CAROLINA HURRICANESdownloads.hurricanes.nhl.com/clips/clips101419.pdfgames. Carolina controls 58.76 percent (SAT%) of all shots attempted with Necas on the ice, 57 shots for and 40

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NEWS CLIPPINGS • October 14, 2019

Rookie watch: Makar among top performers age 20 or younger

Defenseman thriving playing big minutes for undefeated Avalanche

By Mike G. Morreale

The play of several high-profile rookies, including forwards Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils and Kaapo Kakko of the New York Rangers, the No. 1 and No. 2 picks of the 2019 NHL Draft, respectively, is one of the major storylines this season. Each Monday, NHL.com will examine topics related to class of 2019-20 in the Rookie Watch.

This week, a look at the top rookie scorers among players age 20 or younger:

1. Cale Makar (20 years, 349 days), D, Colorado Avalanche: The No. 4 pick in the 2017 NHL Draft has five points, all assists, and is averaging 19:50 of ice time in four games in a top-4 role with partner Nikita Zadorov. Makar is also tied with Samuel Girard for third among Avalanche defensemen with six blocked shots.2019

2. Cody Glass (20 years, 196 days), F, Vegas Golden Knights: Glass became the first Vegas amateur draft pick to play for the Golden Knights when he made his NHL debut in the season opener at T-Mobile Arena on Oct. 2 and scored on his first shot in a 4-1 win against the San Jose Sharks. He has four points (two goals, two assists) and nine shots on goal while averaging 14:53 of ice time in seven games.

3. Martin Necas (20 years, 272 days), F, Carolina Hurricanes: The 6-foot-2, 189-pound forward is playing right wing with center Erik Haula and Ryan Dzingel and has four points (one goal, three assists) with nine shots on goal in six games. Carolina controls 58.76 percent (SAT%) of all shots attempted with Necas on the ice, 57 shots for and 40 shots against.

4. Quinn Hughes (20 years), D, Vancouver Canucks: The No. 7 pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, who turned 20 on Monday, is playing a key top-4 role to begin the season. Hughes scored his first NHL goal while on the power play in an 8-2 win against the Los Angeles Kings in the Canucks' home opener Oct. 10. He has three points (one goal, two assists) and the Canucks control 53.93 (SAT%) of all shots attempted with Hughes on the ice. He leads NHL rookies in ice time (20:08).

5. Ville Heinola (18 years, 253 days), D, Winnipeg Jets: Heinola was one of the most improved players last season in Liiga, Finland's top professional men's league, and earned an opening-night spot in the Jets lineup following a

solid training camp. The youngest defenseman in the NHL is averaging 19:17 of ice time and Winnipeg controls 50.47 (SAT%) of all shots attempted when he's on the ice. He has three points (one goal, two assists) and is third among Jets defensemen with eight shots on goal in five games.

Head-to-head comparison (Games through Oct. 13)

Hughes and Kakko, the top-two picks in the 2019 NHL Draft, are expected to face each other for the first time in an NHL game at Prudential Center on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, NHL.TV). They last went head-to-head in the final of the 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship, when Kakko scored the game-winning goal for Finland with 1:26 remaining in the third period of a 3-2 win against the United States. He had three shots on goal in 16:23 in ice time. Hughes had one assist and four shots on goal in 17:07.

Jack Hughes, C, New Jersey Devils

Games: 5

G-A-Pts: 0-0-0

Shots on goal: 10

Avg. ice time: 15:31

Telling stat: Has drawn two minor penalties

Quotable: "Jack hasn't backed down from the competitive part of things and understanding what he needs to do outside of producing offense. His game has gotten better, and when you have a guy that's that naturally talented, he'll understand from the mistakes, if you try one too many moves or get too tight on defenders, things get poke checked away. I think he'll learn and grow from it." -- Devils coach John Hynes

Kaapo Kakko, RW, New York Rangers

Games: 3

G-A-Pts: 1-0-1

Shots on goal: 4

Avg. ice time: 15:25

Telling stat: 1.30 Goals/Per 60 Minutes

Quotable: "[Kakko's] more ready than most of the 18-year-olds that come over here, just the way he plays, the physicality that he has, not just hitting but just protecting the

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puck and playing. I'm really, really looking forward to what he can do." -- Rangers center Mika Zibanejad

Morreale's Calder Trophy front-runners

1. Cale Makar, Colorado Avalanche: He's excelling at the most difficult position while playing big minutes in key situations for the Avalanche (4-0-0). Makar is one of 11 defensemen in NHL history with a point in each of his first four regular-season games.

2. Victor Olofsson, Buffalo Sabres: The 24-year-old forward has five points and leads all NHL rookies in goals (four) and shots on goal (14) while averaging 18:11 of ice time for the surging Sabres (4-0-1).

3. Quinn Hughes, Vancouver Canucks: An offensive-defenseman capable of pushing the pace for a team loaded with offensive talent has found chemistry alongside veteran partner Christopher Tanev.

The NHL's best and worst this week: Are the Sabres for real this time?

By Emily Kaplan

Oh, no, here we go again. The 4-0-1 Buffalo Sabres are off to a hot start and could emerge as a spoiler in the top-heavy Atlantic Division. Forgive us if you've heard this before, then ended the season disappointed. This year, maybe, could it be for real?

This once-proud fanbase is desperate to win. Buffalo routinely ranks among the top TV markets for the Stanley Cup playoffs -- despite the Sabres' most recent appearance coming in the 2010-11 season. The Cup-less Sabres last appeared in a conference championship in 1999. Since winning the Presidents' Trophy in 2010, Buffalo has posted two winning seasons and has cycled through six coaches. The Sabres lead the league with their eight-season playoff drought.

Then there was last season. Buffalo teased fans with a franchise-record 10-game winning streak in November. For about three weeks, the Sabres were the toast of the league, the first team to finish the previous season with the worst record and lead the NHL outright in points after 25 games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Then they spiraled. The Sabres went 16-33-8 to close the campaign, good for the worst record in the league in that span.

"Last year, we really rode the wave when things were going well," GM Jason Botterill said. "And then when adversity occurred, we didn't handle it well."

Botterill spent the summer working on safeguards so history didn't repeat itself. The first step was hiring a new coach after parting with Phil Housley, whose stint lasted two seasons. The Sabres landed on Ralph Krueger. After being fired by the Edmonton Oilers (via Skype) after the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, Krueger went overseas and switched sports. He spent the past five years as chairman of Southampton F.C. of the English Premier League.

Coaches across sports are learning to adapt as they try to not only reach millennials and Generation Z but also motivate them. It's especially important for the Sabres, who have the seventh-youngest roster by average age (26.3) this season. "What drew me to [Krueger] was his communication skills," Botterill says. "When you sit down with him, you get this clear understanding of what he's trying to communicate to you. He's definitely in tuned to you. You feel like you're the most important person in the world right then and there."

Botterill knows the team's youth is both its best asset and a weakness. That was especially so last season, when things unraveled. "You can talk to young players, like a [Rasmus] Dahlin or [Casey] Mittelstadt, about how difficult the 82-game grind is," Botterill said. "But until they go through it, it's very difficult."

That includes franchise center Jack Eichel, who is known as being very competitive but is just 22. "Jack has gone through a full year of being a captain in the NHL now, and I guarantee you he'll be a better captain this year because now he's been through it," Botterill said. "He knows what worked last year and what areas he can be better."

Boterill notes that three of the most important players on his team -- Eichel, No. 2 overall pick in 2014 Sam Reinhart and minutes-eating blueliner Rasmus Ristolainen -- have more than 1,000 combined games of NHL experience but are under the age of 24. And none has ever played playoff hockey.

"Something that is kind of forgotten at times is just how young we are," Botterill said. "We didn't think after [last season] that we needed an overhaul, but we wanted to add to this group."

The GM went out to bolster his roster with experience. The Sabres traded for Brandon Montour last season and liked that the 25-year-old had experienced a long playoff run with the Ducks in 2017. The Sabres also traded for defenseman Colin Miller (Stanley Cup Final with the Golden Knights in 2018) and forward Jimmy Vesey (a playoff run with the

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Rangers in 2017) and inked Marcus Johansson (NHL playoffs in eight of his nine NHL seasons) in free agency.

"If we're going to have success here and we're going to turn things around, we have to have people who are excited about being in Buffalo and being part of this organization" Botterill said. "That's been Marcus. He's been all-in since day one."

The Sabres immediately named Johansson an alternate captain. Boterill said Johansson has been great mentoring the young Swedes -- there are four on the roster -- and spent time in camp working with Mittelstadt and prospect Tage Thompson.

"Yeah, we're off to a good start, but we know we're going to face adversity," Botterill said. "Having that leadership and calmness in the locker room is going to be important for our group going forward."

In two of the Sabres' wins so far, they squandered a two-goal third-period lead (including allowing the Panthers to tie the game with 11 seconds left on Friday) but pulled it off. Against the Canadiens, it was Johansson who played overtime hero.

Another important summer addition: goaltending coach Mike Bales, who got the most out of Carolina's goalie tandem of Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney last season. Bales resigned from Carolina in the spring and signed with Buffalo; he worked with Botterill when they were both with the Penguins. Bales has a reputation as the guy who helped revive Marc-Andre Fleury's career, and he is now tasked with getting the most out of 33-year-old Carter Hutton while preparing the way for 26-year-old Linus Ullmark, who the Sabres hope can take the reins soon.

The breakout star of the Sabres has been 24-year-old winger Victor Olofsson, who tied an NHL record by scoring his first six goals on the power play. Olofsson, a 2014 seventh-round pick of the previous regime, went to six development camps before he finally got his shot with the big club this season -- on a line with Eichel and Reinhart, no less.

Olofsson scored 30 goals in the AHL last season, but the Sabres were pleased with how AHL coach Chris Taylor worked and improved Olofsson's defensive awareness, and they were impressed with his shot and offensive sense. As a late-season call-up last spring, Olofsson recorded two goals and two assists in six games. "Sometimes those games at the end of the year, it's not the same intensity, when you're out of the playoffs and playing other teams out of the playoffs too," Botterill said. "It can give guys a false security that they're ready for the National Hockey League. Instead of Victor just thinking it was going to happen, you could tell he worked extremely hard on his body this offseason. He came to camp so serious and focus. We moved him around a lot during training camp, and no matter where he played, he was effective."

The question, of course, is can the Sabres sustain it this time? The Sabres and the NFL's Buffalo Bills share ownership in Terry and Kim Pegula, which means Botterill and his staff often interact with their football counterparts. For example, Botterill sat in on the Bills' war room at last spring's NFL draft. The 4-1 Bills also have fans cautiously optimistic.

Can you imagine if both teams won at the same time?

"There's certainly excitement with fans around here with both teams, and we hope we can keep it up," Botterill said. "These fans definitely deserve it."

Emptying the notebook

There will be a lot of scrutiny this week on the winless Devils (0-3-2), who are off to a sluggish start. They've been outscored 23-9 while being shut out twice. The Devils have been to the playoffs just once since they lost the 2012 Stanley Cup Final, and that was when coach John Hynes led a scrappy, overachieving group in 2018. Has the goodwill worn off? GM Ray Shero is typically loyal and patient with coaches, but let's remember how much he put into transforming this team this past summer after New Jersey won the draft lottery and the chance to select Jack Hughes.

The biggest priority now is convincing Taylor Hall to stick long-term. Hall has said that his No. 1 factor in deciding where to play next season will be the desire to be on a team close to winning a Stanley Cup. Hall's quote to me in September: "I'm not really at a point in my career where location matters to me, if I want to be on the West Coast or East Coast or anything like that. You can make any city great if you're playing well and you're winning there. So that's basically my priority."

Goaltending was a concern for the Devils entering this season, and Cory Schneider, 33, is not off to an inspiring October. In three starts, he has an .897 save percentage and 3.33 goals-against average. Mackenzie Blackwood, who the Devils hope is their goalie of the future, is even worse, at .821 save percentage and 4.90 GAA in three appearances. It was especially interesting in seeing how Schneider would start the season after chatting with him in training camp. "This summer was probably the best I've felt in a long time," Schneider told me. "I know a lot of guys probably say that going into camp. I don't know if I'm in the best shape of my life -- I was in pretty good shape when I was 23 -- but physically I feel like I'm the best I've felt in terms of aches and pains for the first time in four to five years and not coming off a surgery. That has me excited."

Schneider said his 2018-19 season was plagued by an unsettling pattern. "It was physical, then it was mental, then it was physical, and then it was mental," he said of his struggles. "So you sort of get stuck in this cycle, but I finally got out of it and felt comfortable again."

Schneider also said this in September: "Everyone comes into camp thinking they're going to win it all. We can see how quickly it can go well or how quickly it can go badly. So for me, especially, a fast start will take a lot of that pressure and a lot of those questions away."

Patrick Marleau trained this summer as if he were going to an NHL training camp. Then September rolled around, and the 40-year-old was in uncharted territory. After being traded by the Leafs and bought out by the Carolina Hurricanes, Marleau waited for someone to call. And then waited. And then waited some more. He said he never really feared not playing this season, but that didn't make it any easier.

"Everyone around me kept me pretty grounded. I knew -- well, I was hopeful -- the right opportunity would come," he

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said. "There was interest. It was just a little bit of a weird situation, where everyone was a little too late to get into a training camp, and then most teams have their rosters and wanted to see what they had. I kind of knew that, but at the same time, it was all new to [me], so I didn't know how to think or approach it."

Marleau called it "a long summer." But he knew he needed to be ready. So he kept lifting, which is easy, as gyms are everywhere, but had to put in more work to find chances to skate. Marleau, who spends his offseasons in San Jose, bounced around the Bay Area organizing ice time for himself. He tried to get on the ice every day. He kept calling rinks, "OK, one more week. ... OK, one more week."

Then Sharks GM Doug Wilson called. The early-sputtering Sharks wanted to sign Marleau, their franchise leader in points (1,082), goals (508), power-play goals (160), game-winning goals (98) and games played (1,493). Marleau described it as "an emotional conversation."

Marleau made a pit stop at the Sharks facility on Tuesday to pick up some gear -- "It definitely felt like I should be there again. It felt right to be able to walk into the building," he said -- then joined the team on Wednesday in Chicago. Organizing all of that skating paid off. After the veteran's first morning skate, Sharks coach Peter DeBoer noted that Marleau didn't look like he was 40 -- and definitely didn't skate like someone who missed an entire training camp.

Marleau was immediately thrust onto the top line, and he scored two goals as San Jose picked up its first win of the season against the Blackhawks.

I asked Marleau what he thinks of when he reflects on his stint with the Maple Leafs. "Mostly just the friendships," he said. "I also think of that little bit of adventure, going over there with the family and spurring a little adventure in them and a little uneasiness, too. But the friendships I made there will always be something special to me."

Marleau became very close with two of the team's young stars: Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. The 20-somethings became frequent guests at Patrick and Christina Marleau's home for dinner, Christmas and basement hockey with the Marleaus' four sons: Brody, Caleb, Landon and Jagger. Marleau mentioned both players by name in a message posted to Christina's Twitter account:

Marleau said both Marner and Matthews immediately texted him after he signed. "They were both really happy for me," he said.

Three stars of the week

1. James Neal, RW, Edmonton Oilers

Neal had five goals in three games this week to give him seven goals on the season -- matching his total from all of last season in Calgary. This change-of-scenery trade was a big deal. Instead of lamenting what was lost for the Flames last season, let's consider how Neal could elevate the Oilers to a playoff team.

2. Carter Hart, G, Philadelphia Flyers

The 21-year-old continues to convince us that he is the answer to Philly's decades-long goaltending woes. He has

allowed five goals in three starts this season, and this week alone, he stopped 47 of 49 shots (.959 save percentage, 0.96 GAA), which includes his first career shutout against the Devils. We also have an early front-runner for save of the year:

3. Dougie Hamilton, D, Carolina Hurricanes

The Canes made it to 5-0 for the first time in franchise history -- yes, even including the Whalers -- and in the process, Hamilton had a week, scoring three goals and adding an assist. He has scored in each of Carolina's past four games.

