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Columbus Blue Jackets News Clips August 6, 2020 Columbus Blue Jackets PAGE 02: Columbus Dispatch: Bubble sports move forward while MLB struggles PAGE 04: Columbus Dispatch: Maple Leafs 3, Blue Jackets 0: Five Takeaways PAGE 07: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets enjoy depth at defenseman PAGE 09: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets’ Vladislav Gavrikov, David Savard flourish as new blu`Lumberjackets’ Cleveland Monsters/Prospects NHL/Websites PAGE 11: The Athletic: Sources: GMs of seven NHL teams not playing submit plan for additional camp time PAGE 13: The Athletic: Down Goes Brown: A fan’s guide to how worried you should be after 4 days PAGE 18: The Athletic: ‘It’s not going to be perfect’: Meet the man who built the NHL’s bubble PAGE 22: The Athletic: LeBrun Notebook: Alexis Lafreniere’s unique spot, no to future play-ins and more 1 Columbus Dispatch / Bubble sports move forward while MLB struggles By Michael Arace – August 6, 2020 It may happen that we look back on the coronavirus summer of 2020 and declare that sports bubbles worked famously well. It may be that the NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLS and NWSL not only managed to cut their losses by getting back on TV, they also showed America that diligence pays dividends. Like in Canada. Here’s Mark Cameron, associate professor in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences at Case Western Reserve University: "The leagues are identifying clusters of COVID-19 infections. They don’t want to be responsible for a bona fide outbreak player-to-player, team-to-team or team-to-community, or any combination therein. Those are the red lines. "Are we working out the kinks or are we risking outbreaks? I don’t know. We do know at least one sports bubble (MLS) has stabilized despite early infections. We don’t know yet whether that can happen in a return-to-play plan that includes travel and large delegations." Cameron is studying the effects of the virus in his lab in Cleveland. Ostensibly, he’s doing his bit to find a vaccine for COVID-19. He said, "The NFL should be paying particular attention to MLB." Last week, more than 20 members of the Miami Marlins’ traveling party including 18 players tested positive for the virus. The St. Louis Cardinals have reported 20 positives, including seven players. One week into its once-delayed season, MLB’s porous protocols have forced the league to cut and paste its schedule with postponements. Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN’s Karl Ravech that he, Manfred, is not a quitter, and that the situation is manageable. Meanwhile, according to numerous reports, Manfred told the players’ union chief that the season will be in jeopardy if the players don’t stop acting like 20-something millionaires. Good luck with that. The biggest red flag was waved in Boston, where Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez was shelved for the rest of the season due to an inflammation of his heart. This is a case where a young, strong athlete contracted the virus and had more than a cough and a sneeze. Tests showed that Rodriguez, 27, has myocarditis, which can lead to heart disease or arrhythmia. Some cardiologists think that heart problems linked to the coronavirus might occur in more than 30% of the cases. Nobody is really sure, not yet. Long-term studies of survivors are only just beginning. From the latest issue of Science magazine: "The list of lingering maladies from COVID-19 is longer and more varied than most doctors could have imagined. Ongoing problems include fatigue, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, achy joints, foggy thinking, a persistent loss of sense of smell, and damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain. … The sheer breadth of complications linked to COVID- 19 is mind-boggling." 2 I don’t want to be overly alarmist here. The myriad diseases the virus is spawning are most often seen in only the most acute cases. And the vast majority of people who are stricken recover. Yet, so much is still unknown. So, let’s watch some hockey! Saturday, the first day of the NHL tournament in the Toronto and Edmonton bubbles, the kids in my house watched hockey from noon until 1 a.m. After nearly five months of pandemic, we crave normalcy, and sports on a 55-inch screen is the fire in our hearth. The "bubble" sports that are semi-sealed in place appear to have a good chance of succeeding. The NHL gets the highest marks: Its tournament, scheduled to run into October, is being well-run (solid protocols) in a favorable environment (Canada, where