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LAS VEGAS — Just when it appeared that the Vegas Golden Knights finally found an opening in overtime, their chances of winning Game 2 were quickly shut down in controversial fashion.

It wasn’t that the Golden Knights were overlooking what it means to be in a 2-0 series hole following a 5-4 overtime loss Thursday to the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals at T-Mobile Arena.

They were more concerned with what they saw, and what they didn’t see from referee Gord Dwyer just 17 seconds before Leon Draisaitl‘s game-winning goal gave the Oilers their first 2-0 series lead since 2017.

Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb was going toward for the puck when Edmonton winger Viktor Arvidsson‘s stick got between McNabb’s legs, which sent McNabb into the boards. The play wasn’t ruled a penalty, and it led to the Oilers eventually going into transition before Draisaitl converted a 2-on-1 chance for the winner.

“It’s pretty clear it’s a penalty,” Golden Knights captain Mark Stone said. “His stick is between McNabb’s legs, and he sends him headfirst into the boards. It’s a pretty clear-cut penalty in my eyes and I think everybody’s eyes, right? But that’s hockey. You don’t always get the calls.”

Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy was a bit more direct about what he saw on the McNabb play.

“Listen, Gord’s looking at it. He blew it. He missed the call,” Cassidy said. “I don’t know what else to say. It’s a can-opener trip, it’s a dangerous play, it’s all those things. But it didn’t get called, so you’ve got to keep playing.”

Cassidy said he didn’t have an immediate update on McNabb’s status for Game 3 on Saturday in Edmonton. If he were to miss Game 3, it would leave the Golden Knights without one of their most important players.

McNabb, who was part of their Stanley Cup-winning team in 2023, is one of their top-pairing options and also a crucial piece of a penalty kill that had a significant role in how the Golden Knights survived so late in overtime.

An urgently aggressive Golden Knights team kept pushing to start the first period before forward Victor Olofsson opened with his first-ever playoff goal on the power play in the first period. Three consecutive goals from Oilers trio Jake Walman, Vasily Podkolzin and Darnell Nurse gave them a 3-1 lead. Golden Knights forward William Karlsson scored late in the second to cut it to 3-2.

Oilers forward Evander Kane doubled the lead to 4-2 within the first two minutes of the third before Olofsson’s second, also on the power play, less than three minutes later again cut the lead to a single goal. The Golden Knights forced overtime when alternate captain and star defenseman Alex Pietrangelo fired a shot from distance with 8:02 remaining in regulation.

Vegas had two chances in the final 30 seconds, only to have them both stopped by Edmonton goaltender Calvin Pickard, who finished with 28 saves, before heading to overtime.

Olofsson had a chance at a game-winning hat trick with a point-blank chance with 18:45 remaining before Nurse’s stick stopped him from having a clean shot.

“Definitely had a lot of good looks, and I think we could have had a couple more goals,” Olofsson said of a Golden Knights team that finished with 19 high-danger scoring chances.

Natural Stat Trick’s metrics show that Vegas’ shot-share in overtime was 66.7%. But even in a period in which they controlled possession, there was a moment when they nearly lost their grip.

Golden Knights forward Nicolas Roy received a five-minute major for cross-checking after his stick connected with Trent Frederic’s face. Roy appeared as if he was trying to play a puck in midair, only to then strike Frederic, which sent the Oilers on the power play.

The NHL’s No. 12 power-play unit in the regular season, the Oilers had a few chances on net but were either stopped by Golden Knights goaltender Adin Hill or had their chances broken up by an aggressive forecheck that allowed them to go through unscathed.

With a pair of power-play goals already, the Golden Knights believed they could have added a third once McNabb went into the boards.

Instead? They watched the Oilers regroup, Draisaitl get on a 2-on-1 and beat Hill for the win.

“This one will sting,” Cassidy said. “But the positives tomorrow will be good. I felt that we outplayed the Oilers for the most part and deserved a better fate. How the guys look at that? If they take it as, ‘We just gotta carry that over’ — we both said we wanted to get better as the series went on and we were certainly better than Game 1. So, we’ll improve on today if we want to get back into it.”

Going back to their first campaign in the 2017-18 season, the Golden Knights have made the playoffs in all but one year. Throughout that time, they’ve been in a 2-0 series hole once, against the Colorado Avalanche in a second-round series back in 2021.

