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Todd McLellan stopped short of labeling the Sharks' regular season a disappointment. "We got where we wanted to go," the coach said Saturday night after the Sharks were eliminated by the St. Louis Blues in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series. "We wanted to get into the tournament." But whenever a franchise loses its standing as one of the NHL elite, it's a disappointment. So now what? The angriest segment of the fan base has been calling for a roster makeover for weeks, and the volume will only increase after a five-game playoff stay that was the shortest in...

Jarret Stoll beat Cory Schneider with a wrist shot at 4:27 of overtime to give the Los Angeles Kings a 2-1 victory over Vancouver on Sunday night, knocking out the top-seeded Canucks in five games in the Western Conference first-round series. Stoll scored from the left wing after a turnover at Vancouver blue line. The forward skated in on a 2-on-1, but took the shot himself, picking the top-left corner above Schneider's blocker. Brad Richardson tied it for Los Angeles at 3:21 of the third period, and Jonathan Quick made 26 saves. Henrik Sedin opened the scoring for Vancouver with...

Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville paid the price Thursday for criticizing officials after Game 3 of the Western Conference quarterfinals. After the officials failed to call a penalty on the Coyotes' Raffi Torres following the winger's hit on the Hawks' Marian Hossa that sent Hossa to the hospital during the first period Tuesday night, Quenneville said: "I saw exactly what happened, it was right in front of me and all four (officials) missed it, The refereeing tonight was a disgrace." The NHL lowered the boom on Quenneville, fining the coach $10,000 "for public comments critical of the officiating." A day...

NHL EASTERN CONFERENCEOttawa Senators(8) vs. New York Rangers(1)Washington Capitals(7) vs. Boston Bruins(2)New Jersey Devils(6) vs. Florida Panthers(3)Philadelphia Flyers(5) vs. Pittsburgh Penguins(4)--------------------------------------NHL WESTERN CONFERENCELos Angeles Kings(8) vs. Vancouver Canucks(1)San Jose Sharks(7) vs. St. Louis Blues(2)Chicago Blackhawks(6) vs. Phoenix Coyotes(3)Detroit Red Wings(5) vs. Nashville Predators(4)

Is Sean Avery done with hockey? Avery said Monday night during an After Show segment of Bravo TV's Watch What Happens Live that he was leaving the game. When asked about his hockey future, Avery said, "I am officially retired. I threw my skates in the Hudson." If true, the announcement would close out a tumultuous final season for Avery spent with the New York Rangers and their American Hockey League affiliate, the Connecticut Whale. After being waived by the Rangers earlier this season, Avery was assigned to the Whale before re-joining New York on Nov. 5. In 15 games...

EDMONTON, Alberta -- General manager Doug Wilson does not want to discuss how his struggling Sharks have come to be fighting for their playoff lives with 15 games left. "To me there is nothing to be said other than just line up and play," Wilson said Sunday. The Sharks aren't performing the way Wilson and his staff envisioned last May when they analyzed their elimination from the Western Conference finals and began building this year's team. Players came, players left. Now time is getting short. A woeful 3-9-3 record over the past 15 games gives the Sharks only four weeks...

DETROIT -- The streak is alive -- and the Detroit Red Wings have three of their best players to thank for it. Pavel Datsyuk broke a 1-1 tie by scoring with just 5.8 seconds left in regulation to give the Wings a 2-1 victory against the Nashville Predators on Friday night, extending their NHL-record home winning streak to 22 games. With overtime looming, Nicklas Lidstrom controlled a bouncing puck in the neutral zone and backhanded a pass to Henrik Zetterberg, whose no-look pass caught Datsyuk in stride just as he hit the Nashville blue line. Datsyuk took over from there,...

Next year's Winter Classic could set an attendance record. The Detroit Red Wings will face the Toronto Maple Leafs on Jan. 1 at Michigan Stadium, a matchup of two Original Six teams at the iconic college football facility that drew more than 104,000 fans for a college hockey game in 2010. [...] The centerpiece will be the Winter Classic at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, 45 miles west of Detroit, and it will include a Canadian team for the first time. "It's Hockeytown versus the center of the hockey universe," said Brian Burke, the Toronto general manger who was at...

TORONTO — The NHL is investigating a scoreboard error that could have an "enormous impact" on playoff races in the Western Conference. During Wednesday night's game at Staples Center in Los Angeles, the clock briefly stopped in the closing seconds — giving Drew Doughty enough time to score the winning goal in a 3-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets. The puck officially crossed the line with less than a second to play in regulation. However, when the Blue Jackets looked at video after the game, they discovered the clock froze for roughly a second just prior to Doughty's goal...

