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Sunday Scramble: A Canadian miscue, New York’s historic run, and soundbites from the week
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Michael Menzies
Nov 9, 2025, 15:00 ESTUpdated: Nov 9, 2025, 12:50 EST
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Here I was on Saturday night, the Edmonton Oilers game set to PVR as I travelled to do the Bonnyville Pontiacs game in Drayton Valley. I was riding high. A competent, strong Yaks win, and I’m thinking, here we go, I’m going to get home in time for the 3rd period. Should I start from the beginning? 
Should I hop right into the game? I avoid the score, resist the temptation to turn on the radio. But my phone was buzzing over and over and over, and I was bombarded. 
Then I look at the score. Let’s just say I watched the goals against, poured a bourbon, and focused my efforts on this ragtime column…whoops, this just in. The Avalanche have scored again.

Da da Canada

Give a team the chance to shoehorn black into their jersey designs, and they’ll take it eight days a week. It’s too bad the Team Canada jerseys swung and missed, but what’s funny is how bizarre they are.
Black on black? Why?
Why don’t the bottom bars connect? Why are the bars different shades of red and appear, frankly, Danish?
The detail within the maple leaf shows well from different perspectives, but I just don’t get it.
This design just reeks of being too cute. Last year’s Four Nations jerseys seemed cheap; these seem incorrect. The dark red of the home jersey doesn’t look like Canada-red.
Look, I’ve waxed lyrical about hockey sweaters in my brief era of the Sunday Scramble. I may come across as an annoying purist. The hockey sweater matters more than any other sport, and Canada is the ultimate hockey nation.
The jerseys should reflect that.  
Team Canada has a closet full of tremendous national team jerseys, so there’s stiff competition. There’s pressure on the creative and graphic teams to produce something new, yet old.
The cherry on top was the press photos of McDavid and company airbrushed with them on.
Like any sweater, seeing them in live game action tends to change minds. I remain unconvinced.
My three favourite Canada jerseys:
  1. Canada Cup jerseys of 1987 & 1991
  2. 2010 Olympics
  3. 1994 World Championship
The bananarama random jersey: the gold 2004 World Cup of Hockey jerseys.

History in the Big Apple

The New York Rangers could be a wagon. The problem is that they play games at home.
So goes a historically Jekyll & Hyde Rags team that has the league’s best road record, but got shutout for the fifth time on home ice on Saturday, this time 5-0 to the Islanders.
Being winless at home in seven tries would be bad enough. Blanked five out of those seven? Absurd.
The pain gets even more delicious when you hear this is the Rangers’ centennial season, so there is a theme of homage and recognition of the glory days of old.
In the pregame ceremony, the Blueshirts honored Rangers alumni John Davidson, Adam Graves, Ron Greschner, Henrik Lundqvist, Stephane Matteau, Mike Richter, Pete Stemkowski, and Derek Stepan. A proud bunch, some even champions (The Rags only have one Stanley Cup in the past 85 years, so it’s the ’94 team or bust in that department).
Thanks for being great Rangers guys, enjoy watching the worst home start in franchise history (0-6-1).
Meanwhile, they are the first NHL team in history to win seven road games before their first home game.
Make it make sense.
“Our group is a proud group,” said coach Mike Sullivan afterwards. “Yeah, it wears on you. We haven’t won a game at home. If it doesn’t wear on you, there’s something wrong.”
Is Monday the night? The Nashville Predators are in town. What happens when a stoppable object meets a penetrable wall?

Next gen Ducks

To the flip side of history: the young, fun, and full of offense Anaheim Ducks.
Saturday night saw a thrilling OT win against the Vegas Golden Knights, which moves them three points clear of first in the Pacific Division.
The (Mighty) Ducks are the third team in the last 30 years to score at least seven goals four times in a season’s first 13 games.
Pittsburgh achieved that same feat twice: 1995-96 (six times) & 2019-20 (four times).
(One day I’ll write an 8,000-word piece on how wild it is the Lemieux-era Penguins didn’t win another cup, the 92-93 and 95-96 teams were unbelievable…)
The 2025-26 season is rewarding young teams with neophyte pros. The Ducks, led by Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier, 20 and 21 years old, respectively, are having major breakout seasons, but the insulation of Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba is paying huge dividends.
After being banished and ridiculed in the Big Apple, Trouba scored his fourth of the season to give the Ducks their ninth win.
But it’s not just Anaheim dazzling with players that can’t legally drink in the US. Look at other chronically rebuilding teams. The Montreal Canadiens are first in the Atlantic. Utah and Chicago are in playoff spots, and the Sharks are only one point out of the wildcard.
Fortune is favouring those who rebuild in a major way.

