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Ryan Whitney says the Red Wings are going to finally end their nine-year playoff drought.
The former Edmonton Oilers defenseman and co-host of the popular hockey podcast, Spittin’ Chiclets, said he’s picking Detroit over Montreal for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
“Detroit is getting in,” Whitney said on Monday’s podcast. “Hockey is back in Hockeytown.”
Whitney said he was leaning toward picking the Canadiens to make the playoffs for the second straight year but he’s been impressed with the improvements of a number of Detroit’s young players, including Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond and Axel Sandin-Pellikka.
“Seider is an absolute monster,” Whitney said. “He’s never missed a game, he gets over 40 points, plays all the tough minutes, all the tough matchups. You have a stud there. Can he get to the next level? He’s awesome and a true No. 2 on a Cup-winning team. Can he turn into a superstar?
“Raymond is so nasty. He’s a dog on the ice, always in scrums, and in front of the net. He’s a 30-goal scorer on a trajectory to score 40 goals. Sandin-Pellikka is a young Swede and smooth as silk. That’s a guy who will someday be running the power play.”
Also on the show, Keith Yandle agreed with Whitney, picking the Red Wings to make the playoffs. Paul Bissonnette disagreed. He has the Canadiens finishing ahead of the Red Wings this year.
Walman signs $49M deal with Oilers
Former Red Wing Jake Walman signed a seven-year, $49 million contract with the Edmonton Oilers on Monday. The contract, which starts next season, has an average annual value of $7 million.
The 29-year-old defenseman could have become an unrestricted free agent after the season.
It was the second significant signing of the day for the Oilers, who earlier Monday signed center Connor McDavid, to a two-year, $25 million contract ($12.5 million AAV). That deal also begins next season.
Walman is in the final season of a three-year, $10.2 million contract ($3.4 million AAV) he signed with Detroit on Feb. 28, 2023. He was traded to the San Jose Sharks on June 25, 2024.
The Oilers acquired Walman in a trade with the Sharks on March 7. He had eight points (one goal, seven assists) and averaged 21:26 of ice time in 15 regular-season games. He was then second among Edmonton’s defensemen during the Stanley Cup Playoffs with 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in 22 games to help it reach the Cup Final for the second straight season.
Walman is dealing with an undisclosed injury and Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said he is “a question mark” to play in the season opener against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; TVAS, SN).
Selected by the St. Louis Blues in the third round (No. 82) of the 2014 NHL Draft, Walman has 91 points (32 goals, 59 assists) in 267 regular-season games with the Blues, Red Wings, Sharks and Oilers, and 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in 23 playoff games.
Lundqvist, Gretzky re-sign multiyear deals
New York – Hockey Hall of Fame players Wayne Gretzky and Henrik Lundqvist have signed multiyear deals to continue their roles as TNT Sports NHL analysts.
Gretzky has been with the network since it got U.S. national media rights in 2021. Lundqvist is going into his fourth year in studio with TNT.
Gretzky’s deal was announced Tuesday on the eve of the start of the season. Lundqvist said on a video call with The Associated Press that he’s still a fan of the game and that the panel works because he and his colleagues get along away from the show and do it as though there are no cameras.
“I look forward to hanging out with the crew,” Lundqvist said. “It’s fun to go to Atlanta, when it’s TNT, to hang out with the boys and just have fun. We talk about the game, we break down things and what we see and hear, but we’ll talk about other things going on.”
Gretzky, nicknamed the “Great One,” is the league’s all-time leading scorer. He has more assists than anyone else has points and held the goals record for more than three decades until Alex Ovechkin broke it in April.
Lundqvist was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2023 after backstopping the New York Rangers for 15 years. He won the Vezina Trophy as top goaltender in 2012 and also has an Olympic gold medal with Sweden from 2006.
Panthers to hand out Cup rings
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – Seth Jones had waited most of his life to get a Stanley Cup ring. And then he had to wait even longer before he could see it.
The Florida Panthers handed out the rings from their second consecutive title on Monday, and Jones was the first person on the long list of players, coaches and staff who got the prized pieces of jewelry during the ceremony.
