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Lazerus: Bill Zito’s Panthers, Kyle Davidson’s Blackhawks and the road not taken

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Lazerus: Bill Zito’s Panthers, Kyle Davidson’s Blackhawks and the road not taken

It’s entirely possible that four or five summers from now, Connor Bedard’s name will be etched on the Stanley Cup.

He’ll have won the Conn Smythe Trophy that spring, of course, after a truly absurd playoff run flanked by Michael Misa and Frank Nazar, with Artyom Levshunov logging a heroic 30 minutes a night on the back end. Kevin Korchinski will have racked up the points as his partner on the top pair, with Sam Rinzel lighting it up, as well. Alex Vlasic’s work as the shutdown defender will be the stuff of legends. That second line of Nick Lardis, Sacha Boisvert and Oliver Moore will have made those Blackhawks matchup-proof, forcing opposing coaches to pick their poison.

And man, who’ll be able to forget the way Samuel Savoie, Landon Slaggert and Marek Vanacker wreaked havoc on the newly christened Hair on Fire line, bringing energy to the team and fans out of their seats?

It absolutely could happen.

Kyle Davidson is counting on it, staking his reputation on it, testing Chicago’s patience on it. Davidson sold Danny Wirtz on his plan to gut the franchise and rebuild it through the NHL Draft, and that’s exactly what Davidson has done.

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Eight first-round picks in the last three seasons. Two more this year. Two more the year after that. It’ll always be an amusing footnote in Blackhawks history that Davidson’s tank failed but the ping-pong balls fell his way anyway, landing him the centerpiece in Bedard. The rest has been done with ruthlessness and a lack of sentimentality. Davidson has had as clear a vision as any general manager in the game, and he has stuck with it every step of the way.

This is how professional sports teams operate these days, especially in a salary-cap league. When things are going poorly, you blow it up and start over. That’s just how it works.

The thing is, it hasn’t worked. Not in the NHL. Not in the cap era. Not yet. The Buffalo Sabres blew it up, tried to tank for Connor McDavid, and are going to miss the playoffs for the 14th consecutive season. The Detroit Red Wings blew it up, built through the draft, made some savvy picks that have worked out well, and are scratching and clawing to be the eighth seed in the East after eight long seasons without a playoff appearance. The Edmonton Oilers picked No. 1 four times in five seasons and landed the most talented player the game has ever seen, and they didn’t reach true contention until last spring — a decade after drafting McDavid and 14 years after taking Taylor Hall.

And the Blackhawks, eight years removed from their last true playoff appearance, are still years away from the next one.

Saturday, Davidson traded one of his three best players, defenseman Seth Jones, to the Florida Panthers, because Jones couldn’t take the losing anymore. Davidson did relatively well in the deal — getting goaltender Spencer Knight and retaining only $2.5 million a year of Jones’ massive contract — but it was still yet another trade that made the Blackhawks demonstrably worse. Always one step forward, two steps back.

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Now let’s look at the team that acquired Jones. When Bill Zito took over as GM in Florida, the Panthers were still something of a league laughingstock. They hadn’t won a playoff series in a quarter-century. The roster was loaded with mediocre players in their mid-to-late 20s. They were stuck.


Florida Panthers GM Bill Zito hoists the 2024 Stanley Cup. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

But Zito didn’t tear it down. He didn’t rebuild the Panthers. He remade them. He used every tool at his disposal — trades, free agency, the waiver wire — to reconstruct the plane while it was still in the air. Within four years, the Panthers were Stanley Cup champions, a model franchise, the envy of the league.

Look at how that championship team was built. Zito made one of the gutsiest trades in modern NHL history to land Matthew Tkachuk. He saw players who hadn’t yet reached their potential and got them, trading for Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Brandon Montour and Eetu Luostarinen. He made smart signings in free agency, inking Carter Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. And he found gold on the waiver wire, picking up Gustav Forsling — cast off by the Vancouver Canucks, the Blackhawks and the Carolina Hurricanes — and watching him become one of the best defensemen in the league. He dealt away his first-round pick in 2022. And in 2023. And in 2024. And in 2025. And in 2026. The only key players who came through the draft were already there when he arrived: Aleksander Barkov (No. 2 in 2013), Aaron Ekblad (No. 1 in 2014) and Anton Lundell (No. 12 in 2020).

