Stolen signals and rogue ball boys: Inside college football’s sideline paranoia
COACHES TEND TO clam up when asked about paranoia among their ranks. Without fail, they’ll start by saying they’re too focused on the task at hand to worry about anyone pulling a fast one on them. Maybe they’ll laugh and say they’re naive. But eventually they’ll admit to hearing cautionary tales through the years — lip readers in the coaches box, parabolic microphones pointed where they shouldn’t be, wild stuff that one Power 5 assistant says “would make [Bill] Belichick seem like a saint.”
Everyone’s a gossip, especially in the small world of college football. Share enough stories, and don’t be surprised when those previously buttoned-up coaches start divulging experiences of their own — accounts of malfunctioning headsets and former players who went turncoat.
Former Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo said he never paid much attention to things like sign-stealing until a few years ago, when television producers moved their cameras to the opposite side of the field. The reason was innocent enough; Niumatalolo said they wanted to get a shot of the Navy sideline with the brigade in the background. But then an assistant warned, “That’s bad.” Niumatalolo asked why and the assistant, whom he recently hired, explained how the school he came from had spent three hours watching TV copy of Navy’s games to match their signals to their plays. “We’re the most paranoid people,” Niumatalolo said. “And a lot of it there’s good reason for.”
North Carolina coach Mack Brown sees a healthy level of mistrust as being an essential requirement for the job. “It’s why my hair is really gray, I look old and I haven’t slept well for 30 years,” he said.
The threat of subterfuge is so prevalent there’s a shorthand for when it’s believed to have happened: getting skunked. While stealing signals is as old as the sport itself, a source said it has become a “cottage industry” of late. Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles estimates 75% of teams steal signals. “It’s bigger than most people know,” he said. Technological advancements and expanding support staffs are fueling concerns. But analog methods aren’t to be discounted, either. Just last week, Georgia coach Kirby Smart had to respond to an unsubstantiated rumor that his team had filmed Ohio State’s practice. Smart brushed it off, calling it “ludicrous.” Former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops once said that he regretted practicing in the Superdome prior to the 2003 Sugar Bowl because there were too many prying eyes.
No place is safe, and no one is above suspicion. It turns out not even ball boys can be trusted to move freely on the opposing team’s sideline over fears that they might hear (or record) sensitive information. The same goes for the seemingly innocuous members of the chain gang — the crew that marks the line of scrimmage and line to gain, and holds the marker displaying what down it is.
A longtime head coach and coordinator warned, “Think about all the money, dude,” before ruling out any theory as being too far-fetched.
“Think about it, and that’s where it’s at,” he said. “When you got assistant coaches making $2 million a year — assistant coaches! — and you got position coaches making $600,000-800,000 a year, I mean, everybody gets used to a standard of living they want to maintain.”
LOGAN BLANKENSHIP GREW up playing football in North Carolina. His dad was a high school coach, and when he left for college at NC State, he wanted to get involved with the team. The pay was peanuts, but he figured being an equipment manager would be fun.
He started the job during Dave Doeren’s first season in 2013. Equipment managers do a little bit of everything, Blankenship explained, and as with a lot of thankless jobs, they’re noticed only when something goes wrong.
Eventually, he put in enough time to land what he said is the most sought-after position: ball boy. While you have to pay careful attention, he said, “It’s the best seat in the house.”
The No. 1 rule, he said, is to be aware of your surroundings on the opposing sideline. Stay out of the way as much as possible, and whatever you do, don’t cheer. He made that mistake during his first game, pumping his fist and yelping “Let’s go!” after an official replay went NC State’s way. “And I got told to shut the you-know-what up,” he recalled.
Surrounded by the opposing team — wearing your team’s colors and working on its behalf — is exactly as awkward as it sounds. “You definitely feel like everyone is looking at you — not just the players but the opposing coaches are kind of eyeing you,” Blankenship said. “I guess there’s a little bit of that paranoia going around.”
Every so often a coach would give him the cold shoulder, but there was one in particular who took it a step further. He “thought me and the other ball boys were stealing signals off the offense. And he made a big scene.”
He said the coach in question told him, “Get away from me!” At one point, the coach even went to the referees, gesturing toward Blankenship.
Blankenship said it was bizarre. The game was close. You could feel the intensity in the stadium. Maybe that’s why the coach was so wound up? Honestly, he said, he had to stop himself from laughing; it felt like such an out-of-body experience. He wondered, “Is this guy for real?”
