Under Further Review – Douglas Smith with Editor Bill Morphy. Regular contributors include Jordan Moss, Rob Wagner, Howard Steiss, Ian MacPhee, Dave Kittle, Peter Hucul, Ted Tait, Bill and Glen Myles, Frank Sullivan and Iqbal Grewall.   

Spanning the digital ether to bring you the constant variety of sport… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition… This is Under Further Review.

It’s time to take a break. We will be stepping aside after this column for the next few months to enjoy the summer. We’ll be back in the fall when hockey and football return. However, we do promise to provide a few takeaways from the NHL Draft and NHL free agency.

Stanley Cup Final Takeaways – It wasn’t close. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different. The Florida Panthers are a machine and they are worthy Stanley Cup champions. It’s not easy winning back-to-back titles.

Florida led the series for 255:49 (over 61 per cent), an all-time record in the Stanley Cup Final. Edmonton led for only 33 minutes. Had Florida not blown a 3-0 lead in game three, the series would have been over in five. The Panthers scored at least two goals in the first period of every game. Overall, Florida outscored Edmonton 13-4 in the opening period. They scored 28 goals in the six-game final for a scoring average of 4.5 per game. That’s dominance. It was McDavid and Draisaitl for the Oilers and not much else.

With “Yosemite Stu” Skinner between the pipes, the Oilers had about as much chance of winning the Cup as Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs had of being elected Pope. Skinner’s numbers in the final read: 3.97 GAA and .861 save percentage. The Oilers would have been better off with Eddie Mio.

Here’s a few other takeaways:

• After falling behind 2-0 against the Maple Leafs, the Panthers went 12-4. Two of the losses were in overtime. Florida had 11 lop-sided wins in this year’s playoffs. In those games, they outscored the opposition 61-16.
• None of their playoff opponents could handle Florida’s relentless forecheck. The Panthers showed more bite than the guy with the huge chiclets in the Trivago commercials.
• Connor McDavid is the only player in NHL history to score 90+ points in nine straight seasons and not win a Stanley Cup. In the Cup final, McDavid had only four even-strength points and was minus-7.
• Corey Perry may still be going at 40 but he’s a bit of a curse. Perry has now lost in the Cup Final five times in six years with four different teams. He’s been on the wrong end with the Oilers two years in a row and before that lost in 2022 with Tampa Bay, 2021 with Montreal and 2020 with Dallas.
• We will probably learn more in the coming days about the injuries players dealt with in the Final. Matthew Tkachuk played with a sports hernia and torn adductor muscle on the same side. How painful must that have been? He may need surgery. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins played with a broken hand. Mattias Ekholm was nowhere near 100%. Sam Reinhart returned from a grade 2 MCL strain. You have to deal with a lot of pain to win the Stanley Cup.
• Reinhart’s four goals in the Cup-clincher were more than Mitch Marner has scored (3) in his last 20 playoff games. And you’re willing to pay him $14 million per season?
• The Oilers must regret giving Darnell Nurse a multi-year deal at $9.25 million per season. Nurse earns more than Cale Makar, Roman Josi, Sidney Crosby, Miro Heiskanen and Quinn Hughes. The contract has prevented the Oilers from making other much-needed additions to the roster.
• The Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy in sports to win. No question. But it’s time to show the 131-year-old chalice a little more respect. The Panthers cracked the top of the trophy and dented the bottom after a night of celebration. The trophy has been damaged a number times in recent years. The Tampa Lightning dropped the Cup during their boat parade in 2021. The Colorado Avalanche dented it on the ice the night they won the following year. The 37-pound Cup is actually quite fragile. Players should be more respectful.

Schlockey Night in Canada – Following the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Final, Rob Longley of the Toronto Star penned a story on the decline of Hockey Night in Canada. We’ve been beating this drum for years. The show is old and stale. Bland for sure. Lacks insight, humour and personality. It seems to cater to the lowest level of Canadian hockey fan. Longley makes some good points but falls short of the kind of changes the show really needs.

