“It’s a huge opportunity for me,” the 21-year-old said. “Our games could fit really well. He’s a guy I’m looking at and trying to take a lot of stuff from. In that way, we can read off each other very well. We’re probably going to know what the other guy will do with the puck and where he’s going to go when he doesn’t have it. It can be a really good pair.”
Intriguing? Sure.
Good? Not tonight.
With lefthanded top-four fixture Jake Muzzin (concussion) sidelined indefinitely and a run of six straight games against non-playoff teams kicking off Toronto’s March schedule, coach Sheldon Keefe has the leeway and the inclination to experiment with his D pairings ahead of the trade deadline.
Might as well see what you got, so you can determine what you need.
The lefty-lefty thing didn’t exactly wow us when Keefe tried Sandin with Muzzin last month. And the last time Keefe tried matching Rielly with another offensive-minded blueliner — Tyson Barrie in 2020 — that duo stumbled to the point of breakup.
Typically, “Green Light” Rielly’s most brilliant performances have come to the left of security blankets like Ron Hainsey and T.J. Brodie.
Linking him with emerging talent and power-play understudy Sandin would give a fresh wrinkle to the back end and a new challenge for the confident youngster.
“Now you’ve got them both and you can pair them with, say, the [Auston] Matthews line in offensive faceoffs and things like that,” Keefe had said Tuesday. “So, we’re curious to see how that plays out.”
Curiosity can be risky. Ask the cat.
The Rielly-Sandin combo played to some wholly concerning results in Wednesday’s ugly 5-1 loss to an offensively challenged Buffalo Sabres roster that pushed Toronto to the perimeter and feasted on its sloppiness.
“Terrible from start to finish,” Keefe summed up, tersely.
“Goaltender, defence, all four lines didn’t have it.”
Responding quickly to Jacob Bryson’s opening power-play marker, Sandin popped open in the O-zone to convert a crisp passing sequence by Mitch Marner and Michael Bunting to tie the contest 1-1 in the first period.
A fine start that would unravel to the point where the Maple Leafs got booed off Scotiabank Arena ice by their first full home crowd in 81 days.
The Sabres regained their lead in the second when Victor Olofsson outmuscled Sandin for position net-front and whacked one in.
Later in the same frame, it was Sabres leading scorer Tage Thompson outdueling Sandin in the slot, then firing a puck past Petr Mrazek.
Jeff Skinner burned Sandin on a solo rush in the third period and snapped a puck past Mrazek that essentially tucked the night away.
“Buffalo, no disrespect or anything, but I think that’s a team we should beat,” said Sandin, mentioning bad bounces but owning his mistakes. “Simple plays that went very wrong. I need to get rid of the puck in a better way.
“We can’t just close our eyes and just move on to the next one. I think we need to look at it. We need to look what we’re doing wrong.”
Sandin and Rielly each finished dash-2.
Yikes.
“It’s a complete mess all around him. Three forwards on ice, his partner, goaltender, it’s not much happening there,” Keefe said. “So, let’s not just focus too much on Rasmus.”
Keefe’s experiment blew up like a baking-soda-and-vinegar volcano at a Grade 4 science fair.
Will the coach give the Rielly-Sandin pair another shot?
“Probably not.”
A thought: Perhaps the rugged Ilya Lyubushkin, a natural righty, should get a trial with Rielly to balance out the top four with some size and net-front nastiness.
We certainly won’t staple the entirety of Toronto’s loss to a lesser light on the configuration of the defence.
Buffalo did a fine job clogging middle ice, no Leafs forward scored, and the NHL’s top-rated power play extended its drought to a season-worst seven games. The boos and Bronx cheers felt justified.
“When you look at the effort, it’s disappointing,” Rielly said. “Good teams are able to look past the standings.”
The Maple Leafs have an acknowledged issue of delivering substandard effort against opponents miles out contention, and the Sabres arrived in town 34 points back of their hosts.
“We’ve maybe played down to their level at times,” admitted Justin Holl, between listless losses to Montreal and Buffalo.
“You’re going to have dips in your play, and you can talk about it, but sometimes you need a real slap in the face to kind of get it dialed in — and that’s how I felt about [the] Montreal game,” Keefe said Wednesday morning.
Whereas Keefe saw transitional breakdowns and odd-man rushes as his club’s undoing last week at Bell Centre, this loss had a different flavour.
