Battle Of The Top Rookies Take 2
For the second and last time this season, the Montreal Canadiens will take on the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night at the Bell Centre. The two sides met earlier this month, and the Habs came out on top in a 4-3. Once again, it will be a battle between the two top rookies in the league, as Lane Hutson currently leads the race to the highest-scoring rookie with 43 points, with Macklin Celebrini trailing by one point.
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In the last duel, the Sharks rookie notched a point and an assist while the Canadiens blueliner could only muster a power play helper. The Californian outfit has won six of the last 10 duels between the two teams, but it has a 1-7-2 record in its previous 10 contests and hasn't won a single game in February. Its last triumph was on Jan. 27, when it signed a 2-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Canadiens didn't practice today, so there's no indication yet as to Josh Anderson's availability after he collided at full speed with the boards in Tuesday's game, but no one has been called up from the Laval Rocket yet.
Samuel Montembeault has been in net for the Canadiens' last two games, so it wouldn't be surprising to see Jakub Dobes step between the pipes on Thursday night. Montembeault was on duty when the two teams met earlier this month and has a 2-1-0 record against them with a 2.74 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage. As for Dobes, he has never taken on the Sharks but has a 5-2-1 record this season with a 2.71 GAA and a .908 SP.
Vitek Vanecek was in the net for the Sharks on their last game on Monday night, but there's no word yet on who will handle the net for San Jose on Thursday night. He's 3-1-0 against the Habs with a 2.76 GAA and a .894 SP. As for Alexandar Georgiev, he's 4-6-0 when facing Montreal with a 3.33 GAA and a .893 SP.
#Habs Lane Hutson uses Juraj Slafkovsky as screen for PP goal vs #Hurricanes Assists: Laine#GoHabsGo #NHL #Hockey @RocketSports pic.twitter.com/GUWrkfzGJa
— Chris G (@ChrisHabs360) February 26, 2025
Former Hab Tyler Toffoli is the Sharks' most prolific scorer against la Sainte-Flanelle with 20 points in 21 games, followed by Alex Wennberg, who has 14 points in 22 tilts, and Colin White, who has 12 in 26 dates.
On the Canadiens' side, Christian Dvorak leads the Canadiens in the points department when taking on the Sharks with 14 points in 25 games, Patrik Laine is in second place with 10 in 13 contests, and Anderson wraps up the top three with eight in 12 games.
With just four games left in the Canadiens' calendar until the trade deadline, there's a chance some players could be taking their last strides wearing the bleu, blanc, rouge…
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OAKMONT, Pa. — Bryson DeChambeau is a nerdy golfing colossus with two major championships, a booming YouTube channel and the leader of the free world on speed dial. A near-pariah not long ago for his brash confidence and his role in splintering the sport, he's now the closest thing golf has to a transcendent star, with the supernatural ability to both hit golf balls and schmooze with virtually anyone. But what if he wasn't a golfer? 'He might be trying to put people on Mars,' suggested Chris Parra, one of his college coaches at SMU. 'People say it's uninhabitable, right? He'd want prove them wrong. He loves proving people wrong.' That's one hypothesis. Another: 'I've always said if he didn't have this, he'd be a cocaine addict on the side of a road somewhere,' his estranged childhood coach, Mike Schy, said with a laugh. 'A lot of people forget that he was a physics major — one of the hardest majors you could probably do. 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During this year's Masters, he couldn't sleep one night and wandered onto the backyard putting green of a local couple, striking up a conversation with strangers and working on his short game under floodlights. He golfs with President Donald Trump and recently chipped balls at the White House. He put his name on a lawsuit against the PGA Tour after jumping to Saudi-backed LIV Golf, and yet three years later he's usually the biggest draw on the course. His galleries are often packed several people deep, as though a pop star has arrived at the green. 'It's amazing to watch the number of people and the way he's reacting to the fans these days,' said Kevin Kisner, a fellow pro player and a part-time analyst for NBC Sports. 'And I think the transformation is amazing. I commend him for realizing that he needed to probably change that. And a lot of guys don't take the time or the effort to do it.' Watch one of his rounds up close, and you'll see a man enthusiastic about everything, a dog surrounded by squirrels. He appears genuinely curious about his playing partners, eager to discuss business, golf equipment, favorite courses, funny YouTube videos. He introduces himself to tournament volunteers, course workers and caddies. He shakes hands and bumps fists. He compliments swings, celebrates made putts and offers occasional tips. He doesn't change off-camera — or perhaps is so accustomed to the spotlight that he acts as though the camera is always on. 'Hi. What's your name? Beautiful name,' he told a young girl during a recent round. He is a spring-loaded cannon in the tee box and a soft-handed artist on the green. During a practice round, he likes to dig deep into the toolbox: buried lies, flop shots, U-turn putts to imaginary hole locations. He's prone to checking his phone and doesn't shy away from banter. 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'It just became a bit of an obsession of 'How do I get better than others?'' he said. '… I definitely lost a lot of my childhood practicing golf, but I wouldn't change it for the world.' The preoccupation was mixed with a yearning to please and a drive to experiment. Schy and DeChambeau worked on a single-plane swing — where the club head stays on a fluid path from backswing to impact. They adopted irons with single-length shafts and paired them with large grips. Later Schy introduced DeChambeau to his beloved Krank driver. 'He seeks validation,' Schy said. 'He wants to win and to be the best. But it has to be different. He has to able to say: 'Nobody's doing this. I'm the only one.' That's always, always been his quest.' DeChambeau often referred to Schy as a second father, but the two had a falling-out shortly after the golfer won the U.S. Open last June at Pinehurst. Schy felt he wasn't properly recognized and went public saying DeChambeau wasn't holding up his end of a deal to fund a junior tour in California named after DeChambeau's late father, Jon. DeChambeau's camp denied this, and his agent said Schy tried to extort $2 million from the golfer after the U.S. Open, a charge Schy denies. 'It's an unfortunate situation,' DeChambeau said at last year's British Open. 'I've loved that man for all of my life.' Schy said he's still rooting for DeChambeau and hopes the two can reconcile. 'I think I've learned over the years that this is all a never-ending journey,' Schy said, 'and the goal is to hopefully try to keep improving — not only as a golfer but my hope would be that he'd improve as a person.' Said DeChambeau: 'Mike has been an inspiration and incredible for me growing up as a kid to just practice and do what I needed to do to get better. He may not have had all the answers, but he led me toward the right answers, and I learned that work ethic was the most important thing.' A decade ago, DeChambeau had just won an NCAA championship and was on the verge of winning the U.S. Amateur. He was 21 and about to become just the fifth player to win both titles in the same year, a list that includes Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson and Woods. A reporter asked, 'What do you view as your role in golf moving forward?' Even then, audacity was among the biggest tools in DeChambeau's bag. He responded, 'I hope that I can honestly revolutionize the game of golf in a unique way — in a way that tells everybody, 'Do it your own way.'' In retrospect, he was signaling to the golf world just what kind of disrupter he would become. He breaks down courses, equipment and his own mechanics unlike anyone else, constantly searching for an edge. 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