Brian Kelly came to LSU in late 2021 with a clear and realistic purpose: to win a national championship.

His three predecessors as Tigers coach — Ed Orgeron, Les Miles and Nick Saban — all led LSU to titles by the end of their fourth full seasons on the job. Kelly had more impressive credentials than any — yes, even Saban — when he came to Baton Rouge, as the winningest coach in Notre Dame history, a two-time Division II national champion at Grand Valley State and a two-time AP National Coach of the Year.

Kelly brought his bold and brash style to the Bayou, and immediately had success, winning an SEC West Division title in his first season, and 10 games in each of his first two years. But he didn’t make the CFP in his first three seasons, and when his much-anticipated fourth veered after three losses in four games, LSU quickly pulled the plug.

A 49-25 home loss to Texas A&M in which the Tiger Stadium stands had emptied by the fourth quarter, followed by a contentious Sunday of meetings, led to Kelly’s ouster. He briefly addressed the team Sunday night, before driving away from the football operations building and Tiger Stadium for the last time.

How did it go so wrong so quickly for Kelly at LSU? He generated reactions from the moment he arrived, beginning with his “here with my fam-u-lee” speech at a Tigers basketball game. But whatever barbs came his way, Kelly still could stand on a track record of winning big … until he couldn’t.

ESPN reporters Mark Schlabach, Max Olson and Adam Rittenberg examined the reasons why Kelly ultimately didn’t work out at LSU.

CEO approach not effective in hands-on SEC

Those who worked with Kelly at both Notre Dame and LSU described him as a true CEO-style head coach. He typically hired strong staffs, especially at Notre Dame with defensive coordinators Mike Elko, Clark Lea and Marcus Freeman — all in sequence — and let them do their work. Kelly always received outsized attention for his sideline reactions to bad moments, but few who have worked with him described him as overly mettlesome.

When Kelly entered his third decade as a head coach, he became less hands-on with the day-to-day operation, according to sources with knowledge of the program. Kelly operated the program somewhat from a distance, handling the media and the public-facing elements. “That’s his M.O.,” one former staff member said.

The approach ultimately cost him in a conference like the SEC, where head coaches don’t just oversee the operation, but recruit maniacally, interface regularly with everyone who touches their teams and grind until the wee hours of the morning just about year-round. There’s no letup in a conference with so many championship-minded programs, and Kelly fell behind.

A CEO approach can work at many programs, some of which will jump at the chance to hire a coach with Kelly’s credentials. But LSU ultimately needed a different style. — Rittenberg

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Couldn’t crack the coordinator code

Kelly never could find the right mix of coordinators, especially after offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock departed after the 2023 season to take the same position at Notre Dame. Denbrock helped quarterback Jayden Daniels win a Heisman Trophy in 2023, when the Tigers led the SEC in scoring with 45.5 points per game.

The only problem was that LSU’s defense, led by former Kansas City Chiefs linebackers coach Matt House, struggled to stop opponents. The Tigers went 10-3 in 2023, giving up 42 points or more in each of their three losses. They ranked next-to-last in the SEC in scoring defense (28 points) and run defense (161 yards).

Kelly fired House and three other defensive assistants after the 2023 season, and LSU plucked defensive coordinator Blake Baker from Missouri, giving him a three-year contract that made him the highest-paid assistant in the FBS at $2.5 million per season.

With the LSU defense seemingly in good hands, Kelly promoted quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan to co-offensive coordinator and playcaller. It proved to be a fatal mistake. The Tigers were last in the SEC in rushing (116.4 yards) in 2024, and were even worse this season, averaging 106.3 rushing yards and 25.5 points. Sloan was relieved of his coaching duties Monday, the school announced. — Schlabach

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Never seemed to fit in

There’s an old Cajun saying about family, “Tout le monde est cousin ic,” which means, “Everybody’s kin around here.” Unless you aren’t — and try too hard to prove you belong.

Kelly was a fantastic football coach at Grand Valley State, Cincinnati and Notre Dame. He went to LSU because he wanted to coach at a place that had the recruiting base, financial resources and football-crazed fans that would help him win a national title.

From his disastrous introductory speech at an LSU basketball game, in which he pronounced “family” with a fake Southern drawl that was thicker than roux, Kelly just never seemed to fit in.

And he wasn’t blind to that. This offseason, Kelly worked with a Washington D.C.-based image consultant to try to improve his public persona.