What would we do? Start with this. Ron MacLean – GONE. Jennifer Botterill – GONE. Kelly Hrudey – GONE! Try and recruit James Duthie from TSN to host the show or just turn it over to David Amber. Keep Elliotte Friedman and Kevin Bieksa and build from there. Check out Longley’s article.

https://torontosun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/when-sportsnets-hockey-night-in-canada-lose-its-way

Canucks Notebook – What’s up with the Canucks? We’re told Jimmy Rutherford and Patrik Allvin did not travel to Buffalo to attend the NHL Draft Combine. WTF? It’s only one of the most important dates on the NHL calendar. Guess there’s no need to attend if you don’t plan on using your first-round pick. The Canucks have been shopping the 15th overall selection in search of a quality centre. If they keep the pick, they may look at Seattle Thunderbird centre Braeden Cootes whom scouting staff took out for dinner in Buffalo.

Reports suggest the Canucks have talked with the Minnesota Wild about a trade for centre Marco Rossi. The Canucks reportedly offered the 15th pick and a roster player. Rossi is a decent player. Asking Rossi and Elias Pettersson to match up against McDavid and Draisaitl, Barkov and Bennett and other top centre tandems, well, good luck. All the Canucks will become is a borderline playoff team. What’s so great about that?

For a while, we actually had hope for the organization. Rutherford and Allvin did some good work. Cleared cap space. Identified some cost-efficient free agents. But the team regressed significantly last season and the front office refuses to pivot. Now, it’s back to pure desperation and the same old failed formula of trading draft picks and young prospects for short-term gains.

The Canucks management team is coming to the realization the pathway to improvement is going to be difficult. Every team is motivated with the salary cap set for huge increases over the next three years. The UFA market for centres is slim and the Canucks are among numerous teams needing an upgrade down the middle. Everything they are doing is focused on keeping Quinn Hughes in Vancouver beyond the next two seasons. They really have just next season to convince him it’s worth sticking around.

A capacity crowd of over 7,000 turned out in Abbotsford on Saturday night hoping the Canucks AHL affiliate could lift the Calder Cup. Unfortunately, the Canucks fell in overtime to the Charlotte Checkers. They still lead the series 3-2 but must now go back to Charlotte to try and close out the series. Game six is Monday night. The series has been very close with three of the games going to overtime.

NHL Notebook – Can we really assume Connor McDavid is going to re-sign with the Oilers and spend his career in Edmonton? That’s been the speculation ever since his longtime agent Jeff Jackson took over as Oilers President of Hockey Operations in 2023. Not so sure that is etched in stone. Not after losing in the final in two straight seasons. Can you imagine how it would shake up the industry if McDavid actually went on the open market in July, 2026? It probably won’t happen. His wife just opened a bar in downtown Edmonton. There’s a good chance McDavid signs a short-term deal just to keep his options open. He has the same agent as Auston Matthews who re-upped with the Leafs for four years instead of signing a max eight-year deal.

If the Oilers are going to convince McDavid to stay in Edmonton, they’ve got some heavy lifting ahead. The Oilers head into the summer with under $12 million in available cap space. Draisaitl will start his eight-year, $14-million-dollar AAV deal next season. In his next contract, McDavid could demand at least $16 million. Evan Bouchard is a restricted free agent and it may take over $10 million to get him extended. Add in Nurse’s anvil contract and you would have $50 million tied up in only four players. Suddenly, the Oilers are looking very top heavy. We know how that worked out for the Leafs.

It really is a perfect marriage for Jonathan Toews and the Winnipeg Jets. At 37, Toews can resume his NHL career in his home province. Toews signed a one-year deal with a base salary of $2 million with up to $5 million in incentives. The Jets needed help down the middle and Toews could take on a big role with Adam Lowry expected to miss the first two months of the season after hip surgery. The Jets have tried and failed repeatedly to find an answer at centre to slot in behind Mark Scheifele. They’ve acquired Paul Stastny, Kevin Hayes and Sean Monahan and none have stuck around for long.

