How does USC replace Caleb Williams? By adding 1,400 pounds
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Paolo Uggetti, ESPN
LOS ANGELES, CA — It doesn’t take much to see that things are different at USC this year.
Yes, Lincoln Riley is still the head coach — his third season, in fact — and the Trojans do return a number of players from last season and several other coaches too. The goal, the message, the approach — nobody will tell you any of those have changed. But it’s also clear that things are very different indeed.
Walk onto the practice field and you’ll immediately see the glossy, green new turf field USC has built being shown off and utilized. The practice area is now twice as large. Look around and you’ll see banners announcing what’s coming: an entirely new football facility, expected to cost, $200 million, coming in 2026.
Take a closer look out onto the aforementioned field and you’ll see plenty of changes too. D’Anton Lynn has gone from wearing UCLA Bruins blue and gold to hopscotching his way down the 405 freeway to try and take USC’s defense into the future. Anyone who watched a game of the Trojans last year knows they need it.
Lynn’s deluge of a move brought along others in the same current, not just coaches from around the country with breadth and depth of experience in college and the NFL, but also much-needed talented defenders from UCLA, Oregon State and Texas A&M to try and improve both in the present and the future.
“I do think that we’re fortunate enough to be at a place that you can have a shot at anybody,” Riley said when he hired Lynn. “We just decided that we’re not going to worry about a current job that these guys have. We’re going to go after the best.”
And yet perhaps the biggest change, the weightiest and most consequential, can be found under center. Caleb Williams is gone. Enter Miller Moss. The junior, who backed up Williams the past two seasons, is both a fresh face and a familiar one. It is as close to continuity as USC could have gotten short of convincing Williams to forego the NFL one more season.
Zoom in just a bit more and you can also see what many players and coaches have been talking about for much of the offseason. The Trojans are bigger — 1,400 collective pounds bigger, according to Riley — and have put an emphasis on reshaping their roster. Literally.
“When we got here, just with the scheme change going into the new conference, we knew that we had to get bigger,” Lynn said. “We knew we had to get stronger.”
USC’s 2024 season will not fully be determined by what life after Williams may look like. It won’t come down to how much weight or strength they’ve gained, or be expected to be overhauled by a single coaching hire.
Without a Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall pick on its roster, USC is banking on what it has been able to build and evolve over the past three years under Riley to turn what could be a down year for the Trojans into one where they could be in a position to surprise.
“I feel a bright energy around the team this year,” wide receiver Zachariah Branch said. “I definitely feel like everybody’s fully invested into the team and I feel like that’s just going to help us excel.”
AT SOME POINT, Elijah Paige and Mason Murphy stopped counting calories. The mandate this offseason from the coaching staff and Rachel Suba, USC’s director of sports nutrition, was that USC linemen would eat about 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day, but once you get to a certain routine with the amount of food, the calories count is second nature.
“I got to the point where I was more just eating a lot of big meals,” Murphy said. “Four big meals a day, so that definitely gave me some gains.”
“I was just eating whatever they put in front of me,” Paige said. “Whatever I could eat to gain weight.”
Behind the 1,400-pound total that Riley touted are Suba and Bennie Wylie, USC’s director of sports performance, who were the architects of the offseason fitness plan that players committed to.
Suba and Wylie created a cohesive offseason plan for players and each position group that catered to their needs — be it gaining weight, losing it or simply maintaining. From the meals to the workouts, the goal was to get stronger in preparation for a season that would be different in more ways than one.
“They have physically prepared us and that has just mentally prepared us to be ready for this season,” safety Christian Pierce said. “I feel like now our strength is in our conditioning.”
The total weight added may be the headline, but USC’s players have been individually sharing before and after photos of their progress, and more specifically, the weight gained and body fat lost in the process. The added strength, the way the whole team has embraced the process of getting bigger and faster, seems to have emboldened USC’s roster as it enters a new fray it knows will ask far more than previous seasons have.
