Lightning win Game 5, deny Avs chance to take Stanley Cup

DENVER (AP) — The Stanley Cup was in the building and just waiting to be paraded around the ice.

Pack it up. It’s heading back to Florida.

The resilient Tampa Bay Lightning spoiled Colorado’s party to stay in the hunt for a third straight Stanley Cup title, beating the Avalanche 3-2 on Friday night in Game 5.

Ondrej Palat scored with 6:22 remaining and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 35 shots in front of a raucous crowd hoping to celebrate the Avalanche’s first championship in 21 years.

“That’s what good teams do — you find a way,” Lightning forward Corey Perry said. “Keep plugging along. This is fun. This is what hockey’s all about, different guys stepping up at different times.”

Game 6 is Sunday night in Tampa. The Lightning trail the best-of-seven series 3-2.

“Listen, this is a huge challenge for us,” Lightning forward Pat Maroon said. “An exciting challenge, too. You’ve got to be excited for this challenge and embrace it.”

The Cup was all shined up and ready for the moment — almost beckoning to the Avalanche from the side. It’s back on the road for the Avalanche, where they’re 8-1 so far in their playoff run.

“We have belief in our room that we can win every game we go out and play,” defenseman Devon Toews said. “We feel like we had a decent game tonight, pretty good game. Obviously it wasn’t enough tonight.”

Nikita Kucherov and defenseman Jan Rutta also scored for the Lightning. Valeri Nichushkin and Cale Makar had goals for Colorado. Makar’s third-period tally bounced off the skate of Erik Cernak and through the pads of Vasilevskiy to tie it at 2.

That set the stage for Palat, whose shot slipped through the pads of Darcy Kuemper. It was Palat’s 16th career go-ahead playoff goal, which trails only Brayden Point (18) in franchise history.

“I thought I played it well, slid over,” Kuemper said. “It just found a little hole.”

Tampa Bay regrouped after an emotional Game 4 loss at home on a overtime goal from Colorado forward Nazem Kadri. The Lightning felt the Avalanche might have had too many players on the ice on the winner.

A similar too-many-players-on-the-ice scenario unfolded Friday — and this time it was called. With 2:43 remaining, the Lightning went on the power play and made it so that Colorado couldn’t pull Kuemper until the final moments. They weathered the Avalanche’s late barrage.

Just the Lightning showing their championship mettle. They’ve already rallied back from a 3-2 deficit to Toronto in the first round, and climbed out of a 2-0 hole against the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference finals.

Completing this comeback series win would put them in an entirely different category. Only one team has rallied to capture a Game 7 in the final after trailing 3-1 in a series — the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs.

This is a gritty Lightning squad that’s showing no signs of slowing down against a speedy Avalanche team and even after all the contests they’ve logged. Tampa Bay has played in 67 postseason games since the start of the first round in 2020, nearly an entire extra season.

Their resolve has impressed Lightning coach Jon Cooper. His team improved to 3-0 this season when facing potential elimination games.

“The mental fortitude you have to have to not buckle in the environment we were just in and play the type of game they did, there’s a reason they’ve got a couple rings on their fingers,” Cooper said.

The Avalanche are trying to capture their first title since 2001. The Avalanche fans were out in full force — both inside the building (an upper-level ticket on game day was going for around $1,500) and outside at a nearby watch party.

“It’s not supposed to be easy and it’s not going to be easy,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. “We knew that coming into this. We knew that coming into tonight. ... Short memory in the playoffs and that’s what we’re going to do.”

The Avalanche are 2 for 2 in their visits to the Stanley Cup Final. They also won in 1996, which was their inaugural season in Denver after relocating from Quebec.

Soon after Nichushkin tied it at 1-apiece in the second, Kucherov knocked in a goal off the post. The power-play goal was with Alex Killorn in the box for holding, along with J.T. Compher (holding the stick) and Makar (tripping), making for a 4-on-3 situation.

Bednar wasn’t exactly thrilled with the call on Makar.

