game on I.R.?

“I’m not a coach. I don’t pay too much attention to the matching and that kind of stuff,” he shrugged. “I think that if you play the right way — you play hard and you play good — then you can be on the ice against anyone.”

This two- to three-week absence of McDavid comes at a crucial point in the season. It’s a chance for Draisaitl to show the hockey world — or those in the hockey world who may not be aware —- that he can carry a team offensively, with or without McDavid.

“You’ve seen the way that happens in Pittsburgh. When one (of Evgeni Malkin or Sidney Crosby) is out, the other one gets more attention,” said Oilers head coach Dave Tippett. “It’s a big challenge for Leon. He’s really engaged right now, and he wants this challenge. He wants to make sure we keep moving along, and we keep getting our points.”

There is some temptation for Tippett to move Ryan Nugent-Hopkins off of Draisaitl’s left wing to centre another line with McDavid out. It’s a temptation the coach is resisting, for now.

“Leon’s line has just been so good, it’s hard to break them up,” he said.

Yamamoto, the right-winger on that line, marvels at Draisaitl’s patience with the puck.

“He’s probably one of the best in the NHL at holding on to the puck. His passing is ridiculous — some of the plays he makes I don’t even see myself, until he makes them,” said Yamamoto, who has a special bond with Tampa centreman Tyler Johnson, a fellow Spokane, Washington native.

“His Mom, I grew up with her teaching me how to skate, and I grew up playing hockey with him. Still skate with him in the summers now,” said the five-foot-eight, 153-pound Yamamoto. It’s a coincidence that Johnson, who is eight years older, would also be an under-sized forward who has had to battle through the stereotypes to make his way in the NHL.

“He’s a Spokane kid who went to high school with my sister,” Yamamoto said. “Him going to the (WHL Spokane) Chiefs kind of just paved the way for me, and I followed his footsteps.”

Mike Smith starts in goal for Edmonton, against Andrei Vasilevskiy for the Bolts.

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Vasilevskiy stops 23 as surging Lightning beat Bruins – Sportsnet.ca

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Here’s what we know about the allegations against Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara

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LOS ANGELES –

Only a week has passed since the Los Angeles Dodgers abruptly fired Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter and constant companion of their new $700 million slugger, Shohei Ohtani.

But the biggest story of baseball’s spring is still murky — and shocking — as the regular season begins in earnest Thursday.

The scandal encompasses gambling, alleged theft, extensive deceit and the breakup of an enduring partnership between the majors’ biggest star and his right-hand man. Investigations are underway by the IRS and Major League Baseball, and Ohtani publicly laid out a version of events Monday that placed the responsibility entirely on Mizuhara.

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Here are the basics as Ohtani and the Dodgers prepare for their home opener against St. Louis on Thursday:

Why was Ippei Mizuhara fired by the Dodgers?

Ohtani claims his close friend repeatedly took money from his accounts to fund his illegal sports gambling habit. Ohtani also says he was completely unaware of the “massive theft,” as his lawyers termed it, until Mizuhara confessed to him and the Dodgers last week in South Korea, where the team opened its regular season against the San Diego Padres.

Mizuhara has given more than one version of his path to this trouble, which was catalyzed by the IRS’ investigation of Mathew Bowyer, an alleged illegal bookmaker. Mizuhara has consistently said he has a gambling addiction, and he abused his close friendship with the Dodgers superstar to feed it.

Did Shohei Ohtani ever bet on sports?

That’s the biggest question to be answered in Major League Baseball’s investigation, and the two-time AL MVP emphatically says he has never gambled on sports or asked anybody to bet on sports for him.

Further, Ohtani said Monday he has never knowingly paid a bookie to cover somebody else’s bets. Mizuhara also said Ohtani does not bet, and Bowyer’s attorney said the same.

Mizuhara told ESPN on March 19 that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter’s request, saying the bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. If that were true, Ohtani could face trouble even if he didn’t make the bets himself — but ESPN said Mizuhara dramatically changed his story the following day, claiming Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers.

MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering — even legally — on baseball. They also ban betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.

What’s next for Ohtani?

Ohtani has played in every Dodgers game since the story broke, and he is expected to be their designated hitter in most regular-season games this season while baseball’s investigation continues.

Ohtani says his legal team has alerted authorities to the theft by Mizuhara, although his team has repeatedly declined to say which authorities have been told, according to ESPN.

Ohtani’s new interpreter is Will Ireton, a longtime Dodgers employee and fluent Japanese speaker who has filled several jobs with the team in everything from game preparation and analytics to recruiting free-agent pitches. But Ireton won’t be Ohtani’s constant companion, and manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday he’s optimistic that Ohtani will become closer to his teammates without the “buffer” provided for years by Mizuhara.

What don’t we know?

MLB’s investigation of Ohtani’s role in the events could last weeks or months, and it’s unlikely to be publicized until it’s complete. No one outside of Ohtani’s inner circle knows what it will find or how serious any repercussions could be, and nobody outside the circle is making informed speculation about the process.

One major question looms: How did Mizuhara have enough access to Ohtani’s bank accounts to get the alleged millions without Ohtani knowing? Is the slugger overly trusting, or is he wildly negligent in managing his vast fortune, which includes years of lavish endorsement deals in addition to his baseball salaries? Why didn’t the team around him, including his agent, do more to prevent the possibility of the theft he claims?

Finally, where is Mizuhara? Anybody who knows isn’t saying. He was fired in South Korea and apparently didn’t travel home with the Dodgers. Japanese media have visited his home in Southern California to look for him. Although he was born in Japan, Mizuhara’s life is in the U.S. — but his life will never be the same.

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