The NHL buy-out window opened on Friday and it will be interesting to see how many veterans are cut loose. The Chicago Blackhawks got things underway by placing veteran defenceman T.J. Brodie on waivers for the purpose of a buyout,  just one year after signing him to a two-year, $7.5 million dollar contract. What a waste that was!

Vegas defenceman Alex Pietrangelo is apparently still banged up and may not be ready to start next season. Watch the Golden Knights stash him on LTIR and have enough money to retain Nicolas Hague and bid on Leafs free agent Mitch Marner. That would very much be in keeping with their DNA.

TSN insider Pierre Lebrun made a list of things he could do if he became NHL Commissioner. Frankly, we’re on board with all of them:

• Stanley Cup awarded by May 31
• Shorten training camp and pre-season and drop the puck on the regular season by September 15
• No more All-Star games – EVER
• Move the NHL Draft earlier in June as a result of the season ending earlier
• Move the opening of free agency to within 48 hours of the NHL draft ending

The NHL has to be bonkers to be considering awarding an expansion team to the City of Atlanta. Of course, third time a charm? A proposed $3-billion-dollar development in Atlanta would include an 18 thousand-seat NHL arena. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman must have a poor memory. Other than a cash grab, there’s no conceivable reason why the NHL would go back into that market. Houston is a far better choice for expansion.

NBA Finals Notebook – For the first time, the NBA Champions reside in Oklahoma City. The Thunder captured their first title since the franchise moved from Seattle in 2008 by defeating the Indianapolis Pacers in game seven of the NBA Final. Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander became the first player in 25 years and just the fourth in NBA history to be league MVP, scoring champion and NBA Finals MVP in the same season. The Hamilton, Ontario native had 29 points in the clinching victory. The Pacers, an inspiring story in their own right, lost star Tyrese Haliburton to an Achilles injury early in game seven, and were unable to recover.

As much as the Thunder are deserving champions, OKC’s no-show in game six was disgraceful. How can you play that poorly with an opportunity to win a championship? SGA had eight turnovers in the game. There isn’t a hope in hell the Thunder would beat any of the great teams in NBA history. They may have raised the Larry O’Brien Trophy but we would not place them among the best teams ever. Not even close.

Blockbuster trade news this weekend. The Phoenix Suns have reportedly agreed to trade 15-time All-Star Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets for Jalen Green, Canadian Dillon Brooks, the number 10 pick in this year’s NBA draft and five, yes five, second-round draft picks, which apparently are worthless when it comes to draft capital. No doubt Durant is a future Hall of Famer and still a great scorer, but we still don’t know why the Toronto Raptors were among the teams bidding for Durant.

Will You Take a Cheque? – Mark Walter is the new overlord of the Los Angeles sports scene. The Dodgers owner has agreed to purchase a controlling stake in the L.A. Lakers from the Buss Family for $10 billion dollars. It’s the largest amount ever paid for a sports franchise in North America.

Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979 for $67.5 million. His daughter Jeanie will retain 15% of the team which allows her to remain as team governor. In addition to the Dodgers and Lakers, Walter owns the Premier League club Chelsea, the Professional Women’s Hockey League and several auto racing teams, including Cadillac Formula 1. The deal to purchase the Lakers completely smashes the previous record of $6.1 billion set when the Boston Celtics were recently sold.

Say what you want about the Dodgers, Walter is the perfect owner. He spends big and gets out of the way. Walter rarely speaks and allows front office staff to do their job. Thanks to Walter’s free-spending ways, the Dodgers have over $1 billion in deferred money on their books. Their luxury tax bill a year ago was $103 million, the highest in baseball history. Between payroll and luxury tax, they are expected to dish out more than half a billion dollars for this year’s Dodgers roster and that’s not even counting the deferred money that will be paid down the road.