“There was no intent there. I don’t even think he was checking that guy,” Bednar said. “Look to me like he kind of tripped over a stick. It’s a tough one.”

Kuemper finished with 26 saves.

“He was OK,” Bednar said. “I’d like to see him get the first one, obviously.”

That first one would be Rutta’s score less than five minutes into the game that zapped some of the energy from the crowd. It was his first goal of these playoffs.

“We’ve been here. Have we been down 3-1? No,” Cooper said. “But we’ve been in these situations where we know the feeling of being in an elimination game.”

-Associated Press

Few pro athletes suffer heart disease after mild COVID, says study

There are few cases of inflammatory heart disease among professional athletes who suffer mild cases of COVID-19, according to a study authored by medical experts from Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA) and other major North American sports leagues.

Medical personnel from MLB and the NBA, along with the National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Soccer (MLS) and the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) pooled data from athletes from May through October 2020, as professional sports in North America slowly returned to action after coronavirus-linked lockdowns.

The retrospective study, the first of its kind among the six leagues and published by JAMA Cardiology on Thursday, showed that five of 789 athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 during that time were found to have inflammatory heart disease after mandatory "return-to-play" cardiac testing.

"It does show that in this population of athletes it is safe to return and that inflammatory heart disease is relatively uncommon," said Dr. Gary Green, medical director for MLB, who confirmed that all were able to return to play.

None of the people in the study were hospitalized due to COVID-19 infection and none would have been classified as "seriously ill," Green told Reuters.

More than half a million people in the United States have died from the novel coronavirus, as government officials scramble to roll out vaccines and stem the spread of the highly contagious virus.

"The study was sort of designed to answer the uncertainty that there was surrounding this issue about whether cardiac inflammation was present in people who had mild or asymptomatic forms of COVID-19 illness," said Dr. David Engel, the consulting cardiologist for the NBA and a co-author of the study.

Numerous professional athletes have opted out of playing since the COVID-19 pandemic first took hold in North America, amid concerns over the long-term impact of the virus.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez missed the 2020 season after contracting the novel coronavirus and subsequently being diagnosed with myocarditis. He since said he plans to play in 2021.

"Being athletic doesn't necessarily protect them anymore than if they were sort of an age-matched non-athlete," said Engel. "The cardiac inflammation that you can see with COVID-19 or really with any virus poses a unique risk to athletes because myocarditis, if it's present, it can cause a lethal or a dangerous arrhythmia when the heart is stimulated."

The report offered little insight into the impact of the novel coronavirus on female athletes, with the WNBA the only North American women's league included in the study. Just 12 WNBA players tested positive for COVID-19 during the study's timeframe. 

-reuters-

COVID-19 cases force closures of MLB, NHL training facilities

Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies have closed their Florida training base after eight COVID-19 positives and multiple reports say MLB's Toronto Blue Jays and the NHL Tampa Bay Lightning also shuttered training facilities.

Friday's moves came as state officials announced a record one-day spike of COVID-19 cases, with nearly 4,000 new record infections in Florida.

The NBA and Major League Soccer plan to gather in quarantine areas near Orlando to resume their virus-halted campaigns in July after play was stopped in March.


The Phillies said five players and three staff members tested positive for COVID-19 at the club's Clearwater training facility, which MLB said was being shuttered indefinitely.

The team said a further 12 staff members and 20 players from the club's major league and minor league rosters were awaiting results of tests.

The Tampa Bay Times and ESPN reported the NHL Lightning closed its training facility, just 23 miles (37km) from Clearwater, after multiple players and staff members tested positive for COVID-19.

The Lightning facility is closed until at least July 6, the Times reported.

Also on Friday, Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews went into quarantine at his home in Arizona after testing positive for COVID-19, the Toronto Sun reported.

The 22-year-old Matthews is hoping to be healthy enough to attend the Leafs' training camp which begins on July 10. Arizona, and especially the Phoenix area where Matthews grew up, has also seen a spike in cases.

