The Globe and Mail - 21.10.2019

MONDAY,OCTOBER21,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O B1×

Vancouver captain Bo Horvat
wanted to set the tone early after
a tough loss the previous day. He
got the Canucks started with a
needed power-play goal and they
bounced back with a big road win.
Brock Boeser and Jay Beagle
scored late in Vancouver’s three-
goal first period and the Canucks
held on to beat the New York
Rangers 3-2 on Sunday.
Elias Pettersson added two
assists for Vancouver, which
bounced back from a 1-0 loss at
New Jersey on Saturday to win for
the fifth time in six games.
“I took that onus on myself to
be the guy to get the boys going,”
Horvat said. “I was really upset
about the last game, we should
have scored more power-play
goals and we should have at least
gotten a point out of that. ...
When we do lose games, we’re
not ones to want to lose three
straight, four straight and get on
these losing skids. We want to
bounce back and have a great
game and continue winning.”

In Winnipeg, the Jets beat the

Edmonton Oilers 1-0 in a shoot-

out. The Jets improve to 5-5-0, the

Oilers fall to 7-1-1.

Canucks goalie Jacob Mark-

strom, playing for the first time

since Oct. 12, stopped 38 shots to

win his third straight start after

losing his first two.

“A little bit of redemption, but

our team played amazing, we

really did,” Beagle said. “Marky

stood on his head. It was just a

good overall win.”

Jesper Fast had a goal and an

assist, and Artemi Panarin also

scored for New York, which has

lost four straight – including

three in four days after playing

just three times in the previous 14

days. Henrik Lundqvist finished

with 40 saves. “We should be so

eager to get out there,” Lundqvist

said. “But sometimes, it’s hard to

get going. That desperation

should always be there. Especially

losing three in a row.”

Rangers coach David Quinn

shook up his lineup during Fri-

day’s 5-2 loss at Washington, mov-

ing Chris Kreider to the top line

with Panarin and Mika Zibanejad.

Pavel Buchnevich was dropped to

the second line, and rookie

Kaapo Kakko down to the third.

Buchnevich ended up on the

fourth line during the second pe-

riod but was back on the second

later in the game.

Down 3-1 after 40 minutes, the

Rangers came out aggressive in

the third and controlled much of

the play, while outshooting the

Canucks 17-6 in the final period.

WILD4,CANADIENS3

ST. PAUL, MINN. Zach Parise

scored the go-ahead goal midway

through the third period and the

Minnesota Wild won their second

game of the season, beating the

Montreal Canadiens 4-3 on Sun-

day. Jason Zucker, Marcus Foligno

and Brad Hunt also scored for

Minnesota, which matched its

highest goal total through eight

games this season. The Wild also

scored four goals in a 7-4 home

loss to Pittsburgh. Devan Dubnyk

made 29 saves and earned his first

win of the season.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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VancouverCanuckscaptainBoHorvatcelebrateshisgoalasBrettHowdenoftheRangersskatesawayduring

agameatMadisonSquareGardeninNewYorkonSunday.ANDY MARLIN/USA TODAY SPORTS

Matthews knew he had done
wrong, but there was no fixing it.
He had reignited a talking point.
That’s the other disadvantage
to Leafs captain John Tavares be-
ing out with a broken finger. He
isn’t speaking daily.
Tavares is the mortal enemy
of talking points. He has never
met one he did not end up kill-
ing.
After five minutes in Tavares’s
media presence, you begin to
wonder why humans talk at all.
Because, when he’s doing it, the
purpose certainly isn’t the order-
ly conveyance of useful informa-
tion.
Matthews is no Tavares, and
so a talking point had been al-
lowed to live.
The same bunch of hacks ran
over to coach Mike Babcock’s
presser to see if he, too, was
willing to admit as much under
pressure – Was this a statement
game?
Babcock shifted from foot to
foot.
“I don’t know about state-
ment game,” he said. “But it was
more important for our team
than it was for their team.”
Which is one definition of a
statement game.
A better one would be a game
in which Team A demoralizes
Team B. Leaves it with the im-
pression that it hasn’t just lost,
but is a loser. The two things are
distinct.
If you come up on the wrong

end of a statement game, it nags

at you. You’ll remember it later,

and may flinch at the crucial mo-

ment.

If so, what happened on Sat-

urday wasn’t a statement game.

