Move to aid Spurs before potential Europa League final
‘Honestly, not happy,’ says Villa’s director of football
Aston Villa officials have made clear the club’s unhappiness with the Premier League for agreeing to bring forward Tottenham’s trip to Villa Park by 48 hours in order to help them prepare for a Europa League final they have not reached yet.
Spurs were originally scheduled to play Villa on 18 May but the encounter will now take place on 16 May after a rescheduling request based on the club’s European commitments was accepted by the League. The Europa League final takes place in Bilbao on 21 May. Spurs lead Norwegian side Bodø/Glimt 3-1 after the first leg of their semi-final last Thursday and are perhaps right to feel confident about progressing to what would be their first major European final in six years before Thursday’s return at the Aspmyra Stadion, located in the Arctic Circle.
The NHL announced the three nominees for the Calder Trophy on Monday, and there were no surprises. Former first-round pick and San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini, Calgary Flames netminder Dustin Wolf, and Montreal Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson are the three players in contention.
Hutson’s nomination is probably the least surprising of the three since the 21-year-old blueliner has had what can only be described as a historic season. With 66 points, Hutson has produced the 4th highest total ever by a rookie defenseman in the NHL (behind Larry Murphy (76), Brian Leetch (71), and Gary Suter (68)). His 60 assists tied the NHL record set by Murphy in 1980-81. The Habs’ rearguard led the rookie race from start to finish, with Celibrini coming in second with 63 points and Philadelphia Flyers Matvei Michkov third with 63 points, but in more games than the Sharks’ forward.
The youngster was also seventh in points amongst all NHL defensemen this season, second in assists, and fourth amongst all players when it came to stealing pucks from opponents with 56; only Jacob Slavin, Cale Makar, and Mitch Marner had more steals. The diminutive defenseman dished out 40 hits on the season. While that’s not a lot, it’s better than Shea Theodore, who had six, Cam Fowler, who had eight, and Quinn Hughes, who only landed 13.
His 66 points also made him the most productive rookie defenseman in Canadiens’ history, overtaking Chris Chelios, who had set the mark with 64 in 1984-85. He was also third in scoring on the Canadiens this season behind Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. Hutson was about more than points though, his creativity and spectacular play made him an instant fan favourite.
The last time a defenseman won the Calder Trophy was in 2021-22 when Detroit Red Wings’ Moritz Seider put up 50 points. Colorado Avalanche’s Cale Makar also won it with the same amount of points in 2019-20, but it was in 57 games only. When Aaron Ekblad grabbed it in 2014-15, he had 39 points in 81 games, but he was a much more defensive kind of blueliner.
It’s been a long time since a netminder has won the award. Steve Mason did it last in 2008-09. That year, he won 33 games and had a 2.29 goals-against average and a .916 save percentage. In comparison, Wolf had a 29-16-8 record with a 2.64 GAA and a .910 SP. While he did have an impressive season, his chances would have been much better had he been able to guide the Flames to the playoffs.
The winner will be announced in June at a date yet to be revealed by the NHL, which makes sense since it’s too early to know when the playoffs will end.
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Anthony Edwards got his wish of playing the Warriors on the big stage of the Western Conference semifinals, and Draymond Green is looking forward to the highly anticipated matchup.
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) May 5, 2025
And of course, that’s music to Green’s ears.
“Of course I’ve seen it. I remember the video. I laughed when I saw it,” Green said on “The Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis.” “That’s who Ant Man is. I’ve stated on the show already if there’s two guys that I think talk talk that’s young, it was Ant Man and Ja [Morant]. That’s who Ant Man is. He continues to be that guy. I respect it. It is what it is.
“He’s obviously going to play a huge role for the Timberwolves, I’m going to play a huge role for us. But this series ain’t about me versus Ant Man or who can out-talk who. This is about high-level basketball. … Ant had a great playoff series in that [Los Angeles] Lakers series. I’m looking forward to the matchup.”
After having a career year in the 2024-25 regular season, Edwards led his Timberwolves to a 4-1 series win over LeBron James and the Lakers, averaging 26.8 points, 8.4 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 1.2 steals in 41 minutes.
Green and the Warriors survived a tense seven-game series against the Houston Rockets, getting just one day off before Game 1 in Minnesota. And the Warriors vet expects a completely different series against the Timberwolves.