The problem wasn’t that Kelly was from Massachusetts and had never coached at a school outside the Midwest. Saban was from West Virginia and had never worked at a school or NFL team in the Deep South before taking over LSU. But Saban was authentic and true to his roots and didn’t try to hide what he was — a demanding perfectionist that finally turned the Tigers into champions again after a title drought of 45 years.

On Saturday, Kelly even seemed to fall out of favor with Gov. Jeff Landry, who in the wake of the Texas A&M loss trolled LSU on social media about raising football ticket prices for 2026. Landry was then right in the middle of the discussions that led to the school separating from Kelly, according to a source close to the situation.

In the end, Kelly didn’t win enough and tried too hard to prove to LSU fans that he was one of them. — Schlabach/Rittenberg

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Portal haul raised expectations

LSU set out to build the best transfer portal class in college football this offseason, believing the roster was a few missing players away from title contention. After losing incoming freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood to Michigan, the coaching staff was determined to go out and win big in December when the portal opened.

One program source told ESPN in February they were confident LSU had assembled the No. 1 portal class in the country, and they saw little room for debate. “I don’t think it’s particularly close,” the source added. LSU asked top donors for seven-figure gifts to support this portal push. The Tigers went out and signed who they coveted. And then they started 5-3.

The moral of the story: If you’re shoving all-in and spending at an elite level in this new era, you better produce results.

LSU didn’t whiff on a much-hyped portal class that has yielded 11 new starters. Mansoor Delane is enjoying an All-America caliber season at cornerback, A.J. Haulcy has been one of the SEC’s top safeties and the Tigers’ efforts to overhaul their secondary have paid off. Defensive tackle Bernard Gooden has been a difference-maker up front when healthy.

Eight games in, though, most of these additions have been more solid than spectacular. Barion Brown and Nic Anderson were considered two of the top wide receivers in the portal but haven’t transformed LSU’s passing attack. Brown has a team-high 36 catches, but his 60 receiving yards against Texas A&M were his most against a Power 4 opponent this season. Anderson has 10 catches for 74 yards. The Tigers’ offensive line has struggled despite the additions of veteran starters Braelin Moore and Josh Thompson.

The larger point here is similar to what played out at Penn State: If you’re a head coach asking supporters to break the bank for a special season and underdeliver on the final product, they’ll turn on you quickly.

LSU wanted to compete with the best with an $18 million football roster after trailing behind many SEC peers in the NIL collective era. When you have a potential first-round pick at quarterback leading a roster full of blue-chip high school and portal talent, the reasonable expectation is College Football Playoff or bust. Kelly understood and embraced that going into 2025, but he couldn’t live up to it. — Olson

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The race for Lane Kiffin

Florida firing Billy Napier or Penn State dismissing James Franklin didn’t have much to do with LSU’s decision to cut ties with Kelly. It was a partnership that wasn’t working, and LSU’s influential decision-makers had seen enough.

Unless the Tigers are trying to jump to the front of the line for Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who has a 51-19 record in his sixth season with the Rebels.

But right now, Kiffin is in a great spot personally. His children and ex-wife are living in Oxford, Mississippi, and his brother, Chris, is his defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator for defense.

That said, can Kiffin win a national title at Ole Miss? He has relied heavily on the transfer portal in building his rosters the past couple of seasons, and that puts a lot of pressure on the coaching staff to continuously turn over a roster.

Taking a job like LSU would put Kiffin on equal playing ground with SEC powers Alabama, Georgia and Texas. He could build his roster through Louisiana’s fertile high school recruiting ground and supplement it with transfers to fill needs.

LSU is probably a better job than Florida for those reasons, and the Tigers aren’t having to battle other in-state rivals for the best prospects. — Schlabach

The NHL Frozen Frenzy is like the best hockey buffet ever cooked up.

There will be some popular main courses. There will be some delectable side dishes. But with all 32 teams in action from 6 p.m. ET puck drops through the Battle of California showdown between the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks at 11 p.m. ET, fans will be able to sample all the NHL has to offer in one gluttonous sitting.

Here are reasons to watch all 32 teams during the Frozen Frenzy and beyond, from superstar players to teams with championship aspirations to controversial storylines to Alex Ovechkin once again chasing NHL goal-scoring history.