But the Panthers have a rule: Nobody opens the box until everybody can open the box together. So, Jones – who joined the team midway through last season – had to wait … and wait … and wait … before he and everyone else got to see the new shiny bauble.
“Awesome,” Jones said. “It’s a collection piece for the rest of my life.”
Among the highlights of the ring: A play on the speeches that Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett gave at the Stanley Cup parade, where they both gleefully pointed out that they apologize to no one for the Panthers being the Panthers. That phrasing is etched on the inside of the ring, which has more than 250 diamonds and rubies and is created out of white and yellow gold.
On the sides of the players’ rings: Their name and number on one side, along with the team logo and “back to back champions” on the other.
“It’s just a little bit bigger than last year,” Panthers forward Sam Bennett said as he gazed down, with the two rings on one of his hands. “You got the two Cups on there, which is unbelievable. They definitely outdid themselves, for sure.”
The Panthers did the ceremony in private, with the players all in dark suits and red ties. The celebration for fans comes Tuesday, when the team will raise the banner before its opener at home against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The ownership group – Vincent and Teresa Viola and their families – presented their rings to one another, and then the word finally came to open the boxes.
“I never believed that owning a sports team could be as invigorating, as heart-touching, that you’d care about the players when they get hurt,” said Teresa Viola, the wife of team owner Vincent Viola said. “You want to run down there like a mom and just go, ‘My goodness, are you OK?’ This team has shown me the spirit of togetherness, family, everything that I hoped it would be.”
All the trophies from last season were on a table near the stage. There were the two won by captain Aleksander Barkov – the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward and the King Clancy in recognition of his leadership and humanitarian work on and off the ice. There was the Conn Smythe Trophy, the one Bennett got as MVP of the playoffs. There was the Prince of Wales Trophy, which the Panthers have won in each of the last three seasons as Eastern Conference champions.
And, of course, there was the Stanley Cup. The Panthers have taken it everywhere for the better part of the last 3 1/2 months – hospitals, fire houses, fishing trips, even eaten meatballs out of the thing – and now start the quest toward trying to win it again.
The rings have been handed out. The banner goes up Tuesday. There will be reminders along the way, like taking a ring to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Stanley Cup Final rematches with Edmonton, rematches of playoff matchups. But the Panthers know it’s time to turn the page to what awaits.
“Dealing with that and not living in the past is very important,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “But also, we want to make sure that we’re not mandating that. It’s OK to enjoy tonight. And it’s OK when we have to do other things that bring us back. We’re just not having a reunion every day that we come to the rink.”
Shootouts provide memorable Olympic moments
When the NHL instituted the shootout in 2005 to decide games instead of ties, it came after the American Hockey League experimented with it the previous season.
It was a new wrinkle in North America, but the shootout had been a big part of international hockey at the Olympics long before that. And it has delivered more memorable moments over the past decade or so.
▶ Peter Forsberg’s 1994 golden goal became a stamp in Sweden
While the NHL has kept the shootout contained to the regular season, the International Ice Hockey Federation – like FIFA in soccer – has used it at the Olympics and world championships, even to decide gold medals.
Canada and Sweden got to a shootout in the final of the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, and Peter Forsberg tried a move he recalled countryman Kent Nilsson scoring with at worlds in ’89. He beat Corey Hirsch, Tommy Salo stopped Paul Kariya, and the Swedes were Olympic hockey champions for the first time.
Forsberg’s move sliding the puck under Hirsch, as captured by AP photographer Al Behrman, was immortalized on a stamp in Sweden the following year.
▶ Dominik Hasek was the star and Marc Crawford a goat in Nagano in 1998
Nagano in 1998 was the first Olympics with NHL player participation, and Canada went in as a heavy favorite. Dominik Hasek prevented that in backstopping the underdog Czech Republic to gold.
Hasek turned aside 29 of 30 shots through regulation and overtime in the semifinal matchup against fellow Hall of Famer Patrick Roy. Then he stopped all five Canada skaters in the shootout – Theo Fleury, Ray Bourque, Joe Nieuwendyk, Eric Lindros and Brendan Shanahan – and Robert Reichel scored for the Czechs.