Footnote: The championship trophy for the PWHL is called the Walter Cup. Guess that’s what happens when you own the league.

Blue Jays Notebook – If the Blue Jays are going to remain in contention in the AL East, they are going to need more consistency from the starting rotation. Veteran righthander Kevin Gausman was touched up for seven earned runs in his latest outing. He’s walked 12 batters in 20 June innings compared to only one in 31 innings in May. Gausman has now allowed 17 earned runs through 20 innings and four starts this month. It’s a complete reversal from May when he went 3-1 with a 2.81 ERA.

With Bowden Francis also struggling, and now on the DL with a shoulder impingement, the rotation suddenly needs reinforcements. Max Scherzer has made two rehab starts in Buffalo and may be recalled soon. Overall, Jays’ starters are 19-23 this season with a 4.72 ERA which places them 26th in the majors. Expect the Jays to go looking for a starter prior to the July trade deadline. They are rumoured to have interest in a pair of Arizona Diamondback starters, Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly.

Somebody just made a good point. The Jays spent $15 million to sign Scherzer. They dished out another $92 million on Anthony Santander and also inherited another huge contract when they traded with Cleveland for Andres Gimenez. The Jays have little to show from any of those moves yet they remain in the playoff hunt.

MLB Notebook – It will be interesting to see how Rafael Devers works out in San Francisco. The Giants picked up the entirety of the $260 million remaining on his contract. Oracle Park is a pitchers’ ballpark and there’s a reason the Giants haven’t had a 30-home run hitter since Barry Bonds retired. Devers showed a complete unwillingness to move positions when he was in Boston. Upon arriving in the Bay Area, he immediately agreed to play first base if needed. Just watch, the Red Sox will be better in the long run without him.

If you need a base hit to win a ball game, there may be no better hitter in baseball right now than the San Diego Padres hit machine Luis Arraez. Through the first 2,144 games of his MLB career, Arraez’ batting average is .325. After the same number of games, Tony Gwynn was hitting .326. Arraez has 696 hits. Gwynn had 699. Both had 24 home runs. Arraez has an OPS of .802. Gwynn had an OPS of .804. That’s keeping some pretty heady company.

How about Milwaukee Brewers rookie pitcher Jacob Misiorowski? The 6-foot-7 right-hander became the first pitcher in 125 years to record 11 hitless innings to begin his major league career. He threw five no-hit innings against St. Louis in his MLB debut, then followed it up with six more innings against Minnesota before being touched up for two runs in the seventh inning on Friday night. His fastball topped out at 102.1 mph.

Golf Notebook – Tommy Fleetwood is the best player on the PGA Tour without a victory. Fleetwood has 42 top-ten finishes which is the most without a win since 1983. On Sunday, Fleetwood had a two-shot lead with three holes remaining at the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Connecticut before another late collapse. Fleetwood bogeyed 16 and 18 to hand the tournament to Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley. Tommy shouldn’t be too upset however. His career earnings are over $30 million. Canadians Nick Taylor and Taylor Pendrith both shot 1-over 71’s on Sunday to finish T17 and T25.

Canada’s Brooke Henderson continued her disappointing year on the LPGA Tour. She struggled to a +6 round of 78 in the final round of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in Texas to finish T36.

Canada’s Myles Creighton broke through with his first-ever victory on the Korn Ferry Tour. He fired a 2-under par 68 on Sunday to win the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas Wichita Open. Creighton’s victory was highlighted by a career-best round on Friday. He  joined the 59-Club with an 11-under 59. Before Sunday’s victory, the Digby, Nova Scotia native had only two top-25 finishes this year.

The Stats Man – How hard were the greens at Oakmont Country Club at the U.S. Open? There were 238 three-putts at the Masters this year which is generally home to the fastest and most undulating greens anywhere. There were 536 three-putts at Oakmont.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the most storied franchises in NHL history but did you know the Leafs have never had a one-thousand-point scorer? Mats Sundin is the team’s all-time leader with 987 points. Darryl Sittler finished with 916.