It was a status-quo game. There

were no shocking gaffes or a lop-

sided score (it finished 4-3 in

overtime). Nobody ended up

angry or embittered. No points

were proved or disproved.

In fact, you’d be hard-pressed

to say the Leafs were the better

team. They might’ve been worse.

The second period viewed like

an extended shooting practice

for the Bruins, the goal of which

was trying to avoid putting the

puck in the net.

Toronto goalie Frederik An-

dersen was outstanding. The

Bruins didn’t start their starter. It

was a coin-toss at the end.

Boston may believe it won the

game in terms of a stat it keeps

special track of – NGR (number

of goalies run).

After David Backes pancaked

Andersen in the second period,

he went to the penalty box

smirking because the Leafs’ Mar-

tin Marincin was joining him

there. No harm, lots of foul.

Even in October, the Bruins

operate like the mafia – remind-

ing you there’s nowhere they

can’t get to you. April and May

are when they show up at your

house with a horse’s head.

All Saturday’s game proved is

how deeply the Bruins have bur-

rowed into the subconscious of

the Leafs, and how embedded

they remain there.

“It’s big,” Leafs defenceman

Morgan Rielly said afterward of

the win. It’s October. Nothing’s

big yet. The playoffs are big. Ev-

erything else is small by compar-

ison.

Nobody in Boston’s room

thought it was big. The Bruins al-

ways seem at pains to pretend

they’re bothered when they lose,

because they are so conditioned

to the idea that they will win in

the end. It’s the thing that sep-

arates talented teams (they’re all

talented) from effective teams

(few of them are effective).

Skill is not what separates To-

ronto from Boston. That mental

advantage is.

Boston spends so much time

in Toronto’s head it ought to

charge MLSE for 60 minutes of

therapy after each visit.

This sort of one-sided, obses-

sional relationship between fran-

chises is rare. Lots of teams hate

each other. But few feel so re-

laxed in their psychological

dominance of another that they

don’t seem to care what they say

or do. That’s how Boston treats

Toronto.

After the game, Boston’s hu-

man paint shaker, Brad Mar-

chand, made a point of being

seen out in the hallway just

down from the Leafs’ locker

room. He was loudly yukking it

up with pals. Still moist and a bit

dishevelled in a garish, checked

suit, Marchand looked like a

man coming out the back door

of the club after a long night out

on the lash.

If the Leafs had just released a

statement, Marchand apparently

didn’t receive a copy of it.

This is the great challenge of

the 2019-20 season. The Leafs

don’t need to figure out their line

combos or their defensive set-up

or the penalty kill. They need to

figure out how to make teams

such as the Boston Bruins take

them seriously. In fact, just Bos-

ton. Because if Boston starts, ev-

eryone else will follow.

Although it won, Toronto

didn’t do that on Saturday night.

The Leafs did rather the oppo-

site. They proved that, for now at

least, the only statements they’re

making are directed at them-

selves. Given the way they talk

about it, even they don’t seem to

believe them.

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byBoston.

CLAUS ANDERSEN/

GETTY IMAGES

China Central Television, the
state-run Chinese television net-
work, said NBA commissioner
Adam Silver would face “retribu-
tion” for saying that the Chinese
government had asked him to fire
a league executive who support-
ed the pro-democracy protests in
Hong Kong this month.
The public threat was broad-
cast on Saturday evening in a
commentary, in which CCTV also
said that “it is ugly for the presi-
dent of an internationally influ-
ential sports league to openly
make up a lie to discredit China.”
The broadcast picked up traffic in
Chinese media outlets such as the
South China Morning Post.
An NBA spokesman did not
immediately respond to a request
for comment.
The incident was the latest es-
calation in a feud that took the
league by surprise early this
month, when Daryl Morey, the
general manager of the Houston
Rockets, posted to Twitter and
quickly deleted an image sup-
portive of the demonstrators in
Hong Kong.
On Thursday, speaking at the
Time 100 Health Summit, Silver
said that the Chinesegovernment
had asked the NBA to fire Morey.
“We said there’s no chance
that’s happening,” Silver said.
“There’s no chance we’ll even dis-
cipline him.”
A spokesman for the Chinese

Foreign Ministry pushed back on

that characterization soon after,

saying at his daily news briefing

in Beijing that the Chinese gov-

ernment “never posed this re-

quirement.”

