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Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky were dancing.

It was July 2019. The two had been teammates with the Columbus Blue Jackets, becoming close friends when Panarin was traded there from the Chicago Blackhawks in 2017. Their families are friends. Panarin is the godfather to Bobrovsky’s daughter. They take silly photos together. They celebrate holidays and vacation together — this particular dance party was in Capri.

Their dancing is extremely spirited, with both NHL players kicking their legs over their heads toward the night sky on the deck of a boat. It’s the kind of dance one expects in a moment of offseason catharsis, like when two friends sign free agent contracts worth a combined $151.5 million. The ink was still drying on Panarin’s seven-year, $81.5 million deal with the New York Rangers and Bobrovsky’s seven-year, $70 million contract with the Florida Panthers.

It’s now May 2024. Panarin and Bobrovsky aren’t speaking. There’s no animosity between the close friends, but the battle lines have been drawn: The Rangers and Panthers are playing in the Eastern Conference finals. Panarin is trying to score against his best friend in hockey, and Bobrovsky is tasked with preventing it.

At stake is a chance to play for the Stanley Cup, which Bobrovsky did last season with Florida but Panarin has yet to do in his nine-year NHL career. They are rivals now. They’ll be friends again when it’s over.

“I like how he looks at his life, how he looks at himself. Not only about hockey, but what he’s going to do after that,” Bobrovsky has said of Panarin.

“He’s an unbelievable guy, a great human,” Panarin said of Bobrovsky, via NHL.com. “We can talk about everything all day and we can say anything to each other. We can talk about good things and the not good things, and it doesn’t matter. It’s a very honest relationship.”

They are two of the most impactful players of the last decade in the NHL. Bobrovsky has more wins (354) than any other goalie since 2012-13, when he won his first Vezina Trophy. He won his second Vezina in 2016-17, the same year he was a finalist for the Hart Trophy as league MVP.

Panarin is fifth in points (781) since entering the league with the Blackhawks in 2015-16, the same season he won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year. He’s sixth in points-per-game average (1.16) during that span. Only Nikita Kucherov is ahead of him in both categories among wingers.

In 2019, Bobrovsky and Panarin changed the trajectory of three franchises. They walked away from the Blue Jackets as free agents, and Columbus has made the playoffs just once since then. Bobrovsky solidified the Panthers’ goaltending, earning a third career Vezina nomination this season. Panarin helped the Rangers transition from a retool to top of the league this season.

As one NHL source put it: “If they don’t sign either one of those two, the Panthers and Rangers are not fighting to get into the Stanley Cup Final right now.”


AS FREE AGENCY drama often does, the Panarin and Bobrovsky saga started for the Blue Jackets a year before their contracts were up.

Reports were that Bobrovsky and Columbus were far apart on a new, long-term contract. But they were talking, which was more than could be said for Panarin and the team. He was pushing off talks.

The uncertainty of his future in the market had teams sending general manager Jarmo Kekalainen trade proposals, although few were designed to help Columbus in the present. But even if the Blue Jackets thought about moving Panarin, there was another complication: The NHL echo chamber was reverberating with talk that Panarin wanted to be a New York Ranger.

There were other teams he was considering — the New York Islanders and Panthers among them — but the Rangers were his team of choice, and that undoubtedly impacted the offers coming in for him.

Columbus fans wanted him to stay. Some even resorted to bribery: High Bank Distillery created a billboard proclaiming that Panarin would get free vodka for life should he remain with the Blue Jackets.

“I feel really good after that. I say it’s harder for me to keep talking about my free agency because I see how people want me to stay in Columbus,” he said of the billboard. “But it’s my life.”

In February, there was another wrinkle: Panarin fired agent Daniel Milstein and hired Paul Theofanous, the agent for Bobrovsky. At a media availability in Las Vegas, Panarin declared he was testing free agency that summer.

