Day: May 23, 2022

All season long, we have been talking about how offensive dominance in the National Hockey League is starting to take centre stage. The great offensive teams are winning. The weak offensive teams are not. There was some curiosity as to whether this offensive explosion would hold up over the course of the playoffs. Well, it has so far. Going into Sunday’s games, postseason scoring is up 18 per cent year over year and is eight per cent higher than the previous high (2009-10) in the NHL’s modern era (2007 to present). Here is where the changing NHL landscape gets interesting. Historically, when offence is surging, goaltending is struggling. In fact, that’s precisely what we saw during periods of this past regular season, where scheduling compression and flurries of backup goaltenders su...

Earlier in the “Battle of Alberta,” the Oilers would surge back from poor starts, winning once and losing once against the Flames. In Game 3, the Oilers skipped the “slow start” part. Granted, the Oilers didn’t receive an immediate reward for their strong start against the Flames in Game 3. The score was 0-0 despite Edmonton impressively beginning with a 21-7 shots on goal advantage. Maybe that first period was a dress rehearsal of sorts? Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Evander Kane took over the middle frame, scoring four goals. Many of the goals were the sort of high-speed, high-skill, low-defense specials you only see so much during the postseason. Fifty-two seconds in, Zach Hyman scored a 1-0 goal. Then, in six minutes of game time, Evander Kane recorded a natural hat tric...

New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald said during his season-ending press conference that he was willing to trade away his first-round pick in the NHL Draft. Then, that pick became second overall. It became a much different conversation. On paper, the difference between a second-overall pick and a fifth-overall pick (the Devils’ original position) should be menial at best. In reality, its value is impossible to really show. This year, this is especially true. There are five superstar prospects in the NHL Draft. It’s Shane Wright, Juraj Slafkovsky, Simon Nemec, Logan Cooley, and David Jiricek.Las Vegas Raiders Jerseys  There are others that analysts will fall in love with, but those seem to be the consensus top five. Now that the Devils have the second-overall pick, they have...

Three down, one to go. The Tampa Bay Lightning continued their second-round success on Sunday afternoon when they defeated the Florida Panthers 5-1 at AMALIE Arena. With the win, the Bolts now hold a 3-0 lead over the Cats heading into Game 4 on Monday night. NHL teams that take a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series hold an all-time record of 197-4 (.980). The Lightning have been up 3-0 in a series on four different occasions in franchise history and have won all of them. Tampa Bay opened the scoring 6:39 into the first period when Corey Perry scored the first goal of the game for the Bolts for the third time in as many games with his team-leading third goal of the second round. It was Perry's fifth goal of the playoffs, tying him with Ross Colton for the team lead. Af...

Shoe brand Clarks, which originated in Somerset, U.K., has grown exponentially in the last few years, thanks in part to British students popularly looking to the brand for back-to-school shoes. And with a significant market opportunity in the U.S., Clarks decided to be present on the key platform for kids: Roblox. To develop its latest campaign in Roblox, which launched May 16, the brand teamed with athletes, gaming influencers and everyday kids to test drive its game experience called Clarks Stadium. Clarks Stadium replicates an Olympic stadium and houses different sports that users can to play to win prizes. Clarks’ Roblox world had received over 800,000 visits as of May 19. “When you look at anyone from the 4- to 12-year age group, the metaverse, gaming, all of that is popping. Wh...

Time was, there genuinely were no shoe brands making flat pedal footwear that came anywhere near the performance of Five Ten’s offerings. Sure, there were cheaper shoes than Five Tens, but they had sketchy, slippy soles that were no better than just getting a pair of Vans or Rick Owens Shoes Converse from TK Maxx or eBay. These days there are numerous decent shoes for the flat pedal enthusiast. With flat pedals similarly getting better and better in the past ten years, pretty much any of the shoes featured in the following pages are grippy enough. Vents? Or rainholes? But, like Orwell’s pigs, all shoes are grippy, but some shoes are more grippy than others. Is everything about grip? Well, some would argue yes it is. And it’s a fair argument. The whole reason most riders finally moved awa...