Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Let’s take a look at an unexpected turn of events in Montreal.
In today’s SI:AM:
🏅 A major honor for two female athletes
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Not Mr. Wright for the Canadiens
In the eyes of many scouts, the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NHL draft had been decided for years. Shane Wright, a center for the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs, had wowed observers with 66 points (39 goals and 27 assists) in 58 games during his first season. He was only 15 years old at the time, having become just the sixth player in Canadian junior hockey history to be granted “exceptional status” allowing him to enter the OHL a year early, playing in league with players as old as 21. After the pandemic forced last season to be canceled, Wright put up gaudy numbers again this season: 94 points (32 goals and 62 assists) in 63 games.
Wright had been atop draft boards all year, but his name wasn’t the first one called at the draft last night in Montreal. It wasn’t the second, either. Here’s how the top five played out:
- Canadiens: Juraj Slafkovský (LW, Slovakia)
- Devils: Šimon Nemec (D, Slovakia)
- Coyotes: Logan Cooley (C, U.S.)
- Kraken: Shane Wright (C, Canada)
- Flyers: Cutter Gauthier (LW, U.S.)
Slafkovský (6'4", 218 pounds) is bigger than Wright (6'1", 187 pounds) and excelled when called up to the Slovakian national team for the Olympics this year. He led all scorers with seven goals in seven games as Slovakia took home bronze, then got additional experience playing against the world’s best at the World Championships this summer. (Slafkovský and Nemec are the highest-drafted Slovakian players ever, surpassing Marián Gáborík, who went third in 2000.)
So why did Wright fall? According to Corey Pronman of The Athletic, scouts’ impression of Wright’s game didn’t match his statistical output. “Yes, he’s a strong skater, he’s very skilled, smart, can shoot it, and kills penalties, but there’s nothing elite about his game,” Pronman wrote, adding that teams with the No. 1 pick are usually looking for a more exciting player. And it’s not like Slafkovský came out of nowhere, either. The NHL Central Scouting Service had him ranked as the No. 1 international skater available.
The draft is also a busy time for trades in the NHL and there were seven made yesterday. The most notable moves were probably the ones made by the Avalanche and the Blackhawks.
Colorado acquired goaltender Alexandar Georgiev from the Rangers in exchange for three draft picks (a third-round pick and fifth-round pick this year and a third-round pick next year), signaling a changing of the guard in net for the Stanley Cup champions. Starting goalie Darcy Kuemper is an unrestricted free agent and is sure to cash in after winning the Cup, while Georgiev is an unrestricted free agent that the Avs can sign on the cheap and pair with Pavel Francouz next season.
Chicago, meanwhile, started tearing down what’s left of its roster with two trades executed yesterday. It traded right winger Alex DeBrincat, the team’s second leading scorer this season, to the Senators in exchange for three draft picks (No. 7 and No. 39 this year and a 2024 third-rounder). Later the Blackhawks sent center Kirby Dach to the Canadiens in exchange for the No. 13 and No. 66 picks this year. The Blackhawks also moved up from No. 38 to No. 25 in the draft by agreeing to take Petr Mrázek off the Maple Leafs’ hands in a salary dump.
Those moves are just an appetizer for when free agency begins on Wednesday and things get really wild.
The best of Sports Illustrated
In today’s Daily Cover, Stephanie Apstein caught up with former MLB reliever Kyle Farnsworth, who has turned his attention to bodybuilding:
“He credits his figure to two or so hours per day of lifting, five days a week, and a strict diet. Two years ago, on his 44th birthday, he squatted 225 pounds 44 times. His personal record for one repetition is 545 pounds. The upshot of which is: He long ago left behind his civilian duds. ‘I have two or three outfits that I can wear that fit fine, but mainly I just have tons of gym clothes,’ he says.”
Jon Wertheim argues that there is a silver lining to Rafael Nadal’s Wimbledon withdrawal. … Conor Orr has his annual list of 12 teams that could win the Super Bowl. … Jimmy Traina spoke with Brian Windhorst about that viral clip you’ve been seeing over and over for a week.
Around the sports world
The Capitals took Ivan Miroshnichenko with the No. 20 pick last night, five months after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. … Aron Baynes will hold a workout for NBA teams a year after a freak spinal injury left him hospitalized for two months. … Italian cyclist Daniel Oss was forced to withdraw from the Tour de France after breaking his neck in a collision with a fan. … Megan Rapinoe and Simone Biles received the Presidential Medal of Freedom yesterday at the White House. … The city of Chicago has given NASCAR permission to hold a race on city streets for three years. … Alcohol will not be served at World Cup games in Qatar.
The top five...
… things I saw last night:
5. These people at a bar in France dancing to NBC’s Sunday Night Football theme.
4. Josh Giddey’s dunk and subsequent staredown (which earned him a tech).
3. Braves pitcher Spencer Strider’s nine strikeouts in the first three innings.
2. Dylan Moore’s home run, which bounced off of Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and over the wall.
1. Jorge Alfaro’s walk-off homer, bat slam and postgame interview.
SIQ
On this day in 2014, Germany beat Brazil, 7–1, in one of the most stunning World Cup semifinals ever. Which of the following German players did not score in the game?