“It’s one life, and I want to test free agency,” he said, according to the Columbus Dispatch. “[They] have a chance [to sign me], but we’ll see what happens in the summer. I want to still [consider] this season and help the team win the Stanley Cup.”

The agent switch immediately sparked speculation that the two could become a “package deal” in free agency, handing a leading scorer and a franchise goaltender to some lucky team — luck in this case equating to geography and cap space, theoretically.

Hockey fans had seen this before: In 2003, star wingers and former Anaheim teammates Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne were reunited as a package deal in Colorado, as both players were clients of agent Don Baizley.

The Blue Jackets opted not to trade either player at the deadline — Bobrovsky had a no-trade clause, Panarin did not — as Columbus was still in a playoff race.

“If they want to go and test the free agency, they’re going to want to have their best years. And that’s the best for us and the best for them,” Kekalainen said at the time. “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. We’ll have a great team next year, no matter what happens.”

They’d both have great years ahead of new contracts. Panarin had 87 points in 79 games, a new career high. Bobrovsky had a .913 save percentage and an NHL-best nine shutouts. They saved their best for last, both playing a major role in the Blue Jackets’ first-round sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning, a 128-point juggernaut and one of the best regular-season teams in NHL history.

Bobrovsky had a .931 save percentage in securing his first postseason series win. Panarin had five points in four games, outscoring every player on the Lightning in the historic upset.

The Blue Jackets would be eliminated in the following round by the Boston Bruins, officially signaling the start of an offseason of uncertainty.

At this point, it was widely assumed that Panarin was gone. Kekalainen’s big swing to keep him was an eight-year contract, which no other suitor could offer, worth more than $11 million annually. One source said the Jackets might have gone even higher to keep Panarin.

But the Blue Jackets always hoped they could hang on to Bobrovsky, logically surmising that the market for an over-30 goaltender seeking a long-term, big-money contract would be limited.

The buzz term surrounding his contract ask was “Carey Price money,” referencing the eight-year, $84 million deal with a full no-movement clause that the goaltender signed with the Montreal Canadiens in July 2017 — a contract the Habs are still paying, even as Price hasn’t played since 2021-22.

The Jackets were offering deals with a shorter term, hoping his desired contract wouldn’t materialize elsewhere. But there was, in fact, a market for Bobrovsky.

Among the most aggressive suitors for Bobrovsky were the New York Islanders. They had Ilya Sorokin eventually on the way from the KHL. Bobrovsky could have given them an elevated version of the Russian goalie tandem they eventually had with Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov.

The “package deal” rumors persisted. The NHL salary cap — then set at $81.5 million — was the primary deterrent.

“No way you can actually do that in this environment without one of the players getting shortchanged,” one NHL source said.

But teams were trying. The Islanders had $20 million in cap space at the start of free agency. Getting both Russian players would have impacted several other bits of business — re-signing Anders Lee, an eventual extension for Mathew Barzal — but it was doable for GM Lou Lamoriello, someone known for his audacity in roster building.

The Colorado Avalanche were also interested in a package deal. Their goalie coach, Jussi Parkkila, worked with Bobrovsky at St. Petersburg SKA in the KHL, and the two remained friends. They liked Bobrovsky, but they coveted Panarin. The Avalanche were offering a four-year contract that would have made Panarin the highest-paid player in the NHL, according to one source. But even with the flexibility of Nathan MacKinnon‘s cap-friendly contract at the time, they couldn’t find a way to sign both under the salary cap.

The real problem with the “package deal” is that one part of the package had aspirations to sign with one team in particular: The New York Rangers.

And the feeling was mutual.


ON FEB. 18, 2018, the Rangers’ website posted a new article titled “A Message from Glen Sather and Jeff Gorton About Our Team.”

It would be known henceforth as “The Letter.” It stated that the franchise “didn’t reach our ultimate goal of bringing the Stanley Cup back to New York.” That the Rangers would seek to get younger and more skillful; and in the process, “this may mean we lose some familiar faces, guys we all care about and respect.”