Unbelievably absent from Canada’s lineup was Wayne Gretzky, who roughly four years earlier passed Gordie Howe for the most goals in NHL history. Coach Marc Crawford chose younger players over Gretzky, who was 37 at the time and in his second-to-last season, and he may be more remembered for that than guiding Colorado to the Stanley Cup in 1996.
▶ T.J. Oshie earned the nickname ‘T.J. Sochi’ for his US heroics in 2014
From the time he entered the NHL in 2008 until Olympic rosters were submitted in late 2013, T.J. Oshie had one of the best shootout percentages of any player in the league. USA Hockey knew that and made sure to bring him to the 2014 Games in Sochi.
When the U.S. and host Russia went to a shootout in the preliminary around with Vladimir Putin, among others, in attendance, Oshie didn’t just get one attempt. He got six.
Coach Dan Bylsma kept sending Oshie over the boards against Sergei Bobrovsky. Oshie scored on four of his attempts to give the U.S. the victory and was nicknamed “T.J. Sochi” as he made the rounds on the “Today” show and became one of the faces of the sport to fans who perhaps had never seen an NHL game.
▶ U.S. women beat rival Canada in the final at the 2018 Olympics
The U.S. nearly knocked off Canada to win women’s hockey gold in Sochi. A shot aimed for the empty net that would have sealed it in the final hit the post, Canada tied it and won in overtime.
Four years later, the rivals met again with the gold medal on the line in Pyeongchang, South Korea. NHL players were not participating for the first time since 1994 and the women’s tournament was the main event.
The teams were tied at 2 at the end of regulation and through overtime. In the sixth round of the shootout, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson triple-deked Canada goalie Shannon Szabados out of the crease to score the golden goal for the U.S., which won after threatening to boycott the previous year’s world championships and fought to secure more pay and a better contract for women’s hockey players.
Sharks continue youth movement
San Jose, Calif. – The years-long focus on draft positioning, shedding big salaries and developing young players is no longer enough for the San Jose Sharks.
After a six-year teardown and rebuild that featured far too much losing, the Sharks know now is the time to start seeing results on the ice.
With a young core led by last season’s impressive rookies Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith, a host of other promising prospects and the addition of some playoff-tested veterans, the Sharks believe they have the pieces to make a big jump from the bottom of the NHL standings.
“I can say things here. I can say it every time. For me we have to start doing the things we talked about,” 22-year-old forward William Eklund said. “We talk about how we want to be a competitive team, we want to be a winning team. Everybody has to buy in, including myself.”
The Sharks have finished with the worst record in the NHL in each of the past two seasons, showing incremental improvement in results last season with 52 points compared to 47 the previous season.
The team improved its goal differential by 44 goals from the previous season but still finished last in the NHL in both goals scored and goals allowed. The Sharks lost 10 times in regulation last season after holding a lead in the third period – no other team in the league had more than four – and had five more losses in overtime or shootouts after leading in the third.
San Jose believes turning some of those blown leads into wins will make a major difference in the standings.
“I think it’s pretty clear, when you’re losing no one is having fun,” Celebrini said. “As much as you try to look at the positives and learn from it and all that cliche stuff, it’s not fun and not enjoyable when you lose.”
With Celebrini and Smith in place, the Sharks believe they shouldn’t find themselves at the bottom of the standings again.
Celebrini, the first pick of last year’s draft, had a sensational season as an 18-year-old, leading all rookies with 25 goals, ranking second with 63 points and playing as a top-line center often against the opponent’s best players.
Smith, the No. 4 pick in 2023, had 18 goals and 27 assists in 74 games as a rookie. Smith had 10 goals and 13 assists in his final 26 games. Smith thrived late in the season when he played as a winger on Celebrini’s line instead of centering his own line and will start this season the same way.
“A lot of people are looking to us to kind of help us get to that next step,” Smith said. “It’s not just going to be just us. There’s all the new prospects, all the guys, and even the older guys that we brought in are going to help us do that. Obviously, it’s not going to happen with the snap of a finger. You got to work at it.”
