Locker Page 43 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Rangers give Igor Shesterkin the Henrik Lundqvist treatment in 79 save performance
Perhaps the one downside of the NHL game speeding up is that more and more teams look the same. It gets harder to identify a specific style to a specific team as rosters are just packed with players who can move at a high pace and are directed to just get the fuck up the ice as quickly as fucking po...
Please, please no more John Buccigross songs
The only thing worse than having to listen to Gus Johnson these days, and he’s been a real chore for years now, is having to listen to someone trying to be Gus Johnson....
You should root for the Florida Panthers
I know there’s a lot of obstacles. First off, hockey is probably the most provincial sport we have, and once everyone’s team is out, those fans tend to not give a fuck about whatever happens next. We’ve spent so much time coming up with reasons to hate everyone else it’s impossible to change gears. ...
Quarterbacks and Nakobe Dean fall in the NFL Draft. Also: Draft Matt Araiza, you cowards!
Well, the second round passed without a QB in sight, making this draft just the third in the past 30 years to only see one quarterback selected in the first two rounds. And perhaps even more surprisingly, Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder went ahead of projected favorite Malik Willis, who the Seahawks pas...
Over 16,000 kids have entered the transfer portal between 2020 and 2021
These kids know their worth....
It was a good night to get one’s s**t wrecked
This time of year is far and away the most frantic for a sports fan. Usually both the NBA and NHL are in their playoffs, with three or four games per night each. This year, the NHL is dragging ass a bit, and there really is only one playoff race, but it still means one has to keep tabs on it. The NB...
The Nets are so weird
And thus ends yet another attempt by the Brooklyn Nets to skip the line and crash into the NBA penthouse. Actually, “another Nets experiment” sounds a little more apt. Because the Nets, the Brooklyn version, have always felt like one....
Please stay healthy, Byron Buxton
It’s become part of the rhythm of a baseball season. Mike Trout will tweak something, or leave a game early, and every baseball fan will sigh, and wonder why they can’t have nice things. We all feel deprived of something when Trout misses a large chunk of time. This will also happen whenever Shohei ...
Alex Ovechkin is the best, no matter what he might stand for
On Wednesday night, Alex Ovechkin recorded his 50th goal of the season. It is his eighth 50-goal season, which ties the record for most in NHL history, along with Mike Bossy and Wayne Gretzky. But Ovechkin’s accomplishment is far more impressive than those two’s, and eight 50-goal seasons in any era...
Oh man, some intern is going to get it
There are a lot of things in this world that I don’t really understand, or can’t do, or can’t foresee. But I used to be pretty sure that there’s someone out there who is paid, probably pretty well, to know those things, to predict them, and to get those things done. Or to at least make sure they get...
The baseball is deflated again
I’m cribbing heavily from Joe Sheehan’s newsletter again, but in his latest missive he points out that things keep getting better and better for pitchers. Thanks to technology and greater study, they discover new pitches or tweaks to existing ones as they keep throwing harder and harder. At the same...
I’m sure you’re shocked to find out Mel Kiper isn’t vaccinated
If I had to put a face to the unvaccinated, it would probably look like Mel Kiper Jr.’s. I can’t really tell you why, because it’s not like he’s been even the most outspoken at ESPN about being a dingus. But there’s something about his mush…the fact that it looks like he’s never smiled, and if he ha...
Unlikely heroes lead way to start NBA playoffs
The stars were out for the first day of the NBA playoffs, with Donovan Mitchelll scoring 32 points to lead the Jazz to a 99-93 win in Dallas, Karl-Anthony Towns putting up 29 points and 13 boards to lead the Timberwolves to a Game 1 upset in Memphis, 130-117, and then Tyrese Maxey scored 38 points f...
Joe Maddon out-galaxy brains himself, manages to win anyway
There are a couple of key questions in baseball over the past several years that regularly intersect: “Why can’t the Angels win anything when they have Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, two unique talents among the greatest the game has ever seen?” and “How did Joe Maddon ever win a World Series with th...
Farewell to my first and last
The generations of sports fans who grew up learning and loving a sport and team through the radio are disappearing these days. Another one came to a close on Thursday night in Chicago, though this one was a little different. We were a group out of place and time, which we came to identify ourselves ...
It’s math time with Chris Pronger boys and girls!
As one of my editors pointed out yesterday, maybe we should just be relieved that Chris Pronger can type at all given how his career was ended. That’s generally the hope for any hockey player, as forlorn as it may be. And perhaps Pronger was trying to do the right thing and illustrate how so many fo...
I want to buy this Luka Modrić pass a top-shelf cocktail or six
The 2nd leg of Chelsea-Real Madrid will go down as an all-time classic, as Chelsea overcame a 3-1 first leg deficit to take a 4-3 aggregate lead, only to blow it and lose the tie in extra time to Real Madrid 5-4, even though they won the game 3-2. Chelsea were far and away the better team, with Thom...
You’re not the first, Alec Bohm, won’t be the last
Alec Bohm is not the first to get fed up with Philadelphia fans. He’s probably not even the first to do so by the fourth game of any baseball season. The point of Philadelphia sports, and maybe the whole city in general, is to be ornery. That’s certainly its charm, if you find it has one, as it’s ju...
The end of the NBA regular season is nigh
Because the NBA regular season doesn’t really matter — seriously, the barometer of advancing to the postseason this year was, “are you better than the clock-struck-midnight on Julius Randle version of the Knicks or the bunch of corpses that LeBron James couldn’t animate to 35 wins in Los Angeles?” —...