Is there any way for the Maple Leafs to schedule playoff games in Stockholm, too?
Sports
Nylander the hometown hero as Leafs beat Wild for Sweden sweep
“It was pretty special, for sure, to get that winner, but it was a great four points here and hopefully we bring that home,” Nylander told the travelling media.
“We started feeling our game back in Toronto (two wins before departing). It’s been a blast, I love being here and hopefully we can do it again sometime.”
“I think it’s about as good as it gets for him,” teammate Morgan Rielly said in praise of Nylander. “I know he had some downtime with his family here, but he was also doing his job and kind of taking it to the next level, promoting our game and the team.
“Hats off to him for both his play and his execution off the ice.”
After the late Leafs legend Borje Salming’s son Anders dropped the puck before Friday’s win, franchise leading scorer Mats Sundin did the honours on Sunday during a game that featured an 8 a.m. ET start.
In an overtime period that underlined some of their disoriented play on this trip, all three Leafs on the ice congregated in the same corner, allowing Joel Eriksson Ek a clear path to Joseph Woll. But Woll stopped that among the 33 pucks that came his way and a Rielly blocked shot on Marcus Johansson sent Nylander the other way to beat Marc-Andre Fleury with a dandy deke.
William’s father Michael was in the audience again to celebrate and Friday was his grandmother’s first chance ever to see him play live.
Marner and Auston Matthews had the assists on Rielly’s goal, Matthews tying Bob Pulford for ninth in franchise scoring with his 563rd point, while an earlier helper by Marner on one by Matthew Knies made him the fastest Leaf to 400 assists at 524 games.
Matthews, with his first goal in four games to regain a piece of the league lead, had answered Jon Merrill’s 2:37 into the match.
Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe promised a better start than Friday’s early trepidation against Detroit, given his team was now used to the time change, nuances of Avicii Arena and, like Friday, played a foe on a back to back.
“It was one of those trips where you really come together as a team,” Matthews said. “We’re about ready for a couple of days away from each other now (after the plane ride home comes a couple of days off), but we got to experience a new country, a different culture in a city like Stockholm.
“I definitely won’t forget the sun going down every day at 3 p.m., but it’s been a lot of fun.”
The Leafs will reconvene on the ice mid-week and head to back-to-back U.S. Thanksgiving road games against Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks, then old boss Kyle Dubas’s Pittsburgh Penguins.
NOT QUITE A CLEAN ESCAPE
Warhorse defenceman Mark Giordano, who’d overskated an empty net crossbar rebound from John Tavares, was the catalyst on the Knies goal, which caught Fleury’s five-hole coming across the crease.
However, the Leafs couldn’t pull away in the second, far too busy killing three penalties, including one when a fed-up Marner whacked Eriksson Ek in retaliation for getting mugged in front of Fleury.
And while they looked sharp doing so, they were not winning many 5-on-5 battles in their end in the second period, allowing Kirill Kaprizov a free look. Woll stayed right with the star winger with a stretched pad save.
BACK TO MATS
It had to be a weird and wonderful feeling for Giordano watching Leaf great Sundin drop the puck. In Giordano’s first game in his hometown of Toronto as a Calgary Flame on Oct. 14, 2006, he scored twice and was having a dream night. Until Sundin fired a hat trick, including the overtime winner short-handed, for his 500th NHL goal.
NEW BLUE CREW?
The Leaf roster could have a different look next week. Defenceman Conor Timmins will likely be activated, perhaps taking John Klingberg’s place on the roster as Klingberg has now gone more than a week without playing because of an undisclosed lower-body injury.
Bobby McMann has now played three games on the fourth line and is in good stead, as is third-liner Nick Robertson, but before Sunday night, Alex Steeves had 15 points through 10 consecutive games for the Marlies and newcomer forward Dmitry Ovchinnikov had five goals in his past three.
LOOSE LEAFS
Nylander’s 17-game streak tied him with Connor McDavid as the only active NHLer off to such a hot start. The retired Dave Andreychuk and Henrik Zetterberg also got as high as 17 … Matthews said after the game he’d like to see the Global Series tried in Mexico City. That’s indeed on the short list for the NHL, said its chief content officer Steve Mayer on a pre-season ESPN podcast. While Matthews’ mother is Mexican and the appeal would be obvious to include Toronto, the Dallas Stars have long been the favourite to be involved in such a venture, given they claim to have one million registered Hispanic fans … Keefe’s 10th win of the year and 176th of his career ties him on the all-time NHL list with Leaf pro scout Tom Watt.
Sports
Oliveira, Mitchell named as finalists for CFL outstanding player award
TORONTO – Running back Brady Oliveira of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Hamilton Tiger-Cats quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell are the finalists for the CFL’s outstanding player award.
Oliveira led the CFL in rushing this season with 1,353 yards while Mitchell was the league leader in passing yards (5,451) and touchdowns (32).
Oliveira is also the West Division finalist for the CFL’s top Canadian award, the second straight year he’s been nominated for both.
Oliveira was the CFL’s outstanding Canadian in 2023 and the runner-up to Toronto Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly for outstanding player.
Defensive lineman Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund of the Montreal Alouettes is the East Division’s top Canadian nominee.
Voting for the awards is conducted by the Football Reporters of Canada and the nine CFL head coaches.
The other award finalists include: defensive back Rolan Milligan Jr. of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Montreal linebacker Tyrice Beverette (outstanding defensive player); Saskatchewan’s Logan Ferland and Toronto’s Ryan Hunter (outstanding lineman); B.C. Lions kicker Sean Whyte and Toronto returner Janarion Grant (special teams); and Edmonton Elks linebacker Nick Anderson and Hamilton receiver Shemar Bridges (outstanding rookie).
