Of all the people who did not expect Beckett Sennecke to get selected No. 3 overall in the Friday night’s NHL Draft, the it’s fair to say Sennecke was at the the top of the list.
The Anaheim Ducks kicked off the chaos early in Las Vegas as they made the 18-year-old from Toronto one of the top picks. It’s not that Sennecke doesn’t have a ton of upside — he sure does — it’s that he was ranked the 13th-best North American skater in the draft by NHL Central Scouting.
That’s helps explain why Sennecke looked so absolutely stunned to hear his name called as the joy began to wash over the faces of him and his family.
Sennecke appears to stand up and mouth “Oh my god….what the [expletive]” as he starts to hug his parents.
There is nothing cooler than seeing someone’s dream come true and hockey fans will remember Sennecke’s moment for quite some time. Here’s hoping he brings all that enthusiasm with him Anaheim.
A Sharks legend welcomed first overall pick Macklin Celebrini to his new team.
The San Jose Sharks made Boston University star centre and North Vancouver, Canada, native Macklin Celebrini the first overall pick in the 2024 NHL draft on Friday night, and the potential future face of the franchise was welcomed to his new team with a surprise.
To announce the pick, the Sharks enlisted the help of team legend Joe Thornton, who retired in 2022 and spent the bulk of his career with San Jose from 2005-20 and won both the Art Ross and Hart Memorial Trophies in 2006.
Thornton received quite a few cheers — from one fan in particular — as he took the stage and announced the selection of Celebrini, who Sharks fans will hope has a tenure similar to Thornton’s.
Macklin, who is 18, was named the Hockey East Player of the Year after a stellar season at Boston. He also represented Canada in the 2024 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, leading his team in scoring with four goals and four assists.
San Jose hasn’t reached the playoffs since 2019, when Thornton was still on the roster. With the top pick in the draft now on board in Celebrini, it will hope those woes end sooner rather than later.
Where will Stamkos land as he becomes an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career?
It sure looks like Tampa Bay Lightning captain and superstar Steven Stamkos is headed to unrestricted free agency for the first time in his career on Monday.
According to The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun, the 34-year-old isn’t close to signing a deal to remain with the only team he’s ever known with Stamkos’ agent Don Meehan texting LeBrun “He will be a free agent on July 1″.
Stammer played 79 games last season, scoring at least 40 goals for the seventh time in his career to go along with 41 assists. There are plenty of teams who would love that kind of production, even if the center eats up 10 percent of a roster’s cap space.
Ok, listen. Until he’s not a member of the Lightning, I have a hard time imaging Stamkos anywhere else. He’s a future Hall of Famer and helped bring two Stanley Cups back to Tampa Bay. It’s tough to let that walk out the door.
The Bolts enter this offseason with a projected $5.3 million in cap space per CapFriendly, but let’s not put it past GM Julien BriseBois to get creative to keep his captain.
2. Detroit Red Wings (+400)
Whether or not this was part of the Yzerplan all along kind of feels irrelevant. Detroit has plenty of cap space and a fan base desperate to return to the playoffs for the first time in nine years after snapping a streak of 25 consecutive postseason appearances.
Per CapFriendly, the Wings will have a projected $32.7 million available this offseason as it figures out what to do with UFA’s including Patrick Kane, David Perron, James Reimer and Shayne Gostisbehere — not to mention RFA’s Joseph Veleno and Lucas Raymond.
It’s easy to imagine Stamkos feeding Alex DeBrincat on a top line, it’s just a matter of what Steve Yzerman thinks this team’s ceiling is over the next few years as Stammer gets older.
3. Nashville Predators (+700)
The Predators averaged the 10th-best goals for per game last season (3.24) and the 16th-best power play (21.6 percent). Stamkos would be an instant improvement to both numbers while putting the forward in an extremely-winnable Central Division.
Nashville is expected to have $26.3 million in cap space as Anthony Beauvillier, Jason Zucker, Tyson Barrie and Alexandre Carrier become UFAs. That’s more than enough to get Stamkos to the Music City.
This year’s NHL Draft will take place at arguably its most intriguing venue yet.
