Jack Eichel and Tomas Hertl were dominant against the Detroit Red Wings, combining for two goals and seven points, en route to a 6-3 win.
The Golden Knights took the biggest swing at the 2023-24 trade deadline, pulling off a blockbuster deal to acquire Hertl with mere minutes remaining. At the time, Hertl was injured, recovering from surgery, and when he returned, he never really got his feet under him.
HC Bruce Cassidy struggled to find the best linemates for him, but the 2024-25 season has seen Hertl flip the switch. Primarily playing with Pavel Dorofeyev, the duo leads the Golden Knights in goals while winning their minutes at 5-on-5 and excelling on the power play.
Hertl recorded his second hat trick of the season last night, two of which game on the power play. His 30 goals this season are the second-highest of his career, and his 14 power play goals are a career-high. If he continues to score at his 0.43 goals per game, he'll set a new career high of 36 goals.
Tomas Hertl's got a hat trick before the midway point of the second period! ⚔️
A contributing factor to Hertl's success on the power play is the playmaking of Eichel. Eichel picked up assists on both of Hertl's power play goals, bringing him to 64 assists on the season. On the season, Eichel has scored 22 goals and a career-high 86 points.
When Eichel and Hertl clicking at the same time, as they have consistently this season, it makes the Golden Knights increasingly dangerous. A playoff series can be won in the middle of the ice, and very few teams have the depth up the middle that the Golden Knights have. Eichel and Hertl provide a plethora of offence and William Karlsson and Nicolas Roy/Brett Howden provide defensive stability with additional offence in the bottom six.
They've built their team through the middle and on the backend, putting a lot of trust in Eichel and Hertl to drive offence, and so far, they've delivered.
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SARASOTA, Fla. — Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson will begin the season on the injured list because of a mild right intercostal strain.
General manager Mike Elias told reporters on Sunday that he hopes Henderson’s IL stint “will be measured in days instead of weeks.”
The Orioles visit Toronto on Thursday for opening day.
The 23-year-old Henderson departed a Feb. 27 spring training game after one inning because of discomfort on his lower right side. An intercostal strain involves the muscles around the ribs.
Henderson hit .281 with 37 homers and 92 RBIs last season. The All-Star slugger was the 2023 American League Rookie of the Year.
Elias also told reporters in Florida that Cade Povich has been selected for the team’s No. 5 starter job. The left-hander will take the mound for the home opener on March 31 against Boston.
Povich, who turns 25 on April 12, was selected by Minnesota in the third round of the 2021 amateur draft. He was traded to Baltimore in August 2022.
He made his big league debut last year, going 3-9 with a 5.20 ERA in 16 starts.
The Orioles also optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to minor league camp on Sunday. The 26-year-old Carlson agreed to a one-year contract with the team in January.
Carlson had played well this spring, batting .321 with two homers and nine RBIs in 18 Grapefruit League games.
To no one’s surprise, the shorthanded Sixers’ losing streak reached four games Sunday night in Atlanta.
The Hawks picked up a 132-119 victory at State Farm Arena. Atlanta moved to 35-36 overall and the Sixers dipped to 23-48.
Quentin Grimes recorded 26 points and six assists. Justin Edwards added 22 points.
Hawks star Trae Young posted 28 points and 12 assists. Rookie Zaccharie Risacher had 22 points.
The Sixers had 10 players out with injuries. Below is the full list:
Tyrese Maxey (lower back sprain and right finger sprain)
Joel Embiid (season-ending left knee injury)
Paul George (season-ending left adductor and left knee injuries)
Jared McCain (season-ending left lateral meniscus surgery)
Eric Gordon (season-ending right wrist surgery)
Kelly Oubre Jr. (right knee sprain)
Lonnie Walker IV (concussion)
Adem Bona (left ankle sprain)
Kyle Lowry (right hip injury)
Andre Drummond (left toe sprain)
Oshae Brissett was also ruled out in the second half because of right knee swelling.
The Sixers will complete their six-game road trip Monday night against the Pelicans. Here are observations on their defeat to the Hawks:
Inauspicious start
Nothing about the first two minutes suggested the Sixers were going to snap their skid.