Detroit Tigers ace lefthander Tarik Skubal continues to amaze. He has recorded 100+ strikeouts, a 2.50 ERA or lower and fewer than 20 walks allowed through his first 15 starts in each of the past two seasons. Skubal is the first pitcher in MLB history to do this in back-to-back seasons.

Cincinnati Reds outfielder Eric Davis had Hall of Fame talent. In 1987, Davis had 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in the first 46 games. Extrapolated that could have been a monster season. He ended up playing only 129 games that year, finishing with 37 home runs and 50 steals.

Random Leftovers – If the B.C. Lions want to get to the top of the mountain, at some point, they are going to have to find a way to get past the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The Lions laid another egg on Saturday night at BC Place, falling to the Bombers 27-14. Winnipeg has won six of the last seven meetings. Quarterback Nathan Rourke sat out the game with a core injury. The Lions travel to Saskatchewan next Saturday.

Did anyone see the end of the Argos/Riders game in Toronto on Friday night? Saskatchewan scored to take a 32-24 lead with less than two minutes remaining. The Argos marched down the field to score a touchdown, then added a two-point conversation to tie the game with seconds remaining. What happens? The Riders sensational return man Mario Alford takes the kickoff back 99 yards for the winning score. Only in the CFL.

After a resounding 6-0 whitewashing of Honduras at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, it looked like Team Canada were clear favourites to win the CONCACAF Gold Cup. It was great to see some of the younger guns get on the scoreboard including Niko Sigur, Promise David, Tani Oluwaseyi and Nathan Saliba. However, the team came up flat in their second match and settled for a 1-1 tie against No. 90 Curaçao in Houston. Canada will wrap up Group B play against El Salvador on Tuesday. The winner and runner-up from each of the four groups advance to the knockout stage in the 16-team tournament. The finale will be held in Houston on July 6.

Meanwhile, Canada Soccer and head coach Jesse Marsch are under investigation by CONCACAF officials in the wake of the Honduras game. It’s believed Marsch may have disregarded regulations regarding his two-game suspension. Marsch spent the game in a suite above the BC Place press box. As we stated in an earlier blog, don’t butt heads with CONCACAF. It’s a fight you will not win.

From the “We’re Not at All Surprised” department comes word that Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders has been ticketed for speeding twice this month in Ohio. The most recent infraction came last week when Sanders was clocked driving a Dodge pickup truck 101mph on a suburban Cleveland interstate. It happened at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday in a 60mph zone. According to police, the ‘Entitled One’ could get off by paying a $250 fine. And he wants to be the face of the franchise? We’re taking bets on how long he’ll last in the NFL.

Dallas Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs proudly states he’s the father of at least SEVEN KIDS in just the last couple of years. Diggs reports the seven children were with seven different women. Diggs spent most of last season on injured reserve. He evidently found a way to keep busy.

Wrestling legend Andre the Giant is considered to hold the world record for alcohol consumption. Legend has it he drank 156 beers in one sitting which is the equivalent of 73 litres or 16 gallons. “Man, I was OK until I had that 156th beer!”

In 1991, Andre “Hawk” Dawson was called out looking by umpire Cowboy Joe West and then ejected for arguing the call. He was fined $500 by the National League office and paid it via cheque with the memo line filled out “Donation for the blind.”

And finally, from the Believe It or Not file, and yes, this is true. In 1966, the US Coast Guard received an average of 2,500 letters per week asking why the people on Gilligan’s Island had not been rescued yet. Which proves, once again, much of the general population are idiots.

We hope you are enjoying Under Further Review. If you have friends or family members who enjoy sports, please take a moment and direct them to the website at https://underfurtherreview.ca/ and encourage them to subscribe at no cost.