PITTSBURGH — His season began with COVID-19, which forced him to miss five games in November.

"It hit me pretty hard," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan was saying last week. "It was a tough few days."

It continued with the NHL's decision to skip the Beijing Olympics in February, denying him the chance to live out his dream of coaching the U.S. ...Read more

ST. LOUIS — You didn’t think the Avalanche would go away quietly, did you? Of course not. Colorado avenged Thursday’s home loss to the Blues, defeating St. Louis, 5-2, Saturday in Game 3 of their second-round playoff series.

They are now halfway home to advancing to the Western Conference finals, up two games to one in the best-of-seven ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — As of Friday, May 27, it will have been 47 years since the Flyers last won the Stanley Cup. If you have a fondness for the sadomasochistic, you can continue parsing that number to illustrate just how long that drought has been: 17,168 days, 411,744 hours, and on and on, until you risk crashing the calculator app on your ...Read more

DENVER – There is hope for the St. Louis Blues after all. Remember – and how could you forget — they were outshot by about a million to one in Game 1 as Colorado put on a dazzling display of speed and skating.

But in the playoffs, what happens in one game frequently has no bearing on what happens in the next one. And somehow, the Blues ...Read more

SUNRISE, Fla. — The clock showed 0.9 seconds remaining and the Florida Panthers were frozen on the ice. Ross Colton had stumbled to the ice in joy and the Panthers were gobsmacked.

With virtually no time left on the clock, the Lightning stunned Florida for a 2-1 win Thursday in Sunrise.

The Panthers’ season — the best in franchise ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes are still unbeaten at home in the Stanley Cup playoffs, but it took overtime.

The Canes fell behind the New York Rangers in the first period, tied the score late in the third and then won, 2-1, on defenseman Ian Cole’s goal at 3:12 of overtime in Game 1 of their second-round series.

The Hurricanes, ...Read more

SUNRISE, Fla. — The face, right? You’ve got to protect the face first.

And then it’s easily breakable bones. The forearm, the knees, even the feet.

Really, when it comes to blocking a frozen hockey puck whizzing at you at breakneck speed — and that’s not necessarily a euphemism — it’s best to go into turtle mode and pray it hits ...Read more

PITTSBURGH — I hate to disagree with Tristan Jarry, who gave his all against the New York Rangers on Sunday night by playing hurt after missing a month with a broken foot and playing well enough to give the Penguins a chance to win Game 7.

But I must.

"They're generational players," Jarry said of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang....Read more

Colorado’s Josh Manson zipped a game-winning shot past Blues’ goalie Jordan Binnington for a stunning 3-2 overtime victory at an electric Ball Arena Tuesday night. Manson’s shot from the top came midway through the first extra period of Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.

The Avalanche played a penalty-free game until late in the...Read more

SUNRISE, Fla. — With Brayden Point, the best player in the Lightning’s first-round playoff series win over Toronto, sidelined for Tuesday’s second-round opener against Florida, the Lightning needed someone else to push the pace.

Enter Nikita Kucherov, who put the game on his stick in the second period and brought the Lightning back from a...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — In the same sense that we’re doomed to repeat the same stupid timeline over and over again off the ice — a New York broadcaster using the word “hillbilly” to describe the Carolina Hurricanes, and before the series even starts — there’s a pretty good chance the second round is going to look a lot like the first for ...Read more

CHICAGO — Even Jeff Greenberg knows this feels crazy, right?

Here’s a former Chicago Cubs assistant general manager, who worked in baseball for 16 years, making the leap to professional hockey — and not just switching from another sport but occupying one of the Chicago Blackhawks’ top three front-office positions as an associate general...Read more

MORRISVILLE, N.C. — Let us not visit the sins of the father upon the son. Tie Domi was as hated here as he was anywhere else, although it’s a two-way street, given that the Carolina Hurricanes put an end to what may have been his best shot at a Stanley Cup.

So what a strange world we are living in that nobody, nowhere could have been ...Read more