Honorable mention: Patrik Laine, RW, Winnipeg Jets. The Finn is finally playing on Winnipeg's top line, and does he ever look good alongside Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler. Laine, who signed a two-year, prove-it bridge deal to end his RFA standoff, has seven points (two goals) in three games this week.

What we liked this past week

No. 2 overall pick Kaapo Kakko scored the first of what will be many NHL goals. The goal -- his move to deke Mike Smith is a beauty -- is almost as great as the celebration. This joy is so pure.

Brad Marchand is known to be a pest. Look how pesty he is on this shift, just toying with the Devils on their power play. A clinic in penalty killing:

Jonathan Drouin came armed to face the scrum of media:

Drouin, by the way, is off to a terrific start after a rocky first two years in Montreal. The Quebec native has six points through his first five games and seems to be winning over Habs fans.

There was a sweet story on the Today Show this week about Simon and Sawyer Seidl, brothers adopted from Congo who are budding hockey stars in Minnesota. P.K. Subban took notice of the story, which led to this very cool shout-out by their sister, Rylie.

What we didn't like this past week

The Avalanche are off to a 4-0 start, and fans around Colorado have to be excited about this young team poised to contend now and for the foreseeable future. The only problem? Most fans can't watch them on TV.

In an infuriating standoff that has dragged into the season, Altitude TV (which carries Avalanche games, as well as Nuggets games) is in dispute with three major TV providers, leaving games off-air for anyone who has Comcast, DirecTV or DISH.

To make things worse, if fans purchase a league-wide NHL streaming subscription, home games are blacked out in the local market.

The Avs are one of the youngest teams in the league. They skate well, have a strong work ethic and feature world-class talent on the top line. They also have an endearing young star in Cale Makar, the Calder Trophy favorite, who has a point in each of his four games and should probably treat himself to a Slurpee or two.

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Makar was a key figure in the thrilling, come-from-behind win against the defending Eastern Conference champion Bruins last week. It's a shame so many weren't able to see it.

Games of the week

Monday, Oct. 14: Dallas Stars at Buffalo Sabres

We just wrapped up the second week of the season, but the 1-4-1 Stars are already preaching the importance of the upcoming four-game road swing. "Everyone in here, including myself, needs to have a playoff mentality going on this road trip," Tyler Seguin told a reporter this week. "If you're chasing behind in this league, like everyone knows, that St. Louis season doesn't happen every year. " Meanwhile, you just read plenty of words about the Sabres' hot start.

Tuesday, Oct. 15: Nashville Predators at Vegas Golden Knights (ESPN+)

Two powers of the Western Conference clash Tuesday in what should be a fun heavyweight match. While Vegas is looking like the class of the conference, Nashville has

arguably been a more compelling team to watch early. Just this week, the Predators took down the Caps in a 6-5 win, then stormed back from a three-goal deficit against the Kings, only to fall 7-4.

Thursday, Oct. 17: Tampa Bay Lightning at Boston Bruins (ESPN+)

Follow Tuesday's Western showdown with a matchup between two of the most talented teams in the East. This game sets up a stretch of three straight games against Atlantic Division rivals for the Bruins, as they'll subsequently have a home-and-home against the Toronto Maple Leafs. After that, the early pecking order in the Atlantic Division might be clarified a bit.

Quote of the week

"It's loud. It's electric. But they just have louder speakers than everybody else. That's all it is."

-- Brad Marchand in an interview with NESN, chirping about the Vegas Golden Knights' home-ice advantage

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THW’s Goalie News: Francouz Debuts, Rask Shines, Week in Review

By Stephen Ground

In Saturday’s full slate of games, a few goalies stood above the competition. But who stood out from the first full week and a half of matchups? Today, we’ll take a look at both discussions.

Francouz Debuts in Denver

29-year-old Pavel Francouz has accomplished a lot in his young life. He’s been the best goalie in the Czech Extraliga twice, as well as winning a championship and playoff MVP honors. He’s been a two-time KHL all-star. He even apparently has a pilot’s license! But until Saturday, he’d never started a game in the National Hockey League.

That all changed in Denver Saturday evening, when Francouz took the ice against the Arizona Coyotes. He got his skates wet in two NHL appearances last season, but this was his first opportunity to man the crease from start to finish, and he represented himself well.

Francouz performed very well, turning aside 34 of 36 shots and bringing home the overtime win to keep the Avalanche undefeated. He took home first star of the night performances for his efforts, and likely earned some more NHL starts in the process.

Many viewed the Avalanche as a strong favorite entering the season, but questions about their goaltending dragged them down a bit. Now, it seems like they may have not one but two viable NHL options with Francouz and Philipp Grubauer. At 4-0-0, they are certainly one of the biggest threats in the league.

Rask Notches a Shutout

Speaking of serious threats, the Boston Bruins are 4-1, with their only loss coming to the Avalanche. On Saturday, they defeated the struggling New Jersey Devils 3-0, but Tuukka Rask was the star of the show.

Rask turned aside all 31 of the shots he faced from the overhauled Devils roster. It was the second Bruins shutout on the young season, with the other orchestrated by backup Jaroslav Halak. The two formed an impressive tandem last season, finishing fourth in the Jennings Trophy race despite early struggles by Rask.

He erased all those concerns with an incredible playoff run that would have easily earned Rask the Conn Smythe Trophy had the Bruins pulled out the win in Game 7. Now, he

and Halak return to the ice looking to return and finish the job this season. It looks like the duo is already in top form, which should concern any team in their path.

Week in Review

Who’s Hot?

If you have a Vezina Trophy ballot, you should go ahead and write John Gibson’s name in pencil. The Anaheim Ducks goalie was already one of the top netminders in the NHL, but he is off to an even more incredible start. He is 3-1 with an absurd .961 save percentage (SV%) and a 1.26 goals against average (GAA).

Not to be overlooked, Rask has manufactured three brilliant starts, including his shutout on Saturday. David Rittich of the Calgary Flames is more than justifying his new contract so far, with a .929 SV% in four starts. Grubauer is validating the Avalanche’s faith in him as a number one as well, with a .931 SV% in three wins.

Who’s Not?

There aren’t words for how brutal Jonathan Quick’s season has been so far. He’s allowed 14 goals on 56 shots, which comes with a .750 SV% and a 7.17 GAA. It’s tough to know what’s wrong with the two-time Jennings and one-time Conn Smythe Trophy winner, but he is clearly a shell of his former self and has been for some time.

Speaking of Pacific Division goalies, Martin Jones has been abysmal as well. He’s allowed 12 goals on 82 shots for an .854 SV% and a 4.55 GAA. The duo is owed a combined $51.95 million (by cap hit) over the next five seasons (Quick’s contract ends in four), and they are a case study on how a bad goalie contract can devastate a franchise.

Backup of the Week: James Reimer

The starting goalies don’t deserve all the headlines. Each week, we’ll acknowledge a backup of the week. This week, the honor goes to James Reimer, who had a .933 SV% and a 2.65 GAA in three starts and displayed his trademark wit after surrendering the Carolina Hurricanes first loss.

Though the Hurricanes will likely form a tandem like they did last season, Petr Mrazek is undoubtedly the 1A, and Reimer’s three strong starts earn him recognition in this first full week of the season. With that defense and two strong netminders, the Hurricanes look primed to repeat last season’s success.

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Hurricanes Recall Brian Gibbons

By Nicholas Niedzielski

Ahead of their West Coast road trip next week, the Hurricanes have recalled forward Brian Gibbons.

The veteran forward, who was named one of Charlotte’s alternate captain prior to the start of the season, has put up four points (1g, 3a) in four games for the Checkers this season, including a power-play goal in Saturday night’s win over Bridgeport.

Signed as a free ageny over the summer, the 31-year-old Gibbons is in his ninth pro season has logged over 300 AHL games over his career, as well as 189 NHL games with Pittsburgh, Columbus, New Jersey, Anaheim and Ottawa with 67 career NHL points (35g, 42a).

The move comes after the Canes assigned Julien Gauthier to Charlotte late last night.

TODAY’S LINKShttps://www.nhl.com/news/rookie-watch-colorado-avalanche-cale-makar-leading-the-way/c-310061840

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/27840395/the-nhl-best-worst-week-buffalo-sabres-real https://thehockeywriters.com/thws-goalie-news-francouz-debuts-rask-shines-week-in-review/

http://gocheckers.com/articles/transactions/hurricanes-recall-brian-gibbons

1156973 Los Angeles Kings

Kings’ penalties prove costly in 5-2 loss to Golden Knights

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

OCT. 13, 2019 10:41 PM

Paul Stastny scored twice on the power play, Max Pacioretty added a power-play goal and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Kings 5-2 on Sunday night.

Reilly Smith and Mark Stone also scored, and Marc-Andre Fleury made 36 saves as the Golden Knights swept their first set of back-to-back games.

Vegas was 3 for 3 on the power play after starting the season 3 for 17

with the man-advantage.

Jonathan Quick allowed five goals on 36 shots for the Kings. Quick has

allowed 19 goals on 92 shots in his three appearances this season. He has allowed at least five goals in five of his last seven starts.

Stastny redirected Pacioretty’s pass between Quick’s legs to put the Golden Knights up 3-1 at 14:51 of the second period. He made it 4-1 with

a one-timer on a feed from Jonathan Marchessault 2:09 later. It was Stastny’s second career game with two power-play goals, and he finished with four points.

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Dustin Brown pulled the Kings within 4-2 at 4:24 of the third period, but Stone pushed the lead back to three goals by scoring 17 seconds later.

Vegas went in front 1-0 at 5:42 of the first period on Smith’s fourth goal of the season. Smith scored on a wrist shot from the left circle, with William Karlsson providing his sixth assist through five games.

Pacioretty scored on the power play at 6:59 to make it 2-0, scoring from the right dot after being given too much space by the Kings. But Los Angeles cut the deficit to 2-1 on Austin Wagner’s first goal of the season 50 seconds later.

LA Times: LOADED: 10.14.2019


Kings see errors of their way with passive play late in games

By JACK HARRISSTAFF WRITER

OCT. 13, 2019 9:03 AM

The good news for the Kings: Twice already this season, they’ve built three-goal leads against the Calgary Flames and Nashville Predators,

division-winning teams from a season ago. In three of their four games overall, they’ve led in the third period.

The bad news: They have squandered their advantage each time, leading to a loss in their season-opener against the Edmonton Oilers and

the need for late rallies to salvage wins against the Flames and Predators.

Excluding empty-net goals, the Kings have been outscored 11-4 during the third period this season. Against the Predators on Saturday, they

began the final frame leading 4-1, only to allow three unanswered goals in the first 11:30 of the third. Of all their early-season concerns, their shaky play near the end of games has been perhaps the starkest. For coach Todd McLellan, the issue begins with identity.

“In the third, we reverted back to something we don’t want to be,” he said Saturday. “That’s being really passive and standoffish. There were a number of times where we were in a standoff type of forecheck, and that’s not the type of team we want to be.”

The Predators’ goal early in the third period provided an example of what he’s talking about.

The chance began behind the Predators’ own net, where defenseman Ryan Ellis handled the puck behind the goal for several seconds. It

allowed the Predators to run a full-ice breakout. Ellis banked a long pass to forward Calle Jarnkrok in the neutral zone. He quickly fed Viktor

Arvidsson, who flew across the Kings blue line. Moments later, Arvidsson would score after just two passes.

“I don’t think once we ever stood off and let them manage their breakout from behind their net in the first two periods,” McLellan said. “In the third, there were probably five or six times in a row where we’re standing off, they’re getting what they want, they get fresh players on the ice, they get to play long, we didn’t make it difficult on them.

“That is not what we want to be,” McLellan continued. “We want to be what we saw for the first two periods.”

Applying pressure allowed the Kings to build their three-goal lead. Their fourth goal, for example, came as a direct result of the forecheck.

Forward Ilya Kovalchuk chased Predators defenseman Dante Fabbro

into the corner, forcing him to attempt a weak back-handed clearance up the boards. Kings center Michael Amadio held it in, won a puck battle,

then saucer passed a back-door feed to Kovalchuk.

“I think pressure on the puck is key,” forward Dustin Brown said. “Because guys are just too good now. Give most defensemen in the NHL now three seconds to make a play, it’s going to be out of your [offensive] zone.”

Asked why his team again couldn’t hold a three-goal advantage, Brown started his answer with the obvious: “We’ve got to learn how to protect a lead,” he said.

Then he stopped himself and changed the message.

“Actually, not even protect a lead,” he continued. “It’s about going after it when we have the lead still. I think we maybe took our foot off the gas.

Then our forecheck doesn’t work and out neutral zone doesn’t work. Then we’re playing D-zone.”

The Kings in recent seasons had grown accustomed to retreating to their own end and relying on relentless defensive zone coverage.

McLellan’s philosophy is different. When done right, “it’s much more aggressive, we’re turning over way more pucks,” Brown said. “I don’t

want to compare it to years past, because it’s a completely different team, different system and everything.”

Whether the Kings’ lead-blowing habits are simply a growing pain this season in that adaptation process or a more serious flaw is yet to be determined.

The Kings responded with three goals, including two empty-netters, in the final minute to survive. This time, their near-collapse in the third period didn’t cost them.

“We’re starting to develop our identity,” McLellan said. “We slipped back a little bit every now and then. That’s why there’s so much inconsistency in our game. Once we get it and everybody buys in for a full 60, we’ll be fine.”

LA Times: LOADED: 10.14.2019


Kings’ penalty kill lacking in home loss to Vegas Golden Knights

By ANDREW KNOLL |

PUBLISHED: October 13, 2019 at 10:45 pm | UPDATED: October 13,

2019 at 10:51 PM

LOS ANGELES — Every gambler knows that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep, as Kenny

Rogers told the world long ago.

The Kings would not mind discarding the result from Sunday night, a 5-2

loss at Staples Center to the Vegas Golden Knights, but they also had positives to hang onto from the ostensibly lopsided loss.

At even strength, the Kings cut down on costly turnovers and glaring defensive breakdowns, even against a domineering Vegas forecheck. Even if their aggression lacked at times, the Kings avoided blunders and played steadily.

“We’re fives games in. It’s not that it’s an excuse, but we’ve been together a little over a month and there are some significant changes,” center Anze Kopitar said. “We’re on the right track. One thing we can control is effort every night.”

Perhaps the sorest spot spot was the penalty kill, the Kings allowed a season-high three power-play goals, while producing no man-advantage

markers of their own.

“It was obviously a horrendous night for (the penalty kill),” Kings coach

Todd McLellan said, discussing failed clears, lost faceoffs, structural

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deficits, a lack of anticipation and general malaise. “It needs work. Individuals need work. Our system needs work … they took advantage of fatigue and they picked us apart.”

Right wings Austin Wagner and Dustin Brown scored goals for the Kings. Kopitar extended his point streak to five games and defenseman Sean Walker now has five points in five games. Vegas center Paul Stastny had a game-high three points. Despite some stellar saves, Jonathan Quick had another rough night statistically, halting 31 of 36 shots, while Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury turned away 36 of 38 bids.

The trio of Stastny, Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone factored into the

Vegas win. Stone found a rolling puck that squirted through traffic, which he promptly backhanded past Quick to give Vegas a 5-2 edge.

The Kings got back on the board as the forechecking of Alex Iafallo caused a turnover behind the net that he sent out in front for Kopitar, who

slipped the puck across the crease for a backdoor tap-in by Brown.

A tic-tac-toe passing sequence during a Golden Knights power play

culminated in Stastny’s second power-play goal of the night. Iafallo had a scoring chance off a partial breakaway moments later, but pushed the

puck wide while being pressured from behind.

The second period saw little in the way of sustained pressure until late in the frame. Quick stood his ground against an initial attack by the Vegas power play. But the Kings’ inability to clear the puck allowed Vegas to reset and get a shot through from high in the zone that was redirected home by Stastny.