“I think last year the emphasis and the importance of getting bigger and stronger was shown,” cornerback Bryson Shaw said. His own offseason calorie count hovered around 4,500. “We knew we needed to improve in that area and Coach Wiley and his staff challenged us to respond to the criticism. And I think we really responded well. Going into this season, I think we’re much way more ahead than where we were going into last season.”
What looms larger is the unforeseen nature of playing in an entirely new conference, where different styles and different opponents await. Like Lynn, some coaches and players view the added emphasis on strength as a necessary point of transitioning into the Big Ten.
“We want to have a physical presence. We want to talk about being one of the most physical or if not the most physical team in the country,” linebackers coach Matt Entz said. Last year, USC missed a total of 141 tackles. “It’s a game of blocking and tackling. Not to oversimplify the game, but sometimes as coaches it’s easy to do that. We need to be fundamentally better than our opponents and that’s where we’re at right now. We got to continue to every day go out there with that mentality.”
THE ELEPHANT IN the room all of last season — and really, the past two years — was USC’s defense. At its best, it was bending but not breaking enough to allow them to stay in games. At its worst, it was actively working against an offense that, at times, was one of the best in the country.
Riley relented and fired defensive coordinator Alex Grinch with two games left in the regular season. Then, as many people expected that USC would look far and wide for a replacement — perhaps into Big Ten country even — Riley simply reached across town and hired the coach that turned UCLA’s defense into one of the best in the country.
With Lynn came not just the subsequent hires of secondary coach Doug Belk from Houston, North Dakota State head coach Entz to coach linebackers and former NFL assistant Eric Henderson to coach the defensive line.
“It’s revamped the energy in the building, something that we needed,” Shaw said of the new staff.
While several returning members of USC’s defense — and those who are new as well — are avoiding comparing and contrasting what this year’s defense already feels like to last, some are not hesitating in doing just that.
“The culture last year wasn’t something that everyone was upholding and agreed to uphold. It had to do with a lot of the leaders just letting stuff slide, not thinking everything mattered,” linebacker Mason Cobb said. “So for this year, I think a lot of guys have been here, a lot of transfers have understood what we’re trying to do here and hopped on board and everyone’s on board.”
“I would say it’s night and day when it comes to this year and last year,” quarterback Moss said of the defense. “I think going against obviously guys like Kamari [Ramsey], Easton [Mascarenas-Arnold] who came in, Mason Cobb, along with a lot of really special players in the secondary makes it difficult for me as a quarterback. But it also makes me better.”
Without divulging strategy, USC defenders and other coaches have described Lynn’s system as “simplified,” “versatile,” “aggressive,” “fun to learn” and one that allows them to feel “freed up” and “play to their strengths.”
“I think it is a pro scheme, multiple fronts, multiple coverages, a lot of things that could potentially confuse our opponent,” Belk said. “But most of all it’s player friendly and we want to be able to play fast and play physical and play smart football and be consistent in whatever we do.”
At the center of it is Lynn, who appears to have impressed everyone in the building with how quickly he’s not just found his groove with a new staff and roster, but how he is managing trying to bring players up to speed while attempting to get the unit as a whole to feel and play in a cohesive fashion.
“The toughest thing in college is just the timeframe that you have,” Lynn said. “You don’t have a ton of time to meet, so you have to be very efficient with how you install. You don’t have a ton of time on the field. You have to be very efficient with how you do your walkthroughs.”
With a limited amount of time and what amounts to a new language that Lynn has to teach and implement within his staff and throughout the unit, USC’s defense has gone through a fast tracked education between spring practice and fall camp. Lynn, for his part, has tried his best to keep things simple enough to be digestible but not diluted to the point where they are not effective.
“[Lynn] does an outstanding job of compartmentalizing what we’re doing from a teaching standpoint,” Entz said. “If we can teach the game in terms of concepts and rules and principles, then you should be able to have some volume to the defense. If you have to go out there and your players are memorizing what’s going on, you’re going to struggle a little bit.”
