nma Page 29 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Hey, Knicks fans: At least you’re not the Maple Leafs
How bad was the Toronto Maple Leafs’ collapse? It’s better to be a Knicks fan right now....

Now the Leafs have the calamity they’ve always wanted
Because everything is outsized with the Leafs, the idea that they’ve been coughing up genuine chances at the Stanley Cup year-after-year has grown at the rate and scale of The Blob. Being the Leafs, everything around them is audibly multiplied by at least 12, so the sheer volume that is emitted from...

Seems like old times, eh Leafs?
By now you know the key points. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967, haven’t been to the Final since then either, haven’t beaten the Canadiens in a series since their ’67 title clash, won their first division title since 2000 this season (thanks to being in the all-Canadia...

Hats off to a great deal in Vegas
The Golden Knights traded a couple of draft choices to get Mattias Janmark from Chicago in April, and whatever those picks turn out to be, Vegas can rest easy that it was worth it....

Why is 6-foot-3 Mac Jones suddenly being criticized for his lack of size?
We judge a lot of things based on size: Texas BBQ, television monitors, people’s homes, yadda yadda yadda. NFL quarterbacks are no exception. Everything about them gets judged based on their size. Not even Joe Burrow’s hands were exempt from the harsh eye of NFL media. As OTA’s have kicked off acros...

The Penguins tried to game the system and lost big
One of the many catchphrases that Eddie Olczyk has been trying to “fetch” for more than a decade is “Goaltending: If you don’t have it, you got no chance.” Like most of the things Eddie O says, it probably sounds way cooler and more clever in his head. It’s not a play on words, it doesn’t rhyme, it’...

People are yelling about the Cowboys letting another player wear Tony Romo’s No. 9, because everything’s louder in Texas
Retiring jerseys is kinda a weird thing. Across all sports, each team has their own process. Some retire numbers liberally (ahem, ex-New York Yankees Nos. 1 through 10), and others have retired the numbers of seemingly unworthy players, like the Oklahoma City Thunder retiring… Nick Collison’s No. 4....

Position player pitching alert gone awry: Wilmer Difo ignominiously and historically lit up
Wilmer Difo has played second base, shortstop, third base, and all three outfield positions during his career with the Nationals and Pirates, and now he can add pitching to his resume....

La Russa is still managing like it’s 1989
The Yankees and White Sox combined for 26 strikeouts in a nine-inning game. In 2012, that’s not so surprising. What is a bit of a stunner is that Aroldis Chapman didn’t get any of those K’s. Carlos Rodón fanned 13, Jordan Montgomery punched out 11, and Michael Kopech added two whiffs out of the Chic...

Minor league team hilariously tweets S.O.S. as Jacob DeGrom methodically mows them down
“Fuck them kids” — Michael Jordan... ...

Nathan MacKinnon is unplayable
Everyone knows that after his 105-point-in-a-56-game season that Connor McDavid is the best player in the world. But what my book presupposes is... maybe he isn’t? (an old joke, and I’ve come to have no use for Wes Anderson over the years and you likely have to, but it’s still a good one). ...

The NHL Playoffs are back and it’s fans-tastic
Look, if there’s an opening to make a Cinderella reference, I’m gonna take it. Just deal with it, and let me have what little I can get. ...

Albert Pujols is the latest Hall of Famer you’ll forget played for the Dodgers
The possibility of Albert Pujols returning to St. Louis to finish his career where he started it, this time as a bench bat for a Cardinals team that has title aspirations and Paul Goldschmidt at first base, was too good to be true....

The obvious case for Connor McDavid as unanimous MVP
The Stanley Cup playoffs started on Saturday, which is weird because the NHL regular season continued on Saturday, as the Canucks handed the Oilers a 4-1 loss that was notable only because Connor McDavid picked up his league-best 72nd assist, which also wrapped up the scoring title for the presumpti...

Tim Tebow is REALLY competitive, y'all... So what?
Urban Meyer says Tim Tebow is “the most competitive maniac you’re ever going to talk to.”...

After 28 years, hockey finally corrects its Habs-Leafs mistake
The NHL has been through so many realignments that sometimes you wonder if it shouldn’t just do a random draw before every season (actually, that’s not a terrible idea). It’s when you get to the real aims of past realignments that things get more interesting. ...

Behold, a fun few moments of instant replay in baseball
Sometimes, instant replay is a real drag. It takes forever to review some minor call that doesn’t make that much of a difference anyway, the flow of the game is broken, and you wonder if we’d be better off without it, even if sometimes bad calls do get corrected, because even though they do, a lot o...

Pfizer, BioNTech to donate vaccine to athletes and staff before unwanted Olympics
Citizens of Japan may not have quick access to a vaccine, but Olympians set to descend there in July will....

Rangers are right about NHL player safety, so it’s time to dump Parros and hire Marc Savard
As it always is, the NHL is in a mess of its own making. Rarely do you get a team decrying a league’s discipline system, at least not in hockey. Gary Bettman rarely tolerates stepping out of line like the Rangers did yesterday when the news broke that the Department of Player Safety doesn’t even wan...
