Gentille: At some point, the Avalanche were going to have to replace Nazem Kadri. Ideally, it would’ve happened last season. That didn’t happen, and the problem was exacerbated by this summer’s weak unrestricted-free-agent class. Ironically, J.T. Compher, their erstwhile Kadri replacement, might be the best open-market option for teams in search of center options. He wasn’t bad for the Avs — he’d still look great as the team’s 3C behind Nathan MacKinnon and Johansen — but even with a career year, he wasn’t good enough to be 2C on a top contender. General manager Chris MacFarland’s predicament was clear.
So, too, is the solid work he did with this move. Johansen, despite turning 31 this summer and coming off a failed attempt at following up his bounceback 2021-22 season, is still better on paper than any UFA 2C option. The salary retention, which drops his cost for the Avs down to $4 million in each of the next two seasons, makes it an even bigger no-brainer.
Now, is Johansen a perfect fit? Not quite. Those 26 goals in 2021-22 may well be a blip mixed in with five years of decline, and the idea of signing on for him at an $8 million AAV would’ve been — or should’ve been — a no-go. Still, he has size, some play-driving ability and enough goal-scoring to make the appeal obvious. When decent players like Johansen are overpaid as drastically as he was in Nashville, it nukes their value. In Denver, he won’t be overpaid. The Avalanche have money to spend and a pressing need for goals to fill, especially with Gabriel Landeskog’s pending season-long absence. It’s simple enough.
On the Preds’ end, if this move was the only alternative to buying Johansen out, it was a win for them, too. Based on the return — the negotiation rights to Galchenyuk — that’s a fair assumption. Now they get out from under his deal in two years (and $8 million paid) rather than four years and about $10 million. Trades where one team has to eat money and gets nearly nothing in return are rarely palatable for a fan base, but Preds supporters should be satisfied that GM Barry Trotz seems set to move the franchise into its next phase. Given the number of players that’d love to play in Nashville, any cap space is valuable.
Avalanche grade: A Predators grade: B+
Duhatschek: There are a few basic truths about the Johansen-for-Galchenyuk deal that got the draft-week NHL trading game started Saturday morning, beginning with the fact that Johansen was completely untradeable at $8 million per season. The fact that the Predators had to absorb half the contract for two remaining seasons is proof of how low Johansen’s value had slipped around the NHL. At $4 million per season, on the other hand, Johansen is a defensible risk for the Avalanche for the next two years.
But it is still that: a risk.
Until training camp starts, the season gets underway and Johansen has a chance to settle in, the Avalanche won’t know which version of him they’re getting. Because there have been many variants, beginning with his time at the start of his career in Columbus, after he was the fourth pick of the 2010 draft. He evolved into, if not a true No. 1 center, then a legitimate high-end No. 2. The Predators thought enough of him in the midst of the 2015-16 season that they traded a young and up-and-coming blueliner Seth Jones to get him.
Johansen’s results in Nashville were decidedly mixed. His 50-assist season in 2019 was the zenith. There was another disappointing two-year dip the next two, followed by a brief 63-point resurgence in 2021-22. He then fell off again in 2022-23, with 28 points in 55 games, another season where he couldn’t stay healthy.
At age 30, he’s become a complementary piece rather than a player who can drive play on his own. Colorado clearly believes he can be more than that again. One of the Avalanche’s biggest failings this past season was center-ice production behind MacKinnon, never quite getting anyone to fill the void created by the departure of Kadri to Calgary.
Can Johansen do that?
He’s a better playmaker than a finisher, and if the Avalanche persist in playing MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen apart, Johansen could theoretically get a chance to play with one of the most productive scorers in the NHL — a 55-goal scorer last season.
But he has to be a better, healthier, more committed version of the player that Nashville saw fit to trade for 50 cents on the dollar.
And even though this was framed as a trade for Galchenyuk, that’s a smokescreen. Galchenyuk, 29, is on an expiring contract at a league minimum of $750,000. He’s UFA on July 1. It’s hard to imagine how much interest there will be after the year he had: zero points in 11 NHL games and 42 points in 42 AHL games. Maybe Anaheim, where his minor-league coach, Greg Cronin, is now the head coach, would take the chance.
If this also means the end of Compher with the Avalanche, you could convincingly argue that Johansen is a downgrade, not an upgrade.
Compher had 52 points in 82 games for the Avs last season and averaged 20:32 in ice time. To put Compher’s usage in context, he ranked 14th in time on ice among forwards, ahead of — among others — Auston Matthews, Matthew Tkachuk and Kyle Connor, as well as Avalanche teammates Artturi Lehkonen and Val Nichushkin. In short, he was a quiet but important contributor for the Avs and will be hard to replace if he’s priced himself out of the market.
Compher is a pending UFA in a thin crop of UFA centers. In Nashville, meanwhile, Johansen averaged 15:46 — not the sort of ice time you’d associate with a top-six forward.
Still, sometimes, the weight of a contract affects a player’s confidence. Johansen was never going to justify an $8 million annual paycheck at this stage of his career. At $4 million, he’s more fairly priced.
Maybe that allows him to play more freely, and if so, get his game back on track. For a long time, he’s looked like a player who needed a fresh start. He’s only 30. There’s time.
Avalanche grade: C Predators grade: C
Goldman: Colorado has needed help down the middle since Kadri departed as a free agent last summer. It seemed like the plan last year was to see how the high-end top-six wingers could balance out a more inexpensive option down the middle of that line. A season-long injury to Landeskog, which is going to hold him out of next season too, put a damper on that experiment.
So it’s something the Avalanche had to address this offseason, especially with Compher’s contract expiring in a few days. Colorado still has Alex Newhook (who is also in for a raise this summer, but as a restricted free agent), but they still needed another middle-six pivot. That’s where Johansen comes in.
There’s no question that Johansen has been trending in the wrong direction for some time, and his 2021-22 bounceback seemed like more of an outlier than an encouraging sign moving forward. His lackluster 2022-23 season can’t be entirely attributed to roster issues around him or coaching; it’s on him as well. A team with as much star power as Colorado, and some really smart coaching in Jared Bednar, may be able to maximize what’s left of his game a bit better. Betting on that at $4 million dollars also isn’t a major risk — a cost that could be manageable on the third line if he can’t shake it as the 2C. Considering the free agent class this year and other trade options likely costing more than the rights to Galchenyuk, which is literally nothing, this is a fine move.
On the flip side, the Predators bought themselves some cap space and flexibility. This does take away a retention slot for another two years, bringing Nashville down to one, but that should be OK for Trotz, considering who is left on the roster and likely to be flipped. Did Nashville have to make this deal? If the plan is to have a long-haul rebuild, it really wasn’t necessary because the Predators could have dealt with Johansen being on the roster. But if they want a shot of being competitive while their core three — Roman Josi, Juuse Saros and Filip Forsberg — are in their better years, this has to be a quicker process. So cap space is key, and figuring out who is a part of the future sooner than later will obviously help in the roster construction process.
Avalanche grade: B+ Predators grade: B
(Photo of Ryan Johansen and J.T. Compher: Christopher Hanewinckel / USA Today)
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