The team committed turnovers on its first two possessions and Atlanta scored the night’s first five points. And, with just 89 seconds elapsed, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse got a technical foul for his sideline complaints about the officiating.
Individually, Edwards again started very well. He scored eight points in about six minutes and continued to show growing comfort at attacking closeouts when open jumpers aren’t available. Edwards has drawn 11 free throws over the last two games. Before Friday, he’d averaged just 1.2 free throws per game in his rookie year.
The Sixers’ defense again leaked all sorts of points. Georges Niang quickly drilled two long-range shots after checking in. Three Niang free throws with 3.9 seconds left in the first quarter gave the Hawks a 35-24 lead.
Hawks’ bench has major edge
Another reason the Sixers fell behind is Grimes wasn’t on his A-game early. He missed his first two jumpers short and only scored two points in the first quarter. Still, Grimes managed to post at least 25 for an eight consecutive game.
Once both benches entered the picture, Atlanta had a sizable advantage. The Hawks outscored the Sixers’ second unit by a 36-11 margin in the first half. On top of Niang’s 20 points, Dominick Barlow recorded a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double.
Clearly, the Sixers don’t have tons of manpower or firepower off the bench.
Their four available second-unit players Sunday were Jared Butler, Ricky Council IV, Alex Reese and Brissett. Council followed up his career-high performance against the Spurs with 14 points in 19 minutes, but he fouled out early in the fourth quarter.
Lottery picture update
Risacher had a big third quarter and the Hawks’ lead continued to expand. His corner three stretched Atlanta’s advantage to 81-60.
From there, the only real question was exactly how much the Sixers would lose by. Though the Sixers kept plugging away, cutting a deficit as high as 27 points down to 11 with a little under four minutes left, the fourth quarter was still low-stress for Atlanta.
Of course, the subtext of every Sixers defeat is that it boosts their NBA draft lottery outlook. (The team’s first-round pick this year is top-six protected.) After Sunday’s games, the Sixers are tied with the Nets for the league’s fifth-worst record. New Orleans is fourth-worst at 19-53.
The Raptors sit slightly behind the Sixers and Nets in terms of the draft lottery picture at 24-47. Like the Sixers, they’re on a four-game losing streak. Toronto dropped a 123-89 game Sunday to the Spurs.
Jeff Banister, then a bench coach with the Pittsburgh Pirates, walks in the dugout before Game 2 the 2013 NLDS between the Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals. Banister, who has managed and coached in the big leagues, is one of the 1,519 players whose MLB career lasted one game. (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)
The first time Jeff Banister stepped into a big-league clubhouse, it was 9 o’clock.
In the morning.
That night’s game wouldn’t start for another 10 hours, but when you’ve waited your whole life for that moment, there’s no point in putting it off even a second longer.
The first thing Banister saw when he entered the darkened room was a No. 28 Pittsburgh Pirates’ jersey hanging in a locker with his name, in black letters and gold trim, running from shoulder to shoulder. In the lockers on either side hung the jerseys of Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla.
“There was a security light. It was like a beacon on my jersey,” Banister said last month, his voice catching at a memory that is now 34 years old. “It kind of got real at that moment. Like, ‘Hey, I’m in the big leagues.’”
In the seventh inning of that night’s game, an otherwise uneventful 12-3 win over the Atlanta Braves at Three Rivers Stadium, Banister came to the plate as a pinch-hitter and grounded a 1-1 pitch into the hole at short, beating the throw to first for an infield single. Four days later he was gone, optioned back to the minor leagues. Banister would never appear in a major league game again.
But he’s never forgotten the one he did play in.
“It was a surreal moment to walk out on that field,” he said. “I’d seen it so many times on TV, but just the feeling of all the first moments — the first time in the stadium, the clubhouse — they become a little overwhelming.”
Since the first big-league game in 1876, 20,790 men have played in the majors, according to the Baseball Almanac. More will join that list as spring training gives way to the regular season. Yet it remains a small number; more than twice as many people finished the Chicago Marathon last fall.
And Banister’s name will always be among them.
