The Sharks signed Kesselring to a three-year contract with an annual-average value of $4.5 million on Sunday, sources confirmed to Sportsnet.

San Jose traded the 20th-overall pick in Friday’s NHL Draft to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Kesselring and the 27th pick.

Buffalo selected forward Ilia Morozov with the 20th pick while the Sharks used No. 27 as part of a package to trade up again and take defenceman Ryan Lin at No. 21.

Kesselring was limited to just 34 regular-season games in 2025-26, recording just two assists. Prior to that, he had a career-best season in 2024-25, playing all 82 games for the Utah Mammoth, potting seven goals and 29 points.

He was acquired by Buffalo alongside Josh Doan in the 2025 off-season in the deal that sent JJ Peterka to Utah.

“Michael has a big frame with solid two-way ability,” said Sharks general manager Mike Grier in a statement on Wednesday. “He is a responsible player in the defensive zone with a well-rounded offensive game, and will be a good upgrade for us patrolling the blue line. We’re happy to have him a part of the organization.”

Davis Alexander didn’t seem like a quarterback who’d just led his team to another victory — and a 3-1 record.

The Montreal Alouettes’ star pivot offered a brutally honest assessment of what had just transpired at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium on Sunday night.

“I’m gonna say it. It was awful,” a visibly frustrated Alexander said on the side of the field post-game. “Way too close of a game, awful for our standard.”

Despite big performances from Alexander and wideout Tyson Philpot, the Alouettes only barely held on to beat the struggling Ottawa Redblacks 37-35, a score line that looked unlikely when favoured Montreal cruised to a 21-6 halftime lead.

The Redblacks posted just 76 yards of net offence in the first half before responding with a pair of quick touchdowns to outscore the Alouettes 12-0 in the third quarter, continuing a woeful early-season trend for Montreal (3-1) after halftime.

“There’s something about that third quarter that we need to clean up,” Philpot said. “It pisses us off when we let teams back in, and we know when we play championship-winning football teams, we’re not going to find a way to win (playing) football like that.”

So, what’s the solution?

“I don’t know. I want to say laser focus through four quarters,” Alexander said. “But I don’t know, can you measure that? Is that actually the problem? That’s just the way I see it. I mean, I’m obviously pretty frustrated and pissed, but we just have to be better.”

Veteran defensive back Wesley Sutton offered a more philosophical explanation after another tough second half for the Alouettes’ defence.

“It’s not just football, it’s life. You get a promotion, you have success, and you just tend to fall back, but you have to continue to fight that,” said Sutton, who had one interception. “We have to fight that temptation to take our foot off the gas and relax.

“It’s just an innate feeling, you have success and you want to relax. You’ve got to fight, we have to be on each other to continue to keep pushing and finish.”

Head coach Jason Maas, meanwhile, wasn’t buying into the negative slant.

“Was it awful? I would never say that. I’m sorry, I don’t believe in that,” he said. “The CFL is hard to win games. Bottom line.

“Can you get upset about not playing to a standard on every play? Sure, you can do that. But a totality of a game and you win a game? You’ve got to be happy about that and proud of that.”

To Maas’ point, it wasn’t all bad.

Alexander completed 22-of-30 passes for 345 yards and two touchdowns for Montreal, improving his record as a CFL starter to 15-1 in the regular season.

His favourite target was Philpot, who hauled in 12 receptions for 198 yards — including 125 in the first half — before 17,138 fans.

In perhaps the play of the night, Alexander went deep up the middle to Snead on a 46-yard heave, helping the Alouettes take a nine-point lead with 56.4 left on a José Maltos Diaz field goal. The clutch play came moments after Alexander limped off a tackle, saying post-game he felt fine.

“It’s the way I’m built, the way I’m wired,” he said. “I’m in the Grey Cup, I’m playing on a torn hamstring, I throw a ball 65 yards to Snead. I mean, it doesn’t matter.”

The Redblacks immediately answered in stunning fashion as Kalil Pimpleton returned the ensuing kickoff 94 yards to make it 37-35 with 42 seconds remaining. But Philpot retrieved Ottawa’s onside kick to run out the clock and secure an Alouettes victory.

