nhl Page 28 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving become eighth, ninth Nets players to enter COVID protocols
Kevin Durant and, yes, Kyrie Irving, have entered the chat, err, COVID protocols, becoming the eighth and ninth Nets player to do so, and Brooklyn seems to be going the way of the Chicago Bulls, who are on a break from action due to a similar rash of positive tests....

Liverpool manager makes the case for not shutting down English Premier League — and he might be onto something
With seemingly every major sports league in “This is fine” mode, the prevailing logic on how to calm the spread of the virus is to take a break to allow the latest variant-induced wave to pass so COVID-ravaged teams don’t have to scramble to fill lineups. English Premier League clubs have been hit s...

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,...

The puck stops here<em></em>
The NHL really needs to be asked and answer what kind of product it’s offering fans right now. It isn’t just the 60 players in COVID protocol at the moment. It’s the fact that the league does not make any exception to the salary cap for teams that are stripped of a chunk of their roster due to COVID...

It’s Week 15 of the NFL, the most magical week of the year, and everyone is either injured or has COVID
Welcome to Week 15 of the NFL, where playoff races are heating up and things are getting good. Let’s see what’s cooking over at ESPN....

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 ...

How are they gonna get this back in the tube?
Feels like we’ve been here before. The headlines from yesterday, they certainly have a familiar ring....

It doesn’t sound like the NHL is going to the Olympics
There are few good ideas in the pandemic. The most you can muster is, “Well, I guess that’s the best they can do.” The urge to try and have anything normal is an understandable one, it’s just there are so very many limits to how to get to that safely, so we either can’t have them or just ignore the ...

So, about that pandemic…
The Detroit Lions, finally in the win column after beating the Vikings last week, head into their game on Sunday without 19 percent of their roster due to injuries and coronavirus....

Old coach yells at cloud, shakes fist in air
In the past week, the NHL news around here has been excessive violence, more excessive violence, the Flyers being hellaciously awful, and the latest lunatic turns in the decade-long saga of the league trying to make fetch happen in Arizona....

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...

‘Bobby Margarita’ shows how MLB can have it
In most years around this time, baseball media is lamenting the slow pace of the free agent market, wondering when all the free agents will sign. In a world where the winter meetings mean far less than they did in decades past, free agency can drag on right up to the start of spring training, with s...

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 ...

Another bad hit and look for the NHL
Once again, the NHL headlines will be dominated by an incident of a player using the vulnerability of another to excuse trying to end his night, season, maybe career. This one isn’t as cut and dried as Sunday night’s chicanery, though no less ugly....

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...

Jeff Gorton’s introductory presser (in 'French') gave me a headache
Look, French is hard. As a French major, I know this. I studied the language for 8 years and still can’t wrap my tongue around some of the sounds my mouth is supposed to make when speaking it (badly). And foreign languages are not easy for some people, and hey, kudos to new Montréal Canadiens Execut...

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....

The Philadelphia Union got screwed, but there was probably little MLS could do
We don’t think any of the current seasons taking place now as “COVID seasons” like we did of the previous ones played in empty stadiums/arenas or in weird, neutral venues altogether. But it still very much is, which the Philadelphia Union learned the all-too hard way yesterday....

A Hall of Fame announcement we can all get behind
In the past, I’ve tried to remove myself from Hall-of-Fame debates. Because at the end of the day, they’re really no more useful or material than the Oscars or Grammys. You’re basically debating someone’s opinion. And because of the esteem these things have gotten over the years, you’re debating the...

Who needs D? Not the NHL
“The best defense is a good offense.” — George Washington — Michael Jordan...