Longtime Detroit Red Wings netminder Jimmy Howard is expected to announce his retirement in the coming days after 14 NHL seasons, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported on "Saturday Headlines."

Howard, 36, said in June that he hoped to continue playing despite a down year in 2019-20. However, he remains an unrestricted free agent with the season underway and is apparently enjoying spending time with his family, Friedman adds.

The 6-foot-1 puck-stopper spent his entire career with the Red Wings. He ranks third games played (543), third in wins (246), and fourth in both save percentage (.912) and shutouts (24) for the storied franchise.

Howard appeared in two All-Star games and finished in the top eight in Vezina Trophy voting twice (2010, 2013).

Internationally, the Syracuse, New York, native represented the United States at the 2012 and 2017 world championships. Howard was also selected as the nation's third netminder for the 2014 Olympic Games but he didn't make an appearance.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

New York Islanders rookie netminder Ilya Sorokin will make his first NHL start Saturday versus the New York Rangers after starter Semyon Varlamov suffered an injury in warmups.

Varlamov took an errant shot to his neck area shortly after the teams took to the ice.

Sorokin was drafted by the Islanders in the third round of the 2014 draft but didn't sign a contract with New York until last July.

The 25-year-old was long considered one of the best goaltenders outside the NHL. He posted a .935 save percentage in 40 games with CSKA Moscow in the KHL last season.

Varlamov helped lead the Isles to a commanding 4-0 victory over the Rangers in their season opener Thursday.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Skoda, a Czech car manufacturer and major sponsor of hockey's World Championship, says it won't be involved if Belarus co-hosts the tournament with Latvia as planned.

Protests against Belarus' government and its authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, have been raging in the country since last year's election.

In addition, the IIHF is investigating Belarusian Ice Hockey Association president Dmitry Baskov, who's alleged to have been involved in the death of a political opponent.

IIHF president Rene Fasel said Wednesday that the governing body isn't considering any fallback options should it decide not to go ahead with the current plan. He added that the notion of moving the tourney exclusively to Riga - the other host city - isn't on the table.

However, Fasel said the IIHF needs to be certain it can safely hold the tournament in Belarus before formally approving it as a host considering the aforementioned factors and the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If we move forward with Minsk as a tournament host, we also must establish a system where we can be assured that the Belarus government is taking concrete actions towards fulfilling the pledges made to the IIHF, otherwise it will not be possible to hold a World Championship in Minsk due to the elevated safety issues," he said.

Fasel raised eyebrows when he met with Lukashenko this week, later admitting it went "a bit wrong" and implying he didn't want it to appear as though he was showing support for the leader, who has cracked down on the protests.

The longtime hockey executive was also seen with Baskov at a recent KHL game.

The IIHF awarded the 2021 worlds to Minsk and Riga in 2017.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Philadelphia Flyers center Sean Couturier will miss at least two weeks after suffering a Costochondral separation Friday against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the team announced.

A Costochondral separation occurs when your rib tears away from the cartilage connecting to the breastbone. Symptoms include sharp pain while breathing, coughing, or sneezing.

Couturier took a hit from Jared McCann on Friday during his second shift and didn't return.

Couturier produced 22 goals and 59 points last season and won the Selke Trophy as the league's top defensive forward.

The 28-year-old is Philadelphia's first-line center. It's unclear how the Flyers will fill his spot in the lineup, but moving winger Claude Giroux back to his natural center position is among the team's options.

It's also possible Morgan Frost gets inserted into the lineup. The 2017 first-rounder is a natural center and played 20 NHL games in 2019-20 but has yet to appear this season.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The New York Rangers are sending a message to Tony DeAngelo.

Rangers head coach David Quinn said Saturday that the defenseman will not play in the evening's game against the New York Islanders, according to The Athletic's Rick Carpiniello.

DeAngelo skated with the taxi squad Friday after struggling and letting his emotions get the better of him in Thursday's 4-0 loss to the Islanders.

The 25-year-old earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in that contest. Officials tacked the additional infraction onto a holding penalty after DeAngelo yelled at the referees and slammed the penalty box's door.

Mathew Barzal also burned the Rangers rearguard for a goal in the game.

Despite Thursday's lapses, DeAngelo's absence isn't long-term.