- Thomas Müller
- Mesut Özil
- Toni Kroos
- André Schürrle
Yesterday’s SIQ: July 7, 1978, NBA owners voted to approve an ownership swap between which two franchises, allowing one of them to move to San Diego?
Answer: The Celtics and Buffalo Braves. Boston owner Irv Levin took control of the Braves and moved them to San Diego where they became the Clippers. Buffalo owner John Y. Brown became the new owner of the Celtics.
Levin, a Los Angeles–based film producer, was sick of traveling across the country to deal with Celtics business in Boston. He would much rather have owned a team in Southern California and in fact wanted to move the Celtics to San Diego. The NBA would never go along with a move like that, uprooting its marquee franchise and shipping it to the opposite coast. The Braves were a different story. They had only joined the league in 1970 and played eight thoroughly underwhelming seasons. Nobody outside of Buffalo would care if they moved. So Levin struck a deal with Brown where they traded franchises, allowing Levin to move his team closer to his home.
As part of the deal, the two teams made a six-player trade. Buffalo gave up Tiny Archibald, an All-Star point guard who missed the previous season with an Achilles injury, second leading scorer Billy Knight and Marvin Barnes. The Celtics sent Kevin Kunnert, Kermit Washington, Sidney Wicks and Freeman Williams in exchange. Boston also got two future second-round picks, one of which was used to select Danny Ainge.
The Celtics almost lost somebody else in the trade, though: Red Auerbach. The deal was negotiated between Brown and Levin, without input from Boston’s legendary general manager. Auerbach was upset that his new boss had gone over his head and contemplated taking a new job with the Knicks.
“If there’s a trade, any kind of trade, I’ll really be aggravated,” Auerbach said before it was made official. “I don’t care if it is part of the ownership deal, apart from it or whatever. If there’s a trade and I'm not consulted, it will put me in a very difficult position. I’ll have to ask myself, ‘Can I work for this new guy?’”
Auerbach had been through numerous ownership changes (Brown was the team’s eighth owner since franchise founder Walter Brown died in 1964) and decided in the end that he could stick it out with the new boss. Although, John Y. Brown didn’t last very long. He sold his stake in the team less than a year later so that he could run for governor of Kentucky. (He won.)
From the Vault: July 8, 1991
Peter Read Miller/Sports Illustrated
In 1991, former NFL defensive end Lyle Alzado was dying of brain cancer—and he thought he knew why.
Alzado, who was plucked out of obscurity from NAIA Yankton College in South Dakota in the fourth round of the 1971 draft by the Broncos, enjoyed a 15-year career in the NFL. In addition to Denver, he also played for the Browns and Raiders. He was a two-time All-Pro selection and won Super Bowl XVIII with Los Angeles following the ’83 season.
In March of 1991, two days after marrying his second wife, Kathy, Alzado was hospitalized and diagnosed with a rare brain cancer. Alzado, who had been using anabolic steroids for more than two decades, was convinced that taking the drugs led to his cancer, as he wrote in a first-person piece for SI.
“I know there’s no written, documented proof that steroids and human growth hormone caused this cancer. But it’s one of the reasons you have to look at. You have to. And I think that there are a lot of athletes in danger. So many of them have taken this same human growth hormone, and so many of them are on steroids. Almost everyone I know. They are so intent on being successful that they’re not concerned with anything else. No matter what an athlete tells you, I don’t care who, don’t believe them if they tell you these substances aren’t widely used. Ninety percent of the athletes I know are on the stuff. We’re not born to be 280 or 300 pounds or jump 30 feet. Some people are born that way, but not many, and there are some 1,400 guys in the NFL.”
Alzado’s story became a cautionary tale about the dangers of steroid use, but the link between his substance abuse and his cancer was dubious at best. According to The New York Times, the type of cancer Alzado had is usually only seen in people with suppressed immune systems, typically people with AIDS and those who have had organ transplants. Transplant patients will take prednisone, a corticosteroid, which is known to inhibit the immune system. But Alzado took anabolic steroids, which have not been shown to have any impact on the immune system.
Regardless of whether it caused Alzado’s cancer, anabolic steroid use comes with plenty of severe health risks and he should be commended for choosing to spend some of his final days on Earth trying to convince people to stop using the drugs:
“This is the hardest thing I've ever done, to admit that I've done something wrong. If I had known that I would be this sick now, I would have tried to make it in football on my own—naturally. Whoever is doing this stuff, if you stay on it too long or maybe if you get on it at all, you're going to get something bad from it. I don't mean you'll definitely get brain cancer, but you'll get something. It is a wrong thing to do.
[...]
“When I first got out of the hospital I felt inferior. Going from being built like I was to being built like this is very hard. But I don't feel inferior any longer. My strength isn't my strength anymore. My strength is my heart. If you're on steroids or human growth hormone, stop. I should have.”
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