The Blue Jays closed their spring training facility in Dunedin, four miles north of Clearwater, after a player exhibited coronavirus symptoms, ESPN reported, saying the player had recently spent time with Phillies players. He is awaiting results of a COVID-19 test.

Phillies managing partner John Middleton said all the team's facilities were being closed as a precaution.

"The Phillies are committed to the health and welfare of our players, coaches and staff as our highest priority, and as a result of these confirmed tests, all facilities in Clearwater have been closed indefinitely to all players, coaches and staff and will remain closed until medical authorities are confident that the virus is under control and our facilities are disinfected," Middleton said in a statement.

The club said it was "too early to know" how the Clearwater outbreak could impact the Phillies' 2020 season.

Major League Baseball is currently locked in bitter negotiations with the league's players union over the terms of a shortened season.

Agence France-Presse

Professional clubs can return to New York facilities

NEW YORK -- New York officials said Sunday that American professional sports teams can return to their training facilities in the state that was slammed the hardest of all by the coronavirus pandemic.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement, saying that sports are allowed to restart in America's most deadly state but it will be limited to just training facilities to begin with and then only behind closed doors. 

There have been over 1.6 million cases and 97,000 deaths in the US, including close to 30,000 deaths in New York.

"Starting today, all the New York professional sports leagues will be able to begin training camps," Cuomo said during a news conference on Sunday. 

"I believe that sports that can come back without having people in the stadium, without having people in the arena -- do it! Do it!" 

New York is by far the hardest hit state but officials say new infections are now on the downward trend.

New York serves is home to several professional sports teams, with two in the NBA (New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets), three in the NHL (New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres), two in Major League Baseball (New York Yankees, New York Mets) and the NFL's Buffalo Bills.

MLB, NBA and NHL are all working on plans to start or resume their respective seasons. 

"Work out the economics, if you can. We want you up. We want people to be able to watch sports," Cuomo said. "To the extent people are still staying home, it gives people something to do. 

"It's a return to normalcy. So we are working and encouraging all sports teams to start their training camps as soon as possible. And we'll work with them to make sure that can happen."

Agence France-Presse

Hockey: NHL players' union brass mull return to play plans

The National Hockey League's union brass are expected to give the green light to a 24-team playoff format that would crown the Stanley Cup champion, TSN.ca reported on Friday night.

The Canadian sports broadcaster said the conference-based proposal is expected to get at least 18 of the possible 31 votes needed for it to pass. 

Voting on the plan -- to play behind closed doors and in hub cities -- was expected to take place on Friday.

Under the proposed schedule, the top four seeds in each conference would receive byes into the second round.

The seeds would be determined by the number of points each team had on March 12, when the NHL shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The top four seeds in the Eastern Conference would be the Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers. 

The top four seeds in the Eastern Conference would be the Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers. 

The top four Western Conference teams would be the St. Louis Blues, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars. 

The other 16 teams would play in a best-of-five first round.

The rest of the bracketed playoff format would have the five vs. 12 winner playing the fourth seed, the six vs. 11 winner playing the three seed, the seven vs. 10 winner playing the two seed and the eight vs. nine winner playing the one seed in best-of-seven series, according to the report.

All remaining series would be best-of-seven.

gph/st

Agence France-Presse

NHL: Fil-Am teenager drafted by Toronto Maple Leafs

A Filipino-American player from Southern California has been drafted into the National Hockey League (NHL).

The Toronto Maple Leafs drafted 17-year-old Nick Robertson with the 53rd overall pick during the 2019 NHL Entry Draft earlier this week, to beef up their scoring and depth.

Robertson stands at only 5-foot-9 and weighs 168 pounds, but has gotten a reputation for being a tenacious player despite his size and small frame.

He credits his achievements on the ice to his Filipina mother, Mercedes, who did almost everything for him and his brother – from home-schooling them to driving them to their hockey games.

