Latest news with #Eller
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Know. Your Enemy, Sabres Edition: Ottawa Senators Could Be Standing In Way Between Buffalo, Playoffs
The Buffalo Sabres happen to play in the NHL's most competitive division, the Atlantic Division, Every one of the Atlantic's eight teams have designs on being a playoff team next season -- and as part of this continuing series, we're analyzing each of the Sabres' seven divisional rivals to see what chance Buffalo has against each of them. We've moved alphabetically through the first four teams in the Atlantic, including Boston, Detroit, Florida and Montreal. And in this file, we're turning to the Ottawa Senators, the team that ended a seven-season playoff drought last year, when they finished with the Atlantic's fourth-best record (45-30-7). How did the Sabres fare against the Senators last season -- and what chance does Buffalo have at getting the best of Ottawa this coming year? Those are the questions you'll find answers to below. NEW SENATORS PLAYERS: Lars Eller, C; Arthur Kaliyev, LW; Jordan Spence, D 2024-25 SERIES: Sabres 4-0-0, Senators 0-4-0 2025-26 GAMES AGAINST EACH OTHER: October 15 at Buffalo; December 23 at Ottawa; April 2 at Ottawa CAN THE SABRES BEAT THIS TEAM? The Sabres laid out the Senators last season, winning all four of their regular-season games. And with the Senators making few additions to their roster -- including greybeard Eller, New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings castoff Kaliyev, and young defenseman Spence (a move we actually really like for Ottawa) -- the Sens could be prone to losing repeatedly to Buffalo again this season. The teams only play on three occasions next year -- and two of them are essentially season-opening and season-closing bookmarks: the first game will be the Sabres' fourth game of the year, while the third game will be Buffalo's seventh-to-last game of the year. So it's rather likely the Sens team the Sabres see in October will be significantly different than the Sens team that greets them in April. With that said, we like Buffalo's chances of being better than the Senators the way they were better than them last season. Ottawa was a mediocre defensive team last season, but their offense was worse, ranking 19th in the league at an average of 2.95 goals-for per game. Know Your Enemy, Sabres Edition: Will The New-Look Montreal Canadiens Edge Out Buffalo For A Playoff Spot? The Buffalo Sabres are desperate to be a playoff team next season -- but they're in the NHL's toughest division -- the Atlantic Division. And their games against Atlantic teams will be crucial to help decided whether or not they'll be a playoff team next year. As such, we're analyzing Buffalo's chances against each Atlantic team in a series; We started alphabetically with the Boston Bruins, then turned our attention to the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the defending Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers. Let's return, then, to see what Ottawa did this summer: they brought in Eller, who won't move the needle offensively; they brought in Kaliyev, who couldn't produce enough offense to justify the Kings or Rangers hanging onto him. And they brought in Spence, who can contribute some offense, but who also isn't regarded for his defensive play. So it seems, then, that the Sabres can indeed take advantage of their structural advantages over the Senators. Buffalo's offense, even without the departed J.J. Peterka, should be able to poke holes in Ottawa's defense, The Sabres' defense corps, meanwhile, is deeper and more talented than the Sens' group of blueliners. And while Ottawa's netminding is better than Buffalo's, the Sabres still managed to outscore the Senators 17-5 last year. Having one fewer game against one another might temporarily dampen the natural rivalry between Ottawa and Buffalo. But don't kid yourself -- if the Metropolitan Division improves next season and four Metro teams make it into the playoffs, only four teams will be getting a playoff berth in the Atlantic. And that almost certainly means one, if not both the Senators and Sabres will miss out on playoff action next year. Know Your Enemy, Sabres Edition: Does Buffalo Have Any Hope Of Beating The Defending Stanley Cup-Champion Panthers? The Buffalo Sabres are under massive pressure to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in 15 years. To do so, they're going to have to make the most of their games with their Atlantic Division rivals. And in this continuing series, we're analyzing Buffalo's chances against each of their seven Atlantic rivals. You have to give the Sens their due -- they've got plenty to like, and reason for optimism next season and beyond. However, the sports world is littered with the husks of better-than-average teams that faltered under the weight of expectation. We're not here to guarantee you that Ottawa is going to be one of those teams. However, if the Sabres are to end their 14-year playoff drought, they need to get a leg up on many, if not most Atlantic teams. The Senators aren't yet regarded as a top-two-or-better team, and that may change soon enough. But Buffalo needs to do whatever it can to replicate the success they had against Ottawa last season. Because if they don't, and the Sabres miss out on the playoffs yet again, their losses at the hands of the Sens may be the reason why.
