Ducks trade longtime goaltender John Gibson to Red Wings

The Ducks traded netminder John Gibson to the Detroit Red Wings, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Saturday, ending a 12-year tenure with the club.

Ilia Topuria has a way of leaving even the most verbose fight observers speechless, and with each passing appearance, he continues adding to his burgeoning legacy.

Saturday night at UFC 317, the 28-year-old claimed the vacant lightweight title with a vicious knockout win over Charles Oliveira, sending his opponent crashing to the canvas in the centre of the Octagon just before the midway point of the first round.

It was a blistering shot that put the former champion out on his feet, and the rapid blows that followed were expertly placed and purely academic.

Oliveira was out, Topuria was triumphant, and his place in the pantheon of all-time greats got even stronger.

It’s genuinely difficult to contextualize what Topuria has done to this point in his career because it’s amongst the rarest occurrences you will find. In a sport where everyone struggles at various points and only a handful of luminaries have navigated their careers without suffering a loss, “El Matador” continues to live up to his nickname, dodging both difficulties and defeats as he continues to square off with elite competitors and former champions.

The new lightweight champion is 9-0 in the UFC, with seven of those victories coming inside the distance. Even more impressively, he’s 3-0 in championship bouts, having earned consecutive stoppage victories over Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway, and now Oliveira, a three-fight run of success that ranks amongst the best in UFC history.

Those athletes each had impressive reigns atop their respective divisions and stood as major question marks for the emerging superstar that represents both Georgia and Spain on the world stage.

Last February at UFC 298, he blew through Volkanovski to claim the featherweight title, but people wondered if the Australian had simply returned to action too quickly after