Canadian Women are Golden (Again), Czechia Makes History & More

Good morning and happy Labour Day!

There was some interesting news over the past few days but the most exciting came out of Denmark, where Canada took home gold while Czechia made history.

• After losing to the Americans in the round robin, Team Canada came to play when it counted most as they defeated their rivals from south of the border 2-1 on Sunday to earn another gold medal at the Women’s World Championships in Denmark. This is the team’s third gold medal in the last calendar year, as they also beat USA in the Olympics in Beijing and the 2021 World Championships. Sarah Fillier (5-6-11) and the greatest of all time Marie Philip-Poulin (5-5-10) led the Canadians in scoring while goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens was brilliant, posting a 0.934 SV% through the tournament - including a clutch 0.952 SV% in the gold medal game.
• Also in Women’s World Championship news, history was made this weekend as Czechia earned their first ever medal at the tournament with a bronze medal win over Switzerland.
• While I was naturally cheering for the Canadians in this tournament, it’s hard to ignore just how dominant Team USA was offensively throughout. Not only did they have four of the top five scoring skaters in the tournament, they had nine (!) member of their team post above a point per game. This, of course, makes the gold medal performance of Desbiens, holding America to just one goal, all the more impressive.
• This morning, Ian Mendes posted another great piece, this time about Kyle Turris’ time in Ottawa and how the move to the Senators may have saved his career. It’s certainly worth the subscription.
• Last week, the Buffalo Sabres signed Tage Thompson to a seven year, $50M contract. While he had an excellent season last year, Travis Yost put together a great article on TSN assessing the risk of the deal.
• The Dallas Stars finally inked goaltender Jake Oettinger to a contract extension after his impressive playoff performance this past spring.
• Another long awaited deal was announced with JT Miller signing for seven years in Vancouver. After plenty of rumours that he was on the block, it would appear the Canucks weren’t able to find the value they were looking for on the trade market.
• With that, a number of small money deals were signed as well. Edmonton signed D Ryan Murray, Winnipeg brought in veteran forward Sam Gagner and Minnesota added Sam Steel on a one year deal, as well.
• Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Rodion Amirov was in the headlines last season when the public learned he had a tumour discovered during a scan for an unrelated treatment. While he missed the remainder of the season, it was announced that the player did join his KHL club on their season opening trip. It’s unknown at this time if and when Amirov will be back on the ice in game action, but it’s great news to see nonetheless./