EDMONTON — At his first World Junior Championship, when Anton Khudobin was an 18-year-old Kazhak-born teenager entrusted with the Russian goal in Fargo North Dakota, he became the answer to a trivia question.
Under the Jeopardy category, ‘Russian goalies chased from their nets by Team Canada,’ Khudobin was the goalie in that lockout world juniors gold-medal game when he and Alex Ovechkin faced a Canadian roster that harboured names like Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron, Shea Weber, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, and about 10 more players who would go on to successful NHL careers.
“It was a really fast game, and they were shooting from everywhere — which I wasn’t used to. I never played over here, and they were shooting bad-angle shots even. From everywhere,” Khudobin recalled in an earlier interview. “They were all over us. It was like a nightmare. Like I was sleeping. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
“After that, I went to the bench. They pull me.”
Some 16 years later, Khudobin has firmly established himself as perhaps the best backup goalie in the National Hockey League and, just as possibly, the most well-liked by teammates. A road that has wound through five organizations — he played for the Boston Bruins twice — has certified Khudobin as the Dallas Stars No. 1 goaltender, with Ben Bishop falling to injury.
It turns out the little backup with the thick Russian accent and wicked sense of humour also has game, carrying the Stars past Calgary, Colorado, and on Monday night’s opening game of Round 3, a 1-0 shutout of the Vegas Golden Knights.
“Dobby won the game for us,” said defenceman John Klingberg, who zipped home the only goal just 2:36 into the game. From there, the old Stars showed up to nurse home a 1-0 victory, buckling down a Game 1 win while looking nothing like the team that had just finished a 57-goal, seven-game series against Colorado.
“This is going to be a different series,” said Vegas head coach Pete DeBoer. “We haven’t played one of the top two defensive teams in the league yet, so we’re going to have to get our head around that and find a way to create offence. It’s not going to look or feel like the last series or the Chicago series.”
Dallas was the NHL’s second-stingiest defensive team this season, and it is moments like these when a player like Khudobin — who stays out after practice, keeps the guys loose on all those busses and planes over the course of a season, who never makes a peep when the No. 1 guy sends him to the bench week after week — can use some of that currency.
“I like to have fun with the guys, to just enjoy the practices and the games,” he explained. “Even if I am not playing I try to protect my guys, try to help them whenever I can. I can bring them water, or orange juice, during the intermissions. That’s normal for me. I just try to be helpful.
“If I’m not playing, of course I’m thinking about it. But at the same time I don’t want to be cancer in the room.”
On Sunday night, Dallas limited Vegas to just a dozen shots on goal in the opening 40 minutes. From there, Khudobin kept the door locked through the final 20:00, as a Vegas team with the luxury of playing a so-called backup named Marc-Andre Fleury got shut out by Khudobin, whose backup is a kid named Jake Oettinger who has never played an NHL minute.
“It’s great, you know, when guys are battling in front of you,” said an appreciative Khudobin of a concerted Stars defensive effort. “When they’re blocking the shots, when they have bruises, laying down (to block shots). When they keep hitting our guys and they keep playing and playing and never stop… It’s unbelievable.”
“When you have a guy who is going to work every game, every practice,” offered defenceman Jamie Oleksiak, “who is always out there looking like he’s having the time of his life? The D corps, we thrive off of that. We feed off of his energy.”
Vegas sleepwalked through the first two periods of Game 1. But they also found a foe that is vastly different than the Vancouver team that took them the distance in Round 2.
“This team is a lot bigger, a lot heavier,” compared defenceman Nate Schmidt. “Up and down their forward lineup they have guys who can get in and create space for other guys on the team.”
And if you get past them, you have a 34-year-old survivor that his teammates will do anything for.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
