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Quick Shifts: What Eric Staal’s trade means for the Taylor Hall market – Sportsnet.ca

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A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep. This is just a makeup column for botching the last one.

1. “Yeah, for sure,” Taylor Hall says, he’d be willing to waive his no-trade clause. And escape the disaster that is the Buffalo Sabres in 2021.

Rare to see a player so bluntly honest, but we’re past sugarcoating here.

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It’s sad to watch the deterioration of the Sabres, who have been shut out in more games (seven) than they’ve won (six). And who have now traded one of their major off-season acquisitions, Eric Staal, to Montreal — a team originally on Staal’s no-trade list — 17 days in advance of the trade deadline.

That an inexperienced Kevyn Adams must now execute more critical rental deals in the next two weeks (when he’s not forced behind the bench himself) only adds to the drama.

The trick will be maximizing his return on Hall after yielding just a third- and a fifth-round pick for Staal, plus retaining half his salary.

How much is that paltry return for a middle-six centreman the fault of Adams versus selling guys with poor stat lines in a buyer’s market?

The asking price for Hall begins with a first-round pick, according to Pierre LeBrun.

Six players were traded at the 2020 deadline for return packages that included a first-rounder: Brady Skjei, Barclay Goodrow, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Ondrej Kase, Blake Coleman, and Jason Zucker.

All but Pageau had term on their deals, ensuring the acquiring team multiple runs. And the Pageau deal only went through because he put pen to paper on an extension with the Islanders immediately after.

In other words, none were a pure rental like Hall.

Even if he retains half of Hall’s exorbitant $8-million cap hit, Adams’ price will have to drop. While a reduced Canadian quarantine could open a couple options, Hall’s full no-move clause could also limit his GM’s trade partners.

The funny thing is, the Staal trade — hardly a windfall — may have just helped set the market against Buffalo’s favour.

2. Retired referee Kerry Fraser recalls a nugget of advice passed down from his own mentor, John McCauley.

“The very most successful referee is a guy that allows the game to be controlled in bedlam,” Fraser relayed during an appearance on Lead Off, following the Tim Peel debacle.

“No referee wants to impose himself in a game. He wants to drop the puck and say, ‘Bring it back to me at the end.’ Let’s play. It’s great for the fans. It’s great for the players.”

McCauley, Fraser, Peel, none of them called the rulebook like a pointdexter.

Do that, as Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe noted this week, and you’d be whistling 50 infractions a night.

“There’s an art to officiating. It’s not just enforce the rules,” Fraser argues. “You have to learn your trade.”

Fraser donned the stripes for some 30 NHL years and found himself in his own share of controversies. Once the league installed its two-ref system, he’d review the two teams with his partner before puck drop and say: “Let’s not take the heartbeat out of the game here.”

Ideally, they’d avoid overreaction early and create a flow to the action. Players changing on the fly and picking themselves up after receiving hard hits. Fewer stoppages means fewer opportunities to scrum and bicker and seek retribution.

Keefe highlighted an important fact: That hockey is the only major team sport where each penalty has an effect on the game clock. An excess of penalties could effect the fan experience and the entertainment value. “That’s at the root of our sport,” Keefe said.

Game management and make-up calls, however, are not the same thing. And if the more talented side deserves to draw seven penalties, that shouldn’t mean the other gets five ticky-tack power-plays just so the ledger looks more balanced.

“The best way I feel about it is keeping the standard as consistent as possible, at least from start to finish. Some nights, a little more gets let go. Sometimes it’s a little tighter. But when the standards change in-game so significantly, that’s when it can get frustrating as a player,” Leafs captain John Tavares says.

“But I don’t think anyone wants to see important games, important points be decided by a faceoff violation in the last two minutes of a great hockey game that’s got a lot on the line and may be even a playoff game.”

The NHL had to come down hard on Peel, especially as it drives to be a larger player in the gambling space. But there is some measure of sympathy for a mic’d-up scapegoat who, Fraser says, was urged to delay retirement and call one more season and help mentor younger stripes on the craft.

