AMJ Masters Day 4 Takeaways: Gushue highlights teams eliminated from playoffs

In Brad Gushue’s first curling event of his retirement tour, he won’t be playing for a championship.

A rough week for the St. John’s legend ended on Friday after Gushue and his Team Canada fell short in its last opportunity to advance towards playoff contention. 

Although he was eliminated, 16 draws couldn’t determine the playoff field at this year’s AMJ Masters on the men’s side — they’ll need one more on Saturday — while on the women’s side, the field is set.

Friday’s results (Full scores and standings)

Draw 13
Tabata 9, Skrlik 4
Tirinzoni 5, Yoshimura 4
Ha 6, Schwaller 4
Retornaz 6, Dropkin 5 (SO)

Draw 14
Whyte 9, Hoesli 5
Kleiter 6, Mouat 5 (SO)
Gim 10, Einarson 4
Wrana 6, Fujisawa 4

Draw 15
Jacobs 10, Edin 1
Epping 4, Muskatewitz 2
McEwen 5, Gushue 3
Y. Schwaller 8, Dunstone 6

Draw 16
Kim 7, Constantini 1
Xu 7, Ramsfjell 6 (SO)
Homan 8, Wang 7 (SO)
Hasselborg 6, Black 1

Playoffs are set, sort of

On the women’s side, Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni finished as the top seed, while the lone Canadian Team to make the playoffs was Rachel Homan, who finished as the second seed. Meanwhile, on the men’s side, only six teams have punched a ticket to the playoffs, with Scotland’s Team Ross Whyte and Italy’s Team Joel Retornaz finishing one-two in the standings.

Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin will face Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller, and the two Canadian teams — Mike McEwen and Brad Jacobs — will face off. Both of these matches are tiebreakers to determine the final two spots on Saturday morning.

Best match

Canada’s Team Ryland Kleiter, who was 0-3 on the week, was the lucky team to play world No. 1 Bruce Mouat in the Friday crossover game. 

Kleiter, already eliminated from the playoffs, had nothing to play for but pride.

And as we know, pride means a lot, especially when you’re from Canada.

Kleiter’s team gave Mouat and his team everything it could handle, and then some. Down 5-4 with hammer heading to the eighth end, Kleiter looked like he would grab his deuce and the victory. Mouat had different plans, though, as he forced the Saskatoon native to one, and gave us yet another shootout ending.

Mouat shot first, finishing just 16.7 cm from the pin, putting all the pressure on the young skip. He came through, barely beating out Mouat with a distance of 15.6 cm from the pin. 

The win was just Kleiter’s second victory since being promoted to tier one.

Best shot

The first curling event of the season for Gushue definitely wasn’t what he was expecting. He didn’t make the playoffs and left the AMJ Masters with a 1-3 record. 

However, there was a bright spot for the six-time Brier champion on Friday.

With his last shot in the fourth end versus McEwen, down 3-1 and facing a steal of two, Gushue had no choice but to try an angle runback into his own rock that was side-frozen to both of McEwen’s shot stones in the four-foot.

Gushue didn’t rob the fans of a great moment, as not only did he connect the angled run, but also somehow kept his rock in the four-foot to score the single point.

A shot that will hopefully help the team build a little momentum moving forward.

Biggest momentum swing

With Canada’s Team Kerri Einarson taking on Korea’s Team Gim Eun-ji in what was a must-win for the Canadian team, the first end looked to be going in Einarson’s favour.

So much so, that with her final rock, she had the opportunity to play a just-off nose freeze on Gim’s rock and be completely buried, which would’ve forced Gim to just a draw for one.

Unfortunately, Einarson was heavy, rolling off Gim’s rock and leaving an open double for four points. Gim converted with ease, and from there it was downhill for the Manitoba team as they went on to lose 10-4.

Best sweep

For the most part, when you think of a good sweep, it’s because the person either kept the stone from crashing on another rock or from dragging the stone further away.

That wasn’t the case with Team Einarson’s Karlee Burgess on Friday.

Her teammate Shannon Birchard attempted a double hit-and-roll while trying to come around Team Gim’s guard out front. Scared to play it tight to the guard and wrecking, Birchard was instead way outside, meaning Burgess needed to sweep the length of the ice to get enough curl out of the rock. 

With all her might, she created enough curl, hitting Gim’s rocks and getting a roll. While it wasn’t exactly the shot Team Einarson wanted to begin with, they were definitely pleased with the outcome thanks to the great sweep by Burgess.

Top player

Even though he dropped the match-of-the-day on Thursday, Mike McEwen played very well, just not great.

But on Friday against Gushue, McEwen elevated his game to great. Not only from a shot-making standpoint, but also with how he called the game. Controlling what felt like every end, especially without the hammer, Gushue had no opportunity to generate more than a single point. 

Both teams came into the game with a 1-2 record, knowing they each needed to win in regulation to even have a chance of making the playoffs.

And while McEwen didn’t make any distinct highlight reel shots on Friday, he didn’t have to. He simply made everything, cruising to a 5-3 victory and securing a chance to play a tiebreaker against Jacobs.

AMJ Masters playoff coverage begins at 11:30 a.m. ET/ 8:30 a.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ on Saturday.