It certainly wasn’t easy, and there certainly was some luck involved. Surely, Zito didn’t see Forsling becoming the player he is. Nobody saw a 57-goal season from Reinhart coming after six unspectacular seasons in Buffalo. And he did all this with Sergei Bobrovsky’s $10 million cap hit weighing him down, an albatross that eventually took flight. What Zito did is incredibly difficult.

But what Davidson is doing might be even harder.

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Davidson had his chance to do this more quickly, to spare the fans all this misery. The 2021-22 Blackhawks had a 23-year-old Alex DeBrincat and a 23-year-old Brandon Hagel. They had a 26-year-old Jones and a 24-year-old Dylan Strome. And they had Patrick Kane posting 92 points.

Now? DeBrincat is with the Detroit Red Wings, on the verge of his fourth 30-goal season. Hagel is with the Tampa Bay Lightning, a burgeoning superstar enjoying his second 30-goal season and first point-per-game campaign. Strome is with the Washington Capitals, riding shotgun to history as Alex Ovechkin’s center, with 59 points in 60 games. Kane, despite playing just 100 games, has more points over the last two seasons than every Blackhawks player other than Bedard.

That’s more than Florida had when Zito took over. But DeBrincat and Hagel were too old (despite being a year younger than Barkov and Ekblad when Zito took over). Bedard was too important. The draft was the only path forward. The teardown was the only way.

It’s facile, and perhaps folly, to point all this out in hindsight, of course. There’s a reason so few GMs are willing to be as bold as Zito has been. It usually ends in a firing. Had Davidson tried to retool around his young rising stars and Kane on the fly back then, it’s just as likely that the Blackhawks would be stuck in the mushy middle the past few years as in the Stanley Cup Final.

But either of those scenarios sounds pretty darn good compared to what the Blackhawks have been the last four years, what they’ll probably be the next few years, and what drove Jones out of the city he was so excited to come to in the first place.

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What’s done is done, but it doesn’t have to stay this way. It’s long past time for Davidson to get aggressive, to start trying to win for real. Yes, he made a run at Jake Guentzel last summer, but he came up short. He somehow has to convince Mikko Rantanen or Mitch Marner this summer to sign up for seven years of playing with Bedard. Or go after Wyatt Johnston or Noah Dobson or Evan Bouchard with an offer sheet. Or package some of the myriad picks and prospects and young players he has amassed to land a ready-made rising star.

Or all of the above. It’s what Zito would do. It’s what Zito has done. It’s what works.

It’s time to get bold. It’s time to get creative. It’s time to start winning again. Because the current path is not just excruciating; it’s extremely unlikely to work. History has shown us that. And it’s better to aspire to be the Florida Panthers than risk becoming the Buffalo Sabres.

(Top photo of Seth Jones: Bill Smith / NHLI via Getty Images)

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Maine fishermen support Jordon Hudson after he advocacy during pageant: 'Together, we persevere'

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Maine fishermen support Jordon Hudson after he advocacy during pageant: 'Together, we persevere'

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The Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association praised Jordon Hudson for her advocacy during the Miss Maine USA pageant earlier this month.

Support for Maine fishermen appeared to be close to Hudson’s heart. She has championed their cause, not only in the pageant, but also thanked Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and the Trump administration for its renegotiation of the Maine Sea Grant funding.

Jordon Hudson, the girlfriend of Bill Belichick, was in attendance at the Loudermilk Center for Excellence on Dec. 12, 2024. (Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images)

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“Advocating for Maine’s commercial fisherman takes many forms, and sometimes it walks across a stage in heels wearing a bikini,” the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association wrote on its Instagram Stories on Monday. “Jordon Hudson is helping shine a spotlight on Maine fishing communities in ways we never imagined, from the stage to the working waterfront.

“We’re grateful for voices like Jordon’s that remind us advocacy doesn’t always look the same, but it always matters. Together, we persevere.”