“I always liked Tim Peel,” Arizona Coyotes defenceman Jason Demers tweeted. “There’s a flow in NHL games that refs have to manage that might be tough to notice. They are human, and make mistakes, and sometimes get caught up in keeping that flow. Might be excessive [shrug emojis].”

If hunting for makeup calls disappears as a result of the hot mic, fantastic.

But those who expect every infraction to trigger a whistle should be careful what they wish for.

3. Here’s a Tim Peel ripple effect.

Referee Eric Furlatt made a point to clasp his hand over his collar mic during this discussion with Wayne Simmonds Friday night. Why take the risk of anyone getting exposed for saying something reprimandable?

4. Colorado Avalanche and Toronto Maple Leafs fans will both get some insight into Nazem Kadri if they check out his candid interview on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast this week.

Kadri, 30, dives into the differences between the markets and recalls the weird feeling of getting undressed postgame in Denver and no reporters even approaching him. He was used to deep scrums, waves of questions, and front-page treatment as a Leaf.

“The privacy aspect in Denver — nobody’s bugging you,” Kadri marvels.

Kadri goes over his nixed trade to Calgary, confirms some of the other organizations on his no-trade list, and admits to initial bitterness over being traded to the Avs.

“I knew I was gonna get better, and I wanted to provide more for the [Leafs]. They decided to go in a different direction, and I’m OK with that,” said Kadri, now embracing his important role on a U.S. contender.

Kadri also acknowledges the role his back-to-back playoff suspensions against the Bruins played in his ouster. But is confident he’d learned his lesson.

“Bit of a s––––– thing for me to go through. But you can’t think I was gonna do that again for a third time, did ya?” Kadri smiled. “Two’s enough.”

5. Despite their rebuilding year, and a ridiculous string of goalie injuries, the young Senators deserve props for not wilting. The overall results aren’t there, but effort is never questioned.

“As the season has worn on, they’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with how it is they want to play and need to play,” Sheldon Keefe observes. “We felt that, really, right from the start of the season, they’re a difficult team to play against. I think they’ve had a lot of nights where the game gets away on them early and they’ve had some difficulty getting saves, but anytime they’ve gotten those saves and they’ve stayed in games and hung around, they’re either winning games or they’re an extremely difficult team to beat.

“Just to focus on the last 20 games, they’re really as good as any team in the division in that sense. It’s a team that, because of their start, perhaps a lot of people overlook them. But you watch the games and focus on them, they’re doing a lot of things. Obviously, haven’t lost the regulation in [six] games here now. They’re a confident team, and certainly they’ve played probably their best hockey against us.”

D.J. Smith deserves credit for keeping his players motivated without a playoff spot to grasp.

“He’s got lots of energy,” says Keefe, who coached against Smith in the OHL and worked with him in Toronto. “He’s got lots of personality to him and communicates well with the players and does a really good job of getting the group to play together as a unit and towards one goal and have one focus there.”

6. “You don’t often get to celebrate with the bench,” Zach Hyman said last Saturday, after breaking protocol.

Typically, you score a big goal, party with the other four teammates on the ice, then glide to the bench for fist bumps, but after wheeling around the Flames net to give himself some space, the momentum of Hyman’s fadeaway shot carried him right into the Leafs bench.

Hyman pointed out that it was only possible in the second period because the home bench is closer to the O-zone.

“Wayne Simmonds was there so it was fun to celebrate with him,” Hyman said.

Left hanging, however, was William Nylander — who was also ready for some palm slapping.

“Next time I’ll let them know that I’m ready for a high five,” Nylander smiled. “All good.”

7. Quote of the Week.

David Pastrnak, asked how he stayed in shape stuck in COVID protocol: “I did a couple pushups with one hand.”

Pastrnak is the Jack Palance of hockey.

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8. Alexander Kerfoot is enjoying a pinch-me moment as he hops the boards with icons Joe Thornton and Jason Spezza.

“It’s just watching their habits every day. I mean, you see Jumbo. He doesn’t take any days off. Same with Spezz. They’re always in the gym, trying to do something every day to get a little bit better on the ice. They’re always staying after, working on things,” Kerfoot explains.