"It's the right thing to do, and he'll be back in the lineup soon," Quinn said Saturday, according to USA Today's Vince Z. Mercogliano.

DeAngelo tied for fourth in the NHL in goals and points among blue-liners last season.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The Winnipeg Jets became the latest NHL team to cancel practice due to potential COVID-19 exposure, calling off Saturday's session "out of an abundance of caution."

On Wednesday, Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers was one of 22 players the NHL cited as being unavailable due to COVID-19 protocols. However, he was ultimately cleared and played Thursday night.

The Vancouver Canucks canceled practice and workouts last Sunday due to the same concerns before resuming team activities the next day.

Last week, six Dallas Stars players and two staff members tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the postponement of multiple games. The NHL later revealed 17 Stars players had tested positive in training camp along with members of eight other clubs, though most of Dallas' players were asymptomatic.

The Stars' season opener was eventually postponed until Jan. 22.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Keith Yandle has an unexpected supporter amid his ongoing rift with the Florida Panthers.

Rick Pitino, the longtime college and NBA basketball coach who's currently the bench boss at Iona College, criticized the NHL club for its handling of the veteran defenseman.

Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville said Friday that it's unlikely Yandle will be in the lineup for Sunday's season opener against the Chicago Blackhawks, meaning the rearguard's streak of 866 consecutive games played would end.

The remarkable run, which dates back to 2009, is the NHL's longest active streak of its kind.

It's unclear exactly how Pitino and Yandle know each other. Yandle was born in Boston in September 1986, meaning he would have been 10 years old when Pitino took the Celtics job in May 1997 and 14 when Pitino resigned in January 2001.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Yandle had fallen out of favor with the Panthers, wasn't in their plans for this season, and would be made a healthy scratch at some point.

The 34-year-old notched 45 points over 69 games in 2019-20.

Yandle played the previous four campaigns with Florida after parts of two seasons with the New York Rangers and nine with the Arizona (and Phoenix) Coyotes to begin his career.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Brent Johnson wasn't the first, best, winningest, or most recognizable mutual teammate of Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. The retired NHL goalie was never the primary starter for Ovechkin's Washington Capitals or Crosby's Pittsburgh Penguins, and he didn't backstop either player to a Stanley Cup. But he was around for the start of their rise. It shaped his thoughts on what makes them amazing.

During the 2005-06 season, the NHL's first after a yearlong lockout, Johnson backed up Olaf Kolzig for a rebuilding Capitals team that had little going for it but a sensational young Russian winger. Nowadays, expecting Washington and Pittsburgh to compete for titles is common sense; the same goes for Ovechkin and Crosby lighting up opposing goalies. They debuted in the league together as top picks from consecutive drafts, and Johnson had front-row access to their rookie breakouts. Ovechkin bagged 52 goals, and both players eclipsed 100 points, instantly validating enormous hype.

"From early ages, people around the hockey world have known about their greatness. They've known about their abilities. Maybe Alex went a little bit more under the radar, just because he wasn't in North America early. We all heard about Sidney Crosby as the next coming," said Johnson, who's now a Capitals studio analyst for NBC Sports Washington.

"They're able to perform at such a high level despite the pressure that's being put on them. Some players who aren't really (great), I think, would fold a bit under pressure. They never seem to. They never seem to fold. They never seem to falter."

The observation is as relevant as ever entering 2020-21, Crosby and Ovechkin's 16th season battling head-on for team and personal superiority. Their overlap has defined a hockey generation, and the rivalry is about to intensify. Starting Sunday in Pittsburgh, eight Penguins-Capitals games beckon in the realigned, hypercompetitive East Division - eight clashes between fading yet hopeful contenders long conditioned to dislike and irk each other.

Hockey's emphasis on team sometimes compels players to downplay individual battles. Penguins versus Capitals is what matters on the scoreboard, not Sid versus Ovi. But it's obvious why plenty of fans and talking heads, plus the occasional out-of-town writer, gravitate toward the latter framing.

Crosby and Ovechkin cross paths all the time, the result of their draft status, divisional proximity, and success in revitalizing once-stagnant franchises. The four postseason series they've played each produced a Cup champion: Pittsburgh in 2009, 2016, and 2017, and Washington in 2018. If Crosby and Ovechkin both dress as expected Sunday, it will be their 53rd regular-season meeting.

Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, titans of another era, never met on the ice even half as often.

Assuming good health - a surer bet for Ovechkin than for Crosby - new accolades await both stars in 2021. Each is very likely to record his 1,300th point. Crosby's nearing his 1,000th career game. If Ovechkin scores 36 goals, he'll climb from eighth to fourth on the all-time leaderboard, surpassing Mike Gartner, Phil Esposito, Marcel Dionne, and Brett Hull en route. If he scores 30, he'll have done so for a record 16th straight season, eclipsing a mark he shares with Gartner.

These distinctions are tributes to Sid and Ovi's longevity, as was this recent compliment from Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette: They've been hockey's best players for most of his 20 years in the league.

"There are younger players coming now who want to challenge that," Laviolette said during training camp. "But for so long, when those two teams, Pittsburgh and Washington, squared off, they made noise. They made noise because of those guys."

Conor Sheary, the former Crosby linemate who signed with Washington in December, offered similar sentiments.

"I think they're two generational talents who gave this league life. Normally, they put people in the stands," he said. "From my standpoint, I started with Sid in Pittsburgh (in 2015). Playing alongside him, he gave me a chance to break into this league, which is awesome. Moving to this side of the rivalry, I'm excited to be a part of it.

"Just to be a part of it with Ovi is pretty special - to be able to play with him, too."

Sheary is one of four ex-Penguins skating for Washington this season, joining Carl Hagelin, Daniel Sprong, and Justin Schultz. Historically speaking, the members of this group are in select company. They know firsthand - or soon will - what makes both Crosby and Ovechkin tick, acquiring a teammate's insight into their personality differences and the traits that bind them. As Johnson put it, "I got to see both sides of the story."

Crosby and Ovechkin's past mutual teammates

*Won 2016 Stanley Cup with Penguins
**Won 2018 Stanley Cup with Capitals

The contrasts in how Crosby and Ovechkin approach the game have been evident since they were teenagers. The Penguins captain is the serious, calculated, pass-first genius who surveys the ice like a chessboard, thinking moves ahead like Gretzky. From the start of his NHL career, Johnson said, Ovechkin has been the physical, jocular, fun-loving powerhouse who seeks to impose his will in 45-second bursts.

And yet they're also fundamentally similar. During his nine seasons with the Capitals and a 107-game stint with Pittsburgh, Eric Fehr took note of both players' tireless efforts in practice: Crosby is the classic first-on, last-off type, while Ovechkin devotes time each day to perfecting his shot.

"They're both super intense when they're playing," Fehr said, and that shared killer instinct is symbiotic. Especially when they were young, Fehr and Johnson recall, each star truly cared about outdoing the other, forcing the opponent to play at his absolute peak.

"To whoever was out there saying Ovechkin is the better player or Crosby is the better player, they wanted to prove that they were," Johnson said.

New York Islanders head coach Barry Trotz, who coached Ovechkin to the Stanley Cup in 2018, affirmed as much.

"I had the pleasure of being a part of that rivalry. It's fierce," he said. "They don't like each other. They never have, and they never will."

Crosby, for his part, said last season that his relationship with Ovechkin has always been cordial, if distant: "We're not best buddies, but at the same time, I respect the way he plays and what he's doing; can relate to the pressure and the expectations he (faced) coming into the league."

To that last point, Trotz praised both for shouldering an immense burden after the 2005 lockout. Before either player came close to winning a Cup, their brilliance kept the league interesting and relevant at a time when fan support could have cratered.

Their brushes have always been electric and consequential. Fehr played in the 2009 playoff game that both stars punctuated with hat tricks. He scored twice in the 2011 Winter Classic at Heinz Field, the site of Crosby's first costly concussion, and he loved facing the Penguins in feisty matchups in D.C. on Super Bowl Sunday (it's happened four times in the Crosby-Ovechkin era). Winding down his career in Switzerland, the 35-year-old center said he's thought about Crosby and Ovechkin's bond from a big-picture perspective.

"I never saw the games with Wayne and Mario. But I would have to assume that this would go down as the best rivalry in hockey history. Because they were in the same division. Because they were both able to win Cups out of it. Because they've met up with each other so many times, and they had great games against each other," Fehr said.

"You'd have to put a bunch of options in front of me. But I'd have a hard time believing there's (been) a bigger rivalry in the NHL."