Much like how no one in “Casablanca” ever utters the phrase “play it again, Sam,” at no point does “The Letter” use the word “rebuild.” It wasn’t something the team referenced. When John Davidson left the Blue Jackets in May 2019 to rejoin the Rangers as team president, he preferred to use the term “build” when describing their plans.

They were building fast. In April 2019, the Rangers acquired the rights to defenseman Adam Fox from the Carolina Hurricanes for two draft picks. A native of Jericho, New York, Fox informed the Hurricanes he wouldn’t sign with them. It was widely speculated that Fox would eventually sign with the Rangers as an NCAA free agent anyway. He wanted to be a Ranger, and he was a Ranger.

In June 2019, the Rangers traded a first-round pick and defenseman Neal Pionk to the Winnipeg Jets for 25-year-old defenseman Jacob Trouba, who told the Jets he wasn’t signing with them. He pushed for a trade to New York so his fiancée, Kelly Tyson, could advance in her medical career. He wanted to be a Ranger, and he was a Ranger.

They drafted Finnish forward Kaapo Kakko second overall in the 2019 draft. They had goalie Igor Shesterkin and defenseman K’Andre Miller in their system.

“These are pieces that fit a puzzle, and we’re trying to get that puzzle completed the proper way as quickly as possible,” Davidson said.

The Rangers were on the right track back to contention. The question was whether their velocity synced with Panarin’s availability as a free agent. There were debates internally about whether the Rangers were ready to add a star, such as Panarin, at a considerable commitment to the salary cap.

Signing him would impact things in the short term — the Rangers bought out the contract of defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk that August to create more room — and in the long term. The Athletic reported at the time that Panarin’s signing meant forward Chris Kreider “will be dealt before he hits unrestricted free agency next July 1st.”

Ultimately, it was decided that even if the “build” wasn’t at a point where adding Panarin would make them a championship contender, the Rangers couldn’t afford to wait to be ready. What if a player of Panarin’s caliber wasn’t available then? What if there weren’t similar options on whom the Rangers could spend their money? Panarin was only 27 that summer; what if the big free agent prize was 31 years old when the Rangers were ready to do business?

“When these young players pop, he’s still going to be in his prime,” rationalized Davidson, who was president of the Blue Jackets when they acquired Panarin.

Panarin signed a seven-year, $81.5 million deal with the Rangers as free agency opened. His average annual value of $11,642,857 was the second highest in the NHL behind Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid ($12.5 million) but the highest for a winger, surpassing his former teammate Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks ($10.5 million).

Those incredible numbers aside, Panarin left money on the table to sign with the Rangers.

“I don’t think those [other] teams did anything wrong,” one NHL executive told ESPN. “I think he just wanted to be a Ranger.”

On July 2, Panarin took part in a now-iconic photoshoot on Seventh Ave., holding his No. 10 jersey in front of the Madison Square Garden marquee that welcomed him to New York.

“There was a moment where I just sat down for 10 minutes and really thought about it,” he said regarding free agency. “My heart told me that New York would be the better place for me.”

His friend Bobrovsky felt the same way about South Florida.


THE PANTHERS OFFERED Panarin the same ballpark numbers as the Rangers. They thought they had a chance at him, what with his former Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville behind the bench — Panarin credits him with coining his “Bread Man” nickname — and the state tax benefits from playing in Florida. But ultimately, they figured he was New York-bound.

They believed Bobrovsky was more aligned with their needs and remained focused on him.

“They had some good offensive pieces. If you had to pick one or the other, they didn’t have a goaltender,” an NHL source said. “They decided on Bob, and it paid off.”

Star goalie Roberto Luongo retired at 40 years old in June 2019. Thanks to NHL cap recapture rules, the Panthers saw salary cap savings of roughly $3.5 million annually; while the Vancouver Canucks, who originally signed Luongo to a 12-year, $64 million back-diving contract in 2009, were on the hook for more.

