Is newly-acquired defenceman Ilya Lyubushkin a potential fit for Toronto’s top four?
“What I see is just him getting into that mix and competing with the others and may the best defenceman win that spot,” general manager Kyle Dubas said.
Lyubushkin has averaged 18 minutes of ice time in Arizona this season while spending most of his five-on-five shifts alongside Jakob Chychrun.
“Let’s get to know him better before making any sort of proclamations,” said coach Sheldon Keefe. “The fact he does have experience playing with top defencemen is a positive, obviously.”
The Leafs acquired Lyubushkin and forward Ryan Dzingel from the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday night in exchange for Nick Ritchie and a conditional second round pick.
Lyubushkin is dealing with some immigration issues and is expected to join the Leafs on Tuesday when they play in Columbus.
“We don’t really have a lot of different guys with his utility,” said Dubas. “A big, strong, right-shot defenceman, strong defensively, able to kill penalties and play with a little more physicality than we may have. He’s kind of gone under the radar in Arizona and we thought, compared to the market on other types of guys, that it was a good bet for us.”
Lyubushkin has racked up 94 hits this season to lead all Arizona defencemen. Jake Muzzin leads the Leafs with 82 hits.
Dubas on acquiring Lyubushkin: ‘It was a good bet for us’
After the Maple Leafs completed a trade Saturday that sent Nick Ritchie and a pick to the Arizona Coyotes for defenceman Ilya Lyubushkin and forward Ryan Dzingel, Leafs GM Kyle Dubas spoke to the media Sunday morning detailing his thought process on the deal and what made Lyubushkin so attractive of an acquisition.
“I skated a little bit with him in the summer when they first signed him,” said Arizona native Auston Matthews. “He’s big and strong and he’s pretty good defensively. Hopefully he meshes pretty well here and we can get him in a game soon.”
Lyubushkin’s nickname in Arizona was “The Russian Bear.” Why?
“He’s just a big boy [6-foot-2, 208 pounds] and plays rough out there,” said Leafs winger Michael Bunting, who spent last season in Arizona. “He’s not afraid to be physical. He works hard every single night. He’s willing to block shots and put his body on the line.”
Dubas hopes that making this deal a month before the March 21 trade deadline will help ease Lyubushkin’s transition.
“His family is going to be in Arizona,” Dubas pointed out. “It will be a bigger adjustment. He goes from playing in Phoenix to playing in Toronto [with more] attention and focus. So, the longer that we can have for him to adjust the better. It was good to get that one across the line yesterday.”
Lyubushkin, 27, will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
“He was playing more this year and playing against better players and doing so fairly well,” Dubas said. “He probably doesn’t fit their timeline as a UFA in Arizona.”
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Saturday’s trade brings to an end Ritchie’s ill-fated tenure in Toronto. The big left winger from Orangeville, Ont. signed a two-year, $5-million contract in the summer and started the season on Toronto’s top line with Matthews and Mitch Marner.
“He had a lot of chances early in the year,” Dubas said. “They didn’t go in. The impact of that on confidence and chemistry is massive. Bunting steps up, [Alex] Kerfoot finds good chemistry with John [Tavares] and it just doesn’t really play out well for Nick, right? That’s the way she goes. Sometimes she goes. Sometimes she doesn’t.”
Ritchie scored a career high 15 goals in 56 games with Boston last season, but mustered just two tallies in 33 games with the Leafs. He was recently demoted to the American Hockey League where he played a couple games with the Toronto Marlies.
“There were a number of other teams that were interested, but they would’ve involved retention and other items we weren’t interested in,” Dubas said. “Arizona had the cap space. They also had a couple of players we were interested in.”
The Leafs placed Dzingel on waivers on Sunday.
“He is an NHL player,” said Dubas. “Selfishly, we hope he gets through and can provide us with depth, but if not that will just be another contract slot and some cash for us.”
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Is Dubas still looking to add on defence?
“I don’t think we’ll ever say, ‘Never,’ at this point. Every day is a new day. If we have the chance to improve the team, we will be looking to do so.”
Toronto’s top pair – Morgan Rielly and T.J. Brodie – has been solid this season. Youngsters Rasmus Sandin and Timothy Liljegren have shown promise on the third pair with Travis Dermott rotating in. But the second unit – Muzzin and Justin Holl – has been inconsistent.
Muzzin, who will turn 33 on Monday, has been a minus player in four of five games since returning from a concussion.
“When we’re not defending well as a team, he takes on a lot of that himself and at times he’s doing a little bit too much and is being caught,” Keefe said. “We need our guys to play connected as a team and that’s going to help a guy like Muzz just do his job and when he’s focused on just that, he does it well.”