About those options.

Picking the NHL's all-time best player rivalry depends on how you define the term, or at least on the element you prioritize: mutual hatred, frequent high-stakes matchups, the simultaneity of two pursuits of greatness. Taking into account the skills and accomplishments of Crosby and Ovechkin, each era has its equivalent pair of superstars.

Gretzky and Lemieux were those legends in the 1980s and '90s. The Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins owned much of the 1970s, led by top talents Guy Lafleur and Bobby Orr. Of the players who dominated the prior few decades, said hockey historian Eric Zweig, two stand out from the fray: Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe.

Individually, Gretzky headlines the GOAT conversation, and Lemieux probably has an inside track on the top five. Yet despite overlapping in the NHL for 13 seasons from 1984-97, the two faced off a mere 25 times. Lemieux's Penguins were bottom-dwellers when Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers were in their prime. They were never divisional or conference foes; they didn't contest a single playoff series. Predictably, their head-to-head stats pop, but as Zweig told theScore, the league never stoked or marketed their rivalry with the same zeal as Sid and Ovi's.

In the '70s, knee surgeries cut short Orr's prime and snuffed out a potential rivalry with Lafleur. The Bruins and Canadiens met in four playoff series that decade: one right before Lafleur was drafted, and three - including the 1977 and 1978 Stanley Cup finals - just after Orr left Boston.

A closer comparable to Crosby-Ovechkin might be Lafleur-Dionne, which featured the top two picks of the 1971 draft. Dionne ranks sixth in NHL history with 1,771 points. Lafleur sits 27th. But where Lafleur paced the Habs to five Stanley Cups, Dionne's Detroit Red Wings and Los Angeles Kings teams were generally bad or mediocre, depriving him of widespread, breathless media coverage and the opportunity to compete for those championships.

"We all knew who he was and that he was a great player, but you never saw him. You never heard stories about him," Zweig said. "I don't think you ever hear about (Lafleur-Dionne) as a classic rivalry. It sort of should be. Should have been, I guess."

Instead, to Zweig, Howe-Richard "is the classic (rivalry), at every level." From Howe's 1946-47 rookie season to Richard's retirement in 1960, their teams were the toast of the Original Six. Either the Red Wings or Canadiens appeared in every final during that span, and they combined to win 10 Stanley Cups, with Howe and Richard meeting in the finals three times. Not that they only brought the heat in the playoffs. Dan Holmes of Vintage Detroit Collection once recalled the events of the first NHL encounter between Richard and Howe: The Rocket elbowed Howe in the chin, and the future Mr. Hockey responded that same shift with a right haymaker.

Even in a less violent, less acrimonious era, Crosby and Ovechkin have engaged in their share of scrums and shouting matches, including the 2018 tiff depicted above. But their rivalry, Zweig said, lacks the subtext of Howe and Richard's: the younger player aiming to usurp the incumbent superstar. Jean Beliveau, Bobby Hull, and Stan Mikita all excelled in the Original Six age, but Howe and Richard were in the NHL first, a budding all-around great from Saskatchewan farm country challenging the rule of the French-Canadian icon who was the game's purest scorer.

"You're trying to take it away from me," Zweig said, summarizing the stakes for the older Richard. "I've been the guy, and now here comes you."

This century's equivalent storyline has seen Crosby pull away from Ovechkin in Cup wins, with the Penguins clinching three before the Capitals earned their first. The 13-year, $124-million contract Ovechkin inked in 2008 expires after this season, and he hopes eventually to finish his career in Moscow. But he's also said he intends to stay in D.C. past 2021, and though their East Division competition is strong, time remains for both Washington and Pittsburgh to try to avenge recent playoff disappointments.

Invoking his own historical comparison before the season started, Trotz said Crosby and Ovechkin will one day be remembered as "the Howe and the Hull" of their time: one a paragon of offensive consistency (Crosby's 1.28 points per game ranks sixth all time among 500-point scorers), and the other capable of surpassing Gretzky in goals. Thanks to Washington's 2018 breakthrough, both will also go down as winners - their unifying motivation.

"A lot of people were right on the mark," Johnson said, reflecting on the buzz Crosby and Ovechkin once commanded as No. 1 picks. "They had these two guys come in the league, and (they) said how absolutely unbelievable these two guys were going to be."

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.