Rotoworld: Oregon RB LaMichael James and Oklahoma State WR Justin Blackmon among top 10 players who are being overhyped for the 2012 draft.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
PBT: Boston's Rajon Rondo continues to be named in trade talks, which is madness. The Celtics guard creates offense and makes everyone around him better, which was evident in Sunday's win over the Bulls.
Arc: Syracuse is among a solid group of No. 1 seeds in our latest tournament projections, but the middle of the pack is much more murky.
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.
Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods greeted their Sunday pairing at Pebble Beach with optimism. But the day would end happily only for one.
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.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
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.
AP
SAN JOSE, Calif. - When the San Jose Sharks discarded all caution and finally decided to attack in Game 5, they were down two goals on the scoreboard and two games in the series, with playoff elimination just 14 minutes away.
The Sharks started pressing, and Milan Michalek got their first goal. They started taking chances, and Jeremy Roenick’s high-risk pass set up Brian Campbell’s tying score.
When overtime rolled around, the Sharks were soaring — and Joe Pavelski got the goal that put the Sharks halfway to a historic postseason comeback.
Pavelski scored 65 seconds into the third overtime game of this second-round series, and the Sharks evaded elimination for the second straight time Friday night, improbably rallying from a late two-goal deficit to beat the Dallas Stars 3-2.
The Sharks just won’t go away — and now they’re going back to Dallas for Game 6 on Sunday night with a 3-2 series deficit.
“We said, ’Let’s go out and throw out everything we have in the third period,”’ Roenick said. “’Let’s just empty the tanks and put out every effort we possibly have. If we do that, we’ll have a shot.”’
San Jose is just the fourth team in the past 20 seasons to stretch a series even to six games after trailing 0-3. As Sharks coach Ron Wilson has reminded his players, only two teams in NHL history have recovered from such dire circumstances to win a series: the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1942 and the New York Islanders in 1975.
“I think there’s a little bit of doubt in their mind,” Wilson said. “This (comeback) doesn’t happen very often, and then you top it off with this (game). ... We’ve done a lot of things that are great for our character, to show that we have it. At times tonight we showed our nerves and our younger players showed their youth, but we survived. We really took it to them.”
The second-seeded Sharks’ inconsistent brilliance defined the NHL’s second-best regular season, and they were unsurprisingly listless before Michalek and Campbell scored in a 5:47 span in the third period, with Campbell firing home the tying goal with 8:53 to play.
Pavelski ended it before some fans had even settled in their seats for overtime, dangling in the slot and beating Stars goalie Marty Turco for an unassisted goal after defenseman Christian Ehrhoff kept the play alive with an aggressive pinch.
“I just kept pushing it and pushing it,” said Pavelski, who has a team-leading five goals in his breakout postseason. “It’s really one of the only shots I have as a shooter coming around. (Dallas defenseman Nicklas Grossman) is going to drop. If he does move at all, it’s going to open up, and the short side was just there. That’s where I was shooting the whole time.”
Jere Lehtinen and captain Brenden Morrow scored second-period goals for the Stars, who controlled play and seemed headed for an easy evening at the Shark Tank, where they dominated the home team over the past two years.
Morrow also had two apparent goals that were waved off by the officials, one for kicking the puck into the net and another for batting it with his hand.
“Our team battles through adversity, but those were two critical points of the game,” Dallas coach Dave Tippett said. “I still haven’t seen a distinct kicking motion, but I suppose somebody else did. The other one, I agree with the call ... but if Brenden Morrow isn’t cross-checked in the back, he would have put the puck down and in the back of the net. Those are two critical plays in the game, and you have to find a way to overcome that.”
The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
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.
The Red Wings have finally started to embrace a record they've been chasing.