Here we go … and enjoy the Frenzy!

Atlantic Division

The constant David Pastrnak

Since 2023, the Bruins have said farewell to franchise standard-bearers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci (retirement) as well as Brad Marchand, their heart-and-soul captain who won a Stanley Cup with Florida after an NHL deadline trade.

Which is to say that Pastrnak has seen a lot of friends leave the Bruins’ locker room, but he just keeps doing what he does best: scoring at will. Pasta has 13 points, including five goals, in his first 10 games this season. That’s to be expected for the fifth leading scorer in the NHL (329 in 246 games) over the previous three season.

The cast changes in Boston. Pastrnak remains a shining star.

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Is the goaltending finally fixed?

There are many reasons why the Sabres have crashed like a Bills fan through a table in every season since last making the playoffs in 2011, but one of the primary ones has been a lack of quality goaltending. That problem was exacerbated by presumed starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen taking a step back last season.

Injuries to Luukkonen in the preseason opened the door for backup Alex Lyon, signed as a free agent and coming out of the gate with a .922 save percentage in seven games; and rookie Colten Ellis, who made 29 saves in his NHL debut. Dashing early-season hopes is kind of the Sabres’ thing, but at the very least, these two netminders have generated some hope for Buffalo.

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Is this the year?

It’s an annual rite in the NHL: The Red Wings being poised to break out as a contender before falling short of the postseason, which they’ve done every season since 2015-16.

But through nine games, Detroit is 6-3-0 and in second in the Atlantic Division thanks to a dominant 5-1-0 record at home. The chemistry between leading scorer Dylan Larkin (13 points) and standout winger Lucas Raymond with rookie forward Emmitt “Finsanity” Finnie has been palpable. The line of Alex DeBrincat, Marco Kasper and Patrick Kane is chipping in. The Red Wings are thriving despite goalies John Gibson (acquired from the Ducks last summer) and Cam Talbot playing below replacement level to start the season.

If every part of Detroit’s engine gets roaring at the same time, how far can the team roll?

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The champs are (mostly) here!

The Panthers’ bid for a third straight Stanley Cup win and fourth straight trip to the Cup Final got off to an injurious start.

Star winger Matthew Tkachuk had groin surgery in August, putting him out until December at the earliest. Then the Panthers lost star center and team captain Aleksander Barkov on his first day of training camp, needing surgery to repair the ACL and MCL in his right knee — injuries that will sideline him for the regular season and potentially the playoffs. They also lost defenseman Dmitry Kulikov for five months with an upper-body injury.

And yet the Panthers are maintaining their level of play, if not thriving: 5-5-0 in their first 10, being led in both goals (five) and points (11) by the Rat King himself, Brad Marchand.

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No. 1 for a reason

Through 10 games, the Canadiens led the Atlantic with a 7-3-0 record. There are plenty of reasons for this great start, from the outstanding play of rookie goalie Jakub Dobes and winger Ivan Demidov to the continued maturation of players such as Lane Hutson and Alex Newhook.

But the constant for the Habs has been their No. 1 line of Cole Caufield (seven goals), Nick Suzuki (13 points) and Juraj Slafkovsky, who are scoring over 3.5 goals per 60 minutes and giving up only 0.95 goals per 60 minutes to far this season.

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The bunch without Brady

Brady Tkachuk is the driving force behind the Ottawa Senators, both statistically and as one of the NHL’s most influential captains. But the Sens lost him to a torn ligament in his right thumb on Oct. 13 which required surgery, and likely will keep him out until around Thanksgiving.

The Sens are 4-4-1 through nine games. Helping to fill the void left by Tkachuk are two players off to a fast start: Centers Shane Pinto (eight goals through nine games) and Dylan Cozens (six).

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Is their luck turning?

Eight of the Lightning’s first nine games this season have been decided by one goal. They were 1-2-2 in those games until back-to-back wins against the Ducks and Golden Knights at home.

Of course, as Billy Zane taught us in “Titanic”: Sometimes you make your own luck. Getting a more consistent defensive performance from their dynamic top line — Brayden Point is a minus-10 already — would be a good start.

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What happens when the World Series is over?

The good news in Toronto: The incredible run by the Blue Jays to the World Series has brought the city — and much of the nation — together in following every Vladimir Guerrero Jr. swing and Trey Yesavage pitch this postseason. (Hence the change in start time for the Maple Leafs-Flames game to 6 p.m. ET.)

