Florida's American Hockey League outfit - the Portland Pirates - have signed a letter of intent to relocate the franchise, the team announced Wednesday.
The filed paperwork officially ends a 23-season run in the market.
According to the Portland Press Herald, the Pirates will resurface in Springfield, Mass., and replace the Falcons, who were purchased last month by the Arizona Coyotes with the intent to move to Tucson, Ariz.
GLENDALE, Ariz. - A person familiar with the situation has told The Associated Press that the Arizona Coyotes will promote 26-year-old John Chayka to general manager, making him the youngest GM in NHL history.
The Coyotes have scheduled a new...
Melnyk added that he will talk to the two finalists, but likely ultimately side with Dorion's recommendation.
Bruce Boudreau, the highly successful regular-season coach only recently fired by the Anaheim Ducks, is expected to interview later this week and Bob Hartley, who received his walking papers Tuesday from the Calgary Flames, is also expected to receive a call.
Mike Yeo, Guy Boucher, Randy Carlyle, Kevin Dineen, and Benoit Groulx have already held discussions with Dorion, Bryan Murray, and the Senators, according to Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun.
The Coyotes fired former general manager Don Maloney last month.
Chayka and Dallas Stars scouting director Les Jackson were reportedly the final two candidates, with Chayka being the most likely, as Friedman and McKenzie reported in April.
Arizona hired Chayka as assistant GM last June. The analytics expert co-founded and ran Stathletes, Inc., an Ontario-based company that provided hockey statistics and touted itself as having "professional hockey's deepest performance data and analytics."
He was involved in all areas of hockey operations in his role as assistant GM, including player evaluation at the NHL, minor-league, and amateur levels, as well as player development and coaching support.
Shane Doan couldn't pass up an opportunity to show some Canadian pride.
The Arizona Coyotes captain took a playful jab at the film "Miracle" - which depicts the 1980 U.S. Olympic men's hockey team that pulled off the improbable "Miracle On Ice" - during a radio appearance Wednesday afternoon.
Shane Doan on the movie "Miracle": "When you're Canadian and you win a gold medal you don't need to make a movie about it."
Doan won two gold medals and three silver medals for Canada at the World Championships, and also scored the game-winning goal for Canada at the World Cup in 2004.
As far as the Olympics go, though, he doesn't have much to brag about. Doan has represented his country once on the Olympic stage, at the 2006 Games in Torino, Italy, where Canada lost in the quarterfinals and finished seventh.
Still, this might be just what the NHL needs to drum up interest in the upcoming World Cup of Hockey.
ST. LOUIS - St. Louis Blues winger Scottie Upshall saw images of the wildfire spreading across his hometown of Fort McMurray, Alta., and likened them to a disaster movie.
"A movie that I don't really want to watch," he told reporters Wednesda...
Jonathan Toews might have the captaincy and Cup rings, but he lacks social media savvy - at least in the eyes of Patrick Kane.
In response to Kane wishing him happy birthday over Twitter, Toews had to call out his fellow $10.5-million teammate on the social media platform in order to gain his follow.
@JonathanToews Sorry, didn't think you would be interesting enough to follow. Here's your follow sir
Most NHL dreams are forged on the rinks in small towns considered the backbone of Canada and the United States. Few towns are more representative than Fort McMurray, Alberta - the province's northeastern natural resource hub currently being engulfed by sweeping wildfires.
Chris Phillips is one NHLer who's roots trace back to Fort McMurray. His sister and her immediate family have been safely evacuated from the area, but that doesn't make the harrowing visuals of the town that gave him his start much easier to digest.
#CBC reporters confirm homes are now burning in Fort McMurray in Beacon Hill and in the Centenial Trailer Park. #ymmpic.twitter.com/jfR3icD41r
"It's really hard. To be honest, I'm trying not to see what it looks like," Phillips said Wednesday, Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports. "I'm reading a lot of information on Twitter but I'm trying not to see video or pictures because it's hard to watch.
"To see it, in the shape it's in right now, it's just really hard. There's no easy way to describe that feeling, feeling so helpless, seeing a lot of friends and family trying to get out of there. Thankfully, I haven't heard of any injuries or worse and that everybody did get out of the fire hazard anyway."
Another local kid, St. Louis Blues forward Scottie Upshall, has a distraction: the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But he admitted prior to Game 3 versus the Dallas Stars that his mind was elsewhere.
"I did not care about the hockey at the time. Once I started reading and I saw photos and video on Twitter, hockey was kind of the last thing I was thinking about," Upshall told Sportnet's Mark Spector.