His name is also among the 1,519 players whose big-league career lasted just one game, according to the Baseball Reference website, a list that runs from Frank Norton, who struck out in his only plate appearance for the Washington Olympians on May 5, 1871, to Giants pitcher Trevor McDonald, who threw three hitless innings on the final day of the 2024 season.
San Francisco Giants pitcher Trevor McDonald threw three hitless innings against the St. Louis Cardinals on the last day of the 2024 season. (Tony Avelar / Associated Press)
In between, Hall of Fame manager Walter Alston, made an error in two chances at first base and struck out in one at-bat in his only big-league game in 1936. Eighteen years earlier, Brooklyn Robins’ pitcher Harry Heitman faced four batters, giving up four hits and four runs, then fled the stadium before the final pitch to join the Navy.
Larry Yount, brother of Hall of Famer Robin Yount, came out of the bullpen to pitch for the Astros in 1971, but hurt his arm warming up; his career ended before he threw a pitch. Then there’s Archibald Wright “Moonlight” Graham, who twice hit better than .325 in eight minor league seasons but didn’t get an at-bat in the majors, playing two innings in right field for the New York Giants in 1905 without touching the ball. Three years later he gave up for baseball to practice medicine in the small mining town of Chisholm, Minn.
Larry Yount, above pitching for the Denver Bears in 1973, hurt his arm warming up after entering a game for the Houston Astros in 1971. (Barry Staver / Denver Post via Getty Images)
The pathos of Graham’s brief big-league career is romanticized in W.P. Kinsella’s novel “Shoeless Joe” and later in the Kevin Costner movie “Field of Dreams.” Graham made it to the majors, but never got to bat. Others, like Banister, got one at-bat, but never played in the field.
Yet there’s a story behind every one of these brief big-league appearances.
For some of those 1,519 one-game wonders, the journey was more frustration than fruition. After expending so much blood, sweat and tears to reach the majors, their reward was a single yellowed newspaper box score with their name in it.
“I’m proud of what I accomplished. And I think that I accomplished something unique,” said catcher Jack Kruger, who played one inning for the Angels in 2021. “But I think I was capable of more.”
For others like Banister, one of 53 players to retire with a 1.000 batting average, there are no regrets.
“Absolutely zero,” he said. “I loved every minute of it.”
“A cup of coffee” is the idiom baseball has created to describe a short stay in the majors. Here are the stories of four men who got to realize the dream of playing in the big leagues, but only stayed long enough to have a cup of Joe.
It’s been 12 years since Brandon Bantz played in his only big-league game. But he hasn’t forgotten how exciting it felt the first time he stepped onto a major league field in a uniform.
“I just remember looking at the third deck being like ‘it’s a lot bigger than I had remembered,’” he said. “That was that first kind of ‘a-ha’ moment. That was the first time I was thinking ‘that’s pretty cool.’”
The New York Yankees' Mark Teixeira, right, scores ahead of the throw to Seattle Mariners catcher Brandon Bantz during a game on June 8, 2013 — the only one of Bantz's MLB career. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)
Bantz was called up from Triple A Tacoma by the Seattle Mariners on June 5, 2013; three days later he would catch eight innings against Andy Pettitte and the New York Yankees, grounding to short and striking out in two at-bats in a 3-1 loss.
Less than a week later he was outrighted back to Tacoma. He would never play in the majors again.
“A lot of times, you get only one chance,” Bantz, 38, says now. “There’s disappointment there, right? Any athlete that goes in has a dream, since you’re a little kid, of playing in the major leagues. Being able to achieve that goal, obviously that’s a big achievement.
“But I think the competitor in me definitely feels like I wasn’t able to really show the ability that I had.”
Yet Bantz overcame long odds just to get those two at-bats. More than four of every five players selected in the Major League Baseball draft never make it to the big leagues.
Bantz, a catcher, wasn’t selected until the 30th round of the 2009 draft; 892 others were taken ahead of him. But he caught a break on the first step of the minor league ladder when John Boles, a special assistant with the Mariners, saw Bantz play for Seattle’s rookie-level team in Pulaski, Va.
