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Ilya Samsonov may win the Stanley Cup.
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And, no, I haven’t misplaced my thoughts.
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It’s not a lot about Samsonov profitable in aim for the Maple Leafs. It’s simply that hockey has seen a run of relatively extraordinary netminders coming away as unlikely champions in latest seasons.
Adin Hill, picked up for a fourth-round draft choose, received final 12 months with the Vegas Golden Knights. Darcy Kuemper received the 12 months earlier than in Colorado.
Amongst these not named Andrei Vasilevskiy — and sure, he already ranks as an all-time nice — none of Jordan Binnington, Braden Holtby, Matt Murray, Corey Crawford or Antti Niemi do. And all have all been in aim for Cup-winners, Murray and Crawford for a couple of.
The times of Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur buying and selling Stanley Cups with Ed Belfour and Dominik Hasek sneaking between them are seemingly gone. The truth is, nearly each championship goalie from the mid-Nineteen Fifties to the flip of the century wound up within the Hockey Corridor of Fame.
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Now, it’s a brand new 12 months, a brand new group, possibly a brand new goaltender who finds his approach come Might and June. It is likely to be Jake Oettinger in Dallas. It is likely to be Freddy Andersen in Carolina. It is likely to be Stuart Skinner in Edmonton or Sergei Bobrovsky in Florida or the mix of Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark in Boston.
It’d even be Connor Hellebuyck, the doubtless Vezina Trophy winner in Winnipeg, or earlier Vezina winner Igor Shesterkin in New York. Odds are, will probably be a shock.
Who is aware of? It’d even be Joseph Woll.
THIS AND THAT
It’s solely doable that Auston Matthews will rating 70 objectives whereas Connor McDavid and Nikita Kucherov will attain 100 assists — two magnificent marks — and not one of the three will win the Hart Trophy as most useful participant within the NHL. Nathan MacKinnon has been that terrific in Colorado … And when you’re an all-star voter, and it’s a must to vote for centres, in what order are you putting MacKinnon, Matthews and McDavid? … If one way or the other the NHL awarded two factors for a aim and one for an help, which some folks advocate, the highest three scorers this season could be MacKinnon (188), Kucherov (184) and Matthews (174) … The overall managers I’ve polled imagine younger Quinn Hughes is the runaway winner of the Norris Trophy, as finest defenceman. And in some years, not this one, he’d be an MVP candidate …Bobby Orr is the youngest participant ever to win the Norris. He was 19. Then, simply to make sure, he received when he was 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26 … Sidney Crosby and Wayne Gretzky had been 19 after they received their first Hart Trophies. Orr waited until the grand outdated age of 21 earlier than working off three Harts in succession. The one different defenceman to take house the Hart up to now 85 years was Chris Pronger in 2000. Earlier than that, Eddie Shore, of old-time hockey fame, received the Hart 4 instances within the Thirties … When Phil Esposito scored 76 objectives for the Boston Bruins, he additionally had 76 assists. When Gretzky scored 92 for Edmonton, he added 120 assists. When Mario Lemieux scored 85 in Pittsburgh, he had 114 assists. Even Bernie Nicholls, a one-time 70-goal scorer, had 80 assists in his largest 12 months in Los Angeles. Matthews, a pure authentic at centre, has simply 38 assists, and that might harm his MVP case … In Brett Hull’s biggest statistical season, the best winger scored 86 instances with simply 45 assists. These are nearer to Matthews numbers. However Matthews is an distinctive defensive participant and Hull was relatively bored with that aspect of the sport … If I’m Sheldon Keefe and Matthews hits 70 earlier than the Leafs end the season, I’d relaxation him for the ultimate video games. Particularly if the Leafs are opening in Dawn in opposition to the Panthers … New Jersey waited too lengthy to close down star centre Jack Hughes for the season. He had been enjoying harm for weeks with the Devils.
