Former Hurricanes Forward Fined For Dangerous Hit
Three Canadiens Make The Hockey News Top 100 NHL Players List
Not so long ago, Carey Price was the first Montreal Canadiens player to be mentioned in any list of best NHL players. Now that he has been forced to stop playing, the Habs are led by someone else in The Hockey News' top 100 NHL players list. Only three Canadiens made the list: Nick Suzuki, sniper Cole Caufield, and rookie defenseman Lane Hutson.
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New York Times
31 minutes ago
- New York Times
Sami Kapanen on son Kasperi's Oilers surge and the ‘opportunity of a lifetime' to grow a family legacy
EDMONTON — Watching Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final in the wee hours of the morning from his home in Finland, Sami Kapanen could hardly believe his eyes. He'd seen that stat line before. He'd seen that result before. It was exactly 23 years to the day, in fact, since the only other time someone carrying Finland's most famous hockey family's name had the chance to get it engraved in the rounded silver edges of the Cup. Advertisement 'Scary,' Sami told The Athletic on Thursday. 'It's scary how much is the same.' Consider that he was a 28-year-old forward playing for the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2002 Cup Final against the Detroit Red Wings. That series began on June 4. He had a big hand in the Hurricanes' victory at Joe Louis Arena to open the best-of-seven. 'Game 1, we won in overtime,' he recalled. 'I had two assists.' On Wednesday, he watched from afar as his son Kasperi, a 28-year-old forward with the Edmonton Oilers, picked up two assists in an uplifting overtime victory over the Florida Panthers. History sometimes rhymes. The respective stat lines from their Stanley Cup debuts are eerily similar: Sami Kapanen, June 4, 2002: Two assists, two shots, 23 shifts, 21:22 ice time Kasperi Kapanen, June 4, 2025: Two assists, two shots, 26 shifts, 20:28 ice time Of course, both father and son hope the similarities end there. Sami's Hurricanes dropped the next four games to Detroit in 2002, and he still carries regrets about the experience. He picked up a gruesome injury that season when two six-inch pieces of fiberglass from a broken stick embedded in his palm just before the Olympic break. He never got his game on track during the playoffs that followed, scoring just once in 23 games following a 27-goal regular season. He was shouldering a heavy weight during what wound up being the only Cup Final appearance of a 12-year NHL career. 'I wish I could go back and just play,' Sami said Thursday. 'Just enjoy it. Don't worry about the numbers.' There are certainly some lessons to be found in there for Kasperi, a 2014 first-round pick who has twice been claimed off waivers during a twisting career in which he's never quite made good on his potential. That's how Kapanen arrived in Edmonton from the St. Louis Blues on Nov. 19, and he viewed the latest trip through the waiver wire as a potential make-or-break proposition on his NHL career. Advertisement To see the way he played Wednesday, you'd have trouble believing going on waivers was even possible. Kapanen used his speed to get in on the forecheck and disrupt the Panthers with some effective hits in Game 1 and split through defensemen Niko Mikkola and Seth Jones to create a partial breakaway in overtime before ringing a shot off the outside of the right post behind Sergei Bobrovsky. Couple that with his two assists, and it was about all you could ask for from a depth forward who spent nine games in the press box to open these playoffs for Edmonton. 'He's gaining more and more confidence by the period right now,' said Sami, adding that he doesn't think he's seen his son play this well since he was Evgeni Malkin's linemate in Pittsburgh during the 2021 season. Sami described Kasperi as an 'emotional player' who needs to feel the trust of his coach to perform at his best. Everything started to fall into place, he said, after the series-clinching overtime goal Kasperi scored to finish off the Vegas Golden Knights in Round 2. 'He kind of showed himself that 'I've still got it,'' said Sami. 'When he feels good, good things happen.' Kapanen the younger has scored more than his share of massive goals, from the overtime winner in Helsinki to win Finland a gold at the 2016 World Juniors to a double-overtime playoff winner for the Toronto Maple Leafs in Washington as an NHL rookie in 2017 to his series-clincher against Vegas. The Oilers pursued Kapanen as a free agent last summer, when he chose instead to remain with the Blues on a one-year contract. When he arrived off waivers, he found an incredibly close team of committed professionals who helped him rediscover his love of the game. 