“No real urgency. No competitiveness,” Keefe said.
“This is more a reflection of our competitiveness as a team, individually and collectively.”
Fox’s Fast 5
• For those jacked up about the possibility of the Maple Leafs calling Columbus and renting a certain legendary Leaf’s son by the trade deadline to complement their second line, consider this.
Max Domi: $5.3 million cap hit, nine goals, 16 assists, 25 points, minus-1
Alexander Kerfoot: $3.5 million cap hit, eight goals, 30 assists, 38 points, plus-13
(And, yes, the Blue Jackets were among 10 teams scouting this game in-person.)
• John Tavares’s goal drought has stretched to 14 games and is now the longest since his rookie campaign (2009-10).
• Holl, coming into this game having exploded for five points in his past two: “I’ve been making good plays, but it’s probably not sustainable.” A self-aware chuckle.
• Nick Robertson’s ice time shrunk to 5:28 during Monday’s win in Washington. He was up to 11:29 Wednesday but still lowest among all forwards. This begs questions.
If the goal is to develop the 20-year-old prospect, would he not be better served skating in all situations in the American League?
And if the goal is to showcase the shooter’s talents for a potential trade, is that being accomplished with limited fourth-line duties and no power-play time?
“I am happy with his attitude,” Keefe said. “I am happy with the game he played in Detroit. That is what made us want to keep him in the lineup again…. However the minutes shake out, for a young guy like him, it is just about soaking up the whole experience and getting a taste of the NHL again.”
• Count Sabres head coach Don Granato among those who believe Matthews deserves votes for the Selke Trophy this season.
“Even when he entered the league, he did have an appreciation for that side,” noted Granato, who coached the Leafs star with the U.S. National Team Development Program. “I had no problem using him at the U18 World Championship against [Patrik] Laine, [Sebastian] Aho, [Jesse] Puljujarvi and on and on, guys at the tournament who were prolific.
“He wants to win. And part of winning is just shutting a guy down, and he’s always had that. Winning a face-off has always been important to him. He should be talked about in that light.”
CALGARY – The Calgary Flames have re-signed defenceman Ilya Solovyov and centre Cole Schwindt, the NHL club announced Wednesday.
Solovyov signed a two-year deal which is a two-way contract in year one and a one-way deal in year two and carries an average annual value of US$775,000 at the NHL level.
Schwindt signed a one-year, two-way contract with an average annual value of $800,000 at the NHL level.
The 24-year-old Solovyov, from Mogilev, Belarus, made his NHL debut last season and had three assists in 10 games for the Flames. He also had five goals and 10 assists in 51 games with the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers and added one goal in six Calder Cup playoff games.
Schwindt, from Kitchener, Ont., made his Flames debut last season and appeared in four games with the club.
The 23-year-old also had 14 goals and 22 assists in 66 regular-season games with the Wranglers and added a team-leading four goals, including one game-winning goal, in the playoffs.
Schwindt was selected by Florida in the third round, 81st overall, at the 2019 NHL draft. He came to Calgary in July 2022 along with forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the trade that sent star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
KING CITY, Ont. – Oman scored 10 runs in the final over to edge Nepal by one wicket with just one ball remaining in ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 play Wednesday.
Kaleemullah, the No. 11 batsman who goes by one name, hit a four with the penultimate ball as Oman finished at 223 for nine. Nepal had scored 220 for nine in its 50 overs.
Kaleemullah and No. 9 batsman Shakeel Ahmed each scored five in the final over off Sompal Kami. They finished with six and 17 runs, respectively.
Opener Latinder Singh led Oman with 41 runs.
Nepal’s Gulsan Jha was named man of the match after scoring 53 runs and recording a career-best five-wicket haul. The 18-year-old slammed five sixes and three-fours in his 35-ball knock, scoring 23 runs in the 46th over alone when he hit six, six, four, two, four and one off Aqib Ilyas.
Captain Rohit Paudel led Nepal with 60 runs.
The 19th-ranked Canadians, who opened the triangular series Monday with a 103-run win over No. 17 Nepal, face No. 16 Oman on Friday, Nepal on Sunday and Oman again on Sept. 26. All the games are at the Maple Leaf Cricket Ground.
