stanley-cup Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Leafs on precipice of some kind of history
Nobody ever tweeted about a Florida Panthers playoff series victory before last night, when Carter Verhaeghe, off a pass from Claude Giroux – trade deadline acquisition and bringer of tons of vicarious Panthers fans from Philadelphia – lifted Florida to a 4-3 overtime win over the Capitals, and a 4-...
No, these aren’t the tightest NHL playoffs of all time
There’s a common phrase percolating through each NHL playoff broadcast about how this is the most “evenly-matched” postseason of all time. It’s like these commentators get a bonus every time they talk about it. It’s nauseating and more importantly, it’s not correct. ...
Let’s appreciate all the money Ryan Johansen has stolen
The Predators bit the dust last night, as we all suspected they would. The Avalanche are just too much, the Preds were a wonky team whose best player on both ends is a defenseman, Roman Josi, because he has to be. For their entire existence, which is getting up near 25 years now, the Predators have ...
It isn’t Barry Trotz, it’s Lou Lamoriello
There’s no question that Barry Trotz has a shelf life with any team he coaches. His high-intensity defensive style is never going to be something players are going to want to do year-after-year, especially now when more and more teams are crashing in goals left and right. He was in Nashville forever...
Leafs and Lightning are playing the strangest series
In a playoff series, especially one between two very good teams which the Lightning and Maple Leafs are, you expect some swings. No one expected a short series, which means twists and turns as teams exchange wins. Momentum generally swings on the performance level of your goalie the next night, but ...
Florida teams thawing out in first round of the NHL Playoffs
The President’s Trophy winners are in trouble. The resilient regular season champion Florida Panthers have a tough task ahead of them to win their first playoff series in 26 years. They were overmatched Saturday afternoon by the Washington Capitals 6-1, giving the 2018 Stanley Cup Champions a 2-1 ov...
Connor Ingram goes from third string goalie to Nashville’s best bet at an upset
It may have been an impossible task after all. What more could Connor Ingram have done to stop the Colorado Avalanche other than grow a third arm or leg? In his second-ever NHL start, and first in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Ingram went from Nashville’s No. 3 goaltender to Patrick Roy overnight. He’ll...
Whew, there’s been a lot of bad hockey so far
It’s wonderful as a hockey fan that in this new era of ESPN coverage, playoff games have staggered starts – 7, 7:30, 9:30, and 10 Eastern – so that in this first round, the most exciting round of the playoffs where anything can happen, we can watch as much playoff hockey as possible and not be stuck...
How every team will lose in the 2022 NHL playoffs
As the chase to the Stanley Cup begins, the Eastern and Western Conferences have completely different outlooks. Colorado or Calgary look the part to be the Western Conference champions, and I’m not sure there’s anything the rest of the field of six can do about it. The Eastern Conference is as wide ...
Before the playoffs start, we should take a sec to marvel at what the Blackhawks accomplished
No, that’s not being such a shitfuck organization that they’ve basically gotten themselves erased from NHL history or PR. Watch any of these ads for the Stanley Cup playoffs, and you won’t see one highlight or shot of a Hawk. Even though they won the Cup three times, or were the most popular team fo...
Record-breaking Hobey Baker winning goalie suspended for trillionth of a gram of banned substance
In the age of NIL and PEDs, college athletes must be cautious about every ingredient in any protein shake or supplement is reckless....
NHL Players Association clears itself of any fault in Chicago sexual assault case
Aren’t those supposedly independent self-investigations just so handy? The NHL Players’ Association released a report Friday (late on a Friday afternoon on a holiday weekend, more specifically) indicating that NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr did nothing wrong in handling reports of sexual assau...
Mike Bossy, scoring star of 1980s Islanders dynasty, dies at 65
Mike Bossy, star of one of the NHL’s greatest dynasties, died Thursday night according to TVA Sports, a French-language network in Canada where Bossy was a hockey analyst....
Farewell to my first and last
The generations of sports fans who grew up learning and loving a sport and team through the radio are disappearing these days. Another one came to a close on Thursday night in Chicago, though this one was a little different. We were a group out of place and time, which we came to identify ourselves ...
We are too broken and hopeless to deserve a Maple Leafs-Panthers series
At least for one night, I didn’t manage to motherfuck something. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers put on a hockey game dressed as Calvinball last night, with the Cats getting a 7-6 win in OT. It wasn’t even that simple, if a 7-6 game can ever be simple....
There’s something in the water in NBA and NHL arenas
Rarely does it make sense to link the NBA and the NHL, other than they tend to play in the same buildings at the same time of year. You wouldn’t really call them roommates, because when one is home the other never is. Though that probably makes them perfect roommates, come to think of it. Still, on ...
Is the USMNT midfield better off without Weston McKennie?
On the surface, it’s a patently ridiculous question. Of course the US can’t go without a player who regularly plays for one of the biggest clubs in the world, where his manager loves him, and comes up with goals for a national team that still struggles to find them. And to ask this question after ju...
Claude Giroux trade signifies the Flyers are a total failure
Knowing that the dagger is coming doesn’t make it hurt any less....
The Golden Knights are running out of racetrack
Normally, a team five seasons out from its creation fighting for a playoff spot would be a mark of success. They’ve built and grown over four years, taken their lumps, accrued draft picks and developed their own, and were starting to see the first signs of something real. But nothing is normal about...
It’s happening to the Maple Leafs again
Even though we Chicagoans don’t get a spring — it’s winter until one day somewhere in May when it’s just suddenly summer and we’re all instantly drunk outside — that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize the signs of spring approaching elsewhere. Sure, we’ve been robbed of one of them in spring training. ...