division Page 17 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Rangers are a mystery that analytics can't figure out
The best way to determine the best teams in any sport is to look at the standings, right? If they’ve been playing well, they’ll be near the top of the league. As Bill Parcells said, “You are what your record says you are.”...

Seriously, how did Ken Holland win those Stanley Cups?
Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz is a headline-chaser. He wants to win the press conference, get the attention, and that might be priority No. 1 for him most of the time. I mean, look at this fucking guy. This is someone who wants to be fawned over....

It was a very NHL day in the NHL
No one does “all over the map” quite like the NHL. And almost all of it is by accident, because there isn’t a guiding light to the league as to what it wants to be, or how it would get there if it did. Stuff just happens every day in this league, most of it makes you slap your forehead. Though somet...

Can Tuukka Rask play center?
It is cute, if not delicious, that Tuukka Rask’s imminent return to the Boston Bruins is being greeted as something of the cavalry arriving. Because Bruins fans (and media) have never hesitated to throw whatever available cutlery was around at Tuke Nuke ‘Em every spring because he wasn’t Tim Thomas,...

Darkness has fallen upon the Edmonton Oilers once again
The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars. Though apparently if you’re covering the Edmonton Oilers or a fan of them, that’s the going theme. Perhaps after years and years of the same problem, Oilers observers are just tired of complaining about the same things, so they’re looking for things tha...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #4: Chicago Blackhawks, equal parts heinous and incompetent
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

Remember the part where schools are supposed to protect student-athletes?
As of this afternoon, more than 15 Division I men’s basketball programs have announced a COVID outbreak-related pause on all team activities, 10 of which are currently active. Games are being canceled left and right — in the past 24 hours alone, matchups between UNC and UCLA, Ohio State and Kentucky...

Avalanche, Panthers and Flames done until Christmas
The NHL has multiple rosters’ worth of players in COVID protocols, with the number growing seemingly by the hour. The obvious thing to do, the thing that we would have expected in the era of “an abundance of caution” (remember that?) would be for the league to shut things down for a couple of weeks,...

Cleveland has hope — and a pretty good basketball team
If there was a way to slyly tell you that Cleveland has the second best scoring defense in the NBA behind the Warriors, I would do that. But me doing the whole, “I bet you couldn’t guess who the second best scoring defense in the league is” bit isn’t clever, because Cleveland is in the headline of t...

Do you have to pay attention to the Anaheim Ducks?
Surprise hockey teams don’t come around in the same way as they do in the NBA. In professional basketball, generally the newest team that you have to watch has one or two young stars that are starting to find it. Like Memphis with Ja Morant of late, or the meteoric rise of the Suns. Not only do you ...

Fed-up Flyers fans ready to bag the season
If you’re not a part of Flyers Twitter, well, consider yourself lucky. But you did miss fans of the Orange and Black having a totally normal one on Thursday as a movement to change PFPs to an unhappy fan wearing a bag over his/her head (much like the infamous days of New Orleans fans during the ’Ain...

Somehow this Coyotes story got dumber… and better
Maybe I should have waited a day. Because nothing with the Arizona Coyotes fails to get better, or funnier, or more abstract when you give it more time. As the layers get unpeeled, the aroma that wafts through the air really defies belief. It is both hilarity and bafflement, mixed in with old people...

Does the NHL vet its owners?
I wish I could write stuff like this as fiction. But unless you wrote it as Mel Brooks-ian farce, I don’t know how you’d make it believable. And I have to say that I really want to see the city of Glendale actually chain up the doors to Gila River Arena when Coyotes players attempt to show up for a ...

Make way, internet, Oklahoma senator has some fake outrage over Lincoln Riley
Oklahoma Sooners fans are mad, including Oklahoma state Sen. Bill Coleman, who is looking to “honor” Lincoln Riley with by renam — wait what?! Say that again, internet, Coleman (R-Ponca City) is an Oklahoma State fan? And his planned backhanded slight of renaming a desolate 3-inch stretch of highway...

The hockey men were at it again last night
A few times throughout the season, randomly, there’s a night where it feels like hockey players across the league lose their mind. It’s like a hive mentality, perhaps when the banality of the regular season sinks in or becomes too much to deal with and they have to break out in the only way they kno...

The Flyers needed to fire Alain Vigneault last year
The Philadelphia Flyers fired coach Alain Vigneault on Monday, and the truth is it should have come sooner, and it’s probably not enough....

Who wants the Arizona Coyotes?
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but rumors have started that the Arizona Coyotes could be sold and moved to Houston. I know, it’s been a whole 12 minutes since the last one:...

The only question for the Canadiens is what took so long?
So If you feel like you heard some faint swearing in the air, and it vaguely sounded French (though Quebecois only vaguely sound French), don’t worry, you weren’t alone....

As rivalry week comes to a close, what does the CFP picture look like now?
It took 10 years for Michigan to beat Ohio State, and what feels like another 10 years in college football has passed since the Wolverines finally claimed their first-ever spot in a Big Ten championship game....

Dmitry Kulikov is the best defenseman in the NHL (just go with me on this)
It’s a sensationalist headline, and obviously one I don’t truly believe, at least fully. That doesn’t make it a lie either, and Kulikov sums up the Minnesota Wild’s surprising start that has them atop the Central Division by four points. ...