The Golden Knights would come back to win that series with four consecutive victories.

“I liked our game today; we had a lot of good chances,” said Stone, who is one of nine players who remain from that team in 2021. “We put up four goals, and usually when you score four goals, you’re going to win a playoff game. Unfortunately, we didn’t. You can’t get down, you got to go to Edmonton tomorrow, get ready for Saturday night’s game and put your best foot forward and get a win.”

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Jays knock out Yankees, reach 1st ALCS since ’16

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Jays knock out Yankees, reach 1st ALCS since '16

NEW YORK — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer each drove in a run, and eight Toronto pitchers shut down the New York Yankees in a 5-2 victory Wednesday night that sent the Blue Jays to the American League Championship Series for the first time in nine years.

Nathan Lukes provided a two-run single and Addison Barger had three of Toronto’s 12 hits as the pesky Blue Jays, fouling off tough pitches and consistently putting the ball in play, bounced right back after blowing a five-run lead in Tuesday night’s loss at Yankee Stadium.

AL East champion Toronto took the best-of-five Division Series 3-1 and will host Game 1 in the best-of-seven ALCS on Sunday against the Detroit Tigers or Seattle Mariners.

Those teams are set to decide their playoff series Friday in Game 5 at Seattle.

Ryan McMahon homered for the wild-card Yankees, unable to stave off elimination for a fourth time this postseason as they failed to repeat as AL champions.

Despite a terrific playoff performance from Aaron Judge following his previous October troubles, the 33-year-old star slugger remains without a World Series ring. New York is still chasing its 28th title and first since 2009.

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Cubs use 4-run 1st inning to keep season alive

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Cubs use 4-run 1st inning to keep season alive

CHICAGO — If the Chicago Cubs could just start the game over every inning, they might get to the World Series.

For the third consecutive game in their National League Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, they scored runs in the first, only this time it was enough to squeak out a 4-3 win and stave off elimination. All four of their runs came in the opening inning.

“I’m going to tell our guys it’s the first inning every inning tomorrow,” manager Craig Counsell said with a smile after the game. “I think that’s our best formula right now, offensively.”

The Cubs scored three runs in the first inning in Game 2 but lost 7-3. They also scored first in Game 1, thanks to a Michael Busch homer, but lost 9-3. Busch also homered to lead off the bottom of the first in Game 3 on Wednesday after the Cubs got down 1-0. He became the first player in MLB history to hit a leadoff home run in two postseason games in the same series.

“From the moment I was placed in that spot, I thought why change what I do, just have a good at-bat, stay aggressive, trust my eyes,” Busch said.

Counsell added: “You can just tell by the way they manage the game, he’s become the guy in the lineup that everybody is thinking about and they’re pitching around him, and that’s a credit to the player. It really is.”

Going back to the regular season, Busch has seven leadoff home runs this season in just 54 games while batting first.

The Cubs weren’t done in Wednesday’s opening inning, as center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong came through with the bases loaded for a second time this postseason. In the wild-card round against the San Diego Padres last week, he singled home a run with a base hit. He did one better Wednesday, driving two in on a two-out single to right. That chased Chicago-area native Quinn Priester from the game and gave the Cubs a lead they would never relinquish.

“I’m pretty fortunate in a couple of these elimination games to just have pretty nice opportunities in front of me with guys on base, and I think that makes this job just a little bit easier sometimes,” Crow-Armstrong said.

Crow-Armstrong is known as a free swinger, but batting with the bases loaded gives him the opportunity to get a pitch in the strike zone. He made the most of it — though that would be the last big hit of the game for the Cubs. The eventual winning run scored moments later on a wild pitch.

“I thought we played with that urgency, especially in the first — we just did a great job in the first inning,” Counsell said. “We had really good at-bats.”

The Cubs sent nine men to the plate in the first while seeing 53 pitches, the most pitches seen by a team in the first inning of a playoff game since 1988, when pitch-by-pitch data began being tracked.

“We had more chances today than Game 2 but couldn’t get the big hit [later],” left fielder Ian Happ said. “That’ll come.”

The Cubs were down 1-0 after an unusual call. With runners on first and second in the top of the first, Brewers catcher William Contreras popped the ball up between the pitcher’s mound and first base but Busch couldn’t track the ball in the sun. The umpires did not call for the infield fly rule as it dropped safely, allowing runners to advance and the batter reach first base. Moments later, Christian Yelich scored on a sacrifice fly.

