Preds beat Penguins, even series at two all
Frederick Gaudreau sure is doing his best to earn his own locker with the Nashville Predators with a Stanley Cup Final debut for the ages.
And with Pekka Rinne turning in his best performance in this series, the Predators are going back to Pittsburgh having tied up the defending champs at 2-2, turning this into a best-of-three sprint to the Stanley Cup.
Gaudreau, an undrafted free agent playing just his sixth postseason game, scored the go-ahead goal 3:45 into the second period, and Rinne made 23 often-spectacular saves as the Predators beat the Penguins 4-1 on Monday night.
The 24-year-old rookie only has a chair in the Predators’ locker room, but he now is the second player in NHL history to score his first three career goals in a Stanley Cup Final, joining Johnny Harms with the 1944 Blackhawks.
Calle Jarnkrok, Viktor Arvidsson and Filip Forsberg also scored for Nashville, which improved to 9-1 at home.
Sidney Crosby scored his first goal in the series after not getting a shot on goal in Game 3. The goal was his first in the Stanley Cup Final since June 4, 2009 — a span of 12 games. The goal came after he was held without a shot for only the fifth time in his career in the playoffs.
The Penguins now have lost two straight for the second time this postseason. They also lost Games 5 and 6 against Washington. Goalie Matt Murray lost consecutive games for the first time in his young career.
Game 5 is Thursday night in Pittsburgh.
Nashville tapped country singer Dierks Bentley as the latest to sing the national anthem, while country singer Jason Aldean waved the towel to rev up the crowd. Former NBA star and TV commentator Charles Barkley also was on hand, accepting NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s invitation to watch in person.
Rain most of Monday kept the crowd outside from reaching the more than 50,000 who turned Saturday night for the first Stanley Cup Final game in Tennessee. Enough people turned out to fill up Broadway for three blocks with three giant TV screens, even with Nashville opening up a downtown amphitheater for fans to watch.
father will reportedly have to wait a little longer for what Kanter called an “interrogation” in Turkey. Kanter’s agent,
told The Oklahoman via text Monday his sources in Turkey said Kanter’s father, will not meet with Turkish authorities until Thursday. Kanter announced Friday that his family’s home in Istanbul had been raided and that his father was arrested.
Kanter believes his father has been arrested because of the Thunder center’s political views. Kanter is a follower of the Gülen Movement, affiliated with — an Islamic leader in direct opposition of Turkish president In July 2016, Erdogan’s regime blamed Gülen for a failed coup attempt in the Turkish capital of Ankara, and called on the U.S. government to arrest Gülen and extradite him to Turkey.
On May 20, Kanter had his Turkish passport canceled while traveling in Europe. Upon his return to the United States, a warrant was reportedly issued for his arrest in Turkey.
New Westbrook ad touts L.A. as home
In May, appeared in a commercial for Tumi luggage in which he touted Oklahoma City as home. This time, Los Angeles is getting some love.
Westbrook is an L.A. native, so in a 2-minute, 35-second ad for Samsung Mobile entitled “Driven,” he shows his appreciation for the city that molded him into one of the NBA’s best players.
“I never moved out of L.A.,” Westbrook says as an image of him driving through California plays. “Just a sense of comfort, honestly. I just like being home. I grew up here. I grew up in the inner city. You can see everything that you work for, why it’s so important for you to be able to see old friends, or just people you may have grew up with that you haven’t seen in a while.”
Westbrook then meets up with kids in a gym where his Leuzinger High School No. 4 jersey hangs. He even catches an alley-oop from one of the youngsters.
“You’ve gotta remember where you come from, and always stay aware of that regardless of what time it is,” Westbrook says. “... always try to find ways to give back and continue to make them feel like we care.
“You can make it out of any situation because I was once one of those kids.”
The spotlight keeps getting brighter for Westbrook, who ESPN recently tabbed as the 35th most famous athlete in the world, according to a formula that accounts for endorsements, social media following and Google/Baidu