There’s no certainty that Lynn’s scheme and approach will pay dividends, especially not immediately, but the preparation has put USC in a position to immediately improve upon last year’s performance. The bar may be low, but the goals Lynn and the rest of the defense have for themselves are much higher.
“You’ve seen what he did in one year at UCLA made them one of the best defenses in the country,” linebacker and Oregon State transfer Mascarenas-Arnold said. “And so for me, I expect nothing less. I don’t think anybody else on the team wouldn’t say that either. So I think we have the potential to be one of the best.”
MUCH OF HOW USC navigates a schedule that includes LSU, Michigan, Penn State, Washington and Notre Dame may still come down to Moss. This is a Riley offense and team, after all, where the attacking unit is the show and the quarterback is the orchestra’s first chair.
Williams had his approach and style; Moss has his own. The connectivity between them should have the intended effect. Several of the players that Moss first practiced with on scout team during his early years at USC are now projected starters themselves.
“I’ve already had chemistry with Miller because that first year we were both here, we always connected in practice really well,” said wide receiver Kyle Ford, who was at USC for two full seasons before transferring to UCLA last year and back to USC this year. “Now it’s just a continuation of what that’s been. I’m glad that we didn’t lose it over the years.”
It is not quite an intangible, but Moss’ commitment to USC over the years is now reaping its rewards, not just in the form of a starting job he coveted, but more in the form of how his peers, teammates and all of those who will take cues from him as a leader now view him.
“He’s going into his fourth year at USC and so I think all the guys have a different level of respect for him and what he’s done his whole journey,” Branch said. “He is far and away the leader of this football team. I think he has really just been able to bring the team together. Everyone rallies around him.”
Moss’ six touchdowns in the DirecTv Holiday Bowl that all but secured him the starting gig was just the beginning. Since, he admitted he’s gone through a learning curve as he tries to ensure that his performance in December is not remembered as an aberration, a mere blip on his college career, but rather a harbinger of what he can do once this season begins.
Now that he’s in the driver’s seat, Moss has gained a level of comfort and personal experience inside Riley’s system. Everything he tried to soak up while sitting on the bench the past two seasons is now ready to be put to use.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s more about what you do with it than just being named the starter,” Moss said. “It’s about going and winning games.”
Riley, Moss, Lynn and the rest of USC’s team know as well as anyone that in the end, all of the extra work, the effort put into weight training or nutrition, into improving the makeup of this team, can be rendered meaningless in the span of a game, even a play. For all the change USC is experiencing in its first year without Williams, there is one thing that remains: it will all come down to results.
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Buster Olney
The Boston Red Sox might be the best embodiment of the emotional swings that teams go through in this era of major league baseball.
Ten days ago, they had dropped nine of their past 12 games, and industry executives were eyeing the strongest parts on Boston’s roster in case the team was forced to start dealing players before the July 31 trade deadline. But instead, right-hander Hunter Dobbins notched two wins against the New York Yankees, Roman Anthony arrived in the big leagues (finally) and the Red Sox are back to .500, fostering a run at the postseason, real or imagined.
Then, a Father’s Day trade, out of the blue: Craig Breslow, the head of baseball operations for the Red Sox, shipped Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants. He addressed all the necessary business at once — dumping the contract of the unhappy Devers, adding pitching depth, and creating opportunity for the team’s young position players by opening the team’s DH spot.
He and the Giants’ Buster Posey completed what seems destined to be the biggest trade of the summer. In doing so, they shifted more onus onto some of their peers. Here are seven more who have the most at stake as trade season heats up.
Mike Hazen, general manager, Arizona Diamondbacks
Hazen will have a lot of say about what happens at this year’s trade deadline because if Arizona decides to trade talent, he’ll dangle a highly marketable set of players. Josh Naylor (Could the Mariners be interested? Or the Giants?), Eugenio Suarez (Yankees would be in on him), Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen would become some of the best options, and other GMs like to trade with Hazen because they find him communicative and decisive.