That means there has been a lot less attention — and scrutiny — on a post-Mitch Marner Maple Leafs team that is decidedly OK and nothing more so far. They’re eighth offensively thanks to 14 points in eight games by William Nylander — and 28th defensively thanks to below-replacement goaltending. Joseph Woll is back after an extended personal absence, so that should help the latter.

But once the World Series is over, fans will go from talking about Max Scherzer to Max Domi. And we can’t even imagine the takes if the Jays eliminate the Dodgers and plan the parade the Leafs have been trying to draw up again since the 1960s.

Metropolitan Division

When will Nikolaj Ehlers get rolling?

Some cynical Winnipeg fans are bathing in schadenfreude watching Ehlers’ first handful of games with the Hurricanes.

Ehlers left the Jets as a free agent for a six-year, $51 million deal as the latest solution on the wing for Carolina’s top line. While linemates Seth Jarvis (seven goals) and Sebastian Aho (10 points) are thriving, Ehlers went five straight games without a point to start the season.

The good news for Carolina and their new great Dane: He has assists in three straight games, so maybe the aforementioned rolling has started.

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The Big Boss

Dmitri Voronkov doesn’t have the name recognition of Zach Werenski, Adam Fantilli or linemate Kirill Marchenko when it comes to Blue Jackets in the hockey discourse. But the 6-foot-5, 235-pound winger who self-bestowed the nickname “Big Boss” has been an absolute force so far this season on Columbus’s top line.

He scored five goals and added four assists through eight games for the Jackets, skating to a plus-8. GM Don Waddell challenged Voronkov to work on his conditioning when he signed him to a two-year contract extension in July. That could be the key for the Big Boss surpassing his 23 goals and 24 assists in 73 games last season.

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Jack Hughes, goal machine

When Hughes is healthy and in the lineup, few players in the NHL provide their team the propulsive offensive spark that the 24-year-old center provides the Devils. Hughes has eight goals in nine games for New Jersey, including two game winners. Jesper Bratt has assisted on five of them — there are times when Bratt and Hughes seem like they’re playing on a different speed setting than everyone else.

The Devils have never had a 50-goal or 100-point scorer in franchise history. Hughes is on pace for both — provided he can stay in the lineup.

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The joy of Matthew Schaefer

Few rookies have arrived in the NHL with the boundless enthusiasm and positivity of Matthew Schaefer. The first overall pick in this summer’s draft, the 18-year-old defenseman has earned his freshman year ice time (23:12 per game) with seven points through eight games, including three points on the power play.

The charismatic Schaefer was an instant fan favorite, with the crowd at UBS Arena chanting his name during a recent win over San Jose. Schaefer acknowledged those cheers after the game: “I love this place! Let’s go Islanders, baby!”

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Are they OK?

Perhaps this is a transition season. Perhaps new captain J.T. Miller hasn’t imprinted his win-at-all-costs style on the rest of the roster. Perhaps new coach Mike Sullivan just needs more time to unlock his roster’s offense or perhaps even he can’t solve the team’s depth issues.

Whatever the reasons, the Rangers have stumbled to a 3-5-2 start, with goal scoring that ranks 31st in the NHL. There’s still plenty of time to turn the team around in front of goalie Igor Shesterkin. Perhaps that starts during the Frenzy.

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Trevor Zegras‘ second act

Before the season, former Ducks phenom Zegras told me that he wanted people to “go from saying ‘He’s good at hockey’ to ‘He’s a hockey player'” after his first season in Philadelphia.

The early returns are strong: two goals and six assists in eight games, skating to a plus-5 while averaging 16:48 of ice time per game. The only bummer for Zegras is that he hasn’t gotten a strong run at center yet for the Flyers. But as his game continues to rebound, perhaps those opportunities to be a “hockey player” will flourish.

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Crosby, Malkin delay the inevitable

What the projected timeline had been for the Penguins this season: After an atrocious start clinches a fourth straight season without reaching the playoffs, franchise icons Evgeni Malkin (in the last year of his contract) and Sidney Crosby (exhausted by losing) are traded to Stanley Cup contenders.

Instead, Geno and Sid have disrupted the timeline.