“It’s a much different series. Even from a personnel standpoint, it’s a completely different series than the one we just played,” Green said. “Sometimes you get series back-to-back where you’re like, ‘Yo, we just played a team that plays like this.’ These two teams play totally different. They couldn’t be further apart from the way they play. So it’s a completely different series that we’re going to have to make an adjustment to.
“I think we’re a completely different team to the Lakers that they’ll have to make an adjustment to. Once you get to the playoffs, second round, conference finals, it’s all about adjustments. Obviously, players got to play great, but you get in those first two, three games and you’re figuring them out, they’re figuring you out. We just got to come out and play hard. Stick to our principles. That scouting report gets more and more in-depth as the series goes. But playing hard is what gets you wins to start the series.”
Golden State posted a 3-1 season series record against Minnesota during the 2024-25 regular season.
But the playoffs are a different ballgame, and that’s exactly what both Edwards and Green want.
The Dodgers' Mookie Betts has had multiple hits in five of his last eight games as he's corrected some underlying issues with his swing. (Mike Stewart / Associated Press)
“I thought it was just gonna be a little two-day sickness, and that was gonna be it,” Betts said. “Go to Japan. By the time you get there, probably have a day down. Then be fine by the day before the game.”
Looking back on what instead became a two-week ordeal that derailed his opening month to the season, Betts can do nothing but shake his head.
Entering this season, the 32-year-old former MVP was filled with excitement.
After a three-month cameo at shortstop last year, Betts was returning to the position on a full-time basis, confident that the strides he made this winter would lead to stark improvement after last season’s error-filled experiment.
Behind the scenes, Betts felt his swing was in a great place, too, setting high baseline marks in bat speed and quality of contact as he ramped up during spring camp.
“In spring training,” co-hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc said, “he was in a great spot.”
Then, however, his stomach illness changed everything. And more than a month later, the after-effects have continued to linger.
For two weeks, Betts could hardly eat solid foods, failing to keep down the little he did consume. By the time opening day arrived, he had lost nearly 20 pounds — and much of the progress he made over the winter.
“I didn’t realize how coming back so much underweight would affect me even now,” Betts said. “Trying to do that 20 pounds lighter, I just created some really, really, really bad habits, man.”
Throughout his 12-year career, the consistency of Betts’ swing has been the bedrock of his offensive success. Given his wiry 5-foot-10 frame, and naturally below-average bat speed, he’s never had much margin for error or inefficiency in his hitting mechanics. If not for the robotic-like precision he possesses in the batter’s box, he would have never been a seven-time Silver Slugger, or the majors’ most undersized power threat.
“I’m not Shohei,” Betts said. “I can’t, unfortunately, not have my A-swing that day but still run into something and [have it] go over the fence or whatever. Even when I have my A-swing, if I don’t get it, it’s not gonna be a homer. If I don’t flush that ball in that gap, they’re gonna catch it.”
“And that,” Betts added, “is when I’m fully healthy.”
For much of April, he saw what happens when he’s not.
Though Betts long ago returned to full health, as well as his typical 180-pound playing weight, he has only recently started to look more like his old self again at the plate. Entering Tuesday, he was on an eight-game on-base streak. In five of them, he had multiple hits, including a double, a triple and his first home run in 13 games.
The Dodgers' Mookie Betts singles to left in the first inning of Monday's game against the Miami Marlins. (Marta Lavandier / Associated Press)
He’s not all the way back yet, still hitting just .266 on the season. What he bluntly described as a “garbage” opening month, in which batting average dipped as low as .230, remains a source of frustration, even as he has slowly started correcting some underlying issues.
“Mentally, it was challenging [for him],” Van Scoyoc siad. “Just feeling like he didn’t get the benefits of all the hard work [he put in during the offseason].”
In the midst of Betts’ slump, questions emerged about whether his move back to shortstop was having an impact on his bat; whether he could still be the same hitter while taking on a demanding defensive position.
In Betts’ view, however, shortstop has been a blessing, not a burden.
“I enjoy my process,” he said. “That’s the No. 1 thing,”
Recalibrating his swing amid wildly fluctuating weight, on the other hand, has been a more tedious process.
At first, the ill effects of Betts’ two-week illness were not immediately evident. He was sent home from the team’s Japan trip early. But he recovered in time to collect six hits, three of them home runs, during the Dodgers’ undefeated opening homestand.
