Hockey Page 417 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Buffalo, with Sabres-ian flourish, bucks history, takes D with No. 1 pick
It’s not that selecting a defenseman with the first pick in the NHL draft is always a mistake....

A bunch of Deadspinners sit around Kraken wise
Chris Baud, Jon Hoefling and Jesse Spector got together to talk about the Seattle Kraken expansion draft, in which the team surprised many by not going for big-name players like Carey Price, Gabriel Landeskog, Vladimir Tarasenko or Jakub Voracek. What’s up with that?...

Seattle Kraken put on a great show, but will they win?
Tonight was the expansion draft, and yeah, I know like 80% of it was leaked online. Still. We saw Mt. Rainier, Pike’s Place Market with a thrown fish, the Space Needle, local sports icons, Macklemore, a whole lot of sea life, and everything about it felt incredibly, and perfectly, Seattle....

The Kraken are preserving cap space apparently, but for who? For what?
We’re still only in the leaked stage, and leave it to the NHL to not think that the Seattle Kraken’s expansion draft would get out before the big show tonight thus rendering it moot, but it appears that GM Ron Francis has gone the pretty boring route. No Carey Price, no side deals that actually pilf...

Unleash the Kraken
They won’t admit it, but there is a decent amount of pressure facing the Seattle Kraken ahead of their first year as an NHL franchise. ...

The Canadiens all seem conveniently hurt
NHL teams had to submit their protected lists on Saturday for the upcoming Seattle Kraken expansion draft, and it always contains a good amount of fun when you see what GMs are prioritizing and what they’ll move along to avoid losing someone for free. Even if that someone is a complete dope. GMs are...

No, not that Ryan Ellis
Ryan Ellis was traded to the Flyers on Saturday....

Preds' Ryan Ellis heads to Philly as teams get in last moves before NHL expansion draft
Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher got his man. The mild-mannered exec, rarely known for making big splashy moves, acquired Ryan Ellis from the Nashville Predators for former No. 2 overall pick Nolan Patrick and young defenseman Philippe Myers....

The Oilers continue to fail McDavid and Draisaitl
The Edmonton Oilers have arguably the two best hockey players on the planet in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Together, the two of them have combined for the last two Hart Trophies and three of the last five. Yet despite incredible efforts from the dynamic duo, the Oilers have never lived up to ...
![Who cares if the Stanley Cup got yet another dent? [Narrator: Montreal cares, very much]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/be302fab6bdb94ef76a210147ceaf1f0.jpg)
Who cares if the Stanley Cup got yet another dent? [Narrator: Montreal cares, very much]
Any team that wins a championship deserves a huge parade in their hometown in front of thousands of their adoring fans. They deserve to party the night away and celebrate what they were able to accomplish....

Habs’ Brendan Gallagher is probably having a worse week than you
A Montreal Canadien was robbed last night. I’m not talking about being robbed in a hockey sense. The Lightning definitely won the Cup convincingly. I’m talking about actual robbery — Ocean’s Eleven style....

Canadiens will have an interesting offseason
We know that the Tampa Bay Lightning, who finished off the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 last night in Game 5 to win back-to-back Stanley Cups, will face cap problems and the shortest offseason in history, as it’ll be just two-and-a-half months (so basically one month sober)....

Matīss Kivlenieks killed by errant fireworks, autopsy reveals
Matīss Kivlenieks, a goalie for the Columbus Blue Jackets, died Sunday night from chest trauma suffered from an errant “fireworks mortar blast,” according to an autopsy in Oakland County, Michigan....

No, the Lightning didn’t cheat
At some point in the next couple days, the Tampa Bay Lightning will win their second consecutive Cup. Could be tonight, or maybe the Canadiens have one last death rattle in them and send this series back to Tampa on Wednesday. It’s hockey, weird things happen, we’ve seen 0-3 comebacks, but here it’s...

Coupe de “ill”
The Stanley Cup Final is a huge letdown after the rip-roaring semifinals, which isn’t really a surprise, because when the Lightning beat the Islanders to set up their title defense against the Canadiens, it was something of a fait accompli....

This isn’t catching Lightning in a bottle
The Stanley Cup Final kicked off, and while most news outlets spend the majority of their coverage of the Tampa Bay Lightning whining about their salary cap, and not their roster building or coaching which allows them to do things like have Nikita Kucherov miss the season and still be fine. John Coo...

How many firing squads can Carey Price turn back?
The Montreal Canadiens aren’t quite as chained to their history and tradition as the rest of the hockey world (including yours truly) likes to joke about. They can never escape it, and nor should they. it’s the MONTREAL CANADIENS, for fuck’s sake. But the drawn-out pregame ceremonies and insistence ...

This is what the Blackhawks have always been
It’s probably a story that you’ve heard a million times by now if you have any sports leanings, but it needs emphasizing. In the spring of 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks were the center of Chicago. Not just Chicago sports, but Chicago. It was a meteoric and shocking rise, simply because three years be...

Fun and exciting expansion team hires most boring, mediocre coach available
Hoo-hoo, hahahahaha. The Seattle Kraken have hired their first coach. Bahahahaha. It’s Dave Hakstol....

This Isles cheap shot is reason for NHL’s vaguer-than-vague injury reports
The NHL will get another Game 7, this one between the Islanders and Lightning, as the Isles fought back from a 2-0 deficit to win 3-2 in overtime to tie the series. And I really should spend this section talking about Mathew Barzal’s star turn, as he was basically unplayable for all of Game 6 (even ...