There are more than 700 players in the National Hockey League and only one of them spent more time on the ice last season than the 34-year-old defenceman Drew Doughty.
Doughty played more night after night than Quinn Hughes or Cale Makar, than Charlie McAvoy or Victor Hedman, than Roman Josi or Miro Heiskanen.
He played more, in more situations, than the six best in the sport of which he still remains an aging contender.
But now Doughty is out in Los Angeles, his ankle broken, and surgery necessary. And the 99-point Kings of a year ago have an impossible hole to fill in the first half of the NHL season.
Not enough attention is ever paid to the special defencemen in hockey. There are really not very many of them. Too often, they’re measured by points rather than the way in which they influence the play. But the best ones set the tone in games. They control style. They work in every circumstance.
Ask Leafs coach Craig Berube who the best player he ever coached was and he’ll quickly mention Chris Pronger — the kind of defenceman who changed every team he played for.
Doughty has been that way in Los Angeles for 15 years, winning two Stanley Cups, two Olympic gold medals for Team Canada and the Norris Trophy, and should have won the Conn Smythe Trophy.
Even now, before being hurt, he would have been a candidate to play again on Team Canada at the upcoming Four Nations tournament and remains a candidate for next winter’s Olympics.
Last season, Doughty led the Kings in time on ice, five minutes a game more than any other defenceman, six minutes more than any forward. He played even-strength, penalty-kill, power play, up a goal, down a goal, first minute and last minute. He will be in the Hall of Fame one day.
But for now, the Kings must start a new season missing their most important player. The kind you don’t completely appreciate until he’s not there.
THIS AND THAT
Hard to figure exactly what coach Berube is doing with the Maple Leafs. He has Auston Matthews centring one line, which is obvious, William Nylander centring another, which is less obvious. And he has the veteran John Tavares centring the tryout veteran Max Pacioretty as a scoring version of a third line. Berube said before the season that he wanted an identity line as his third line. But that’s not really the game Tavares or Pacioretty play. The Leafs may wind up with the most scoring depth in hockey if the Nylander experiment sticks, but the grind won’t be evident in that kind of lineup … By the way, barring injuries, it’s pretty much a sure thing that Pacioretty and forward Steven Lorentz will be in the Leafs’ opening-night lineup. That will mean some kind of roster-salary shuffling for GM Brad Treliving … In the six seasons in which Pacioretty played in more than 70 games — and that’s a while back now — he scored 32, 35, 30, 37, 39 and 33 goals … Do we take Matthews’ goal-scoring for granted? Think of it this way: The 52 even-strength goals he scored last season are more than Alex Ovechkin, Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy, Bobby Hull or Phil Esposito ever managed in a single season. Two years before that, Matthews scored 44 even-strength goals. Ovechkin is a season and some away from passing Wayne Gretzky and becoming the career-leading goal-scorer in hockey. The most even-strength goals he had in any season is 43 … A part of the NFL that I’ll never understand: If a running back reaches out with the ball and it crosses the goal line, it’s a touchdown, even if the ball is then batted out of his hand. But if a wide receiver catches the ball in the end zone, falls out of bounds and then the ball bounces out, that’s not a catch or a touchdown. Seems like there’s a double-standard for two different positions to me … Can you name five players on the playoff-bound Detroit Tigers? I can’t. I can tell you that that Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich pitched in the ’68 World Series on a Tigers team that included Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Bill Freehan and Norm Cash and had John Hiller of Toronto in the bullpen.
HEAR AND THERE
It’s hard not to like John Schneider if you spend any time with him at all, but I’m not convinced he is pulling many strings with the Blue Jays. The other day, he pulled the rather sensational Bowden Francis from his final start of the season, after just 71 pitches against the Red Sox, while throwing a shutout. He said that was the plan. Whose plan? What were they saving Francis from? His next start is in April, assuming he’s still here. Then, on Friday night, with the Jays getting trashed by the rather trashy Miami Marlins, Schneider puts his backup catcher in to pitch. He has a long run of minor-league relievers in the pen, two days to go in the season, and he couldn’t find someone to throw an inning? … Personally, I think replacing the team president, Mark Shapiro, and general manager Ross Atkins, which doesn’t seem to be happening, is more important than considering the manager’s future. But somebody around the Jays, whether it’s Schneider or a computer room geek, is making some very strange calls these days … If baseball were more like the NFL, on Black Monday, Shapiro and Atkins would be shown the door. But as usual, Eddie Rogers is nowhere to be found in this awful Jays season … If the Jays begin next season with George Springer, Daulton Varsho and Alejandro Kirk in the starting lineup, that means they have found their 7-8-9 hitters. Now all they need to find is someone to hit 1-4-5 and 6. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Bo Bichette can take care of 2-3. The Jays need four every-day players and a brand new bullpen next season and even the assurance of all of that doesn’t mean they will be able to compete with the rest of the American League East … Every time I see Jarren Duran play for the Red Sox, as great as he may be, I think rock band … And smack in the middle of Maple Leafs camp, the Blue Jays announced they have recalled Buffalo pitcher Nick Robertson.