"My mom has sacrificed so much for me to get here," said Robertson. "I can't thank her enough. She sacrificed her time with family and friends who are from the Philippines as well."

"She's the backbone of my career," he said.

Jack Hughes was selected by the New Jersey Devils with the No. 1 overall pick.

This story originally appeared on Balitang America.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ice hockey: Bruins overtake Blues, win Stanley Cup Final opener

BOSTON -- Sean Kuraly and Brad Marchand scored in the third period for the last of four unanswered Boston goals as the Bruins rallied past the St. Louis Blues, 4-2, in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday.

Kuraly's goal came after St. Louis goaltender Jordan Binnington fumbled a shot from Zdeno Chara. Noel Acciari collected the puck in front of the net, and after a failed second attempt, dished to Kuraly, who slid it in to break a 2-2 tie at 5:21.

Marchand added an empty-netter with 1:49 remaining.

Binnington stopped 34 shots in the loss, including 27 across the final two periods. Tuukka Rask made 18 saves for Boston.

The win was the Bruins' eighth straight, while the defeat dropped the Blues to 0-13 in finals history. Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Wednesday in Boston.

Trailing 2-0 and off to a sluggish start after 11 days between games, the Bruins caught fire in the second period to knot the score.

Connor Clifton struck first, redirecting a pass from Kuraly just within the right post at 2:16 to make it 2-1. After Boston failed to convert on its first three power plays, Charlie McAvoy scored on the man advantage when his shot went off Alex Pietrangelo's stick and past Binnington for a tie game at 12:41.

The rest of the contest was all Bruins, as they outshot the Blues 30-12 over the final 40 minutes.

Prior to Boston's surge, St. Louis had been in control. Vladimir Tarasenko took advantage of a bad turnover by David Pastrnak to make it 2-0 at the one-minute mark of the second. The goal extended Tarasenko's points streak to seven games.

Brayden Schenn scored the lone first-period tally for the Blues at 7:23 when a shot he ripped on Rask bounced off the netminder and was redirected back to him on passes from Jay Bouwmeester and Jaden Schwartz. Schenn then put it past Rask for his second goal in two games following a 13-game drought.

The Bruins had two chances on the power play later in the first but couldn't convert, with Marcus Johansson coming closest when he rung the post on the first chance with the man advantage.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

NHL: Knights rout Avalanche to tie win-streak record

LOS ANGELES - The Vegas Golden Knights' spectacular arrival in the NHL continued with a record-equalling win on Friday.

David Perron, Oscar Lindberg, Cody Eakin and James Neal all scored goals during an 8 1/2- minute stretch in the second period and Oscar Dansk had 32 saves to lead the Knights to a 7-0 victory over the Colorado Avalanche in Las Vegas.

The fifth straight win for the Golden Knights matched the longest win streak by any team during its inaugural season in the 100-year history of the league.

The record was set by the New York Rangers in 1926-27 and equaled by Edmonton Oilers in 1979-80.

Vegas had already set an NHL record for best start by an expansion club by winning its first three games.

The 23-year-old Dansk, recalled from the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League on October 19 after injuries to starting goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and backup Malcolm Subban, produced the first shutout in team history as he made just the second start of his NHL career.

The contest featured few scoring chances in the first 30 minutes before Perron stole the puck at the Avalanche blue line and backhanded a shot over Semyon Varlamov on a breakaway to give Vegas a 1-0 lead at the 9:50 mark of the second period.

Lindberg made it 2-0 just 2 1/2 minutes later with another unassisted goal.

Eakin made it 3-0 and Neal notched his team-best seventh goal of the season a few minutes later, redirecting a shot from the point by defenseman Colin Miller.

Jonathan Marchessault, Erik Haula and William Carrier added goals in the third period for Vegas.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

NHL: Penguins strike late to repeat as Stanley Cup champs

Patric Hornqvist's late goal followed by an empty-netter from Carl Hagelin lifted the Pittsburgh Penguins to a thrilling 2-0 Stanley Cup-clinching victory over the Nashville Predators on Sunday.