The other shoe to drop was that of goalie James Reimer. His contract wasn’t buyout friendly, so the Panthers traded him the Hurricanes for goalie Scott Darling, whom they then bought out.

It was obvious GM Dale Tallon was clearing the decks for a run at Bobrovsky, and nearly gave him the “Carey Price money” he was looking for: seven years, $70 million and a full no-movement clause as free agency opened.

“Sergei is an elite starting goaltender who has consistently proven to be one of the best in the NHL,” Tallon said.

Florida was praised for making a big bet on a long-term goaltending solution. ESPN gave the signing a B-plus at the time.

The contract made Bobrovsky the second-highest-paid goalie in the league in average annual value and base salary. It also put an enormous weight on his shoulders as he started with the Panthers in 2019-20. Bobrovsky had a .900 save percentage, a 3.23 goals-against average and a 23-10-6 record for Florida that season. Quenneville and his Panthers teammates spoke up to support Bobrovsky during that initial season.

“Sometimes there are ups and downs, but you have to keep your focus,” Bobrovsky said at the time.

The following season, Bobrovsky saw an old acquaintance join the team: Bill Zito, assistant GM in Columbus, was named the new general manager in Florida in 2020. He called Bobrovsky before being announced, leaning on the goaltender for information and insight about his new team.

Zito also found himself having to defend Bobrovsky in light of his contract and results. “I’m not worried about him at all. He’s a really intuitive guy, really bright. He’ll figure it out. And he wants to win,” Zito told ESPN at the time.

That patience was eventually rewarded. By his third season, Bobrovsky’s save percentage ticked up to .913 and he led the NHL with 39 wins. He had a regression in the 2022-23 regular season, but no one remembers that.

What they remember is “Playoff Bob” facing a playoffs-high 639 shots, making a playoffs-high 585 saves, posting a .915 save percentage and orchestrating both the Panthers’ shocking first-round upset of Boston and their run to the Stanley Cup Final. That included a 63-save performance in a four-overtime game against the Hurricanes that lasted five hours and 44 minutes.

Since Paul Maurice took over the Panthers as head coach last season, he has witnessed Bobrovsky being more than just a franchise goalie he rolls out for playoff starts.

“Sometimes your goaltender is separate from your team, right? Nobody talks to them because they do that weird goaltender stuff,” he said. “But Bob is part of the fun and might be a driver of it in some ways. Because that’s not his natural state, because he’s a very intense man. So he has fun in the morning skates and everyone knows that ‘Bob’s good.’ I think he just enjoys the performance aspect of it.”

His performance this postseason is much different than in the Panthers’ Stanley Cup Final run last season. Bobrovsky went from facing 32.9 shots on goal per game on average in 2023 to 23.8 shots on goal in 2024, as the Panthers’ defense improved. It hasn’t always been perfect for him, but Maurice said he trusts his goalie to manage the change in volume.

“I feel that a guy that doesn’t have the experience that Bob has would’ve a difficult time doing what Sergei’s been able to do,” he said.


WHILE BOBROVSKY TOOK a little time to find his groove in South Florida, Panarin was a hit on Broadway from opening night, when he had a goal and an assist in the Rangers’ win over Winnipeg.

Panarin tallied 95 points with 32 goals in 69 games in the 2019-20 season, making him a Hart Trophy finalist for the first time in the COVID-19-truncated campaign. His points-per-60 minutes rate climbed in his second season in New York.

When deciding whether the timing was right to sign Panarin, Rangers executives had quietly targeted the 2021-22 season as the point at which they expected the franchise to turn the corner to contention again. He scored 96 points that regular season and 16 points in 20 playoff games to help the Rangers back to the 16-team tournament for the first time since 2017 and the conference final for the first time since 2015.

While Panarin was solid in 2022-23 with 92 points to lead the team, he wasn’t a happy player with the Rangers. Sources said he didn’t mesh with coach Gerard Gallant, who was let go after New York was upset in the playoffs by the New Jersey Devils. That series was also a nadir for Panarin, as he posted two assists in seven games.

