Sports Al Dente

Buffalo Sabres center Dylan Cozens had just finished a tough summer training session when he and trainer Ben McPherson went out into the Yukon wilderness to fish.

“I know the spot,” McPherson remembered Cozens saying. Within 10 minutes of casting his line, Cozens caught a big one.

“He probably had that thing on the line for 40 minutes, and remember, he just had a workout before that, deadlifts and hinges. And he’s doing the same thing with the fish,” McPherson said. “He was exhausted by the end of it, a 40-something-pound lake trout. … It was like the biggest fish I’ve ever seen.”

That moment from two summers ago has stuck with McPherson because it shows the determination Cozens brings to everything he does — training, fishing, hockey.

“Competitive, like, he wants the biggest fish in the lake,” McPherson said before sharing a picture of Cozens’ catch.

Maybe there’s something special in Yukon’s fresh waters that helps this remote Canadian territory — known for the Klondike gold rush — produce NHL-caliber talent.

At the 2019 NHL draft in Vancouver, Cozens was selected 7th overall by Buffalo, making him the first Yukoner picked in the first round. Now in his fifth NHL season, he is a well-known top-line, two-way player with 66 goals and 166 points in 282 games.

Gavin McKenna, who is also from Yukon’s capital of Whitehorse, is just 16 and is already expected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft. In his first full season with the WHL’s Medicine Hat, McKenna scored 34 goals and had 97 points in 61 games, earning the Canadian Hockey League rookie of the year award.

“We’re seeing more and more competitive players come out of there, so it’s really awesome to see,” said Cozens, who is 23. “I think I put Yukon on the map, but Gavin’s going to really put it on the map.”

McKenna’s father, Willy, proudly mentioned how Whitehorse could become the Cole Harbour of the north, referring to the Nova Scotia hometown of Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby and Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon.

“It’s the long winters that the kids have here, and their access to backyard rinks,” he added, while praising Cozens for showing what was possible.

“He kind of paved the way for Gavin, even though Gavin would have tried his hardest regardless,” he said. “It definitely gave Gavin a little more hope.”

The two players know each other, as McKenna is friends with Cozens’ younger brother Luke. They share the same trainer. Both spent their long, dark winter days skating on backyard rinks built by their fathers and left Whitehorse young to pursue their dreams of playing hockey.

Cozens moved to suburban Vancouver at 14, two years after he broke his tibia and fibula when he crashed into the boards during a game against older players. McKenna was 12 when he left to attend a hockey academy in Kelowna, British Columbia.

His father became emotional, recalling how his son arrived with a broken wrist and then broke the other wrist during his first practice.

“That’s why it kind of breaks me up a bit because …” McKenna said, pausing to gather his thoughts. “You know, any normal kid would have just said, ‘I want to go home,’ which he didn’t do. … I think going through that and being on his own, he probably proved to himself, ‘Yeah, I can do it.’”

Gavin McKenna credits his family and the Whitehorse community, which supported him when he held raffles and fundraisers to help cover the costs of flying out of town 12 to 18 times a year for hockey.

“I do my best to give back to the community, helping with hockey camps for the younger kids coming out,” said McKenna, who is also proud of his Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin First Nation heritage. “I want to be a big motivator for Indigenous people and young athletes to believe in themselves and hopefully influence them and their dreams and their goals.”

Cozens remembers the friends and family members who made the 2 1/2-hour flight to attend the 2019 draft. Whitehorse has since developed a Sabres fanbase, where most bars show Buffalo games and have a Cozens jersey hanging on the wall.

In the second year of a seven-year, $49.7 million contract, Cozens has bought a new boat and a piece of land with a great view of Kluane National Park and Reserve. Returning home each offseason lets Cozens reconnect with nature and refresh his mind.

Cozens arrived in Buffalo last month determined to help turn around a team that has struggled with a 13-year playoff drought, the worst in the NHL.

Thinking about the fight to land the lake trout, Cozens recalled the relief and sense of achievement he felt when he finally caught the fish. He believes it will feel similar to bringing success back to Buffalo.

