Saturday 22 August 2020

2020 playoffs Barzal’s time to take NHL spotlight

T’birds grad moves on while Crosby, McDavid, Ovechkin done

Mathew Barzal in action with the Thunderbirds in 2017.
    Could Mathew Barzal be the face of the 2020 NHL post-season?
    The big NHL spotlight appears to be waiting for the 23-year-old centre, who is a graduate of the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds. Barzal has three goals and four assists in nine post-season games helping his New York Islanders advance to a best-of-seven NHL Eastern Conference semifinal series.
    While Barzal and the Islanders will be part of the NHL’s “elite eight” in the post-season, a trio of NHL superstars will not.
    Sidney Crosby and his Pittsburgh Penguins and Connor McDavid and his Edmonton Oilers were both eliminated in the qualifying round of the 2020 NHL post-season, which was expanded to include 24 teams as opposed to 16 clubs due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
    Alexander Ovechkin and his Washington Capitals were punted by Barzal and the Islanders in the official “first” round of the NHL Playoffs that took place after the qualifying round.
A Mathew Barzal card.
    The Islanders took a best-of-seven series between the two sides in five games.
    New York blanked Washington 4-0 in a Game 5 series clinching win in the hub city of Toronto on Thursday.
    In Game 3 last Sunday, Barzal came through with the biggest moment of the series scoring a sick overtime winner to give the Islanders a 2-1 victory in that contest and a 3-0 edge in the series.
    After receiving a smart pass from Jordan Eberle at the Washington blue-line, Barzal jetting into the opposing zone, cut across the face of the Capitals goal, went forehand to backhand and slipped a backhanded shot past Washington star netminder Braden Holtby.
    With Crosby, McDavid and Ovechkin gone, Barzal has the opportunity to be the NHL’s biggest individual star throughout the remainder of the post-season.
    Of course, the Philadelphia Flyers will have a lot to say about that as the Islanders opponent in an Eastern Conference semifinal series. The Flyers are the top seeded team in the conference.
    The two sides will go at it in Game 1 this coming Monday. The Islanders were 35-23-10 in the regular season before it was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Flyers were 41-21-7.
Mathew Barzal gets set to turn up ice with the Thunderbirds in 2017.
    It will be intriguing to watch the extremely talented Barzal. The Coquitlam, B.C., product was a star coming up through all levels of hockey leading into the NHL, which included a four season stay with the WHL’s Thunderbirds.
    After graduating from the Thunderbirds, Barzal, who stands 6-feet and weighs 187 pounds, jumped to the NHL on a full-time basis in the 2017-18 campaign playing in all 82 of the Islanders regular season games piling up 22 goals and 63 assists for 85 points. He captured the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year.
Thunderbirds C Mathew Barzal, left, dekes around a defenceman in 2016.
    Barzal has now played 234 NHL regular season games posting 59 goals and 148 assists for 207 points.
    While putting up impressive offensive numbers, Barzal has gained the reputation of being the team-first superstar.
    He sees team as family and realizes everyone has their role in order for success to happen. To that extent, Barzal has developed a playmaking ability that is second to none.
    It seems like the puck has eyes, when Barzal passes it. He knows he has to be the offensive catalyst in order for his teams to have success, but he knows others have to step up in important jobs when called upon like being shutdown checkers.
Mathew Barzal (#13) takes a draw for the Thunderbirds in 2016.
    The team as family concept was cemented into Barzal during his four seasons with the Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds won 38 or more games in each regular season Barzal was with that club.
    From 2013 to 2017, Barzal appeared in 202 WHL regular season games piling up 63 goals and 215 assists for 278 points. Night in and night out, Barzal came with a top level effort every time he stepped on to a WHL ice surface.
    Even if he was held off the score sheet, you have to rise out of your seat and applaud Barzal for the effort he gave that night.
Mathew Barzal, centre, gives a cheer after a WHL title win in 2017.
    The Islanders selected Barzal in the first round and 16th overall in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, and if they wanted to, they could have kept Barzal in the NHL at that time.
    With the Thunderbirds poised to contend for a WHL title and challenge for the Memorial Cup as CHL champions, the Islanders did the right thing in sending Barzal back to junior.
    Along with offensive-defenceman and current Edmonton Oilers blue-liner Ethan Bear, Barzal was part of a special generation in Seattle.
    In 2015-16, the Thunderbirds finished fifth overall in the WHL with a 45-23-4 regular season record. They had their breakout run in the post-season advancing to the WHL Championship Series against the Brandon Wheat Kings.
    Seattle played hard in the 2016 WHL final but fell 4-1 in the best-of-seven set, which saw Brandon win the first three contests of that series in overtime.
Mathew Barzal (#13) gets a trophy as the 2017 WHL playoffs MVP.
    In the Thunderbirds 18 playoff games, Barzal posted five goals and 21 assists for 26 points.
    Barzal, Bear and company built on that experience finishing fourth overall in the WHL in 2016-17 with a 46-20-4-2 record. The Thunderbirds entered the playoffs with a roster that contained 14 skates that played in the 2016 WHL title series including Barzal and Bear.
    Seattle returned to the WHL Championship Series in 2017, and the Thunderbirds won their first league championship taking the best-of-seven set against the Regina Pats 4-2. The Pats topped the WHL’s regular season standings in 2016-17 with a 52-12-7-1 record.
    In 2017, Barzal appeared in 16 post-season games with the Thunderbirds posting seven goals and 18 assists for 25 points. He was named the most valuable player of the WHL playoffs.
    The Thunderbirds advanced to that year’s Memorial Cup tournament in Windsor, Ont., but bowed out of that event after posting an 0-3 round robin record.
Mathew Barzal and the Thunderbirds enjoy their WHL title win in 2017.
    With the Thunderbirds, Barzal saw how a team comes together as a family and can go on long playoff runs. He also saw how teams need players with different skill sets and specialties in order to achieve success.
    He has been in the forefront of the rise of a young Islanders team. Thanks to that young talent, the Islanders were a club that didn’t bat an eye when veteran star centre John Tavares left following the 2017-18 campaign to sign with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
    Tavares and the Maple Leafs bowed out of the NHL post-season in the qualifying round and are forced if they so chose to watch the rest of the NHL playoffs on television.
    If the Islanders are able to even just make the Stanley Cup final, Barzal’s status in the NHL will reach other level.

