Solar Bears Force Game 7 In South Division Semifinals Against Stingrays
Hurricanes Share Special Moment With Former Teammates In Handshake Line
The Carolina Hurricanes eliminated the New Jersey Devils in five games Tuesday night at Lenovo Center thanks to a 5-4 double overtime win.As always following the conclusion of a series, the two teams met at center ice for the ceremonial handshake line, a show of respect between the clubs.But it was an even more special moment for the Canes as they finally got to drop the masks with a few long-time teammates, but most notably Brett Pesce.
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Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How long can Aari McDonald stay on Indiana Fever? Explaining WNBA hardship contracts
INDIANAPOLIS – Injuries to Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham left the Indiana Fever shorthanded and desperately in need of a ball-handling guard. Clark, the Fever's starting point guard, has been out since May 26 with a quad strain. Cunningham, one of the players who shared the load at point, has been out with an ankle injury since May 30. Advertisement So, the Fever brought in Aari McDonald on a hardship contract on June 1, and she has impressed in her two games with Indiana so far. McDonald has been key for the Fever in this stretch, coming off the bench to help Sydney Colson share the point guard duties. She's able to push the pace in transition and is tough defensively, despite her size (5-6). She had two days to learn the Fever offense before playing against Washington on June 3 and didn't miss a beat. McDonald played 27 minutes against the Mystics, making an impact on both ends — including drawing three offensive fouls in an eight-minute stretch. She scored seven points with a team-leading five assists and three steals. Advertisement Her June 7 outing against Chicago was even better, scoring 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting in 25 minutes and adding two rebounds, two assists and three steals. 'She's taken full advantage of her opportunity,' Fever assistant coach Austin Kelly said following Indiana's win over Chicago on Saturday. 'We see it every year: players go down, there are hardship contracts, and she definitely stayed ready. We always talk about staying ready so you don't have to get ready, and she epitomizes that… We couldn't be more proud of her and how she's transitioned, and how she's taken us to another level and allowed us to continue to play the same way we want to play on both ends.' She has been imperative for the Fever lately. But with Clark and Cunningham nearing their returns, McDonald's time with the Fever is becoming limited. Story continues below gallery How long will Aari McDonald play for Indiana Fever? McDonald will be able to play for the Fever until either Clark or Cunningham return, which would bring the Fever's roster of available players back up to 10. Advertisement Once there are 10 players available from Indiana's standard roster, McDonald's contract will be automatically terminated. Caitlin Clark injury update: When will Fever star return? 'We're gonna play the long game' Sophie Cunningham injury update: Fever cautious hoping to avoid another re-aggravation Will Aari McDonald be able to stay on Indiana Fever after Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham return? No. her contract will be terminated by default once either Clark or Cunningham become game-ready, according to Article VII, Section 4, point b(i) of the WNBA collective bargaining agreement (pg. 82). Advertisement 'If a Team during the Regular Season, as a result of injuries, illnesses, other conditions or other extenuating circumstances that have affected its players, has fewer than ten (10) players on its roster who are able to play, it may apply to the WNBA to obtain an Exception to sign one or more Replacement Player(s) to Replacement Contract(s) to replace one or more of the Team's unavailable Players,' the collective bargaining agreement reads. 'Any such Replacement Contract shall be terminated immediately once ten (10) other players on the Team's roster are again able to play.' McDonald is on an emergency hardship contract, which allows teams to go over the roster limit and the cap to sign players if they have fewer than 10 available players. Clark and Cunningham's injuries give Indiana nine available players, thus allowing the Fever to sign one player to a hardship contract to get them back up to 10. She is considered a 'Replacement Player' through her contract with the Fever and the league. She is not on a standard player contract. The Fever are not able to waive another player on an unprotected contract once they get up to 10 and keep McDonald instead. As McDonald is on a replacement player contract, hers will need to be the one that is terminated. Advertisement More: Stephanie White returns to Fever after taking time away for personal matter Can Indiana Fever cut other players, bring Aari McDonald back? The Fever could bring McDonald back, in theory, but it would require a lot of rearranging. First off, Indiana would need to wait 10 days after terminating her contract to bring her back, according to Article 5, section 14(f) of the CBA. The only exception to that rule is if there was a hardship need, but the Fever will not be in that situation. Immediately after her contract with the Fever is terminated, too, McDonald is an unrestricted free agent able to sign with any team in the league — whether on a standard player contract or hardship contract. Advertisement Indiana also does not have enough cap space in its current structure to pay McDonald. Indiana was able to go over the cap to sign her to a hardship, but the money they paid her for the time she was on the Fever will still count toward the cap. McDonald is also considered a veteran player, as she has 4+ years of experience, so her minimum pay structure is higher than the base minimum in the league. The full-season player minimum for players 0-3 years is $66,079, while the veteran minimum for players with 4+ years is $78,831. Those amounts are prorated with each passing game, but it still makes McDonald more expensive to sign. When the Fever would be able to sign her as a 12th player depends on when her replacement contract is terminated, but it likely would not be until at least July. The Fever also have the option of waiving a player on an unprotected contract if they want to get McDonald back earlier than that. Colson, forward Brianna Turner and rookie forward Makayla Timpson are all on unprotected contracts, but it's unlikely that the Fever would waive them. Advertisement Colson is Clark's direct backup, starting in her place while she's out with injury, and Turner, while she plays minimal minutes currently, will provide crucial depth when Fever backup center Damiris Dantas will miss four games because of a Brazilian national team obligation. The Fever also like Timpson as a development player, and she gets some minutes here and there. This could also all be null, as well, if McDonald signs with another team in that 10-day period. And based on how she's played for the Fever so far, it wouldn't be surprising if another team picked her up. Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at capeterson@ or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67. Get IndyStar's Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: How long can Indiana Fever keep Aari McDonald with a hardship contract?
