national-hockey-league Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

American hero T.J. Oshie’s time in the nation’s capital should come to an end

As the Washington Capitals exited last year’s playoffs in the first round against an upstart Florida Panthers squad, it felt like the end of an era. The core of the team stayed together from their 2018 Stanley Cup victory but hadn’t won a playoff game since and was only growing grayer. And if being ...

PK Subban’s LGBTQ+ comments divide hockey community

NHL headlines this season have become dominated by players refusing to wear Pride jerseys and the debate over LGBTQ+ inclusion in the sport. Although Pride is the harbinger, hockey’s toxic culture sits at the center as the sport grapples to address not only homophobia and transphobia, but issues of ...

The Pittsburgh Penguins might be toast

I could stop a comet. ...

Wanna raise a future NHL star? Name him Connor

Connor McDavid has recently surpassed his career high for points in a season and has continued to climb, with over 140 points (60+ goals, 80+ assists) on the season. Many in the hockey world already regard the 26-year-old center as one of the best to ever play the game. He is explosive, deceptive wi...

Connor McDavid isn’t going to get a better chance

Every generationally great player, or every player that can safely say they’re one of the five best of all time, eventually bores the public with their greatness. Or at least fails to spike the EKG when news of their latest heroics crosses the wires. Connor McDavid is there. ...

What can make the NHL more exciting?

If only the NHL had a leader

It is yelling at the rain to lament that commissioners in any league aren’t stewards of the sport anymore. Look at Roger Goodell’s face and wonder if you’d trust that man to steer a fucking tricycle. But there comes a point where the commissioner is the only one who can steer a league out of a skid ...

Let’s find a way the Boston Bruins might lose in the playoffs, if there is one

While Gary Bettman might not think there’s anything wrong with the current playoff system (he’s wrong!), it is pretty clear that this set-up has robbed March and the first half of April of most of its drama. We’re basically down to seeing whether a wheezing Penguins team (whoops!) can keep their lun...

NHL continues to coddle the bigots

Yet another NHL team had to have an ado about their Pride Night and warmup jerseys this past weekend. This time it was the San Jose Sharks and goalie James Reimer. It was the same bullshit we’ve heard from others, though the Sharks put him on his own island to explain himself, which is half the batt...

Tony DeAngelo continues to be just awful

Update: DeAngelo was suspended two games by the NHL without pay on Wednesday for spearing Corey Perry. He’ll forfeit nearly $55,000 in salary for taking a shot at the Lightning forward’s manhood....

Patrick Kane made me love and hate the Blackhawks

Everything just slowed down....

Real Madrid simply cannot be destroyed

Most every time it’s happened, when Liverpool are up 2-0 at Anfield within a game’s first 15 minutes, especially on a European night, and the stadium is coming loose with noise and the team is swarming, teams tend to fold. That kind of atmosphere once folded Lionel Messi’s Barcelona not so long ago....

The Toronto Maple Leafs load up for their first-round exit

The Atlantic Division in the NHL was already a hell gauntlet. With the Boston Bruins suddenly turning into a team of frost giants that can skate (then again, it’s probably likely frost giants could always skate, given the conditions in the Jotunheim), it’s only become more so. It’s just three teams ...

Alex Ovechkin’s leave of absence does little to change his chase of Gretzky [Updated]

Alex Ovechkin has transcended hockey since he entered the league officially in 2005. He had to wait an extra year because of that pesky canceled season after he was drafted the year prior. He also missed three months due to another lockout in 2012. Not to mention the coronavirus pandemic disrupting ...

And now for the NHL trade deadline, which is much more boring than the NBA's [Updated]

The NBA can shift its entire axis in a trade deadline — like Brooklyn shipping Kyrie Irving to Dallas and Kevin Durant to Phoenix — or in free agency. The NFL is starting to put more jazz into both its deadline and offseason. MLB could if any owner wanted to actually spend money outside of Queens. T...

Of course the NHL makes teams wear St. Patrick’s Day jerseys

In the NHL’s current procession into the gutter, the New York Islanders were the latest to announce that they wouldn’t be using rainbow jerseys or stick tape for their Pride Night. While odious on the surface, digging a little deeper it gets…slightly less odious. The Islanders have never done so, th...

Other leagues could learn something from the NHL’s All-Star Weekend

You know that feeling of hearing a new song that you like from an artist that you’re not sure that you like? The first run-through is filled with skepticism. As catchy as it is, you’re unwilling to admit that you enjoy it. Then you hear it again, and it’s like, well, shit, I guess even Post Malone c...

The NHL will always be a niche sport — and that’s fine

There is no fanbase that can whipsaw from beseeching the masses to watch their sport to getting pissed off at any mainstream coverage or attention quite like hockey fans. Any discussion of hockey’s ratings and popularity always includes a collection of the same reasons it’s not more popular, along w...

Bobby Hull and Ivan Provorov don’t need you to defend them

The way we relate to professional athletes is a funny thing. They come into our homes via the TV weekly, nightly, and sometimes even hourly. In the fleeting few moments, we see them off the field (or ice, or diamond, or pitch), they are typically friendly, jovial, and serious about their profession,...

Good riddance, Bobby Hull

Bobby Hull was a terrible person. Most athletes can outrun or outskate that with what they accomplish on the field or ice. But even though Hull was one of the best hockey players of all time, the monster he was in his everyday life should shine through his accomplishments. He is no symbol of anythin...