Hudson was asked during the Miss Maine USA pageant a moment in life she would want to go back to. She said she wished she could be transported back to her family’s fishing boat.

JORDON HUDSON ABSENT FROM BILL BELICHICK’S ‘GOOD MORNING AMERICA’ INTERVIEW AFTER CBS FIASCO

Jordon Hudson at Miss Maine USA

Jordon Hudson, center, is among the contestants posing on stage after the Miss Maine USA pageant in Portland, Maine, on Sunday. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

“I think about this often because there’s a mass exodus for fishermen occurring in the rural areas of Maine, and I don’t want to see more fishermen leave this place,” she said, via Mass Live. “As your next Miss Maine USA, I would make a point to go to communities … to go into the government and advocate for these people so that they don’t have to think about these memories as a past moment.”

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Hudson’s parents owned a fishing business, Frenchman’s Bay Fisheries, in Maine. However, after the area they used to fish, Taunton Bay, was closed off to fishing by the state in 2000, their business eventually went bankrupt years later.

Her family’s ship reportedly suffered damage and couldn’t afford repairs. The family attempted to lobby the state and local legislatures to ease up on regulations that impeded the fishing industry, and eventually the closure of their business.

Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson

Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson on the red carpet before the Super Bowl LIX NFL Honors at Saenger Theatre. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)

The family eventually moved to Massachusetts.

Fox News’ Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.

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LAFC and Galaxy each won something notable in their El Tráfico draw

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LAFC and Galaxy each won something notable in their El Tráfico draw

It was the kind of showdown MLS has long dreamed of to sell the league.

Marco Reus, a three-time Bundesliga player of the year, standing over the ball 25 yards from where Hugo Lloris, the most-capped goalkeeper in World Cup history, waited for his free kick. With less than three minutes left in regulation, the league’s most intense rivalry was hanging in the balance.

For Reus, however, the moment felt far from unique.

“I had these kind of situations a thousand times in my career. So I know what I have to do,” said Reus, who then did it, chipping a shot inches over LAFC’s five-man defensive wall and inches wide of a diving Lloris to give the Galaxy a 2-2 draw in Sunday’s El Tráfico.

For all the drama, the result was one neither team wanted, but one that both accepted.

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“The feeling in the locker room is just pure disappointment. And we’ll learn from this moment and get better,” LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said.

But, he added, “it’s also really important not to lose games, not just always to look to win, win, win. Yes, we all want to win. We do everything we can to win. It’s also important to understand we’re away and we got a point tonight.”

The result extended LAFC’s unbeaten streak to seven games. However the Reus goal, with less than three minutes left in regulation time, kept the team from winning back-to-back games for the first time since March 1.

“The result is fair,” Cherundolo said.

“In a couple of key moments we weren’t good enough to win. We didn’t have our best day. But we didn’t have a poor day.”

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For the Galaxy (0-10-4), the tie extended their winless streak to 14 games, the longest ever by a reigning MLS Cup champion. However it also ended their five-game losing streak, the team’s longest in five seasons.

“It probably is somewhat of a fair result,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney agreed.

Nobody won, nobody lost, everybody had a good time.

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Well, not exactly. Because both sides missed opportunities to take a big step forward and wound up running in place instead.

For LAFC (6-4-4), the draw continued a trend that has seen the team play well enough not to lose but rarely well enough to win. Reus’ goal prevented it from ending that mediocrity and building some momentum heading into next week’s Club World Cup qualifier with Mexico’s Club América.

“I definitely wanted to win so bad. The competitive juices were flowing,” said midfielder Mark Delgado, whose last game at Dignity Health Sports Park was the MLS Cup final, when he helped the Galaxy to their sixth league title and their last victory before being traded up the 110 Freeway to LAFC.

For the Galaxy, the winless streak remains an albatross hanging around their necks. Injuries have plagued the team, but the Galaxy were healthier Sunday than they’ve been all season. They were also playing in Carson, where they haven’t lost to LAFC in more than two years. And when Reus scored his first goal in the sixth minute, they led for just the third time all season.