'It was just an eye-opener,' Kapanen said. 'It lit a fire under me. Just my love for the game has just grown ever since I've come here.' Advertisement By pursuing a career in hockey, he essentially got into the family business. His grandfather, Hannu, played for Finland at the 1976 Olympics, and Kasperi counts time spent in the Philadelphia Flyers dressing room with Peter Forsberg, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter among his childhood memories because of Sami's 831-game NHL career. The Kapanen Clan — as they're known in Finnish — are the only hockey family in the world that have had five different members represent the national team at a major international tournament. They are heavily invested in possibly seeing that name etched into the Stanley Cup this summer. 'I come from a pretty big hockey family,' Kasperi said. 'So after games, it's usually mom, dad, uncle, grandma, grandpa, cousins who will text me. It's a little overwhelming at times. They're just happy that I'm finally here and I've got a chance to win.' Sami hasn't allowed himself to start dreaming about what a Stanley Cup party might look like back home in Kuopio if the Oilers manage to finish the job. He doesn't want to get ahead of himself. He plans to travel to Edmonton to watch Game 5 of this series from the stands at Rogers Place and will continue pulling all-nighters from Finland to watch the other games on TV in the meantime. 'I'm so excited,' Sami said. 'I can see it. His game is coming. It's getting better and better. There's so many things that are kind of clicking right now. 'It's the opportunity of a lifetime and that's the time that you want to perform.' (Top photos of Sami and Kasperi Kapanen: Elsa and Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Panthers look to even the Stanley Cup Final against the Oilers in Game 2
EDMONTON, Alberta — Trailing the Stanley Cup Final after losing the opener in overtime, the defending champion Florida Panthers look to even things up in Game 2 at the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night. Winning on the road has not been a problem for them so far, going 8-3 away from home, the third loss coming Wednesday on Leon Draisatl's power-play goal following a puck-over-the-glass penalty on Tomas Nosek. The task of going into a packed, loud arena is just another challenge the Panthers are embracing.
Associated Press
2 hours ago
- Associated Press
Aaron Rodgers and Mike Tomlin are kindred spirits. Their union carries plenty of stakes for both
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Aaron Rodgers and Mike Tomlin share a competitive stubbornness. An inherent arrogance, too. While that hardly makes them outliers in the alpha-driven NFL, their ability to keep the realities of the game they have helped define at bay for so long does. Coaches aren't supposed to go nearly two decades without experiencing a losing season. Tomlin has. Quarterbacks aren't supposed to recover from an Achilles injury in their 40s and return to throw for nearly 4,000 yards. Rodgers did. Maybe they have long sensed this shared 'otherness.' Maybe that's why they've made it a point during their occasional professional meetings to make GIF-worthy eye contact, a non-verbal way of saying 'game recognize game.' So perhaps it's fitting that two men who believe the rules don't necessarily apply to them will share the sideline this fall in a season that could serve as a symbolic last stand for their worldview. Rodgers is eager to move past two weird years in New York, where he generated more headlines than victories. Tomlin has kept churning out winning seasons, potentially at the expense of finding the franchise quarterback the teams the Steelers have been so frantically, if futilely, chasing for years have in abundance. 