"I was on my phone for most of the pregame warmup, in the dressing room," he added.
On his phone, Upshall learned that Beacon Hill - the neighborhood where he played his minor hockey - was largely destroyed, including an estimated 80 percent of the area's homes.
"The first arena I ever skated in was called the Beacon Hill Arena," he said. "Man, I can still remember the smell of that place. I'm told Beacon Hill is completely gone."
The rink - since renamed Frank Lacroix Arena - has apparently survived the blaze.
The Blues announced that they'll work to raise money for Upshall's hometown with a raffle and silent auction in advance of Game 4.
Letang will sit Game 4 against the Washington Capitals after being suspended one game, and while tabbing Schultz to fill a hole in the lineup, Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan expects a team effort in the absence of one of their best players.
"I don't think anybody's going to try to become Kris Letang because we don't have him tonight," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan told reporters after the morning skate. "We're just going to be ourselves. We're going to play our game. We're going to try to play to our strengths and we'll see where it goes."
Schultz hasn't played since Game 1 of the first round (three weeks ago), and will look to keep things simple.
"I'm not going to replace him by no means," Schultz said of Letang. "I haven't played for a while so just try to move my feet, jump up when I can, and have fun."
Schultz was paired with Ian Cole in practice. He recorded a goal and seven assists in 18 regular season games with the Penguins.
Katie Lamb will be providing preview content for the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes for theScore this season. Katie's horse-racing coverage has appeared in The New York Times and the Toronto Star.
If J. Paul Reddam had his way, two Nyquists would be battling it out for the headlines in the sports pages.
The Windsor, Ontario native and lifelong Detroit Red Wings fan is also the owner of the Kentucky Derby favorite, Nyquist, who Reddam named after Red Wings forward Gustav Nyquist.
But after a stinging loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the NHL Playoffs, in which Gustav Nyquist only managed to score a single goal in five games, Reddam can only hope the right winger’s big, bay namesake can prevail in the Run for the Roses on May 7.
“There's a story that the Stanley Cup is going to be at the barn on Saturday morning,” Reddam said over the phone from Los Angeles. “I don’t know if we’ll be so frivolous to have the horse drink out of it and get a photo. He’ll be the only Nyquist drinking out the Cup - that’s for sure.”
Reddam gave the horse its name as a way to rib friend Eric Johnson, a defenseman for the Colorado Avalanche, who refused to join the Red Wings. He also races Mrazek, named after his beloved team’s goaltender, Petr Mrazek.
Based in California with trainer Doug O’Neill, the 3-year-old colt rolls into the big dance undefeated in his seven starts to date, having most recently won the Florida Derby on April 2 at Gulfstream Park in Florida. A $400,000 purchase as a 2-year-old, Nyquist won four stakes races that first year on the track - Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, Grade 1 FrontRunner Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile - and was voted Eclipse Award champion 2-year-old.
Nyquist is by the white-hot sire Uncle Mo, who has two other Derby entrants in Outwork and Mo Tom, a remarkable accomplishment considering these individuals are a part of his first crop of 3-year-olds.
Mario Guiterrez, who has ridden Nyquist in all of his starts, will pilot him on Saturday.
Four years ago, Reddam, Guiterrez, and O’Neill arrived at Churchill Downs with 12-1 shot I’ll Have Another, and left Kentucky Derby victors. Two weeks later, they won the Preakness, too. Then, a day before Belmont Stakes and a bid for the Triple Crown, I’ll Have Another suffered an injury to his tendon and was scratched. He subsequently retired.
This time, Reddam has the favorite and there is pressure that comes with racing an undefeated champion in the world’s most important race for 3-year-olds.
“The playoffs you can make mistakes in the final and still win the Cup," he said. "In the Derby, all this anticipation that’s been building and will continue to build to Saturday, boom they pop the gate and it’s over in two minutes and you’re either a hero or a goat.
“Here for us running second would just be a loss.”
There are questions if Nyquist will have the stamina for the 1-mile-1/4 distance of the Derby, as it will be the farthest he’s ever run. But more concerning to Reddam is the post. In addition to running the longest race of his career, Nyquist will have to navigate the track amid 19 others, more foes than he’s ever faced in his life. Reddam said he’d like a stall in the gate “toward the outside,” that way he hopes his colt can stay out of trouble and sail home.
“We just want a clear trip. And if he’s the best horse, he’ll win, and, if he’s not, he won’t versus having an excuse,” he said.