SCENE AND HEARD
Vince Carter did more than any player in history to bring attention and excitement to the Raptors, here, across the country, across North America, really. He also left behind more damage than any player before him or since. He undermined the team. He did the worst thing any professional athlete could do — he quit on his teammates and his coaches. It took almost 10 years to undo what Carter left behind — partially his fault, partially the fault of wonky management and weak ownership. If you want to honour Vince — and the Raptors will be doing that in November — for all he brought to Canadian basketball, then celebrate that. Enjoy yourself. But you need to do so with your eyes open wide, understanding that there are three sides to every story, yours, mine and the truth. And there are may be even more sides than that to all that went on with Carter and the Raptors. The retirement of Carter’s jersey is both necessary and unnecessary all at the very same time … Truth: There were Raptors people who wanted Kyle Lowry’s jersey to be retired prior to Carter getting his honour, but internal majority won out here. And this is not exactly a news break, but Lowry’s jersey will be retired. They know that. He knows that. It’s only a matter of when … The notion that the Raptors moved up Carter’s jersey retirement date to beat the Brooklyn Nets to the retired-jersey punch is false. The Raptors had been planning this retirement party long before Brooklyn announced its plans for Carter … Someone should tell Vince: It’s OK if someone calls you “half-man, half-amazing,” the old Chuck Swirsky line. But it’s not so cool to refer to yourself that way … I’ve known Christine Brennan, the USA Today sports columnist, for more than 30 years. I’ve worked with her, and around her, and have never met a larger advocate for women’s sport and fairness in all sport than she is. If the players of the WNBA have a problem with Brennan — as they announced rather rudely the other day in very immature tones — the problem is clearly theirs, not hers … All coverage today — news, sports, entertainment — is distorted by social media. There is more screaming junk being reported online than ever before. What’s most important now is context, how and why, not the daily inaccuracies that seem to pop up everywhere online … I love big trades. They don’t happen very often anymore in these salary capped times. But the deal that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks, essentially in exchange for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, is a huge swap of NBA bodies. And it should concern the Raptors as the Knicks continue to load up under Leon Rose, the former agent, turned president of the club. Since taking over the Knicks, Rose has signed explosive free agent Jalen Brunson — the best signing in all of basketball — traded for Towns and OG Anunoby and hired Tom Thibodeau to coach. Over to you, Masai Ujiri. The Raptors’ 30th anniversary season begins Monday with Media Day … I think I watched about 10 WNBA games this summer, all with Caitlin Clark playing. Now a decision to make: Do I watch the rest of the playoffs now that she and the Indiana Fever have been eliminated?
AND ANOTHER THING
In the 56 years the A’s played in Oakland, only the New York Yankees won more World Series. They took home seven championships. The A’s, now finished in Oakland, won four, the same number as the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox since 1968. This sad final season — sad final seasons, really — for the A’s in Oakland, were played in a mostly empty decrepit stadium, and none of that does justice to the legendary one-named or nicknamed players who starred earlier in the franchise’s history: Reggie. Rickey. Vida. Rollie. Eck. Stew. McGwire. Canseco … And the greatest A’s name of all, still: Coco Crisp … Brett Favre has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. It is conveniently being blamed on concussions and his football career. I have two friends not a lot older than Favre suffering with Parkinson’s. Neither played a down of football in their lives … U.S. college football was a cesspool of corruption before players started getting officially paid. Now that they can make money and transfer whenever they feel like it, it feels way more corrupt than ever … A happy, healthy, retirement to Christine Sinclair, the greatest Canadian soccer scorer of all time, and to the gold-medal winner, Maggie Mac Neil, who will next be doing her swimming in a court room as a law-school student … You can’t believe in a quarterback because of one start, but while watching Jayden Daniels last Monday night, he sure looked like the next special NFL star … Just when you wanted to hate John Tortorella — and he can be that way — he brings in Johnny Gaudreau’s father to training camp and once again shows a human side of himself he usually likes to keep hidden … A confession: I thought Bo Levi Mitchell was finished as a Canadian Football League quarterback. I thought his best-before date was about two years ago. Now he leads the CFL in passing yardage and touchdowns thrown and the last-place Hamilton Tiger-Cats have won four games in a row. If I’m voting today, with three games to play, he’s my Eastern nominee for Most Outstanding Player. It should come down to Bo Levi or Winnipeg’s Brady Oliveira, the Canadian running back, for the MOP … The most perfect Toronto basketball name ever: Keon Clark … Among those cut by the Ottawa Senators the other day, the piano man, Oskar Pettersson … Happy birthday to Jose Calderon (48), Grant Fuhr (62), Dave Andreychuk (61), Kevin Durant (36), Calvin Johnson (39), Mike Pelyk (77), Warren Cromartie (71), Steve Largent (70) and Don Edwards (69) … And hey, whatever became of Steve Kasper?
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