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
All-Star forward reportedly expects to be traded to the San Antonio Spurs this summer
The San Antonio Spurs entered the offseason focused on finding high-end talent to start building a playoff-caliber team around Victor Wembanyama. While the second pick in the 2025 NBA Draft might be the primary avenue to upgrade the roster, at least one All-Star thinks he'll be playing in San Antonio next season. According to John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports' Burns & Gambo, Durant told someone close to him that he believes he'll wind up playing for the Spurs next season. Advertisement Related: Insider reveals what San Antonio Spurs expected to do with No. 2 pick Kevin Durant stats (ESPN): 26.6 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 4.2 APG, 52.7% FG, 43% 3PT The Phoenix Suns are actively shopping Durant this summer, reportedly hoping to move him very soon. While the New York Knicks, Houston Rockets and Toronto Raptors have also been linked as potential landing spots, the All-Star forward seems to believe San Antonio is his likeliest destination. Related: Promising Spurs news on Victor Wembanyama recovery Kevin Durant contract (Spotrac): $54.708 million cap hit in 2025-'26 The incentive for the Spurs is obvious. While Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo is the superior talent, he still hasn't requested a trade and some teams now doubt he will. Even if he did, the cost of acquiring him would essentially drain out the Spurs' collection of draft picks and young assets. Advertisement Instead, San Antonio can keep the second overall pick to draft guard Dylan Harper and instead offer Phoenix a deal involving future draft picks or the 14th overall pick. It's a far more cost-effective avenue to upgrade the roster and with Durant on an expiring deal, it also provides the club more long-term flexibility. Related: 2025 NBA Draft order, San Antonio Spurs draft picks 2025 Related Headlines
Boston Globe
32 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Is Marco Sturm the coach to return the Bruins to Stanley Cup contention? ‘Absolutely, because I know this is my strength.'
'Absolutely,' offered a confident, blunt Sturm, 46, in the hours leading up to his morning news conference on Causeway Street. 'Because I know this is my strength.' Advertisement Coaching, Sturm has come to realize, is what he is 'made for,' and he is convinced his skill set is particularly suited for the Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up To be candid — a refreshing and embedded Sturm trait — he said he would not have been the right choice if, say, the Bruins of June 2025 stood on the cusp of winning the Stanley Cup. The last of those was 14 years ago, just months after general manager Peter Chiarelli shipped him off to LA. They have just DNQ'd for the first time since 2016. The last of the old guard, Brad Marchand, played here in the 2019 Cup Final, and stands two wins from winning the Cup as the Panthers' elder renaissance man. Advertisement Opportunity? It's right here, a roster and playing attitude in need of a booster shot from behind the bench. Timing? After seven seasons of prep work — four as a Kings assistant, three more as head coach of their AHL Ontario Reign affiliate — it's clear Sturm believes his smartwatch is buzzing and about to blow off his wrist. 'My biggest strength, one of them, everything comes from the heart,' he said. 'So I am very passionate. I am a very passionate guy. And I believe I am a very confident guy — I know who I am and where I come from, and I believe that I am a good coach.' The career path came to him not by design. Sturm did not angle for coaching, give it so much as a 25-second shift's thought, during his 938-game NHL career. It found him some 10 years ago in that hockey hotbed of Boca Raton, where he was enjoying time with wife (Astrid) and kids (Mason and Kaydie), after wrapping up his NHL career with the nearby Panthers. 'We figured, OK, we'll stay here for a year,' said Sturm, speaking by telephone from his home some 20 miles north of Sunrise, where the Panthers routed the Oilers on Monday night in Marco Sturm played 938 games in the NHL, including 302 with the Bruins. Jim Davis/Globe Staff/Boston Globe A few years into a happy retirement, his final shifts as a pro spent with the Cologne Sharks in Germany, Sturm drew back into the rink on this side of the Atlantic when helping with son Mason's team at North Broward Preparatory School. Mason, now 21, just wrapped up his freshman year on the Bowdoin College blue line. Advertisement 'He's 6-2,' said Mason's proud, chuckling 6-foot father, once among the NHL's burners off the wing. 'I planned for him to be a defenseman, wanted him to use his size more. So he had no choice.' Daughter Kaydie, who gave up hockey for a love of basketball, plans to enroll at UMass Boston this fall as a freshman. 