SI:AM | The Hottest Team in the NHL

Plus, the inescapable juxtaposition of rich and poor in Qatar.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Don’t look now, but the Devils are unstoppable.

In today’s SI:AM:

🇶🇦 What it’s really like in Qatar

🏈 Football’s most overlooked niche

🟢 Michigan State beats Kentucky in double OT

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Ten games and counting

A month into the NHL season, three teams are in their own tier atop the league. The Bruins (14-2-0), Golden Knights (13-4-0) and Devils (13-3-0) are the only teams with fewer than five losses. But it’s the Devils that are hotter than anybody else. After trouncing the Canadiens 5–1 last night in Montreal, New Jersey has now won 10 in a row.

It’s been a remarkable turnaround for the Devils, who last year were among the worst teams in the league with a record of 27-46-9. The interesting thing is, this year’s team isn’t all that different from last year’s. Lindy Ruff is still the coach, even after disappointing finishes in his first two seasons in charge. Jesper Bratt, Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier are still the biggest offensive threats. The defense, led by Dougie Hamilton and Damon Severson, remains intact.

But while New Jersey’s core remains the same, the team made a few offseason moves to provide depth. The Devils’ biggest offseason signing was former Lightning winger Ondrej Palat, who signed a five-year, $30 million deal, but he underwent groin surgery and hasn’t played since the winning streak began. They also acquired defenseman John Marino in a trade with the Penguins and center Erik Haula from the Bruins. (Marino is averaging more ice time per game than any other New Jersey skater.)

Ruff credited that depth with last night’s win in Montreal:

“It’s all about the team. It’s any line that’s contributing, a defense pair, the goaltender making saves,” he said. “When you’re going that well, it’s all about team play and everybody participating in the wins.”

The most important move, though, might prove to be the trade for goaltender Vitek Vanecek. He was acquired from the Capitals during the draft in exchange for a third-round pick. (The two teams also swapped second-rounders in the deal.) Goaltending was an issue last year for New Jersey, which used seven different guys in net. A few years ago, Mackenzie Blackwood looked like the Devils’ franchise goaltender (he finished sixth in Calder Trophy voting after posting a .915 save percentage in his first full season), but he’s slipped since. This season, his save percentage is only .880 in seven games. But while Blackwood has declined, Vanecek is posting the best numbers of his career. He has a .915 save percentage and 2.17 goals-against average in 10 games and has started seven games (appeared in eight) during the 10-game winning streak.

It’s early in the season, and the Devils play in a tough division, but they’re on their way to their first playoff appearance since 2018. In the short term, they’ll look to keep the winning streak going tomorrow night in Toronto against the Maple Leafs. In the long term, keep your eye on a pair of games against the league-leading Bruins scheduled on both sides of the Christmas break (Dec. 23 and 28, both in Newark). If both teams keep playing like they have been, those matchups will be must-see TV.

The best of Sports Illustrated

David E. Klutho/Sports Illustrated

In today’s Daily Cover, Alex Prewitt explores the most overlooked niche in football—the long snapper:

Spiral down the rabbit hole of the most specialized role in professional sports, though, and surprising depth is revealed, from a booming cottage industry of snapping-specific coaches cranking out rankings of kids as young as middle school, to bubbling calls for solidarity in pursuit of higher salaries at the NFL level.

Greg Bishop is in Doha for the World Cup, where he wrote about the juxtaposition between the Qatar the government wants you to see and the Qatar outside the carefully curated bubble. … The top spots in the College Football Playoff rankings remain unchanged, but Richard Johnson takes issue with how the committee has treated Coastal Carolina. … After knocking off the Eagles, the Vikings claim the top spot in Conor Orr’s NFL power rankings. … Brian Straus laments the end of the 32-team World Cup format. … Despite Michigan State’s relative lack of NBA talent, Kevin Sweeney broke down how the team outlasted Kentucky in double overtime.

