Darren DuPont’s 10 Things

Welcome to October and welcome to opening week in the NHL… well sort-of.

1 – BYE WEEK – I’ve got a break in my fall broadcast schedule and it’s Leanne’s offseason so we are headed overseas for a little timeout. After a brief stop in LA we are off to Bali, Indonesia and won’t be back home until the 17th. This has been in the works for a while and almost never happened. It’s a trip we’ve bought and paid for since very early on in the pandemic. The deal was we had three years to use it. Well, after two extensions and some really nice customer service, we reached the use-it-or-lose-it stage and away we go!

Truth is, there’s no perfect time to go away so you just need to pull the trigger. There was a chance (work related) that we were going to have to cancel it at the last minute but it’s all good and away we go. I’ve never been overseas before let alone on a 14 hour flight. I’ve been to all corners of North America as well as some tropical destinations (Cuba, Mexico, Hawaii) but never overseas. Any advice?

I’ll share more next week once we get settled in.

2 – OPENING WEEK – The NHL will open its season on Friday in Prague when the Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils play the first of two games to start the season. The rest of the league doesn’t start until the 8th.

If the sportsbooks are right, it’ll be the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers meeting in the Stanley Cup final again in the spring. We haven’t had a repeat Stanley Cup Final since 2008 and 2009 when Pittsburgh and Detroit met in back-to-back finals, each winning one. You’d have to go all the way back to 1983 and 1984 to find the next one when Edmonton met the New York Islanders in back-to-back finals, NY winning the last of four-in-a-row and Edmonton winning the first of back-to-back cups and four in five years.

3 – THE NEXT GEN –The next gen of NHL stars is upon us. Let’s look at some NHL preseason stats that back this up:

Matvei Michkov is in North America and paying early dividends for the Philadelphia Flyers. Michkov is second in the NHL with six preseason points and tied for second with three goals, including a spectacular overtime winner last week. 

Adam Fantilli of the Blue Jackets leads all players with four goals. Utah’s Dylan Guenther is tied with Michkov at three. Meanwhile, Calgary Flames 2023 first-round pick (16th overall) Samuel Honzek is the league’s leading scorer in the preseason with seven points and leads all players in assists with five. The 19-year-old scored 10 goals and added 21 assists in 33 games with the Vancouver Giants last season.

4 – LAINE OUT –I didn’t think I’d care as much as I do about Patrik Laine and the Montreal Canadiens but here we are. We learned on Tuesday that the newly acquired forward will miss 2-3 months with a knee injury suffered in a preseason game against Toronto.

I’m really intrigued by the Canadiens and by Laine. I’m a fan of the game and a fan of people. I love a success story and I’m hoping Montreal can be a fantastic fit for Laine. With Kirby Dach hopefully healthy and their young leadership maturing another year I was really looking forward to seeing how the new addition would fit into the mix. I’ll still be excited to find out but now will have to wait until Christmas. Ugh.

5 – CANADA WEST –The conference keeps chugging along and we are really solving nothing. Everything remains really tight and will be a battle right to the finish. I’m on a break until the last two weeks of the regular season and it’s setting up to be a fantastic finish.

UBC has won three in-a-row after an 0-2 start but narrowly beat 1-4 Calgary 32-30 this past weekend, while Regina has lost three-straight after a 2-0 start but pushed 5-0 Manitoba to the limit in a 9-point loss. Week 6 is headlined by a second Hardy Cup rematch of the season when UBC visits Alberta. The two met in week one with the Golden Bears winning convincingly on the coast.

6 – HOW THINGS CHANGE –Opinions should change as life changes and new information becomes available. If you’ve taken a three week break from reading this website and watching The RP Show the next sentence will feel very weird. The Saskatchewan Roughriders feel like a lock for the CFL playoffs and the Hamilton Tiger Cats are breathing down the neck of the Toronto Argonauts for the final playoff spot in the East. 

