Let’s not pretend this isn’t a massive start for Rittich.
The 33-year-old, who signed a one-year, $1 million deal with Long Island after a tough 2024-25 season with the Los Angeles Kings (2.84 GAA, .886 SV%), wants to prove he can still be a difference-maker at the NHL level.
When it comes to Roy—and most coaches—trust is often the biggest factor in determining playing time. Whether the decision to start Rittich has more to do with Sorokin’s struggles out of the gate or confidence in Rittich himself, the Islanders desperately need a strong goaltending performance Thursday night.
The Oilers haven’t been a dominant offense despite their 2-0-1 record, scoring just eight goals (29th in the NHL). The Islanders rank dead last with seven.
Still, we know how quickly Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl can take over a game.
Rittich’s nickname is “Big Save Dave,” and he’ll need to live up to it.
The job of an NHL backup is, well, to win games—but also to keep his team in them. The worst-case scenario is a backup being the reason for a loss.
To be fair, Sorokin hasn’t quite held up his end of the bargain in that regard. While he’s made some miraculous saves to keep the Islanders in games, costly mistakes—whether from rebound control or positioning—have led directly to goals and losses.
The Islanders don’t just want, but need, Rittich to serve as a stopgap, like an ace starting pitcher in baseball.
It’s a daunting task. But this isn’t just an important game for the Islanders, Roy, the players in the room, and first-year general manager Mathieu Darche—it’s a monumental one for Rittich and his future role.
Last season, when Semyon Varlamov got hurt in late November, the Islanders recalled Marcus Högberg from Bridgeport of the American Hockey League on Dec. 2.
Roy said he trusted Högberg, but still rode Sorokin for 11 straight games before finally turning to Högberg on Dec. 29.
Högberg made a strong first impression, stopping 38 of 41 shots in a 3-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins—a performance that earned Roy’s trust.
Even if Rittich delivers a tremendous outing, he won’t take over as the club’s starter. That just won’t happen.
But what it would do is give Roy the confidence to go back to Rittich and not feel like he has to overwork Sorokin, who doesn’t look settled at the moment.
Running Sorokin into the ground has become a necessity for the franchise in recent years, and it’s not a sustainable strategy. If Rittich can truly be “Big Save Dave” and help steady things for Sorokin, it would be a massive storyline for the Islanders as the season moves forward.
Let’s see what Rittich’s got when the puck drops at 7:30 p.m. at UBS Arena.
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The Jackets have the unfortunate pleasure of hosting the top team in the NHL tonight. The Avs come into Columbus sporting a 3-0-1 record and a high-powered offense, which is a surprise to exactly no one.
Nathan MacKinnon is, of course, the highest scorer and leading point getter with 8 points, but newcomer Martin Nečas has 8 points as well, so losing Mikko Rantanen seems like less of a blow so far. The Avs' power play is kind of lacking right now, but the CBJ's PK better be halfway decent tonight, or it's going to be a long one.
The Jackets, on the other hand, come into the game playing like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There are a few constants to talk about, though.
The Jackets' special teams have been really bad. The power play is 1/9 so far, which is normal. But the PK is what's hurting this team, to the tune of 7/14. You cannot give up 7 power-play goals in three games and be successful, especially against this Colorado juggernaut.
Kirill Marchenko has four goals, including a hat trick. Many people expect him to drop 50 this season, and if he keeps this pace up, it just might happen.
The Blue Jackets are 1-2 on the season.
Blue Jackets Stats
Power Play - 11.1% - 24th in NHL
Penalty Kill - 50% - 32nd in NHL
Goals For - 10 - 21st in NHL
Goals Against - 9 - T-4th in NHL
Avalanche Stats
Power Play - 15.8% - 19th in NHL
Penalty Kill - 83.3 - 15th in NHL
Goals For - 13 - T-4th in NHL
Goals Against - 7 - T-2nd in NHL
Series History vs. Avs
Columbus is 24-39-1-5 all-time, and 12-18-1-3 at home vs. the Avs.
Blue Jackets are 7-5-3 against Colorado in the last 15 home games.
The Jackets went 1-1 vs. the Avs last season.
Who To Watch For The Avs
Nathan MacKinnon leads the Avs with four goals and 8 points.
Martin Nečas leads the team with 5 assists and 8 points.
Scott Wedgewood is 3-0-1 with a SV% of .935.
CBJ Player Notes vs. Avs
Charlie Coyle has 27 points in 40 games against the Avs.
Sean Monahan has 28 career points in 27 games.
Zach Werenski has 8 points in 16 games vs. Colorado.
Injuries
Erik Gudbranson - Day to day - Upper Body Injury
Miles Wood - Upper Body Injury - Will be out for at least a week
TOTAL MAN GAMES LOST: 1
How to Watch & Listen: Tonight's game will be on FanDuel Sports Network. Steve Mears will be on the play-by-play. The radio broadcast will be on 97.1 The Fan, with Bob McElligott behind the mic doing the play-by-play.