Sask Five Giants take North Division final

Ethan Campbell fires in a pitch for the Sask Five Giants.
    The Sask Five Giants are tasting baseball playoff success in 2020.
    On Friday, the Under-18 AAA team from Martensville took the North Division title game in the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League over the Saskatoon Diamondbacks 12-2 in a game that ended after five innings due to the mercy rule at Cairns Field.
    The title game, which was played before 60 spread out spectators, was actually a tight contest until the fifth inning. The Giants were holding a 4-2 lead batting in the top of the fifth inning with two outs.
    The Diamondbacks pitching and defence proceeded to hit a funk, which does happen in minor baseball. Thanks to that development and some timely hits, the Giants scored eight runs with two outs in the top of the fifth to go ahead 12-2.
    The Diamondbacks were unable to score in the bottom of the fifth to extend the game.
    Ethan Campbell went the distance on the hill for the Giants striking out four batters. Carson Hindmarsh threw four and two-third innings and struck out four batters to take the loss on the hill for the Diamondbacks.
    The Giants made the final after downing the Saskatoon Cubs 14-5 in a North Division semifinal encounter earlier in the day Friday at Cairns. The Diamondbacks downed the Northwest Prairie Pirates from Lloydminster 11-1 in a contest that ended after five innings due to the mercy rule in the other North semifinal held earlier in the day on Friday.
    The Giants will travel to Regina to take on the Athletics on Sunday in the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League championship game at 1 p.m. at Optimist Park.
    The Athletics downed the Regina White Sox 10-1 in the South Division final on Friday in Regina.