The Kings halved the Golden Knights’ advantage 50 seconds after their Vegas’s second goal. Wagner led the rush up the left wing and sent a wrist shot past Fleury on the far side.

They nearly tied the game on a Jeff Carter one-timer, the second near

miss for the veteran center in the first period. Fleury had also made a no-look save on Kopitar, denying him with the right pad while still looking

over his left shoulder. Kopitar said he considered that moment a turning point, while Fleury had a bit lighter take on the save.

“I was screwed there,” he said. “There was a screen in front of me and I didn’t see the pass go, so I just threw (my leg) out there and hoped for

the best and got lucky. The Carter one I saw a little better.”

Vegas’s power play stretched the lead to 2-0 when Pacioretty roofed a shot over Quick’s glove and into the top of the net.

Following a successful penalty kill, Vegas got on the board first as Reilly Smith’s wrist shot from the left faceoff dot beat Quick to the stick side.

For the Kings, the task will be tidying up a disorderly penalty kill and getting back to a game where they can dictate the game offensively as they did Saturday against Nashville.

“It’s amazing how much energy goes into defending as opposed to playing offense,” McLellan said. “We used all our energy up and just kept

giving the puck back to them.”

Orange County Register: LOADED: 10.14.2019


OCTOBER 13 RAPID REACTION: GOLDEN KNIGHTS 5, KINGS 2

JON ROSENOCTOBER 13, 2019

Todd McLellan, on whether it will take time to instill the penalty kill:

Actually, the penalty kill, there hasn’t been that much change to it. There’s work to be done. It was obviously a horrendous night for that

unit. It needs work. Individuals need work. The system needs work.

When I look at the penalty kill, though, there are some factors. There’s faceoffs and there’s the opportunities to clear pucks. Tonight, we got hemmed in our end. We couldn’t get fresh people on the ice and they’re obviously an elite power play right now. They took advantage of fatigue and they picked us apart, and eventually it was in our net. We never got relief on our penalty kill, ever. Faceoffs we did win, which was only, I think, two of them. We gave it right back to them. There are some things systematically, positionally, but there’s also the ability to get fresh people on the ice and stay ahead of it and we didn’t get that chance tonight.

McLellan, on whether penalty killing disrupted them executing their

forecheck:

Well, it takes the team out of a rhythm. We want to be a four-line team,

and as soon as you get into penalty kill trouble, you eliminate players, you take guys out of line rotations, your mindset becomes a defensive

mindset and the energy factor that goes into a penalty kill, it zaps some of your better players. Certainly not what we wanted. Didn’t take many

penalties, but I think a couple of them were preventable – penalties we didn’t need to take, but we’re learning.

McLellan, on the positives he took from five-on-five play:

From the red line in, I like how we’re playing. From the red line back, we’ve got work to do. I thought the other night against Nashville we came out of our end better. Perhaps that was due to the two different forechecks, but this team’s a handful. Vegas is a handful size-wise, they’re a handful positionally, speed and skill. I thought there were loose pucks that were up for grabs and we probably didn’t come up with enough of them or at least establish body position around the loose puck. So, red line-in, good things. Red line-back, some things we need to work on.

McLellan, on whether it’s still fair to judge Jonathan Quick through the lens of his success and legacy:

He’s still that good, in my opinion. When you’re the goaltender, when you’re the pitcher, when you’re the quarterback, all eyes are on you. It’s

as simple as that. He’s the last line of defense for our mistakes, and we made our share of them. I thought tonight was perhaps his best game of

the season. He made some outstanding saves when we needed ‘em. Are there a couple or one maybe that he’d like to have back? I’m sure he would. They’re at a defenseless position, really, when they’re looking at some of these shooters in the league, and we’ve got to be better around him. We know that. I think Quickie and Soupie both know that as well.

We’ve got to be better around them to help them, and if they throw in a big save for us every now and then, we’re grateful for that.

McLellan, on how he’ll use his goalies over the remainder of the home stand:

The rest of the home stand? That’s a tough question for me to answer right now. We’re going to regroup. We’ve had two sets of back-to-backs in four days, so our team needs to regroup tomorrow, get freshened up, and we’re going to play one hell of a good team on Tuesday, and that’s all we’re really thinking about. So, we’ll talk about goaltending tomorrow and who starts, and then worry about the games after that as they come.

McLellan, on any plans to get Tobias Bjornfot into a game soon:

We don’t want a young player not playing by any means, but we also have to keep in mind that we have to keep some guys up and running, and Joakim Ryan, he hadn’t played yet and he played two pretty darn

good games. We’ll make decisions on Toby as we go forward and what’s best for him and his career and for us as a team right now.

McLellan, on factors that led to the Kings leaving Quick in a “defenseless position” on the penalty kill:

We’ve got a lot of work to do in … the penalty kill situation. We’ve got some structural things we’ve got to work on, we’ve got some anticipation things we’ve got to work on, faceoffs and clears are going to be really important so we can get fresh people on the ice. Some of their better chances on the power play, Quickie actually came u[ with saves –

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anything that went through the seam. It was the gifts we gave them. It’s amazing how much energy goes into defending in comparison to playing offense. You could stay on the ice forever and play on offense, and we used all our energy up and just kept giving the puck back to them. It’s hard to evaluate the whole unit and the goaltender in that situation when we’re serving up volleys, I guess, for them, one after another.

Anze Kopitar, on what can be done to accentuate the desired aggressive play:

Obviously trying to shoot the puck on the power play. The penalty kill, just making sure we stay more compact in the middle of the ice where all

the dangerous ice is. But we’ll look at that. We certainly can’t get discouraged. We’ll look at that, we’ll correct things and go from there.

Kopitar, on ways to be more “challenging” and aggressive:

Yeah, obviously. You want ot be as aggressive as you can, but with that

comes a lot of different factors. Obviously, you’ve got to make sure that you take care of the puck, make sure you can be aggressive – really, you

can’t be just aggressive for no reason because the team on the other side will burn you. You’ve got to play smart. I thought the first period was

pretty good. I thought we had chances. We didn’t score, and at the end of the day, that’s what made the difference. They had three power play goals and we didn’t have any.

Kopitar, on taking strides in five-on-five play but trying to avoid “track meet” 80-shot games:

Our system, our style is aggressive, but we’ve got to play within that. Aggressive means hunting the puck and try to get it back in our position as quick as you can after you lose it. Aggressive means playing in the offensive zone and making sure we throw a lot of pucks at the net, and aggressive in the defensive zone means that you want to take away the

ice and the time for them to make plays. It’s really not that big of a secret, but you’ve got to execute it in order to be successful.

Kopitar, on whether the five-on-five play is getting cleaned up:

Listen, we’re five games in. It is an excuse, but coming in, we’ve been

together for a little over a month now. There are some significant changes that sometimes it will take a little bit more time than the other,

but we’re on the right track. The one thing we can control is effort every night, and I think that has been the case, and we’ve got to build on that. We’ll get better system-wise, too. We’ll get more of a ‘reacting’ instead of ‘thinking’ on the ice, and it’s going to get better.

Kopitar, on whether it’s going to take more time to get comfortable on the penalty kill:

Well, if you look at tonight, we don’t really have a whole lot of time. That’s the one thing you’ve got to clean up right away. We’ll look at it and make an adjustment.

Kopitar, on the newer systems becoming more “natural”:

Yeah, some of us, we’ve played the same system for 10-plus years. It’s tough to just turn it off and turn the new one on. There are still some

lingering effects from the other one, but like I said, we’re taking steps in the right direction. [Reporter: How tough has that been for you in

particular?] It’s not been too tough, but sometimes you catch yourself thinking on the ice what you’ve got to do instead of just playing – the way

that it comes instinctively. That split second turns out to be a difference of making a play and not making a play. But, like I said, we’re trending the

right way.

Kopitar, on whether he’s been surprised by the number of shots and chances this season:

Well, that was the goal to start, to play on our toes, to be aggressive. Like I said, we’re trending in the right direction, and that’s encouraging.

Jonathan Quick, on whether he’s experienced a start to the season like this:

I don’t know, I’m sure it’s online, you could look.

Quick, on whether he’s seeing the puck well:

Yeah.

Quick, on whether today’s game represented a step forward:

It’s a loss, so the same as the last two. [Reporter: So, you don’t sense any difference either way?] It’s a loss. You either win or you lose. Either

one or the other.

Quick, on whether he entered the season satisfied with his preseason:

Yeah.

Postgame Notes

— With the loss, Los Angeles fell to 5-4-1 all-time against the Golden Knights, a record that includes a home mark of 3-2-1. These teams have three games remaining: November 16 at Staples Center and January 9 and March 1 at T-Mobile Arena.

— With the loss, the Kings fell to 2-3-0 against the Western Conference, 1-3-0 against the Pacific Division, 1-2 in games decided by three or more goals, 1-3-0 when their opponent scores first, 0-2-0 when trailing after one period, 0-2-0 when trailing after two periods and 2-3-0 when outshooting their opponent.

— Los Angeles allowed three power play goals in a game for the first

time since a 1-for-4 penalty killing performance in a 7-4 loss to Colorado on November 21, 2018.

— With his assist on Dustin Brown’s goal, Anze Kopitar extended his point streak to six games (2-6=8). He has a point in every game this

season.

— With his assist on Austin Wagner’s goal, Sean Walker extended his

point streak to a career-high four games (2-2=4).

— Drew Doughty has gone 30 games without logging 30 minutes, dating

back to 4-3 shootout loss to Vancouver on February 14, 2019.

— Tyler Toffoli appeared in his 198th consecutive game, dating back to February 4, 2017. The club record is Drew Doughty’s 415 consecutive games played, which is currently active. Alex Iafallo ranks third with 87 consecutive games played.

— The Kings attempted 67 shots (38 on goal, 14 blocked, 15 missed). The Golden Knights attempted 65 shots (36 on goal, 10 blocked, 19 missed). Jeff Carter led all skaters with six shots on goal. Kyle Clifford

was the only L.A. skater who did not record a shot on goal.

— Los Angeles won 25-of-65 faceoffs (38%). Adrian Kempe won 2-of-10,

Michael Amadio won 3-of-16 Anze Kopitar won 13-of-20, Alex Iafallo won 1-of-1, Trevor Lewis won 0-of-1, Blake Lizotte won 1-of-5 and Jeff Carter

won 5-of-12.

LA Kings Insider: LOADED: 10.14.2019


GAME 5: LOS ANGELES VS VEGAS


GAME THREADS

Vegas Golden Knights 5, Los Angeles Kings 2

Final

Preview

Box Score

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Ice Tracker

LA Kings Audio Network Broadcast

Fox Sports Live Stream (requires subscription)

SOG: LAK – 38; VGK – 36

PP: LAK – 0/3; VGK – 3/3

First Period

1) VGK – Reilly Smith (4) (William Karlsson), 5:42

2) VGK PPG – Max Pacioretty (2) (Shea Theodore, Paul Stastny), 6:59

3) LAK – Austin Wagner (1) (Sean Walker, Adrian Kempe), 7:49

Second Period

4) VGK PPG – Paul Stastny (2) (Max Pacioretty, Shea Theodore), 14:51

5) VGK PPG – Paul Stastny (3) (Jonathan Marchessault, Nicolas

Hague), 17:00

Third Period

6) LAK – Dustin Brown (3) (Anze Kopitar, Alex Iafallo), 4:24

7) VGK – Mark Stone (4) (Paul Stastny, Max Pacioretty), 4:41

Los Angeles Kings (2-2-0) vs Vegas Golden Knights (3-2-0)

Sunday, October 13, 2019, 7:00 p.m. PT

Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA

Referees: #15 Jean Hebert, #9 Dan O’Rourke

Linesmen: #84 Tony Sericolo, #82 Ryan Galloway

Fox Sports West, FOX Sports GO, LA Kings Audio Network

LAK starters: G Jonathan Quick, D Ben Hutton, D Drew Doughty, LW Jeff

Carter, C Blake Lizotte

LAK scratches: D Tobias Bjornfot, F Carl Grundstrom, D Kurtis

MacDermid

VGK starters: G Marc-Andre Fleury, D Brayden McNabb, D Shea

Theodore, LW Jonathan Marchessault, C William Karlsson, RW Reilly Smith

VGK scratches: D Jake Bischoff, F Brandon Pirri, G Malcolm Subban



OCTOBER 13 PRE-GAME MCLELLAN OBSERVATIONS


GAME PREVIEWNOTEBOOKS

— Like Nashville, Vegas is another team with a go-go-go aggressive mindset somewhat similar to what Todd McLellan is looking to instill in Los Angeles. There’s still a ways to go before the Kings are on equal footing with the second Stanley Cup contender to visit Staples Center in as many days, so McLellan believes “the test we face is more ourselves than our opponent.”

“We’re not at that stage where we’re right there with those top teams. Yeah, we want to work to get there, but it was only about six, seven days

ago when we played back-to-back and we didn’t respond really well, so that’s a test. The game that we played in Calgary set us up for the game

in Vancouver. We failed that test, and I feel like we’re in the same spot again. It’s a lot more about us than what Vegas is doing or going to do. We know them. They know who they are. We’re still trying to figure our identity out.”

— One question I forgot to ask last night: How was Joakim Ryan in his first game as a King? The Kings radio broadcast pinch hit and received an encouraging answer. “He was very patient waiting for his opportunity. He went in, he gave us solid minutes. You can see he’s played in the league before. He had a calming influence on his partner, which we needed and he did exactly what we thought he would do. He would come

in and pinch hit and provide us a good night, so he’ll get that opportunity again tonight.”

— Vegas won 6-2 at home versus Calgary last night, with all members of the well-defined Carrier-Nosek-Reaves combination accounting for a

goal. Tomas Nosek is emerging as a perennial contender for the Casey Cizikas Fourth Line Excellence Award, but he’s not the only one to stir

the drink. “I watched the game last night, and obviously that line had a significant impact on the game, the way they played and how they

protected pucks,” McLellan said. “They created scoring opportunities and took advantage of them. I think that line has been an effective line for the last year and a half, and they continue to build their team so that the game can be played any way. It can be a physical game, it can be a fast game, a skill game, a special teams game. I think they’re one of the better built teams in the league because they can adapt to play any type of game, and that fourth line fits that mold, and I don’t even know if you can call them ‘the fourth line.’ They were pretty damn good last night and I’m sure they’ll be that way again tonight.”

It’s apparently Marc-Andre Fleury in net for Vegas, via Ben Gotz of the R-J. He stopped 33 of 35 last night. Alex Tuch (upper-body injury) and Nate Schmidt (lower-body) are on injured reserve, while Malcolm Subban is out with a lower-body injury. Goaltender Oscar Dansk will serve as the back-up should Fleury go.



WAKING UP WITH THE KINGS: OCTOBER 13


GAME STORY

Seldomly does one NHL Member Club step on another for a full 60 minutes, a notion that certainly applies to the 2019-20 LA Kings and whomever they’re playing on any given night. But on Saturday, against a powerhouse Nashville team that employs Kyle Turris as a fourth line

center and a healthy top-six that includes Filip Forsberg, Ryan Johansen, Matt Duchene, Mikael Granlund and Viktor Arvidsson, they unleashed an

avalanche of forechecking pressure for a good 40 minutes or so and contained the Predators to mostly uncomfortable and disjointed attempts

to exit the zone. While the highlighted names ultimately worked their way back into the game in the third period, the Kings limited their bottom six

and contained a defense with a capacity to generate offense: Defensemen other than Roman Josi combined for six shot attempts and

only one shot on goal. And though Josi generated five shots and 10 total attempts, he was denied by a timely Jack Campbell save that was followed by the Amadio-to-Kovalchuk finish.