Indianapolis Star
26-06-2025
- Business
- Indianapolis Star
IDEM seeks public input on eliminating 'overly burdensome' environmental regulations
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is asking the public to provide input on how the agency can meet Gov. Mike Braun's orders to reduce potentially stifling regulations typically meant to give Hoosiers clean air and water. Braun earlier this year signed an executive order directing state agencies to review environmental rules and regulations so they may provide 'a stable, predictable, and fair environment for businesses and industries' in the state. The governor's order says the state's environmental rules and regulations should not be more stringent than federal requirements and agencies should not 'impose unnecessary burdens on business, communities, agencies, or industries ... ' State departments have until the end of 2025 to submit a report to Braun. Citizen comments are due by June 30. Groups like the Indiana Manufacturers Association find these orders favorable, but environmental advocates say Indiana policy doesn't go far enough. Ashton Eller, vice president of governmental affairs with the Indiana Manufacturer's Association, said Braun's orders and the steps IDEM is taking is a clear strategy that prioritizes economic development in the state. Eller said one of the top priorities for the association is the speed of permitting. 'Sometimes the speed of government doesn't move at the speed of business,' Eller said, 'and those permits need to be done quickly and efficiently in order to get them issued to the manufacturing facilities as quickly as possible.' The IMA represents the interests of about 1,000 manufacturers and adjacent services in the state. That membership base employs around 350,000 Hoosiers, Eller said. Waiting for months on end for permits to come through can be frustrating for manufacturers because they are not able to launch a new product or expand a facility to bring in new employees, Eller said. 'If they are not able to do those processes, they are not able to bring in the revenue that they would need to without that permit,' Eller said. 'The (permitting) delay would delay higher outputs that could bring in more revenue not just to the manufacturer, but also that community.' Sam Carpenter, executive director at Hoosier Environmental Council, said environmental regulations are usually put into place as a response to some event. He pointed to the 1999 White River fish kill resulting in protections for the river and other local issues like the lead exposure in Martindale-Brightwood and the recent Marion County Health Department report on the health impacts of living near a Superfund site. 'These are real impacts on people's health and quality of life,' Carpenter said. 'I think it is important that we think about why we have these protections in place, and if there are ways to make them more efficient and smarter, then absolutely we would like to have that conversation but to just eliminate them really overlooks a bigger problem.' While efficiency and smart regulation can be supported from Carpenter's perspective, he said it's not right to think about environmental regulations as overburdensome for business that 'historically has not voluntarily regulated itself on a collective basis enough to not need laws.' 'We have health impacts and destruction of natural resources that cause a significant financial burden on individuals as well,' Carpenter said. Rob Michaels, senior attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said now is not the time to roll back environmental regulations when the federal government is defunding the U.S. EPA and pulling back on environmental enforcement across the board. Michaels also said that allowing more pollution for the sake of economic growth is a misguided priority. 'We are a far richer country than we were in the '70s and there is way less air pollution and water pollution,' Michaels said. 'We can have economic development and protections for clean air and water. It is a false trade off that is really the premise of these orders.' Hoosiers can submit comments to IDEM by sending an email to efficiency@ IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
How can the Capitals come back from a 3-1 deficit vs. Hurricanes? Start here
ARLINGTON, Va. — A few days ago, speaking before Game 4 of his team's Stanley Cup playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes, Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery was asked about making lineup changes. At the time, Washington was down 2-1 but with less of a foothold than that suggested; winning a series when you have the puck as infrequently as the Capitals in the first three games is a tough hill to climb. Advertisement So, naturally, Carbery was open to mixing things up … with a caveat. 'The tricky part of that is those guys have been together all year long, essentially,' Carbery said. 