Not too long ago, the Sharks were one of the most consistent contenders in the NHL. Over a 15-season span starting in the 2003-04 season, the Sharks won the most regular-season games in the league, made five trips to the conference finals and one Stanley Cup appearance in 2016.
That run of success ended abruptly when San Jose made it to the Western Conference final in 2019 before losing to St. Louis. The team then fired coach Peter DeBoer shortly into the following season and has been on a six-year run of futility ever since.
Since the start of the 2019-20 season, San Jose has the worst record in the league and hasn’t even come close to competing for a playoff spot.
“We know how long it’s been and what the fans here deserve and how good San Jose was that chunk of years in the 2000s,” said the 20-year-old Smith, who wasn’t born when San Jose made its first conference final appearance in 2004 to start that run. “I think we want to do it and he wants to do it. We have the right group of guys.”
October schedules
Thursday, Oct. 9
▶ Canadiens at Red Wings, 7
▶ Western Michigan at Ferris State, 7
▶ NTDP U18 at University of Wisconsin, 8
Friday, Oct. 10
▶ Grand Rapids at Texas, 8
▶ New Hampshire at Michigan State, 7
▶ Michigan at Providence, 7
▶ Western Michigan at Ferris State, 7
▶ Northern Michigan at Ohio State, 6:30
▶ Muskegon at NTDP U17, 7
Saturday, Oct. 11
▶ Maple Leafs at Red Wings, 7
▶ Grand Rapids at Texas, 8
▶ New Hampshire at Michigan State, 7:30
▶ Michigan at Providence, 7
▶ Northern Michigan at Ohio State, 5
Monday, Oct. 13
▶ Red Wings at Maple Leafs, 4
Wednesday, Oct. 15
▶ Panthers at Red Wings, 7
Thursday, Oct. 16
▶ Robert Morris at Michigan, 7
▶ Green Bay at NTDP U17, 7
Friday, Oct. 17
▶ Lightning at Red Wings, 7
▶ Manitoba at Grand Rapids, 7
▶ Michigan State at Boston University, 6:30
▶ Robert Morris at Michigan, 7
▶ Western Michigan at Massuchusetts Lowell, 7:15
▶ Michigan Tech at Alaska, 11 p.m.
▶ Colorado College at Northern Michigan, 7
▶ Lake Superior State at NTDP U18, 7
▶ NTDP U17 at Youngston, 7
Saturday, Oct. 18
▶ Manitoba at Grand Rapids, 7
▶ Michigan State at Boston University, 7
▶ Western Michigan at Massachusetts Lowell, 6
▶ Michigan Tech at Alaska, 11 p.m.
▶ Colorado College at Northern Michigan, 6
▶ Ferris State at NTDP U18, 7
Sunday, Oct. 19
▶ Oilers at Red Wings, 3
Wednesday, Oct. 22
▶ Red Wings at Sabres, 7:30
Thursday, Oct. 23
▶ Red Wings at Islanders, 7
▶ Western Michigan at Michigan, 7
Friday, Oct. 24
▶ Manitoba at Grand Rapids, 7
▶ Michigan State at Northern Michigan, 7
▶ Western Michigan at Michigan, 7
▶ Michigan Tech at Ferris State, 6
▶ NTDP U18 at Niagara University, 6
▶ NTDP U17 at Des Moines, 8
Saturday, Oct. 25
▶ Blues at Red Wings, 7
▶ Michigan State at Northern Michigan, 6
▶ Michigan Tech at Ferris State, 6
▶ NTDP U18 at Cornell, 7
▶ NTDP U17 at Des Moines, 8
Tuesday, Oct. 28
▶ Red Wings at Blues, 8:15
▶ Grand Rapids at Iowa, 8
Thursday, Oct. 30
▶ Red Wings at L.A. Kings, 10:30
▶ Muskegon at NTDP U18, 7
Friday, Oct. 31
▶ Red Wings at Ducks, 10
▶ Michigan at Notre Dame, TBD
▶ Michigan Tech at Clarkson, 7
▶ Northern Michigan at Augustana, 8
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