By the middle of April, Betts was also back to his pre-illness playing weight, having worked with the Dodgers’ performance staff, as well as his own personal trainer and chef, to devise a bulked-up meal plan that maximized his intake of macronutrients.
“We didn’t go the Michael Phelps route,” joked major league development integration coach Brandon McDaniel, referencing the former Olympic swimmer’s notorious 10,000-calorie diet. “But [his weight] stabilized pretty well.”
In that interim period, though, Betts’ bat speed began to suffer. After averaging only 69 mph last year, which ranked in the 13th percentile among MLB hitters according to the league’s Statcast system, it dropped to almost 67 mph during the opening month of this season.
That didn’t come as a surprise to the Dodgers’ hitting coaches, even after Betts’ gain in that metric early on this spring.
“You’re not impacting the ball the same way you were,” the Dodgers’ other hitting coach, Aaron Bates, said, “because you don’t have the weight behind it.”
But as Betts made an effort to try and start swinging harder, all he did was create mechanical flaws he has since had to correct. The biggest issue “had to do with how his arms and hands load, and how that affects the rest of his body,” Van Scoyoc said.
Fixing it has been an uphill battle.
“At first, it was cool. When I first came back, I hit a couple homers. The habits didn’t creep all the way in,” Betts said. “But then they started creeping in. And that’s what you’ve seen here recently. The product of some really bad habits from being so light.”
Over 22 games from April 2-28, Betts performed nowhere near his eight-time All-Star standards. He batted .202 with just three doubles and one home run. He was swinging at the right pitches (he struck out just nine times in those 98 plate appearances), but managed little more than soft pop-ups and routine groundouts.
“He’s one of those guys that can’t really be that far off [in his mechanics],” Bates said. “When he’s synced up right, he’s one of the best in baseball. But being that he’s 180 pounds, he doesn’t have a lot of margin for error.”
Betts still produced in other ways. Defensively, he is top-10 among MLB shortstops in fielding percentage, defensive runs saved and outs above average.
But as the Dodgers endured a team-wide malaise that plagued them for much of April, Betts’ offensive struggles loomed as a prominent factor.
“Obviously the results haven’t been there,” Betts said. “I’ve been trying to get this bad habit out.”
This past week, it has seemingly started to happen.
Betts entered Tuesday with 12 hits and 10 RBIs during his last eight games. Manager Dave Roberts has noticed “more convicted swipes” in the batter’s box. His bat speed has also started to tick back toward his pre-illness levels.
The Dodgers’ offense, not coincidentally, has improved right along with him — the club scoring 73 runs and hitting .329 as a team over its last nine games.
That’s why, as Betts discussed the state of his game during the Dodgers' trip this week, he didn’t sound defeated, nor resentful about his physical limitations.
He was looking past his opening month, and an illness that lasted longer than he ever expected.
“It’s hard to get lost in the results. It’s not a good place to be,” he said. “So I’m really trying to just get lost in the process and make sure I’m prepared.”
Two things that are in the eye of the beholder: beauty, and the Boston Celtics’ 3-point shooting stats.
The Celtics set NBA playoff records for 3-point attempts (60) and 3-point misses (45) in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series against the New York Knicks at TD Garden, going 15 for 60 beyond the arc while blowing a 20-point lead in a stunning 108-105 overtime loss.
Even for a team that set a host of 3-point records during the regular season, the Celtics’ reliance on the 3-ball in the second half Monday night was astounding: 34 of their 41 field goal attempts in the second half were from 3-point range, including an astounding 19 of their 20 attempts in the third quarter.
That’s right: Boston attempted just one 2-point shot in 12 minutes of third-quarter action.
The Celtics’ late-game 3-point obsession was a complete 180 from the second quarter, when they made 12 of 15 2-point attempts while scoring 35 points to take a 16-point lead into halftime. But rather than continue to attack the paint, Joe Mazzulla’s club curiously started settling for 3s in the second half, as the shot charts below illustrate starkly.
Celtics shot chart while building a 20-point lead (72-52, 6:19 3rd) vs rest of the game. pic.twitter.com/jP3RIw4RHC
“In those moments when the other team’s got momentum, we can’t just fire up threes,” Celtics wing Jaylen Brown lamented after the game. “We’ve got to get to the free throw line, get to the paint, get to the basket, and then maybe the next 3-pointer feels a little bit better.”