But Hazen has also seen success when his team has been on the fringe of contention. Two years ago, the D-backs won 84 regular-season games and, after upsetting the Phillies in the playoffs, came within two victories of winning the World Series. Arizona just lost Corbin Burnes and reliever Justin Martinez to major injuries, but with an extraordinary core of talent, could Hazen add help, rather than trade away players? Knowing that Burnes will miss most or all of next year, could Hazen start constructing the team’s 2026 rotation? A lot is riding on his choices this trade season.
Arizona’s chances for making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs, are 34.9%.
David Dombrowski, president of baseball operations, Philadelphia Phillies
Over the past couple of years, Dombrowski installed two younger starting pitchers into his rotation, 28-year-old left-hander Cristopher Sanchez and 27-year-old Jesus Luzardo, acquired in a trade with the Marlins. Meanwhile, Andrew Painter, the highly regarded 22-year-old right-hander the Phillies held out of the Garrett Crochet trade talks last summer, has reached Triple-A.
However, the Phillies’ group of position players is older, with Bryce Harper in Year 7 of the 13-year deal he signed and Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto in the last years of their respective contracts. The team’s window is now. Jose Alvarado could return from his PED suspension before the end of the regular season, but he will be ineligible for the postseason. The Phillies need bullpen help, just as they did last season, and Dombrowski will need to augment that group before the deadline.
“He’s been through this plenty of times before,” one of his peers said. “He’ll make deals. He always does.”
Jerry Dipoto, president of baseball operations, Seattle Mariners
Seattle has been wildly inconsistent while sorting through some rotation injuries. George Kirby has gradually improved over the five starts since being activated from the injured list, and Logan Gilbert was just activated off the IL and will start Monday against the Red Sox. If not for Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh would be the front-runner for the American League MVP Award.
But despite Raleigh’s power, the Mariners are struggling for offense at first base (their group has a wRC+ of 90, 22nd among the 30 teams) and DH (24th in wRC+, at 89). There is a clear need for a thumper, whether it’s Ryan O’Hearn or Josh Naylor — or someone of that ilk. As with the Orioles a year ago, the Mariners’ farm system is loaded, and Dipoto can present a buffet table of options to rival executives looking for a match.
Chris Young, president of baseball operations, Texas Rangers
Last July, with the Rangers coming off their first championship in 2023, Young waited and waited for a turnaround that never came before the trade deadline, refusing to deal. This year’s problems are a little different, but still similar. Jacob deGrom is dominating, but the offense has been shockingly sparse, with Texas ranked 26th in runs scored. There are reasons for hope: Evan Carter, impacted by injuries over the past 18 months, is hitting .387 in June (although he has been experiencing a wrist issue in recent days), and Wyatt Langford is getting better. It’s also hard to imagine Marcus Semien hitting .224 all year.
Young bet on a turnaround last summer. Will he do so again this year?
Mike Elias, general manager, Baltimore Orioles
The hole the Orioles have dug this season might be too deep to escape — they’re 6½ games out of the last AL wild-card spot. The Orioles were just 2½ games out of the wild-card race in 2022 when Elias chose to trade talent away rather than acquire it. But the context is different now, with Baltimore’s group of prospects older. By year’s end, Adley Rutschman will have four years of service time.
One way or another, Elias has to start building a rotation for next season. Maybe dealing Ryan O’Hearn and/or Cedric Mullins and others will help.
J.J. Picollo, general manager, Kansas City Royals
With the recent spate of losses, Kansas City is under .500 — and their playoff chances are 13.3%, per FanGraphs. Picollo’s track record is well-established: He has done what he can to win, signing free agents such as Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Carlos Estevez, and more recently, promoting top prospect Jac Caglianone and bypassing the opportunity to manipulate his service time.
But Cole Ragans is out indefinitely because of a strained shoulder, and Lugo has an opt-out on his deal after this season — and at 35 years old, it makes sense for him to take advantage of his leverage. Maybe that’s a contract extension with the Royals, or maybe that’s testing free agency. If the Royals’ recent malaise takes root, Lugo would be coveted in the trade market.