Saskatoon fall high school sports cancelled, other notes

    The sports facilities at Saskatoon high schools will remain relatively quiet this fall.
    On Wednesday, the Saskatoon Secondary Schools Athletic Directorate cancelled the fall high school sports of cross-country running, football, soccer and volleyball.
    On Thursday, the Saskatchewan High School Athletic Association cancelled all play in the sport of golf for the fall.
    On Monday, Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools and Saskatoon Public Schools sent out letters to their rental customers that all rentals in school facilities had been cancel up to Dec. 31. That includes rentals for all sports and community groups.
    On top of those developments, the SHSAA pushed back the start date for the practices to start for cross-country running, football and soccer for the school districts that are still running these sports to Sept. 28.
    Cross-country running will have no inter-school competitions.
    Soccer regular season will be allowed to start Oct. 5 and run to Oct. 31. Football can start playing games on Oct. 13 and run to Nov. 14.
    Volleyball teams will be allowed to practice on Oct. 13 and games are slated to run from Oct. 19 to Nov. 14.
    All of these developments came as a response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
    For anyone that was a realist, these cancellations and postponements do not come as a surprise, especially when you see the cancellations and postponements that have come across the sports world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Shutdowns started happening in North America on March 11.
    The sports groups should be credited with doing their best to try and get their respective sports going. With that noted, it was surprising that there were plans to have any sports associated with a school return to action.
    In Saskatchewan, it seems like you can’t even avoid stories regarding outrage over return to school plans for the entire student population even in a casual way over the past two weeks. If there are big fights going down about wearing masks in classrooms, you are not anywhere close a point that sports can be reactivated in the schools.
    In the comments sections for online stories by mainstream outlets regarding high school sports cancellations in Saskatoon, it common to find remarks from people that sports in schools should be cancelled and athletes and their parents are selfish and spoiled if they want school sports to continue in these pandemic times.
    I believe those comments come from people that are not involved in the sports world, and over the years, the disconnection has increased between people in the sports world and people who are not involved in that world.
    When you world in industries outside of the sports industry, you start realizing there are a large amount of people out there that do not have an interest in the sports world. That forces those in the sports world to constantly sell the values of taking part in sports like learning about teamwork, discipline and social skills.
    On the schools front, it is harder to return sports into action in schools, because all walks of society go to schools. When athletes join teams in sports associations, they are choosing to be part of that association, but those that don’t want to be part of those associations don’t have to be even in a defacto manner which is viewed to happen in schools.
    The cancellations and postponements regarding sports in Saskatchewan high schools will likely continue for a longer stretch here in the future. Athletes better not get their hopes to high about representing their schools in a competitive sports environment in 2020-21 winter sports season.

  • The conference semifinal round or the “elite eight” round of the NHL Playoffs is set to start today with the Dallas Stars taking on the Colorado Avalanche (6 p.m. Saskatchewan time, CBC) in the hub city of Edmonton. The NHL post-season was expanded from 16 to 24 teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the eight teams that remain in the playoffs, the New York Islanders and the Vancouver Canucks are the only that played in the qualifying round that are still alive at this stage of things. The Avalanche, Stars, Vegas Golden Knights, Boston Bruins, Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning all had byes into the 16-team official “first” round. The NHL is proving sports can be played in a bubble environment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • The Montreal Impact are slated to host an MLS game against the Vancouver Whitecaps on Tuesday. The Impact will allow 250 spectators to watch the contest. The Impact, Whitecaps and Toronto FC are locked into playing league games just against each other for the moment due to the border between Canada and the United States being close to non-essential travel.
  • Gregg Drinnan did his latest round up about how COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on the sports world in his Taking Note blog on Thursday. His latest piece can be found by clicking right here. Drinnan is also a big advocate for kidney and organ donation, and you will find info about how to become involved on those fronts in his blog as well.
  • On Friday, the Saskatchewan Rush announced that Derek Keenan was stepping down as the team’s head coach but will remain with the club holding on to the role of general manager. The 58-year-old joined the Rush franchise as head coach and general manager in 2009, when the team was still in Edmonton. Keenan turned the Rush into a National Lacrosse League powerhouse winning the NLL title in 2015 in Edmonton and 2016 and 2018 in Saskatchewan playing out of the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon. Keenan is the iconic lacrosse head coach. Jeff McComb was promoted from Rush assistant coach to head coach, former Rush captain Jimmy Quinlan returns to the organization as the assistant coach responsible for offence and JeremyTallevi remains in the role of assistant coach responsible for defence.
  • On Tuesday, NHL legend Dale Hawerchuk passed away after a battle with stomach cancer. He is best remembered for his nine season starring at centre for the Winnipeg Jets from 1981 to 1990. Hawerchuk played 16 seasons in the NHL from 1981 to 1997 for the Jets, Buffalo Sabres, St. Louis Blues and Philadelphia Flyers appearing in 1,188 games piling up 518 goals, 891 assists for 1,409 points. Tributes have poured in throughout the hockey world for Hawerchuk. My small Twitter tribute is below.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.
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