“We settled in the second half, a lot. It felt like they were daring us to shoot; they wanted us to shoot those shots. That’s an abnormal game in terms of us shooting the basketball.”
The Knicks deserve some credit for making a defensive adjustment to steer the Celtics away from the paint and goad them into “settling” for 3-point shots. But Brown’s final comment hints at the other side of this story.
Boston shot just 25 percent from 3-point range, tied for its fifth-worst shooting game of the season (regular-season or playoffs) and well below its season average of 36.8 percent. And according to the NBA’s tracking data, 56 of the Celtics’ 60 attempts Monday qualified as “open” looks.
As Celtics Insider Chris Forsberg illustrates below, the C’s made just 29.2 percent of their “wide open” 3-point attempts Monday after making them at a 40.7 percent clip during the regular season.
NBA tracking scored 56 of Boston's 60 3-pointers as open or better (4+ feet of space from nearest defender)
Celtics shot 29.2% (7-24) on wide-open 3s, down from 40.7% on those shots in regular season.
Are those stats a green light for the Celtics to keep chucking? Not necessarily. In the case of Monday’s game, they had success scoring inside early in the game — especially with Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson in foul trouble — and let the Knicks off the hook by settling for 3-pointers.
But it’s also true that Monday was an “abnormal” shooting game from Boston, to use Brown’s term. Case in point: There was just one instance this season where the Celtics shot 29 percent or worse from 3-point range in back-to-back games (Jan. 10 vs. Sacramento and Jan. 12 vs. New Orleans). In the 12 other instances, they shot 33.3 percent or better the following night.
So, history suggests Boston should make more of its 3-pointers in Game 2 on Wednesday. The question is whether this team can strike the right balance between using the deep ball as a weapon — which played a key role in raising Banner 18 last season — and finding other ways to score when the game dictates a different approach.
“I have to have better play-calling; (we) have to make shots,” Mazzulla said after the game. “We have to make some better reads. It’s a combination of all those things.
“We have to be better. You have to make the ones when you’re open. The process of our shot quality was good.”
Tip-off for Game 2 at TD Garden is set for Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET. NBC Sports Boston’s coverage begins at 6 p.m. ET with Celtics Pregame Live.
Draymond Green had one final parting message for Dillon Brooks.
After Green and the Warriors eliminated Brooks and the Houston Rockets in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs, the Golden State forward took to his podcast, “The Draymond Green Show With Baron Davis,” where he criticized Brooks for immediately leaving the court after Game 7 on Sunday at Toyota Center without acknowledging any of his opponents.
“Dillon Brooks ran off the court. So when I say, ‘You see what guys are made of,’ he ran off the court,” Green said. “Like ain’t shake nobody up. You admitted you were trying to hurt Steph [Curry’s] hand. Again, fine by me, bro. I get it, we all get it when you hoop.
“So if you’re going to be on that type of time, wear shades in the press conference, you’re going to be talking, you going to be Mr. Big Bad Wolf, don’t lose and then not face the music. Don’t be that guy. Because, again, you lose a lot of respect for guys in that moment.”
Green and Brooks’ beef dates back three-plus years, when the two faced off against one another in a fiery series between the Warriors and the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2022 Western Conference semifinals.
“I had a moment with Dillon Brooks when he was with Memphis and I said, ‘The dynasty starts after you,’ and the reason I said that is because of things like that,” Green added.
Green also shared that Rockets forward Tari Eason also left the court immediately after the game, but he eventually caught up with him later in the evening at the arena and gave him a pass for the snub due to his age.
“So then guess what, Tari Eason does it. He leaves the court,” Green shared. “I got love for Tari Eason. His mind was talking, my mom almost had to get at him for that one. He was chilling. I’ve got a lot of love for the way he plays.
“And I ended up catching him right before he was about to walk around the arena … I waved him down and I went and dapped him up. That was kind of a little save, but don’t be that guy, man. But that’s who Dillon Brooks is, and we understand you a sucka, man. But Tari Eason, he’s not.
“I’ve got a lot of love for the young fella for the way he goes about his business, the way he plays the game. I’ve got a lot of love for.”