“The basic thing that we look for is ordinary effort,” umpire supervisor Larry Young told a pool reporter. “We don’t make that determination until the ball has reached its apex — the height — and then starts to come down.

“When it reached the height, the umpires determined that the first baseman wasn’t going to make a play on it, the middle infielder [Nico Hoerner] raced over and he wasn’t going to make a play on it, so ordinary effort went out the window at that point.”

The Brewers chipped away after getting down in that first inning but fell short in a big moment in the eighth when they loaded the bases following a leadoff double by Jackson Chourio. Cubs reliever Brad Keller shut the door, striking out Jake Bauers to end the threat.

Keller pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning to earn the save and keep the Cubs’ season alive. They are down 2-1 in the best-of-five series. Game 4 is Thursday night.

“That was a lot of fun to get in there and get four outs and come away with a win,” Keller said. “That was such a team effort there. We’re looking forward to doing it again tomorrow.”

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Báez leads Tigers breakout; Skubal on tap for G5

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Báez leads Tigers breakout; Skubal on tap for G5

DETROIT — For weeks, the Tigers have teetered on the edge of seeing their once promising season come to an abrupt stop. With an offensive breakout occurring just in time Wednesday, Detroit now finds itself in the position it hoped to be all along.

Javier Báez homered, stole a base and drove in four runs, leading a midgame offensive surge as the Tigers beat the Seattle Mariners 9-3 in Game 4 and evened the American League Division Series at 2-2.

Riley Greene hit his first career postseason homer, breaking a 3-3 tie to begin a four-run rally in the sixth that was capped by Báez’s two-run shot to left. Gleyber Torres also homered for Detroit, which had hit just two homers in six games this postseason entering Wednesday.

“I’m proud of our guys because today’s game was symbolic of how we roll, you know?” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “It’s a lot of different guys doing something positive, multiple guys.”

After Seattle grabbed an early 3-0 lead, the Tigers plated three runs in the fifth to tie the score. Báez capped the rally with a 104 mph single a couple of pitches after he just missed a homer on a moon shot that soared just outside the left-field foul pole.

“We knew we had a lot of baseball left, a lot of innings left to play,” Báez said. “We believe, and we’re never out of it until that last out is made.”

Báez is hitting .346 in the postseason with a team-high nine hits, stirring memories of when he helped lead the Chicago Cubs to the 2016 World Series crown. These playoffs have been a high point of Báez’s Detroit career and continue a resurgent season after he hit .221 over his first three seasons with the Tigers.

“World Series champion all those years ago,” Torres said. “He knows how to play in those situations. I’m not surprised but just really happy. Everything he does for the team is really special.”

The Tigers flirted with disaster in the fourth inning when the Mariners loaded the bases with no outs after Hinch pulled starter Casey Mize, who struck out six over three innings, and inserted reliever Tyler Holton.

Kyle Finnegan came on to limit the Mariners to one run in the inning, keeping the game in play and setting the table for what had been an ailing offense. The comeback from the three-run deficit tied the largest postseason rally in Tigers history, a mark set three times before. The record was first set in the 1909 World Series.

Detroit entered the day hitting .191 during the playoffs, with homers accounting for just 17% of its run production. During the regular season, that number was 42%.

“I think hitting is contagious and not hitting is also kind of contagious, too,” said Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson, who chipped in with two hits and a run. “It’s a crazy game that we decided to play, but that’s why I love it so much.”

The deciding Game 5 is Friday in Seattle, and the ebullient Tigers rejoiced knowing who they have lined up to take the hill: reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, who has a 1.84 ERA with 23 strikeouts over 14⅔ innings in two starts this postseason.

After everything — the Tigers’ late-season swoon that cost them a huge lead in the AL Central and the offensive struggles during the playoffs that hadn’t quite yet knocked them out of the running — Detroit is one win from the ALCS, with the game’s best pitcher ready to take the ball.

“This is what competition is all about,” Skubal said. “This is why you play the game, for Game 5s. I think that’s going to bring out the best in everyone involved. That’s why this game is so beautiful.”

It’s the scenario the Tigers would have drawn up before the season, but even so, they know they can’t take Skubal’s consistent dominance for granted. Everyone can use a little help.

“We’re confident,” Torres said. “We know who is pitching that last game for us. But we can’t put all the effort on him.”

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