Around the sports world

Virginia has canceled its football game against Coastal Carolina after the shooting that killed three players. … Virginia coach Tony Elliott made his first public comments since the shooting. … Former Kentucky basketball player Isaac Humphries came out as gay. … After last weekend’s game in Germany, the NFL is interested in holding future games in France and Spain. … Aaron Rodgers joined the growing chorus of NFL players criticizing artificial turf. … U.S. gymnast Suni Lee will leave Auburn after this season. … A Danish television crew was threatened by Qatari officials while live on the air. … Multiple feet of lake-effect snow could fall this weekend in Buffalo ahead of the Bills’ game against the Browns.

The top five...

… things I saw last night:

5. This chaotic sequence in the Georgetown-Northwestern game.

4. Justin Jefferson’s teammates’ reactions to his catch against the Bills.

3. John Tavares’s 400th career goal.

2. Michigan State’s full-court play to force double overtime against Kentucky. (The Spartans went on to win.)

1. Ta’ron Keith’s game-winning touchdown catch for Bowling Green—and Toledo’s god-awful tackling.

SIQ

Today is the anniversary of the first regular-season NFL game attended by a sitting U.S. president. Which president attended the game?

• Calvin Coolidge
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• John F. Kennedy
• Richard Nixon

Yesterday’s SIQ: When Roberto Luongo took his famous bathroom break during overtime of a playoff game in 2007, who filled in for him in goal while he took care of business?

• Dany Sabourin
• Drew MacIntyre
• Dan Cloutier
• Curtis Sanford

Answer: Dany Sabourin. It was Game 5 of the Canucks’ second-round series against the Ducks, with Vancouver facing elimination. At the end of regulation, Luongo went to use the toilet in the locker room and was still in there when the puck was ready to be dropped to start the extra period. (In 2013, Luongo posted a photo on Twitter of the toilet in question.) Canucks GM Dave Nonis looked flabbergasted up in the press box as he watched Sabourin warm up between the pipes.

Sabourin stopped five shots in three and a half minutes of action before Luongo could get back on the ice. Luongo kept Anaheim scoreless for the rest of overtime but surrendered a goal to Scott Niedermayer 4:30 into the second OT, and Vancouver was eliminated.

“I was there doing my business and I hear the play starting in the arena,” Luongo told SI’s Alex Prewitt for a 2016 story about what happens when nature calls for a goalie. “So I panicked there. I don’t remember if I wiped. I just put my gear back on, tried to get out there as soon as I could.”

From the Vault: Nov. 16, 1998

John Biever/Sports Illustrated

Not everything in the Vault has aged gracefully—like the headline on Tim Layden’s 1998 profile of Ricky Williams: “Austin Power.” While a reference to the Mike Myers movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery that came out seven months before Layden’s story might fly over readers’ heads today, Williams’s senior season remains the stuff of legend.

Williams (who changed his name to Errick Miron earlier this year) shocked the world when he decided to return to Texas for his senior season. He surely would have been a top pick in the NFL draft if he had turned pro after his junior season and, as Layden explained, Texas was a program in disarray. The Longhorns had fired John Mackovic after a 4–7 season and weren’t expected to amount to much under new coach Mack Brown. Williams had every reason to leave, but returning would also allow him to be the focal point of the Texas offense for the first time. So he came back, and he put together a season for the ages:

The season has been an endless montage of Williams highlights. Against Rice he drilled two consecutive tacklers to the ground with stiff-arms. Against Baylor he limped off in the third quarter after a defender stepped on his calf, then he returned to rush for 128 yards in the fourth quarter. Against Nebraska he made a touchdown-saving tackle after a fourth-quarter interception that would have given the Cornhuskers a 20–10 lead. “Three guys had kill shots on him on that play,” says [offensive lineman Ben] Adams. “Most star guys would have just fallen down. Ricky avoided all three guys and made the tackle.” When Williams left the field in Lincoln, Nebraska fans chanted his name in admiration.

Williams finished the season with 2,124 rushing yards, the sixth-highest total in Division I history at the time (he ranks 15th now). I’d say that was worth coming back for.

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.

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