Later, he and his fellow equipment managers talked about the incident. “We were like, ‘How would we even tell our guys what they were doing?'” he recalled. “I don’t know. Some people have really good imaginations.”
Blankenship took a breath. And then a reporter asked, “Am I correct in assuming this was Bobby Petrino?” There were a few local reports around that time of the then-Louisville coach accusing NC State’s ball boys of malfeasance. Blankenship wasn’t named — equipment managers don’t show up in staff directories by and large — but Google is a helluva thing.
Blankenship sheepishly answered, “Yes.” And then he burst out laughing.
It was the most cringeworthy thing, he said. Remember, his goal was to do his job and go completely unnoticed. And there he was drawing the ire of a well-known coach in the middle of a football game. Thankfully, Blankenship said, his identity was never revealed — until now. There were no threatening emails from Louisville fans in the days and weeks that followed. No one went sliding headfirst into his DMs. “Nothing really big came of it,” said Blankenship, who is now a high school football coach. “It just became a funny story to share at parties later.”
DON’T THINK FOR a second that coaches would have been in on the joke. Petrino isn’t the only one who looks at ball boys suspiciously.
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi was a ball boy for his dad’s Youngstown State teams as a kid, and even he sees the inherent conflict of being on the opposing sideline. Maybe it’s because he knows too much. Back in his day — we’re talking more than 40 years ago at the Division II level — ball boys pulled double duty, working for both sides. “The rules were: Keep the visiting balls as wet as you can if it was a rainy day,” Narduzzi said. “Don’t dry ’em off too good, OK? That was rule No. 1. And then make sure Youngstown State’s balls were nice and dry.”
Narduzzi laughed. Being on the opposing sideline taught him how to deal with difficult people. “You got to go over there and take some crap,” he said. But he claims he never took anything he heard about strategy back to his dad at halftime. “I wish I did,” he admitted.
Nowadays, he can’t assume someone won’t do that to him. There are no more innocent middle-schoolers working the sideline like he was. At the FBS level, they’re typically college students who are part of the equipment staff. As was the case with Blankenship, many have backgrounds in the game. Narduzzi said other coaches will warn him before playing certain teams, “Hey, be aware of their ball boys.”
“We always worry about ball boys being in the box and listening to what we’re doing,” Narduzzi said. “We’ve heard about how they put young little coaches over as ball boys so they can hear what we’re talking about. But you always worry about a skunk being on your sideline, for sure.”
Tulane coach Willie Fritz said he has never experienced anything untoward himself. The ball boys have a job to do, he said, and he respects that. But, he added in a hushed tone, “I’ve heard some stories.” One he heard was how a ball boy would signal with his fingers: one for pass, two for run.
Fritz’s offensive coordinator, Jim Svoboda, had heard something similar. “Oooooh yeah,” he said. He added, “If you just know it’s run or pass, that’s a big advantage.”
Former Mississippi State coach Mike Leach’s eyes went wide at the mention of rogue ball boys during an interview in October. Leach, an eccentric and part-time historian who passed away last month, said there were teams “who honestly I don’t believe deserve to be nameless” that he could “guarantee” pulled those tricks on him. “I’ve had some,” he said of ball boys, “that looked a little too old and a little too clever.”
LEACH DIDN’T STOP there, of course. While he was curious about what other coaches had said about ball boy shenanigans, there was another position on the sideline he was eager to talk about: the chain gang.
It should be noted that, contrary to what you might think, members of the chain gang are not hired by the conferences. Staffing and payment are handled by the home team, which presents an obvious potential conflict of interest. TCU coach Sonny Dykes, a Leach disciple, has had problems with the chain gang, too. An assistant warned him once that its members were using hand signals to tip off Dykes’ team’s plays. And while at Louisiana Tech, Dykes had a near-physical altercation with a member of the chain gang.
“Nobody saw it because there were like, 40 people at the game, maybe,” Dykes recalled. “But I walked by and he threw his shoulder into me and I was like, ‘What’s up?’ Then next thing I know, dude takes a swing at me — a full-on swing — and missed me by three feet. He was clearly intoxicated.”
Svoboda said he’d heard of a chain gang member pointing up or down to signal run or pass plays to opposing coaches. But Leach’s concern was less about information gathering as it was the act of sabotage.
Again, Leach begrudgingly kept the name of the offending team a secret — if snitching in college football ever took off, it would never stop — but he nonetheless painted a vivid picture.
