Phil Housley – Sport Blog

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NHL rank: Top 50 players in the Stanley Cup playoffs

The Stanley Cup playoffs are when the spotlight shines the brightest on the NHL. Not coincidentally, they’re also when hockey’s star players shine the brightest, too. Every preseason, we publish the ESPN NHL Rank, which rates the top 100 players based on how good they’re expected to be in the upcoming season — predicting potential […]

Future Hall of Famers for all 31 NHL teams

If only there were a formula that could determine Hall worthiness … Well, three years ago, we created one. It’s a simple four-quadrant test that one can apply to prospective Hall of Fame candidates to see whether they have the stuff of legends, and here it is: 1. Individual production: This encompasses a player’s statistical […]

Buffalo Sabres owner says GM Jason Botterill will return for fourth season

Acknowledging the decision might be unpopular among some fans, Pegula said she and her husband, Terry, are confident in the job the GM has done. And while the plan all along was to retain Botterill before the NHL season was paused in March because of the pandemic, Pegula said it is even more important to […]

NHL Awards Watch: Hart Trophy race even more chaotic with one month left

Recency bias is very much a thing, considering that the ballots aren’t sent out until near the end of the season and the votes are sent in right up until the first game of the playoffs. This is especially true of the Hart Trophy race, for which players such as Taylor Hall, Corey Perry and […]

Answering big U.S. hockey questions: Best moment, most underrated player, top women’s player and more

The best moment in U.S. hockey history (outside of the Miracle on Ice) The most underrated American player of all time Potential U.S.-born Hart Trophy winners on the horizon Challengers to Cammi Granato for the greatest American women’s player ever Winners of a theoretical 2020 international best-on-best men’s competition Let’s jump in. Greg Wyshynski, senior […]

Bucci’s top 20 American-born hockey players: Where Patrick Kane, Mike Modano, others rank all time

I’m now 74 years old. I still religiously get in my Dan Uggla wrist curls (50 sets of 50) regimen and still contribute to ESPN when called upon. So before I head out for my morning pickleball match with Darren Pang down in Naples, Florida, I sent in my top 20 American-born NHL players (sorry, […]

NHL Power Rankings: 1-31 poll, plus the worst trade deadline deal ever for every team

The best moves at the NHL trade deadline are usually the ones teams don’t make. Sure, there’s always a chance a team finds that perfect, Butch Goring-sized puzzle piece to complete a championship picture. But more often than not, the NHL trade deadline is like impulse-buying a poorly constructed boat: filled with overpayment, eventual regret […]

Why the Buffalo Sabres are the NHL’s biggest disaster

Peter Tripi is a passionate Buffalo Sabres fan, something increasingly rare for the moribund franchise. The kind of fan who shouts “Buffalo’s on the rise!” because it fires up other people, and because it’s what he inherently believed about his team. His family used to have season tickets before the resale market dried up like […]

Jack Eichel, struggling Sabres block out critics as they cling to postseason contention in East

The fifth-year player is enjoying a breakout season with a career-best 31 goals — seven of them game-winners — as he displays on-ice consistency. And then there are continuing signs that the 23-year-old is maturing into a well-rounded leader. Eichel might still show an occasional outburst of frustration, such as when he smashed his stick […]

The rise of Swedish defensemen: How Victor Hedman, others have taken over the NHL

Ask many of those defensive prospects about their favorite players or after whom they try to pattern their games, and Hedman or Karlsson are the most frequent answers. And the next wave of Swedes couldn’t ask for much better examples to follow. “We have Hedman, Karlsson, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, [John] Klingberg and all those guys. Everyone […]