Green shared his parting advice for Eason, who he hopes does not follow down a similar path as Brooks.
“Don’t be like that, because when guys lose respect for you in this league, it don’t matter and it’s going to catch you in the end,” Green said. “Like Dillon Brooks couldn’t come through in this series, in large part, because nobody on the court respects you. So anything you do, the way it’s going to be looked at, the way it’s going to be received, it ain’t beneficial to your team when you’re trying to win championships. When you’re trying to compete at the highest level and you’re that type of guy, it ain’t beneficial to your team and it’ll catch you in the end.
“I gained a lot of respect for a lot of guys over there, not that I ever had much respect for dude, but it just shows why you don’t. Tari Eason, I still got love and respect for. He a young fella. But I’m going to tell a young fella, don’t be like that and don’t follow clowns, man.”
Like a wolf prowling the brush, Anthony Edwards is stalking the established NBA elite. Catching them, too. Toppled Kevin Durant and the Suns in the first round of the 2024 playoffs. Bagged LeBron James, along with his Lakers, in the first round of the 2025 playoffs.
And now Edwards is down to the last member of the league’s royal trio.
He’s coming for Stephen Curry and, by extension, the Warriors.
The hunt begins Tuesday night when Curry and the Warriors enter Target Center in downtown Minneapolis to confront Edwards and the Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.
Though the Curry and Edwards won’t be assigned to each other, their elevated status makes them the focus of the series. Whomever performs best puts his team in position to advance to the conference finals.
“Watched a little bit of their first round series,” Curry said. “(Edwards) is playing with supreme confidence. We know they had their run last year, and their new look with (Julius) Randle.
“But it’s the same Ant, who’s trying to take strides and with every opportunity he gets. And it’s going to be a tough challenge, we know. We’re going to have to send multiple bodies at him and figure out a game plan to go at him.”
Like Durant and James, Curry is a richly decorated superstar who entered the NBA when Edwards was in elementary school and become one of the three most recognized faces of the league. They have been where Edwards wants to go, and Edwards’ goal is to go through them.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who coached Edwards on Team USA’s gold-medal winning team in the 2024 Paris Olympics, is not surprised the youngster targets the veterans.
“No, not at all,” Kerr said Monday. “That’s the kind of confidence he has. The charisma. I watched him in Paris. Every day after practice, he and Kevin would go at it. LeBron and Steph. They’d have these shooting contests, and he’s right in the middle of it, talking all kinds of trash.”
That was the first Olympics for Edwards, and the banter was light but pointed. The past is worthy of respect, but the future comes closer each minute. James is 40, Curry 37, Durant 36. Edwards, in his fifth NBA season, is 23 and wants it now. He lets the vets know.
“It’s such a big part of who he is, his love for the game, his love for competition,” Kerr recalled. “But it’s all in a really good, spirited way. There’s never anything malicious about the trash talk. He loves what he does, he loves to compete and the guys around him really enjoyed that the banter too, because it’s always in a humorous fashion.”
They were teammates then, representing the United States in international competition. They’re opponents now, representing their respective NBA teams in the playoffs. Not much humor in that environment.
In dispatching the Lakers, Edwards averaged 26.8 points per game on 42 percent shooting from the field, including 33.3 percent from deep. The production was high, but the efficiency was lower than what he posted in the regular season. Yet it was enough to help the No. 6 seed Timberwolves win the series in five games.
“There’s a reason the Wolves are where they are now,” Kerr said. “They’ve done a great job as an organization, put together a really good roster. Chris (Finch) has done a fantastic job as coach. But they are where they are because Ant is a superstar. You have to have a guy like that to build a great team.
The Warriors have such a guy in Curry, in his 16th season, with no end in sight. The seventh-seeded Warriors needed seven games to shed the No. 2-seed Houston Rockets, with Curry having a series that was solid but unexceptional by his standard: 24.0 points per game, 41.7 percent shooting from the field., 39.2 percent from beyond the arc.
If Minnesota wins the series, no matter how Edwards plays, it will represent a changing of the guard. Today, closing the book of yesterday.
If the Warriors get the best of the Timberwolves, it will be a triumph for Curry, no matter his statistics. He will be that rare, targeted prey to escape the stalker. He will be able to hold high the flag that was taken from Durant and James.