Ottawa, meanwhile, is still searching for its first win under head coach and general manager Ryan Dinwiddie (0-3), but had an encouraging second half.

Jake Maier was 27-of-38 passing for 336 yards with three touchdowns and one interception for Ottawa (0-3), while Keelan White caught two touchdowns as the offence and special teams found a rhythm against an Alouettes team that has surrendered 124 points through four games.

“I thought Jake battled, I thought the offence battled, where we kind of found an identity in the second (half) and we got to build off of that,” Dinwiddie said. “But no moral victories. We’re 0-3. That’s where we’re at.

“You can’t point fingers and blame. I told the guys, everybody’s got to have a lens and look in the mirror, including myself and the rest of the coaches.”

Redblacks: Host the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Friday.

Alouettes: Have a bye week, then host the Calgary Stampeders on Saturday, July 11.

BOSTON — Sonny Gray was almost overloaded with reasons to celebrate.

As if taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning and reaching 2,000 career strikeouts weren’t enough, his brilliant outing Sunday night for Boston came against the rival New York Yankees — a team Gray once pitched for and hasn’t been shy about disliking.

So after winning in a wild ending, Gray and the Red Sox were reveling in a four-game sweep at Fenway Park that marked their longest winning streak this season.

“They’re at the top of our division right now. They are where we hope to be. So yeah, it was a good series and it was a pretty sick finish to the series for us,” Gray said after the Red Sox rallied for a 5-4 victory in 10 innings.

Actually, the Yankees are now a game behind first-place Tampa Bay in the AL East, thanks in large part to Boston’s first four-game sweep in the rivalry since 2018.

Finishing it off proved difficult when New York scored two runs in the ninth to tie it and then two more in the 10th to take a 4-2 lead. But the Red Sox responded with three in the bottom half and walked off with a rousing win on Jarren Duran’s game-ending single.

The chaotic ending nearly overshadowed what Gray had done hours before, striking out nine and shutting down the Yankees emphatically for 7 1/3 innings as Boston clung to a 2-0 advantage.

“I was just trying to do my part to win the game. That’s all I was thinking about other than executing a pitch,” Gray said. “I just felt very focused. I wanted to come out and win the game and we did that.”

Gray didn’t dwell much on the opponent despite his history with New York.

He pitched for the Yankees after a trade-deadline deal in 2017, but the following season ended up losing his spot in the rotation and was ultimately left off the Yankees’ postseason roster. His time with New York ended with an offseason trade to Cincinnati. Stops in Minnesota and St. Louis followed before the veteran right-hander arrived in Boston this season, and he said he never really wanted to play for the Yankees.

While the last-place Red Sox (36-46) are still 10 games below .500, Gray said it felt pretty special getting to that point after what it took to win Sunday. He tipped his cap to Boston fans as he left to a standing ovation in the eighth after Amed Rosario ended the no-hit bid with a one-out single up the middle on Gray’s 97th pitch.

“I think in the sixth inning or something they started really like getting into it and it was cool. I appreciated that,” Gray said. “I appreciate them and it seemed like they appreciated the outing tonight. We need them. If we’re going to get back into this thing, we need them. And they were here for us this weekend, so I appreciated that.”

It was the first time since 1963 the Yankees were held hitless through the first four innings of three straight games.

Gray got some defensive help in the third when Wilyer Abreu robbed Austin Wells of a hit with a sliding grab in shallow right field after a full sprint to reach the sinking ball in time. Abreu also committed a pair of costly throwing errors late that helped the Yankees tie it and later take the lead.

Interim manager Chad Tracy said he still has plenty of confidence in his Gold Glove outfielder, as did his teammates.

“We’ve had a good weekend. Even though we gave up a couple of runs, the energy in the dugout coming in was like, let’s go win the game,” Tracy said. “There’s been times here in the past couple of months where that would have kind of crushed us, but that was not the case. They were fired up to try and get that done.”

Yankees starter Carlos Rodón had a one-hitter going after holding Boston without a hit through the first three innings. Caleb Durbin broke it up with a two-run single with one out in the fourth.