Stanley Cup Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Calgary Flames were undone by a gimmick
While sneaking into the bottom rung of the playoffs is something to be eschewed in the NBA given that it rarely leads anywhere, there’s still a perception in the NHL that all you have to do is “get in.” The NHL has dined out for decades on the idea that the playoffs set everything anew, and that one...
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 ...
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...
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...
Besides Aaron Rodgers, what other sports figures could use a darkness retreat?
With the news that Aaron Rodgers has emerged from his darkness retreat and will soon regale the people with the tablets he has produced, and certainly not the tablets or whatever else he definitely did not take while locked away by himself in obsidian, it got us to thinking who else could use some t...
Alexander Ovechkin, the 'GR8 One'
Alexander Ovechkin is the best pure goal-scorer in NHL history. That’s not up for debate. The longtime Washington Capital hasn’t been hockey’s best player for years, but his ability to put the puck in the back of the net is nearly as good as it was 15 years ago when he scored 65 goals during the 200...
Rob Manfred’s dumb ghost runner is here to stay
The start of the World Series always means that whichever ghoul is the commissioner of MLB is going to emerge from the damp and dark dwelling in which he inhabits. That’s the rule for every league of course, so it’s not to single out baseball. A Super Bowl, a Stanley Cup Final, the NBA Finals always...
Colorado Avalanche celebrate 'All the Small Things' that led to Stanley Cup title
Champions are made of heart, grit, determination... and perhaps a little dash of pop-punk nostalgia? ...
P.K. Subban was just a little ahead of his time
Hockey still can’t seem to recognize its need for a rockstar. While not the biggest problem with hockey’s culture at the moment (hi there Hockey Canada), the ethos that no player can stand out or be above the team keeps the game from having vibrancy or personality. And vibrancy and personality are w...
Are we done being salty about the Astros yet?
Last night, the Astros clinched their fifth AL West title out of the last six. And that one they missed was the 2020 season, which basically doesn’t count. So for all intents and purposes, this is their fifth straight division title. Currently, that’s the longest streak in the majors, as the Dodgers...
The Florida Panthers are apparently done being good or interesting
We’re still very much in a time where teams in any sport are going to overreact to playoff results. They have 82 or 162 games of sample size where they play everyone and aren’t confined to one matchup with one team at one time with one status of health, but whatever happens in four to seven games st...
Andre Burakovsky and the Lightning have a history
As Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals ended late Wednesday night, with the opening game of the championship series going to overtime, a hero and villain presented themself. For Colorado, Andre Burakovsky, a player commonly thought to be one needed to step up in order to lift the Cup did just that. In ...
Make it a best of 13
Usually, especially in a Stanley Cup Final, you need at least a few games before the level of play truly takes off. Coaches and teams want to try different things, chase their matchups, or keep things tight as they can to preserve already exhausted players until there is absolutely no choice. No one...
The NHL finally gets its era-shifting Final with Lightning vs. Avs
Hockey being what it is, mostly weird and random, rarely throws up the two best teams in the NHL’s showpiece, the Stanley Cup Final. Sometimes we get close, and most seasons it’s actually hard to decipher who are clearly the best teams. With shootouts and overtime goofiness affecting the standings, ...
Whatchagonna do NHL?
The NHL Department of Player Safety needs to get to the bottom of this quickly. The video evidence against Lightning captain Steven Stamkos allegedly spitting on Alexis Lafrenière appears damning, yet not conclusive. Why else would he cock his head back and lunge forward with his lips puckered at th...
The waiting is the hardest part
The Colorado Avalanche are waiting. And waiting for a Stanley Cup Finals opponent hasn’t treated those favorably in returning from mini-vacations in the past. We’re finishing up the 35th NHL postseason in which first-round games are contested as a best of seven, starting in 1987 and featured every y...
This is probably as close as Connor McDavid will get
There’s not much more that Connor McDavid can do. For that matter, Leon Draisaitl should be attached to that lament permanently now, after he also averaged two points per game in the playoffs with maybe two functioning limbs. They’re the only players to average two points per game in the playoffs ov...
This looks like Connor McDavid’s time
This could finally be it. The NHL is starving for its next superstar. Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby’s first-round exits with Washington and Pittsburgh left a void for a television-ratings hockey juggernaut....
Is the NHL’s Presidents’ Trophy curse real?
The Florida Panthers breezed through the first round of the playoffs and then got bounced from the second round so fast we barely had time for the annual discourse about the Presidents’ Trophy and whether it’s a curse for a team’s Stanley Cup hopes....
Tale of the tape: Battle of Alberta vs. Battle of Florida
The second round of the playoffs worked, in part, the way that the NHL dreamed up when it went to this postseason format of divisional brackets. You can question the wisdom of it happening in the second round, but we’re getting the Battle of Alberta and the Battle of Florida now....