The Kings’ own top players were fine, and while we’ll get to Michael Amadio and Sean Walker in a moment, it’s important to note that Kopitar (1-1=2), Brown (1-2=3) and Kovalchuk (1-1=2) all recorded multi-point efforts. But Los Angeles got better production and assertive play from more corners of their lineup than Nashville, and Amadio is turning into a swiss-army-knife-type of a player at a position where they have minimal depth. He was always a smart player with an ability to see and read the

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game well, but he’s really covering ground a lot better now and exuding confidence, and those types of separation moves on the power play or bank passes off the boards to himself are the types of plays that he was yet to execute consistently in his first two seasons. (Which is understandable; he’s only 23.) He offers good support on the puck and retrieves them well below the goal line, and he earned his assist by forechecking both Mattias Ekholm and Dante Fabbro off a puck before dishing to Kovalchuk for important insurance.

And then there’s Walker, the, uh, league’s top possession defenseman – by four percentage points. He had an assist taken away from him last

night but again added to his collection of third assists, the most impressive of which was his lightning-quick-up to Alec Martinez during an

attempted Predators line change, setting in motion the wheels for Alex Iafallo’s winner. (Good things happen when you get pucks and bodies to

the net, but Juuse Saros, a good young goalie who had an off afternoon, inopportunely juggled the puck.) But that goal was a very good

demonstration of exactly how the Kings want to play. It’s similar to the styles of Nashville, and Vegas, and other attack-minded teams that turn

pucks around quickly. That they were able to nab a valuable right-shot “modern” defenseman is a better-case scenario of the team accompanying its expensive stars with effective collegiate free agents and young players. And while there wasn’t really a question of his propensity to provide offense from the back end, there were challenges

in his work without the puck last year, as there often are for rookie defensemen. This year, he’s averaging 1:18 on the penalty kill, which

speaks to both Walker’s added layering and the state of L.A.’s defensive depth. And, of course, it helps to *never* play in your zone; with Walker

on the ice in five-on-five play, the Kings have out-shot their opponents 55-17, out-chanced them 47-18 and outscored them 8-2.

And this is essentially the challenge. The Kings don’t want to be a team that’s regularly responding to poor performances, and on the second day of a back-to-back they’ll have a chance to maintain their offensive momentum against another awfully good team. They’re now 1-0-0 on the DEATHSTAND, which after Vegas continues with Carolina, Buffalo and Calgary. Teams aren’t inclined to remove their blinders, and certainly one

would imagine a nearby divisional rival (against whom they’re 5-3-1 in the regular season) will get their full focus. There were very good

performances in Calgary, followed by the bottomless pit of the Vancouver game, providing a back-to-back baseline for a number of players to

improve upon.


1157006 San Jose Sharks

Takeaways: Marleau’s role, Jones stays the course and Gambrell’s growing confidence

By CURTIS PASHELKA

PUBLISHED: October 13, 2019 at 11:51 pm

UPDATED: October 13, 2019 at 11:53 PM

SAN JOSE — It would be tough to imagine the Sharks’ lineup without Patrick Marleau right now, wouldn’t it?

In just two games, he’s become the difference-maker the Sharks have needed.

Marleau once again skated on the top line Sunday in the Sharks’ 3-1 win over the Calgary Flames. He assisted on Timo Meier’s first period goal and helped the second power play unit create a handful of chances. He’s helped to stabilize the Sharks’ forward lines and given an emotional lift to his teammates.

Marleau had 15 minutes an 26 seconds of ice time Sunday, and that’s without stepping on the ice for the final three minutes and change.

“I don’t think it’s an accident that we’ve won the last two and he’s been in the lineup. I think that’s a piece for sure,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said of Marleau after his team improved to 2-4-0. “Plays the right way, does the right thing when he’s on the ice all the time. It’s really helped solidify our lineup a little bit.”

Fair to say, too, that Marleau will also always be the Sharks’ most popular player.

The game was Marleau’s first as a Shark at home since April 2017. He

signed a one-year contract with the team on Wednesday and played his first game back with the Sharks, the spent 19 seasons with from 1997-

2017, the following night when he scored twice in San Jose’s 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.

Marleau received a loud ovation when he was introduced as one of the Sharks’ starters shortly before the game began.

Marleau was given an even louder ovation during the first the first television timeout in the first period. After a video tribute, Marleau stood

up to acknowledge the fans in attendance, with most of the patrons inside SAP Center rising to their feet to chant, “Patty, Patty.”

As he sat down on the bench, a clearly emotional Marleau wiped away a tear.

“It’s nice to have Patty and Timo,” Sharks captain Logan Couture said of his linemates after his two-assist night, “If you play with two guys who skate well, with Patty especially, it’s just that familiarity with him, knowing where he is going to be on the ice.”

Other takeaways from Sunday night.

1. Martin Jones rebounds from a tough start: The outcome could have

been a lot different had it not been for some key saves by Jones at critical moments.

With the Sharks leading 2-1, Jones stopped a Mikael Backlund breakaway chance right before Brent Burns was called for tripping. Just

1:17 later, Couture intercepted a Matthew Tkachuk pass just inside the Sharks blue line and raced into the Flames zone. He then found a trailing

Tomas Hertl, who one-timed the pass past Cam Talbot for a 3-1 Sharks lead at the 18:08 mark of the second period.

Jones also made four saves on four Sharks penalty kills, and finished with 31 stops for his first victory of the season.

“Jones was great tonight. We had breakdowns and Jones was there to bail us out,” Couture said. “That’s what you need from your goaltender.”

Jones said he didn’t make any adjustments to his game after his start, a 5-2 loss to the Nashville Predators, on Tuesday. In that game, with some shoddy puck management by the skaters in front of him, he allowed four goals on 24 shots. He entered Sunday with an 0-3-0 record and a .854

save percentage.

“It hasn’t been an ideal start, but I feel like my game is right there,” Jones

said. “I haven’t really had that doubt just yet. I’ve felt pretty good in the net, despite the results. I’m just sticking with it and making sure I’m

working hard in practice and working on the details.”

2. Closer to a four-line identity: There’s still room to improve, as DeBoer

and a handful of players noted after the game. The Sharks were outshot 11-6 in the first period nearly let the Flames back in it by taking two

penalties in the third period. The turnovers were not as plentiful, but there were still too many for the Sharks’ liking.

“Like I’ve said all along here, I don’t think we’ve established our four-line game yet, where we’re pinning teams in and we’re dominating possession and we’re grabbing momentum,” DeBoer said. “We haven’t gotten there yet. We’ve had pieces of it. That’s something that we’ll need to get to.”

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The Sharks’ second and third line might still be a bit unsettled. Kevin Labanc started Sunday’s game on a line with Hertl and Evander Kane and that trio had a combined four shots on goal and struggled from an analytics point of view. The third line, centered by Joe Thornton, will get a boost when Marcus Sorensen returns soon.

For now, though, DeBoer is liking what he’s seeing from Dylan Gambrell as the Sharks’ fourth line center. Gambrell put together another solid game Sunday, his third straight in his coach’s eyes, as he finished with 10:47 of ice time and held his own in the faceoff circle, winning six of 13 draws.

Gambrell started camp as a winger on Kane and Hertl’s line and has moved around a bit, and might have been close to being sent back to the

American League after two or three games. But he seems to have found a position he can thrive in, where he’s not being asked to do too much.

“For him, it’s all about competing. Sticking his nose in there and competing, and his skill and speed will take over,” DeBoer said. “He’s

started to do that here regularly.

“It’s on us. We asked him to do too much. We played him on the wing

and on the top two lines, and it was too much for him. He’s playing with energy and assertiveness and some desperation to his game in the role he’s in, and that’s made all the difference.”

San Jose Mercury News: LOADED: 10.14.2019


Logan Couture, Martin Jones lead Sharks past Calgary Flames

By CURTIS PASHELKA



SAN JOSE — Timo Meier and Tomas Hertl scored their first goals of the season Sunday night, and they both had Logan Couture to thank for the assists.

Couture set up Meier for his goal at the 3:04 mark of the first period then

found Hertl for a shorthanded marker late in the second period as the Sharks won for the first time at home this season, beating the Calgary

Flames 3-1 at SAP Center.

Kevin Labanc added another goal off the rush and Martin Jones made 32

saves as the Sharks improved to 2-0 with Patrick Marleau in the lineup after they started the season with four straight losses.

The Sharks (2-4-0) continue their homestand Wednesday against the so-far undefeated Carolina Hurricanes.

With the Sharks killing a penalty to Brent Burns and leading 2-1, Couture intercepted a Matthew Tkachuk pass just inside the San Jose blue line. Couture then picked up the loose puck, raced into the Flames zone and found a trailing Hertl, who one-timed the pass past Flames goalie Cam Talbot for a two-goal lead.

That was enough offense for Jones, who made 21 saves through two periods to help pick up his first win of the season. Jones entered Sunday with an 0-3-0 record and a .854 save percentage.

The game was Marleau’s first as a Shark at home since April 2017. He signed a one-year contract with the team on Wednesday and played his

first game back with the Sharks, the spent 19 seasons with from 1997-2017, the following night when he scored twice in San Jose’s 5-4 win

over the Chicago Blackhawks.

Marleau received a loud ovation when he was introduced as one of the Sharks’ starters shortly before the game began.

Marleau was given an even louder ovation during the first the first television timeout in the first period. After a video tribute, Marleau stood up to acknowledge the fans in attendance, with most of the patrons inside SAP Center rising to their feet to chant, “Patty, Patty.”

As he sat down on the bench, a clearly emotional Marleau wiped a small tear from his eye — reiterating, in a non-verbal way, just how much it has meant to him to be back in San Jose.

First period goals by Meier and Labanc, plus 11 saves by Jones, gave

the Sharks the lead after 20 minutes for the first time this season.

Meier opened the scoring at the 3:04 mark of the first period, as he drove

the net, established position and redirected a pass from Couture past Talbot for his first goal of the season.

Labanc then finished a pretty passing sequence with a wrist shot that beat Talbot at the 10:13 mark.

Erik Karlsson started the breakout with a pass to Labanc, who sped through the neutral zone and found Hertl near the Flames blue line. A nifty pass back set up Labanc, who came in alone and beat Talbot high to the glove side.



San Jose Sharks’ center still looking to find scoresheet

By CURTIS PASHELKA



SAN JOSE — Sharks center Tomas Hertl enjoyed a playful moment at the end of a recent practice when after a failed shootout attempt on

Martin Jones, he threw his stick in the air only to see it get caught in the netting behind the goal.

“I just for fun throw it,” Hertl said Sunday. “At least we had a good laugh from it.”

Hertl has had a tough time finding the back of the net in games, too. Through the first five games of the regular season, Hertl — mirroring the struggles the Sharks have had overall at both ends of the ice — had zero goals, zero assists and had a minus-6 rating.

For a player who is the Sharks’ top returning goal scorer from last season, that may be an early cause for concern. But neither Hertl or coach Pete DeBoer are overreacting right now.

Hertl had 20 minutes and 45 seconds of ice time in the Sharks’ 5-4 win

over the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday, which snapped a four-game losing streak.

“On the ice, I’m still playing my game. The chances were right there, on the (scoresheet) it looks pretty bad. A few zeroes for a top guy,” Hertl

said. “I just keep working, I’m just happy we (won), and I would do anything for the win. For sure we need some of my goals to help win, but

the chances are right there.”

With 13 shots on goal through five games, Hertl feels he can stand to put

the puck on net a bit more than he has so far. Still, there have been opportunities that Hertl just hasn’t buried.

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Early in the second period of the Sharks’ Oct. 5 game against Anaheim, Hertl picked up a rebound in front of the Ducks net after a Kevin Labanc shot on goal. But his backhand shot from just outside the crease was stopped by a toe save from goalie John Gibson. The Sharks power play also went 0-for-14 through three games.

“Tommy always gives you everything he’s got,” DeBoer said. “He’s been a little bit snake bit. I can count at least three, at the top of my head, unbelievable saves.

“Those are slam dunk goals, and he gets robbed. He’s just got to stick with it.”

Having Evander Kane back on Hertl’s left wing should continue to be of benefit, DeBoer said. Kane was suspended for the first three games of

the season.

“I think he’s been a little bit of a product of our lineup,” DeBoer said.

“We’ve had him surrounded with a lot of young guys, with Kane out the first three games. Kane’s back and I expect Tommy will be fine. I have no

issues with him.”

Gambrell’s ‘desperation’

DeBoer said he’s liked what he’s seen the last two games before Sunday from center Dylan Gambrell, who had one assist against Nashville and two more against Chicago.

Gambrell also won 13 of 18 faceoffs in those games, as he begins to get a bit more comfortable in a fourth line center role.

“Just a desperation level in his game,” DeBoer said. “I know sometimes you have to see where things are going, and through camp and the exhibition series, I thought he was just OK. I think he saw he was coming to a crossroads about whether he was going to be in the NHL or have to step back again.

“There’s been a renewed desperation level to his game that’s changed everything.”

Martin Jones starts

Jones will entered Sunday with a 10-3-0 record, a 2.48 goals against average and a .923 save percentage in 13 career games against the Flames. He has struggled at times this season with an 0-3-0 record, an 854 save percentage and a 4.56 goals against average.

The Sharks only win so far this season came Thursday when Aaron Dell made 26 saves in the 5-4 victory, leading to questions as to who would start against Calgary. But from DeBoer’s perspective, it wasn’t a difficult decision.

“It wasn’t complicated,” DeBoer said Saturday about starting Jones over Dell. “The first game of the season was a disaster. Slowly we’ve gotten a little bit better every game at helping our goaltenders. But our game in front of those guys isn’t where it needs to be yet, either.”

Lineup changes

Tim Heed, who has been out the last four games with an upper body injury, returned to the lineup Sunday night, replacing Trevor Carrick. Forward Lukas Radil, who was scratched Thursday, also returned, taking the spot of Danil Yurtaykin.

Injury updates

Forward Marcus Sorensen remains day-to-day with an undisclosed injury, as he missed his third straight game Sunday. DeBoer said defenseman Jake Middleton, who was hurt Oct. 4 in the Sharks’ 5-1 loss to Vegas from a heavy hit from Ryan Reaves, will be out another four-to-

six weeks. Fellow defenseman Dalton Prout skated Saturday and is closer to being able to return.



The road home: Inside Patrick Marleau’s return to the San Jose Sharks

By CURTIS PASHELKA

PUBLISHED: October 13, 2019 at 5:01 am


SAN JOSE — Patrick Marleau woke up Saturday morning and fell right

back into a familiar routine — driving to the Sharks practice facility and entering the dressing room to begin another day in the NHL.

“The smile hasn’t come off my face, for sure,” Marleau said after practice. “To be able to come back here and walk in this locker room and see my stuff up and see my name, it feels good to have somewhere to go and somewhere to play.”

It certainly beats what Marleau’s routine was just a week or two ago, when he renting ice time on his own dime at Solar4America Ice in San Jose — skating in a Toronto Maple Leafs practice jersey — still without a contract.

But a confluence of events — even going back roughly three months, but especially during the first week of the Sharks’ season — helped Marleau

return to the team he played for from 1997-2017.

Sunday night, he’ll once again wear a teal jersey in front of the home

fans as the Sharks face the Calgary Flames at SAP Center. It will be Marleau’s second game back, after he scored two goals for the Sharks in

their 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.

It’ll also be his first home game with the Sharks since April 22, 2017,

when they lost Game 6 of their first round series against the Edmonton Oilers and were eliminated from the playoffs.

Asked Saturday if there were opportunities to sign with another team before Wednesday, when he officially joined the Sharks, Marleau paused for a moment to find the right words.

“It was a really … difficult situation,” he said. “There were a lot of ups and downs. I’ll leave it at that.”

Changes to the Maple Leafs seemed inevitable after they were

eliminated by the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs for the second straight season.

Marleau had taken his share of criticism in hockey’s hotbed, recording two assists in the seven-game series after a regular season in which he

had 16 goals and 37 points — his lowest totals since his rookie year — in 82 games.

