the-nhl Page 22 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Kraken are preserving cap space apparently, but for who? For what?
We’re still only in the leaked stage, and leave it to the NHL to not think that the Seattle Kraken’s expansion draft would get out before the big show tonight thus rendering it moot, but it appears that GM Ron Francis has gone the pretty boring route. No Carey Price, no side deals that actually pilf...
Olympic baseball won’t feature best vs. best and that’s a shame
It’s exciting that baseball is back in the Olympics for Tokyo after having been out of the program in 2012 and 2016. It’s also going to be a weird mix of intriguing and disappointing to watch it all unfold, because while there are going to be familiar faces, the Olympics happening simultaneously wit...
Unleash the Kraken
They won’t admit it, but there is a decent amount of pressure facing the Seattle Kraken ahead of their first year as an NHL franchise. ...
Hockey can’t fail this one (but it still might)
There was always hope that if there was one, there would be more. We’re not there yet, but after Carl Nassib came out, and is the first openly gay player in the NFL, the NHL has one now in Luke Prokop. Or it will, whenever Prokop gets called up. I suppose I should write “if” he gets called up, becau...
The Canadiens all seem conveniently hurt
NHL teams had to submit their protected lists on Saturday for the upcoming Seattle Kraken expansion draft, and it always contains a good amount of fun when you see what GMs are prioritizing and what they’ll move along to avoid losing someone for free. Even if that someone is a complete dope. GMs are...
Preds' Ryan Ellis heads to Philly as teams get in last moves before NHL expansion draft
Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher got his man. The mild-mannered exec, rarely known for making big splashy moves, acquired Ryan Ellis from the Nashville Predators for former No. 2 overall pick Nolan Patrick and young defenseman Philippe Myers....
Uniform uniforms was a baaaaaaaaaad choice
Every sport’s All-Star Game features the best players. What’s made baseball’s Midsummer Classic unique, and many would say the best showcase around, is that you get to see things you wouldn’t see in an ordinary game, while the game still remains true to itself. Last night we saw the American League ...
MLB's Midsummer Classic is simply the best
It’s Trash Talking Tuesday, and today I’m trashing all the sports fans who still don’t think the MLB All-Star Game isn’t the best in pro sports....
This was better than Jason Kidd?
It’s only Game 1, so maybe Mike Budenholzer is waiting to change how he does things as this series goes along. An NBA playoff series can be moves and countermoves as it goes longer, and you don’t want to give away everything in the beginning — so we have to allow for that. But we’ve seen Budenholzer...
Matīss Kivlenieks killed by errant fireworks, autopsy reveals
Matīss Kivlenieks, a goalie for the Columbus Blue Jackets, died Sunday night from chest trauma suffered from an errant “fireworks mortar blast,” according to an autopsy in Oakland County, Michigan....
No, the Lightning didn’t cheat
At some point in the next couple days, the Tampa Bay Lightning will win their second consecutive Cup. Could be tonight, or maybe the Canadiens have one last death rattle in them and send this series back to Tampa on Wednesday. It’s hockey, weird things happen, we’ve seen 0-3 comebacks, but here it’s...
It’s been another horrible week for women, and sports isn’t helping one bit
Bill Cosby is out of prison, not because he isn’t a rapist, but because of shoddy lawyering by a former district attorney in Pennsylvania. Britney Spears remains under a conservatorship, even as her father refuses to let her remove an IUD....
This isn’t catching Lightning in a bottle
The Stanley Cup Final kicked off, and while most news outlets spend the majority of their coverage of the Tampa Bay Lightning whining about their salary cap, and not their roster building or coaching which allows them to do things like have Nikita Kucherov miss the season and still be fine. John Coo...
This is what the Blackhawks have always been
It’s probably a story that you’ve heard a million times by now if you have any sports leanings, but it needs emphasizing. In the spring of 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks were the center of Chicago. Not just Chicago sports, but Chicago. It was a meteoric and shocking rise, simply because three years be...
This Isles cheap shot is reason for NHL’s vaguer-than-vague injury reports
The NHL will get another Game 7, this one between the Islanders and Lightning, as the Isles fought back from a 2-0 deficit to win 3-2 in overtime to tie the series. And I really should spend this section talking about Mathew Barzal’s star turn, as he was basically unplayable for all of Game 6 (even ...
Lightning keep cashing in on ex-GM Steve Yzerman’s masterfully built roster
The NHL playoffs have been robust, entertaining, competitive, hard-hitting, and full of intrigue. Last night, however, was none of those things. The defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning absolutely waxed the New York Islanders 8-0. Although former General Manager Steve Yzerman has retur...
NHL refs are turning a blind eye to everything again
It used to be that I thought NHL refs, of the four major sports at least, did the best job. Which wasn’t an accolade so much as just not crashing the car in quite such a fireball. Baseball umps make up their own strike zone while daring anyone to argue with them about it. It used to be that NBA refs...
Pandemic hockey giving us something to build on
The cool fact about the NHL’s semifinal round is that while the Islanders and Lightning are meeting for a trip to the Stanley Cup Final for the second straight year, the other series pits the Canadiens against the Golden Knights, a matchup featuring the largest gap between inaugural seasons in leagu...
Nazem Kadri cost the Avs everything
Hockey is a truly vicious sport, in that the team that wins the Presidents’ Trophy — i.e. the team that is best over the largest sample size — rarely “justifies” that achievement in the playoffs. You have to go all the way back to the Hawks in 2013, another shortened season, to find a team that was ...
Do those MVP trophies come with a receipt?
No individual award in American sports generates more debate than the NBA MVP. No one cares about hockey, and half the awards are given to players where the voters don’t really understand why they’re voting for them. Baseball awards are too mired in the debate between how we view the game today and ...