The Penguins’ stars have helped the team to a 6-2-1 start, good for second in the Metro. Malkin leads the team with 14 points through nine games, while Crosby has 11 points through nine games, which includes a recent hat trick against the Stanley Cup champion Panthers. They’ve both said they don’t want their ride in Pittsburgh to end. They’re playing like it.

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Ovechkin goes for 900 (and more…)

During last season’s Frozen Frenzy, Alex Ovechkin was still 41 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL goals record. One year later, Ovi has not only surpassed The Great One’s 894 career goals — the “Gr8 Chase” ended on Apr. 6 — but he is one goal away from becoming the first NHL player to score 900 goals in his career.

Ovechkin recently played his 1,500th career game, a standard only seven other players have achieved. That’s a lot of games … and how many more Ovechkin will play in the NHL beyond this season is an undeniable undercurrent every time he steps on the ice for the Capitals.

Central Division

The new dynamic duo

For 15 years and three Stanley Cup championships, the Blackhawks were defined by a pair of star forwards: Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. We’re not looking to burden two burgeoning stars with that weight of history, but it’s hard not to get caught up in the “Chicago’s new dynamic duo” hype when discussing Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar.

Bedard, 20, is looking to rebound after failing to meet expectations last season, following his rookie of the year win in 2023-24. Nazar, 21, looks primed for a breakout season in Year 2, leading Chicago in goals (four) and points (nine) through nine games.

If nothing else, they’ve already achieved something Kane and Toews did in Chicago: Making the Blackhawks a team worth watching again.

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Nate Dog is barking

Nathan MacKinnon willed the Avalanche to a Stanley Cup in 2022. Since then, Colorado has lost in the first round twice and the second round once despite a deep, star-studded lineup.

“You don’t want to win just one with this group. If we only got one, it would be tough,” MacKinnon said before the season.

The hunger for a championship is back for the Avalanche and MacKinnon, who has seven goals and seven assists through 10 game and is looking absolutely dangerous every time he touches the puck.

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Otter in the net

It has been quite a ride for Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger. He made the Team USA 4 Nations Face-Off roster last season and is expected to challenge Connor Hellebuyck as the nation’s Olympic starter next February in Italy.

Then, he’ll hope to lead the Stars back to the Western Conference finals … where coach Peter DeBoer pulled him after giving up two goals on two shots in their Game 5 elimination to the Oilers. DeBoer was let go this offseason, partially for the way he handled that situation. Oettinger has said his piece about how it affected him.

Now, it’s back to leading the Stars to a fourth straight conference finals while increasing his standing in the eyes of Team USA.

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The $136 million man

Kirill Kaprizov has been the most important player on the Wild since he arrived in the NHL, winning rookie of the year in 2020-21. Beginning next season, he’ll also be their wealthiest player.

Kaprizov and the Wild shocked the NHL when the inked an eight-year, $136 million contract extension in September. It’s the richest contract in total dollars and annual cap hit ($17 million) in NHL history.

As he does every season, Kaprizov is proving his worth: He has 14 points (five goals, nine assists) in 10 games.

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Countdown to extinction

The Predators (4-4-2) are off to a better start than last season’s 0-5-0 stumble that helped dig a hole from which they could not climb. But there are many more questions than answers right now.

Can they maintain that pace without top defenseman Roman Josi, who is week-to-week because of an upper body injury? What happened to Steven Stamkos, as one of the best goal scorers of the past 20 NHL seasons mustered only one power-play goal in his first 10 games?

The good news is that Juuse Saros looks like his old self again. Perhaps he can keep this thing on track because if Nashville jumps the rails, it might be time for GM Barry Trotz to plot a new course for the franchise.

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The future is now for Jimmy Snuggerud

Snuggerud is so polished as a 21-year-old player that it’s sometimes hard to remember that he’s an NHL rookie.

Blues fans (and Snuggerud himself) got a reminder of that last week when coach Jim Montgomery kept him on the bench for the third period and overtime in a loss to the Kings. Snuggerud has three goals and three assists through eight games for the Blues, making his mark in a crowded rookie field this season.

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Meet the NHL’s newest contender

While they have many former Arizona Coyotes players on their roster, the Mammoth are considered a new franchise by the NHL. They were the Utah Hockey Club in their inaugural 2024-25 season. Now they’re the Utah Mammoth in Year 2 and looking to make some serious noise in the Western Conference despite their newbie status.

