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DETROIT — New York Mets star pitchers Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are returning to the mound, perhaps fittingly in Detroit against a team they helped have its last run of success.

“It’s funny how baseball works,” Verlander said Tuesday, surrounded by Detroit and New York-area reporters at Comerica Park.

The 40-year-old Verlander is scheduled to make his Mets debut on Thursday against the Tigers, who drafted the right-hander No. 2 overall in 2004 and traded him to Houston in 2017.

Verlander’s season-opening start was delayed due to a back injury.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t like to start the year on the IL at all,” he said. “But as baseball always tends to have some funny stories and connections, here I am, my first start as a Met in Detroit.”

The 38-year-old Scherzer (2-1, 3.72 ERA) is due to pitch Wednesday for the first time since April 19, when he was ejected for violating MLB’s foreign substance policy.

The series-opening game Tuesday night was postponed due to rain and will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Wednesday.

Scherzer, who pitched for the Tigers from 2010 to 2014 before signing with Washington, is returning from a 10-game suspension. He initially challenged the punishment before dropping an appeal, per the team’s wishes.

The right-hander claimed the stickiness was caused by rosin and sweat, not by a foreign substance, but declined to say what changes he would make moving forward.

“I’m not going to go into the process because if you have a process, that’s cheating,” Scherzer said.

Scherzer was just the third pitcher suspended since baseball’s crackdown on sticky substances started in June 2021.

The Mets, who are in the highly competitive NL East, are happy to have the three-time Cy Young winners in the rotation after investing a lot of money in them during the offseason.

Verlander signed an $86.67 million, two-year deal after he went 18-4 with a 1.75 ERA in 28 starts last year, helped the Astros win the World Series and won his third Cy Young.

The Mets gave Scherzer a $130 million, three-year contract after he went 15-4 — going undefeated after May 30 — with the Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers.

“Just excited to be back with Max,” Verlander said. “We kind of went our separate ways and to come back here at this stage in our career has been such a blessing. We’ve had a lot of talks about pitching and baseball, and reconnecting, it’s been great.”

Verlander and Scherzer led a rotation that lifted Detroit to four straight division titles, the AL Championship Series three years in a row and the 2012 World Series.

“It was one hell of a run,” Verlander said.

Detroit has been in a rebuilding mode without many signs of improvement since trading Verlander, losing 114 games in 2019 and 96 games last year.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Verlander said. “Everybody kind of saw it coming as pieces started to be traded away.”

The Tigers fired general manager Al Avila during last season and hired San Francisco Giants general manager Scott Harris to lead the latest attempt to get the team winning again.

“I’m always rooting for the best for the organization,” Verlander said. “It seems like they’re bringing in some pieces to start turning things around.”

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Grzelcyk, 31, nets one-year deal from Blackhawks

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Grzelcyk, 31, nets one-year deal from Blackhawks

CHICAGO — Defenseman Matt Grzelcyk has made the Chicago Blackhawks, agreeing to a $1 million, one-year contract with the team.

Chicago announced the deal on Sunday. Grzelcyk had been with the team in training camp on a personal tryout agreement.

The Blackhawks visit the Florida Panthers for their season opener Tuesday.

The 31-year-old Grzelcyk had one goal and a career-high 39 assists in 82 games for Pittsburgh last season. He also set a career high with a team-leading 101 blocked shots.

Grzelcyk, a Massachusetts native, was selected by Boston in the third round of the 2012 NHL draft. He had 25 goals and 110 assists in 445 games for the Bruins over eight seasons.

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Lightning, Panthers net 312 PIM in preseason tilt

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Lightning, Panthers net 312 PIM in preseason tilt

Niko Mikkola had an assist on a goal that gave the Florida Panthers an 8-0 lead. Problem was, he had been kicked out of the game a few minutes earlier and nobody noticed.

It was that kind of night between the Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning.

Florida defeated Tampa Bay 7-0 in the preseason finale for both clubs Saturday night, though the score was irrelevant. There were 65 penalties for 312 minutes on the stat sheet, including 13 game misconduct penalties — seven for Tampa Bay, six for Florida. The penalty count kept rising after the game, as officials were making sure everything that was called got logged.

“I have no idea,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said, when asked what message Tampa Bay was trying to send with its style of play. “I’m not worried about it. Training camp is over. We had some good games … and no one was complaining about ice time by the end of it, so it’s over.”

Florida had 17 power-play chances in the game, by the NHL’s count.

“It got silly. It got stupid by the end of it,” Florida forward Evan Rodrigues said. “It wasn’t really hockey out there.”

The parade to the penalty boxes started about two minutes into the game when Tampa Bay’s Scott Sabourin — who was among six players the Lightning called up for the game — went after Florida’s Aaron Ekblad. Sabourin got a major penalty after playing 19 seconds.

“It made you think there might be something coming,” Florida’s Eetu Luostarinen said, when asked what he thought when he saw the Lightning called up players for the game.

What would have been the eighth Florida goal of the night, midway through the third period, was taken away 15 minutes after Jesper Boqvist scored. Off-ice officials realized that Mikkola couldn’t have had an assist on the play — since he had been ejected earlier in the period.

The teams skated with the scoreboard saying Florida led 8-0 for about five minutes of actual game time before officials informed both teams that the goal had been taken away and Mikkola had to leave the game.

The Lightning took nine penalties and had no shots on goal in the third period.

Saturday’s game came two nights after the teams combined for 49 penalties and 186 minutes in another preseason contest, one the Lightning won 5-2.

Tampa Bay went to three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals from 2020 through 2022, winning two titles in that span. Florida has been to each of the past three Stanley Cup Finals and has won the past two Cups. And there has long been a heated rivalry between the franchises.

“I think anybody that’s been a part of this rivalry would probably look at this box score and A, not be surprised and B, I can’t believe it’s taken this long for something like that to happen,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Ellis joins Sharks after injury-filled Flyers tenure

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Ellis joins Sharks after injury-filled Flyers tenure

PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers rid themselves of defenseman Ryan Ellis‘ contract in a trade with the Sharks, ending his tenure at four games played in four seasons.

Ellis and a conditional sixth-round draft pick were traded to San Jose on Sunday for forward Carl Grundstrom and defenseman Artem Guryev. The condition on the sixth-round pick is that San Jose shall receive the earlier of two picks Philadelphia currently owns in the 2026 sixth round, its own and Columbus‘.

The Flyers now have five picks in the 2026 draft. They own one pick in each of the first three rounds, one in the sixth and one in the seventh round.

Philadelphia thought it acquired one of the NHL’s best defensemen when it landed Ellis from the Nashville Predators ahead of the 2021 season. Ellis was selected by Nashville with the No. 11 pick in the 2009 draft and helped the Predators win the Stanley Cup in 2017. He had 270 points in 562 career games at the time of the trade.

Ellis played four games in 2021 until he suffered a pelvis injury believed to be career-threatening.

The Sharks likely will place Ellis on long-term injured reserve. He has two seasons left on an eight-year, $50 million contract that carries an annual cap hit of $6.25 million through 2027.

Grundstrom scored nine points in 56 games with San Jose last season.

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