Western decisions

I write this as Vancouver Canucks GM Patrik Allvin is on Hockey Night in Canada’s After Hours, and is being grilled by Scott Oake about the “plan” and the opportunity to rebuild, despite beating Columbus just moments prior. The Canucks are 8-8, but are they on a collision course with 12th in the West?
As long-sufferers in the capital region know, a rebuild is scary. But what’s even worse is looking back years later and wishing you had bit the bullet, gritted through the pain, and watched lottery balls try to break your way. Relevant hockey in the winter is one thing; knowing this is an exercise in futility is another.
This point applies much more to the Calgary Flames. A report from TSN’s Darren Dreger says that owner Murray Edwards “loves the core of the team” and has “no interest” in moving Nazem Kadri, who just reached the 1000 game plateau.
Murray Edwards must not have access to glasses. The Calgary Flames are 32nd in the NHL. Kadri is their biggest trade chip. However, if Kadri doesn’t want to go, he doesn’t have to with his contract.
What’s scary to consider for the Flames is that what if this is just the start? They’ve picked four times in the first round the past two drafts, yes, but is there enough top-end talent?
Time will tell.

He said what?

To some big soundbites from the week.
Ryan O’Reilly on his own game, after the Predators’ 10th loss in 13 games:
“I know for myself, No. 1 center, and just turning the puck over everywhere…I can’t make a six-foot pass to save my life. You’re not going to have much success if I’m playing pathetic like that. I’ve had one good year in my career.”
I appreciated this level of vulnerability and honesty from O’Reilly. He can play on my team any day of the week. A leader like this turns inward, and yes, this type of doom-thinking, when it dominates your headspace, is not productive.
I believe he did it to put the focus on himself and hopefully spark his team. O’Reilly was just fine in that game. He’s carving himself: change the topic so they can be freed up to just play. He takes the blame, but that can be used to send a message to everyone.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Nashville lost again, blew a 3rd period to lose, too. Stan Bowman could back up the Brinks truck to try and extract O’Reilly and Saros from that team, and I wouldn’t complain. O’Reilly had two assists as well. 
Barry Trotz’s big brain off-season failed spectacularly. If it weren’t Nashville and its extremely conservative history, his seat would be hotter than a Sydney Sweeney Instagram reel.
So far, there’s no evidence to suggest that very, very good coach Barry Trotz is any good in management.
Jakub Dobes, after the MON loss to NJ, the first of his season:
“We played good enough to win…Just not good enough from my side. It just sucks. It happened last year, it happened this year, lose to those guys in OT. So just disappointed in myself, that’s pretty much it,” he said emotionally, abruptly ending the avail.
Dobes’ tears showed another element of the emotional highs and lows of the games. To be honest, for a goalie to be that torn up after a loss that sends his record to 6-1, with a 2.25GAA and .920 save percentage, shows the dude cares. That guy is already beloved in Montreal, and his stock continues to rise. He’s going to be a keeper. 
On the flip side, he’ll have to learn how to handle these ebbs and flows, or Dobes’ fire will burn him out. Conserve yourself, young Dobes.
Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong is taking a drive-by at the Coyotes ownership:
“We have a TV set in the video room where the players meet every morning that is probably worth more than our entire facility was in Arizona.”
Ouch.
May I just say, if I were sold the hockey dream as an Arizonan that didn’t know hockey and fell in love with the game, waited patiently for some level of competence from that organization to blossom one day, and then have it ripped away…only to watch all this excitement in Utah…I’d be sick to my stomach.
Jordan Binnington, after stuffing the Alex Ovechkin 900th goal puck down his pants:
“I figured I basically had an assist on the goal there, turning it over, so I didn’t think he would mind sharing it, but I had full intention to give it back to him,” Binnington told reporters. “Incredible play by him to catch that on his backhand or forehand, spin around, get that on net from that angle.”
That clip was hilarious. Some people thought he was serious. An all-time hockey clip. It’s a little bit of comedy for a team that lost that game 6-1 and then got their hearts ripped out Saturday night on a buzzer-beater equalizer and eventual OT winner from Seattle.

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