That goes for their players, too: Top scorers like Logan Cooley (21 years old), Dylan Guenther (22) and JJ Peterka (24, acquired from Buffalo last summer) are some of their youngest players, as well. The Mammoth enter the Frenzy atop of the Central Division having won seven games in a row — unsurprisingly, a franchise record.

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The Toews comeback

Before this season, Jonathan Toews last played in the NHL on April 13, 2023, as the then-captain of the Chicago Blackhawks and a three-time Stanley Cup champion.

Dealing with the effects of long COVID-19 and chronic immune response syndrome, Toews said he was stepping away from hockey but not retiring. He went on a “healing journey” that included “five weeks in India undergoing an Ayurvedic detox called a Panchakarma” in November 2024, after which Toews said his health was “trending” in the right direction.

He signed with his hometown Jets as a free agent this summer. That Toews is even playing is miraculous. That he has five points in nine games, playing 16:04 per game on average for the Jets, is extraordinary.

Pacific Division

Leo Carlsson‘s star turn

Carlsson has oozed star quality since the Ducks drafted him No. 2 in 2023. His big frame (6-foot-3) and great hands have earned him comparisons to Penguins star Evgeni Malkin, and now Carlsson is trying to have the offensive stats to match.

The 20-year-old center has nine points through eight games, playing in between fellow young star Cutter Gauthier and veteran winger Alex Killorn. He’s one to watch, for sure.

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Time to salvage the season?

After nearly making the playoffs last season with 96 points, the Flames are one of the most disappointing teams early in the 2025-26 season.

Their offense ranks last in the NHL (2.00 goals per game) after producing only one goal in five of their first seven games. That led standout goalie Dustin Wolf to lament, via Sportsnet: “I mean, I can’t generate offense. I do my job, I try to keep the puck out of our net, and hope that our guys can generate a couple.”

Calgary had an uptick in scoring heading into the Frenzy, scoring three times in a loss to Winnipeg and a season-high five times in a win over the Rangers. But at 2-7-1 after 10 games, time is already running short for coach Ryan Huska’s team.

Can they turn things around, starting against Toronto?

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Connor and Leon

Let’s not overthink this. The Oilers are blessed with arguably the two best hockey players on the planet in Connor McDavid, who has 12 points in 10 games but only one goal thus far, and Leon Draisaitl, who has 11 points in 10 games, including seven goals.

They power their own lines for Edmonton and combine their supernatural hockey acumen on the power play. Connor and Leon have led the Oilers to back-to-back Stanley Cup Final losses to the Panthers.

With McDavid signing just a two-year contract extension before the season, the Oilers explicitly understand they’re on the clock to win soon with these two superstars on the roster.

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Farewell, Mr. Kopitar

While some veteran NHL stars are playing it coy about their futures, Kings captain Anze Kopitar announced before the season that this will be his last NHL campaign. (That he announced it the same day that Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw revealed he was retiring was a matter of unfortunate timing.)

The legendary center is in his 20th season with the Kings, having led them to two Stanley Cup wins and winning both the Selke Trophy (best defensive forward) and Lady Byng (gentlemanly play) twice. Catch the best Slovenian-born player in hockey history while you can.

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Macklin Celebrini, superstar

After being drafted first overall in 2024, Celebrini had a strong rookie season (63 points in 70 games) and was a finalist for the Calder Trophy. Through nine games this season, it’s clear he’s on the cusp of superstardom.

Celebrini has dominated with six goals and nine assists, combining with fellow young star Will Smith and veteran winger Tyler Toffoli on a line that’s averaging over 4.6 goals per 60 minutes when paired together.

He has played himself into the Team Canada Olympic roster conversation. He’s going viral in weird New York City street interviews. He has arrived.

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The NHL’s most surprising start

The Kraken began this season with a new head coach in Lane Lambert, a new power forward in former Stars winger Mason Marchment but much of the same cast as last season’s also-ran that earned coach Dan Bylsma a ticket out of town.

There wasn’t much optimism surrounding the Kraken … and yet there they are at 5-2-2 through their first nine games, second in the Pacific Division.

They’re not dominating offensively or defensively, nor are their special teams exemplary. But the Kraken are winning hockey games, including being a perfect 3-0-0 at home, where they’ll face the Canadiens in the Frozen Frenzy.

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J.T. Miller returns

The Canucks are 5-5-0 under new head coach Adam Foote, which is impressive given some of the injuries the team has been playing through — the latest being star defenseman Quinn Hughes, who has a lower-body injury.