'Our business is winning' Yet rather than keep Russell Wilson or Justin Fields — both of whom Pittsburgh let walk in free agency after leading the Steelers to a 10-7 mark last fall — or roll the dice with Mason Rudolph or use a first-round pick in April's draft on the most important position in the game, by signing Rodgers the Steelers are doing what they have always done for the last 50-plus years. They're trying to win. Now. There is nobility in that, to be sure. Glory, however, is another thing entirely. And while Rudolph made himself a quasi-folk hero after coming off the bench down the stretch in 2023 to lead Pittsburgh to the playoffs, there's little doubt that Rodgers is the best option available, even if watching the Steelers spending two-plus months hat-in-hand waiting for him to commit caused franchise icon and Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw to call his old team's pursuit of the four-time MVP 'a joke.' Yet losing is no laughing matter to a coach who counts 'our business is winning' among his many Tomlin-isms. Riding with Rudolph or (eventually) rookie sixth-round pick Will Howard would have come with a high risk/reward. Either they would have been successful and the Steelers would have found 'their guy' or they would stumble and the club would land inside the top 12 in the draft without having to trade to get there for the first time since taking Ben Roethlisberger 11th overall in 2004. Gambling, however, is not Tomlin's way. Playing it safe For all of his inherent swagger, Tomlin's approach remains cautious. In a league where scoring is paramount, Tomlin remains fixated on winning the turnover battle and avoiding mistakes, hoping in the end his team will be on the right side of a 20-17 game. A little more often than not, it does. Until the playoffs come around anyway. Then the Steelers often find themselves going against a team with a better quarterback, at least on that given day, than the one they employ, the defense struggles, and all the talk of a run to a seventh Super Bowl title quickly vanishes. Enter Rodgers, who is hoping to put a more positive coda on the end of his career than what would have been tacked on had he decided to step away after a miserable 5-12 slog with the Jets last season. Rodgers stressed during his methodical decision-making process that he wouldn't commit to any team until he was sure he could fully invest. Apparently, Rodgers reached that point Thursday, conveniently a few hours after his soon-to-be teammates wrapped up two weeks of voluntary organized team activities. He will likely pass the physical that will ratify his one-year deal in time to trot out onto the practice field at the Steelers' facility for the start of mandatory minicamp next, where the angst over his future will morph into angst over how much life remains in his 41-year-old legs. An age-old debate Rodgers turns 42 in December. The list of quarterbacks who have won a playoff game at 42 or older starts and stops with Tom Brady. For Rodgers to join that list, he'll have to stay healthy behind a young offensive line that struggled at times to protect Wilson and Fields, develop chemistry with a wide receiver group that is largely unproven outside recently acquired two-time Pro Bowler DK Metcalf and try to make sure the volume on the noise that accompanies him wherever the frequent 'Pat McAfee Show' guest and avid conspiracy theorist goes doesn't drown out the team-first tone Tomlin is trying to set. It's a lot to ask, though Rodgers will likely come in motivated, well aware that a portion (albeit a small one) of his legacy is at stake. The pressure Tomlin faces will be different. Conventional wisdom suggests it's finally time for the Steelers to get off the treadmill of 'pretty good but hardly great' by taking an overdue step back. Conventional wisdom, however, didn't have a defense with an ageless All-Pro defensive tackle, a future Hall of Fame outside linebacker on the back side of his prime and a perennial Pro Bowl safety. The Steelers do. Stubborn? Or stuck? Tomlin feels he owes it to Cam Heyward, T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick to maximize 2025, even if it potentially leaves them in a familiar position next April when the draft comes to Pittsburgh: with a first-round pick in the low-20s and no quarterback of the future on the roster. If it happens, so be it. Tomlin has no plans to ever apologize for the way he goes about his job. Five months ago, not long after another quick playoff exit, this time at the hands of Baltimore, he shrugged when asked if the Steelers were 'stuck.' 'Stuck is kind of a helpless feeling,' the NFL's longest-tenured coach said with a touch of disdain. 'And I don't know that I feel helpless.' Helpless? No. Yet rather than call a tow truck, the Steelers are revving the engine in the hopes their tires don't spin in vain, but find a little grip amid all that mud. The lines between competitive stubbornness and plain old stubbornness, arrogance and ignorance, are pretty thin. Tomlin, Rodgers, and the Steelers seem intent on getting an up-close look at both. ___ AP NFL:
