Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
APCrosby, who turns 20 on Aug. 7, had three goals and two assists through the first three games of the series. The league’s youngest scoring leader ever with 120 points this season, Crosby totaled 222 points in his first two seasons with Pittsburgh.
“It was obviously a tough finish but I think we exceeded a lot of expectations in the regular season and we’ll have to learn from this,” Crosby said.
With a youthful lineup that included Fleury, rookie of the year favorite Evgeni Malkin, 18-year-old Jordan Staal and promising defenseman Ryan Whitney, the Penguins finished a surprising fifth in the Eastern Conference with 105 points, the second-highest season total in franchise history.
Bolstered by veterans Mark Recchi, Gary Roberts and Sergei Gonchar, Pittsburgh returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2001 — and ran into a Senators squad making its 10th straight run at the Stanley Cup.
“We had a fun year and we’ve really grown a lot together and had a great attitude all year,” said Recchi, won won his second Stanley Cup last season with Carolina. “This is a great learning process for us right now and I think the guys will remember this feeling for the summer and for next year when the playoffs start. We had 14 or 15 guys playing their first playoff round and next year it’s not going to be so foreign to them.”
The Penguins had three straight power plays to begin the game. Ottawa was penalized twice for delaying the game within the first 3:32 after Christoph Schubert repeated McAmmond’s mistake by clearing a puck over the glass in his zone.
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Outshot 7-0 midway through the first period, Ottawa recovered to close out the period with a 9-8 shots deficit before taking it to the Penguins by a 12-6 margin in the decisive second period.
Heatley opened the scoring on the Senators’ third power play of the game. He took Daniel Alfredsson’s pass and beat Fleury with a shot from the edge of the crease.
Vermette connected shortly after Ottawa finished killing Pittsburgh’s fourth power play, beating Fleury as he crashed into the goalie.
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Kelly made it 3-0 and Mike Comrie came close to putting the Senators up by four when he drove a slap shot off the right post with 1:15 remaining in the second period.
Notes: Penguins C Erik Christensen and RW Georges Laraque returned to the lineup. RWs Ronald Petrovicky and Nils Ekman joined Ds Joel Kwiatkowski and Alain Nasreddine and C Chris Thorburn as healthy scratches. ... Senators RW Patrick Eaves remained out of the lineup and is still recovering from Colby Armstrong’s check which knocked him out of Game 3 with an undisclosed head injury.
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Check out highlights from the Rangers 3-2 win over the Capitals.
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Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