“Jumbo has kind of taken both of us and ran us through a couple of drills that I had never really done before. I never had a line just get together and do our own little drills, but Jumbo just wanted us all to be on the same page.”

The extra work is paying off, as the 37-year-old Spezza will take a three-game goal streak into Saturday’s game versus Edmonton.

“Lots of confidence. He’s feeling it. He’s shooting the puck. He’s hanging onto it in the offensive zone. He was really one of the only guys that was winning faceoffs for us here today, which earns him more ice time,” Sheldon Keefe said, following the Leafs’ 3-2 OT win in Ottawa Friday.

Coach Keefe seems to have found a fourth line that works. Timely contributions have been critical with the Leafs’ power play in an 0-for-16 slump and super sniper Auston Matthews enduring a five-game drought.

“Right now our top guys are fighting it around the net a little bit, and it isn’t falling for them. We need to get those goals from other guys. Get one from that line and one from [Ilya] Mikheyev there and that line. That’s obviously very important for us,” Keefe said.

“It wasn’t just that one that went in for them, but they had some good shifts and sequences coming out of O-zone faceoffs earlier in the game too.”

9. After getting their lunch fed to them by the Senators, the Calgary Flames have a .471 points percentage, a minus-14 goal differential, and a 4.9 per cent chance of making the North Division playoffs (per SportsClubStats.com).

GM Brad Treliving is on his fifth head coach. Time to look at the skaters.

Derek Ryan, Josh Leivo, Brett Ritchie, Joakim Nordstrom, Zac Rinaldo, Nikita Nesterov, and backup goalie David Rittich are all pending UFAs. Depth pieces.

If you’re Treliving, do you sell for a small return — or do you hold your cards and hope Darryl Sutter can get the group on a run? Probably the latter.

As we brace ourselves for a seventh round of Johnny Gaudreau trade rumours this summer, the big question is whether the core must be dismantled? It’s been a long time since the Flames looked like a consistent force.

Gaudreau and Sean Monahan simply aren’t generating enough even-strength offence in a division dominated by elite top-end talent. (Just peek at the top-six production of Canada’s top three teams — Toronto, Edmonton and Winnipeg.)

More than half (11) of Gaudreau and Monahan’s 20 combined goals have come on the power-play.

10. The Philadelphia Flyers’ shot at saving their season and scrambling for a post-season berth isn’t much better: 6.2 per cent.

Philly’s issue is plain. Pretty difficult to win with a league-worst .875 save percentage, an indictment on Carter Hart but also the defenders in front of him.

Hart is in a contract year and will be restricted after the season. What once looked like a situation where the team should try to lock up a No. 1 goalie for as long as possible has morphed into a situation where a bridge deal might be the best course for both sides.

Hot take: Should Alain Vigneault try dressing his goalies in Puffy coats?

GM Chuck Fletcher had originally planned to be a buyer but must switch tacks. (Side thought: How sweet must it be for Ron Hextall to see his Penguins on the rise right now?)

Like Treliving, Fletcher doesn’t have a ton of impact pieces to consider selling. We’re looking at depth pieces like Scott Laughton, Michael Raffl, Erik Gustafsson and Samuel Morin.

11. Ladies and gentlemen, the fake lacrosse goal:

In a USPHL game between the Charlotte Rush and Northern Cyclones, 19-year-old C.J. Zezima executed this brilliant sell job of the Michigan move, pretending to scoop the puck onto his blade behind the net but instead leaving it for teammate Zach Dill.

All the Cyclones bite, giving Dill an easy wraparound. Beautiful.

12. “I got my parade!” Bob Plager, the Original Blue, told a giddy throng of St. Louisans partying in the summer of 2019.

A sad day in the hockey world Wednesday, learning that the 78-year-old Plager had been killed in a car crash. The outpouring of love for Plager has provided some comfort.

“He’s the reason why I love St. Louis so much. Everyone keeps saying, ‘Why do you keep coming back?’ It’s for that type of guy right there,” David Perron said.

T.J. Oshie, a Blue for seven seasons, tweeted: “I can still see the little smirk as Bobby would walk up to me to tell a couple jokes. Almost as if he had already said it in his head and was holding back the laugh. I’ll always cherish those little moments with him. Rest In Peace #5.”

