Latest news with #EvanRodrigues
Time of India
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Evan Rodrigues' villain arc goes viral after Edmonton Oilers fans boo him and he smiles back
Some athletes shy away from the spotlight. Evan Rodrigues? He practically asked Edmonton to boo louder. During Game 2 pregame intros of the Stanley Cup Final, the Florida Panthers forward was met with loud jeers from Oilers fans and his reaction is now going viral. Instead of ignoring it, Rodrigues smirked, nodded, and soaked it all in like a villain in a hockey movie. What came next? Pure playoff carnage. Evan Rodrigues embraces the villain arc during pregame boos in Edmonton The moment Edmonton fans started booing Evan Rodrigues during his Game 2 intro, he didn't flinch, he flourished. Cameras caught the Panthers forward acknowledging the noise with a grin and a confident nod, instantly earning him "villain era" status online. Fans were living for the energy and so was he. Rodrigues' smile didn't just go viral, it triggered X (Twitter) into full playoff mode. Some fans were hyped, others confused, and a few downright unhinged (in the funniest way). One user said, 'That's the attitude 🤣,' while another joked, 'He's got a kid in his basement wtf was that lick.' Others called him 'zesty,' 'ready,' or just straight-up 'terrifying.' Then came the chirps from Oilers fans: 'Did he even play tonight?' and 'Only Toronto has a more garbage fanbase.' by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Esse novo alarme com câmera é quase gratuito em Catanduvas (consulte o preço) Alarmes Undo One fan just screamed : 'Get the video of him leaving the ice!' Whether love or hate, Rodrigues had the internet talking exactly what you want as a playoff villain. Rodrigues' reaction was part swagger, part troll, and all playoff magic. It was clear from that moment: he came to own the even compared it to classic NHL villains of the past. Edmonton fans? Well, they might be booing even harder next game but at this point, that might just be adding more fuel to Rodrigues' fire. In the playoffs, pressure builds legends and Evan Rodrigues is writing his story loud and clear. Whether it's the boos or the big goals, he's proving one thing: this is his ice too. Also read - Edmonton Oilers mix hometown ice into Rogers Place rink for Stanley Cup Final
3 days ago
- Entertainment
Evan Rodrigues discusses upcoming Stanley Cup rematch between Panthers and Oilers
Florida Panthers star Evan Rodrigues previews the upcoming Stanley Cup Final rematch between the Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Stanley Cup Final 2025: Oilers vs. Panthers prediction, odds, best bets for Game 1, series
The Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers will face off in the Stanley Cup Final for the second consecutive season, beginning Wednesday night (8 p.m. ET, TNT). The Panthers won last year's Stanley Cup in seven games, but enter this year's series as slight underdogs (+105 at BetMGM), while the Oilers are -125 favorites. The Oilers are -130 home favorites at BetMGM in Game 1, with the Panthers as +110 underdogs with a game total of six goals. Advertisement Yahoo Sports asked handicapper Josh Inglis about a few of his best bets for the Stanley Cup Final: Florida Panthers (+105) vs. Edmonton Oilers (-125) Inglis: "I like the Panthers in the series at -110 or better, but I'll take the Game 1 price here at +115. I'm not worried too much about home-ice advantage in this series as Florida has been lights out on the road in the playoffs, and the Panthers have been -160, -180 and -125 series favorites in each series where they were the road team. "This is the much deeper lineup, and the longer the playoffs go, Edmonton's depth will be exposed. Florida is still tough to match up against on the road as its third line has possibly been its best line in the playoffs." Advertisement Best bets: Panthers Game 1 ML +115, Panthers to win series +105 Inglis: "Evan Rodrigues is still undervalued in the prop market, which is spilling over into his series point markets. The winger is playing on the top line for the Panthers and the first power play. He should be -150 or shorter for a point but is priced at around +100 to get one in Game 1. "In the previous round, he tied for the team lead in points with seven. He averaged almost 18 minutes per game vs. the Hurricanes and is showing finish, as well as some play-making ability [six assists]. "I think Alex Barkov is the best bet for the Conn Smythe at +600 and that means Rodrigues is tagging along as he will play his 5-on-5 and power-play shifts all with the elite center. Even if this series is a sweep, this plus-money prop has legs." Best bet: Evan Rodrigues to record five points in the series +210
New York Times
30-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
What fuels the Panthers' Stanley Cup machine? It starts in the room