The Leafs also needed to clear salary cap space to help sign a handful of players, including winger Mitch Marner, that summer. Keeping Marleau’s

$6.25 million cap hit for the 2019-20 season was untenable.

So on June 22, nearly two years after he signed a three-year, $18.75 million deal with Toronto as an unrestricted free agent, Marleau was traded by the Maple Leafs to Carolina, a deal that included a conditional first-round draft pick and a seventh-round selection in 2020 going to the Hurricanes, and a 2020 sixth-round pick coming back to Toronto.

Marleau waived his no trade clause and agreed to be dealt, as his family had already put their Toronto-area home up for sale, looking to return to the South Bay after two years in Southern Ontario.

Marleau said he and Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas,

“communicated the whole time. Kyle was great about it and, Pat (Brisson), my agent, we were all in it discussing, so there was definitely

some options on the table there for us.

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“It worked out. I’m back here and (the Leafs) got the cap space. Took a little longer than I thought, but I’m happy that I’m here.”

The Hurricanes wanted to keep Marleau, but the now 40-year-old forward wanted to move back to California. On June 27, Carolina general manager Don Waddell announced the Hurricanes would buy out the final year of Marleau’s deal, making “Mr. Shark” a free agent.

“Carolina had interest in Patrick for him to be part of the team this season, however Patrick wanted to be a Shark at all cost. He will retire as a Shark,” Brisson wrote Friday in an email. “At that point I started communicating with (Sharks GM) Doug Wilson on a regular basis in

order to try making it work.”

Had the Leafs not been in such a cap crunch, would Marleau still be in

Toronto?

“We’ll never know,” Marleau said with a smile.

At that time, there was speculation that Marleau would be reunited with the Sharks. Coach Pete DeBoer, who was at the draft at the time of the

trade, heard those rumors, too.

“I read all that stuff and you think about it, and I’d be lying to tell you that (Wilson) and I didn’t discuss it at different points,” DeBoer said. “But there was a commitment here to really give the young guys an opportunity.”

The Sharks’ training camp in September was unlike any other in recent memory.

Not only were there jobs available to be won, but important roles needed to be filled after forwards Joe Pavelski, Gus Nyquist and Joonas Donskoi all left via free agency and defenseman Justin Braun was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Forwards Danil Yurtaykin and Lean Bergmann — in their first seasons in

the Sharks organization — and defenseman Mario Ferraro, a first-year pro, all made the team out of training camp. Forward Dylan Gambrell, a

2016 second round draft pick, was also on the team for the start of the season.

Marleau, meanwhile, was still waiting for a call.

“The Sharks have made promises and commitments to their young players as part of their development,” Brisson wrote. “If they were to look at bringing a veteran player obviously Patrick was going to be Doug’s choice all along.”

It didn’t take long for those decisions to be expedited.

A day before the start of the regular season, forward Evander Kane was

suspended by the NHL for three games for physical abuse of officials. For the Oct. 2 opener against the Vegas Golden Knights, the Sharks had Yurtaykin and Bergmann in their top-six forward group — hardly the plan coming into the year.

The Sharks were throttled 4-1 that night in Vegas — a score that flattered the visitors — and were outclassed 5-1 two days later by the Golden Knights at SAP Center. That was followed by a 3-1 loss on Oct. 5 to the

rebuilding Anaheim Ducks.

Through the first three games, the Sharks never owned a lead and were 0-for-14 on their power play. The rookies were learning on the fly, not quite ready for the roles they were being asked to play.

Adding to the overall malaise were a spate of injuries. Defensemen Dalton Prout, Jake Middleton and Tim Heed were hurt in the first two games. Marcus Sorensen was hurt against the Ducks, taking out another experienced forward just as Kane was set to return.

It was clear the Sharks had to make adjustments.

By that point, discussions between the Sharks and Brisson began to intensify.

“As Doug said, he and I spoke frequently throughout the summer and camp,” Brisson wrote. “The conversations picked up to another lever sometime last week.”

Just before the Sharks played the Nashville Predators on Tuesday, Wilson announced that the team would be bringing back Marleau — the franchise icon who still owned nearly every individual offensive team record. Without Marleau, the Sharks went on to lose to 5-2 to Nashville, but with Kane back, looked better than they had in the previous three losses.

Still, they were making too many mistakes, and the hope was that

Marleau could come in and help settle things down for a reeling team.

“He plays the right way. I think that’s what we need.,” Kane said after the

game. “We need more examples like that, especially right now with how we’re playing.”

The day after the loss to the Predators, Marleau signed a one-year, $700,000 contract with San Jose and landed in Chicago early

Wednesday morning, right around the time the Sharks were getting in from Nashville.

It was a huge boost for a fragile team, lifting the spirits of everyone in the room. The Sharks were about to face the Blackhawks, looking to avoid the worst start in franchise history.

Interestingly enough, before Marleau got the call from Wilson about returning, he was on the ice with former Sharks teammate Scott Hannan, working on tipping pucks on shots from the blue line.

That practice would come in handy soon enough.

Late in the first period on a Sharks power play, Marleau set up in the high slot and redirected a pass from Erik Karlsson past Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford. Late in the second period, he collected a rebound in

front of the net after a Burns shot on goal to score his second of the game.

Less than 40 minutes into his Sharks return, Marleau was already tied for the team lead in goals.

“We showed some clips this morning to our young players. He created two goals and played the right way the whole game,” DeBoer said

Saturday. “On the right side of the puck, defensively on the right side. I think some of our guys have felt the first five games they had to cheat because we aren’t scoring.”

In Saturday’s practice, Marleau was back on the Sharks’ top line with Logan Couture and Timo Meier. The days of skating by himself or with friends in a blue jersey are over. He’s back to where he wanted to be all along.

“I was hoping to be able to come back here,” Marleau said. “There was a lot of ups and downs between the trade and between that happening, but where it ended up, I’m very happy.”



Sharks takeaways: What we learned in San Jose's 3-1 win over Flames

By Chelena Goldman

October 13, 2019 9:37 PM

SAN JOSE -- Good play doesn't always carry over from one game to another. But after finishing strong and getting their first win of the season

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Thursday night, the Sharks hoped to build on that performance three days later when the Calgary Flames came to town.

Team Teal did just that, jumping out to an early lead and never giving it up, as they extinguished the Flames 3-1, tallying their second straight win of the season.

Here are three takeaways from Sunday's game at SAP Center.

Captain clutch

When Logan Couture's teammates described him during the preseason as a captain who would "lead by example," they really weren't kidding.

No. 39 was one of the best players on the ice Sunday night -- not because he scored big goals but because he set them up and let his speed set the tone for the rest of the team.

San Jose's offense got two big jolts in the first 40 minutes, and both times it was from a goal that Couture set up. The second was most impressive, as he snagged the puck from Calgary forward Mikael Backland on a Sharks penalty kill and maneuvered up the ice to set up Tomas Hertl for

San Jose's first short-handed goal of the season.

Jones stood tall

When San Jose's defense got a little loosey-goosey in the second period, goalie Martin Jones kept the Sharks in the game. Not only did Jones keep the Flames off the board during the first seven minutes of the opening period, but he also stopped a few breakaway attempts that could've erased San Jose's lead.

Needless, to say, Jones had his best outing of the season by far. With San Jose's defense still ironing out some kinks and cleaning up its 60-minute game, it was exactly the kind of confident performance this team needed.

The power of playing with the lead

It's pretty incredible how much momentum a team can get just from taking an early lead. Once Timo Meier found the back of the net and gave the Sharks their first first-period lead of the season, they had all the momentum in their favor for the rest of the frame.

The Sharks just need to make sure they don't let their defense regularly take its foot off the gas, as it did during Sunday's game. They might have had the benefit of getting a good performance out of Jones and playing against a tired Flames team, but that kind of play won't cut it against tougher teams.

Getting into turnover trouble could doom them this coming week when the Eastern Conference-leading Carolina Hurricanes come to town.

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 10.14.2019


Before Sharks return, Patrick Marleau left lasting mark on Maple Leafs

By Brian Witt

October 13, 2019 4:57 PM

Patrick Marleau has played for two NHL teams.

He has left quite a mark on both of them.

Marleau instantly became the best story in the league so far this season when he scored two goals against the Blackhawks in his first game back

with the Sharks last Friday. The franchise's all-time leader in games

played and goals scored re-signed with San Jose after the Sharks incurred some injuries on their way to an 0-3 start.

Marleau clearly is happy to be back with the team he began his career with, and as if the two-goal performance wasn't an indication, the feeling is mutual. It was his first game since last April when Marleau was still with Toronto, and although he was only with the Maple Leafs for two seasons, he left a lasting impression on them.

"He means a lot to a lot of guys on this team and he’s a close friend of mine,” Toronto's Auston Matthews said of Marleau to SportsNet's Chris Johnston. “Just the way he is as a player and as a person, I think it’s just

something that we can all kind of take bits and pieces of and apply it to ourselves. Not just on the ice, but off the ice as well. Just how he treats

people and just the way he is and just his presence."

"He’s been in this league for [22 years] and every time someone walked

in -- no matter if it was their first game or not -- he was always there to introduce himself and talk to them and try and help out if anything could

be done,” Mitch Marner said of his former teammate. "His legacy here, I think, is just how respected he was around our room and around the

league and just how much he meant to our team."

Upon his arrival in Toronto, Marleau took the younger Matthews and Marner under his wing. They became travel buddies, and the young phenoms even grew close with Marleau's family.

They were both pleased to hear that Marleau wound back up in San Jose.

"He deserved to play somewhere in this league," Marner commented.

"It was great to see that," Matthews said.

Marleau won't have to wait long to make a return to the arena he once called home, as the Sharks travel to Toronto to face the Maple Leafs at

Scotiabank Arena on Oct. 25.

Of course, Marleau has another homecoming to get through first. That

would be San Jose's game against Calgary on Sunday, Marleau's second first home game with the team that drafted him.



Patrick Marleau's agent says his client only wanted to play for Sharks

By Marcus White

October 13, 2019 1:10 PM

When the Toronto Maple Leafs traded Patrick Marleau to the Carolina Hurricanes in a salary dump this summer, the NHL veteran had one thing

on his mind.

Marleau was singularly focused on reuniting with the Sharks, his agent Pat Brisson wrote to The Mercury News' Curtis Pashelka.

"Carolina had interest in Patrick for him to be part of the team this season, however Patrick wanted to be a Shark at all [costs]," Brisson e-mailed Pashelka on Friday. "He will retire as a Shark. At that point I started communicating with (Sharks general manager) Doug Wilson on a regular basis in order to try making it work."

Marleau signed a three-year, $18.75 million contract with the Maple Leafs in 2017, and the longest tenured player in Sharks history suited up

in a different uniform for the first time in two decades. Needing to re-sign a host of restricted free agents, including star winger Mitch Marner, the

Leafs traded Marleau to the Hurricanes just before June's NHL draft.

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Although the 'Canes wanted to keep him, Marleau wanted to return to his first NHL home. That appeared unlikely when Wilson told The Athletic in September that the Sharks were focused on giving their young forwards opportunities to earn roster spots in training camp.

But the Sharks struggled out of the gate, starting 0-3-0 to begin the season while dealing with Evander Kane's suspension, some injuries and those young players adjusting to the NHL. San Jose wanted to bring in a veteran presence, and that opened the door for a reunion.

"The Sharks have made promises and commitments to their young players as part of their development," Brisson wrote in the e-mail. "If they

were to look at bringing a veteran player obviously Patrick was going to be Doug's choice all along."

Marleau officially signed with the Sharks on Wednesday, and he scored two goals in his first game back two days later. He kept skating on his

own and with former teammates, but didn't participate in a training camp as a free agent. Marleau told reporters Saturday he experienced "a lot of

ups and downs" when asked if he had a chance to sign with another team, but wouldn't elaborate.

Now, Marleau is set to play his first home game for the Sharks in two-and-a-half years Sunday when San Jose hosts the Calgary Flames. Marleau is sure to receive a raucous ovation, further reminding him that this reunion was worth the wait.



Sharks look to douse Flames early, avoid another early one-goal hole

By Chelena Goldman

October 13, 2019 12:42 PM

SAN JOSE -- The Sharks finally broke through Thursday night by taking their first lead in a game, on their way to their first win of the season, no less.

But five games into the 2019-20 season, San Jose's opponents still are

getting on the scoreboard first and doing so very early in the first period.

With the Calgary Flames coming to SAP Center on Sunday night on the

tail end of a back-to-back, the Sharks have a prime opportunity to buck that trend and strike first.

"That's the plan," Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said after practice Saturday. "Our fans are always ready to go, they always give us an

opportunity to do that. But it's on us."

San Jose hasn't just allowed the first goal in every game. They've

allowed the first goal less than 10 minutes into every first period so far this season, putting the Sharks on their heels before right from the get-go.

Here’s how long it’s taken the Sharks’ opponents to take a 1-0 lead:

VGK - 3:46

VGK - 5:01

ANA - 3:38

NSH - 6:16

CHI - 5:07

While loose defense and poor decision-making are mostly to blame for the early one-goal hole, DeBoer is encouraged by the strides the team

made late in Thursday's win over the Blackhawks. With a couple of good practices under their belt heading into Sunday's contest, the Sharks should be able to continue building on that late-game performance in Chicago.

"I always worry about these games when you travel back at the end of a trip, that first game back when you arrive at 3 or 4 in the morning as we did," DeBoer said about returning from the roadie. "But we had a good skate today and we should be ready to go."

The Flames won't have the same luxury of getting solid practice time in. Calgary visits the South Bay at the end of a road trip and on the second

game of a back-to-back, losing 6-2 to the Golden Knights in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

Additionally, in all three of the Flames' losses through this early part of the season, their opponent has scored the first goal. If the Sharks want a

chance at scoring first and putting another notch in the win column, this is the time.

How does that strong start become a reality? The big key for the Sharks is going to be staying smart without compromising any of their grit --

something DeBoer referred to on Saturday as "aggressive patience."

"I know that sounds contradictory, but that's what we need," the coach said. "We're an aggressive team, our systems are aggressive. But the key is walking that line and knowing when to go and when you have to lay off and be patient and support each other. That always takes some work."

DeBoer knows it could take some time, but he believes his squad is worthy of getting it done.

"We're heading in the right direction," DeBoer said. "I like where we're going, but there's still a ways to go."


1156943 Anaheim Ducks

Ducks’ goaltending, defensive tweaks have led to strong start to season

By ELLIOTT TEAFORD | PUBLISHED: October 13, 2019 at 4:07 pm |


The Ducks have given up an NHL-low average of 1.2 goals through the season’s first five games. Their goaltenders have played a significant role

in their stingy defense, with John Gibson third in the league with a .961 save percentage and fourth with a 1.26 goals-against average.

But there’s been more to the Ducks’ finest defensive start to a season in their history. A team effort from their goalies, defensemen and forwards

has resulted in only six goals allowed, three fewer than the Ducks’ previous best through five games.

Their standout defensive play is the reason they were 4-1-0 going into Monday’s game against the Boston Bruins, their final contest on a four-game trip in which they’ve sandwiched victories over the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets around a loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Ducks don’t score many goals, averaging 2.2 per game, but they don’t give up many either. It’s been a winning formula going into a game against an opponent that doesn’t score many goals or give up many

goals either. The Bruins are scoring 2.4 goals per game and giving up 1.6.

“If we’re going to win hockey games, it’s going to take our goaltenders, it’s going to take our ‘D,’ it’s going to take everything as we transition this

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team,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said, referring to the ongoing roster turnover that began last season.

“If you’re only going to score two goals, then you better only give up one. If that’s the way it’s got to be, then that’s the way it’s got to be.”

The Ducks have aided Gibson and backup Ryan Miller by cutting out second- and third-chance opportunities for the opposition. More often than not, it’s been a one-and-done situation. Opponents take a shot, a save is made and then the rebound is cleared away from the danger zone.