“He actually came up to me after the game and said, ‘You’ve got a chance,’” Bantz remembered. “That kind of set the trajectory of changing how people viewed me in the organization."
When an injury opened a spot in Single-A Everett, Wash., a week later, Bantz was promoted. Although Bantz struggled at the plate — he hit just .234 and never had more than four homers in seven minor league seasons — he threw out nearly half the runners who tried to steal on him, so he continued to climb a level each year, reaching Double A in his first full minor league summer and Triple A a season later.
From there it was a short trip — just 33 miles up Interstate 5 — from Triple A Tacoma to Seattle’s Safeco Field and its intimidating third deck.
Brandon Bantz grounded out to short and struck out in his two at-bats for the Seattle Mariners on June 8, 2013. (Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images)
Bantz’s only big-league game got off to inauspicious start when he went out to center field to warm up pitcher Joe Saunders and threw the ball over his head, plunking a fan in the leg. But when the game started, the butterflies went away.
“Once the game gets going, it’s just a regular game. It’s the same thing you’ve been doing your whole life,” Bantz said. “If you’re just kind of like, ‘Oh, man this is crazy! That’s Andy Pettitte,’ you’re not in a position to compete.”
Five days later, Bantz was sent back down the freeway to Tacoma and over the next 2 ½ seasons he would be signed and released by the Washington Nationals and Miami Marlins, with a 49-game stint in the independent Atlantic League sandwiched in between.
His baseball career was over before his 29th birthday.
“A lot of people around the game are two things,” said Bantz, the founder and CEO of Catchers Central, which develops baseball and softball players. “They’re either bitter or they can’t close the yearbook. My career was what it was. Sure, every one of us wants to reach the big leagues, play for 20 years, go to the Hall of Fame, win the World Series. However, that’s not going to be the case for everybody.
“The reality is, it’s a game and the journey across that game is what should be celebrated. How my playing journey concluded, that’s what it was supposed to be.”
Jeff Banister’s baseball career nearly ended before it had really started. When he was 15, an examination of a painfully swollen ankle ended in a diagnoses of bone cancer. A bacterial infection in the same leg was eating away at the bone marrow. If the leg wasn’t amputated, a doctor told him, he could die.
The night before the operation, Banister hugged his father and said he’d rather die than lose his leg so his doctor tried another approach and after seven surgeries, Banister walked out of the hospital a year later, cancer free.
A couple of years later he was back in the hospital after a baserunner, trying to hurdle Banister on a play at the plate, instead kneed the catcher in the head, breaking three vertebrae.
“I thought I was dead,” he said.
And he would have been had any sudden movement interfered with his breathing. He was temporarily paralyzed, a condition that required three operations and another year of rehab to cure. By the time he left the hospital with the help of a walker, he had lost nearly 100 pounds. So when the Pirates selected him in the 25th round of the 1986 June draft — a round so deep it no longer exists — it was as much a reward for his tenacity as it was for his talent.
That, at least, was the point Pirates scout Buzzy Keller made when he signed Banister for a $1,000 bonus over lunch at a Wendy’s in Baytown, Texas.
“He told me, ‘I’m not going to make you rich. But you’ve earned an opportunity,’” said Banister, who at 61 has the tan, chiseled good looks and plain-spoken manner of a Western movie sheriff. “And so I got to thinking about that and he was right. What I did with the opportunity was make the most out of that.”
He struggled to hit at his first three minor league stops but put together a solid fourth season, hitting .272 in a year split between Double A and Triple A. So four months into the 1991 season, he was called up by the Pirates after backup catcher Don Slaught pulled a muscle in his rib cage.
Banister, then 27, still remembers the date.
“July 23, 1991,” he says without prompting.
The call came so fast, no one in his family could make it to Pittsburgh for his big-league debut. “I didn’t leave a ticket for anybody,” he said.
Manager Jim Leyland, aware the Banister’s family lived in Houston, mapped out a plan to have him start that weekend in the Astrodome, only to see pitcher Bob Walk scramble those plans when he strained a hamstring running the bases. The Pirates sent Banister back down and called up Tom Prince, who went on to spend 17 seasons in the majors. Banister never played a big-league game again.