After the Timberwolves ousted James and the Lakers last week, adidas posted a photo of their client, Edwards, with a caption directed at Nike-partner LeBron: “The King Slayer.”
At the end of the Warriors-Timberwolves series, Ant would like another: “The Steph Slayer.”
Booing and flashpoints are commonplace in a sport further along on a journey that others are taking to varying degrees
Let me tell you the moment I realised Boris Johnson was fucked. It was late 2021 and there had been some talk about parties in Downing Street during Covid, but in these febrile siloed times, when the entirety of human existence has blurred into a single personalised scrolling feed, who even knows what constitutes “the news” any more? Who knows what fragments of reality ever emerge from Westminster’s furiously spinning vortex of unintelligible jargon: prorogue, backstop, Aukus, Slapps? What is a Morgan McSweeney and what time does it start?
But then came the magical night, a few days before Christmas, when the darts crowd turned. As Florian Hempel swept to a routine first-round win against Martin Schindler (bit of an upset, to be honest, but you never write off Flo at the Palace), Alexandra Palace rocked to strains of “Boris is a cunt”. Fans held up signs reading “Work Event”, drew pictures of cheese and wine and gleefully held them up to the cameras. And you realise, with a piercing we’ve-lost-Cronkite clarity: oh wow, he’s fucked.
In a span of less than five minutes Monday night, the "Oklahoma City isn't ready for this" crowd got all the ammunition it needed.
The Thunder led most of the night by double-digits, by 13 at one point in the fourth quarter and by 11 with 4:31 left after a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 3-pointer. All OKC needed was its league-best defense to do its job and it would have another home playoff win. Then Denver went on a 19-6 run to close the game, capped off by another Aaron Gordon clutch moment, this one a game-winning 3-pointer.
That combined with a 42-point, 22-rebound night from Nikola Jokic earned a resilient Denver Nuggets team a 121-119 road win and a 1-0 lead in this Western Conference Semi-Final series. Game 2 is Wednesday night in Oklahoma City.
This is a heartbreaking loss for the Thunder, who were up by double-digits most of the night but could not close it out.
"We're gonna find out what we're made of," Gilgeous-Alexander said after the loss. He finished the night with 33 points on 12-of-26 shooting.
ICYMI... the final two minutes of Nuggets/Thunder UNCUT
If Oklahoma City wants to know why it lost, or if Denver wants to know why it won, there are two key things (in addition to Jokic being the best player on the court):
1) Offensive rebounds. Denver had 21 of them, leading to 27 second-chance points. Gordon had seven of those rebounds.
2) Missed free throws. Oklahoma City was 20-of-28 from the line, and no two misses were as critical as Chet Holmgren's two with 9.5 seconds left in the game and the Thunder up one.
Chet Holmgren to The Oklahoman: “I have to be better. I'm not one to shy from accountability. I have to be better. I have to execute better, especially down the stretch. We worked too hard as a collective, and we're too far along in this thing for situations like that to happen."
Holmgren's teammates rightly pointed out this game was not lost in the last 15 seconds; this was a night of mistakes by the Thunder that left the door open just enough for Aaron Gordon to come barging through and get the win.
Gordon finished with 22 points and 14 rebounds for Denver, while Jamal Murray added 21 points and six assists. For the Thunder, after SGA's 33, there was 20 off the bench from Alex Caruso, who also had five steals and played a fantastic game. Jalen Williams has to be better, 16 points on 5-of-20 shooting is not good enough.
Vegas Golden Knights face defending Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers in rematch of their 2023 playoff series
Get ready for a rematch that might be even nastier the second time around. The Oilers and Golden Knights clash again after a six-game slugfest back in 2023 that saw Vegas eliminate Edmonton en route to their first Stanley Cup in franchise history. This time, both sides look loaded for another run, with superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl trying to write a different ending.
The Golden Knights haven’t missed a beat as they are once again a powerhouse contender after finishing a top the Central division. Vegas forward Jack Eichel has elevated his game, captain Mark Stone is back healthy, and their blue line remains among the league’s most lethal.
Edmonton, meanwhile, just dismantled Los Angeles in six after winning four straight games and boasts the NHL’s second-best power play — a weapon that took them to the Stanley Cup final last June. These teams don’t like each other, and the stakes are even higher now. Don’t be surprised if this one goes the distance — and gets ugly along the way.