“It’s mental, and I feel terrible,” he said after the season.

He took the defeat personally, recommitted himself to training in the offseason and shaved off his trademark locks in a symbolic vibe shift. The results: a new career high in goals (49) and points (120) in leading the Rangers to the Presidents’ Trophy with the league’s best regular-season record.

“I know this is a benchmark year for him, but his statistics over the last 7-8 years are incredible. There’s consistency that goes with that. This isn’t a fluke year — it’s just a really good one,” said coach Peter Laviolette, who replaced Gallant. “He’s been an elite player offensively, and this year has obviously been his best.”

As the Rangers and Panthers return to Madison Square Garden for Game 5 on Thursday night, all eyes are on Panarin and Bobrovsky again. The Rangers winger hasn’t scored a goal since Game 3 against the Hurricanes in the second round, although he has collected four assists in seven games since then.

Bobrovsky continues to battle, stopping 21 of 23 shots in Game 4 after giving up five goals in an overtime loss in Game 3. His save percentage for the playoffs is .904, but he has been there when they’ve needed him, posting a playoffs-leading .862 save percentage on high-danger chances.

One of them will play for the Stanley Cup. One of them will not.

After it’s over, when their lines of communication are no longer on mute, they’ll reconnect to talk about it.

Two rivals. Two former teammates. Two friends who have made indelible marks on their respective franchises since that fateful summer of 2019.

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Updated SP+ rankings for every FBS team, plus an early look at CFP contenders

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Updated SP+ rankings for every FBS team, plus an early look at CFP contenders

In 93 days, it all starts again. From Week 0’s Irish Farmageddon (Iowa State vs. Kansas State in Dublin) in mid-August to the national title game in late January, the 2025 college football season looms. And with transfer portal movement finally slowing down — including spring moves, FBS teams have averaged more than 19 transfers this offseason, up more than 40% from last season — we can finally take a semi-confident look at what’s in store this fall. That means updating our numbers.

Below are updated SP+ projections for the coming season. A quick reminder: Preseason projections are based on three factors.

1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as humanly possible to account for transfers and attrition. The combination of last year’s SP+ ratings and adjustments based on returning production makes up about two-thirds of the projections formula.

2. Recent recruiting. This piece informs us of the caliber of a team’s potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the past few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight). This is also impacted by the recruiting rankings of incoming transfers, an acknowledgment that the art of roster management is now heavily dictated by the transfer portal.

3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from the previous four seasons or so gives us a good measure of overall program health.

(One other reminder: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.)

Here are the updated rankings:

This time around, I am also experimenting with what you might call a fourth projection factor: coaching changes. Using data discussed in this March column, I have incorporated some adjustments based on who changed head coaches and/or offensive or defensive coordinators and how those teams performed against historic norms last year. Translation: For teams or units that underachieved significantly against their 20-year averages and changed coaches or coordinators (example: Oklahoma’s offense, Purdue’s entire team), that means a slight bump upward. For teams or units that overachieved and lost their coaches or coordinators (example: UNLV as a team or Louisiana Tech’s defense), that means a bump down.

The adjustments aren’t enormous, but when you see that Oklahoma’s projected rating has risen since February, that explains it.


Minimal changes near the top

Thirteen teams moved up or down at least 10 spots compared to February’s rankings, due to either transfer portal addition/attrition, the coaching adjustments mentioned above, or simply me getting a much better read on returning production after official roster releases. At the very top, however, not a ton changed. The top four teams from February continue to occupy the same spots, though Texas hopped Notre Dame and Oregon into the No. 5 hole. Clemson and Michigan rose a bit, Tennessee dropped five spots after Nico Iamaleava’s transfer, and Oklahoma eased into the top 15. (With their ridiculous schedule, however, the Sooners’ projected win total still isn’t great.)

The overall conference hierarchy hasn’t changed much either, though with the Sun Belt getting hit particularly hard by spring transfer attrition, the AAC moves into the top spot among Group of 5 conferences.