RALEIGH, N.C. — Matthew Tkachuk, without a smile on his face, rubbed his beard and spent a lot of his postgame news conference Wednesday night hardly looking like a man whose team won the Eastern Conference for a third straight year. It was Tkachuk who got the Florida Panthers' comeback started by scoring a power-play goal, then taking a big hit so he could help set up Evan Rodrigues' tying goal en route to a fourth win in five games over Carolina and a third straight Stanley Cup Final berth. Yet, Tkachuk didn't look overjoyed. He looked tired and eager for some rest, so he and his teammates could reenergize for their upcoming repeat championship bid. The Panthers have played a lot of hockey over the past three years. Three hundred and eight games to be exact. The Tampa Bay Lightning also recently reached the Cup Final in three straight seasons, but the first one was in a COVID-shortened 70-game regular season with four months off before the playoffs. The second was a COVID-shortened 56-game regular season. Advertisement And when you play this much grueling, exhaustive hockey the way the Panthers do, the hunger and excitement that it took to reach that first Stanley Cup Final two years ago and win the franchise's first Stanley Cup one year ago can dissipate. It's just natural. That's why it was so astute and mature that he immediately volunteered just what the 'new guys' meant in helping Florida reach this point. 'I think I gotta give a lot of credit to the new guys, whether they've been here for the whole year or a bit of the year, this is nothing against the guys that aren't here (anymore), but we needed that fresh blood and that fresh energy, and the guys that are fresh and hungry,' Tkachuk said. 'We're hungry coming back, obviously, but you get those new guys that help put you over the edge to get to this point. So I've got to give them a lot of credit. We wouldn't be here without them. We've got one more job.' Tkachuk isn't just talking about the Brad Marchands and Seth Joneses. He's talking about guys such as Nate Schmidt, Tomáš Nosek, A.J. Greer, Nico Sturm and probably even Jonah Gadjovich, who has his name on the Stanley Cup but didn't play any playoff games last season. Tkachuk's words epitomized why the Panthers' locker room, led by Aleksander Barkov and largely assembled by Bill Zito and his front-office staff, is so welcoming. For as many advantages as the Panthers have — their location, success and, yes, tax advantages that cause so many players to accept contracts lower than they could get on the open market — it's not easy to build such a roster in the salary cap world. There's only so much money to go around, so players have to be shuffled in and out, and it's up to Zito to find the players who will fit seamlessly with the Panthers' unparalleled culture. 'They find diamonds in the rough, and they find guys on teams that want to come win, and they manage to do it within the salary cap, which is incredible … or just above it sometimes,' said chuckling Panthers lifer Aaron Ekblad, a pending free agent who conceivably could be a casualty of the Panthers' cap situation in a month. 'But the job they do is incredible. It obviously improves our team year over year, and we're very satisfied with, obviously, the job they're doing.' Advertisement All postseason, Panthers coach Paul Maurice has thrown accolades at Zito and his staff for constantly finding fresh blood but also finding those, as Ekblad put it, 'diamonds in the rough' from other teams. Carter Verhaeghe, a Cup champion in Tampa who was a cap casualty there, took a long and winding path to being one of the league's most clutch players. The Panthers' scouts were eyeballing Niko Mikkola, whose star is rising this postseason, back when he was in St. Louis, even before he moved on to the New York Rangers for the latter part of 2022-23. Gustav Forsling, one of the best defensive defensemen in the NHL, was a waiver claim from Carolina. Zito, who is quick to credit predecessor Dale Tallon for guys such as Barkov and Sergei Bobrovsky, acquired Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart, Rodrigues and had the cojones to fire Andrew Brunette for Maurice despite winning the Presidents' Trophy, leading the league in scoring and winning Florida's first playoff round since 1997 three years ago. Zito, in a conversation with The Athletic last week, said it all starts with their pro meetings, which are run by assistant general managers Gregory Campbell, Sunny Mehta and Brent Peterson. But in the same breath, he credits everybody from advisers Paul Fenton and Rick Dudley to Roberto Luongo and VP of hockey operations Paul Krepelka. 'You'd love to be in our pro meetings,' Zito said with a wide smile. 'We do them often and they are long, great conversations. And we have a rule on the scouting side, 'Have you seen him live?' If you haven't, pass. You've got to see the games, and those guys pound it pretty hard. And, of course, there's, 'No, I didn't see them live, but I grew up with them.' 'But they're pretty thorough in how they do it. And then, the other thing is, coaches are invited to every one of our meetings. Schedules dictate that maybe they can't, but those guys are always welcome. Advertisement 'And we have great dialogue, like, 'You're such a coach. Oh my God.' But the back and forths are incredible. That's actually the fun part of the game, where you have all these great hockey minds and I just get to sit there and listen and learn, like, 'This is so cool,' you know? Even those most seasoned people like (Dudley), who has been in the game forever, get geeked out by our meetings.' But Zito says none of this could work without Barkov and the welcoming core of players inside that room. He says Barkov's almost like 'a planet.' 'If you came into the meal room, you wouldn't know who's who, you didn't know who scored the winning goal, you didn't know who didn't play,' Zito said. 'The core of this group is a function of our best players, our stars, and it starts with Sasha (Barkov). Paul's talked about this, I've talked about it, the players have talked about it. The only person who doesn't talk about it is Sasha. 