All betting lines are from FanDuel Sportsbook and are subject to change. Hockey is a difficult sport to predict so please gamble responsibly.
The Blues bought out the 32-year-old veteran forward as he wanted to go to a contender. Saad has been known as a playoff performer throughout his career with 27 goals and 30 assists for 57 points in 109 postseason games. He reached the mountain top in 2015 when he won the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks and would like to add another to his trophy case.
Saad is still a decent source of points for an older player as he finished the season with 14 points through 29 games since joining Vegas. The Pittsburgh native will get more meaningful minutes on the Golden Knights second line and should produce offence at some point while playing with an elite player in Tomas Hertl as his centre.
He has yet to score this postseason and rides a six-game goal drought that is bound to end. We can count on at least one goal as the sportsbooks have Saad at -300 odds to get one goal, which means we'd only need one more to cash this bet. The Oilers allowed 24 goals through the first round and Saad should take advantage.
Edmonton's Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are the clear two favourites for this bet but we again look to exploit a bleeding defence like the Oilers. Vegas is without their top scorer in Pavel Dorofeyev and will need someone else to step up like their top playoff performer over the last seven postseasons in captain Mark Stone.
With 34 goals and 34 assists for 68 points over his last 81 games, Stone is top 11 in postseason scoring and has yet to pop off for a big series with four points in the first round.
I think we can expect an over point-per-game series out of Stone and should put him in the conversation for the points leader of this series. He will continue playing on a line with Jack Eichel, who finished with the sixth-most assists in the NHL this season at 66 and recorded four more in the first round.
*IF HEALTHY* Pavel Dorofeyev 2+ Series Goals (-105)
The Golden Knights leading scorer this season was a breakout star in Dorofeyev. The 24-year-old Russian star has emerged as a top-end talent, netting 35 goals along with 17 assists for 52 points in a full-82 game season. Dorofeyev continued his success with a goal in the first round versus a strong defensive team in Minnesota before being sidelined with an undisclosed injury and missing game six.
It's a bit of a risk since the extent of the injury is still unknown, but if he's able to return for Game one, this bet looks solid. He'll have plenty of scoring opportunities playing on the second line alongside Hertl and Saad, and he'll also see time on the top power play unit with Eichel. As mentioned before, the Oilers defence is bleeding with no clear starter and the Golden Knights top scorer will more than likely take advantage.
Francisco Lindor and Francisco Alvarez had their hands all over the Mets’ series opening victory in Arizona on Monday night.
With the Mets leading by just one run in the top of the seventh, Alvarez led off the inning by busting it down the line to reach on an infield single -- he then hustled his way into scoring position on a Tyrone Taylor double.
A few pitches later, Lindor demolished a three-run homer into the seats in right-center to provide New York with some insurance.
And it certainly was needed, as Dedniel Núñez entered in the eighth and struggled in his season debut -- walking the bases loaded before being pulled for Reed Garrett, who allowed all three runners to score but limited the damage.
Edwin Diaz then came on in the ninth looking to close out a one-run ballgame.
The star closer allowed speedster Alex Thomas to reach on an infield single leading off the inning -- and he immediately looked to advance his way into scoring position, but the Francisco duo had other plans.
Alvarez unleaded an absolute strike to Lindor, who made a tremendous short-hop pick and somehow nipped Thomas’ left shoe with the tag -- eliminating the baserunner after a review for a massive first out of the inning.
“Just unreal,” Carlos Mendoza said. “Not an easy one overall. For Alvy not giving up after the runner gets a huge jump and for him just to finish the play, and then Lindor not only picking the baseball but sticking his nose in and applying the tag there -- pretty unbelievable.”
For Lindor, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing him come through with these types of heroics.
But for the youngster Alvarez, it was a massive play at a massive time -- and Lindor was sure to give him credit, immediately pointing to him after he put together the fastest pop time on a throw to 2B in his career (H/T Sarah Langs).
“He’s been working at that for a while now,” Lindor said. “Him and [Glenn] Sherlock and [Luis] Torrens have been putting in the work and emphasizing the throws to be in that area. He wanted it -- you can tell he wanted to throw him out and I love that.
“Defense wins ballgames. Defensive is a good way to be in the playoffs, so stuff like this gets me very excited.”
