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.
AP
DALLAS - The Dallas Stars have finally made it back to the Western Conference finals. It took the eighth longest game in NHL history to do it.
Brenden Morrow scored a power play goal 9:03 into the fourth overtime by deflecting a pass from Stephane Robidas as the Stars eliminated the pesky San Jose Sharks 2-1 in a game that ended early Monday morning — the longest game in the NHL playoffs this season, and the longest in San Jose history.
“Robie made a good, heads-up play, faked the defender down and I was there for an easy one. I shouldn’t miss that one,” said Morrow, the Stars captain. “At that point of the game, you don’t really know what you’ve got left.”
The Stars are going to the conference finals for the first time since 2000, when they returned to the Stanley Cup finals the year after winning the franchise’s only championship. They play Game 1 on Thursday night in Detroit, which wrapped up its second-round sweep of Colorado on Thursday night.
After winning the first three games in the series, the Stars finally knocked out the Sharks on the third try and avoided having to go to San Jose for another game. The win came after having two apparent goals by Morrow disallowed following video reviews in Game 5, and Evgeni Nabokov’s sensational glove save early in the first overtime of Game 6 — well before midnight.
It was the fourth overtime game in the series, and the fifth game decided by one goal.
“This whole series was a coin flip,” Sharks center Jeremy Roenick said.
The deciding game lasted 5 hours, 14 minutes — ending the third-longest in Stars history. They lost the other two, but Morrow made sure that didn’t happen again with his seventh goal of the playoffs.
“That was as fitting as anything I’ve every seen in sports, that Brenden Morrow got the game-winner,” coach Dave Tippett said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen somebody have a series like that. That’s him taking the team on his back and carrying us. Turco was great too.”
Marty Turco had a franchise-record 61 saves for the Stars. Nabokov stopped 53 shots, but not the one set up after Brian Campbell was called for tripping Loui Eriksson close to the Dallas net.
“You’re trying to battle for a puck. From my point, he started flopping,” Campbell said. “I can’t do much about it.”
Coach Ron Wilson didn’t dispute the call.
“Well, it was tripping,” Wilson said. “It was a trip, we had to kill it off, and we didn’t.”
San Jose thought it had a game-winner midway through the third overtime, with Ryane Clowe poking a puck around Turco. Clowe and nearby teammates wearily lifted their arms, but the puck was under the goalie’s glove and not in the net. The Sharks even had a power play in the third overtime when Nicklas Grossman was called for hooking, but couldn’t convert.
Nabokov’s incredible glove save 1:31 into the first overtime kept the game going and prevented a series winner by Brad Richards.
Nabokov made a stab of Richards’ one-timer, grabbing the puck with his glove sweeping just inside the post and the puck above the goal line. Referee Tim Peel was behind the net and quickly waved off the goal even though the red light lit up. The play was reviewed by off-ice officials, who determined the puck didn’t completely cross the goal line.
Mike Ribeiro had three chances to score in the final 75 seconds of the first overtime. He was rejected on a pair of bang-bang attempts, then with 47 seconds left had another shot that deflected off Nabokov and then the crossbar.
Turco was sprawling out of the crease when he stopped two shots by Sharks captain Patrick Marleau with just over 8 minutes left in the first overtime.
“It’s nice to be on this side of it for once,” Turco said. “We’ve had some long ones before. But none of them was more memorable than this one. It was 99 percent fun tonight.”
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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The Week in Sports Pictures The Giants on top of the football world, getting ready for the London Olympics and more. more photos |
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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.
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.
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