Last season, the Ducks began to pull back their defensive coverage and

to play closer to their own net after general manager Bob Murray fired Randy Carlyle and assumed the coaching duties himself Feb. 10. The

game plan has continued with Eakins now coaching the team.

“We’re not a team that plays man-to-man,” Eakins said after the Ducks

took a 2-1 victory Friday over the Blue Jackets. “A lot of teams have gone to that. It’s very effective, too. We’ve chosen to have lots of layers, so if

you do beat one guy there’s another guy waiting there for you.”

The Ducks have dropped their shots-against average to 31.2 per game to

start this season, ranking 13th in the NHL going into Sunday’s games around the league, from 33.2 last season, which was 25th in the 31-team league.

“If you look to where all the goals are scored, they’re right in front of that net,” Eakins said. We’re just trying to clog that that up with as many sticks, feet, shin pads, whatever we can get in there to clog it. The one thing our ‘D’ and our low forwards have done excellent job of is getting inside (the opposition). So when ‘Gibby’ and ‘Millsy’ make a save, (the Ducks) are inside to clear those rebounds.”

Orange County Register: LOADED: 10.14.2019

1157039 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Facing stacked odds, Talbot's debut with Flames deserved better fate

Eric Francis | @EricFrancis

October 14, 2019, 2:24 AM

SAN JOSE – The odds couldn’t have been more stacked against Cam

Talbot from the start.

Devoid of action since his final pre-season start 17 days earlier, the 32-

year-old netminder was summoned for his Flames debut in the most hostile of environs.

Playing in a notoriously tough building against a desperate Sharks club, the ask was that Talbot chip off the rust to backstop a bunch that had its

work ethic questioned by the coach a night earlier in Vegas.

Oh, and to ramp up the emotion of the hosts, it was Patrick Marleau 2.0 Night, as the 40-year-old legend had his homecoming in teal.

Gulp.

Who, then, could have been surprised when the Sharks’ first shot on net found its way to the very back of it?

It was a theme of Talbot’s a year ago in Edmonton where the Flames reclamation project often struggled early.

Fact is, this one wasn’t on him at all – the first goal or the game.

A fluky deflection off the toe of net-front Timo Meier three minutes in was followed by a rocket from a streaking Kevin Labanc at the faceoff dot that had the hosts up 2-0 by the ten-minute mark.

Neither could be pinned on Talbot whose club truly deserved a better fate on a night in which they out-shot Martin Jones and the Sharks 33-20.

Having allowed the first goal of the game for the fifth time in their six outings, the Flames spent the rest of the night chasing the game while Talbot did his part to keep it close with several huge stops, including a save on a Logan Couture breakaway.

"He was good – there’s no issue there," said coach Bill Peters of Talbot’s 17-save effort in a 3-1 loss.

"First one goes off a guy’s foot in the paint, no kicking motion. Second he didn’t have much of a chance. He made the saves he needed to make so

that was good to see."

Peters said what was also good to see was the improved work ethic of

his team, who some might go as far as to say deserved a better fate.

"It was 2-0, but I liked our start," said Peters, frustrated with his club’s showing one night earlier in Vegas, a 6-2 drubbing.

"I thought we had everybody emotionally and physically engaged."

Mikael Backlund, the Flames’ best skater with six shots, a breakaway and a drawn penalty, said the process was a good one even though the result wasn’t.

Talbot agreed.

"I thought that was our best game of the road trip," said Talbot, whose

club got within one early in the second when Elias Lindholm redirected a T.J. Brodie point shot past Jones.

"We battled hard all night tonight and probably deserved a better result. Even though it’s not the result you wanted, sometimes you can build off

little things that you do throughout a game that can become a positive trend for us moving forward. We have to take those, build off them, and

move on.”

Shortly after Sean Monahan hit the post on a Flames powerplay that would have knotted the game, the Sharks inserted a dagger the Flames simply couldn’t extract from their hearts late in the second when Tomas Hertl converted a short-handed 2-on-1 with Couture that Talbot had little chance on.

"It took me a little while to settle in," said Talbot, whose club finished its three game roadie through Dallas, Vegas and San Jose with just two

points earned in a shootout against the Stars.

"Obviously the first one going off a skate wasn’t the ideal start that I

wanted. To be honest, I would’ve preferred a few more shots to get into it. But those are the kind of games that you have to battle through and

stay focused. Thought I did that throughout. Just needed to come up with one extra save and get a better bounce."

Talbot signed as a free agent this summer to replace Mike Smith and split roughly half the starts with David Rittich, and was originally slated to

start Game 3 against L.A.

However, a shutout by Rittich his previous outing prolonged the Czech’s five-game run to open the season – a decision Talbot took no issue with.

Suffice it to say you’ll see plenty more of Talbot in the near future as the coach looks to balance the workload a little more, while also rewarding the hot hand.

Considered a major question heading into the Flames’ season, the Flames’ goaltending has been good enough for the team to be better than its 2-3-1 record.

The team has yet to hit its stride, as was the case last year when the

Flames were a .500 club 10 games in before exploding for a 50-win, 107-point season to win the west.

The Flames host Philadelphia Tuesday and Detroit Thursday before returning to California next weekend.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Sportsnet.ca LOADED: 10.14.2019

1157040 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / “Am I a scab?": Kicking off the NWHL’s most controversial

season

Gare Joyce

It’s Wednesday afternoon and Corinne Buie just finished her six-hour shift at Daily Planet Coffee Company, where the sign outside reads: “Do something nice for the planet, daily.” There are plenty of examples of that mantra inside this North Buffalo café, like uncooked fettuccini in lieu of plastic stir sticks. Buie made an espresso for her last customer of the day minutes ago. She just clocked out, poured herself a fresh coffee and took a seat on the café’s patio. “Check out my Beauts mug,” she says, grinning as she rotates her cup to display the logo — a buffalo with a crown floating over its head. “A fan actually made this for me.”

About six hours from now, Buie (“Boo-ee,” she emphasizes) will head to

the Northtown Center at Amherst for her other job with the National Women’s Hockey League’s Buffalo Beauts, who practice tonight. She’s

the team’s captain, and nobody has been on the roster longer than Buie’s four seasons. She’s been working just as long at Daily Planet, where

you’ll find a copy of the Beauts’ schedule taped up beside the cash register. The 27-year-old Minnesotan works here in large part because

she can tailor her hours to ensure hockey remains the focus. The sport is the reason Buie moved to Buffalo, after all.

On October 5, the NWHL dropped the puck on Season No. 5. Buie recorded a goal and an assist in a 3–1 Beauts win over the Connecticut Whale in the opener. And with that, the most divided season in professional women’s hockey history is officially underway.

About 140 of the best players in the world have chosen to sit out this year of pro hockey in North America — that means refusing to play in the NWHL, the only league on offer after the abrupt collapse of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League in March. Instead of playing this season, the richest and most famous women in the sport, led by stars like former Beauts goalie Shannon Szabados and fellow Olympic gold medallist and speedster Kendall Coyne Schofield, are part of a #ForTheGame movement backed by the great Billie Jean King, and they’ve come together to form the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association (PWHPA). The women are taking a stand they hope leads to a sustainable league that would pay enough to make the sport a career, so players don’t have to also work in, say, a coffee shop to make ends meet.

“Am I crossing the picket line?”

That sounds like a dream come true to Buie. And, like a lot players, the

veteran forward had to think long and hard this off-season about her decision to continue playing in the league she’s been part of since Day 1.

It meant passing on the #ForTheGame movement chosen by many of her former teammates and current friends. It meant going against the

popular grain and playing in the league that Coyne Schofield and Hilary Knight and other national team stars say doesn’t provide adequate

salaries or have a viable business model that’ll lead to a strong future. “You think, ‘Oh, am I crossing the picket line?’” Buie says, forehead scrunched, hugging one knee on her chair. “Am I a scab?”

The goal of every elite female hockey player is the same. But there are different views on the best way to get there. And the path chosen by Buie, the Beauts and the more than 100 women who’ve chosen to play in the NWHL this season is to stick with the league that many of the world’s best have decided just isn’t good enough.

Conflict and an uncertain future may be the big themes in women’s hockey these days, but there’s no sign of either on a Wednesday night in Buffalo as players get ready to hit the ice for practice. About 20 Beauts are waiting at the door of the Olympic-sized rink, chatting and laughing with each other as the Zamboni finishes its last laps. As soon as it’s safe¬ — the moment the big double doors close, the Zamboni now gone, the shoveling done — the Beauts explode onto the ice.

After a few warmup laps, practice begins. Forward Taylor Accursi rips around below the blue line, head up, puck on her stick. “Cursi,” as she’s known to teammates, is the owner of silky mitts and a goal celebration

that features a dramatic sweep along with ice with her right glove. When a Beauts teammate scores, No. 95 says she’s often “cellying harder”

than the goal-scorer herself. In 33 career regular games with Buffalo, Accursi has cellied hard for 10 goals of her own.

Accursi and the rest of the Beauts skaters are now crammed into one zone, and everybody has a puck. On the whistle, they transition from

wheeling around while stickhandling to passing with a partner while staying mostly still. Buie saucers a puck over to Sara Bustad, an NWHL

rookie who plays both forward and defence. Bustad recently gave up her job as the Tampa Bay Lighting’s coordinator of diversity development so she could play pro hockey, and she and another teammate just moved into an apartment in a former Buffalo firehouse, which she says is “so cool.”

On the next whistle, the drill transitions, and players battle one-on-one. Accursi wheels around while an assistant coach tries to get the puck off her to no avail. It’s 9:40 p.m. Practice is 10 minutes old.

Beauts head coach Pete Perram sounds off his whistle a third time and players begin to cycle through the three-part warmup drill again. A former

head coach of the Swiss women’s national team, Perram is wearing a Beauts track suit with “PETE” spelled out on the front in bright white embroidered letters. “They’re all women playing at a high level, but they play like kids when they’re out there right now, don’t they?” he says, leaned up against the boards, revelling in his team’s love of the game. “It’s a very passionate group, and the sacrifice that they endure to be part of this team? Total respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”

Out here, you’ll find the NWHL’s first-ever Slovakian-born players, Lenka Curmova and Iveta Klimasova. Both defenders are members of their

national team, and each put up more than 1,000 of their own Euros to fly from Slovakia to Buffalo for a free-agent camp in July. The women had

tears in their eyes when they found out they made the Beauts.

Curmova, 22, and Klimasova, 21, also now work as nannies for a local

family, taking care of four kids, including seven-year-old twins. They’ve never been nannies before, but they’re both older sisters. The family

provides them with “everything,” Klimasova says, including food and housing. There’s a pool in the backyard and sometimes the two sit out there and watch deer eat grass. “It feels like home already,” Curmova says.

“I’ll go to the end of the Earth to be a part of this.”

Curmova is now passing back-and-forth with Marie-Jo Pelletier, who was captain of the University of New Hampshire Wildcats the past three seasons. Pelletier is from New Brunswick and she recently moved to a city she’d never heard of before (Thorold, Ont.) to live with a woman she’d never met before (teammate Kim Brown) so she could play for the

Beauts and also work in Ontario (once she finds a job, that is). The commute to practices and games takes Pelletier and Brown 45 minutes

each way, and both players are looking into getting a Nexus pass to speed up the border crossings — a tip from Accursi, who lives an hour

and a half away in Ancaster, Ont.

Perram kicks an errant puck back into the zone, then blows his whistle

twice and orders up a fast lap with a resounding: “Go haaaaaard ladies!”

The coach lives and works in downtown Toronto, and he makes the four-hour-and-change roundtrip about three days a week. Tonight’s practice ends at 11 p.m. “I’ll get home at 2 a.m.,” Perram says, just before he

CAROLINA HURRICANES


rounds up his team and explains the next drill. Ask him why he coaches so far from home and his eyebrows shoot up. It’s been a dream to coach professional women’s hockey, he says: “I’ll go to the end of the Earth to be a part of this.”

The losses the NWHL suffered this off-season were nothing short of major. The Metropolitan Riveters said goodbye to Olympic gold medallist and three-time world champion, Amanda Kessel. The Minnesota Whitecaps lost both of their leading scorers, including Lee Stecklein, the five-time world champion who paced all NWHL defenders in points last season and scored the game-winner in the championship final.

Connecticut bid adieu to Czech national team player Katerina Mrazova, who led the Whale in points as a rookie. Gigi Marvin, a three-time

Olympian and veteran defender for Team USA, left the Boston Pride. And Szabados, Canada’s top goalie and the No. 1 jersey-seller in the

NWHL last season, parted ways with the Beauts.

All these players — and plenty more — officially announced their

departure from the NWHL on May 2, the day the #ForTheGame movement launched. But while the league’s product suffers in the

absence of stars like Kessel and Coyne Schofield, the NWHL has played on without its national team members before. Not a single Team USA player participated in the 2017–18 NWHL season, because they were all centralized ahead of the 2018 Olympics.

Not all the stars fled. Of the 32 players who participated in the 2019 NWHL All-Star Game, 10 remain, including the league’s all-time leading scorer, Jillian Dempsey. She opened her season with two goals and a three-point night for Boston.

For Riveters captain and 2019 all-star Madison Packer, who trailed only Kessel among her teammates in points last season, the decision to

return was made easy by improvements the league has made of late. The regular-season schedule expanded from 16 to 24 games. Twitch bought the rights to livestream every game for the next three seasons. And the NWHL now offers players a 50 per cent revenue split of league-level sponsorship and media deals. Packer made $15,000 in her rookie season in 2015–16, one year before the NWHL slashed its salaries to stay afloat. “I can say with full confidence that this year I will be making

the most money I ever have playing pro hockey,” she says.

Packer, 28, signed for a base salary of $12,000 (the high-end salary in

the league is around $15,000). In late September, the NWHL announced that players had each earned an additional 28 per cent of their base

salaries thanks to the revenue split, bringing Packer to $15,360. Any other deals that come in will increase that number. “There’s real money

in the door, there’s real money waiting to come in the door, and it’s not just sitting in a bank account for the league,” Packer says. “It’s going

back to the players.”

“It’s a real incentive,” adds Pride defender, Kaleigh Fratkin, who won a 4 Nations Cup with Team Canada back in 2015, the same year she became the first Canadian to sign in the NWHL. “It really puts more responsibility on the players to say, ‘Hey, we have opportunities to really grow our sport.’ I think it’s an opportunity for us to be better brand ambassadors for our league and for our actual teams.”

“The NWHL is proven progression of what we’ve been working on for over a decade.”

Fratkin’s team in Boston has the added benefit this season of being the

league’s lone privately-owned franchise, bought up by a group of investors this off-season who’ve promised to “treat us like pros,” Fratkin

says. The team recently landed a new sponsor in Legal Sea Foods, and the restaurant will be giving fans free chowder samples at home games

and launching foam lobsters into the crowd. Among the NWHL’s league-wide sponsors are Dunkin’ Donuts, its official ice cream sandwich is

Chipwich and American Giant is outfitting all teams with track suits and leisure wear.

“Every time I go into the dressing room, they’re getting more free stuff,” says Beauts General Manager, Mandy Cronin. She played in and helped found the now-defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League, and

backstopped the Brampton Thunder to the league’s championship Clarkson Cup in 2008.

“I just look at what we have here,” Cronin says, midway through one of two weekly Beauts practices. “The NWHL is proven progression of what we’ve been working on for over a decade.”

Pros across North America are divided over the best way to grow the game. Buie, right, thought long and hard before returning to the NWHL.

It’s little more than four minutes into the first game of the season, and the Beauts are on the power play in a so-far-scoreless game. Pelletier makes a pass over to Curmova on the right point, and the Slovak fires a wrist

shot through traffic. When Curmova sees that red lamp light, she throws up both arms while her teammates pile on with hugs.

It’s 1–0 Beauts, and the rookie Slovakian has the first goal of the 2019–20 campaign.

