Japanese phenom a modern Babe Ruth
We’ve got the NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs, the start of the MLB season and the NFL draft is just around the corner. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, here are the Monday morning musings and meditations:
Don’t know how this is flying under the radar, but there should be a feature movie in the works about Shohei Ohtani’s first month with the Angels. The dude is 2-0 as a starter with a 2.08 ERA and he’s hitting .367 with three homers and 11 RBIs as an outfielder. Who does this?
You have to go back to Babe Ruth’s last two years with the Red Sox in 1918 and 1919 to find anything similar.
It’s still early, and this can go a couple of different ways, but right now Ohtani looks like a player who comes around, literally, every 100 years.
The Utica Comets wrapped up their regular season on Sunday and it speaks volumes about the current state of the Vancouver Canucks that their farm team might be more interesting than their NHL club.
In the finale, a 4-3 overtime win over Binghamton, Jonathan Dahlen picked up a goal and an assist in his second AHL game and Lukas Jasek scored the winner with an assist from Ashton Sautner. Zack MacEwen and Nikolay Goldobin also registered points and Kole Lind played his sixth straight game.
The Comets now open their best-of-five, first-round series on Saturday in Toronto against the first-place Marlies and your agent will be on hand to chronicle the events. I’m excited about taking in the atmosphere in Utica. The faithful should be excited about the Canucks’ prospects playing in that series.
On a related note, it’s hard to know what the Canucks will do in free agency this off-season, but if you believe Trevor Linden and Jim Benning, they’ll do something ... and that tends to make you nervous.
The name being floated now is Leafs centre Tyler Bozak, who an unrestricted free agent this summer. He fits the mould of a veteran player who can help support the Canucks’ kids. But he’s also 32 and coming off a 43-point season on a team that finished third in the NHL in goal scoring.
Bozak, moreover, would fit a disturbing pattern in which the Canucks buy high for a declining asset. That was the case with Loui Eriksson, Sam Gagner and Ryan Miller, and to a certain extent, Derek Dorsett.
Yes, they acquired Thomas Vanek for an affordable price, but the larger point is that the Canucks have young players who have to play next season.
Adam Gaudette is one of them. He’ll be 22 in October. That’s not terribly young in today’s NHL. You would rather see him learn on the job than watch his ice time go to a mediocre veteran.
We’ll get to the Leafs’ plight in a minute, but aside from Boston’s overwhelming dominance of Mike Babcock’s team, about the only surprising thing about these playoffs has been the lack of surprise. Nashville, Tampa, Winnipeg and Pittsburgh were all favourites in their series and all lead. Washington and Columbus looked like a tussle and that’s what they’ve delivered. Might not have expected San Jose to sweep two games in Anaheim, but we saw the Ducks down the stretch and they looked like a spent force.
Similar story with Vegas and L.A., but the Golden Knights had the fifth-best record in the NHL and the Kings played Game 2 without their most important player in Drew Doughty.
As for the Leafs, yikes. As much as large pockets of this country delight in seeing a Toronto team struggle, only a true sadist would derive any enjoyment from this. Are the Bruins that good? Are the Leafs that bad? Who knows.
It just seems the Leafs are trapped in a Murphy’s Law nightmare. Freddie Andersen, their MVP in the regular season, can’t stop a sneeze. They lose the invaluable Nazem Kadri for three games over one mindless moment. Patrice Bergeron’s line has combined for 20 points after two games. William Nylander and Auston Matthews have none.
If Babcock can dig his team out of this hole, the $50 million the Leafs are paying him will seem like a bargain.
And finally, Ken Hitchcock was regarded as many things during his three decades of coaching in the NHL: demanding, overbearing, a pain to play for, a bigger pain to play against. He also retired this past week with the third-most regular season wins on the all-time coaching list, which is really the only thing you need to know about the man.
But, for a generation of hockey writers, Hitchcock will be remembered as one of the game’s last great raconteurs, a transcendent storyteller who delighted in the simple act of talking hockey. With availabilities now micro-managed to an absurd extent, the concept of holding court has all but disappeared and the game is poorer for its loss.
True, there was usually an agenda when Hitchcock spoke. But who cares? He provided an insight and a depth of knowledge which made the game more interesting and entertaining for us, and here’s a concept, hockey fans. Like all great coaches he was, first and foremost, a salesman.
And Hitch could sell air conditioners in Whitehorse.
My first interaction with him came in the late 1980s when his great Kamloops Blazers teams were dominating the Western Hockey League. It ran through a Stanley Cup Final, a couple of Olympics where he was an assistant on Team Canada, and countless regular season games. Through the years he remained an engaged and passionate hockey man who was generous with his time and his opinions.
His players may remember him differently. That’s how I’ll remember him.