With the victory, the Penguins clinched the best-of-seven championship 4-2 to win the franchise's fifth Stanley Cup. They also became the NHL's first repeat champion since Detroit did it 19 years ago.

Hornqvist scored the game-winning goal with only 95 seconds left when he batted a puck that had bounced off the end boards out of mid air, off the net and off goaltender Pekka Rinne's back and into the goal.

Hagelin iced the game with 14 seconds left when, with Rinne out of the goal in favor of an extra attacker, he scored into the empty net.

The two late goals followed what had been a very tightly-contest game filled with chances for both teams.

The Penguins caught a huge break early in the second period when the referee lost sight of the puck and mistakenly blew his whistle to stop play moments before Predators forward Colton Sissons poked home a rebound.

The referee thought Penguins goalie Matt Murray had the puck but it had actually trickled just behind him and into the crease where Sissons had what should have been the opening goal.

Sissons had another chance to put his team in front at the midway mark of the period when Pittsburgh got caught on a bad line change but he was denied by Murray on the breakaway chance.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

NHL, players reach tentative deal on new collective bargaining agreement

Kings fans had waited 45 years for their beloved team to win the Stanley Cup last June, so it seemed cruel that a labor dispute between the National Hockey League and the NHL Players' Assn. delayed their chance to see the Kings raise their championship banner at Staples Center.

Their wait is now near an end.

The league and players' union early Sunday announced a tentative accord on a new collective bargaining agreement that will bring up to 10 years' labor peace to a league that has shut its doors three times because of conflicts. The agreement, reached with the help of a federal mediator after a tricky 16-hour day of negotiations, has some loose ends that must be wrapped up before it's put on paper and voted upon by both sides this week.

"The framework of a deal has been agreed upon," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters at a news conference held in New York shortly before 6 a.m. Eastern.

Timing for the ratification process hasn't been determined. After both sides give their expected approval, the NHL will announce a revamped schedule in which teams will play 48 or 50 games, instead of 82, within their respective conferences. The Kings' crowning moment — raising their banner to the Staples Center rafters — is likely to occur Jan. 19.

"We're going to be hanging our banner and giving some championship rings out and we're going to try to do it again," said a jubilant Tim Leiweke, the Kings' governor and the president and chief executive of their parent company, AEG.

"That's more important than having any anger over what just happened. That was not in our control. Now, our journey continues."

The NHL locked players out on Sept. 15 after claiming teams could not operate profitably while paying players 57% of hockey-related revenue they received in the final year of the previous labor deal. With the aim of ending long-term, front-loaded contracts that circumvented the spirit of the salary cap, the NHL proposed severely limiting the length of players' contracts and toughening terms of free agency. Its initial offer stipulated that players would get 43% of hockey-related revenue.

In trying to reduce players' share of revenue, the NHL followed the path of the National Football League and National Basketball Assn., which endured labor problems in 2011. The NFL didn't miss any regular-season games, but the NBA dispute lingered until Christmas 2011 and led to a schedule of 66 games instead of the usual 82.

This was the NHL's third lockout during Bettman's nearly 20-year tenure. The league previously cut the 1994-95 season to 48 games and canceled the entire 2004-05 season.

This disagreement pitted Bettman against NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr, the former leader of the Major League Baseball Players' Assn. They butted heads often and each side accused the other several times of being unwilling to negotiate in earnest. The league believed Fehr was slowing the process in an attempt to wear owners down; the union believed Bettman wanted to take back many contractual rights players earned during previous disputes.

The disagreement was resolved only after several influential club executives — including Leiweke, Pittsburgh Penguins owner Ron Burkle and representatives of the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning — began pressuring Bettman two weeks ago to kick-start the stagnant negotiations. Bettman presented a proposal Dec. 27 that launched intense bargaining sessions. The work of federal mediator Scot L. Beckenbaugh, who acted as a go-between when the two sides couldn't face each other, also was crucial to the resolution.

