After an unreasonably long delay, spring is finally here. There's no better way to enjoy that great weather than a good convertible, especially a fast one. Here, in no particular order are some you could be driving right now.
LOS ANGELES — Put the coronation on hold.
The Los Angeles Kings will have to wait at least three more days for another shot at becoming true hockey royalty after Adam Henrique kept New Jersey alive in the Stanley Cup final. His late goal secured a 3-1 victory for the Devils in Game 4 on Wednesday.
The New Jersey rookie, who scored in overtime to end the Eastern Conference final, showed poise in kicking the puck up to his stick before beating Jonathan Quick high at 15:29 of the third period.
“It seemed to come off my skate pretty nice, right on the tape. I knew it came all the across the ice,” Henrique said. “I knew [Quick] was going to have to come a long way to make the save if I was going to get up short-sided.”
The goal forced Cup keepers Phil Pritchard and Craig Campbell to put the trophy back in its case. Game 5 of the final...
With Game 3 of the Stanley Cup final set for tonight, here’s something else few are paying attention to: the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports.
■ As much as the L.A. Kings seem to be writing an impossible Cinderella story, we invite you to go back a couple of years to the spring of 2010 and consider the Kings’ team the Vancouver Canucks met in the playoffs.
That year, the Kings — and their young nucleus of Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Drew Doughty and Jonathan Quick — gave the Canucks everything they could handle in their opening-round series. It was hard to know what they would become but, at the very least, all four looked like developing stars. As it happens, all four have taken the next step in their careers and are now franchise players.
Now, if you would have added Mike Richards and Jeff Carter to that mix — who both played on the...
Some random observations as the playoffs proceed and the Vancouver Canucks’ season gets a little smaller in the rearview mirror.
Not surprisingly, everyone was jumping up and down patting Barry Trotz and David Poile on the back for suspending their two late-night Russians for Wednesday night’s Game 3, which the Predators predictably won.
After all, they had acted selfishly by going out the night before a playoff game and were clearly not fit to play — and, when the team found out ,they took the right measure.
Switch to Vancouver. Canucks general manager Mike Gillis decides to trade a young player in Cody Hodgson for what he feels were behaviour patterns indicating the player was more concerned with his own well being than that of the team.
Yet, for making the same type of decision made by Trotz and Poile, he is vilified by a front-page story in which he is called a “moron” by somebody 3,000 miles from the scene....
• Click here for a Game 5 photo gallery or look under More On This Story on this web page.
VANCOUVER — The best team in the National Hockey League over the last two seasons was the second best team in its first-round playoff series.
The Vancouver Canucks dug themselves a pit too deep to escape. It may have taken the Los Angeles Kings until Game 5 Sunday to bury them with a 2-1 overtime win, but it was the first two games of the series in the same building where the Canucks lost their season.
The Stanley Cup was achingly close to them last season, streaking past Canuck players like a comet that appears once every 10 or 20 years. The Cup seems far away now.
A team that won its second straight Presidents' Trophy two weeks ago, that amassed 111 points this season and won 105 regular-season games the last 18 months, was outplayed by Los Angeles.
The Kings were...
In the end, there was no switch for the Canucks to flip.
No goals, either.
Just a grim reality which should displace the notion the Canucks simply lost to an unstoppable goalie. The Canucks weren't good enough.
They weren't good enough in Game 5. They weren't good enough for most of the series. They weren't good enough to handle the L.A. Kings forecheck, or to exploit their slow defencemen. They sure weren't good enough to make up for Duncan Keith's cheap shot, or how poorly prepared they were to start this series. And they weren't good enough to beat Jonathan Quick.
Not with this offence.
There will be what-ifs which will haunt this team, and its fans. What if Daniel Sedin had scored on his breakaway with Vancouver up 1-0 late in the second period?
"I got to put a few of those in, that's for sure," Daniel said. "The game is probably over."
What if Jannik Hansen had been able to score when he...
Though it was a tough way to lose the game, the Canucks can take solace in getting the game to overtime and earning the single point.
Wait, what? That’s not how it works in the playoffs? The Canucks have been eliminated? That’s it? It’s over?
Oh.
I watched this game.
Three things to ponder before the Vancouver Canucks face the Los Angeles Kings today in Game 5 of the NHL playoffs' Western Conference quarterfinal.
1. WHO IS MR. CLUTCH? Alain Vigneault is pleading for clutch performances as the Canucks continue their climb in hopes of becoming just the fourth team to ascend from a 3-0 playoff deficit. (The 2010 Flyers, 1975 Islanders and 1942 Leafs are the others.) As much as the return of Daniel Sedin sparked the top line and ignited the power play in Game 4, they're going to draw so much attention that time and space will be at a premium and so will scoring chances.
The new second line of Ryan Kesler between Alex Burrows and Maxim Lapierre can add an aggressive element and bully their way toward Jonathan Quick's crease, but it's the third line of Samme Pahlsson between Chris Higgins and Jannik Hansen that could have an impact. Remember them down the stretch? Vigneault...
Cory Schneider is ready for the challenge.
Ready to get on a roll, like he did in November when the back-up goaltender got an unprecedented seven straight starts and won five straight, like he excelled in spot starts in January against Boston and Chicago, like he must if the Canucks are to keep climbing out of the 0-3 hole they dug for themselves to begin this first-round playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings.
Schneider was excellent in 1-0 loss in Game 3 and even better in a 3-1 Vancouver win in Game 4 that included a key stop on a Dustin Brown penalty shot.
But when head coach Alain Vigneault opted to continue with Schneider in goal for Game 4, fuelling speculation that it indicates the Roberto Luongo era is ending in Vancouver, it also ramped up the expectation on the back-up who's now the starter.
Schneider, at 26, seven years younger than Luongo, has just three career playoff starts, but...
I used to rule the world, seas would rise when I gave the word.
One minute I held the key, next the walls closed in on me.
I discovered that my castles stand on pillars of salt, pillars of sand.
So sang Coldplay last night at Rogers Arena and their song Viva La Vida could easily been seen as an ode to how much being the President’s Trophy winners means to the Canucks how.
Their season-long swagger, their cock-of-the-walk strut no matter how badly they’d played in eaking out a win down the stretch on their way to a second consecutive trophy that rewards the NHL’s best regular-season team, it’s in the missing person file now.
And it should be.
But there’s a new kid in town in the persona of the promoted Cory Schneider and if you want someone to lead by example, to just go out there and calmly get the job, do the walk without the talk, skip all the arrogant...
You can sum up Keith Ballard's Game 4 performance against the Los Angeles Kings in one stat.
The Vancouver Canucks defenceman averaged 58 seconds of ice time a game with his team short handed during his 47 regular season appearances. On Wednesday, with the club's season very much in harm's way, he played two minutes, 33 seconds with Vancouver killing penalties, the most of any player on the squad.
The 29-year-old from Baudette, Minn., was that kind of dependable, that kind of steady. And, keep in mind, he only jumped back into the Canucks' line-up in Game 2 of this set. He hadn't played since Feb. 7, due to a concussion.
He saw 16:35 of ice overall in Game 4, a jump from the 15:35 he averaged the regular season.
"I wasn't sure how it was going to go, missing that many games," Ballard said after practice Friday. "It took a lot of work.
"The biggest thing is that you have...