But Tuesday night’s spotlight is on a former Canucks player: Rangers captain J.T. Miller, who makes his first trip back to Vancouver after they traded him to the Blueshirts last season.

Please recall that Miller was traded after clashing with Vancouver star center Elias Pettersson, a conflict that rocked the Canucks’ locker room so roughly that team president Jim Rutherford said there was “no good solution that would keep this group together.”

How Miller will be received by Vancouver fans is one of the Frozen Frenzy’s most anticipated moments.

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Mitch Marner finding his fit

The 28-year-old winger made his dramatic exit from Toronto last summer after nine seasons of outstanding statistical output but was treated as a postseason pariah for the Maple Leafs’ lack of playoff success. He’s in Vegas now on a blockbuster eight-year, $96 million contract.

Marner has produced around his career averages so far (10 points through nine games), but he’s still finding his fit with the Knights. His much-anticipated line with Jack Eichel was broken up after three games — with Marner dropping down to play with Tomas Hertl and Pavel Dorofeyev — but Marner and Eichel were reunited in Sunday’s overtime loss to Tampa Bay. Only two of Marner’s points have come on the power play, but Vegas is ninth in the NHL with the man advantage.

One extra bit of intrigue in Vegas’ Frozen Frenzy matchup against Carolina: Marner used his no-movement clause to reject a trade to the Hurricanes during last season, later saying it was out of consideration of his wife’s pregnancy. (They welcomed a daughter in May 2025.)

LOS ANGELES — The game that had everything ended at 11:50 p.m. PT on Monday. For the previous 6 hours, 39 minutes, Game 3 of the World Series played out like a fantastical dreamscape of baseball, filled with tension and drama and madness. It was a game unlikely any before, never to be repeated again, and when the 18th inning ended and the Los Angeles Dodgers had beaten the Toronto Blue Jays 6-5, it was, in a way, a relief, because holding your breath for hours on end is not a sustainable way to live.

Such is the price we pay for an affair like Game 3. The Dodgers and Blue Jays competed at an exceptional level in the longest game in World Series history by innings and second-longest by time. They punched and counterpunched, emptied their benches and bullpens. They executed with wizardry and found pieces of themselves they didn’t know existed. And in the 18th inning, it was Freddie Freeman, already the hero of last year’s World Series, who deposited a center-cut sinker from Brendon Little over the center-field fence 406 feet away.

There have been 703 games played in the 121-year history of the World Series. While there are certainly competitors, this one launched itself into the upper echelon, undoubtedly elite, and left the 52,654 fans at Dodger Stadium as giddy as they were almost seven years to the day earlier, when the only other 18-inning game in World Series history ended the same way: with a Dodgers walk-off homer.

Game 3 of the World Series featured…

609 pitches (LAD: 312, TOR: 297)
37 runners left on base
25 position players used
19 pitchers used pic.twitter.com/MBHReOJ16x

— ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) October 28, 2025

The heroes were plentiful, and in the aftermath of the lunacy, one of them stood in the Dodgers’ clubhouse, still trying to process what happened. Will Klein, the last man out of the Dodgers’ bullpen, a reliever who had topped out this year at two innings and 30 pitches, threw four innings of one-hit ball and struck out five on 72 pitches. The last of them, an 86 mph curveball, induced a swing and miss from Tyler Heineman and a scream from Klein, who understood what had been asked of him and knew he’d delivered.

Games don’t become classics without efforts like Klein’s — and he had an admirer who wanted to acknowledge that. Into the Dodgers’ clubhouse strode Sandy Koufax, his eminence of Dodgers pitching, who, at 89 years old, looked no worse for the wear at 12:48 a.m. Koufax walked up to Klein, stuck out his hand, looked him in the eyes and said: “Nice going.”

This was that kind of game, the one that forges bonds between a Hall of Famer and a man with 22.2 career major league innings who didn’t make the Dodgers’ roster in any of the previous three rounds of the postseason. The kind of game that prompted Klein to unlock his phone just to see how many messages he had, only for him to scroll … and keep scrolling … and keep scrolling to the point he just stopped. The kind of game that made Klein marvel to a friend in the clubhouse: “Seventy-two. Can you believe it?”