That winter he blew out his elbow playing winter ball, necessitating more surgery. He would appear in just eight more games in pro ball before becoming a minor league manager, eventually working his way back to the majors as a coach and manager with the Pirates, Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks.
Arizona Diamondbacks bench coach Jeff Banister was part of the team that reached the World Series in 2023. (Brynn Anderson / Associated Press)
But he’s never forgotten what it means to walk into a big-league clubhouse for the first — and maybe only — time.
“We’re not guaranteed 3,000 at-bats," Banister, beginning his fourth season as the Diamondbacks bench coach, says. "We’re not guaranteed one.”
Jack Kruger’s big-league career was so short if you blinked, you might have missed it. Yet the climb to get there was so challenging, it’s a wonder Kruger made it at all.
On May 6, 2021, Angels manager Joe Maddon sent Kruger on to catch the ninth inning of an otherwise forgettable 8-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, a game that ended with Kruger standing in the on-deck circle. Yet Kruger’s father Tim said he still gets chills thinking about that night.
“It was surreal,” he said. “It was like being in a dream. I’m sitting there with my wife, holding hands and just thinking, ‘My gosh, our son is playing in a major-league game.’”
No players’ path to the majors is easy, but few have had to overcome as many obstacles as Kruger. When he was 5, Kruger was diagnosed with Perthes disease, a rare condition in which the blood supply to the thigh is temporarily disrupted, leading to bone damage and stunting growth.
But there was a silver lining to that black cloud because after spending 18 months on crutches, Kruger was cleared by doctors for just one physical activity: hitting a baseball.
Catcher Jack Kruger played one inning of one game for the Angels on May 6, 2021. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
So Tim began pitching to his son and as Jack’s bones healed and he began to grow, that practice began to pay off. As a senior year at Oaks Christian, Kruger hit .343 with seven homers and 37 RBIs. His dream, however, had never been to play in the majors, it was to serve his country. So he enrolled at West Point.
Then came the next setback. On the day he was to put on his cadet uniform for the first time, the school declared him medically ineligible because of his childhood disease. His dream was gone.
“It was devastating,” Tim Kruger said. “He had his life planned.”
So Kruger made new plans, playing one season at Oregon, one at Orange Coast College and one at Mississippi State, where he made the all-conference team and drew the attention of the Angels, who took him in the 20th round of 2016 MLB draft.
Kruger methodically climbed the minor league ladder and was in Salt Lake City for his first season in Triple A when manager Lou Marson called him at the hotel. Angels catcher Max Stassi was going on the injured list with a concussion; Kruger was to get on the next plane to Anaheim.
He was going to The Show — and Albert Pujols, a future Hall of Famer, was one of the players designated for assignment to make room for him on the roster.
The next 30 hours are still a blur, he said. He got to Angel Stadium just an hour before the first pitch, too late for batting practice and with just enough time to pull on a jersey with his name in red block letters and black trim above a dark red number No. 59. For the first eight innings he sat on the bench alongside Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout before Maddon sent him on in the ninth to catch 20 pitches from right-hander Steve Cishek.
When he returned to the ballpark the next day a front-office staffer met him at his locker and told him he had been designated for assignment.
“It came out of nowhere,” Kruger said. “And he didn’t know my name.”
Asked about Kruger four years later Maddon, a catcher who spent four years in the low minors, remembered the ninth inning of that one-sided game. And he remembered why he sent Kruger in for the final inning, making him a major leaguer forever.
“I wanted to get him in that game,” he said. “One more hitter gets on base and he gets to hit. Never happened [but] we did our best to make it a complete experience for him. I know it’s something he’ll never forget and he absolutely deserved it.”
Kruger, 30, went on to play two more seasons with the Texas Rangers’ Triple A affiliate in Round Rock, Texas, hitting .243 in 66 games. But he never entered a big-league clubhouse again. After baseball, Kruger co-founded a company called D1 Scholarship to help athletes in multiple sports negotiate the college recruiting process.