For the Riders, they’ll have to lock up a spot without Shawn Bane Jr. who is going to miss some time with a knee injury. The Riders have won back-to-back games for the first time since the beginning of July while my overreaction of the year a few weeks ago picking Edmonton to make the Grey Cup has gone up in smoke. RP was right this week on the show. This really feels like the zaniest CFL season ever.

7 – Hamilton knocking –Toronto’s win against Montreal didn’t help the Ti-Cats but Hamilton has been riding high since the arrival of Chris Jones and the resurgence of BLM. The Ti-Cats have won four-straight and are now four points back of the Argos for the final playoff spot in the East. 

Here’s what’s ahead and how I think it will shake down:

Hamilton: vs WPG, vs CGY, at OTT. I think they go 2-1.

Toronto: at WPG, vs OTT, at Edmonton. I say they go 1-2.

As you can see, Toronto’s win over Montreal may have earned them the final playoff spot in the East. Ottawa is five points up on Hamilton  and they play Montreal, Toronto, and Hamilton. I guess it’s possible, if the Ti-Cats run the table, that Ottawa could be on the outside looking in. Spicy.

8 – CURLING –Things are heating up on the pebble as the first big event is in the books and Saskatchewan is on top of the curling world. Winners of two straight World Curling Tour titles heading into the PointsBet, Mike McEwen made it three-in-a-row beating Brad Gushue 8-3 in the championship game avenging a loss to Gushue in the Brier final back in Regina.

On the women’s side, Rachel Homan became the event’s first back-to-back winner with this year’s victory. She’s also the first #1 seed on the men’s or women’s side to win the event.

9 – MORE FOOTBALL NOTES –I’m fully in on Sam Darnold and Minnesota. My only disclaimer on the whole situation is this: He will stumble. The Vikings will lose. How does he respond then? The week after a tough loss or after a bad performance from the QB will tell you everything about their chances to win a Super Bowl this year. Everyone will “dunk” on them and tweet the “told you so” ‘s but it’s the week AFTER that will tell the story.

Some might say I planned this trip overseas during the Titans’ bye week but that’s just a coincidence. There are a couple doozys on the schedule this week though: BUF @ HOU and BAL @ CIN should be the two games-of-the-week. One bright side to being on the other side of the world is that the Jets and Vikings from London should be at a decent hour in Indonesia. 

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How do we top Alabama/Georgia from Saturday night in the SEC? A rematch of the CFP Championship Saturday when Michigan visits Washington doesn’t really have the snap it did in January. With no one game standing out this week, why not watch 23-ranked Indiana (5-0) visit Northwestern at 3:30pm ET. Canadian QB Kurtis Rourke has been great for the Hoosiers and is getting mentions on NFL broadcasts. They’ll get some prime TV slots down the stretch too. After Northwestern they’ll play Nebraska, Washington, Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State and Purdue. Nebraska will be a great game and if they can survive they could be 9-0 when they welcome the Wolverines in November. Can you imagine?

10 – RANDOMS – How can you not love Marc-Andre Fleury? He wasn’t playing Tuesday night so he went undercover, in disguise, and joined the ice crew to scrape the ice during commercial breaks…. Jeremy Brodeur was in goal for the New Jersey Devils on Monday night. If that name sounds familiar, it should. He’s the son of NHL great Martin Brodeur. The younger Brodeur made 29 saves and the Devils beat the Rangers 3-1… The biggest story in the NHL this week is the contract negotiations between Jeremy Swayman and the Boston Bruins. By now you’ve read and heard all about it. Here’s my thought on it: once a relationship is fractured it’s very difficult to get past it. If both sides can come to the table and put any negativity in the past then there is a deal to be made. But it has to be real. If either side can’t get over it then it’s time to move on. Money can’t fix it…   It’s too early to say BC’s big contract for Nathan Rourke was a mistake… We’re onto Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Netflix. Creepy and not where I expected it to go. But, it’s good and we have to finish it now… We will take a break though because a new episode of Bad Monkey with Vince Vaughn should be dropping today on Apple+.

We’ll talk to you here again next week where I’ll be writing from Bali, Indonesia. Enjoy the rest of the week/weekend!