Jed Hoyer, president of baseball operations, Chicago Cubs
Chicago is so good — its offense so dynamic and versatile, its defense so efficient — that one evaluator believes that the question for Hoyer is not whether the Cubs will make the playoffs (their playoff chances, per FanGraphs, is 88.5%), but what will make them more dangerous in the meaningful games they’re bound to play at the end of the season. Especially with Kyle Tucker, the heart of the offense this year, headed for free agency in the fall.
Pitching is needed, with Justin Steele out for the season. The talented-but-young Ben Brown has an ERA of 5.71, and Colin Rea has been inconsistent. The Diamondbacks’ Kelly or Gallen might be a perfect fit, while the Orioles’ Zach Eflin would be an upgrade.
The Cubs’ payroll is well under the luxury tax threshold — 12th highest in the majors — but Chicago’s offer to Alex Bregman wasn’t competitive, even though he would’ve been a perfect fit. Rival evaluators wonder if Cubs ownership will green-light the sort of pricey acquisition that could help this team compete for its second title in the past decade.
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Kristen Shilton
There is an art to becoming a full-time NHL starting goaltender.
There is art, too, in being a successful NHL backup.
It requires embracing the unknown. It’s preparing to play without actually playing. There are long stretches of no puck touches — but the expectation of delivering your best at a moment’s notice.
That kind of pressure isn’t for everyone. But Edmonton Oilers‘ goaltender Calvin Pickard isn’t just anyone. He has forged a career excelling in secondary roles, the classic blue-collar contributor exemplifying work ethic and a straightforward mentality. One day at a time. One game after another.
It’s not easy. Pickard just makes it seem that way.
“I guess you’d say he’s one of the rare goalies,” Oilers forward Evander Kane said. “He’s just a normal guy. He’s really popular in [our] room.”
And how. Pickard has helped save Edmonton from back-breaking deficits in this NHL postseason not once, but twice. And Pickard could be on track to keep the Oilers alive again as they face elimination in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET, TNT/Max).
That’s as pressure-packed as it gets, yet Pickard’s most recent efforts showcased a goalie at his peak.
Pickard entered the Final as Edmonton’s No. 2 behind Stuart Skinner. He looked on as the Oilers split the series’ first two games, and then entered troubled waters. Skinner started again in Game 3, and Florida pounded Edmonton 6-1. Coach Kris Knoblauch replaced Skinner with Pickard late in that debacle, where all Pickard could offer was cleanup duty.
Edmonton moved on to Game 4 with a 2-1 series deficit, carrying an undeniable whiff of fragility that was about to be painfully exposed.
Knoblauch passed over Pickard for Skinner as his starter. The result was disastrous. Skinner gave up three goals on 14 shots in the first period, for an .824 save percentage. Edmonton limped off the ice down 3-0 and Knoblauch had to do something.
Enter Pickard.
The 33-year-old took over Edmonton’s crease and backstopped them to a shocking comeback as the Oilers scored three second-period goals for a 3-3 tie heading into the third. Pickard was excellent holding off the Panthers’ attack with tough, critical stops that gave the Oilers a chance to offer some goal support at the other end. And Edmonton’s eventual 5-4 victory in overtime would not have been possible without Pickard’s 22 saves.
2:24
How ‘clutch’ Calvin Pickard helped spur Oilers to Game 4 win
Steve Levy and Kevin Weekes break down the Oilers’ comeback win in overtime in Game 4 to even the series with the Panthers.
It was simple enough then that when the series returned to Edmonton tied 2-2 going into Game 5 on Saturday that Pickard would have at least 24 hours notice of his next playing time. That it was happening in the Cup Final could rattle other goalies who hadn’t actually started a full game in five weeks.
But then again, Pickard isn’t a typical backup. He’s built differently.