Average SP+ rating by conference

1. SEC (15.3 overall, 33.1 offense, 17.8 defense, 60.7% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 2 Alabama, No. 4 Georgia, No. 5 Texas

2. Big Ten (9.5 overall, 29.1 offense, 19.6 defense, 56.7% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 1 Ohio State, No. 3 Penn State, No. 7 Oregon

Both the SEC and Big Ten boast three of the projected top seven teams, but if we measure conferences by average ratings, the SEC still has a commanding lead due, as always, to the lack of dead weight. Only two of 16 SEC teams are projected lower than 43rd overall, while the Big Ten has six such teams, including three ranked 70th or worse. That helps explain why, despite playing only eight-game conference schedules, SEC teams occupy 13 of the top 15 spots in the strength of schedule rankings.

3. Big 12 (6.3 overall, 31.0 offense, 24.7 defense, 61.8% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 18 Kansas State, No. 22 Arizona State, No. 26 Texas Tech

4. ACC (5.0 overall, 30.8 offense, 25.8 defense, 59.2% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 8 Clemson, No. 12 Miami, No. 20 SMU

We see a similar dynamic with the Big 12 and ACC — in terms of the quality of its top teams, the ACC (three top-20 teams) seems to have an advantage over the Big 12 (one top-20 team). But the Big 12 has eight top-35 teams compared to the ACC’s four, and while no Big 12 team is projected lower than 66th, the ACC’s average is dragged down by three teams ranking 79th or lower.

5. AAC (-7.8 overall, 26.0 offense, 33.8 defense, 49.4% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 48 Tulane, No. 53 Memphis, No. 63 UTSA

6. Sun Belt (-8.1 overall, 24.9 offense, 33.0 defense, 46.3% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 49 James Madison, No. 74 Louisiana, No. 76 South Alabama

7. Mountain West (-8.6 overall, 23.5 offense, 32.1 defense, 46.5% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 33 Boise State, No. 75 UNLV, No. 83 San Jose State

Three G5 teams are within one point of each other on average, though again, the distribution varies significantly by conference. The MWC is propped up significantly by Boise State, the best projected G5 team, but its average is dragged down by three teams ranking 119th or worse. The Sun Belt has only one such team. The AAC, meanwhile, has a solid five teams in the top 70 … and four teams projected 120th or worse.

8. Conference USA (-13.0 overall, 20.4 offense, 33.4 defense, 50.7% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 69 Liberty, No. 85 Western Kentucky, No. 104 Jacksonville State

9. MAC (-13.7 overall, 19.8 offense, 33.5 defense, 41.1% average returning production)

Top three teams: No. 72 Toledo, No. 80 Ohio, No. 91 Buffalo

No conference was hit harder by the portal than the MAC, which has only three teams ranked higher than 94th in the returning production rankings below. That’s going to wreck your averages, though Toledo and Buffalo both escaped too much damage in this regard.


An approximate CFP contenders list

My SP+ strength of schedule ratings are based on a simple question: How would the average top-five team fare against your schedule? Oklahoma’s schedule currently features five of the projected top 11 teams and nine of the top 25, while Notre Dame’s features only two teams projected higher than 30th; SP+ SOS says a top-five team would average a 0.757 win percentage against OU’s schedule (equivalent to 9.1 wins in 12 games) and a 0.894 win percentage against Notre Dame’s (10.7 wins). That’s a pretty big difference.

Schedule strengths obviously vary quite a bit within conferences — not every SEC schedule is Oklahoma’s — but it’s worth acknowledging that when it comes to potential College Football Playoff-worthy résumés, the bar can be set in a different spot based on a team’s conference.

