the-nhl Page 20 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Dave Roberts can’t help himself
The MLB playoffs can get pretty muddled between decisions and results. Rarely do they line up because... y’know, baseball. It doesn’t cooperate. Right decisions, wrong results, vice versa, the throughline is rarely consistent. But Dave Roberts has been at this for years now, so he certainly makes fo...

They say your twenties are the best years of your life...
Jack Hughes played 117 games in the NHL as a teenager over the course of two pandemic-shortened seasons, and he scored 18 goals with 34 assists. Not a star performance, by any means, but good for a teenager — especially since he showed lots of improvement in his second campaign....

I’ve had it with relievers
Maybe I’ve rebelled against getting older as long as I can, and I’m coming to accept the hair growing out of my ears combined with the opinions that something in a modern sport isn’t as good as I remember. It’s weird, because I don’t remember having any attachment to relief pitchers of my youth. The...

The NHL returned to ESPN, so here’s what it lacked
The NHL returned to ESPN on Tuesday night, with the self-proclaimed World Wide Leader celebrating itself and especially the old ESPN hockey theme....

Here’s our <em>Squid Game</em> All-Star roster
Squid Game, a Korean dystopian Netflix series, is the highest-rated show in the world right now....

Catching up with the NHL (We hardly had time to miss ya!)
The NHL is back on its regular schedule after two straight pandemic-curtailed seasons, and that means it kicks off right now, even though it still doesn’t feel like hockey season outside in most of North America....

2021 NHL Previews: The Canucks will upset you deeply
Look, I had to pick someone. This division is sadness. If the NHL had relegation, at least three-quarters of the league would probably be booted before the season started, just to save the time and travel costs. So, really, no one has expectations that I can bust. Vegas doesn’t even really have to b...

Robin Lehner decided he didn’t want to burn down the NHL after all
Robin Lehner unleashed fury and chaos over the weekend, but he’s had a change of heart after a talk with the NHL....

The last playoffs
A few years ago, I was in a bar and got into an argument with a semi-regular (who I didn’t much care for) about which sport has the best postseason. He was a real #PleaseLikeMySport hockey fan, and I had felt (and still do) that the MLB playoffs had surpassed the NHL playoffs as the most enjoyable. ...

The last thing we need is a Maple Leafs docuseries
The whole behind-the-scenes docuseries has been a bit played out. Hard Knocks started it, and it came to hockey almost a decade ago with the 24/7 series that tracked the two teams in that given year’s Winter Classic for the month leading up to the New Year’s Day game. Some of it was compelling stuff...

Read 'em and weep: Here are the worst droughts in modern sports, non-title edition
The White Sox have won their first division title since 2008, which doesn’t really feel right, because they’ve only had two truly awful seasons in the last decade and a half, and power in the Central is rarely concentrated anywhere for too long, but it’s true. It would be a weird thing to lie about....

Sabres start over without ever having finished
Can you technically rebuild something if you never built anything in the first place? It’s just a “build” then, right? This being the Buffalo Sabres, it’s even arguable that anything gets constructed in the first place. It’s just that building in your neighborhood that’s been four or five different ...

Roberto Luongo still hangs over the Canucks
While I do love the image of Roberto Luongo stalking the rafters in the Rogers Arena in a dark robe, perhaps slung over half his face (and Luongo himself might be tempted to actually act this out given the goofball he is) it’s not quite that simple. It’s not even totally the fault of either Luongo o...

Zac Rinaldo finds out the NHL isn’t screwing around
It’s easy to get lost and spin out with the amount of bad news every day, so you have to take the nuggets of light where you can find them. A world-class dipshit like Zac Rinaldo being told to fuck right off by an NHL team and sent straight to the minors because he’s an anti-vax giblet is one of tho...

Free Connor McDavid (and other stars)
Simply by the numbers, Connor McDavid had one of the more incredible seasons in NHL history last year. 105 points in just 56 games, which would have averaged out to 154 points over a full, 82-game season. His 1.87 points-per-game was the best rate seen in 25 years. It came with the caveat of the uni...

TNT’s hiring of Paul Bissonnette for its NHL coverage proves hockey has no interest in rising above trash
The NHL returns to training camps in a couple weeks, with the season just about a month away. The league wants to make a big deal of its new TV contracts, putting a new shine and look to the league, with both ESPN and TNT picking the national coverage. The hope, as forlorn as it always is, was that ...

NHL players in the Olympics has always been better in theory than practice
Late last week, one of hockey’s more annoying fights seemed to have reached yet another conclusion, when the NHL, the NHLPA, and the IIHF reached an agreement on sending NHL players to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. As with everything these days, it’s COVID-dependent, but the NHL schedule has ...

NHLers are returning to the Olympics... let’s build some rosters
The Olympics have always felt like the pinnacle for several sports around the world. Only the best sprinters in the world can win gold at the 100-meter dash. Only the fastest swimmers can rise above everyone else in the 200-meter freestyle. Yet, for other sports, the Olympics hasn’t felt like the to...

Unvaccinated hockey life will be perfectly miserable, as it should be
AThe NHL apparently is not fucking around for the upcoming season when it comes to vaccinations. A memo went out last night that outlines what will be different this season for players who are vaccinated and those who are not....