“I guess you could look at [Game 5] as the biggest game in my life, but the last game was the biggest game in my life until the next one,” Pickard said. “It’s rinse and repeat for me. It’s been a great journey; I’ve been to a lot of good places. Grateful that I had the chance to come to Edmonton a couple years ago, and this is what you play for. I’m excited.”
The game itself didn’t go to plan for Edmonton. The Oilers fell behind early — again — and this time no number of eye-popping stops by Pickard (including a massive one on Carter Verhaeghe in the first period) could save Edmonton from itself in a 5-2 loss.
Pickard’s stat line was weak — giving up four goals on 18 shots for a .778 save percentage — but Knoblauch wasn’t convinced he was the problem. Nor would Knoblauch commit to him for Game 6.
“I’m not going to make that decision right now after a tough loss tonight,” the coach said after Game 5. “But from what I saw, I think Picks didn’t have much chance on all those goals. Breakaways, shots through screens, slot shots. There was nothing saying that it was a poor performance.”
It was Pickard’s first loss in the postseason, a testament to his body of work. It wasn’t so long ago he was in control of the Oilers’ crease. A stronger team effort in front of Pickard could have him shining there again Tuesday; Edmonton has been outscored 15-8 in its past three games, a frustrating reality given the Oilers’ depth of offensive talent and defensive capabilities.
“The quality of opportunities were really good [in Game 5], so there’s no fault at Calvin at all on any of those goals,” Knoblauch said. “When the pressure’s not on [the goalies] that they have to make every single save to keep this close or keep us ahead [it’s better]. It’d be nice to get some goal support. [Game 5] was a case where we were having difficulty generating offense. It’d be nice to have that lead and play knowing that they have to open things up when they’re trailing.”
THE OILERS WERE in a bad spot midway through the first round.
They’d entered the playoffs among the field’s Cup favorites after making the Final a year ago, falling there in Game 7 to the same franchise they’re battling now. The Oilers rebounded in a strong regular season, finishing third in the Pacific Division with 101 points.
It was worrisome then that they started the postseason with a thud, falling behind 2-0 in their first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings. Skinner was Edmonton’s starter at the time, and had given up 11 goals in those two defeats. Pickard had watched (almost) all of it happen from the bench, save for a brief appearance late in Game 2.
Knoblauch tapped Pickard to start in Game 3. Cue another comeback.
Pickard helped the Oilers reel off four straight wins to vanquish the Kings and send Edmonton to the second round. He peeled off another pair of wins against the Vegas Golden Knights to spot Edmonton a 2-0 series lead — only to sustain a lower-body injury in Game 2 that would cut his magical postseason run off at 6-0-0 with an .892 save percentage and 2.76 goals-against average.
Edmonton again turned to Skinner, who responded with a sensational run of his own leading the Oilers through their Western Conference finals series against the Dallas Stars. The now-healthy Pickard was more of a spectator again. Biding his time had become second nature.
“The last couple of years, [Skinner] has played much more than I have,” Pickard said. “So, practice time is huge for me. [Our staff] has me dialed in when I’m not playing and doing different drills to replicate situations in games, and for when that chance comes.”
Pickard has learned how to leverage his reps, perceiving each one as meaningful even when the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
“Getting the time in Game 3 [of the Final] at the end, even when it was out of hand there [with the score], it’s still good ice time for me to get out there and see game action,” Pickard said. “That propelled me to be ready for Game 4. [Any of that] practice time’s huge.”
It’s also fitting for a goalie like Pickard — who can revel entering a rout — to be on the path to a potentially distinctive feat. According to ESPN Research, the last time multiple goalies on a Cup-winning team recorded decisions in a Final for non-injury related reasons was when the Boston Bruins alternated between Gerry Cheevers and Eddie Johnston in 1972. Cheevers started Game 1, Game 3 and the clinching Game 6 in that series.
Skinner and Pickard are also only the second tandem in NHL history to have each recorded at least seven victories in a single postseason, joining Marc-Andre Fleury (nine wins) and Matt Murray (seven) during the Pittsburgh Penguins‘ Cup run in 2017.
But Pickard’s road here wasn’t quite like his predecessors — or his current goalie teammate.
Pickard was drafted by Colorado in the second round at No. 49 in the 2010 NHL draft. His first and only season as a starter for the Avalanche was in 2016-17, when he filled in for injured Semyon Varlamov.
Colorado exposed him that summer in the expansion draft and Pickard was selected by Vegas, with the idea he’d be Fleury’s backup. But the Golden Knights also selected Malcom Subban off waivers and put him behind Fleury instead. Pickard was then put on waivers and picked up by the Toronto Maple Leafs, who sent him to the minors.
From there, the New Brunswick, Canada, native kept moving around, waived by Toronto and then Philadelphia before a brief stint in Arizona. In July 2019, Pickard signed as a free agent with the Detroit Red Wings — his fifth team in two years — and still couldn’t take hold in the NHL. He toggled between the Red Wings and the American Hockey League for three seasons.
In July 2022, Pickard arrived in Edmonton … sort of. He signed a two-year, two-way deal with the club and spent his first season in the AHL. Pickard finally saw sustained NHL play the next season as the Oilers grappled with struggling starter Jack Campbell, giving Pickard his most games in the league (23) since 2016-17. That was enough to keep him on as Skinner’s backup this season.
The rest, as they say, is history. Pickard’s patience through the process has impressed those teammates now relying on him to pull them through to a Cup title.
“He’s been doing this for a long time, he has a ton of experience and been to a lot of different dressing rooms,” Kane said. “That can help you along when you do come on to different teams, making a little bit of an easier transition. Now you’re just seeing that off-ice translate on to the ice with his performance, and how much he’s helped us to where we are here today … in the Stanley Cup Final.”
If people weren’t paying attention to Pickard when he stepped in for Skinner against the Kings, there’s no doubt all eyes are on him now. It’s attention that Pickard has earned.
“[Pickard is] someone who’s just kind of stuck with it all along and he’s been a true pro and a great person all the way through,” Edmonton captain Connor McDavid said. “I think good people get rewarded and he works as hard as I’ve seen. Couldn’t be more deserving.”
KNOBLAUCH ISN’T ONE to be rushed.
He has been cagey about naming a starter throughout the Final. That will hold true again for Game 6.
“[It’s] a conversation with the staff, obviously our goaltending coach, Dustin Schwartz, but with all the assistants, the general manager,” Knoblauch said. “[We’ll] kind of weigh in how everyone feels and what’s best moving forward. It’s not an easy decision. We’ve got two goalies that have shown that they can play extremely well, win hockey games and we feel that no matter who we choose, they can win the game.”
Pickard’s numbers in the series (.878 SV%, 2.88 GAA) are stronger than Skinner’s (.860 SV%, 4.20 GAA) and they are on par for the entire postseason (Pickard holds an .886 SV% and 2.85 GAA to Skinner’s .891 SV% and 2.99 GAA). Their records, though, are quite different: 7-1 for Pickard, 7-6 for Skinner.
So, who gives the Oilers their best chance to win Game 6 and drag Florida back to Edmonton for a second straight Game 7 finale between these teams in the Cup Final?
If Pickard does get the call, it will be a culmination of 10 years of consistent effort to be trusted when there’s no tomorrow. There’s only the present moment — where the right backup goalie has always been trained to stay ready.
1:26
Weekes perplexed by Oilers: ‘They look like a shell of themselves’
Kevin Weekes calls out the energy level by the Oilers in their Game 5 loss to the Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final.
The San Francisco Giants acquired three-time All-Star Rafael Devers from the Boston Red Sox on Sunday in a stunning trade that sent a player Boston once considered a franchise cornerstone to a San Francisco team needing an offensive infusion.
Boston received left-handed starter Kyle Harrison, right-hander Jordan Hicks, outfield prospect James Tibbs III and Rookie League right-hander Jose Bello.
The Red Sox announced the deal Sunday evening.