Curmova never thought she’d play professional hockey in North America; let alone feel like she belonged in a pro league on this continent; let

alone score 4:20 into her debut. “Scoring this goal is probably the top moment of my life,” she says. But had players not sat out this year,

Curmova and Klimasova, both alternate captains on the Slovakian team, never would’ve taken the chance to even try out. “We were so nervous to come here because we didn’t even dream about NWHL, it was not even our dream, because we thought that we can’t make this team, like ever — girls from Slovakia,” says Klimasova, who had an assist in her first NWHL game. “It was hard for us to think that we can be here. Skill level, and it’s far, and we are the first Slovakian girls in this league. This is why we didn’t think about this.”

Now that they’re here, the women who each broke onto their national team at age 15 are doing big things for the game at home. Klimasova

and Curmova are among fewer than 600 female hockey players in the country of more than five million, according to Slovak Hockey — and

they’re easily the most famous in that group at the moment. Curmova had more interview requests from back home than she could handle after

scoring in the opener. “Oh, we are all in television,” Klimasova says. “Yeah, we are like superstars,” Curmova adds. “It’s really, really big for

our country and for Slovak women’s hockey. Because we show them it’s possible, because nobody think that it’s possible to play professional [in the U.S.] before. We didn’t think that it’s possible even. It’s going to be huge step for the whole national team in Slovakia. We hope it pushes national team, and we are going to get better and better.”

Opportunity has opened up for a lot of players who wouldn’t otherwise have made an NWHL team or simply didn’t take a shot before players elected to sit out. Meg Delay, the 22-year-old Beauts defender who also works as a server at Chuck’s Roadhouse back home in Fort Erie, Ont.,

first tried out with the Beauts a few years ago but didn’t make the team. Delay won a Clarkson Cup with Markham in 2018, though she was a healthy scratch in the final. “This boycott went on and I thought, ‘Well, I think this is my chance to slip in the door,’” she says. “Here’s my shot, so I took it.”

The same is true for Beauts goaltender, Kelsey Neumann, who has her dad’s catchphrase stenciled on her helmet: “Pull your head out of you’re a$$.” She got cut from the team last season because Buffalo had a pair of national team goalies. “For me it was like, ‘Hey, if I get a chance to play, I’m not passing that up,” Neumann says ahead of practice, shortly

after finishing up a lesson plan for her Grade 2 students. “I believe this league is the starting block we need.”

For Curmova and Klimasova, the hope is the league is a starting block for better things not only for the game in North America, but back home,

too. “We want to show little girls in Slovakia that everything is possible and dreams can come true,” Klimasova says. “Of course you can be a

pro in the best league.”

Nearly a month after NWHL teams could begin re-signing players and inking draft picks, the Beauts signed their first player of the 2019–20

CAROLINA HURRICANES


season. She is the only player in league history to play in every Isobel Cup Final. She is the winner of three pro hockey championships.

Buie was first despite taking her time with the decision. She didn’t want to rush signing because, as the two-time Isobel Cup champion puts it (she lost by a single goal the other two times), “I’m not the type to ruffle feathers.” She originally tweeted out the #ForTheGame message the same day all the women involved did. It seemed like everyone was heading in that direction, and: “Well, Billie Jean King, you know?” she explains. Buie was ready to join any movement supported by the former tennis star who waged and won a legendary fight for equality.

Most of the Beauts stars had already left. Gone were the league’s MVP in Maddie Elia, defender of the year in Blake Bolden, and the players’

choice for player of the year, Hayley Scamurra. The Beauts owners, the Pegula family — the Bills and Sabres owners who’d provided the Beauts

with more ice and gym time and per diem than any other team and had plastered their faces on billboards around Buffalo to promote the Beauts

like never before — had also cut ties with the NWHL. That meant the Beauts lost their home at the Pegula-owned Harborcenter, which hosted

the league’s second-highest per-game attendance last year, an average of 1,101 fans.

“Hopefully we’re all growing the game, because we’re all in the same boat.”

The Beauts needed a new coach and new management, too. In short, the only team to advance to every NWHL final in history was decimated. But as weeks passed and some of those positions were filled and announcements were made, Buie started to second-guess her decision. And, after speaking with Cronin, newly installed as the team’s GM, she changed her mind entirely. “It just started me thinking: ‘What am I

thinking?’” Buie asks. “Why would I not play hockey? I live here to play hockey and I need to play hockey. I’m not going to just sit out for a year. This league has given us a lot, and it’s the only league that pays its players. It hasn’t been perfect, but it still exists and it’s growing and it’s here for us. Hopefully what [the PWHPA] is doing grows the game, too. Hopefully we’re all growing the game, because we’re all in the same boat.”

Though this Buffalo team looks almost nothing like it did last season, having lost the bulk of its stars, this isn’t the first time the Beauts have

faced long odds — they won the franchise’s lone championship in 2016–17 as a major underdog.

That win capped Buie’s first season in Buffalo. Sitting in her patio chair at the coffee shop, she stretches out her arms like she’s holding a stick and

she handles an invisible puck as she replays the move she made to beat Boston goaltender Brittany Ott. Her goal stood up as the winner against a

Pride team that included world and Olympic champions like Knight and Brianna Decker, a 3–2 upset. “We beat them, the stacked team,” Buie says. “For the Beauts, who nobody expected to win, for our team to come out and beat the team that was full of Olympians, it was shocking and it was thrilling to be a part of.”

Cronin is hopeful this Beauts team can come up with another shocking and thrilling and unexpected championship effort this season. It’s a driven group, with something to prove. “I think we’re all eager to show that we each belong here, and I think there’s also a little sense of, an NHL team gave us back,” the GM says. “There’s a little feeling of maybe

they didn’t believe in us, and we want to prove to the community, to Buffalo, that we belong here.”

Accursi saw that point firsthand this off-season. The 24-year-old had planned not to return to the NWHL, figuring a year off could be spent

focusing on her career off the ice. She recently applied to the OPP. Then, while she was working at a hockey clinic in Tampa Bay, a little girl

wearing Accursi’s No. 95 skated right up to her.

“Are you No. 95 on the Beauts?” the girl asked. Accursi confirmed, yup, she was. The child’s dad explained the family were big Beauts fans.

“I’m like: No. Way!” Accursi says, slamming her hands on the table in front of her, while sitting in the top level of the Northtown Center before practice. “No way. In Tampa? Of all places?

“That was the moment for me, the defining moment of: I’m coming back. Ever since that moment — if we can have an impact on kids that are all the way in Florida? How is this not growing the game?”

Buie only wondered if she’d crossed that picket line, if she was a scab, for a moment. “You see these little girls watching our practices. People love us — they love the Beauts,” she says. “That’s helping the game.”

Curmova notched the first goal of the NWHL season, a highlight she calls

"the top moment of my life"

It’s the final drill of the night and Klimasova just scored on a wristshot she

wired from the point. Her Beauts teammates cheer and tap her shin pads with their sticks as she glides back into the lineup along the blue line,

smiling.

When the clock hits 11 p.m., Pellam blows his whistle and gathers his

players at centre ice. He talks about how excited he’s been about the team’s development over the past few weeks, and then the players and

coaches all get together for a loud “Beauts!”

It’s 11:02 when Accursi beelines for the door, then runs in her skates on the rubber floor toward the dressing room. She’s hoping to be in bed by 12:30 a.m. It’s going to be competitive.

Buie, Bustad, Klimasova, Curmova and a few other locals stay on the ice after practice, skating around and firing pucks on net and chatting. It’s one of those rare nights when they don’t have to hurry off for the Zamboni. No group has the 11-12 hour booked.

Since she made the decision to play another season for the Beauts, Buie hasn’t once questioned it. She’s getting as much ice time as she can. “I

want to play hockey,” the captain says. “And what’s wrong with that?”


1157041 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Coaching and protecting MacKinnon at 12: 'We had to watch out for him'

Gare Joyce | @garejoycenhl

October 11, 2019, 3:14 PM

If you wander into Cole Harbour Place on a weekend morning these days, you’ll see kindergarten-age boys and girls learning to skate,

learning how to hold a stick, learning to love the game.

It’s easy to imagine the scene when Nathan MacKinnon was on this

same sheet of ice 20 years ago — playing in his first games, scoring his first goal — back when he was one of the smallest kids on the ice, skating in a kiddie league sponsored by a doughnut company.

Of course, some things have changed dramatically over the years. By the time MacKinnon was playing peewee hockey as an under-ager, the tiny community of Cole Harbour was on everyone’s radar because of another local boy — Sidney Crosby, maybe you’ve heard of him — who’d made good. And these days, of course, MacKinnon’s arguably the most dynamic and powerful player in the NHL. In his spare time he does commercials for the same doughnut outfit. Even the arena itself has

received a fairly extensive renovation that shortened the hockey camp a summer ago.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Some things around the local arenas are constants, though. One of them is Charlie MacLean, a fixture on the hockey scene in Halifax — where Rogers Hometown Hockey makes a stop this weekend — since before he coached MacKinnon in bantam AAA.

A twelve-year-old MacKinnon, second from the left behind the goalies, celebrates his team’s bantam AAA provincial championship. (Courtesy of Charlie MacLean)

While Crosby’s greatest minor-hockey glories came down the road with the Dartmouth Subways, MacKinnon played all of his youth hockey in the arena closest to home. While MacLean will reserve judgement, many

locals will make the case that MacKinnon and his bantam AAA teammates were the best to ever play out of the arena. MacLean was

behind the bench with assistants Dave Peters and Jeff Porter for that Cole Harbour team, which won both the provincial and Atlantic Canada

championships.

MacKinnon didn’t rack up the same hard-to-fathom goal-scoring numbers

that Crosby had, but neither was he an unknown commodity coming up through the ranks.

“We knew about Nathan when he was in atom,” MacLean says. “I was coaching bantam and his team would be on the ice before we practiced. He was a small kid and pretty shy, but well-mannered and clearly talented. At that point, I thought there’d be a pretty good shot that I’d be coaching him someday.”

MacLean had a a shorter wait than he imagined.

“In his first year of peewee, he was 11, and he’d practise with the bantam AAAs, who were mostly 14 going on 15,” MacLean says. “You could see even then how competitive he was. He wanted every drill to be just right.”

In his second year of peewee, the MacKinnons applied for exceptional-

player status to allow Nathan to play up with Cole Harbour’s bantam team in AAA play.

“Hockey Nova Scotia did a lot of homework on it and watched him in practice,” Maclean says. “They talked to his parents (Graham and Kathy).

They talked to Nate. [Exceptional-player status] wasn’t anything that they just handed out, but he really deserved it.”

Celebrate Our Community. Celebrate Our Game.

Though turning out a superstar talent turned out to be a twice-in-a-lifetime proposition for the community, MacLean assumed he was only going to get a single shot with a prodigy and made the most of it.

“Getting to work with a player that talented, it’s a real treat as a coach,” MacLean says. “We had to watch out for him because he was still the smallest kid on the ice and other teams would take liberties with him and try to run him.”

With MacKinnon on the ice and MacLean behind the bench, Cole Harbour beat the St. John’s Hitmen in the Atlantic Canada final.

“We had a really strong team, a bunch of players who went on to play in Quebec (Major Junior Hockey) League and for university teams,”

MacLean said, “but Nathan was clearly the most talented kid in the lineup.”

He was also the one who left home the soonest. When MacKinnon enrolled at Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Minnesota, he wasn’t just following the

trail blazed by Crosby. That first principle of hockey development — always be looking for stiffer challenges — propelled him to leave home.

“Everyone understood that and no one begrudged Nathan (going to Shattuck-St. Mary’s). He had to move on and play with better players, face better competition and, really, get more time on the ice and better coaching. We’d done as much as we could for him here.”

A few years later, MacLean faced his own crossroads, and rather than move up, he chose to move back. His wife, Crystal, is a teacher at Astral Drive Junior High School — yup, Sidney Crosby’s alma mater before he

headed off to Shattuck — so it’s not so much of a surprise that Charlie has gone from coaching to teaching on the ice.

“It was really enjoyable working with the bantams and midget teams, but I got to the point that I wanted to spend that time in the arena with my kids,” says MacLean, who currently works with players as young as his four-year-old daughter, Emilia. “And it was the right time to let someone else have the chance to work with the older players.”

Don’t mistake MacLean’s decision as any sort of fading from the scene. He’s currently working with the kindergarten-aged kids alongside his old assistant Dave Peters, and plans to move up the coaching ranks every

season.

“With my daughter and kids her age, it’s a different type of coaching, but

it’s a lot of fun,” says MacLean. “It’s teaching the game, the basics and fundamentals, rather than doing anything with game strategies. You have

to strike a balance at any level — whether it’s bantam AAA or the very youngest kids playing for the first time. You want kids to compete and

have fun. Maybe with my daughter’s group, it’s learning to compete as well, something that you’re not having to do with the older kids.”

And the scouting report on his young sons?

“Rylan is six, so he’s a couple of years away from thinking about playing anything like AAA, but my older son is eight, so we’re a season away from when it gets more serious,” he says. “My older boy is a good skater and a pretty good little player, but he’s defensive-minded, so I imagine at some point as he moves up he’ll go to the blue line.”

And it’s just coincidence that his eight-year-old’s name is Nathan.


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Sportsnet.ca / Beyond Headlines: Crosby's Penguins in survival mode until Malkin returns

Chris Johnston | @reporterchris

October 13, 2019, 1:24 PM

‘Beyond Headlines’ is a deeper dive into some of the stories — and even some that weren’t — discussed each week on Hockey Night in Canada’s

‘Headlines’ segment.

You could have lost a lot of money over the years betting against Sidney

Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

But after seeing Evgeni Malkin knocked out for an unspecified, but not

insignificant period of time with a lower-body soft-tissue injury, it’s hard not to view this as one of the biggest challenges the Penguins have

faced in the Crosby/Malkin Era.

They are a remarkable 13-for-13 in playoff appearances with that generationally-great pair as teammates, but the salary cap exists as a force meant to drag against any run of sustained success like the one Pittsburgh has enjoyed.

It doesn’t help that the Penguins were capped out to start the season and then saw Malkin, Alex Galchenyuk, Nick Bjugstad and Bryan Rust all injured. Even though they bought some temporary relief by placing Malkin and Rust on long-term injured reserve, they have to be mindful about taking on any financial commitments that will remain when those

forwards are ready to be activated.

From a roster management standpoint, this is survival mode.

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Pittsburgh is carrying nine defencemen and has sometimes only had 10 forwards to practice with. In Minnesota on Saturday night, three-quarters of its forward group was comprised of players who have never previously recorded 30 points in a single NHL season: Jared McCann, Dominik Simon, Zach Aston-Reese, Dominik Kahun, Teddy Blueger, Joseph Blandisi, Sam Lafferty and Adam Johnson.

Oh, and the Penguins won 7-4.

They’ve actually taken two of the three games since Malkin went down with his injury on Oct. 5 and they’re asking a lot of Crosby in the process — playing him more than 22 minutes per night, and seeing him pick up

three goals and five points this week.

Jim Rutherford is as aggressive as any general manager in the business,

but there’s not likely to be a cure-all trade to be made here. The Penguins simply need to forge on until better health returns, do what they

can to stay above water until No. 71 is back in the lineup.

I wouldn’t bet against them.

But the challenge is real.

Senior Writer Ryan Dixon and NHL Editor Rory Boylen always give it 110%, but never rely on clichés when it comes to podcasting. Instead, they use a mix of facts, fun and a varied group of hockey voices to cover Canada’s most beloved game.

There is some built-in chaos when you’re doing live television on the busiest night of the NHL schedule.

And so a touch of turbulence came for ‘Saturday Headlines’ this week. Elliotte Friedman was working a couple angles right up to the point we were on set and that kept our lineup of topics from being finalized until the camera’s red light was about to turn on.

As the second period was ending in Detroit, Friedge apologized to Ron

MacLean for the fluidity. Ron didn’t flinch: “No worries. I’ve been doing Coach’s Corner for 34 years.”

In other words: This is just how it’s supposed to be.

From the perspective of the least-tenured member of the segment — me — it was a cool moment amid the chaos.