The Leafs are averaging 3.38 goals against in 16 games since Jan. 8. Toronto ranks 24th overall in that stretch.
Keefe made a point of speaking to Muzzin on the ice after practice wrapped up on Sunday.
Keefe chatted with Muzzin after practice
“When we’re not defending well as a team, he takes on a lot of that himself &, at times, he’s doing a little bit too much & is being caught. We need to play connected as a team & that’s going to help a guy like Muzz just do his job.” pic.twitter.com/zeQp2rNR9e
“The way that things have gone defensively, especially of late, he’s taking on a lot of that himself and that’s not good for anybody,” said Keefe, who once described Muzzin as the conscience of the team.
Keefe has experimented with different looks this week with Muzzin seeing time alongside Sandin, Liljegren as well as Holl.
How can Keefe help Muzzin not take on as much?
“Improve the team around him,” the coach stated succinctly.
Leafs Ice Chips: Helping Muzzin get back on track
It has been an up-and-down season for Leafs defenceman Jake Muzzin, who recently returned from a concussion. Head coach Sheldon Keefe has been trying to help Muzzin find his form again, as the Leafs await the arrival of newly acquired defenceman Ilya Lyubushkin. TSN’s Mark Masters has more.
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Matthews spoke to the media for the first time since colliding with the crossbar near the end of Thursday’s game.
“I’ve had better days,” the 24-year-old said through swollen lips. “It’s been a battle trying to eat and all that stuff. I mean, it is what it is. Just try and push through it and hopefully continue to feel better and better every day.”
Matthews spent a couple of hours at the dentist on Friday. He lost one tooth and required stitches to repair the damage.
Matthews, understandably, was in no mood to dissect the play.
“I saw the crossbar and decided it would be a great idea if I just put my face right through it and see what happened,” he said.
‘It’s been a bit of a battle’ for Matthews after crossbar collision
After Leafs forward Auston Matthews collided with the post in Thursday’s contest against the Penguins, disloding one of his teeth, the 24-year old centerman says ‘it’s been a bit of a battle’ during the recovery process and hopes to continue feeling better with each passing day.
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During the first period of Saturday’s game, the Leafs were assessed a too-many-men penalty after winger William Nylander jumped on the ice and played the puck before Ilya Mikheyev reached the bench.
“Micky was about to step into the bench,” Nylander said. “That happens a lot. Like, to call that one is kind of crazy. It’s not like he was out in the neutral zone. But, it is what it is.”
The Leafs are tied for second in the NHL with eight bench minors. Keefe believes part of that is an anomaly due to the bang-bang nature of too-many-men calls. However, the coach wasn’t making any excuses for Saturday’s penalty.
“This one is not a good one,” Keefe said. “We had more than enough time to process what was going on on the ice and let the puck go by. We failed to do so.”
Top prospect Nick Robertson appears to finally be on track after an injury-plagued run.
“He has been outstanding,” Dubas gushed. “He is only 20 years old and sometimes that gets forgotten because of the strange way his development has gone. He was drafted in the second round [in 2019], had a great season with Peterborough, and then came to our team and played in the bubble [in the playoffs].
“Last season, as a 19-year-old, in [our] third game of the year in Ottawa, he gets injured. And then he gets injured late in the Marlies season and he has a bad injury [non-displaced fracture of his right fibula] in the second game of this season against Manitoba with the Marlies.”
Robertson has three goals and two assists since returning to the Marlies lineup.
“It is the best I have seen him play at this level,” Dubas said, “not only on the puck but off of it, and on the penalty kill. He is much more dangerous with the puck. His skating looks a lot better, which is a credit to him and the work he put in with the staff during his injury to continue to become more explosive, improve his acceleration, get open, and use his shot. As everyone has seen in the last couple of days, he is shooting it in the net from distance.”
And while Dubas heaped praise on the American, he also preached patience.
“We are very, very happy with him,” Dubas said. “The key is for him to continue to build momentum … Last year, with the taxi squad, it was up and down. It tends to stunt momentum. We want to see him continue to build momentum and continue to take on a huge role with the penalty kill and defensively while producing offensively. It will just be a matter of time until he forces our hand.”
Sandin missed practice, because the Leafs needed to send someone down to the AHL to create cap space following Saturday’s trade. Sandin spent some time working with the team’s development staff in the morning. With Dzingel on waivers, Sandin will be available to play on Monday night in Montreal.
Petr Mrazek will get the start against the Canadiens.
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.
