EDMONTON — Yep, minus Connor McDavid, the Edmonton Oilers are really going to have to buckle down to win.
“We have to come in with the right mindset, and find our own game away from him — without him,” preached Leon Draisaitl at the morning skate Tuesday. “It’s going to be a tight-checking group in here that’s going to defend like crazy and try to win games that way.”
A few hours later, Draisaitl would be sitting in his dressing room stall after a four-point, all assists except for the empty-net goal he scored, in a 5-3 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.
“What happened to all that 2-1 hockey?” he was asked.
“That’s our thought process going into the game, right? ” shrugged the National Hockey League’s leading scorer (32-57-89). “With him out, we’re not going to score five goals every night, but, you just have to find ways to win hockey games. Whether it’s 7-6, 5-3, 2-1, 1-0 …
“You have to find a way to have two points in our bank after a game, and we did that tonight.”
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Hey, we’re not laughing at anyone here. I was the guy asking the questions about if this team was equipped to win a series of low scoring games, while McDavid rehabs what the team is calling a quad injury. We even stopped by goalie Mike Smith’s stall with our hypothesis, and he was all in.
“Tipp (head coach Dave Tippett) has been preaching that all season,” said Smith, who would face 40 shots later that evening. “When it really turned around for us was when we buckled down defensively, and played an important, 200-foot game. The more we understand that that is what it takes to win close hockey games, the more we’ve grasped that and gotten points because of it.”
Well, maybe next game.
For now, let’s enjoy one last track meet, with a goal just 73 seconds in by Riley Sheahan, a Chicago short-handed goal and a 2-2 score after 20 minutes. By the 4:50 mark of Period 2, it was 4-3, a staunch defensive effort by the Oilers minus McDavid, and a tight, disciplined effort by a Blackhawks team whose season is teetering, six points south of the wild-card cutline.
In the end, the other element that went unchanged in McDavid’s absence was the difference-maker for Edmonton — the line of Draisaitl between Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and rookie Kailer Yamamoto. They split up eight points between them, and since head coach Dave Tippett put them together after Christmas they have amassed a tidy 64 points in 15 games.
“Draisaitl was really good tonight,” nodded Chicago’s Patrick Kane, who was dancing like his old self Tuesday (two assists). “It seems like he has chemistry with Nugent-Hopkins and the Yamamoto kid. That line’s been good for them and they were really good tonight.”
Imagine being Yamamoto, a kid from Spokane, Wash., who was nine years old when Kane broke into the NHL. A great American player who made it at five-foot-10, 177 pounds — still three inches taller and 24 pounds heavier than Yamamoto is today.
Then add Jonathan Toews to the mix, and Yamamoto was living out a dream on Tuesday playing just his 41st NHL game against two of the best players of a generation and outscoring them two goals to one.
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“Big-time,” grinned Yamamoto. “They’re some of the best players in the NHL. It’s still hard to believe, but I’ve got to look at them like they’re just another player.”
This was the first game all season that McDavid missed, and other than a power play that tripped all over itself early — before settling and producing two goals — the Oilers looked fine in the short term without No. 97.
Of course, it helps having the NHL’s leading scorer to pick up the slack.
“That’s insane,” marvelled Yamamoto. “We’ve got two of the best players in the world.”
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.
BRUSSELS – Canadian shot putter Sarah Mitton rebounded from a disappointing performance at the Paris Olympics by capturing Diamond League gold on Friday.
Mitton, of Brooklyn, N.S., won the competition, the final Diamond League event of the season, with a heave of 20.25 metres on her third throw.
Chase Jackson of the U.S. placed second with a throw of 19.90, while German’s Yemisi Ogunleye, the Olympic gold medallist, claimed bronze with a toss of 19.72.
Mitton, the runner-up of last year’s world championship, failed to qualify for the top eight in Paris.
Edmonton runner Marco Arop, who won silver for Canada in the men’s 800 metres at the Paris Games, was scheduled to race in the 800 on Saturday.
Olympic bronze-medallist Alysha Newman, of London, Ont., also competes Saturday in the women’s pole vault.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
EDMONTON – The Edmonton Oilers signed defenceman Travis Dermott to a professional tryout on Friday.
Dermott, a 27-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., produced two goals, five assists and 26 penalty minutes in 50 games with the Arizona Coyotes last season.
The six-foot, 202-pound blueliner has also played for the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Toronto drafted him in the second round, 34th overall, of the 2015 NHL draft.
Over seven NHL seasons, Dermott has 16 goals and 46 assists in 329 games while averaging 16:03 in ice time.
Before the NHL, Dermott played two seasons with Oilers captain Connor McDavid for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. The team was coached by current Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