That spokesman, Geng

Shuang, had previously suggest-

ed that the NBA take action, but,

at a news briefing in the days after

Morey’s Twitter post, did not di-

rectly call for Morey’s dismissal.

“The NBA has been in co-oper-

ation with China for many years,”

Geng said. “It knows clearly in its

heart what to say and what to do.”

The commentary on CCTV re-

ferred to the demonstrators in

Hong Kong as violent mobs and

said Silver had shown he had

problems in his character. It add-

ed that, “once someone’s moral-

ity goes wrong, he will receive ret-

ribution sooner or later.”

CCTV warned that, “Freedom

of speech does not mean that it

can be arbitrary nonsense.”

Morey’s tweet, on Oct. 4,

caused an immediate backlash:

Several companies in China cut

ties with the Rockets, and CCTV

chose not to broadcast exhibition

games in Shanghai and Shenzhen

between the Los Angeles Lakers

and the Brooklyn Nets the next

week. (The league was initially

panned in the United States by

politicians across the spectrum

for not more firmly standing be-

hind Morey, pushing Silver to re-

lease a new statement days later.)

In recent days, the Chinese

government has sought to de-

escalate the tensions at the rare

intersection of sports, business,

and international and domestic

politics. Reporters at state-run

news outlets were told more than

a week ago to stop focusing on the

NBA issue.

The NBA’s partnership with

China is being threatened against

a backdrop of far broader Sino-

U.S. tensions, including a 17-

month trade war between the

United States and China and

growing disputes over security

and technology issues. Beijing

has worried that if the debate

over Morey’s tweet continues to

fester, the Hong Kong protesters

may attract support from athletes

around the world and potentially

from their fans as well.

Beijing officials have even be-

gun to fret that the Hong Kong

dispute may lead to calls for a

boycott of the 2022 Winter Olym-

pics in Beijing.

Silver said at the Time summit

on Thursday that he was uncer-

tain whether the NBA would ever

return to China, which the league

has targeted for international ex-

pansion for decades.

And the issue does not appear

to be disappearing for the league.

During a preseason game in

Brooklyn on Friday night featur-

ing the Nets and the Toronto Rap-

tors, at least 100 demonstrators

showed up to express support for

the Hong Kong protests, which

have been going on for months

targeting the centralgovernment

in Beijing.

Protesters charge that the rul-

ing Communist Party is trying to

curtail civil liberties in the semi-

autonomous territory. Joe Tsai,

the new owner of the Nets, in-

flamed the conflict soon after Mo-

rey’s tweet, when he posted an

open letter on Facebook on Oct. 6,

referring to the demonstrators in

Hong Kong as a “separatist move-

ment” while also being critical of

Morey.

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

ChinesestateTVvows‘retribution’againstNBAcommissionerSilver

SOPANDEB

REPORTONBUSINESS |

Pascal Siakam is officially a

major part of the Toronto

Raptors’ long-term plans.

The Raptors and Siakam have

agreed on a four-year, US$130-

million maximum extension, a

person with knowledge of the

situation told The Associated

Press on Saturday, speaking on

condition of anonymity because

the signing has not been publi-

cly announced.

Siakam was a breakout player

• and the league’s Most Im-
  proved Player – last season for
  the NBA champions, averaging
  career highs of 16.9 points, 6.9

rebounds and 3.1 assists. He is

entering his fourth season and

now is under contract to the

Raptors through the 2023-24

season.

Siakam was even better for

the Raptors in the playoffs last

spring, averaging 19 points and

7.1 rebounds in 24 games as

Toronto went on to win its first

title.

Siakam’s rise has been mete-

oric. He was raised as a soccer

player in his native Cameroon

before being steered toward

basketball – first getting no-

ticed at a Basketball Without

Borders camp in South Africa in

2012.

He made his way to college

at New Mexico State, wound up

as the Western Athletic Confer-

ence player of the year in his

second season and eventually

got drafted by the Raptors.

In 2017, Siakam was MVP of

the G League Finals after help-

ing Raptors 905 win that

league’s title. And now he’s a

max player, set to make US$29-

million in 2020-21 and just

more than US$35-million in the

fourth and final year of the new

deal.THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

RAPTORS,SIAKAMAGREETOO4RYEARMAXCONTRACTEXTENSION