“I did everything I could with the opportunities I was given. So I don’t necessarily have any regrets or think or wish I would have done something differently,” he said. “It was great for what it was. And then I moved on to the next thing.”
For one brief, shining September afternoon, 18-year-old John Paciorek was the best player in major league baseball.
On the final day of the 1963 season, Paciorek, went three for three with two walks, three RBIs, four runs scored and two splendid running catches in right field for Houston’s Colt .45s in a 13-4 win over the New York Mets. In his last at-bat, he got a standing ovation — if the applause from a crowd of 3,899 can be called an ovation.
“It was like a dream,” he said.
It was the only time Paciorek appeared on a big-league field.
The eldest of five brothers who grew up just outside Detroit, playing every sport that involved a ball — and some that didn’t — Paciorek accepted a $45,000 bonus to sign with the Colt .45s, the forerunners of the Astros, in 1962, while he was still in high school.
He was invited to big-league spring training the following year but hit just .219 at Modesto in the Single A California League in his first pro season. He played with verve, hustling to first after walks and sprinting on and off the field every half-inning, but he also injured his back and shoulder and developed a chronically sore throwing arm late in the year.
He was summoned to Houston that September anyway, partly to have his back checked. With the Colt .45s languishing near the bottom of the 10-team National League standings, Houston manager Harry Craft decided to start a lineup of rookies, among them Joe Morgan, Jimmy Wynn and Rusty Staub, on that final Sunday. Paciorek was soon added to that lineup.
“One of the guys asked if I would like to play,” he said. “I jumped at the opportunity. I wasn’t even thinking of my back. So I went to church and communion and everything else and got to the ballpark early.
“I knew I had to be stretched out and ready to go.”
Batting seventh, he drew a walk in the second and scored on John Bateman’s triple; drove in two runs with a single to left in the fourth; drove in another run with a single to left in the sixth; walked and scored in the sixth; then singled again in the seventh.
“The hits I got were kind of like hits on the handle,” he said. “I was physically strong enough to force the ball over the shortstop’s head.”
But it was that strength and what Paciorek did to built it that contributed to the injuries that ended his career.
“I was such a fanatic about exercise and building myself up,” he said. “I was always doing exercises and doing drills. I had no idea about what I was doing."
Whether that contributed to a chronic back condition is hard to say; one doctor called it an abnormality from birth. What’s certain is the pain was to blame for his poor performance in Modesto, especially after he tore muscles in his upper back.
Still, his perfect game on the final day of the 1963 season got him invited back to spring training the following year to compete for the starting job in center field.
Instead, he struggled to do the most basic things.
“I’d be charging a ground ball and bend over, oh my God it’s like a knife going through my back,” he said. A couple of months later, after batting .135 over 49 games at Single A, he underwent surgery to fuse two lumbar vertebrae, then spent 10 months in a back brace.
“If I would have been more intelligently inclined and I would have known something about chiropractic application or practice, I probably would never had had the operation,” he said. “I developed all kinds of injuries because the fusion limited my movement.”
While recovering from the operation, Paciorek enrolled in the University of Houston, eventually earning a degree in physical education he would soon put to good use. After two more seasons in Houston’s minor league system, hitting .172 and striking out in more than a quarter of his at-bats, he was released and signed with Cleveland. He hit a career-best .268 with 20 homers and 73 RBIs in Single A in 1968, but a year later he was released again and retired to become a teacher at the private Clairbourn School in San Gabriel, where he worked for 41 years before he retired again in 2017, months after the school built a batting cage and named it in his honor.
A year after Paciorek quit playing, younger brother Tom made his big-league debut for the Dodgers, beginning an 18-year career that would see him play in an All-Star Game and a World Series. Another brother would play 48 games for the Milwaukee Brewers and two of John’s four sons played minor league baseball. But none of them matched the perfection of Paciorek, who remains the only major league player to retire with a 1.000 batting average in more than two at-bats.
“My record will probably never be broken,” Paciorek said. “I was just so fortunate. I must have been predestined to demonstrate perfection to a certain extent.
“Maybe that’s why I’m carrying this on for 60 years, this whole idea of perfection.”
