National Hockey League

National Hockey League

Perhaps one of the most famous cases of needed an EBUG (emergency backup goalie), was when both of Carolina's goalies were out against the Leafs and they had to use a zamboni driver-David Aryes to be their goalie for the night. Last season, Zack Dietz got word the Senators needed a back-up goalie and was caught on video running down the street with his equipment to make it to the game in time to be their EBUG.

The 2026 World Junior Championship gets underway on Friday, with 10 nations vying for the under-20 gold medal. This year's tournament is being hosted at the Grand Casino Arena and the 3M Arena in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Washington Capitals will again have six prospects at the tournament after Ryan Leonard and Cole Hutson won gold with Team USA last year.

With the NHL on a break for the next two days, let's check in on the Panthers European-based, CHL and NCAA prospects. Forwards Linus Eriksson (2024 2/58) - Eriksson has two assists in 25 Swedish Hockey League games with Timrå IK to go along with a minus-six rating and 6 PIM. The 19-year-old will represent Sweden in the 2026 World Junior Championship. He is one of two Panthers prospects taking part in this year's tournament.

Without fully understanding what Brendan Shanahan did on a daily basis, it seems very likely that not having someone in his role this season has been a hindrance to the Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs parted ways with Shanahan on May 23rd, and this isn't about making a case that was the wrong decision but Keith Pelley's decision to keep the position vacant was.

The Rangers are what they are at this point. Every lineup change is shuffling chairs on the Titanic. Brett Berard is a scratch tonight in Washington, but so is Conor Sheary, so I'm not entirely sure what the Sheary blamers are going to do about this one. Brennan Othmann is on the fourth line, behind both Jonny Brodzinski and Taylor Raddysh.

One of the rarest accomplishments in sports was having your number retired by a team. Nowadays there are some questionable choices when it comes to finding players whose jersey will hang in the rafters. Some more than deserve the honor, others get it because their respective teams see it as a marketing ploy for an otherwise "very good" level player. A few seasons back we openly discussed if Marian Hossa deserved the honor from the Chicago Blackhawks.

DISCLAIMER: The 'top stories' are simply ranked based on how much traffic they garnered for our site over the past calendar year. This is not an opinionated Top 10. The topic that made up the majority of our content between the end of the 2024-25 playoffs and the start of free agency was the Mitch Marner saga and everything that went into it. Whether Marner should stay, whether he wanted to, whether the Leafs wanted to bring him back, and where it all went wrong.

Those are never fun decisions to make or fun days. I want to make it clear that the decision of yesterday is not putting the blame solely at Marc Savard's feet. That is just totally incorrect. We have gone through a stretch here, specifically on the power play if we look at that area. Marc had a big role in that in terms of his responsibilities, and you look at all areas of your team all of the time.

It's unfortunate Scott Laughton has been somewhat ineffective since he joined the Leafs. Brandon Carlo underwent foot surgery on December 3. When he was available, he looked a step slower and less physical than he was playing as a member of the Boston Bruins. In both cases salary retention were involved in the trade. If you're going to overpay for two players, you shouldn't be overpaying for a fourth-line center and bottom-pair defenceman.

When the Penguins were sold in 2021 to Fenway Sports Group, the sale was for around $900 million. The asking price for FSG's prospective transaction could stand at around $1.8 billion USD, which would be double the amount that the company paid to acquire ownership of the team. The increase in value comes as the Penguins' ongoing postseason drought has surpassed three seasons; their last playoff appearance, a seven-game first-round loss to the New York Rangers, came in the 2021-22 season.