governments have worked to squash the virus). To this point, there have been zero positive tests among players and team personnel in Toronto and Edmonton. The NWSL, after barring one team from its tournament in Utah, recently crowned a champion, and there wasn’t a glitch. The NWSL also set ratings records, as the WNBA is doing while playing in a bubble in Bradenton, Florida. The NBA has not avoided issues. Last week, Los Angeles Clippers guard Lou Williams was slapped with a 10-day quarantine (suspension?) after he left the Orlando bubble to attend a funeral and went to an Atlanta strip club for dinner. In the pictures that popped up on social media, Williams wore his team- issued mask at the strip club. He said he was there for the chicken wings. As Cameron mentioned, the MLS tournament, also in Orlando, has overcome a problematic start and is a good bet to conclude, next Tuesday, without further complication. The virus won’t disappear until we have a vaccine, and use it. Until then, there is a risk to our health, and this goes, too, for our young, strong athletes. Those in a bubble I’m happier to watch. It’s easier on the conscience. 3 Columbus Dispatch / Maple Leafs 3, Blue Jackets 0: Five Takeaways By Brian Hedger – August 6, 2020 It started with a shot 35 seconds after the opening face-off Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena. Blue Jackets goalie Joonas Korpisalo stopped it, along with 35 more, but the Toronto Maple Leafs sent a bigger warning shot 1:41 later to sum up what the afternoon was going to be like. Just 2:16 into what turned out to be a dominating 3-0 victory for Toronto, which knotted a best-of-five series at 1 in the NHL’s playoff qualifying round, Kyle Clifford locked onto a target in a corner of the Columbus zone and unloaded. In a flash, Clifford launched a violent shoulder-to-shoulder hit just as Dean Kukan played the puck and sent message, loud and clear, with the devastating collision. It was the kind of lick that would’ve made a crowd gasp in unison, had one been allowed inside the building, and it was an early sign of a desperate team. The rest of the day went mostly the same, as the Maple Leafs avoided a 2-0 deficit that is almost a certain death sentence in a series this short. "Toronto was really good," said Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella, who had no interest in breaking it down. "We sucked." While some might prefer a touch more insight from the head coach of a team that was just run over by a proverbial Mack truck, that was indeed the long and short of it. The Maple Leafs were really good and the Blue Jackets weren’t. Now, they’re tied at a game apiece and have three left to decide which team will be sent packing from the NHL’s quarantine bubble in Toronto. Here are five takeaways: Playing keep away The Maple Leafs have a roster filled with elite talent, but they’re not just a bunch of cherry-pickers looking for the easy life. Toronto’s version of defense is to play offense, preferably for long periods of time by just zipping the puck around the offensive zone to one another until something opens. The Maple Leafs have had success doing it, too, including a couple dominant stretches in a 2-0 loss Sunday to open the series. A lot of teams, including the Blue Jackets, depend on physicality to win puck battles along the walls in the offensive zone, which keep shifts alive with a strong "cycle" game. The Maple Leafs do it with skill players, whose vision, skating and hands allow them to make smart, crisp, accurate passes. It gets opposing teams on their heels, unable to get the puck back. The Blue Jackets chased the Leafs around their own zone in Game 1 and it didn’t work very well, so in Game 2 they tried to anticipate more. All that did was allow the Maple Leafs to throw the puck around the perimeter so well that 5-on-5 started to look like a Toronto power play. The Maple Leafs also dominated puck possession with a relentless forecheck, creating turnovers, scoring chances and havoc in the Columbus zone. That’s supposed to be a hallmark of the Blue Jackets, who were dominated at their own game. 4 "Today, I thought we forechecked really hard from the start of the game and some loose pucks became available," Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. "We were doing a better job up ice, on their half of the ice, and then, as a result, most of the time when it entered our half of the ice, they were in line changes and not forechecking as a full unit. So, that makes it a lot easier for us." If the Blue Jackets want the puck, they’re going to need a solution quickly.

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