Sports
MATHESON: Nine takeaways from last night’s 5-1 Oilers win against Vegas
The walked the walk and talked the talk on the ice after their indifferent Game 1 loss, wasting Leon Draisaitl’s four goals, and got the last word in post-game too, when Evander Kane, asked about using Keegan Kolesar’s gut as a speed-bag as the Vegas player was down, came out swinging with a hands-over-your-ears-kids’ sound bite.
Hmmm! Two games in and we’re talking pounds of flesh.
Kane might hear from the NHL about his actions with referee Kelly Sutherland getting his notepad out. Maybe not Marquis of Queensberry rules, exactly, with Kane angry that teammates had been put in headlocks from behind, he said.
Bottom line: these Oilers are different Oilers. Tougher.
“We like to do the punishing,” said Kane.
In Game 2, we got a whuppin’.
So, here we are then. It’s all-even, as it should be, when Vegas finishes regular-season with 111 points, the Oilers 109. Golden Knights racked up 51 wins, Edmonton 50.
1. It’s Draisaitl’s puck
We know Wayne Gretzky’s office was behind the net where he had the puck on a string and bedevilled checkers as he found Jari Kurri or Paul Coffey but now it’s Leon Draisaitl’s puck and it’s like his signature is on the black rubber, not the commish Gary Bettman.
Who knew we would be talking about Cyclone Taylor and Newsy Lalonde today in relation to Draisaitl’s head-shaking, head-scratching scoring? With two more goals, Leon’s got nine in first five Oiler road games this spring, which ties him with Cyclone (real name Fred) in 1918 with the Vancouver Millionaires. Cyclone’s claim to fame was his speed, also that he didn’t drink or smoke or swear. How can he be a hockey player?
2. Draisaitl’s the muscle car
More on Draisaitl. What he’s doing is beyond ridiculous. He got eight PP goals in eight games, which ties him with Mario Lemieux, Brian Propp, Tim Kerr and John Druce (how did he get in there?). Most ever in a single playoff season is nine by Mike Bossy (1981 with the Islanders) and Cam Neely (1991 with Bruins). Bossy did it in 18 games, Neely in 19. Like more than twice as many games as Draisaitl, who is the muscle car to Connor McDavid’s race-car if we’re talking big wheels.
3. Power play bazookas
Vegas led the NHL in league play only taking an average of 2.8 minors a game with a totally disciplined game, yet they gave the Oilers six PPs Saturday, some not very smart, and it’s nine total over two games. Considering Vegas has the second worst PK in the playoffs (only LA is worse) at 52.4 percent (10 goals on 21 tries), they absolutely have to stay out of the box with the Oilers scoring five times in nine tries. The Jets had a water-pistol PP in round 1 so they got by but the Oilers bring the bazookas.
After Draisaitl banged in a rebound on an early PP, Zach Whitecloud took an unnecessary high-stick to Derek Ryan’s face, and, bang, bang, there’s an Evan Bouchard clapper through traffic, 2-zip.
Vegas wanted to cut out the cross-seam pass for the Draisaitl’s one-timer from his office in the right circle, and they did, but the Oilers changed things up by going to Bouchard for shots. First one rattles around to Draisaitl, second one is 91 mph, and into the net. The Oilers are 14-for-25 on the PP in the post-season.
4. Bouchard’s hammer shot
With apologies to Tyson Barrie, who has proven he has the right stuff to play with stars (Nate MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Draisaitl and McDavid), Bouchard gives them a different PP look. His shot is a hammer in the Oiler toolbox, for goals or rebounds, because it’s so hard. He’s got 12 PP points in eight games after 13 in 82, on the second unit until Barrie was traded for Mattias Ekholm.
5. Shorthanded scoring
More special teams. The Oilers had the most shorthanded goals (18) in regular-season and made Vegas pay with a shortie after the first two PPs. McDavid squeezed the puck past Shea Theodore before holding off Theodore to slide a one-handed shot through the legs of Brossoit. Looked cheeky, as it appeared he was going upstairs with a flip shot but Theodore had 97 tied up. If there was a cartoon bubble over Brossoit’s head, it would have been full of expletives.
6. Skinner’s cool
Which brings us to his counterpart Stu Skinner, who only packed one suit (light colour, no good for coffee spills) thinking the team was going to Los Angeles for Game 6 and flying home, not staying on the road. But it’s how he looks in his work clothes, anyway. This was more like the rookie-of-the-year finalist. The breakaway stop on Chandler Stephenson at 4-0 was a calm, cool stuff. If Ivan Barbashev hadn’t made like Joe Pavelski, batting that waist-high puck home, we’re talking Skinner’s first playoff shutout.
7. All the goals
Brossoit has given up nine goals in five periods, but really how many could you hang on the former Oiler back-up? One, two? That said, the Oilers have 27 goals in six games against Vegas including regular-season. So, they know they’re playing against a team hasn’t proven they can win a 2-1 game against Edmonton.
8. Shot blocking Kostin
So the Oilers have the game in the bag and Klim Kostin is still blocking shots, taking a ripper off his right skate boot by Nic Hague, the kind of shot that can break some bones, and then stopping a second with his shin-pad. Teammates don’t forget that, especially goalies, same with coaches, who might show that on video.
9. Kane, Carrier history
Interesting to see Kane and Wil Carrier jawing in the penalty box. Carrier, who stepped in to wrestle with Zach Hyman after a big open-ice belt by Brayden McNab (we’re not sure why he felt he had to do that for the 220-pound McNab, but we digress) used to be on the same Buffalo team with Kane half a dozen years ago.
Carrier likes to hit too (he plastered Warren Foegele into the end boards). Kane? The man got in Matthew Tkachuk’s grill in the Calgary series last spring, and he’s noticeable again in this second-round Vegas matchup.
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.
Sports
Mountain West commissioner says she’s heartbroken over turmoil surrounding San Jose State volleyball
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.
___
AP college sports:
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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