Who are the Stanley Cup favorites entering the 109th NHL season?

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🏒 The NHL is back

The NHL returns to action tonight, as the puck drops on the league’s 109th season.

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Preseason title favorites: Edmonton and Vegas open as co-favorites to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup.

• Oilers (+800 at BetMGM): Edmonton’s last two seasons have ended with heartbreaking losses in the Stanley Cup Final, but at least they begin this season with some good news: Three-time MVP Connor McDavid, entering his walk year, signed a two-year extension to remain in the orange and blue.

• Golden Knights (+800): On the plus side, Vegas added superstar Mitch Marner, who scored 102 points last year with Toronto (fifth-most in the league). But they did lose defensive stalwart Alex Pietrangelo, 35, who’s stepping away from hockey due to a lingering hip injury.

• Hurricanes (+850): Carolina has been a picture of stability under head coach Rod Brind’Amour, reaching the playoffs in all seven years of his tenure, including two trips to the Eastern Conference Finals in the last three years.

• Avalanche (+850): Speaking of stability, how about eight straight playoff appearances under head coach Jared Bednar? That’s tied for the second-longest streak in the league.

• Stars (+900): Dallas has to break through eventually, right? Three straight losses in the Western Conference Finals led to head coach Pete DeBoer’s firing. Maybe Glen Gulutzan, returning after a brief stint at the helm (2011-13), will have better luck.

Honorable mention: Conspicuously absent from the list above are the two-time defending champion Panthers, just outside the top five at +1100 due to a pair of unfortunate injuries to star winger Matthew Tkachuk (out until December recovering from offseason surgery) and captain Aleksander Barkov (out all season after tearing his ACL in training camp).

Season outlook:

• Winter Games: For the first time since Sochi 2014, the NHL will send its players to the Winter Olympics. The league will pause play from Feb. 6-25, and anticipation for Milano Cortina 2026 is through the roof after the success of last year’s Four Nations Face-Off.

• Coaching carousel: Nine of 32 teams have a new head coach: Ducks (Joel Quenneville), Rangers (Mike Sullivan), Penguins (Dan Muse), Flyers (Rick Tocchet), Canucks (Adam Foote), Blackhawks (Jeff Blashill), Kraken (Lane Lambert), Bruins (Marco Sturm) and Stars (Glen Gulutzan).

• Ovi’s last dance? Alexander Ovechkin made history last season when he broke Wayne Gretzky’s goals record. This season, the 40-year-old is playing on the final year of his contract and it’s unclear whether he’ll sign another one.

Go deeper: Strengths, weaknesses and X factors for every team (ESPN)

📸 Through the lens

Philadelphia — The Dodgers survived a late bullpen collapse to beat the Phillies, 4-3, and take a 2-0 lead in their NLDS, which they can clinch at home tomorrow. Philly has lost seven of its last eight playoff games and is at risk of being remembered most for what it never accomplished.

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Stars go cold: The Phillies’ “Big Five” of Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto and Nick Castellanos (making a combined $927 million) have gone 6-for-35 with 13 strikeouts in the NLDS.

Milwaukee — The Brewers continued firing on all cylinders, bashing 11 hits, including three homers, in a 7-3 win over the Cubs to take a 2-0 series lead. Milwaukee will try to complete the sweep tomorrow in Chicago.

Dominant bullpen: After Milwaukee’s opener gave up three runs in 1.2 innings, a parade of six relievers combined for 7.1 shutout innings with 10 strikeouts and just one hit allowed.

Jacksonville — The Jaguars erased an early 14-0 deficit to beat the Chiefs, 31-28, in a “Monday Night Football” thriller that ended with one of the strangest game-winning touchdowns you’ll ever see. Jacksonville’s hot start has them at 4-1 for the first time since 2007.

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The week of the comeback: The Jags were the sixth team this week to win after trailing by double digits (Titans, Panthers, Broncos, Saints, Commanders), tying the NFL record for the most ever in a single week.

Fort Worth, Texas — No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg scored 10 points in just 14 minutes in his preseason debut, flashing his athleticism, range and court vision in the Mavs’ 106-89 win over the Thunder.

Looking ahead: Flagg will make his official NBA debut on Oct. 22 (15 days from now) in a tantalizing matchup against Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs.

🏈 Belichick’s Tar Heels are a laughingstock

Bill Belichick’s failings at North Carolina underline one thing: He thinks he’s bigger than the job.

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From Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wolken:

Bill Belichick and the unaccountable band of cronies and flunkies that followed him to North Carolina have failed to grasp one fundamental principle of college sports.

Even for the most successful coach in the history of the NFL, the program and the players always come first.

That means you don’t bring the petty feuds that followed you from the Patriots into the building. It means you don’t fly off to Nantucket with your girlfriend during the bye week when your team is failing on practically every front.

It means that when you gut a roster from the previous regime to bring in your own people, you better actually upgrade the talent instead of throwing darts at the transfer portal like it doesn’t matter because you don’t believe the competition is worthy of trading X for O with your genius.

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Belichick has failed on every account because those around him either don’t understand the job or don’t take it seriously, and as a result they have reached the midway point of the season as one of the biggest laughingstocks in the recent history of the sport.

Sure, North Carolina fans and boosters were fired up when Belichick arrived last December to begin a unique experiment that had the potential to work if done correctly.

But interpreting that excitement as a mandate to replace the Tar Heel brand with Belichick, his various trademarks and Jordon Hudson’s film projects is a fundamental misreading of the job he took.

