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Stu Cowan: GM Marc Bergevin remains bullish on Canadiens' fortunes – Montreal Gazette

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“We have to make the playoffs … I feel we have a team to make the playoffs. And then once we get in, I feel that anything’s possible.”

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If the NHL playoffs had started on Tuesday, the Canadiens would have been playing the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round.

How cool would that be? The two Original Six rivals haven’t faced each other in the playoffs since 1979 when the Canadiens swept the Leafs in the quarter-finals en route to winning their fourth straight Stanley Cup.

But there’s still a lot of hockey left to be played after the Canadiens hit the midway point of this condensed 56-game NHL season in fourth place in the North Division with 13-8-7 record. The Leafs are in first place with a 19-9-2 record, but are 1-5 in their last six games.

The fight for playoff spots will probably go down to the final weekend of the season.

During a video conference Tuesday afternoon, I asked Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin if the playoffs were to start now, what his biggest concern would be about his team and what he likes most about his team.

“It’s hard to answer that question,” he said. “What do I like? … What I don’t like? I can’t really answer that. It’s a progress. I’d like to be healthy, so obviously I’d like to have Ben (Chiarot) back. That would be a big plus for us. I think our special teams overall have improved. Even though we don’t score all the time on our power play, I find we’re more engaged, we have some looks, we control the puck more. I see some good things. I think our goalies are on top of their games now and I’d like to see what (head coach Dominique Ducharme’s) going to do with our team for the second half of the season.”

The Canadiens announced Monday that Chiarot would be out for 6-8 weeks following surgery on the right hand he fractured during a fight with the Vancouver Canucks’ J.T. Miller. On Tuesday, Bergevin said it’s probably going to be closer to six weeks, meaning Chiarot could return before the end of the regular season, which wraps up on May 8 when the Canadiens play the second of back-to-back games against the Leafs in Toronto.

The second half of the season for the Canadiens starts Wednesday against the Jets in Winnipeg (9 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

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The Canadiens have a 4-3-3 record in the 10 games since Ducharme took over from Claude Julien. Bergevin said he has had a few conversations “here and there” with players about the new coach and that they like Ducharme’s different approach.

“It’s tricky because I don’t want to say something that it comes across that Claude didn’t do,” Bergevin said. “Sometimes the message … coaches talk to the players every day. So it’s a piece of the business in sports, sometimes the message gets stale. It doesn’t mean it’s a completely different message. But now what the guys like with Dom is the message is different, the approach is different.”

Another big difference is that Carey Price has found his game after a poor start to the season that cost goaltending coach Stéphane Waite his job. Price made 34 saves Monday as the Canadiens beat the Jets 4-2. In his last six starts, Price has a 4-1-1 record while allowing only nine goals, improving his season record to 9-5-4 with a 2.59 goals-against average and a .909 save percentage. Backup goalie Jake Allen has been solid all season with a 4-3-3 record, a 2.28 GAA and a .922 save percentage.

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Bergevin had high expectations for his team coming into this season after acquiring forwards Tyler Toffoli and Josh Anderson, defenceman Joel Edmundson and Allen, spending right up to the US$81.5-million NHL salary cap. Those players have all produced. Toffoli leads the Canadiens with 17 goals and Anderson has 11, while Edmundson has the best plus/minus differential in the NHL at plus-26.

Bergevin said his expectations have not changed since the start of the season despite what has been a bumpy road in the first half after a fantastic 7-1-2 start.

“It’s a tough league,” the GM said. “Every night it’s a battle and I expect the same down the road. We have to make the playoffs … I feel we have a team to make the playoffs. And then once we get in, I feel that anything’s possible. It’s hard … I call it a one-goal league. Every night it’s a one-goal league. Last night it’s a one-goal game really, it’s an empty-net (goal to make it 4-2). So every night that’s what it is.

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“Pricer, Jake, top of their game we’re pretty good in net,” Bergevin added. “We’re up there with the best in the league and I like our team. Our young players are progressing. Yeah, they have some little peaks and valleys, but that’s part of being young players. But they care and they want to do well. So, yeah, we have high expectations for ourselves.”

scowan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/StuCowan1

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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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NHL analyst gets absolutely roasted for ‘insanely rich’ take on Zach Hyman

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They say everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you’re a member of the media and you share a truly awful take, you’re going to get called out for it.

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That’s what happened when NHL analyst/podcast host Andrew Berkshire decided to post a video on X (formerly known as Twitter) mainly attributing Zach Hyman’s success to the fact that he grew up “insanely rich.”

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The post came on the heels of the Oilers winger reaching the 50-goal milestone for the season and was rightly ripped apart by several notable colleagues, former players and fans in general.

In the video, which has been viewed more than 5.4 million times as of Wednesday morning, begins by stating that he has been in the sports media industry professionally since 2012 and that the industry “has to do a better job of telling truthful stories,” before discounting Hyman’s accomplishment.

“The story that’s being sold right now … is that, you know, if you work hard, if you stick to it, you can get there too, 31-year-old guy finally hits the 50-goal mark, harder worker, all that,” Berkshire said.

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“Yeah, great, except you’re missing the part of the story where Zach Hyman grew up insanely rich.”

Berkshire, who works as an analyst and host with the Steve Dangle Podcast Network, then details how Hyman’s parents bought a league to “guarantee him playing time,” and that he did “exclusive training that only a rich person … could afford.”

“This is a person that has had every single possible advantage to get where they are today,” Berkshire continued, before also bringing up the fact that Hyman has been fortunate enough to play on teams and lines with Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid most of his career.

While Berkshire does state that Hyman is a hard worker and brings grit when he plays, he also discounts it almost immediately.

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“Working hard, everybody works hard. You think every NHLer didn’t get there by working hard?” he asks. “Let’s not build this stupid narrative of ‘work hard, you’ll succeed.’ It’s just not true.

“There are people who’ve worked as hard as Zach Hyman their entire lives and never got a sniff of the American Hockey League, let alone the NHL because they didn’t have the advantages he had.”

Former Leafs defenceman turned NHL analyst Carlo Colaiacovo thought the whole take was ridiculous, posting the following: “Let me tell you something Andrew. You can’t buy your way to the NHL. You definitely can’t buy your way to having the career Hyman has had which includes scoring 50. Pretty ridiculous thing to say.”

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Retired NHLer Bobby Ryan was one of the first to weigh in, calling the opinion “purely false.”

“As someone who has maybe lived on both ends of the ‘financial edge’ I can say this is just purely false. Who cares, he accomplished a feat not many do and to downplay the way it’s reported is just wrong. You show up, do the work, good things happen,” Ryan posted on X.

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Jonathan Goodman, who claims he was Hyman’s personal trainer and tasked with getting the budding pro ready for the combine, had a glowing review of his former pupil’s work ethic.

“Yes, he had advantages. His family was wealthy and father obsessed with his success,” he said. “But the dude worked hard. Harder than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

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But, perhaps another former NHLer, Jason Strudwick said it best, replying to the video by asking: “Did Hyman not sign an autograph for you one time?”

 

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