OTTAWA — Prop comedy. Such a simple concept, so rarely incorporated in the NHL's Breakaway Challenge Skills Competition. Alex Ovechkin won the 2009 event in Montreal by donning sunglasses and a goofy hat. In 2012, two NHL superstars finally gave props to the skills competition again. [...] (vids at link)

OTTAWA -- Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas, who has become something of a political lightning rod lately, weighed in Friday on his beliefs that the federal government is "out of control." Thomas, who's drawn criticism for choosing not to attend the White House ceremony Jan. 23 honoring the reigning Stanley Cup champion team, reiterated that he believes his decision has been blown out of proportion. "[The controversy] is all media-driven and it has been from the start. Everything that I said and did was as an individual. It was not as a representative of the Boston Bruins," Thomas said Friday...

BOSTON -- A Boston Bruins goalie's decision to skip a White House ceremony with President Barack Obama because he believes the federal government is "out of control" points to a growing lack of courtesy in the country, Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday. Patrick, a Democrat, was asked about the controversy Thursday during his monthly "Ask the Governor" program on WTKK-FM. He didn't directly criticize goalie Tim Thomas, but suggested that the snub showed disrespect toward the presidency.

Hockey fans won't have to move far from their television to catch all the happenings during All-Star Weekend in Ottawa. A four-day hockey extravaganza starts Thursday at 5 p.m. ET on the NHL Network with NHL Live: At the 2012 NHL All-Star Weekend. The two-hour show will feature a number of this year's All-Stars as well as other key personalities from around the hockey world. That leads into the NHL Network's hour-long 2012 NHL All-Star Player Fantasy Draft preview show at 7 p.m., where the Network's cast of analysts will make their selections before Team Chara and Team Alfredsson make...

Edmonton Oilers coach Tom Renney says Taylor Hall is doubtful for Thursday’s game against the St. Louis Blues. Hall sat out Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets after cutting his head when he accidentally made contact with a teammate during pre-game warm-ups. The 20-year-old slipped on the ice and collided with a teammate before cutting his head on the skate of another Oilers player. “He’s doing much better. Swelling has gone down, he’s got a clear head, he had a good night’s sleep,” Renney said Wednesday in a video post on the Oilers’ website. “All that being said I...

PHILADELPHIA -- It took Philadelphia Flyers rookie forward Zac Rinaldo all of two regular-season games against the New York Rangers to learn why there is so much hatred in this Philadelphia-New York rivalry that will take center stage Monday in the 2012 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic at Citizens Bank Park (3 p.m. ET, NBC, CBC, RDS). "(Brandon) Dubinsky," Rinaldo told NHL.com when asked to give a reason why he dislikes the Rangers so much. "He told me I was a liability on the ice and he told me I was a bad hockey player. Then the next game I asked...

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- The NHL's Board of Governors on Monday approved a radical realignment plan, eliminating the current two-conference, six-division setup in favor of a configuration that features four conferences based primarily on geography. Two conferences will have eight teams and the other two conferences will have seven teams. The Board authorized Commissioner Gary Bettman to implement this proposal in Monday evening's vote, pending input from the National Hockey League Players' Association. The League's intention is for the four-conference set-up to be in place starting with the 2012-13 season. The vote to approve realignment required a two-thirds majority of...

Hopefully for the Minnesota Wild, goalie Josh Harding stays healthy on Wednesday night, because their backup is 51 years old. Paul Deutsch, who runs a printing business in Richfield, Minn., is filling in for Niklas Backstrom, who's out for personal reasons, and Matt Hackett, who couldn't make it to St. Paul from the team's AHL affiliate in Houston in time. Deutsch, according to the Star Tribune, is a friend of former assistant coach Mike Ramsey and filled in for Wild goalies in the past, but only in practice.

Call it a comeback. Actually, call it The Comeback. Penguins center Sidney Crosby will play Monday night against the New York Islanders at Consol Energy Center, the team announced today. In a statement it was said that Crosby would speak Monday morning after a practice. He has not played since Jan. 5 because of a concussion. Crosby was diagnosed with a concussion Jan. 6 after he absorbed two blindside hits over a period of five days. He was clipped by then-Washington forward David Steckel at the Winter Classic on New Year's Eve and driven from behind into the boards by...

Don't be surprised if you see in the news one day that Dominik Hasek climbed Mt. Everest. While he's currently stepped away from his hockey career, the veteran goalie has been pursuing a variety of interesting activities. He played beach volleyball, skied on a glacier in the Alps with Czech Olympic downhill skiing medalist Sarka Zahrobska, crossed Albania by bike (he even thought about cycling through Kamchatka), and in the last weekend he competed with professional drivers while racing at the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Race in Barcelona. For complete Hasek photo gallery, click here. "All those activities keep me in...

A day spa's attempt to get some free publicity at the hands of hockey rioters has caused a big hullabaloo in Canada. Eccotique Spa and Salon is offering $50 gift certificates for spa treatments to hoodlums who took part in the Stanley Cup Finals riots. There's one catch: They must turn themselves in. With seven Vancouver locations, the spa is asking the culprits to visit one of the stores, admit they took part in the shenanigans, and then have their fingerprints placed on a gift certificate. Then they must head to the police station before finally bringing an arrest...