My Sports News Digest

NEW YORK (NHL/Lozo) — When the Rangers lose, it rarely has anything to do with a bevy of gaffes. The team rose to the top of the Eastern Conference this season on the strength of playing mistake-free hockey, “the right way,” as coach John Tortorella calls it. On Monday night at Madison Square Garden, the Washington Capitals made the Rangers pay for doing things the wrong way. The seventh-seeded Caps won Game 2 of their Eastern Conference Semifinal series with the Rangers 3-2, scoring all three goals directly off uncharacteristic errors, evening the best-of-seven series at 1-1. “Can’t give things [...]

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NEW YORK (NHL/Newsfeed) — Alex Ovechkin normally earns so much attention for what he does on the ice. But in the past two weeks, much of the focus has shifted to all the time he is not. For the third time in the past five games, Ovechkin on Monday played less than 17 minutes in a Stanley Cup Playoff game for the Washington Capitals. This time, Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Rangers, he played a career-low in the postseason (13:36), but also scored the game-winning goal in a 3-2 victory that evened the series [...]

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The Senators gathered for one final time Saturday but all eyes remain on captain Daniel Alfredsson. Will he or won’t he return? Alfredsson, 39, who told reporters he’ll play out the final year of his contract at $ 1 million if he does come back, said he’s going to take some time before making a decision on his future. “I’d like to take a step back. I haven’t talked to my wife to say I’m going to do this or that,” said Alfredsson, who added he may play for Team Sweden at the world championships next month. “I’ve just left [...]

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NEW YORK – Chris Kreider fidgeted with the black lid he was donning, the chapeau handed out to the New York Rangers player of the game after each Broadway Blueshirt victory. “It’s a little small,” he admitted. Unlike his impact, which has been huge. The headpiece he was wearing is known inside the New York Rangers dressing room as The Broadway Hat, which was purchased by Brad Richards during the team’s early season trip to Europe to honour the guy who makes the biggest splash in the course of a win. At this rate, Kreider might be keeping the thing [...]

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PHILADELPHIA (NHL/Kimelman) – Flyers coach Peter Laviolette had spent seven days being asked pretty much the same question — how his team would handle a long layoff — and had pretty much the same answer each time. “That question got asked a lot this week, what’s going to happen, how are you going to be after the layoff,” he said. “I answered, ‘I don’t know,’ because the truth of the matter is you don’t really know. You don’t know if your team is going to come out and be jumping or whether it’s going to take a bit.” “A bit,” [...]

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PHILADELPHIA (NHL/Newsfed) — The last time Ilya Kovalchuk was held without a shot in a game was five months ago. The New Jersey Devils were able to overcome that stunning scenario, however, in a 2-1 overtime decision against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Nov. 23, 2011. In Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Semifinal contest against the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday, the Devils weren’t able to seal the deal this time around in overtime. The Flyers scored a 4-3 victory in a game where Kovalchuk was held without a shot in 21:20 of ice time. It has been rumored for [...]

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ST. LOUIS (NHL/Tychkowski) – An evening that began with tornado warnings, 100 km-h wind gusts and egg-sized hail in St. Louis didn’t settle down much when the puck dropped. The fired up Blues stormed Los Angeles like they were the Edmund Fitzgerald, firing about six shots on net before the anthem singer was even off the ice, but the Kings weathered the frantic early moments, launched a counter-attack of their own and rained all over the home town parade. The California giant killers, after dispatching the No.1 team in the Western Conference last round, have stolen home ice advantage from [...]

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ST. LOUIS (NHL/Tychkowski) – An evening that began with tornado warnings, 100 km-h wind gusts and egg-sized hail in St. Louis didn’t settle down much when the puck dropped. The fired up Blues stormed Los Angeles like they were the Edmund Fitzgerald, firing about six shots on net before the anthem singer was even off the ice, but the Kings weathered the frantic early moments, launched a counter-attack of their own and rained all over the home town parade. The California giant killers, after dispatching the No.1 team in the Western Conference last round, have stolen home ice advantage from [...]

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