Average strength-of-schedule rating per conference

SEC 0.799 (9.6 wins for a typical top-five team)

Big Ten 0.846 (10.2)

ACC 0.891 (10.7)

Big 12 0.902 (10.8)

AAC 0.956 (11.5)

Sun Belt 0.958 (11.5)

MWC 0.959 (11.5)

CUSA 0.964 (11.6)

MAC 0.965 (11.6)

When it comes to how a top-five team would fare, the average SEC schedule is about one win harder than the average ACC or Big 12 schedule. The Big Ten, with its deadweight teams, is about a half-win harder than those leagues but is still more likely to get lumped in with the SEC than the others in the Power 4.

Long story short: We can confidently say that any 10-2 or better team in the SEC or Big Ten would be a likely playoff contender, just as any 11-1 or better team in the ACC or Big 12 would be. We can therefore create a loose list of likely CFP contenders by looking at the teams most likely to hit those marks.

Odds of an SEC team going 10-2 or better: Alabama 65% (SOS rank: 11th), Texas 61% (12th), Georgia 61% (13th), Ole Miss 38% (23rd), Tennessee 33% (24th), LSU 30% (ninth), Florida 18% (second), Auburn 13% (15th), Oklahoma 9% (first), Missouri 5% (25th)

Odds of a Big Ten team going 10-2 or better: Penn State 82% (SOS rank: 29th), Ohio State 77% (21st), Oregon 73% (32nd), Michigan 62% (38th), Illinois 29% (40th), Nebraska 13% (35th), USC 10% (20th), Indiana 9% (31st)

With a particularly weak nonconference schedule and a particularly good team, Penn State might be in the driver’s seat in terms of playoff qualification, while Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, Michigan and Georgia are all over 60% likely to finish the regular season with two or fewer losses.

Odds of a Big 12 or ACC team (or Notre Dame) going 11-1 or better: Notre Dame 52% (SOS rank: 44th), Clemson 37% (34th), Miami 23% (36th), Kansas State 17% (57th), BYU 7% (64th), Texas Tech 7% (62nd), SMU 6% (45th), Arizona State 5% (61st)

Odds of a Group of 5 team going 11-1 or better: Boise State 37% (SOS rank: 84th), Liberty 17% (136th), Toledo 11% (133rd), Memphis 8% (121st), James Madison 7% (104th)

Notre Dame starts the season with games against Miami and Texas A&M, and while the rest of the schedule features plenty of solid opponents (five are projected between 30th and 47th), if the Irish are 2-0 out of the gates, they’re staring a second straight CFP appearance in the face.


Updated returning production rankings

With updated SP+ projections come updated returning production figures. A reminder: While returning production doesn’t correlate with pure quality, it does correlate well with improvement and regression, particularly at the extremes.

(Note: The production of incoming transfers is mashed into both the numerator and denominator of the returning production formula — so if you lose your starting quarterback but bring in someone else’s from the portal, your returning yardage is probably somewhere around 50%. The production of transfers from schools below the FBS level get half-credit.)

As was the case in February, Clemson leads the way here. And with the way that talent trickles upward in the transfer portal era, it’s probably not a surprise that nine of the top 10 teams in returning production (and 22 of the top 26) are power-conference teams. The P4 boasts 59.6% returning production overall, while the G5 is at 46.8%. That’s a pretty massive gap, one that isn’t likely to shrink anytime soon.

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Rebuilding Blackhawks hire Blashill as head coach

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Rebuilding Blackhawks hire Blashill as head coach

Jeff Blashill has been hired as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, it was announced Thursday.

The veteran bench boss steps in to replace interim coach Anders Sorenson, who was promoted after the Blackhawks fired Luke Richardson early in the 2024-25 season. Sorenson was thought to be a candidate for the permanent role, and Chicago had also shown interest in University of Denver coach David Carle.

The Blackhawks ultimately landed on Blashill to be the 42nd head coach in franchise history. Blashill, 51, most recently spent three seasons as an assistant coach on Jon Cooper’s staff with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He previously replaced Mike Babcock to take on his first NHL head coaching job with the Detroit Red Wings from 2015 to ’22, attempting to guide Detroit through a lengthy rebuilding process.