The deal's 10-year term (with a mutual opt-out clause after eight years) is longer than the NHLPA had wanted. The maximum length of player contracts will be seven years, with an exception permitting teams to re-sign their own free agents for eight years, and is longer than the NHL's previously proposed five-year limit.

The salary cap for the 2013-14 season was set at $64.3 million, well above the NHL's proposed $60 million but short of the union's target of $65 million. The floor — minimum each team must spend on payroll — will be $44 million. The salary cap for the upcoming season will be a prorated portion of the previously agreed-upon $70.2-million limit. Teams will be permitted to buy out two players' contracts before the 2013-14 season without that money being counted against their salary cap.

Other pivotal elements, such as a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue and keeping the same terms for entry-level contracts and free agency, were previously negotiated. Some issues, including players' participation in the 2014 Winter Olympics, in Sochi, Russia, have not been settled.

"Hopefully, in a few days people can start watching people who are skating and not us," Fehr told reporters in New York.

Said Bettman: "Absolutely."

Many players who had signed with European teams to stay in shape during the lockout began scrambling to arrange transportation back to North America after the tentative agreement was announced. Kings captain Dustin Brown said he planned to fly home from Switzerland on Monday, and center Anze Kopitar — who sprained his right knee in a game for the Swedish team Mora IK on Saturday — was expected back in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

A resolution was never certain, even during the final days of talks. Tempers flared on Thursday, when the league introduced language that would have reduced penalties against teams that under-reported their hockey-related revenue, and players remained angry after the NHL withdrew that provision.

"It felt like driving your car on the edge of a cliff. We could still get to where we had to go, but at any moment we could fall off the edge," said Kings forward Kevin Westgarth, a member of the players' negotiating committee and participant in those final sessions.

"We are all extremely happy to have made it over the hill. It's going to be a quick change out of our suits and into our skates, as well."

source: latimes.com

Evgeny Kuznetsov, Caps' top prospect, says he's staying in KHL

Evgeny Kuznetsov says he's staying put.

The Washington Capitals' 2010 first-round pick, regarded as one of the top players outside the NHL, doesn't believe he is ready to play in North America and will stick with Chelyabinsk Traktor of the KHL for two more seasons, he told Russian media outlet Sovietsky Sport.


Kuznetsov, who turns 20 on March 19, could've opted to leave Traktor for the Capitals—or failing that, another KHL team as a free agent in that league—and was openly undecided as recently as March.

"I said I was staying in the KHL so they'd leave me alone," Kuznetsov told a Russian television network on March 24.

Kuznetsov had 41 points in 42 games for Chelyabinsk Traktor in 2011-12, and Capitals GM George McPhee had said that he expected the 2010 first-round pick to play for Washington in 2012-13.

‘To be honest, my decision has been reached,” Kuznetsov told the KHL's TV network earlier in March. “It is my intention to continue my career in the KHL. At the same time there is no clarity as to which club it will be.”

Now, he says, clarity has arrived. There was no word on how much the deal was actually for, but previous estimates had his potential annual salary pegged at $4 million. His entry-level NHL deal would pay $900,000 annually for three seasons.

Keeping Kuznetsov in the fold is a win for the KHL, which lost star power when Jaromir Jagr and Alexander Radulov opted to return to the NHL. Other top Russian prospects, like presumed No. 1 overall pick Nail Yakupov and Mikhail Grigorenko, left Russia to play Canadian junior hockey and say they're only interested in the NHL.

Ak Bars Kazan told the Edmonton Journal recently that it has made an offer to Winnipeg Jets winger and 2010 first-round pick Alexander Burmistrov, who is still under contract with the Jets—a claim Burmistrov's agent flatly denied. The NHL and KHL have an agreement that each will honor the other's contracts, but there's no real legal obligation on either side to do so.

source: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nhl/story/2012-05-01/evgeny-kuznetsov-capitals-khl-alexander-radulov-alexander-burmistrov