This year’s NHL Draft is making the trip to Las Vegas, as the festivities will take place at a brand-new venue that is taking the world by storm.
The MSG Sphere is the gigantic circular attraction that has taken over the Vegas skyline, hosting concerts for bands like U2 and The Eagles and now hosting a major sporting event with the 2024 NHL Draft.
Why didn’t the NHL go with one of the legendary casinos or with the Las Vegas Golden Knights’ arena for the draft?
Well, attribute it to Sphere fever, as it’s turning into a major point of curiosity for events with its curved screen towering over the stage and its entertainment potential for the draft broadcast.
The NHL released some photos of what the Draft will look like at the Sphere this weekend.
This weekend’s NHL Draft will send a host of new hockey prospects on a new journey for their careers, and most all of this class is waiting to hear where they’ll land.
The one outlier is former Boston University center Macklin Celebrini, who should be the first-overall pick in this year’s NHL Draft for the San Jose Sharks.
The left-handed offensive prospect might not come with the same ballyhoo as last year’s top pick, Connor Bedard, but Celebrini only played a year at Boston for a reason.
He’s a pro-ready scorer who brings tantalizing upside as a future star in the league. Let’s get to know Celebrini before he most likely joins the Sharks on Friday night in Las Vegas.
First, some quick facts about Macklin Celebrini
Date of birth: June 13, 2006 Place of birth: North Vancouver, Canada Height and weight: 6-foot-0, 190 pounds Position: Center Shoots: Left 2023-24 team: Boston University (NCAA) 2023-24 stats: 32 goals and 64 points in 38 games
Celebrini hails from the same area as Bedard, and he’s just a bit bigger and taller than the Chicago Blackhawks star. He won the Hobey Baker and Tim Taylor awards in college and was named Hockey East’s Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year. Celebrini played for the USHL’s Chicago Steel in the 2022-23 season, scoring 46 goals and adding 40 assists in 50 games.
What is Macklin Celebrini’s playstyle like?
Celebrini scores a lot of goals. That’s not the only reason he will probably go first in this year’s draft, but it’s atop the list. San Jose desperately needs elite offensive players on its roster, and Celebrini would fill that gap for the Sharks.
However, his number of assists shows he’s just as good at creating scoring opportunities for his teammates. Bedard had similar success going into last year’s draft, which rounds out a prospect’s game outside of just finding the net. San Jose will get a player who has a knack for the puck in both notching goals and getting it to his fellow players.
That’s reason enough to draft someone like Celebrini, who should start as soon as he arrives.
Why is Macklin Celebrini the near-assured No. 1 pick at the 2024 NHL Draft?
Like Bedard before him, Celebrini offers the most upside as a top-six franchise scorer of any player in this class. His sole year at Boston was proof enough that Celebrini is ready for the NHL, meaning he can play right away for San Jose without having to spend any time in the AHL. There are some really good offensive players in this year’s draft, but none with the quite the promise of Celebrini. He just offers so much right away for a team.
If you’re reading this, prepare to feel very, very old.
The 2024 NHL Draft kicks off the from the Sphere in Las Vegas on Friday, and while the new crop of prospects may soon become household names, some of the top players in this year’s pool come from families that are pretty well-known already.
[lawrence-related id=2247952]
So grab your walker or cane and let’s dive into the eight NHL stars who have sons expecting to hear their name called this weekend.
Tij Iginla, C
(Photo by Dale Preston/Getty Images)
Jarome Iginla’s son is ranked the No. 9 prospect overall by NHL Central Scouting and should hear his name pretty early on. It certainly helps when your father is a Hall of Famer with more than 600 goals and assists each, but Tij has made himself standout just fine on his own.
Iginla has shown himself to be an excellent goal scorer with elite agility, making him a valuable piece to a NHL roster. While not a bulky guy, Iginla is projected to land somewhere in this range at the draft thanks to his scoring touch and tenacious attitude with and without the puck.
Ryder Ritchie, RW
The Prince Albert Raiders product is the son of Byron Ritchie, who was selected in the seventh round of the 1995 draft and went on to play more than 300 games in the NHL. Ryder will get drafted much earlier than his father did. He’s considered the 19th-best North American skater.