What, after all, could be more perfect than playing in the big leagues, where the memories of one game can last a lifetime?
The Pittsburgh Penguins are on the road for the next three games and have a chance to damage the Eastern Conference playoff race significantly.
On Sunday, they visit the reigning Stanley Cup champions, the Florida Panthers. The Panthers are tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs atop the Atlantic Division, with each team collecting 42 wins and 87 points.
The Panthers and Maple Leafs are fighting for the divisional crown and chasing the second seed in the playoff race, with a chance to play the top-ranked wildcard team.
Surprisingly, Pittsburgh and Florida have played one-goal games each time they've met, so if the Penguins continue to play competitively as they have in their last five games, there's a chance they muck up the Panthers' plans, at least for one night.
However, another team will intently watch Sunday's contest, the Tampa Bay Lightning, who sit third in the Atlantic Division with 85 points. They are next on the Penguins' schedule and would appreciate a black-and-gold victory on the weekend.
The Lightning will look for a sweep when these two teams meet on Tuesday night. They have won all three previous meetings, including two in overtime. Thus far, they have outscored the Penguins by a 14-9 margin.
If Pittsburgh can sweep the Florida leg of their road trip, they are helping the Ottawa Senators, who are 7-2-1 in their last ten games and are only six points behind the Lighting, with each club playing 69 games.
Pittsburgh will wrap up their three-game road trip against the Buffalo Sabres, who are just chilling in the basement of the Eastern Conference and have the fourth-best odds to win the top pick in the 2025 Draft.
These two clubs haven't met since goalie Alex Nedeljkovic scored into an empty net on Jan. 17. The Sabres are one of four teams the Penguins remain undefeated against. With another win on Thursday, Pittsburgh could sweep the season series 3-0-0.
The Connecticut coach spoke following the Huskies’ 77-75 loss to Florida in the second round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament that ended his team’s quest for three straight national championships.
New Zealand’s ruthless pace attack carved up Pakistan to deliver a crushing 115-run win in the fourth Twenty20 on Sunday and clinch the five-match series.
What comes to mind when you hear the word “Switzerland”? Banks, chalets, ski slopes, fine timepieces? Or maybe those guys from the Ricola commercials playing those long horns somewhere in the Alps?
Well, it may be time to add “impactful NHL players” to that list of things hailing from Die Schweiz. Among the 11 current NHL players from Switzerland are stars like Nashville’s Roman Josi (2020 Norris Trophy winner), LA’s Kevin Fiala, and the talented duo of Timo Meier and Nico Hischier (1st overall pick 2017) in New Jersey.
In his three years in Los Angeles, Fiala has scored 78 goals and racked up 114 assists. In 2024-25, the flashy left-winger is projected to score 31 goals, which would be his second time reaching the 30-goal plateau. Any potential playoff success in LA hinges upon the production that the St. Gallen native will bring to the table.
Surprisingly enough, Kevin Fiala is not the first Swiss-trained player to play for the Los Angeles Kings. That distinction belongs to goaltender Pauli Jaks. The 108th pick in the 5th round of the 1991 entry draft made history on January 29th, 1995, at the Great Western Forum as the first Swiss-born player to appear in an NHL game.
Jaks would relieve starter Robb Stauber after the LA netminder gave up four goals on 17 shots against the visiting Chicago Blackhawks after 20 minutes of play. This Chicago team would end up scoring 22 goals in their four regular season meetings against the Kings, so all the blame can’t be placed on Stauber. Even The Great One was -3 on the night and Marty McSorley didn’t even have any penalty minutes, if you can believe that. Moreover, Chicago boasted a talented roster with names like Tony Amonte, Jeremy Roenick, Chris Chelios, and Gary Suter, which makes Jaks' relief appearance really quite impressive.
In 40 minutes of TOI, Jaks made 23 saves on 25 shots, for a .925 SV%, allowing the Kings a chance to get back into the game. They would eventually lose 6-3 but Pauli Jaks made history and cracked open the door for future generations of Swiss players. Just six years after Jaks’ historic first and only NHL game, David Aebischer would become the first Swiss player to win the Stanley Cup with the 2001 Colorado Avalanche.