Plager was either a player, coach or executive for nearly all of the Blues’ existence since 1967 until his death. On skates, he repped the Blues in the final twice but had to wait until ’19 to hoist the Stanley Cup.

Prior to that final series against Boston, Ryan O’Reilly had promised Plager they’d get him his parade. And we’ll never forget Plager’s presence during that final two springs ago. He was always around the rink, always smiling, always available.

Like the host of the greatest party a hockey lifer could be invited to. Rest in peace.

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Here’s what we know about the allegations against Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara

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LOS ANGELES –

Only a week has passed since the Los Angeles Dodgers abruptly fired Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter and constant companion of their new $700 million slugger, Shohei Ohtani.

But the biggest story of baseball’s spring is still murky — and shocking — as the regular season begins in earnest Thursday.

The scandal encompasses gambling, alleged theft, extensive deceit and the breakup of an enduring partnership between the majors’ biggest star and his right-hand man. Investigations are underway by the IRS and Major League Baseball, and Ohtani publicly laid out a version of events Monday that placed the responsibility entirely on Mizuhara.

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Here are the basics as Ohtani and the Dodgers prepare for their home opener against St. Louis on Thursday:

Why was Ippei Mizuhara fired by the Dodgers?

Ohtani claims his close friend repeatedly took money from his accounts to fund his illegal sports gambling habit. Ohtani also says he was completely unaware of the “massive theft,” as his lawyers termed it, until Mizuhara confessed to him and the Dodgers last week in South Korea, where the team opened its regular season against the San Diego Padres.

Mizuhara has given more than one version of his path to this trouble, which was catalyzed by the IRS’ investigation of Mathew Bowyer, an alleged illegal bookmaker. Mizuhara has consistently said he has a gambling addiction, and he abused his close friendship with the Dodgers superstar to feed it.

Did Shohei Ohtani ever bet on sports?

That’s the biggest question to be answered in Major League Baseball’s investigation, and the two-time AL MVP emphatically says he has never gambled on sports or asked anybody to bet on sports for him.

Further, Ohtani said Monday he has never knowingly paid a bookie to cover somebody else’s bets. Mizuhara also said Ohtani does not bet, and Bowyer’s attorney said the same.

Mizuhara told ESPN on March 19 that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter’s request, saying the bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. If that were true, Ohtani could face trouble even if he didn’t make the bets himself — but ESPN said Mizuhara dramatically changed his story the following day, claiming Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers.

MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering — even legally — on baseball. They also ban betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.

What’s next for Ohtani?

Ohtani has played in every Dodgers game since the story broke, and he is expected to be their designated hitter in most regular-season games this season while baseball’s investigation continues.

Ohtani says his legal team has alerted authorities to the theft by Mizuhara, although his team has repeatedly declined to say which authorities have been told, according to ESPN.

Ohtani’s new interpreter is Will Ireton, a longtime Dodgers employee and fluent Japanese speaker who has filled several jobs with the team in everything from game preparation and analytics to recruiting free-agent pitches. But Ireton won’t be Ohtani’s constant companion, and manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday he’s optimistic that Ohtani will become closer to his teammates without the “buffer” provided for years by Mizuhara.

What don’t we know?

MLB’s investigation of Ohtani’s role in the events could last weeks or months, and it’s unlikely to be publicized until it’s complete. No one outside of Ohtani’s inner circle knows what it will find or how serious any repercussions could be, and nobody outside the circle is making informed speculation about the process.

One major question looms: How did Mizuhara have enough access to Ohtani’s bank accounts to get the alleged millions without Ohtani knowing? Is the slugger overly trusting, or is he wildly negligent in managing his vast fortune, which includes years of lavish endorsement deals in addition to his baseball salaries? Why didn’t the team around him, including his agent, do more to prevent the possibility of the theft he claims?

Finally, where is Mizuhara? Anybody who knows isn’t saying. He was fired in South Korea and apparently didn’t travel home with the Dodgers. Japanese media have visited his home in Southern California to look for him. Although he was born in Japan, Mizuhara’s life is in the U.S. — but his life will never be the same.

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