Aatos Koivu, C
It seems like Saku Koivu just retired and now his son is getting ready to enter the league. Between Saku, and uncle Mikko, the Finnish prospect has plenty of NHL blood in his DNA. Aatos is the No. 27 ranked international skater.
Max Plante, LW
Plante’s father, Derek, was the 161st overall pick of the Buffalo Sabres in 1989. A decade later he was winning the Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars. These days he’s an assistant coach with the Chicago Blackhawks.
Miroslav Satan Jr., C
The elder Miroslav Satan played more than 1,000 games in the NHL with 735 points, 464 penalty minutes and one of the funniest tweets in hockey history. Satan also won a Stanley Cup in 2009, but the tweet still might be his crowning achievement.
Martin Lapointe won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998, then was named captain of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2006. His son, Noah, is a defensive prospect who needs some time to develop still, but there’s solid pedigree here.
Lukas Fischer, D
The No. 45 ranked international skater is the son of Jiri Fischer, who won the cup with Detroit in 2002. Fischer’s career ended three years later after he went into cardiac arrest on the bench during a game in 2005. Fischer survived and joined the Red Wings’ player development staff soon after.
William Samuelsson, C
William’s father, Mikael, played in the NHL from 2000-2014 and is a member of the elusive Triple Gold club, winning a World Championship with Sweden in 2006, an Olympic gold medal and a Stanley Cup with the Red Wings. He’s currently working for the Vancouver Canucks’ player development department.
He sought him out during the on-ice celebrations, letting the elder Tkachuk finally experience the ultimate hockey nirvana. For folks who watched Keith dominate as a power forward in the 1990s and early 2000s, this was quite a sight:
What a beautiful moment for the Tkachuks. A moment that was decades in the making. Now Brady just has to complete the trifecta and earn a Cup of his own.
The Tkachuk name is finally going on the Stanley Cup more than 30 years after Keith broke into the NHL.
Matthew Tkachuk, Keith’s oldest son, helped lead the Florida Panthers to their first championship in franchise history as they defeated the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 on Monday night.
There’s a good — and pretty classic — reason for this.
Hockey players, like most pro athletes, are incredibly superstitious, and there’s a long held belief that any player who touches the Stanley Cup before winning it will never win a championship.
Considering Brady Tkachuk, who plays for the Ottawa Senators, is still 24 with a whole career ahead of him, it makes sense he wouldn’t want to tempt fate.
That left him trying to celebrate his brother’s victory without cursing his own chances of winning the Cup. It seems like he struck a solid balance, all things considered. The Senators (+400) are tied for the 10th-best odds to win the Cup in 2025, so it was probably a good move.
“I know my brother (Brady) is going to do it very soon. He’s an unbelievable player built for the playoffs, I can’t wait to see him play in the playoffs and a Stanley Cup final soon, he’s too good,” Matthew Tkachuk on Brady Tkachuk. #Sens
Brooks Koepka was so stoked about the Panthers winning the Stanley Cup!
This Florida Panthers’ Stanley Cup victory has been a long time coming for Brooks Koepka.
Koepka — long-time PGA Tour champion — is quite the Panthers superfan, going so far as to rush to a Stanley Cup playoff game the day after winning the PGA Championship last year. And this latest turn of the Panthers finally winning the Stanley Cup has Koepka stoked, to say the least.
Jena Sims, Koepka’s wife, posted a pair of videos to TikTok showing just how excited the golfer was as the Panthers won the Stanley Cup. From excitedly jumping around after the final buzzer to mimicking kissing the Stanley Cup, Koepka’s reaction is exactly the level of hype as you’d expect from a Panthers fan.
Gooood morning, Winners! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for rocking with us today here at FTW. We appreciate you giving us a bit of your time.
What a Stanley Cup Final, man. I take back everything I said about this series when the Panthers were up 3-0. I called this one of the worst Final I’d ever seen. As it turns out, this one was pretty epic.
Game 7 completely lived up to its billing. Last night, we saw two teams scratching and clawing their way to glory on the ice between Edmonton and Florida.
