hockey Page 27 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Someone please explain San Jose’s hot start for me
I know it’s early, but how in the world are the San Jose Sharks 4-0? There is nothing about this team that jumps off the page when you look at their roster. In fact, their roster looks filled to the brim with huge, unfulfilling contracts attached to players way past their prime, unproven youngsters,...
Fare Thee Well, Penn State, it was’t even fun while it lasted
Penn State has now lost back-to-back games by blowing a two-touchdown lead at Iowa and scoring eight points over the course of nine overtimes at home against Illinois. That’s quite a way to go from being No. 4 in the country to having no hope for the national title whatsoever....
Sometimes you have to just sit back and appreciate what’s on offer
Perhaps I’m feeling wistful because last October, we didn’t have our normal schedule. There’s a clock to this, a rhythm, that we have spent our entire lives attuned to. Hockey and basketball start during the MLB playoffs. Go a year without it, and suddenly the axis is off, red lights are blinking, t...
Can we make a ‘Habs-not’ joke real quick?
It was no secret that this season was going to be tougher for the Montreal Canadiens. They had to sneak into the playoffs last year when all they had to do was beat out the rest of the trash Canadian teams, and then went on a run because Carey Price was able to channel 2014 for a few weeks. ...
The NLCS has actual action
I always fear that when fans of a sport complain about a lack of “offense” they never really understand what the real problem is. The problem, usually, is action. Hockey went through this, and is still kind of going through this, by always trying to pump up goals with power plays. Though the main ai...
Dave Roberts can’t help himself
The MLB playoffs can get pretty muddled between decisions and results. Rarely do they line up because... y’know, baseball. It doesn’t cooperate. Right decisions, wrong results, vice versa, the throughline is rarely consistent. But Dave Roberts has been at this for years now, so he certainly makes fo...
They say your twenties are the best years of your life...
Jack Hughes played 117 games in the NHL as a teenager over the course of two pandemic-shortened seasons, and he scored 18 goals with 34 assists. Not a star performance, by any means, but good for a teenager — especially since he showed lots of improvement in his second campaign....
Someone get the Canucks an editor stet… err, stat!
When Alex Chiasson played for the Vancouver Canucks in their season opener on Wednesday night in Edmonton, his name was spelled correctly on the back of his jersey....
We were so close
You couldn’t really have asked for much more from the Dodgers and Giants, series or Game 5. What you want is it to be close and dramatic, and those boxes were checked. The stats for these teams are staggeringly close. 109 wins each going in, a season series that is now tied at 12, the run-differenti...
Kyrie is an agenda whether he likes it or not
It’s not that Kyrie Irving is wrong about everything, because he’s been right in the past. And he’s done good things. It’s just that he likes to huff his own farts. And when you’re someone who likes to huff your own farts, two things happen. A) You’re bound to do and say some pretty dumb stuff to pr...
I’ve had it with relievers
Maybe I’ve rebelled against getting older as long as I can, and I’m coming to accept the hair growing out of my ears combined with the opinions that something in a modern sport isn’t as good as I remember. It’s weird, because I don’t remember having any attachment to relief pitchers of my youth. The...
The NHL returned to ESPN, so here’s what it lacked
The NHL returned to ESPN on Tuesday night, with the self-proclaimed World Wide Leader celebrating itself and especially the old ESPN hockey theme....
2021 NHL Previews: Flyers haven’t made a good move since acquiring Gritty
The Metro Division is jam-packed with teams who could disappoint. Sid and Geno are back for their 16th season in Pittsburgh, and the bottom has to fall out eventually. Similarly, Alex Ovechkin is 36 and coming off a career-worst 24-goal season. Carolina was one of the darlings of hockey last year, b...
Catching up with the NHL (We hardly had time to miss ya!)
The NHL is back on its regular schedule after two straight pandemic-curtailed seasons, and that means it kicks off right now, even though it still doesn’t feel like hockey season outside in most of North America....
2021 NHL Previews: Fifty-four years between Cups for Toronto, going on 55
The Toronto Maple Leafs have now crossed the Rangers Line. The most famous Stanley Cup drought in history belonged to New York, which for years had to hear “1940” chants until Mark Messier, Mike Richter, and company finally broke the hex in 1994....
2021 NHL Previews: The Canucks will upset you deeply
Look, I had to pick someone. This division is sadness. If the NHL had relegation, at least three-quarters of the league would probably be booted before the season started, just to save the time and travel costs. So, really, no one has expectations that I can bust. Vegas doesn’t even really have to b...
2021 NHL Previews: Don’t believe the media, it’s over in Nashville
I’m not even sure the Preds are that highly thought of this year. It definitely feels that whatever cycle they were on has come to an end, and there was a temptation to put the Avalanche here, who look set for goalie-related heartbreak come May. But I’ve never missed an opportunity to completely sh...
Robin Lehner decided he didn’t want to burn down the NHL after all
Robin Lehner unleashed fury and chaos over the weekend, but he’s had a change of heart after a talk with the NHL....
The last playoffs
A few years ago, I was in a bar and got into an argument with a semi-regular (who I didn’t much care for) about which sport has the best postseason. He was a real #PleaseLikeMySport hockey fan, and I had felt (and still do) that the MLB playoffs had surpassed the NHL playoffs as the most enjoyable. ...
Another black eye for hockey
It’s not so surprising that hockey could step on a few rakes before its season even starts. It’s just surprising how not surprising it is. It would have been bad enough for the sport to deal with Robin Lehner’s accusations of NFL-like painkiller distribution among its teams, trainers, and players. Y...