Game 3 was anarchy, a funhouse mirror of a ballgame, everything out of order. Shohei Ohtani‘s magnificence is never in question, but to see a baseball player reach nine times, something that had been done only twice in big league history — never in the postseason and not since 1942 — still registered as incredible, his magnitude lording over the game from beginning to end. He led off the game for the Dodgers with a double. He homered his next time up. He doubled again. He homered once more, his second of the game, his eighth of the postseason, to tie the game at 5 and unleash the chaos to come.

At that point, Blue Jays manager John Schneider had seen enough. In the ninth inning, Ohtani became the first hitter intentionally walked with the bases empty in the ninth inning or later of a postseason game. The next three times he came to the plate — twice with the bases empty — Schneider held up four fingers and gladly gave Ohtani a free pass. In the 17th, with a runner on first, the Blue Jays opted to pitch to him — and Brendon Little promptly deposited four balls nowhere near the strike zone. (Schneider said after the game to expect more tiptoeing around Ohtani in the days to come.)

Schneider’s decision-making earlier in the game, in which he tried to scratch across runs by substituting in a cadre of pinch runners, left the Blue Jays’ lineup compromised for most of the second half of the game. Against a Dodgers bullpen that had been a sieve for most of the postseason, Toronto managed just one run in 13⅓ innings. Los Angeles used 10 pitchers — including Clayton Kershaw, the future Hall of Famer. Kershaw came on in the 13th with the bases loaded, ground through a nine-pitch at-bat against Nathan Lukes and induced a dribbler to second base that Tommy Edman scooped with his glove to Freeman.

Memorable moments abounded over the game that featured 615 pitches, the most in a postseason game since MLB began tracking pitches in 1988. In the 14th, Will Smith lofted a fly ball to center field and dropped his bat, thinking it was a game winner. The ball died on the warning track. Teoscar Hernández, who, like Ohtani, had four hits, did the same in the 16th. It wound up in a glove, too.

By that point, Klein had arrived and set about pulling a modern-day Nathan Eovaldi, who went 97 pitches over the final six innings of the 2018 marathon. In Klein’s final inning, Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who had thrown a 105-pitch complete game two days prior — was warming up in the bullpen. Klein walked two batters. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts could have easily gone to Yamamoto. He stuck with Klein.

Klein just did it, because he had to, and that, as much as anything, is the lesson of an evening like Game 3, when a great game — which this was for the first dozen or so innings — evolves into something different altogether. Game 3 was a test. Of endurance and will — or, as it were, Will.

“You just got to either do it or you don’t,” said Dodgers reliever Justin Wrobleski, who spent time with Klein at AAA this season. “You go out there and you’re like, ‘I know what has to be done here and let’s see what I got.’ I like moments like that because it’s a test of your character. More than that, it’s a test of everything else.”

Klein passed. And Freeman, of course, is the valedictorian of such moments, one of the clutch kings of his generation. He had struggled much of the postseason, entering the game with only one RBI in the Dodgers’ previous dozen playoff games. His first two in this World Series had looked a far cry from his performance last year, when, nursing a number of injuries, he hit a walk-off grand slam in Game 1 and won series MVP. It wasn’t just the lack of production. He wasn’t hitting the ball particularly hard, either.

On the final pitch, he finally did. This is the kind of thing that happens in 18-inning games. They are uncomfortable and scary and can end with the crack of a bat. It is terrifying. It is beautiful. It is everything.

Those lucky enough to bear witness will never forget it, either. They squirmed and flinched and closed their eyes and prayed and squealed and cringed and, in the end, saw 31 hits and 37 runners left on base and 19 pitchers and one particularly majestic swing that, 10 minutes shy of Monday turning into Tuesday, ended one of the best World Series games ever — and gave the Dodgers a 2-1 advantage in this year’s series.

Klein isn’t sure how his arm will feel by the time he returns to the ballpark Tuesday for Game 4. Typically, he said, he’s a Day 2 guy, the soreness not coming until the second day after an outing. After being lavished with praise from his teammates and thanked by Sandy Koufax and written into the annals of Dodgers history, though, tomorrow and the next day wasn’t of much concern.

“I feel great right now,” he said, and with good reason. He was the winning pitcher, the stopper, the MVP of the night every bit as much as Freeman and Ohtani, and the adrenaline rush numbed whatever pain will eventually arrive. That’s for another day. This was everything — and more.