The Giants will cover the remainder of Devers’ contract, which runs through 2033 and will pay him more than $250 million, sources told ESPN.
The trade ends the fractured relationship between Devers and the Red Sox that had degraded since spring training, when Devers balked at moving off third base — the position where he had spent his whole career — after the signing of free agent Alex Bregman. The Red Sox gave no forewarning to Devers, who expressed frustration before relenting and agreeing to be their designated hitter.
After a season-ending injury to first baseman Triston Casas in early May, the Red Sox asked Devers to move to first base. Devers declined, suggesting the front office “should do their jobs” and find another player after the organization told him during spring training he would be the DH for the remainder of the season. The day after Devers’ comments, Red Sox owner John Henry, president Sam Kennedy and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow flew to Kansas City, where Boston was playing, to talk with Devers.
In the weeks since, Devers’ refusal to play first led to internal tension and helped facilitate the deal, sources said.
San Francisco pounced — and added a force to an offense that ranks 15th in runs scored in Major League Baseball. Devers, 28, is hitting .272/.401/.504 with 15 home runs and 58 RBIs, tied for the third most in MLB. Over his nine-year career, Devers is hitting .279/.349/.509 with 215 home runs and 696 RBIs in 1,053 games.
Boston believed enough in Devers to give him a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension in January 2023. He rewarded the Red Sox with a Silver Slugger Award that season and made his third All-Star team in 2024.
Whether he slots in at designated hitter or first base with San Francisco — the Giants signed Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman to a six-year, $151 million deal last year — is unknown. But San Francisco sought Devers more for his bat, one that immediately makes the Giants — who are fighting for National League West supremacy with the Los Angeles Dodgers — a better team.
To do so, the Giants gave a package of young talent and took on the contract that multiple teams’ models had as underwater.
Harrison, 23, is the prize of the deal, particularly for a Red Sox team replete with young hitting talent but starving for young pitching. Once considered one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, Harrison has shuttled between San Francisco and Triple-A Sacramento this season.
Harrison, who was scratched from a planned start against the Dodgers on Sunday night, has a 4.48 ERA over 182⅔ innings since debuting with the Giants in 2023. He has struck out 178, walked 62 and allowed 30 home runs. The Red Sox optioned Harrison to Triple-A Worcester after the trade was announced.
Hicks, 28, who has toggled between starter and reliever since signing with the Giants for four years and $44 million before the 2024 season, is on the injured list because of right toe inflammation. One of the hardest-throwing pitchers in baseball, Hicks has a 6.47 ERA over 48⅔ innings this season. He could join the Red Sox’s ailing bullpen, which Breslow has sought to upgrade.
Tibbs, 22, was selected by the Giants with the 13th pick in last year’s draft out of Florida State. A 6-foot, 200-pound corner outfielder, Tibbs has spent the season at High-A, where he has hit .245/.377/.480 with 12 home runs and 32 RBIs in 56 games. Scouts laud his command of the strike zone — he has 41 walks and 45 strikeouts in 252 plate appearances — but question whether his swing will translate at higher levels.
Bello, 20, has spent the season as a reliever for the Giants’ Rookie League affiliate. In 18 innings, he has struck out 28 and walked three while posting a 2.00 ERA.
The deal is the latest in which Boston shipped a player central to the franchise.
Boston traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers in February 2020, just more than a year after leading Boston to a franchise-record 108 wins and a World Series title and winning the American League MVP Award.
Devers was part of that World Series-winning team in 2018 and led the Red Sox in RBIs each season from 2020 to 2024, garnering AL MVP votes across each of the past four years. Devers had been with the Red Sox since 2013, when he signed as an international amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic. He debuted four years later at age 20.
Boston is banking on its young talent to replace Devers’ production. The Red Sox regularly play four rookies — infielders Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer, outfielder Roman Anthony and catcher Carlos Narvaez — and infielder Franklin Arias and outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia are expected to contribute in the coming years.
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