The eight World League 2 teams each play 36 one-day internationals spread across nine triangular series through December 2026. The top four sides will go through to a World Cup qualifier that will decide the last four berths in the expanded 14-team Cricket World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Canada (5-4) stands second in the World League 2 table. The 14th-ranked Dutch top the table at 6-2.
Oman (2-2 with one no-result) stands sixth, ahead of Nepal (1-5).
Canada won all four matches in its opening tri-series in February-March, sweeping No. 11 Scotland and the 20th-ranked host Emirates. But the Canadians lost four in a row to the 18th-ranked U.S. and host Netherlands in August.
Canada which debuted in the T20 World Cup this summer in the U.S. and West Indies, is looking to get back to the showcase 50-over Cricket World Cup for the first time since 2011 after failing to qualify for the last three editions. The Canadian men also played in the 1979, 2003 and 2007 tournaments, exiting after the group stage in all four tournament appearances.
The Canadian men regained their one-day international status for the first time in almost a decade by finishing in the top four of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier Playoff in April 2023 in Bermuda.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024
PENTICTON, B.C. – Rick Tocchet has already warned his Vancouver Canucks players — the looming NHL season won’t be easy.
The team made strides last year, the head coach said Wednesday ahead of training camp. The bar has been raised for this year’s campaign.
“To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it’s going to be hard. We know that,” Tocchet said in Penticton, B.C., where the team will open its camp on Thursday.
“So that’s the next level. It starts day one (on Thursday). My thing is don’t waste a rep out there.”
The Canucks finished atop the Pacific Division with a 50-23-9 record last season, then ousted the Nashville Predators from the playoffs in a gritty, six-game first-round series. Vancouver then fell to the Edmonton Oilers in a seven-game second-round set.
Last fall, Jim Rutherford, the Canucks president of hockey operations, said everything would have to go right for the team to make a playoff push. That doesn’t change this season, he said, despite last year’s success.
“The challenges will be greater, certainly. But I believe the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year and probably better,” he said.
“As long as the team builds off what they did last year, stick to what the coaches tell them, stick to the system, stick together in good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well.”
Some key players will be missing as Vancouver’s training camp begins, however.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin announced Wednesday that star goalie Thatcher Demko will not be on the ice when the team begins it’s pre-season preparation.
Allvin did not disclose the reason for Demko’s absence, but said the 28-year-old American has been making progress.
“He’s been in working extremely hard and he seems to be in a great mindset,” the GM said.
Demko missed several weeks of the regular season and much of Vancouver’s playoff run last spring with a knee injury.
The six-foot-four, 192-pound goalie has a career 213-116-81 regular-season record with a .912 save percentage, a 2.79 goals-against average and eight shutouts across seven seasons with the Canucks.
Allvin also announced that veteran centre Teddy Blueger and defensive prospect Cole McWard will also miss the start of training camp after each had “minor lower-body surgery.”
Vancouver previously announced winger Dakota Joshua won’t be present for the start of camp as he recovers from surgery for testicular cancer.
Tocchet said he’ll have no problem filling the holes, and plans to switch his lines up a lot in Penticton.
“Nothing’s set in stone,” he said. “I think it’s important that you have different puzzles at different times.”
The coach added that he expects standout centre Elias Pettersson to begin on a line with Canucks newcomer Jake DeBrusk.
Vancouver inked DeBrusk, a former Boston Bruins forward, to a seven-year, US$38.5 million deal when the NHL’s free agent market opened on July 1.
The glare on Pettersson is expected to be bright once again as he enters the first year of a new eight-year, $92.8 million contract. The 25-year-old Swede struggled at times last season and put 89 points (34 goals, 55 assists) in 82 games.
Rutherford said he was impressed with how Pettersson looked when he returned to Vancouver ahead of camp.
“He seems to be a guy that’s more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons,” said the president of hockey ops. “This is a guy that I believe has worked really hard this summer. He’s done everything he can to play as a top-line player. … The expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team.”
A number of Canucks hit milestones last season, including Quinn Hughes, who led all NHL defencemen in scoring with 92 points and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top blue liner.
Several players could once again have career-best years for Vancouver, Tocchet said, but they’ll need to be consistent and not allow frustration to creep in when things go wrong.
“You’ve just got to drive yourself every day when you have a great year,” the coach said. “You’ve got to keep creating that environment where they can achieve those goals, whatever they are. And the main goal is winning. That’s really what it comes down to.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