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HEAR AND THERE
My pre-season Stanley Cup choose was the New York Rangers over the Edmonton Oilers. It wouldn’t essentially be my choose now, however it’s not horrible. Which my pre-season picks normally are … I just like the relatively full Carolina Hurricanes to come back out of the East. They’re first within the NHL in penalty-killing, second on the ability play. Penalty-killing is extra essential within the playoffs than the ability play. However since Jake Guentzel received to the Hurricanes, he has 24 factors in 16 video games and Carolina has factors in 13 of these video games … Guentzel ought to be an early choose in any post-season hockey pool. However who could be in your prime 5? MacKinnon? Cale Makar? McDavid? Leon Draisaitl? Artemi Panarin? Quinn Hughes? David Pastrnak? Kucherov? Matthew Tkachuk? Jason Robertson? … Isn’t it good and (ahem) handy when NHL groups handle their accidents so succinctly that stars return simply in time for playoffs. Mark Stone is again for Vegas now. Tampa received a Cup with Kucherov coming again after lacking a complete season. The salary-cap manipulation, finished frequently by the Maple Leafs, is inside the guidelines. It simply appears improper … Stone returns to a Vegas group that has received seven video games in a row after going by a very unhealthy spell. The Knights don’t essentially look proper heading to playoffs however the roster is deep and the teaching is superb with Bruce Cassidy … Doable first spherical matchups: Dallas-Vegas or Edmonton-Vegas. One nice group goes out immediately. Vancouver ought to deal with Nashville in Spherical 1 and Colorado ought to take out Winnipeg within the West. Within the East I’ve received the Rangers beating whoever grabs the eighth seed and Boston or Florida knocking off the primary wild-card group. That leaves Carolina to take out the Islanders, if it’s them, and the Leafs in robust in opposition to Florida, but higher fitted to a collection in opposition to Boston … When the Rangers received the Stanley Cup in 1994, in addition they received the Presidents’ Trophy, ending first within the NHL. Rangers are prone to end first total within the NHL for under the second time since their Cup-winning season … Fascinating matchup in a doable Leafs-Florida collection: Matthews, the No. 1 goal-scorer in hockey, in opposition to Sasha Barkov, the most effective defensive centre within the NHL. Matthews didn’t rating a aim in opposition to Florida in final 12 months’s playoff collection …Massive factor for the Panthers would be the well being of ahead Carter Verhaeghe and defenceman Aaron Ekblad. These are game-changers for Florida … Is there a greater third line heading into the playoffs than the Dallas mixture of Wyatt Johnston centring Jamie Benn and Logan Stankoven? … I ponder in the event that they’re mates: Kaapo Kakko and Kaapo Kahkonen.
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SCENE AND HEARD
Blue Jays followers are traditionally affected person with managers. They discovered to like John Gibbons and respect Cito Gaston and, in between, tolerated an extended listing of forgettable bosses. Which makes the opening-day booing of John Schneider through the pre-game introductions, and once more when he went to the mound to take out Jose Berrios, one thing price monitoring … If Kevin Gausman doesn’t pitch like a top-of-the-rotation starter — which he has for 2 full seasons right here — I can’t think about the Jays contending within the American League. The Jays season is based on high-end efficiency from their big-time gamers and Gausman is close to the highest of that listing … Of all of the groups in large league baseball, I’m in all probability much less within the Colorado Rockies than anybody else. I used to be when Larry Walker performed there 20 plus years in the past. Simply not now. And on Monday, the New York Yankees arrive on the town. They’re at all times enjoyable … First and second glances on the renovated Rogers Centre have left a very good impression. I haven’t discovered a lot I didn’t like, besides the costs. Too excessive for baseball … Are the excessive costs what occurs in a professional sporting atmosphere if you pay your gamers in American {dollars} and absorb ticket income in Canadian {dollars}? And that components extra now as a result of capability on the Rogers Centre for baseball has dropped from greater than 50,000 to only over 40,000 this season … At 29, Cavan Biggio is hardly a child any longer. However he’s turned himself into one thing of a useful jack of all trades with the Jays … With greater than 34 innings pitched in six begins from Berrios and Yusei Kikuchi, the duo has given up simply seven earned runs mixed, for a 1.83 earned run common … That is the tip of the twenty ninth season in Raptors historical past. It’s my job to go to video games and I’ve gone to fewer this 12 months than ever earlier than … It nearly hurts to look at Tiger Woods stroll Augusta. You possibly can nearly really feel his discomfort or ache … The Caitlin Clark story will get higher on daily basis. She’s not but a WNBA participant — the draft is Monday — however the league has already organized for many of her Indiana video games to be on nationwide tv for the approaching season. And the costs for Indiana video games, the place she shall be drafted to, have gone approach up, house and away. What’s occurring with Clark financially has by no means occurred in ladies’s group sports activities earlier than. Nothing even near this … For the document, I watched extra Iowa ladies’s video games than I watched Raptors within the second half of the season.