Let us know what you think below.
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Mixed year ends with Melbourne seeding up in the air
British No 1 pulls out of Tokyo and Hong Kong events
Emma Raducanu has brought an early end to her season following physical struggles in China. The British No 1 had hoped to put together a strong finish to 2025 to guarantee herself a seeding at the Australian Open in January but that is now up in the air.
There is good news on the coaching front, though, with Francisco Roig reaching a deal to continue their work together in 2026.
The Philadelphia Flyers badly need short and long-term pieces to help fill out their defense, and what better way to do that than to just swing for the big fish right away?
We all know the Buffalo Sabres are the Buffalo Sabres, and while they did just get their first win of the season with an 8-4 throttling of a Brady Tkachuk-less Ottawa Senators team, they're going to have to do more to convince their big guns to stick around.
For years now, Bowen Byram has been a name linked to the Flyers, and while he did sign a two-year, $12.5 million contract extension with Buffalo, he's not exactly out of the woods yet, especially if he doesn't get expanded offensive opportunities.
Those opportunities are currently being afforded to Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin, and while those two are tied down at $8.35 and $11 million cap hits until 2031 and 2032, respectively, the rumored expectation for the Sabres this year is to win. Put all the pieces together, and win.
If they can't? The Flyers might want to swoop in.
The obvious target is Byram, but it's plausible the situation in Philadelphia is similar to that in Buffalo in the sense that the Flyers have Jamie Drysdale, Cam York, and Travis Sanheim vying for power play time.
Byram could very well be a better power play quarterback than all of those players, but it subsequently reduces the ceiling of Drysdale and York, specifically, as well.
As for Power, well, that's the big swing the Flyers would ideally like to take. The 2021 former No. 1 overall pick is just 22 years old, has a great contract, could benefit from playing out of Dahlin's shadow, and is 6-foot-6.
That checks basically all of the boxes for the Flyers, with the size being one of the key factors in the eyes of management.
Acquiring a player like Power helps the Flyers in a variety of ways in the future, too.
For starters, the Flyers don't have a prospect in the system to point to and declare as a future top-pairing defenseman, though an argument could be made for Oliver Bonk in certain contexts.
The left side is already weak, and the Flyers have only Hunter McDonald, Emil Andrae, and Ty Murchison in terms of prospects there.
At best, the Flyers carry a left side of Power, York, and Sanheim, with the former two both being 24 years old or younger. At worst, Sanheim stays on the right, and the Flyers still need to find a longer-term solution to the third defense pair.
As for a potential trade package, the Flyers are going to have to part with something significant, especially for Power.
That could look something like two first-round picks, a good roster player, and at least one top prospect.
In regards to Byram, the Sabres only needed to part with Casey Mittelstadt to pry him from Colorado, and Mittelstadt is already on a new team in Boston just over a year later.
Alex Tuch might not remain with the Sabres beyond this year, and Buffalo can probably do better than Jason Zucker, Josh Doan, and Justin Danforth getting top-nine minutes.
Owen Tippett, who is signed at a $6.25 million cap hit through 2032, will have a modified no-trade clause kick in on July 1 and could be a strong fit in Buffalo.
At the same time, he's a player the Flyers have invested in for a reason, and he's been receiving an expanded role on the penalty kill under Rick Tocchet.
To get, you have to give, of course, and it's not a deal that will come easy for the Flyers. At some point, though, something will have to shake, and there's been an awful lot of chatter about these Sabres defensemen lately.
As the National League Championship Series moves to Dodger Stadium on Thursday, the Dodgers are two victories from a return to the World Series.
That is a step toward the goal, not the goal itself, but it nonetheless would make them just the second team in 23 years to win a championship one year and return to the World Series the next.
The other: the 2008-09 Philadelphia Phillies, the team of Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins.
The historical record indicates winning the World Series is tough and winning the next is tougher, but Rollins would not concede that.
“I don’t think it was harder than it was the first time,” said Rollins, working the NLCS as an analyst for TNT Sports. “I think the first time was the hardest.
“You haven’t gone there. You haven’t made it to the top and had that success. It was more about motivation: We’re the champs now, we’re just taking another step.”
Recall what Mookie Betts said at the Dodgers’ fan festival last year, after the Dodgers had signed Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow but before they had even reported to spring training: “Every game is going to be the other team’s World Series.”
The Dodgers took everyone’s best shot last year. They collect starting pitchers every year — your veterans, your kids, your waiver claims, your highly paid free agents, and your injured — with the aim that just enough will be healthy and effective come October.
This year, they have so many arms ready that Clayton Kershaw and Emmet Sheehan are relegated to the bullpen. Last year, they had so few that their postseason starters included four openers: Ryan Brasier twice, Michael Kopech and Ben Casparius.