“I told the guys in the dressing room that it doesn’t feel like a draw,” said Reus, whose first two-goal game in MLS won him the league’s player of the week honors. “We should win this game, especially 1-0 ahead after six minutes.”

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On Friday the team signed Vanney to a multiyear contract extension that makes him the best-paid manager in MLS. If the announcement, two days before the rivalry game, was meant to take some pressure off the coach, another week without a win left Vanney once again searching for silver linings on the black cloud hovering above his team.

This time he pointed to the determination the Galaxy showed after losing both the lead and an apparent tying goal to an offside call.

“Tonight is a positive night that hopefully we need to think about using as a springboard,” he said. “This is as good of a team as we’ve played against and we played them very even up.”

Cherundolo, like Vanney, thought his team looked good in a tie — especially at the end of a week in which it played three times in two countries in seven days.

So maybe it’s more appropriate to call Sunday’s game a tie in which both teams won something.

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For LAFC, Denis Bouanga’s first-half wonderstrike from well outside the box gave him seven goals in his team’s seven-game unbeaten streak. He led MLS in scoring the last two seasons but was goalless through his team’s first seven games this season, four of which LAFC lost.

For the Galaxy, the two scores from Reus gave him four goal contributions in two games — and he lost another assist on the offside call that negated Gabriel Pec’s second-half goal. More importantly, he played 90 minutes in consecutive games for the first time since coming to MLS last summer.

Even MLS won with the Reus-Lloris showdown.

“We can’t lose sight of the journey that we’re on for the entire season,” Cherundolo said. “The steps we’ve made as a group have been very positive. I’m seeing this as one of 34 league games, plus the Champions League games. We’re on a good path.”

You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

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Ex-NBA player compares Angel Reese to 'Little Rock Nine' member

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Ex-NBA player compares Angel Reese to 'Little Rock Nine' member

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Former NBA player Etan Thomas compared Chicago Sky star Angel Reese to a member of the “Little Rock Nine,” as the WNBA player allegedly had “hateful comments” hurled toward her during the team’s loss to the Indiana Fever.

Thomas posted a photo to his social media account on Monday, portraying Reese as one of the nine Black schoolgirls who were able to attend an all-White school in Arkansas following the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that ended segregation in public schools.

Indiana Fever forward Natasha Howard, #6, guards Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese, #5, on Saturday, May 17, 2025 during a game between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. (Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

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The photo showed Reese superimposed onto the iconic black and white photo known as the “Scream Image.” It showed 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford being yelled at on her way to school. The picture depicted the bravery Eckford showed by going into Little Rock Central High School.

“This is how it’s been for Angel Reese ever since the 2023 NCAA Tournament when her LSU Tigers defeated Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the national championship game,” Thomas wrote on X.

The WNBA was reportedly investigating racial slurs that were reported to have been directed at Reese during the game on Saturday. The league did not get into specifics of what allegedly occurred during the game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

“The WNBA strongly condemns racism, hate, and discrimination in all forms — they have no place in our league or in society. We are aware of the allegations and are looking into the matter,” the league said in a statement.

DAVE PORTNOY SLAMS WNBA AS LEAGUE INVESTIGATES ‘HATEFUL COMMENTS’ TOWARD ANGEL REESE

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Angel Reese waves to the crowd

Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese, #5, responds to the crowd after a WNBA exhibition basketball game against Brazil in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

The Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) also released a statement.

“The WNBPA is aware of reports of hateful comments at yesterday’s game in Indianapolis and supports the WNBA’s current investigation into this matter,” the union said. “Such behavior is unacceptable for our sport.

“Under the WNBA’s ‘No Space for Hate’ policy, we trust the league to thoroughly investigate and take swift, appropriate action to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for all.”

Reese and Clark had a heated exchange during the game, but both players said it was a “basketball play” and nothing more.

Reese’s confidence in her abilities and willingness to back them up has made her one of the most-talked-about athletes in the WNBA.

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Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark shake hands

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, #22, and Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese, #5, shake hands before the game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on May 17, 2025. (Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images)

She finished second in WNBA Rookie of the Year voting, earned a WNBA MVP vote and finished her first year with the Sky averaging a double-double.

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