'So (if) you're tinkering with things this time of year, you have to be careful. You want to make adjustments, but you don't want to go overboard to do something that the group is completely uncomfortable with and haven't utilized through 90-whatever games we've played this year.' Sounds pretty close to 'let's wait and see' — and, indeed, during a 5-2 Game 4 loss to the Hurricanes, the Capitals waited and saw. If Wednesday's practice lines hold, big changes to the forward group for Thursday's Game 5 are on the way. The clock is ticking on Washington's season. As The Athletic's Murat Ates noted from Winnipeg, teams down 3-1 have gone on to win 32 out of 352 NHL playoff series, a 9.1 percent success rate. The Athletic's Dom Luszczyszyn's in-house model gives the Capitals a 7 percent chance of completing the comeback. The odds of flipping a coin and getting heads four times in a row is 6.25. If Washington pulls it off, it'll almost certainly be because the new-look lines pay off. Here's more on what that'd entail, along with a few other elements that'd help the Capitals start to dig out from the 3-1 hole. The forward lines from Wednesday's practice are as follows: *-Placeholder for Alex Ovechkin, who had a maintenance day The biggest change is Connor McMichael moving off the left wing with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tom Wilson and centering the third line in Lars Eller's place. The third line, with Eller in the middle, has been ineffective against Carolina, with Ryan Leonard getting scratched for Game 3 and returning for Game 4. Overall, in 13 minutes, 7 seconds together at five-on-five, Andrew Mangiapane-Eller-Leonard lost in shot attempts 20-6, shots on goal 10-2 and high-danger chances 10-2, and controlled an abysmal 17 percent of the expected goal share. On top of that, in Game 4, misplays by Eller and Leonard in the defensive zone helped set the table for a back-breaking goal by Carolina's Taylor Hall. Not a sustainable situation. Advertisement Replacing Eller with McMichael makes sense because it gives the third line a puncher's chance to actually drive offense. McMichael was second on the team in individual expected goals per 60 minutes in the regular season with 1.24. Eller was 14th with 0.71, and his play has also fallen off dramatically in the postseason; 0.14 expected goals per 60 is 17th on the Capitals, ahead of only defensemen Matt Roy and Trevor van Riemsdyk. McMichael, meanwhile, has continued showing an ability to create scoring chances. It's been on the wing, of course, but McMichael played down the middle basically until solidifying his spot on the Capitals' roster. 'I think it's going to be pretty seamless for me,' McMichael said. 'It's something even in practice a few times this year, I jumped in line rushes up the middle, just to stay fresh. So I think I'll be good.' Mangiapane and Leonard have more to offer offensively, too. The former scored 35 goals a few years ago for the Calgary Flames, and Carbery has consistently praised the latter's play with the puck on his stick. Having McMichael should give both more opportunities. '(Putting him at center is) no different than putting him at left wing or right wing,' Carbery said of McMichael. 'He's a good hockey player. He helps us in a lot of different areas. Penalty kill, power play, his pace of play. When he's using his feet, his quickness to evade big, long defenders. He's a good player for us.' From a chance-generation standpoint, the two games in Carolina were actually great for Ovechkin. He clocked in at more than three expected all-situations goals per 60, more than double his rate in the regular season, scoring once on the power play in the third period of Game 4. Washington needs more cash-ins from him, especially as most of the rest of its skaters struggle to generate those sorts of opportunities. Advertisement The Capitals almost certainly aren't going to win Ovechkin's minutes in terms of shot share or expected goals. That's fine. What makes him (and Strome) an effective first-line forward is his ability to put the chances he does get into the net at an impressive rate. If Ovechkin and Strome are scoring, all is well. If they're not, Washington is going to struggle. 'It's not like there's one recipe that's gonna solve (Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen),' Strome said. 'We've got to get Grade-A chances, and we gotta bear down. We've had lots of chances in the first period in the last couple games and we haven't put them in.' As a team, the Capitals have done a good job of closing the gap in all-situations high-danger chances we saw in Game 1. In Game 2, Carolina held an 11-10 edge. Game 3 was 14-13 Capitals, and Game 4 was 10-6 Capitals. Probably not as lopsided as you'd guessed. The Capitals are taking solace in that, even as the time left to wait on puck luck runs short. 'Just staying on it and staying with it. You know they'll start to go,' Wilson said. 'Sometimes that's the way it goes in hockey. It's hard to score goals.' This is the biggest one. It's going to sound like a cop-out — because of course every team wants their goalie to be at his best — but that goes double for Washington and Logan Thompson. We're not going to harp on the shot-attempt disparity here, partially because Washington has gradually closed that a bit as the series has gone on, but Carolina is still almost certain to control the puck for a larger chunk of time than the Capitals. Thompson, as was the case in Game 2, needs to be the eraser. There are plenty of reasons to think he's capable. One: He's playing at home. Japers' Rink pointed all this out, but it bears repeating: In five playoff games at Capital One Arena, Thompson has a .954 save percentage and 10.6 goals saved above expectations. On the road, he's at .872 and 4.5 goals above expectations (more than one per game, on average). That's a major, major gap, and it's not one you can explain away with 'well, the Capitals are winning the tactical battle because they have last change.' They're not. They're allowing nearly half an expected goal per game more (3.46 vs. 2.95) at home. Thompson is the variable. Advertisement That's not to say he's the reason they went 0-for-2 in Carolina, either. He was fine — and chasing multi-goal leads for most of the third period in Game 5 had an effect. By Strome's count, they allowed five two-on-ones down the stretch in the Hurricanes' 5-2 win. 'We can't leave him out to dry like that,' Strome said. 'We've got full confidence in him and what he has to do, and he's done it all year. He did in the first round. He's done it in this round. And I expect no different in Game 5.' How often Carbery calls Thompson 'a gamer' has turned into a running joke over the last few weeks, so on Wednesday, he made a conscious effort to switch it up. 'These moments when chips are in the middle of the table and our season's on the line, he's a pretty safe bet,' Carbery said. 'He's a pretty safe bet because you know he's going to lay absolutely everything he's got on the line for his teammates. He wants to win as bad as anybody in our room, so I've got a lot of confidence.' (Photo of Alex Ovechkin: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Yahoo