The coach of the year finalists are Saskatchewan’s Corey Mace and Montreal’s Jason Maas.
The CFL will honour its top individual performers Nov. 14 in Vancouver.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Sports
Decathlon world champ LePage dealing with low of missing Olympics while rehabbing
It’s still difficult to put into words for reigning world decathlon champion Pierce LePage.
The 28-year-old from Whitby, Ont., had to withdraw from the Paris Olympics due to a herniated disc in his back. LePage suffered the injury in the spring but pushed to still compete. However, on July 17, he announced on social media that he would not be in Paris and needed surgery.
“I feel like there’s regret obviously — like, yes, I want to be there and things like that,” LePage said. “But I feel like there’s a lot of people and a lot of fans, friends, support, family, all the people that feeling I kind of let down, let myself down, let my coach down so I felt pretty guilty about that for a long time and still, you know going through the motions.
“Obviously it’s tough. I’m world champion. I had a lot of hopes and a lot of goals going into the Games,” he added. “It’s hard to put into words what I felt, but yeah, it sucked. But I was happy to push through as far as I could with the injury.”
LePage tweaked his back in the “end of March, early April,” doing an exercise in the gym. About two weeks later, while training for the long jump, he landed awkwardly, causing the herniated disc in his back.
LePage competed in several individual events in 2024, mostly indoors, but not a decathlon. He was also granted a medical exemption to not compete at Canadian national trials in June.
He said he knew it was “over” after a warm-up for his final competition in July before leaving for Paris. His pole broke prepping for the pole vault and hit the mat, but for the next couple of days had “a lot of nerve symptoms and a lot of pain” that stopped him from even jogging.
“Athletes go through injuries. It’s not anything new and I’ve always been someone who’s always been able to compete through injury, regardless of how severe it is,” LePage said. “So I thought that when it happened that that must be another case of small setback. I’ll be able to do it if I have some pain, like that’s fine, I’ll do whatever.
“But just the nature of the injury is that if it’s pushing on your nerves, you can’t get the results you want out of it.”
LePage, who will be one of 11 RBC Olympians who will be part of this year’s RBC Training Ground National Final on Saturday in Halifax, had surgery in August and says his progression in rehab has been good, although he doesn’t have a recovery timeline. However, he plans to be back well before the 2025 world championships in Tokyo next September.
LePage was coming off a massive 2023 season, claiming the first international title of his career in Gotzis, Austria, then winning his first world title in Budapest, Hungary, some months later. His mark of 8,909 points in Budapest was a personal best, world lead and sixth-best all-time score.
He also became the first Canadian to win a world title in the event. LePage earned his first worlds medal in 2022, with silver, behind world-record holder Kevin Mayer of France.
He finished 2023 as the top-ranked decathlete in the world, still holding that position until the Paris Olympics.
The 2023 season showed how tough LePage would be to beat, especially when healthy. He finished fifth at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 dealing with a torn patella in his right knee. At the 2022 worlds, he competed through a torn patella in his left knee.
Many expected Canada to decathlon win gold and silver in Paris. Damian Warner of London, Ont., was the reigning Olympic champion heading into Paris and earned silver behind LePage at the 2023 worlds.
However, Warner withdrew with just a couple of events left in the decathlon in Paris after failing to clear the opening height of 4.60 metres in the pole vault on all three of his attempts. Warner fell from second to 18th, with no chance of climbing back into the mix.
LePage pointed to reasons for both men to be driven for redemption in Tokyo next year.
“I’m the world champion. I want to defend my title next year,” he said. “I’m sure Damian feels similar thoughts on not wanting to stop right there.
“No one likes to not finish decathlon. That is definitely drive to doing it again and kind of redeem ourselves, I suppose.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2024.
Sports
Pro Women’s Hockey League announces plans to expand by 2 teams for 2025-26 season
The six-team Professional Women’s Hockey League is launching its expansion process with plans to add two franchises for the start of the 2025-26 season, a league executive announced Tuesday.
Speaking at the ESPNW Summit in New York, senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer said the league will begin sending requests for proposals to several markets starting as early as next week, while also accepting applications.
”(We’re) looking for the right market size, right fan base, right facilities, right economic opportunity — so a lot of research to be done over the next couple months,” Scheer said, without specifying which markets the league might be targeting. “But yeah, looking to continue to build the league and grow the number of teams.”
Among the U.S. expansion candidates are Detroit and Pittsburgh, where the PWHL hosted neutral site games during its inaugural season last year. Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia would also be regarded as candidates after both were considered before the league established teams in Boston, New York and Minnesota. Denver and Seattle are also considered potential candidates.
In Canada, where the league has teams in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, Quebec City has already announced its intention of being a candidate for an expansion franchise. Calgary would be a potential option with the city previously being home to the Inferno from 2011 to 2019, before the Canadian Women’s Hocky League folded.
Scheer also announced the league plans to hold neutral site games in nine markets across North America, and is considering holding an outdoor game. Scheer added the league is also working on holding games in Europe, without specifying when that might happen.
The PWHL’s second season opens on Nov. 30, and features an expanded schedule with each team playing 30 games — up from 24 last year. The league has yet to announce where it’s neutral site games will be played.
Quebec City councilor Jackie Smith announced earlier on Tuesday that the PWHL has agreed to play a neutral site game at the city’s Videotron Centre on Jan. 19. The PWHL’s schedule has Ottawa playing Montreal on that day, with the site yet to be determined.
Smith called the development the first step in Quebec City landing an expansion team.
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AP Women’s Hockey:
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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