After reaching the playoffs in his first year with the Red Wings, Blashill’s teams never improved beyond fifth in the division and, after six consecutive seasons outside the playoff field, he was fired following the 2021-22 campaign. He left the Red Wings with a 204-261-72 record.

Blashill now joins another organization deep into a rebuilding process, providing experience that Chicago has been lacking. The Blackhawks have churned through four different first-year NHL head coaches — Jeremy Colliton, Derek King, Richardson and Sorenson — since Joel Quenneville’s departure in 2018, and now they’ve targeted a new voice with a developmental background.

Blashill has worked in the NCAA, USHL and AHL throughout his career. His time spent under Cooper — the NHL’s longest-tenured head coach — is another asset.

“Jeff is an incredibly smart and talented coach who boasts more than 25 years of coaching experience across developmental leagues, the NHL and the world stage,” general manager Kyle Davidson said in a statement. “He’s thrived when in a position to develop young players and has shown he’s capable of blending that into overall team success, a vision and philosophy we share for where we are today and where we see our team in the future. We couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come under Jeff’s direction.”

The Blackhawks haven’t been to the postseason since 2017, but they didn’t begin their retooling in earnest until the 2021-22 season. Davidson has been at the helm of Chicago’s rebuild since October 2021 and remains in the thick of it, as Chicago has finished 31st overall in the league standings the past two seasons. The Blackhawks have focused on growing through the NHL draft, and selected phenom Connor Bedard first overall in 2023.

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Hurricanes-Panthers Game 2 preview: Key players, matchup notes, stats to know

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Hurricanes-Panthers Game 2 preview: Key players, matchup notes, stats to know

Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals went about as well as it could have for the Florida Panthers. For the Carolina Hurricanes? Not so much.

Following a 5-2 win, the Panthers carry a 1-0 advantage into Game 2 (8 p.m. ET, TNT) on Thursday night.

Will the Hurricanes punch back before the series heads to South Florida? Which players will be most critical to each team’s success? Here are key players, matchup notes and stats to know from ESPN Research ahead of Game 2.

More: Game 1 recap | Grades

Matchup notes

Florida Panthers at Carolina Hurricanes
Game 2 | 8 p.m. ET | TNT

With the Panthers up 1-0, they are now -250 favorites to win the Eastern Conference finals, while the Hurricanes are +200, per ESPN BET. The Panthers now have the shortest odds to win the Stanley Cup, at +160, while the Canes have the longest, at +500.

The Panthers have scored 38 goals on the road this postseason, tied with the 2022 Avalanche for the most through a team’s first eight road games of a single postseason. They are outscoring opponents 17-4 on the road over their last three road contests. The 17 goals are their most in a three-game span on the road in a single postseason in franchise history

The Game 1 defeat was the Hurricanes’ 13th straight loss in the conference finals, going back to 2009. This extends the longest streak in NHL history for losses in the round before Stanley Cup Final; the next highest was the Toronto Maple Leafs with 10 straight losses between 1954-56.

Aaron Ekblad‘s goal in Game 1 gives the Panthers 12 from their defensemen this postseason. That is four more than any other team, and ties the franchise record for most in a single playoff run (both 2023 and 2024).

With goal No. 7 of the postseason, Sam Bennett became the third Panther to score seven or more goals in consecutive playoff runs, joining Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart (who both accomplished it in 2023 and 2024).

The Hurricanes’ penalty kill was a strength leading into the conference finals — they allowed two power-play goals on 30 chances. That wasn’t the case in Game 1, as they allowed two goals on three chances.

Sebastian Aho joined an impressive list with his Game 1 goal: He is now tied for the most goals in series-opening games in Whalers/Hurricanes history (with five). The others on the list are Ray Whitney, Andrei Svechnikov and his head coach, Rod Brind’Amour.


Current scoring leaders

GP: 11 | G: 4 | A: 8

GP: 13 | G: 4 | A: 9

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