“There was one team and the guy had done it for years,” he said. “And it took me a year or two to figure it out, but it was one of the chain guys — you know, the first-down chain. And he wasn’t even holding one of ’em or doing the thing. He’s just an extra guy standing with them with an outfit on and he’d just constantly get in your way. The whole game, he’s in your way. … He never said a word. He just mean-mugs you and doesn’t say anything.”
Leach got so frustrated with the guy that he finally confronted him while the game was going on.
“Listen,” he said, “you get in my way, I’ll knock your ass right out there on the field.”
He reiterated: “You’re getting too close. You better get way the f— away.”
It was deliberate, Leach was convinced. He went back and watched tape of other teams that had played at that stadium. He spotted the same chain gang member. “There!” he said. “He’s into his mischief.” Leach gave him some credit. The guy would intentionally stifle the coordinators when it wasn’t the head coach calling plays. It was all right there, in high definition. “Bumping him, standing in front of him,” Leach recalled. “Whatever he can to disrupt.”
When Leach made a return trip to the venue in question, he asked that the member of the chain gang not be used. And, lo and behold, Leach said, “He was front and center.” So Leach confronted him again before the game and made sure he knew of his request.
“If I have a bad time with you,” Leach said, “I’ll kick you out myself. I’ll stop this game right here in the middle of this stadium in front of everybody.”
He smiled.
“I didn’t have a lot of problems with him after that,” he said.
A FEW YEARS ago, a Power 5 coach picked up the phone to lodge a complaint. Granted, it wasn’t to the NCAA or a conference official who could actually do something about it. Remember, no snitching. Instead, the coach called a reporter one night, incredulous over what a conference opponent had done. The opponent in question had a reputation for cheating, the coach said, but this time it had gone too far and had sent what appeared to be a student assistant to one of his team’s games to film their signals.
It was obvious, the coach said, because the kid was in their stands, directly behind the bench, pointing a camera at the offensive signal-callers. When the defense was on the field, the camera disappeared. And the kid had on the worst disguise, the coach added, saying he was wearing all black in a sea of the home team’s colors — with a bright wristband the color of the team he worked for.
A coach from another team told a similar story about that same opponent’s cloak-and-dagger techniques. Once they film one or two games, the second coach explained, they have all your signals. “That’s bulls—,” he groused. But don’t be naive, he said, “It happens more than we think.”
If you want to know why teams use dummy signal-callers and pop-up tents to block camera angles, that’s why. Another favorite technique of coaches: covering their mouth when they’re speaking into their headset. Because you never know who’s capable of reading lips — either with a set of binoculars or watching the TV broadcast in the coaches box.
“It’s sophisticated,” a Power 5 head coach warned of sign-stealing tactics.
A simple fix might be to follow the NFL’s lead and allow coaches to communicate via headsets built into the helmets of an offensive and defensive player. But there’s been no push of late to upgrade in-game technology. Besides, some coaches believe it would be a one-sided solution.
Narduzzi, a longtime defensive assistant before he became a head coach, said offenses already dictate tempo and would go even faster with headsets. So he has a radical idea: use headsets but bar offenses from snapping the ball before 25 seconds on the clock until the 2-minute mark of each half.
“Then we can actually huddle on offense, huddle as a defense, and now we can talk to the Mike linebacker and give a defense,” Narduzzi said. “And now all of a sudden we have a real game and now offenses can’t steal our s— because they do.”
But there’s not much hope. The NCAA rules committee has shown no willingness to slow down offenses. Still, Narduzzi said he’d suggest the change to the committee this offseason.
For the time being, sign-stealing remains a fact of life in college football.
Not only is Knowles convinced that opponents have filmed his signals, he believes some teams will then turn around and share what they’ve learned with others. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?” Knowles said.
Knowles said he doesn’t like to talk about it because what can he really do to stop it? But since he was asked, he wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t real. “It is a huge part of what goes on,” he said, “and kind of a story behind the game.”
“You know,” he said, “if you can imagine it, it can be done when you have resources and people and time.”
And the inclination.
STEVE SHAW, NCAA national coordinator of officials, walks a fine line, acknowledging the concerns of coaches while dealing in the reality of what they’re suggesting. Do bad actors exist in college football? Sure, Shaw will certainly allow for that. But he asks: What’s the impact?
Shaw said to first imagine that a ball boy or member of the chain gang is smart enough to comprehend what’s being said by the coaches in his vicinity. Then imagine that individual is clever enough to signal what he has heard surreptitiously to the coaches across the field. Next imagine that coach on the receiving end both understands the message and has the time to relay it to the players before the ball is snapped. And, finally, imagine that information is correct, useful and leads to an impactful play.