“I know that day we win the Stanley Cup, it’ll be so much excitement, so much, but also a life-long goal achieved,” Cozens said.

In other words, he has even bigger goals to achieve. “Always,” Cozens said.

Dallas Stars coach Pete DeBoer has been cleared to return to the ice just before the team’s season opener after recovering from an appendectomy.

“I got (the) green light to get on the ice Wednesday and then coach going forward,” DeBoer said.

The Stars are set to practice Wednesday in Nashville, a day before their season opener against the Predators. The team traveled there on Tuesday.

DeBoer mentioned that he experienced some minor complications during his recovery from the surgery two weeks ago, which was just a few days into training camp.

This was the first time DeBoer, who is entering his third season with Dallas and 17th as an NHL head coach, had missed any part of camp.

“I feel pretty good,” he said. “A little more and a little longer than I thought it was going to be.”

Dallas also has back leading scorer Jason Robertson, who had surgery on July 30 to remove a cyst from his foot. He started skating at the beginning of camp and practiced on his own until joining the team last week.

Robertson was the Stars’ top scorer while playing every game for the past two seasons, helping them reach the Western Conference Final both times. The 25-year-old forward recorded 80 points (29 goals and a team-high 51 assists) last season.

DeBoer rejoined the team on Monday, when he led the video session. He expressed excitement about getting back on the ice.

During his time away, DeBoer kept in touch with his coaching staff and watched the Stars’ exhibition games through the team’s new VICTORY+ streaming service.

“As a returning coach with the great staff we have, it really was seamless,” he said.

Aleksander Barkov finished last season by lifting the Stanley Cup, bringing joy to Florida Panthers fans. This season began in a similar way.

Barkov, the Panthers’ captain, brought the Cup onto the ice Tuesday night just before Florida raised its first championship banner to the rafters. The players stood together, admiring the new addition to the arena. After the banner was lifted, they posed with the Cup one last time before kicking off the new season against the Boston Bruins.

“Now we get to try to chase it again,” Barkov said.

During warmups, the giant video screens showed Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, and fans cheered when Sam Reinhart scored the go-ahead goal, getting even louder when the final seconds played.

The biggest cheer came during the final part of the Cup celebration when the banner was officially placed in the rafters. Florida delighted the fans by scoring four goals in the first period and defeating the Bruins 6-4.

“I kind of felt like that was the closing to last season,” said Florida forward Evan Rodrigues. “It was cool to see that go up. And then we kind of flipped the page immediately and we got to our game.”

The pregame ceremony wrapped up three and a half months of celebrating the franchise’s first title. On Monday, players, coaches, and some staff received their championship rings in a private ceremony.

On Tuesday, they looked up as the banner was raised. Additionally, 158 season-ticket holders, called “legacy members,” who have held tickets since the franchise’s start, also received replica rings.

“The fans will really enjoy the banner,” said Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe, who scored the first goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final to help Florida beat Edmonton 2-1 for the title on June 24. “Looking up there, I guess if you need a little inspiration, you just look up there and see what we accomplished.”

For the championship banner, the Panthers chose a design with a white background, featuring the words “Stanley Cup Champions” in red at the top and “2024” in red at the bottom, with an image of the Cup in the center above the team’s logo.

It was raised over the end of the ice where Florida kept the puck pinned along the boards as the final seconds of Game 7 ticked away, leading to a championship celebration 30 years in the making.

The other banners from last season, which celebrate the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference titles, were already hanging in the rafters. These were alongside two other conference title banners, three for division championships, and one for winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the best regular-season team in 2021-22.

It was a joyful summer for Florida as the Cup toured the homes of many players, allowing them to share it with friends and family.

This celebration began with a parade that drew around 300,000 people who braved thunderstorms and heavy rain. The Cup made many appearances in South Florida and other areas in the weeks that followed.

While it was a fun time, Panthers general manager and hockey operations president Bill Zito believes it’s time to shift focus to a new season. He thinks the players started doing this weeks ago, even before training camp began.

“I think, at least for me, I’m already there,” Zito said. “I’m just so excited for an NHL game tonight. I can tell you, I thought that yesterday before the rings.