Dog dies after being left in dumpster by Rusty's Pizza Parlor
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The Kern County Animal Shelter says Rose died from blunt force trauma injuries most likely from being run over by a car. Video shows someone wrapping the injured dog in blankets before tossing her in a dumpster behind a locked gate surrounded by razor wire, and jump proof spikes. It happened at 2 a.m., Monday behind Rusty's Pizza Parlor on Niles Street. A worker with Rusty's Pizza Parlor says a homeless man brought their attention to the dog crying in the dumpster and they called animal control. Kern County Animal Services found the dog in the dumpster at 10:41 a.m. on Tuesday, more than eight hours after she was tossed in the trash. The worker thought Rose was dead, until Rose picked her head up and whimpered. Veterinary surgeon Nicole Eller is disgusted by the video. Eller said, 'I've never lived anywhere like this before. It breaks my heart on a daily basis.' Eller said it's a clear case of animal cruelty. 'Picking a dog up, and putting it in a dumpster when it's not dead, I mean, there's nothing right about that,' said Eller. 'There's nothing right here, (as she points to her heart). That's against the law.' KCAS Director Nick Cullen stated in an email to 17 News, 'Rose was deceased upon our arrival, and she appeared to be an American Pit Bull Terrier mix. Significant blunt force trauma, the type of trauma we typically see as a result of an animal being hit by a moving vehicle, was likely what led to her death. Though immediate veterinary care may have saved her if it had been provided promptly.' Cullen said it is not known how Rose' injuries were received. 'The only way to really tell for sure would be to do a full necropsy of the animal which means an autopsy in animal terms,' said Eller. Zach Skow, founder of Marley's Mutts Dog Rescue, announces departure from organization KCAS states, if you find an injured animal in need of immediate care call animal control because officers are on call 24/7. 'I have never lived in a place like Kern County where you see the number of abandoned animals, injured animals, dumped animals, dumped puppies, dumped kittens. People need to step up, and take responsibility for their animals, and realize that they have emotions, they suffer pain…they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,' said Eller. The worker at Rusty's Pizza Parlor who found Rose said her eyes were popped out of her skull from the impact. Cullen said she had no collar, no microchip, and KCAS named her Rose. If you know something say something, and email animalservices@ Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Debate continues over cyber charter funding as bill looks to cap payments
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Governor Josh Shapiro asked lawmakers to cap tuition payments to cyber charter schools, which districts have been complaining about for years. But, many students and parents have succeeded with online education and enrollment has spiked. Now, there's a new development in the fight for funding. Calls for cyber charter reform intensify after audit found ballooning revenue, surpluses 'I kind of feel like it's Groundhog Day at these hearings, to be honest with you,' State Rep. Marc Anderson (R-York). Anderson is a former public school teacher and administrator who doesn't automatically bash cyber charters for siphoning cash from public school districts. 'Start asking the question, why are so many kids going to cyber charter schools? I really haven't heard anybody answer that,' Anderson says. The more kids that go, the bigger the check school districts must write. 'We're drowning in what we're paying these cyber schools,' Rep. Joe Ciresi (D-Montgomery) said. 'Our districts are begging for reform.' He believes his bill, House Bill 1372, is providing it. The bill would cap tuition payments, currently all over the map, at $8,000. He estimates districts would save $600 million a year. Charters say it would crush them. 'We would have to seriously look at operations and have to pare back most, if not a vast majority of it,' Tim Eller, with Commonwealth Charter Academy. The bill has a new wrinkle. If a local school offers cyber learning and is approved by the Department of Education, students would have to go there. Districts wouldn't have to pay others 'They're already created,' Rep. Nikki Rivera (D-Lancaster) said. 'If your school district meets this, this, this, and you have a sound cyber charter in-house, why would our taxpayers have to pay additional for outside cyber charter?' Because, Eller would argue, enrollment suggests parents want what his cyber school is offering. 'Parents should have a right to choose where they send their children, whether it's public, nonpublic, private,' Eller said. 'The money should follow the student. Parents are taxpayers, too.' Which brings us back to the Groundhog Day debate that won't likely be ending anytime soon. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