'But how caring he is as a human and a teammate and how it forces you to be better. Matthew's the same in his way. Reino's the same in his way. Aaron Ekblad is the same. And Bob. Pick a guy, and they all mirror that team-first, you-first character that Sasha (has). It starts with him. I think he makes you want to be a better teammate and person.' The moment Marchand arrived, he realized just how incredible every player is treated by the organization and how every player is treated by their teammates. There is no hierarchy. Barkov and Bobrovsky are just as important as oft-playoff scratches Sturm and Jesper Boqvist and Uvis Balinskis. 'Their culture is incredible,' Marchand said. 'When you walk into a room where everyone is confident and comfortable, it allows you to just focus on yourself and your game and putting your best effort out there every night. And that's kind of what goes on in the room. They've built great chemistry in the room together. And that usually happens when you win. It's a bond that you're not really able to vocalize how close guys get when you go through a winning experience like that. And they have that. Advertisement 'It was a very, very easy group to come in and get comfortable with. You get very excited when you walk into a locker room like that and you want to buy in, you want to be part of it.' This is why Schmidt, who went to a Stanley Cup Final with Vegas but hasn't yet won, signed in Florida. 'This is exactly what I envisioned,' Schmidt said. 'It's a special room, a special place.' It sure goes hand and hand. Zito finds the players. But the players must make it work. '(Zito) found Forzy from here (in Carolina),' Tkachuk said, kiddingly, about Forsling, who was sitting to his left. 'That was a big one. Some big trades. Some big free agent signings. But I think it's all built on great guys and hard workers and guys that fit really in the style of game that we want to play here. So, each addition has been great, but you can't build a great team with bad guys. And we don't have any in there. We're so lucky to have some of the best guys in the league. I always say, nobody works harder, nobody has more fun. He's built a great culture in there.' That was reaffirmed for Zito back at the team hotel after Wednesday's game. The team had a gathering, and Maurice told Zito to look at the players. 'Our team, when you see them, it's a team,' Zito said. 'There was no way to define the tables. There's no cliques. It's everybody enjoying everybody else. (Assistant equipment manager) Train Anderson is sitting with Sasha and Chuckie. It looked like a community.' But as Panthers players pointed out over and over after Wednesday's game, winning the East again was not the objective going into this season. Winning another Cup was. Zito echoed that sentiment. He says there's a level of respect and appreciation for the Panthers getting back to this juncture for a third year in a row, but it's in tandem with hunger. 'You want to do it again,' Zito said. 'The journey isn't over.' Added Rodrigues: 'It's an accomplishment winning the conference. But I think we all knew from day one what the goal was, and that's to win the Stanley Cup. We got four more to go.'
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Panthers punch ticket to Stanley Cup Final — is Connor McDavid next?
Red Light newsletter 🏒 | This is The Athletic's hockey newsletter. Sign up here to receive Red Light directly in your inbox. Happy Thursday! Today marks Day 41 of the NHL playoffs, and the Stanley Cup Final will (likely) start Wednesday. It's sure looking like we're in for a rare rematch, too … The Carolina Hurricanes looked like they might make things interesting after winning Game 4 3-0 and then putting up an early 2-0 lead in Game 5 last night. Then the Florida Panthers did what they do — i.e., ending hopes and dreams — in what became a heartbreaking 5-3 win to eliminate Carolina in Round 3 (yes, again). Advertisement The story of this Panthers run has really become one of balance. Again, they had goals from five different scorers last night, with Evan Rodrigues becoming their 19th different goal-getter of the postseason. Only eight teams in NHL history have ever had more than that, but there's still another round for Tomas Nosek and Mackie Samoskevich to get on the board and help them match the record (21, held by the 2019 Bruins and 1987 Flyers). Florida also became the ninth team in league history to make three consecutive finals, which is ridiculously hard to do in a 32-team, hard-capped league. The Lightning (2020-22) are the only other club to pull it off since the 1985 Oilers (!). In fact, in all of the Big Four North American men's pro sports, the Panthers are just the 11th team in the last 30 years to play for a 'ship three years in a row. This team is special. So special we might have to pull out the D word if they win again. (No, not that D word.) This was a weird season for Carolina. The Hurricanes lost quite a bit of talent to free agency a year ago, then stunned the hockey world by acquiring Mikko Rantanen, only to stun everyone again by trading him 13 games later. They again dominated the ol' shot attempts in the regular season (a heady 59.5 percent), but this wasn't a close series, with Florida outscoring them 15-5 at five-on-five and outclassing them on special teams and in goal. This has happened often enough that the Hurricanes