LA Kings’ fans are surely hoping that Kevin Fiala can join Aebischer by becoming the second Swiss player to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup.
Raducanu leading 6-1, 3-0 before opponent withdraws
Brit reaches fourth round in Miami for first time
Emma Raducanu produced another brilliant performance to reach the fourth round of the Miami Open for the first time in her career after her opponent McCartney Kessler of the US retired with a back injury while Raducanu led 6-1, 3-0.
Two days after registering one of the most impressive wins of her career, a dramatic three-set tussle versus the world No 8 Emma Navarro, Raducanu returned to the court radiating confidence and she performed at an excellent level until the end of the match. By reaching the round of 16 in Miami, Raducanu has equalled her best result at a WTA 1000 event.
The Mets defeated the Miami Marlins, 10-2, on Sunday in their penultimate Grapefruit League game of 2025.
Here are the key takeaways...
-Griffin Canning will start regular season game No. 3 for the Mets if all goes to plan, and the right-hander had another solid outing on Sunday, going 4.1 innings while allowing two earned runs. Canning allowed five hits while striking out six and walking three. His spring comes to a close with a 1.88 ERA.
-Hitting second in the order and serving as the designated hitter, Starling Marte destroyed a solo home run in the top of the first, jumping on a 3-2 fastball from Connor Gillispie. The home run was the fist of the spring for Marte, who will likely be a right-handed DH option for the Mets this season.
-Brett Baty has all but locked up the starting second base job with Jeff McNeil starting the season on the IL, and the former third baseman continues to look comfortable at second. In the second inning, Baty beautifully charged a Starlyn Caba high-chopper, fielding the ball and flipping it with his glove to first base for the out.
Baty also had a great at-bat in the fourth. With the bases loaded and nobody out in a tie game, Baty battled and saw 10 pitches before finally working a walk to force in the go-ahead run.
-Alexander Canario, acquired in a trade with the Chicago Cubs earlier in camp, continues to look like he could be a major league player for the Mets this season. Following Baty's walk, Canario put his power on full display, crushing a grand slam to left to put the Mets up 6-1. In the bottom of the sixth, Canario was at it again, slamming a solo homer for his second round-tripper of the afternoon.
Canario has three homers this spring and could factor into the bench picture.
-Brandon Nimmo is getting hot at exactly the right time. After a slow start to camp as he ramped up, he followed up a two-hit day on Saturday with three hits -- a single, double, and triple -- on Sunday against the Marlins.
-In all, the Mets hit four home runs on Sunday: Marte, Canario (two), and Tyrone Taylor. The Mets had 15 hits in total, with nine different players registering at least one base knock.
Who was the game MVP?
Nimmo, who was peppering the wall in right field with rockets as he racked up three hits.
The University of Texas fired basketball coach Rodney Terry on Sunday after a disappointing first season in the Southeastern Conference and another quick exit from the NCAA Tournament.
The Yankees played to a 3-3 tie with the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday.
Here are the takeaways...
-Max Fried wasn't necessarily at the top of his game, but he had an effective outing nonetheless. The lefty went 5.1 innings, allowing three earned runs on four hits, including a two-run homer by Junior Caminero in the first inning. Fried walked three and struck out four, finishing his spring camp with a 3.38 ERA.
-The Yankees didn't have a hit through the first four innings, but the offense came to life in the fifth when Anthony Volpe lined an opposite-field home run for the Bombers' first hit of the game. Austin Wells followed that up with a two-run shot to put the Yankees ahead. Wells now has six home runs this spring, and he's likely won the leadoff hitter job come Opening Day.
-Aaron Judge's rough go of it this spring continued Sunday, as he went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts, though he did reach base on a walk. The Yankees' captain is hitting just .129 this spring.
-Paul Goldschmidt was back in the lineup for a second straight day after missing some time with a sore back. The veteran went 1-for-3 with a single and a strikeout, and he's now hitting .297 this spring.
The Yankees finish their 2025 spring training schedule with a trip to Port St. Lucie to play the Mets on Monday afternoon, with first pitch on SNY at 1:10 p.m.