“We did it the hard way last year,” utilityman Kiké Hernández said. “It’s really hard to win without starting pitching, and we found a way to do it.”
The Dodgers signed Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki for the rotation last winter, and Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates for the bullpen.
Now? Snell is starting, Sasaki is closing, and Scott and Yates are not on the playoff roster. But, well, that was the plan after winning the World Series.
“Usually, if you’re the last team standing at the end of October, you’ve used a lot of your pitching very aggressively throughout the month to do it,” said Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. “And we really didn’t have that.
“Now, our bullpen did, but didn’t have it in the conventional way. So adding some fresh arms, we thought, would be helpful with that.”
The October aces — the starting pitchers that can put their team on their back and carry it through the postseason — are few and far between. Snell, Yamamoto and Glasnow have been aces so far this October, but the Dodgers intend to keep playing for another two weeks.
In 1988, Orel Hershiser threw 300 innings, playoffs included. In 2013, Kershaw threw 259 — more than the combined total of Snell, Glasnow and Ohtani so far this year. Yamamoto has thrown 193 innings.
There is a concern for the Dodgers, just as there always used to be a concern for the Lakers, about the long-term toll of playing another month every year.
For pitchers, however, the workloads for the best starters have gone down even as the number of playoff rounds have gone up. On the other hand, those new rounds are shorter ones, and even the best teams can lose two of three games, or three of five, to be eliminated long before a World Series.
“The playoff format doesn’t lend itself to just getting into the championship series and getting to the World Series,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So that in itself makes it more difficult.”
The Dodgers have won the World Series one season and returned the next season twice: in 1955-56 and 1965-66, when each league champion advanced directly to the World Series.
In those years, the postseason field was two teams, and four wins won the championship trophy. The field is up to 12 teams now, and the Dodgers will need four rounds and 13 postseason wins to repeat.
“It’s hard getting guys to play their best baseball at the right time and to keep guys playing at a high level for 162 [games] to get to the postseason,” Roberts said, “then to give yourself a chance to win 11 or, this year, 13 games in October.
“What have I learned? I’ve learned that you’ve got to kind of give players grace at points during the season to appreciate the human side — it’s hard to play every game in April like it’s Game 7 — but know when to kind of turn it on.”
On July 3, the Dodgers had built a nine-game lead. On Aug. 13, after the Angels had swept them, the Dodgers fell into second place.
Said Rollins: “August? You’ve got a whole other month. July? It’s hot, let’s get to the All-Star break. In the playoffs, it’s just win the series.”
The Dodgers finished the regular season with the third-best record in the NL, but they have beaten the team with the second-best record (the Philadelphia Phillies) and appear poised to beat the team with the best record (the Brewers). They have won 22 of their last 28 games.
The one concern Friedman said he did not have about building a repeat winner was complacency. He said he always believed the players would be “focused on and driven by legacy, and doing something that’s so incredibly difficult.”
They are already more than halfway there. They need 13 wins. They have seven. Rollins believes they will get the other six.
“I thought, if the Phillies had beaten the Dodgers, no one could stop them,” Rollins said. “And vice versa: If the Dodgers beat the Phillies, no one could stop them.
“If you look at the way the teams match up — power for power, star power, great pitching — they presented basically a mirror image of themselves. Obviously, no one else has Shohei. But the style of game: they can score in many ways, they can bop, they’re clutch. They’ve proven it.”
King and Kaylon Miller celebrated earning preferred walk-on offers they got from USC, believing they could play if they just got a chance to join the team.
Watch live 11 a.m. ET Thursday as Phillies President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and manager Rob Thomson address the media for their end of the season press conference.
Jaylen Brown’s road to stardom with the Boston Celtics began with a bit of a speed bump.
When the Celtics selected the young guard from Cal with the No. 3 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, fans at a TD Garden watch party booed, expressing their frustration that the team didn’t swing a trade for Jimmy Butler or take a different top prospect such as Providence’s Kris Dunn.
But Brown declared he’d “go to war for this city,” and he’s backed up the promise both on and off the court.
NBC Sports Boston is kicking off its “Seven Days of Jaylen Brown” content series with an exclusive documentary on the Celtics star titled FCHWPO: Jaylen Brown’s Boston. (The acronym “FCHWPO” is a nod to Brown’s mantra, “Faith, Consistency and Hard Work Pays Off,” which also serves as his social media handle.)
The documentary, which is narrated by Boston’s own Donnie Wahlberg, follows Brown’s entire NBA journey: from the draft night boos, to the strong rookie campaign, to the persistent trade rumors, to the crucial social justice work, to becoming NBA Finals MVP and a champion, to this upcoming season, where he’ll take the lead for the Celtics without Jayson Tatum by his side.
Check out the full documentary in the video player above or watch below on YouTube, and stay tuned in the coming days for more Jaylen Brown content on all of NBC Sports Boston’s platforms.