And, of course, Friedge managed to unearth another nugget after ‘Headlines’ aired: The Ottawa Senators have decided to put off their

search for a president of hockey operations for at least the rest of the season.

The St. Louis Blues plan to have every returning member from their Stanley Cup team in tow when they get an audience with President

Trump at the White House on Tuesday.

This comes after they became the first organization to bring their entire

group to the Hockey Hall of Fame this week for the customary championship ring donation ceremony. The Blues roll together.

They also carry more Canadians on the roster than any other NHL team.

The only American-born players who were part of their championship are Zach Sanford and Pat Maroon, who has since moved on to Tampa.

The Anaheim Ducks are off to a strong 4-1-0 start under Dallas Eakins and it sounds like the seeds of success were planted when the new head coach was hired this summer.

John Gibson, a perennial Vezina-quality goaltender, knew Eakins a little bit from his days in AHL San Diego, but was blown away when the coach flew to his off-season home in Pittsburgh to break bread and take the temperature of the room.

“Gestures like that show he really cares,” said Gibson.

“I was excited. I’ve never had that before where somebody wants to

come all the way to visit me just to kind of hear my thoughts, hear what I thought of the last year,” he added. “He just kind of picked my brain. I

thought it was really nice that he came for dinner with me and my wife and flew all the way there.”

It’s a more collaborative approach than Eakins took with his first NHL coaching job in Edmonton, where he felt he had to immediately change the culture around a losing team.

That’s by design. Live and learn.

We sat down with Gibson at the NHL/NHLPA Player Media Tour in early September and he predicted the Ducks would surprise this season. He pointed to the young forwards graduating with Eakins from San Diego and a clean slate as the biggest reasons for optimism.

“I think we’re going to be all right,” said Gibson. “A lot of people think that maybe we’re in a rebuilding [process], but I think we’re going to be a

team that goes out and competes.”

Jesse Puljujarvi and Julius Honka share a lot in common.

Both Finns, both recent first-round draft picks, both unsigned by NHL teams and both back home playing in the SM-liiga while waiting to be traded.

However, what’s best for one might not be best for the other.

Puljujarvi is currently wearing the gold helmet as the leading scorer for

Karpat. He is looking to rebuild his confidence after yo-yoing between Edmonton and Bakersfield the last three seasons and is prepared to

spend the entire year in Finland before resuming the pursuit of an NHL career.

In fact, you could probably argue it’s best for him.

Honka is a little older — soon to be 24 — and hopes the Dallas Stars find

a trade before the Dec. 1 deadline, when he needs to be signed to remain eligible to play NHL games this season.

The puck-moving defenceman is currently playing alongside his brother, Anttoni, with JyP Jyvaskyla, but it’s likely more of a temporary solution to stay in game shape. His contract includes a clause that allows him to move to another European league even if something doesn’t open up for him in North America over the next few weeks.

PHIL IN THE HALL?

Bless David Amber.

The Hockey Night host keeps our conversation flowing on- and off-

camera every Saturday night, filling the 10th-floor bunker with a steady stream of topics to chew on. In the lull before the 7 p.m. games got going

this week, he seized on the occasion of Phil Kessel’s 1,000th NHL game to ask:

Hockey Hall of Famer? Yay or nay?

I’ll grant my colleagues confidentiality, but suffice to say there was a

range of opinion in the room. So D.A. took the poll to the people and Kessel came away with a decisive victory across more than 18,000 votes

on Twitter.

Tonight #Coyotes Phil Kessel will play in his 1000th game.

His resume:

*11 straight 20 goal seasons

*6x 30 goal seasons

*2x Stanley Cup

*Bill Masterton winner 2007

Is he a Hall of Famer?

My two cents: Kessel’s got a great shot, given the consistently high level

of play, durability, and his major role in those two Stanley Cup victories in

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Pittsburgh. But it’s probably going to take a few more productive seasons in Arizona to seal the deal.

Fortunately, he’s got this year plus two more on his contract. And maybe more beyond it.

The legend of Victor Olofsson’s impending NHL breakthrough first started spreading through the summer skates at Fjallraven Center back home in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden.

It was after those shared sessions with the local Modo Hockey team where Victor Hedman predicted the Buffalo Sabres rookie could score as many as 30 goals this season — a number that, if realized, would place

the former seventh-round draft pick squarely in the Calder Trophy conversation.

In Olofsson, the Tampa Bay Lighting star saw the right mix of ability and drive. He’s no unproven kid, either, at 24 years of age and coming off a

30-goal season with Rochester in the AHL and a 27-goal season with Frolunda in the more defensively-inclined Swedish Hockey League.

“He’s got a tremendous release. Just an unbelievable shot,” said Hedman. “Works hard. I’ve seen his dedication — he wants to be in the

NHL, I can tell.”

Olofsson hasn’t wasted any time in making Hedman look prescient by scoring four goals in five games to start the season with the Sabres.

A couple days ago, he and 20-year-old defenceman Henri Jokiharju were told by general manager Jason Botterill to get an apartment in Buffalo. That’s a great conversation for any NHL rookie to have.

It means they’re not going anywhere.


1157043 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / New-look Canucks finding ways to win that last season's team didn't

Iain MacIntyre | @imacSportsnet

October 13, 2019, 2:11 AM

VANCOUVER – No team in the National Hockey League lost more one-goal games last season than the Vancouver Canucks.

It’s a simple and sometimes delusional thing to revise history, but if the Canucks, who were 17-14-11, won eight more one-goal games than they lost instead of the other way around, they’d have been a playoff team.

They’ve got a bunch of new players, and a new outlook this season. They’re bigger, more talented, more experienced. But are they going to be any better?

They kind of looked like last year’s Canucks in their season-opener when

they blew a third-period lead in Edmonton and lost on Connor McDavid’s late goal for the Oilers. Which is why Saturday’s 3-2 shootout win against

the Philadelphia Flyers felt significant.

Vancouver lost another third-period lead on Oskar Lindblom’s power-play

goal for Philadelphia with 5:02 remaining in regulation time. But that was the only goal the Canucks surrendered while playing most of their final 20

minutes in their zone, getting out shot 14-6 by the Flyers, who must have angered the NHL schedule-maker to open their season in Prague – yes, the original one in the Czech Republic – and two games later be playing

on the Pacific coast.

But the Canucks still managed to leave with a victory when Tanner Pearson, whose deft second-period deflection gave Vancouver a 2-1 lead that it held for 30 minutes, shimmied and shot through Flyer goalie Carter Hart’s pads.

Sure, shootouts are coin flips, more spectacle than meaningful barometer. But this was the kind of game the Canucks would have found a way to lose last season.

Instead, they evened their record at 2-2 after a 0-2 start and built some confidence among players still getting used to one another.

"You don’t want to do that too often, but it’s huge to get this win," veteran

defenceman Chris Tanev said. "Hopefully, as the year goes on and we get more comfortable with each other, playing this new system which is a

little more aggressive, hopefully we lock down those leads in the third period.

"There are going to be a lot of one-goal games. We’re not going to win 8-2 very often. Most games will be 2-1, 3-2, 4-3 and you’ve got to find a

way somehow to win these games. Tonight, obviously, was not the way we wanted to play with the lead. We sat back a little bit. But you learn

from it and move on."

The Canucks beat the Los Angeles Kings 8-2 on Wednesday, riding the emotions of Bo Horvat’s coronation as captain.

The game against Philadelphia was starkly different. There was plenty of speed and back-and-forth flow, but not many high-quality scoring chances. Sustained pressure was rare as each team played quickly to exit its zone.

"After potting eight in one game and (you) kind of go another way the next, so you’ve got to be dialed in from the get-go," Pearson said. "We wish we would have played a little bit better there in the third. We kind of

sat back a little bit. At the same time, to show that perseverance and not giving them too many Grade-A scoring chances, keeping them to the

outside, I thought we did a lot better job of that than in Edmonton. And, obviously, Marky stood on his head tonight.

"Getting this extra point tonight after losing our first two games is huge. It’s nice to get back to .500."

Canucks goalie Jacob Markstrom finished with 30 saves, which didn’t include the game-clincher in the shootout when he stacked his pads like Cesare Maniago to deny Kevin Hayes on the final shot.

Hart was beaten in the shootout by Elias Pettersson and Pearson.

"I don’t have a go-to move; I ain’t Petey," Pearson said. "I just come in and try to find some net and shoot it there."

The Canucks scored 5:01 into the game and led for all but a minute of the next 50.

Brock Boeser, struggling after missing training camp and half of the pre-season, scored his first of the season to make it 1-0. It was a goal-

scorer’s goal, Boeser chipping a tumbling rebound from Pettersson’s deflection. J.T. Miller made the goal possible, motoring to recover a loose

puck as Flyer defenceman Ivan Provorov yielded to the 220-pound Canuck.

Philadelphia tied it briefly at 3:14 of the second period when Carsen Twarynski, on a partial breakaway down left wing after a poor Canucks

line change that followed a penalty kill, beat Markstrom short-side.

But two shifts and 1:13 later, Pearson deflected Chris Tanev’s low point

shot high into the net after Horvat won a faceoff.

With Canuck Jordie Benn in the box on a questionable interference penalty, the Flyers tied it 2-2 when Canucks penalty killer Brandon Sutter was bypassed at the blueline, creating an outnumbered rush that ended with Travis Konecny setting up Lindblom cross-ice.

"Situations like that are going to happen, where teams tie the game up in the third period," Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers said. "I thought we

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stuck with it. It was a pretty tight game the whole game, to be honest. It’s one of those games you’re kind of used to seeing at the end of the year with how tight it was."

The Canucks haven’t played a playoff game to end their year since 2015.


1157044 Websites

TSN.CA / Five Takeaways: Canucks vs Flyers

Jeff Paterson

1) On balance, the Vancouver Canucks weren't the better team through 65 minutes of play on Saturday night. But they got the better result in a 3-2 shootout win over the Philadelphia Flyers. While the Canucks never trailed, they were hanging on in the third period and were a Travis Sanheim goal post away from a last minute loss in regulation time. But there will be nights over the course of an 82-game schedule when a team isn't at its best, but still has a chance to secure two points. It was

important that the Canucks found a way to grind out the result. They let a 2-1 third period lead get away on opening night in Edmonton. They

couldn't have that happen for a second time in four outings in the early going this season. That may have inflicted psychological damage that

would be difficult to undo. Teams play so many tight games in today's NHL that it's imperative to learn how to come out on top in these types of

tests. Although outshot 14-6 in the third period, the Canucks bent but ultimately did not break and that allowed them to collect the bonus point

awarded in the shootout.

2) Overshadowed by a struggle to score in Alberta and the hoopla that accompanied Wednesday's home opener, Jacob Markstrom has been very solid in his first four outings. He allowed three goals in Edmonton on opening night and has held the past three opponents to just two goals apiece. When your team allows two in the NHL, you stand a very good chance of securing points. It won't always happen (see last Saturday in Calgary when the Canucks didn't score), but Markstrom was the first star on Saturday and he earned it with a couple of spectacular saves. This is a big year for Markstrom. He turns 30 in January. He wants to prove that the final four months of last season were not a mirage -- and it's a contract year. So there is plenty of motivation every time he steps on the ice. The big Swede has been a huge part of a Canucks penalty kill that is 11 for 12 on the season. He has likely benefited from a relaxed schedule that has seen the Canucks play Wednesday-Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday giving him plenty of rest between starts to work with Ian Clark and remain at the top of his game. The schedule picks up starting on

Tuesday night against Detroit. It's likely Markstrom will get that start giving the team a chance to move above .500 for the first time this

season.

3) Brock Boeser scored his first goal of the season potting a rebound

behind Carter Hart five minutes into the hockey game. It was his first goal since signing his contract extension at the tail end of training camp. Due

to the late signing and a concussion that curtailed his exhibition play, Boeser only skated in parts of two preseason games. He didn't find the

back of the net in either of those and hadn't scored through the team's first three games on the schedule. It was nothing to worry about, but you can't score 30 -- or more -- without the first one and Boeser doesn't have to wonder any longer when that first one will come. He had looked dangerous at times. He had six shots on goal in Calgary last Saturday, but couldn't find the mark. He had a great third period chance on Wednesday but was unable to beat Jonathan Quick. Against the Flyers, Boeser had three shots on goal and a team high nine attempts. That's an encouraging sign. For whatever reason, he has feasted on Philadelphia scoring six career goals in just five meetings. He'll get a chance to add to

those totals when the teams meet again next month at Wells Fargo Center. Now that he has his first, who knows how many goals Boeser will have by then.

4) Tanner Pearson continues to be a thoroughly professional goal scorer for the Vancouver Canucks. The veteran winger bagged his second goal of the season on a deft deflection to put the team up 2-1 early in the second period. He then looked supremely confident as the third Canuck shooter in the shootout waiting for Carter Hart to open up and slipping the puck between his pads. Pearson now has 11 goals in 23 games since coming over from Pittsburgh. Both his goals this season have come

on deflections which speaks to Pearson's willingness and ability to get to the front of the net and score goals the Canucks feel they haven't scored

enough of in recent years. Skating on a line with Bo Horvat and Josh Leivo -- and with a bump from some penalty killing duty -- Pearson

played a season-high 19:30 on Saturday night and had four shots on goal. While Micheal Ferland struggles to find his form, Pearson seems

like a solid bet to remain in a top six role on the hockey club. Even more so, if he continues to score the way he has since arriving from Pittsburgh

at last year's trade deadline. Plus, keep in mind that Bo Horvat with 0+1=1 through the first four games is bound to pick up his scoring pace soon which should only help Pearson's productivity.

5) On December 10th last season, Chris Tanev sat with no goals and three assists. On Saturday night, the veteran blueliner set up both Vancouver goals. That followed his first goal of the season on Wednesday against LA. So he's two months ahead of his scoring pace from last season. Points aren't likely to flow for Tanev the way they have this week. But he's healthy, he looks confident in the early going this

season playing alongside rookie Quinn Hughes and he's part of a Canucks defense corps that has chipped in quite nicely through the first four games. Last season, the Canucks were among the lowest scoring defenses in the NHL with 27+108=135 or 1.64 points per game. It's remarkably early this season -- probably too early to draw conclusions -- but with Tanev's two points against the Flyers, the Canucks blueline has contributed 4+6=10 or 2.5 points per game. Again, it's awfully early, but it's a step in the right direction to be sure. And it's a refreshing change to

be talking about Chris Tanev's point totals rather than the number of games missed due to injury.

TSN.CA LOADED: 10.14.2019

1157045 Websites

USA TODAY / Los Angeles Kings covering up Taylor Swift banner during home games

Steve Gardner, USA TODAY

Published 11:42 a.m. ET Oct. 13, 2019 | Updated 12:53 p.m. ET Oct. 13,

2019

Taylor Swift has nothing to do with the Los Angeles Kings' recent string of playoff failures. But Kings officials aren't taking any chances.

The 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup champions haven't won a playoff series since their home arena, Staples Center, put up a banner in 2015

celebrating Swift's record number of sellout concerts there.

The NHL team covered up the banner for Saturday's home opener — which, coincidentally, was against the Nashville Predators.

“The connection to our fans is our highest priority and through our engagement they have made it clear that the banner shouldn’t be part of their Kings game experience,” Michael Altieri, senior vice president of marketing, communications and content for the Kings, told the Los Angeles Times.

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L.A.'s two NBA teams who play at Staples Center have differing philosophies on the unfurled fabric. The Clippers cover Swift's banner, along with those of the Lakers and the WNBA's Sparks, for their home games. The Lakers don't cover anything.

Swift hasn't performed at Staples Center since her record-setting 16th sellout on Aug. 21, 2015.

USA TODAY LOADED: 10.14.2019

Documents

CAROLINA HURRICANESdownloads.hurricanes.nhl.com/clips/clips101419.pdfgames. Carolina controls 58.76 percent (SAT%) of all shots attempted with Necas on the ice, 57 shots for and 40