This one was nip and tuck with Florida barely coming out on top 2-1. It didn’t have to be this way.
A miraculous blind save from Dmitry Kulikov kept the Panthers even with the Oilers on the attack. Then, literal seconds later, Sam Reinhart broke the tie with a goal of his own.
That wasn’t all. The Oilers had yet another opportunity to tie the game. Eventual Conn Smythe trophy winner Connor McDavid had the puck on his stick with Sergei Bobrovsky outside of the net in the third period. Yet, thanks to an unbelievable stick check from Gustav Forsling, a goal was saved. McDavid couldn’t knot things up at 2-2.
These two teams fought hard. This game was physical. Every inch on the ice mattered. Ultimately, Florida played the more physical game and wore Edmonton down. But it wasn’t for lack of effort on the Oilers’ part.
It’s no wonder both teams played so hard. Glory was there for the taking as both sides were trying to stave off decades of lowly history.
Edmonton carried the weight of an entire country on its back. Have you heard? Lord Stanley hasn’t touched Canadian soil in 31 years. The Oilers had a chance to change that with a win in Game 7. Connor McDavid is the NHL’s best, but he would’ve cemented himself as an all-timer had the Oilers pulled off the greatest comeback in NHL history.
For the Panthers, it wasn’t a country. It was the franchise’s own shameful history that it had to stare down.
Of course, Florida made the playoffs in each of the last five seasons. But check the previous 25 years — you’ll see the same number of playoff appearances as the last five. There’s only one Stanley Cup Final appearance and that’s from 1996.
Not only was this team not good — it was an embarrassment. People didn’t even come to the games. Season tickets were seven dollars at one point. That’s how bad things were.
And now look. That same franchise that couldn’t put butts in seats is now hoisting the Stanley Cup trophy. It’s incredible how these things go.
Now, the Panthers are champions. They don’t have to worry about that anymore. The stands are filled every night and the ice is covered by plastic rats.
Congrats, Florida. You deserve it.
The cold world of Track and Field
Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
While the Panthers and Oilers were battling it out on the ice, U.S. Track and Field Olympic trials were underway.
One of the stars folks were looking forward to seeing in Paris was Athing Mu, the winner of the 800m in the 2020 Olympic Games. Unfortunately, she won’t be making it to Paris this year to defend her gold medal.
Mu stumbled about 200 meters into the women’s 800m, causing her to fall behind and completely out of the race. Meanwhile, Nia Akins (1:57.36) ran the fastest time of her life to lock in the win and solidify her spot in Paris.
It’s tough, man. So tough. As Rai Benjamin said, it feels unfair because you know Mu is supposed to be there. She’s the absolute best at this. But the rules don’t change for anyone. Mu messed up. Unfortunately, these are the consequences.
That doesn’t take away the heartbreak, though. This shot of Mu’s devastation as she walks by Akins, Allie Wilson and Juliette Whittaker after they all qualified for Paris is just so painful to watch.
The direct camera contrast of Nia Akins, Allie Wilson and Juliette Whittaker’s joy, and Athing Mu’s devastation walking by them, is as REAL as Sports gets. pic.twitter.com/MBv8yDlhb6
— Andrew Jerell Jones, Luke 1:37 (IG:twdbk3) (@sluggahjells) June 25, 2024
Sports, man. It can be the best. But it can also be the worst in that same moment for someone else. What a tough way to go out.
Speaking of champions…
(Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images)
Tennessee won its first national championship in any sport in 15 years last night with the Vols staving off Texas A&M in Game 3 of the College World Series Final.
This is a huge win for Tennessee. Here’s Cory Woodroof with more:
“Per the school, the last time a Vols team won a championship was the women’s indoor track and field team in 2009, with the women’s basketball team winning back-to-back national titles in 2007 and 2008 under legend Pat Summitt.
For comparison, the men’s basketball team has never won a national championship and the football team hasn’t won one since 1998.
This is the Volunteers baseball team’s first-ever national title, making it even sweeter on Rocky Top for the national championship drought to finally end.”
I’m sure the Vols’ football fans hope they can keep the good vibes going.
Quick hits: Poor Corey Perry … An NBA Draft question for every team … and more