Bill, here’s some free advice: At North Carolina, they don’t care about you enough to put up with all this. You’re not one of them. They merely hired you to do a job. And if you don’t want to do it, rest assured they will find someone else who will.

Maybe Monday’s kerfuffle will be a wake-up call.

It started with a social media post from Inside Carolina, which claimed that North Carolina’s official accounts had not promoted anything about former Tar Heel QB Drake Maye’s fantastic performance in a win over the Bills on Sunday night because the social media staff was under a directive not to post anything related to the Patriots.

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It’s a believable story for two reasons. For one, North Carolina’s official account on X/Twitter posted video of Maye’s highlights after the Inside Carolina story started blowing up. And secondly, Belichick admitted a couple weeks ago that Patriots scouts were not allowed in North Carolina’s building.

“It’s clear I’m not welcome there around their facility,” he told reporters. “And so they’re not welcome at ours. It’s pretty simple.”

There has rarely been a clearer example of a college coach publicly and proudly putting his own ego ahead of his players’ interests. And when you see something like that and realize how narrowly Belichick and his inner circle view the job they have, all their other mistakes make perfect sense.

Making Steve Belichick the defensive coordinator and Brian Belichick the defensive backs coach? Good for the Belichicks, bad for North Carolina.

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Making Matt Lombardi [son of Tar Heels GM Mike Lombardi] the quarterbacks coach? Good for the Lombardis, bad for North Carolina.

Skipping town during the bye week after getting blown out by UCF only for photographers to catch Belichick and Hudson holding hands on the boardwalk in Nantucket? Unnecessary, unprofessional and wholly unserious.

The genius act doesn’t work in college football. It never has and never will.

Nobody understood that better than Nick Saban, who famously asked former Alabama athletics director Mal Moore on the flight from Miami to Tuscaloosa whether he thought Alabama had just hired the best coach in the country.

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When Moore said yes, Saban immediately corrected him. “Well, you didn’t — I’m nothing without my players,” Saban said, according to a 2015 biography by Monte Burke. “But you did just hire a helluva recruiter.”

This is a talent procurement game, and every bit of effort that is not deployed in the service of getting great players to North Carolina makes Belichick’s résumé irrelevant and diminishes his legacy as a coach.

At some point, before it’s too late, somebody in Chapel Hill needs to knock on his door and make that crystal clear.

So far, every moment of the Belichick experience has been about him, his girlfriend, his family and his friends. That’s not going to work. It can be about only the players and the program. And if Belichick doesn’t understand that, it won’t be his to captain for very long.

⚽️ Women’s Champions League kicks off

The 25th edition of the UEFA Women’s Champions League kicks off today across Europe, where 18 teams begin the League Phase portion of the new-look tournament and Arsenal begin their title defense.

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How it works: Each team will play six matches against a pre-determined draw, with the top four teams advancing to the quarterfinals. The next eight (5-12 in the standings) advance to a two-leg playoff to determine the rest of the quarterfinals, while the bottom six (13-18) are eliminated.

The field:

• 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England (3): Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United

• 🇪🇸 Spain (3): Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid

• 🇫🇷 France (3): Lyon, PSG, Paris FC

• 🇩🇪 Germany (2): Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg

• 🇮🇹 Italy (2): Juventus, Roma

• 🇦🇹 Austria (1): St. Pölten

• 🇳🇱 Netherlands (1): FC Twente

• 🇳🇴 Norway (1): Vålerenga

• 🇧🇪 Belgium (1): OH Leuven

• 🇵🇹 Portugal (1): Benfica

New champ coming? Only four of the 18 clubs have won the Champions League before, led by Lyon with a record eight titles. Barcelona has won three times, while Wolfsburg and Arsenal have each won twice.

📺 Watchlist: Tuesday, Oct. 7

⚾️ Blue Jays at Yankees | 8pm ET, FS1

New York’s season is on the line tonight in the Bronx, where they face a 2-0 deficit in the ALDS and must win to stay alive. Carlos Rodón (18-9, 3.09 ERA this season) and Shane Bieber (4-2, 3.57 ERA) take the mound in a battle of aces.

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Stat du jour: The Blue Jays are the second team ever with more home runs (8) than strikeouts (7) through their first two playoff games. The first was the 2005 White Sox, who went on to win the World Series.

⚾️ Mariners at Tigers | 4pm, FS1

Mariners righty Logan Gilbert (6-6, 3.44 ERA) and Tigers righty Jack Flaherty (8-15, 4.64 ERA) will try to give their teams a critical 2-1 lead in the other ALDS.

🏒 NHL Opening Night | ESPN

The NHL season begins tonight with a triple-header on ESPN: Blackhawks at Panthers (5pm), Penguins at Rangers (8pm) and Avalanche at Kings (10:30pm).

More to watch:

• ⚽️ Women’s Champions League: Arsenal vs. Lyon (3pm, CBSSN); Barcelona vs. Bayern Munich (3pm, Paramount+) … Two of four matches today.

• 🏀 NBA preseason: Bulls at Cavaliers (7pm, Peacock) … The season tips off two weeks from today.

Today’s full slate.

🏒 NHL trivia

As a new NHL season begins, it’s time to dust off everyone’s favorite factoid — that no Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since 1993.

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Question: Which team won that year?

Answer at the bottom.

🫡 Rest easy brother

Thank you for your service, brother. What a life. Nothing but respect.

Trivia answer: Canadiens

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This news was originally published on this post .