And then when I opened the box, it was one of those surreal moments. We used the word ‘speechless.’ I was speechless. And it was pretty neat to have that happen.”

Before the banner was raised, a highlight video showed the key moments from last season’s journey to the championship. Then, the first game of the new season went exactly as Florida hoped.

“There was great energy in the building tonight,” said Panthers coach Paul Maurice.

The Colorado Avalanche are facing a lot of uncertainty as they get ready for their season opener.

First, they don’t know when Val Nichushkin will be back from his suspension. They are also unclear about when captain Gabriel Landeskog (knee) and Artturi Lehkonen (shoulder) will return to the ice. Additionally, it’s uncertain whether a deal will be made to keep Mikko Rantanen and Alexandar Georgiev with the team beyond this season.

What is clear is that expectations are still high for a team that won the Stanley Cup in 2022.

“We have our challenges,” said general manager Chris MacFarland, whose team starts the season Wednesday night in Vegas. “But I don’t want us to wait for the cavalry. I want us to be ready to go day one with the guys we have.”

The Avalanche have achieved over 50 wins for three consecutive seasons. This streak might be tested due to their current situation. However, they still have reigning league MVP Nathan MacKinnon and standout defenseman Cale Makar to rely on.

MacFarland mentioned that Nichushkin might return as soon as the end of the month, but there is no exact timeline for when he can join the team, even though his suspension could end by mid-November.

Last May, Nichushkin was suspended for at least six months without pay and entered stage 3 of the league’s player assistance program. This was the second postseason in a row that he was unavailable due to issues off the ice.

“Val’s doing well, first and foremost,” MacFarland said Tuesday. “All the reports back from the league, the program doctors, is nothing but positive, which is obviously the most important thing.”

The next step is to rebuild trust with his teammates.

“We all know people that struggle with addictions and these sort of things, and they’re tough situations,” MacFarland said. “The players, all they want to know is that Val’s healthy and that he understands the hurt that they went through, especially at playoff time.

How they do that is something I’m certainly not going to comment on. That’s personal in the room, but I can tell you this: there’s not one single player that’s not going to welcome back Val with open arms.”

As for Landeskog, he is working hard on his rehab to return after missing two consecutive seasons due to a troublesome right knee injury that required cartilage replacement surgery. He hasn’t played since lifting the Stanley Cup when the Avalanche beat Tampa Bay in Game 6 of the final in 2022.

Carter Verhaeghe is no longer waiting as a free agent. He will be with the Florida Panthers for many years.

Verhaeghe and the Panthers have agreed on an eight-year contract extension worth $56 million. The announcement came shortly after the Stanley Cup champions started their season by defeating the Boston Bruins 6-4 on Tuesday night.

“This guy’s a Florida Panther,” said general manager and hockey operations president Bill Zito. “We’re very blessed to have him.”

The two-time Cup champion, who also won with Tampa Bay, is entering his fifth season with the Panthers. Last season, he scored 42 goals and had 73 points, and the year before, he scored 34 goals and had 72 points, helping Florida win the title.

“To be a Florida Panther for this long already is a huge honor for me,” Verhaeghe said. “To even extend it longer, I’m just so grateful to the organization.”

In addition, Verhaeghe scored 11 goals in the playoffs last season, with his last goal coming in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, when Florida defeated Edmonton 2-1 for the franchise’s first title.

There were signs that a deal was close, especially during the Panthers’ championship ring ceremony on Monday night. Panthers owner Vincent Viola handed out the rings to players one by one, and when it was Verhaeghe’s turn, he received an extra message — a promise from the owner that he would stay with the team.

A day later, the deal was finalized, just as Viola had indicated before Tuesday’s game.

“It’s what I wanted,” Verhaeghe said. “It was cool. He said some really nice things to everyone. It was awesome.”

Verhaeghe is now part of the core group of Panthers players who are signed through at least 2030. This group includes Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell, and Gustav Forsling.

“It feels so good,” Verhaeghe said. “They’re like brothers to me. Last year, it felt so good to be able to win with this core. … The friendships I’ve made here are lifelong, and I’m just so proud to be a Panther.”