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AND ANOTHER THING
Once I was a child enjoying highschool soccer, O.J. Simpson was the best working again within the Nationwide Soccer League. All of us wished to be just like the Juice. Nice athletes don’t at all times occur to be nice folks. A few of them find yourself as murderers. As youngsters, we are able to love the participant. But it surely doesn’t imply that, as adults, we are able to’t detest the particular person … I occurred to be in New York on task on June 14, 1994. By day, they’d a parade for the New York Rangers’ Stanley Cup win. By night time, the Knicks had been enjoying Recreation 5 of the NBA Finals at Madison Sq. Backyard. We didn’t care a lot for the sport that night time. Virtually all of us working had been consumed by the notorious O.J. Bronco chase … Days like that stick with you without end … Shohei Ohtani ought to have married my spouse. When $20 is lacking from our checking account, she must know why … Mike Trout is having a Mike Trout begin to this season, with six house runs already and an OPS of 1.117 in Los Angeles … The Jays ought to have signed Canadian outfielder Tyler O’Neill, who already has six house runs with the Pink Sox. And he got here comparatively low-cost at $5.8 million for the 12 months … Boo-hoo to the gamers (households) on the Arizona Coyotes already complaining about shifting to Salt Lake Metropolis. The wives on the Atlanta Flames hated shifting to Calgary in 1980. Forty-four years later, that’s a rock-solid franchise and an incredible place to dwell. I coated the chapter hearings of the Coyotes in 2009. The NHL ought to have moved out of Arizona again then … I’d maintain my house if I performed for the Coyotes, although. Arizona is a fantastic place for retirement … Don’t know of anybody who hates dropping greater than Steve Yzerman. Which might make him all however apoplectic during the last quarter of the Pink Wings season … Finest proper wingers all-time: 1. Gordie Howe; 2. Man Lafleur; 3. Mike Bossy; 4. Sergei Makarov (pre-NHL). And Kucherov is of their firm, in all probability behind Lafleur and possibly forward of Bossy and Jari Kurri … Matthews is twentieth in profession factors per sport amongst NHL gamers, tied with Yzerman and simply forward of Eric Lindros … Guess you didn’t know that John Tavares as soon as had a 70-goal season. That one was whereas enjoying for the Oshawa Generals juniors. TV’s Ray Ferraro as soon as scored 108 objectives for the Western Hockey League’s Brandon Wheat Kings … The Leafs have by no means had a Norris Trophy winner. Tim Horton completed second twice. Borje Salming completed second twice. Nobody else has been higher than fourth in voting — Bryan McCabe was fourth in 2004 — since then … Rhea Ripley, I get. Becky Lynch, completely. Identical with Charlotte Aptitude and Bianca Belair. However don’t perceive the fascination with Bayley … In case you peruse sufficient NBA mock drafts, you’ll discover the Canadian large Zach Edey in every single place from mid-first-round choose, to late first-round choose, to second-round choose. Apparently, his draft inventory has gone up after his sterling NCAA event … Joyful birthday to Pete Rose (83), Greg Maddux (58), Brad Smith (66), Noah Jackson (73), Sergei Gonchar (50), Patrik Elias (48), Rasmus Dahlin (24), Ted Washington and Gregg Zaun (53) … And hey, no matter turned of Jontay Porter?
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