are going to have to find a way to adapt in the offseason. Winning the Meh-tropolitan Division isn't the goal at this point. The good news is they have their core signed, some strong young players coming and nearly $30 million in cap space. (Not a typo.) They're obviously going to take another run at Mitch Marner, but upgrading in goal and on the blue line — where Brent Burns and Dmitry Orlov's age has been showing — are vital, too. But the best still appears to be coming. My apologies to Stars fans, who are hoping they can claw back into this series while down 3-1 with Game 5 in Dallas tonight (8 p.m. ET puck drop). But all you hear when you talk to folks around the league right now is how a finals rematch will be the only good thing to come out of a blah Round 3. Oilers-Panthers didn't disappoint a year ago, with a crazy Edmonton comeback from down 0-3 ending with Game 7 dramatics going Florida's way. Advertisement The clash of styles between the take-no-prisoners Panthers and the Connor McDavid Show is fun to watch, too. (Really too bad about Zach Hyman, though.) Plus, we almost never get a championship rematch in this league. This one would, again, be only the second time since the 1984 final. The recent Cup final double shots (The first two, the teams split, with the upstart Oilers and Pens getting the better of the dynastic Isles and Wings. The second two, the Habs won all four as part of a stretch of 10 Cup wins in 15 years.) We'll have to wait and see if Dallas mounts an unlikely comeback, but right now, everyone seems to be looking forward to moving on from these conference finals. And getting this thing over with by mid-June, for once. The 1968 and 1969 Blues and 1977 and 1978 Bruins were the last two teams to lose back-to-back Cup finals to the same team. Which big names were they coached by? 🙂↕️ Trade SZN is almost here, and that means a big ol' trade board from Christopher E. Johnston to get us ready for the fury. Spoiler: Chris Kreider takes the top spot. With free agency looking kind of tame, this might be our best hope for fireworks this offseason. 🏒 Harman Dayal has an interesting feature today about the mental health challenges that slumping NHL players face during hard times. (Wyatt Johnston came to mind for me, given he's staring at a record low minus-18 right now.) 📑 The PWHL is about to hold a big expansion draft to bring Seattle and Vancouver — its seventh and eighth teams — into the league, and the terms are pretty favorable for the newcomers. Hailey Salvian has a good breakdown of the latest here. 🤔 Jonas Siegel digs into the question everyone in Toronto wants to know: Is there a way the Leafs can be ready to try and pry McDavid out of Edmonton when his contract is up in 2026? (Hey, they're looking for hope these days.) 🎙️ On 'The Athletic Hockey Show,' the gang explores how Corey Perry found the fountain of youth with the Oilers, plus much more. With Round 3 winding down, it's time for our weekly Conn Smythe ranking. As always, direct all complaints to Sean McIndoe on social media: If you missed it: DGB handicapped the uncoveted Conned Smythe award, looking for 'the team that had the biggest impact on the playoffs by making the worst trade with a contending club.' I don't know how he comes up with all this stuff either. But at some point, they should study his brain for science. Advertisement Some key upcoming dates Who doesn't love a good stat? The NHL's official data squad has been coming up with all kinds of good numbers of late. Here are a few that caught my attention this week: 1. 'The home team has won 49 games during the 2025 playoffs, which is tied with 1993 and 1992 for the third most through this stage of a postseason (78 GP). Only 2013 (54) and 1990 (52) have seen more.' That was prior to last night in Raleigh, so it's now 49 in 79 games played. Home teams winning 62 percent of the time, however, is domination by NHL standards. This follows a regular season where teams had surprisingly good home records, a trend I'm afraid I don't have a great explanation for. No matter who advances from the West, the Panthers will be the road team in the final. Given they're 23-10 away from the Elbo Room the last three postseasons, however, I'm not sure they're all that worried about it. 2. 'Connor McDavid recorded the 45th multi-point game of his playoff career (in Game 4 on Tuesday). McDavid has recorded a multi-point outing in more than 50 percent of his postseason games (45 of 89).' And… 'McDavid (89 GP) can become the second-fastest player in NHL history to record 100 playoff assists behind only Wayne Gretzky (70 GP). No other player has reached the mark in fewer than 125 games.' Hot tip: Someone should really cover that guy. In NHL history, only Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have a better career playoff points per game than McDavid, who is up to 1.58. Talk about thriving under the pressure of being a star in a hockey-crazed Canadian market. If McDavid's not on hockey's Mount Rushmore yet, he will be with a Cup win. 3. 'A Hurricanes win (in Monday's Game 4) guaranteed there will be no sweeps through the first three rounds in a postseason for the fifth time since the Division Semifinals changed from best-of-five to best-of-seven in 1987.' It still kind of felt like a sweep though, didn't it? 🧹 A couple of bench bosses you may have heard of … one was Scotty Bowman, who started his coaching journey in his early 30s with the expansion Blues. The other? Don Cherry.