Shaw said the sophistication of such a system is hard to fathom. But, he added, “The paranoia still exists.”
Part of Shaw’s job is to track down these rumors. Coaches might not speak up publicly, but they’re not above sending an email to their conference office and attaching supporting video evidence.
Shaw recalled an instance in which a video sent in by a coach appeared to show a ball boy signaling run or pass based on how he wore his hat. But it wasn’t — in officiating parlance — indisputable evidence. What looks rock-solid in one clip can fall apart in the next. “Any time we’ve done these,” Shaw said, “it’s hard to run it all the way to ground.”
But there’s something Shaw offers up on his own as an issue the sport might have to deal with in the near future. It’s something multiple coaches have brought to his attention recently, and he believes it has merit: the misuse of smartwatches.
As a blanket rule, technology of that nature isn’t allowed on sidelines. But officials focus those rules on coaches, Shaw said, and not “ancillary personnel.” So if a ball boy were to wear a smartwatch, what’s to stop him from sidling up to the opposing team’s coordinator, calling up the coaches box and letting those coaches listen in?
If that sounds absurd, think again, because Shaw said there was a coach who sent in a video which appeared to suggest that very thing happened this season. Shaw said the video showed a ball boy with a smartwatch “loitering in the area.” Shaw then asked, “So what does that tell you?”
“We saw what he was saying,” Shaw said, “but there’s no way to confirm any of that. … He didn’t put his left arm up and say, ‘Speak into the mic, Coach.’ It was just where it could have been on.”
Shaw said his group didn’t go as far as subpoenaing phone records, “but maybe that’s the next step.” Another possibility is addressing the use of smartwatches with the rules committee during the offseason. Shaw doesn’t want to institute a TSA-style pre-check, but he said the officials have to remain vigilant.
“Coaches, I mean, I love ’em, but they’re paranoid,” he said. “That’s their world, right? They’re all looking for — if you get me a little advantage, that’s what I need. I need just a little advantage.”
So who’s to say how far they’ll go and who they’ll enlist in their efforts to find an edge? Shaw is as open as he can be with what he knows, but he got cagey when asked whether a ball boy or member of the chain gang has been disciplined for something illegal or unethical.
Shaw laughed knowingly. “When I answer that,” he said, “I know the follow-up question is, ‘Tell me who.'”
“These things are out there,” he said. “They’re more paranoia than anything. But, yes, have people been moved out of their assignment? Yes, they have.”
So, like any good urban legend, it’s grounded in some amount of truth. But when everyone is operating in the dark, it’s hard to see how big the problem really is.
The Washington Capitals and Vegas Golden Knights are at the same crossroads, facing 2-1 deficits ahead of road playoff games Monday.
First up on the schedule is Capitals-Carolina Hurricanes (7 p.m. ET, TNT), followed by Golden Knights-Edmonton Oilers (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT).
Read on for game previews with statistical insights from ESPN Research, a recap of what went down in Sunday’s games and the Three Stars of Sunday from Arda Öcal.
Matchup notes
Washington Capitals at Carolina Hurricanes
Game 4 | 7 p.m. ET | TNT
With a 2-1 series lead, the Canes are now -650 favorites to win this series, while the Capitals are +425. Carolina has also jumped to second in the Stanley Cup futures table, at +350, while the Capitals are now +2500.
This is the second straight series in which the Canes led 2-1 (they beat the Devils in five games in Round 1). Carolina/Hartford is 9-4 all time in best-of-seven series when leading 2-1.
Game 3 was the Canes’ first playoff shutout win since Game 2 of the 2022 second round against the Rangers. It was the Caps’ first shutout loss since Game 5 of the 2020 first round against the Islanders.
Frederik Andersen‘s shutout was the fourth of his playoff career, but his first postseason clean sheet as a Hurricane. He joins Cam Talbot as the only active goalies with a playoff shutout for three different franchises.
Andrei Svechnikov now has six goals this postseason, which is the 17th instance of a Hurricanes/Whalers player scoring six or more goals in a single postseason.
The four goals allowed by Logan Thompson in Game 3 were more than his combined goals against in Games 1 and 2, and the most since Game 3 of the first round against Montreal (five).
Vegas Golden Knights at Edmonton Oilers
Game 4 | 9:30 p.m. ET | TNT
The Oilers’ and Knights’ series odds contracted after Vegas’ Game 3 win. Edmonton is now -250 to win, whereas Vegas is +200 to do so. The Oilers have the third-shortest Cup futures odds at +360, while the Knights are third longest at +1000.