'We're an athletic family,' said their dad. 'They have been [after] me. 'Hey, Dad, should we buy a place?' And I was, 'Yeah, OK, no problem.' But now I have to anyway, because I need a place, too.' Of greater significance to his coaching arc was the letter Sturm dashed off to Germany's national team just months into his retirement. His aim: to be a US-based scout, offering counsel to German-born players here in the pro and junior ranks and in turn informing the national team of their progress. Once their prospects shipped off to North America, Team Germany didn't have infrastructure in place to keep tabs on their development. The response to Sturm's written cold call back home was favorable. 'So I went home in the summer and I met with the federation president, and I thought, 'OK, I am going to get the scouting job or something,' ' recalled Sturm. 'But no, he asked me to be the head coach and GM of the German national team. That caught me a little bit off-guard. But again, I didn't really hesitate.' Advertisement Sturm spent four seasons (2015-19) deeply involved with the national team, in myriad roles such as GM and head coach, including his work with the country's World Championship and Olympic squads. He became the essential guy they essentially didn't know they needed. 'I pretty much created the whole hockey department for the whole federation,' he said. 'I changed everything pretty much. Which is great. I think that is my strength, too, and I ended up winning the silver medal at the Olympics.' The silver came in the 2018 Games at PyeongChang, Sturm's unheralded squad taking the Olympic Athletes from Russia to the gold-medal game. Final score: Olympic Athletes from Russia, 4-3, in overtime. It remains Germany's biggest achievement on the international hockey stage, possibly a bigger lift than squeezing the Bruins into one of the two wild-card spots in the East. 'After that,' recalled Strum, 'then things really changed.' Related : Sturm was a hot NHL commodity. Rob Blake, then the Kings' GM, and former Bruins winger Glen Murray, their director of player development, ponied up the best offer, and by the fall of 2018 Sturm was aboard as a Kings assistant. Sturm's next game behind an NHL bench as head coach, this October, will be his first. There may be less risk in that than some Black and Gold followers believe. The Bruins' last three Cup-winning coaches, Harry Sinden (1970), Tom Johnson (1972), and Claude Julien (2011), began their NHL bench boss tours without ever coaching at all in the NHL, be it as head coach or assistant. Sinden also never played a shift in the league. Johnson had never coached anywhere, at any level, prior to succeeding Sinden weeks after the 1970 Cup win. Julien took charge of the Canadiens' bench early in 2003, after two seasons as their head coach at AHL Hamilton. Advertisement By Sturm's account, it sounds like he'll coach much like he played, and he'll want his new, unknown charges to do the same. 'A lot of emotion, lots of energy, I want those people who pay a lot of money [for tickets], I want them to feel it,' he said. 'But more importantly, I've got to feel it and the team's got to feel it. Every night. I think I am a very structured guy, on and off the ice. In today's game it is about fast pace and speed, put it all together, I think we will be OK.' Sturm also understands, and firmly believes, the NHL is not the league he played in for 14 seasons. It is a two-way conversation, coach-player. Acknowledging that his two best coaches were Darryl Sutter in San Jose and then Julien in Boston, he also believes their style, particularly from a coach-and-player-communication standpoint, too often plays to a deaf ear in today's 32-team, kid-centric NHL. 'It is a different time right now,' Sturm said. 'There are still players out there who you can poke and kind of go that route. But a lot of guys now, you really can't do that.' No one on the coach's side, he noted, 'followed up in the old days' when it came to criticism. 'You know, it was OK, rip you apart and it's done, that was it,' Sturm recalled. 'Today the teaching part comes in — that's where everything changes now as a coach. It is a fine line, when to be hard and when to be tough, when to teach. I think every player is different. Again, I am very competitive. As for my part of it, I want to be excellent every day and I demand that of my players. I think that is something I got from the Bruins, from the Chara, from the Bergeron, the way they practiced, the way they prepared every day. It doesn't matter if it is a game or practice, that has to come back. That is my first goal right away — to get that standard and that culture again like it should be.' Advertisement Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at