Vegas’ Reilly Smith was credited with the winning goal in Game 3 with 0.4 seconds left on the clock after the puck angled in off Leon Draisaitl‘s stick. It goes in the record books as being scored with one second left in the third period — tied for the latest go-ahead goal in regulation in Stanley Cup playoff history with Colorado’s Nazem Kadri in 2020 and Carolina’s Jussi Jokinen in 2009.
Jack Eichel enters Game 4 riding an active six-game assist streak, which is tied for the Golden Knights’ postseason record. Mark Stone (2023) and Smith (2018) also accomplished the feat.
Connor McDavid now has 40 career playoff goals; he’s the seventh Oilers player to reach that benchmark.
Edmonton’s Corey Perry scored two goals in the first period of Game 3, becoming the third-oldest player in Stanley Cup playoff history with a multigoal period; at 39 years, 359 days old, he is behind Nicklas Lidstrom (41) and Teemu Selanne (40) at the time they had a multigoal period in a playoff game.
Öcal’s Three Stars from Sunday
The reigning Stanley Cup champions played their best game of the postseason. They limited the Maple Leafs to 22 shots on goal, owned the neutral zone, and peppered Toronto’s Joseph Woll with 37 shots en route to a 2-0 win. (Small shoutout to Woll, who played great — this game could’ve easily been 8-0.)
With a goal and two assists in Game 3, Rantanen became the first player in Stanley Cup playoffs history with five three-point games through a team’s first 10 contests. His first of those games was in Game 5 of the first round.
Bobrovsky didn’t have the busiest night of his playoff career, but he stopped all 22 shots on goal, his fifth career postseason clean sheet.
Sunday’s recaps
Dallas Stars 5, Winnipeg Jets 2
DAL leads 2-1 | Game 4 Tuesday
The Stars returned home having earned home-ice advantage in the series with a split of the first two games in Winnipeg, and from the start of this one, they looked like they did not want to give it back. Dallas’ Roope Hintz scored 2:27 in on a power play, and while Kyle Connor answered midway through the first, Thomas Harley responded thereafter, giving Dallas a 2-1 edge after the first. Nino Niederreiter scored his fourth goal of the playoffs to knot the game at two, but then the third period was all Stars. Alexander Petrovic and Mikko Rantanen scored within 50 seconds of each other, and Wyatt Johnston put the exclamation point on the contest with a goal at 14:06. Full recap.
1:29
Tempers flare late after Max Domi’s big hit on Aleksander Barkov
Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov is shaken up after taking a hit from Max Domi late in the game.
Florida Panthers 2, Toronto Maple Leafs 0
Series tied 2-2 | Game 5 Wednesday
It’s down to a best-of-three for the Atlantic Division crown. Carter Verhaeghe kicked off the scoring for the Panthers at 15:45 of the first, and the 1-0 score would persist until 12:09 of the third, when Sam Bennett added his fifth of the postseason to make it 2-0. That was more than enough for Sergei Bobrovsky, who saved all 23 shots the Maple Leafs sent on goal. Joseph Woll was no slouch in the Leafs’ cage, either, saving 35 of 37. Tempers flared late in the game after Toronto’s Max Domi boarded Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov and a small melee ensued. Will that carry over into Game 5? Full recap.
0:34
Wyatt Johnston pokes in Stars’ 3rd goal of 3rd period
Wyatt Johnston taps in a goal for the Stars to pad their lead in the third period vs. the Jets.
-
Ryan S. Clark
LAS VEGAS — Jack Eichel is everything everywhere all at once for the Vegas Golden Knights.
You’re going to see Eichel start games. You’re going to see him score goals. You’re going to see his work lead to goals for his teammates. You’re going to see him score on the power play. Chances are — and not as in Chance, the Golden Knights’ mascot — you already knew that.
But what you might not realize? You’re also going to see him winning defensive zone faceoffs while playing a big role on the penalty kill. You’re going to see him among the special group that Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy trusts to either get the lead or defend the lead in the final two minutes.
Eichel’s status as a top-line center made him the centerpiece of possibly the biggest trade in the history of a franchise that has embodied the winning-at-all-costs philosophy. But Eichel’s focus was on something more: becoming a complete center who can be sent out on the ice in any situation.
Getting there involved earning Cassidy’s trust — which meant arriving at a certain realization about his game.
“When I got here, we had Chandler Stephenson, who is a really good-way center. You have William Karlsson, who is a really good two-way center,” Eichel said. “I looked around and said, ‘If I want to get the ice time and be trusted in these situations, I have to earn the trust of the coach and become more detailed and responsible defensively.'”
For all the different moves that Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon has made to tweak his roster, there are constants. One of them is having a stack of two-way centers on all four lines, to the point that one of them might be moved to the wing because the Golden Knights have that much depth.
Not that Eichel couldn’t be used in defensive situations earlier in his career. It’s just that the No. 2 pick of the 2015 NHL draft was always known more for what he did in the offensive zone, going back to his time at Boston University, where he won the Hobey Baker Award in his lone season, and in six seasons with the Buffalo Sabres.
“I [penalty] killed a little bit when I was in Buffalo, and sometimes when you have a team that’s not winning, you can be honed as a poor defensive forward or a defensive liability,” Eichel said. “I also think just part of it is maturity. It’s understanding what it takes to win, and coming here and having the opportunity to play in this system with this organization, and then allowing me to grow my game, and then having the opportunity to do that.”
THERE WERE A NUMBER of terms that were associated with Eichel when he was a draft prospect in 2015: Future captain. Future All-Star. Future franchise savior.
Being the strongest penalty killer, however, wasn’t one of them.
Eichel acknowledges he was on the penalty kill with the Sabres. It was enough to make him a contributor, but he never was the center anchoring a short-handed unit. The most short-handed minutes he received in a single season was 53:13 in his third season in Buffalo, according to Natural Stat Trick.
“It’s about the details, but I think a lot of young players when they come into the league are a bit raw,” Eichel explained. “They’re still used to having the puck on their stick for so much time during the game and they rely on their offense. You have to find out ways to round your game off and become a more complete player.”
Getting traded to Vegas in November 2021 was a significant shift. It took Eichel from a franchise that struggled to win — despite finding lots of talented players — to an organization for which “failure” was finishing that 2021-22 season with 94 points and missing the postseason by a single point — after reaching the playoffs in four consecutive campaigns.
That playoff miss prompted the Golden Knights to move on from coach Peter DeBoer and hire Cassidy, who had just been let go by the Boston Bruins. In Cassidy, the Golden Knights got an experienced coach whose defensive philosophies were at the core of why the Bruins reached the playoffs in six straight seasons.
“It did take time,” Karlsson said about learning Cassidy’s system. “We weren’t used to it. But once we learn it, you react with your instincts. You don’t have to think about it anymore because it’s a really good system. He usually has the center in a really good position, but also a really good position to transition into the offensive zone. But there are a lot of defensive details.”
Eichel made an impact in his first full season with Vegas in 2022-23. He led the Golden Knights with 66 points, and his 27 goals were second on the team. Eichel also led the club with 223 shots on goal, while scoring 14 power-play points.
The way McCrimmon constructed the Golden Knights meant that for Eichel to attain more ice time in those crucial situations, he needed to find room in a crowded landscape. The Knights had Karlsson and Stephenson. And they also had Ivan Barbashev, Brett Howden, Nicolas Roy, Reilly Smith and Mark Stone as part of the forward core. All of them logged more short-handed minutes than Eichel when they won the Stanley Cup in 2023.
Still, Eichel would be second on the team in 5-on-5 minutes during the playoffs behind Jonathan Marchessault, while finishing with six goals and 26 points in 22 games.
How did Eichel go about letting Cassidy know that he could be trusted in those situations? It wasn’t through anything he said. It was about using every practice and every game to prove he was ready to handle those demands.
“If I’m put in a situation and I don’t produce a result that is positive for the group? Then, I’m not going to have opportunities,” Eichel said. “It’s about gaining trust through good play, working with the coaches on the structure, what they are looking for and then being able to go out and execute it. I think that’s been a big, big thing.”
Even if he wasn’t heavily used on the penalty kill with the Sabres, Eichel was still playing a lot. He averaged more than 19 minutes per game in every season in Buffalo, and had four straight seasons of more than 20 minutes per contest.
In his first season with Cassidy in 2022-23, Eichel averaged a career-low 18:46 of ice time per game in the regular season, and logged 18:59 per game in the playoffs en route to the Cup.
The investment Eichel made in becoming a more responsible player paved the way for his increased minutes in the seasons that followed. There was also an opportunity for someone to take those short-handed minutes, because Smith was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins following the Cup win in 2023.
Eichel would finish 2023-24 with a career-high 20:31 in ice time per game in 2023-24, and 123:48 in short-handed ice time, which was second among all Vegas centers behind Karlsson. He was also second in total power-play ice time, and seventh in total 5-on-5 ice time on the team — mainly due to missing 19 games.
“We’ve always had good centers. I think we definitely took a crazy step forward when we added Jack,” said Stone, a two-time Selke Trophy finalist as the game’s best two-way forward. “You go from having three guys to four guys, maybe five guys, even. Last year, he kind of took over and this year he took over for Stephenson.”
LOSING MARCHESSAULT AND STEPHENSON to free agency — in an offseason in which they saw six players from their 2023 Stanley Cup-winning team depart — meant the Golden Knights needed to find solutions to make up for those departures.
Eichel provided the Golden Knights with the best season of his career. His 66 assists and 94 points were both career highs. Some point out that Eichel could have had his first 100-point campaign if not for missing five games.
Then there’s his usage. Eichel led all Golden Knights forwards in average ice time (a career high of 20:32 per game), 5-on-5 ice time and power-play minutes. As for short-handed minutes? Eichel led all forwards in that too, by a margin of 35 minutes more than Howden. He was second in defensive zone faceoffs taken.
There was also an underlying theme of limiting mistakes. Vegas finished the regular season with the second-fewest penalty minutes in the NHL. And yes, Eichel was at the heart of that too, as he had only eight penalty minutes.
“It helps when you have the puck a lot,” Stone said. “He’s good in the D-zone, but he has the puck on his stick more than he doesn’t. He plays the D-zone quick, but when you’re that good of a player, the other team is thinking about not making mistakes.”
Karlsson explained how Cassidy’s system can be physically demanding for anyone playing down the middle. He said there are the natural expectations that come with playing center in today’s NHL. But one of the reasons why the Golden Knights place such an emphasis on conditioning and strength training is so their centers are prepared to play those longer shifts in the event they can’t get off the ice.
Stone added that Cassidy’s structure means centers are doing “a lot of skating,” while the wingers are expected to deny the other team from getting shots from the point and being active in the top of the ice.
“He’s been handling it well this year,” Karlsson said. “He’s in Year 3 now of Butch and his assistants. It’s kind of natural to him now and he’s good. He’s good at picking up things like stripping a guy off the top as he’s a big, strong guy. He reads the game well, so he’s really turning into a 200-foot player.”
During Cassidy’s time with the Bruins, he worked with venerable two-way centers such as six-time Selke Trophy winner Patrice Bergeron and stalwart second-line pivot David Krejci. In discussing those two, Cassidy admitted that they “probably taught me more than I taught them.”
But when it came to his conversations with Eichel, Cassidy said that he talked about what he saw from Bergeron and Krejci — the value they saw and provided in efficient operations in the defensive zone.
Cassidy said he and his staff started seeing that investment in Eichel pay off during their championship season. He’s since grown in those responsibilities as a two-way player who can now be used in every situation.
“That’s on the player,” Cassidy said. “They’ve got to decide if that’s what they want to do because it’s not easy to check. It’s a mindset a lot of nights, and we’ve got to be going to work and he’s done it. He’s getting credit for it, and he should.”
-
Buster Olney
Teams are traditionally split into two camps leading up to the Major League Baseball trade deadline — those acquiring talent and those trading it away. But the addition of a third wild-card team for each league in 2022, which created a 12-team playoff field, has helped foster a third category: opportunists.
These clubs are on the fringe of contention, aiming to take advantage of a thin trade market by putting high asking prices on some of their players, hoping a desperate contender buys in — for maximum value.
Adders. Dealers. Opportunists.
This is just one of a number of developing conditions that are helping to form the 2025 trade market. Let’s dig into all the X factors that will rule this year’s July 31 deadline based on what executives around the league are saying.
1. There could be more opportunists this year.
The Milwaukee Brewers are hovering around .500 in an absolutely stacked National League, and even though they could be within range of the division lead in July, it would be with diminished hope if the Chicago Cubs continue to build on their strong start. Additionally, it might be unlikely that in an NL packed with playoff-caliber teams — the New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves in the East, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks in the West — that Milwaukee could even win a wild-card spot. The Brewers have better chances of taking the NL Central (13%) than earning a wild-card berth (5.3%), according to Fangraphs.
This could lead to the Brewers doing what the Tampa Bay Rays did at the trade deadline last year — capitalize on there being so few dealers on the market. Freddy Peralta has been one of the league’s best starters this year, and he’s earning a very affordable $8 million this year, with Milwaukee holding an $8 million option for next season. If the Orioles landed him, he would instantly become their ace. For the Yankees, he could be a bedrock behind Max Fried and Carlos Rodon. If Peralta stays healthy, his value will never be higher than it is now.
The Rays were the opportunists of last summer, flipping Randy Arozarena to the Seattle Mariners with two-and-a-half years of team control remaining and trading Isaac Paredes to the Cubs despite trailing by just 1½ games for the third wild card on the last Sunday of July. Tampa Bay didn’t go into full sell mode; rather, it saw a stark trade market — “There are no good players available,” one executive said in the middle of last July — and capitalized.
It’s possible — maybe even likely — that the Brewers won’t choose this path. Owner Mark Attanasio is seen by his peers as competitive, someone who places a high value on making the playoffs. Some rival execs don’t believe Milwaukee would consider trading Peralta if the team is still within range of the Cubs, who are managed by former Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell.
But for some of the teams stuck amid the pack of contenders, it’s something worth considering:
-
St. Louis Cardinals: They’re on a winning streak, and they’ve communicated to other teams that even if they aren’t a front-runner, they might keep their tradable players in what is the last season of John Mozeliak’s tenure as head of baseball operations.
-
Minnesota Twins: They could dangle Byron Buxton, their dynamic and oft-injured center fielder, into the trade conversations. Buxton is healthy and playing well, and he’s under contract for the next three seasons at $15.1 million per year.
-
Toronto Blue Jays: Now that they’ve signed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to anchor their team for a long time, they could look at the best ways to shape a future around him, and weigh offers for players such as Chris Bassitt.
One exec working for a contender doesn’t believe the list of opportunists will be long.
“Usually, what they ask for is unrealistic,” he said. “They’ll ask for your four best prospects and you say no and they move on and keep the player.”
2. The general mediocrity of the American League could greatly reduce its number of dealers.
The Chicago White Sox are rebuilding and open for business, but the front office of any other team in the AL could convince itself that a playoff bid is possible — because it just seems like there are few, if any, great teams.
The Baltimore Orioles might be the best working example of this phenomenon. The start of the season has been disastrous for Baltimore, which has a rotation that has been pummeled regularly. But it’s hard to imagine the Orioles surrendering early, given their success of the past two seasons and their roster of young position players. So, they could be a club that is unwilling to part ways with talent at the deadline, even if they have a losing record.
3. The teams already viewed as potential subtractors might not have the talent contenders want.
Clubs such as the Colorado Rockies, Miami Marlins and White Sox don’t have much to offer in the eyes of rival evaluators. Other teams have monitored Marlins righty Sandy Alcantara and White Sox outfielder Luis Robert Jr., but both are struggling early in the season. Alcantara has an 8.42 ERA in seven starts since his return from elbow surgery, while Robert’s early slash line is .186/.293/.326, which doesn’t boost other teams’ interest — nor the leverage of the White Sox.
4. It appears the market for outfielders will be very thin.
Typically, the upcoming free agent class serves as a tool to define most of the players who could be traded before that year’s deadline — and quite simply, in the outfield, the pickings beyond Kyle Tucker are few.
The would-be opportunists could take advantage of a really soft outfield market and get value if they’re willing to dangle outfielders under team control beyond this season. For example, the Twins could set a solid price for Buxton and the Jays would probably draw a lot of interest for Daulton Varsho, an elite defender who won’t be eligible for free agency until after the 2026 season.
5. Very few good starting pitchers are expected to be available.
If the Cardinals decide to deal players, right-hander Erick Fedde, who has a 3.86 ERA this season, could draw some interest. Fellow right-handed starter Sonny Gray is a three-time All-Star, but his contract is very backloaded — he’s owed $35 million in 2026 — and the last time he was traded to a contender midseason (from the Athletics to New York Yankees in 2017), it did not go well.
6. A Nolan Arenado trade could still be possible.
Conditions are emerging to foster this possibility, if Arenado waives his no-trade clause and if the Cardinals are willing to deal him. Normally, it’s not easy to move a position player with money attached at midseason, but contenders could be interested in acquiring the eight-time All-Star third baseman. The Cubs haven’t found a solution at third base, and the Yankees will soon try DJ LeMahieu in their ongoing attempt to fill the position. The Los Angeles Dodgers waited last season for Max Muncy to turn around a slow start, and he eventually did; this year, they’re waiting again.
Arenado, who killed a possible trade to the Houston Astros last winter, is owed about $24 million for the rest of this year, $27 million in 2026 ($5 million paid by the Rockies) and $15 million in 2027.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway