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How the Last 13 Stanley Cup Champions Didn't Repeat, Part 4: Fan's Take (Yahoo! Contributor Network)

In the past 13 years, all 13 Stanley Cup champions fell short of raising the Cup another consecutive time. The first part of my series looked at how the champions from 1999, 2000 and 2001 failed to repeat. Part two studied how the 2002, 2003 and 2004 champions missed the chance to win again. Last week, part three explained how the 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 champions were undone the next year. Finally, this series ends by exploring the way the 2010, 2011 and 2012 champions went home early.

 

Coyotes, Kings Game 5 preview; Claude Giroux has fun; PK Subban on the ladies (Puck Headlines) (Puck Daddy)

Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media. • Claude Giroux's beer pong adventures are rightfully getting attention on this lovely Tuesday, but it's the double-casted topless cornholing that we're sure a segment of our readership is more interested in. Playoffs leading scorer indeed. [ Crossing Broad ] • In case you missed it, the Los Angeles Kings' snarky infographic about being confused with the Sacramento Kings was hilarious. [ Kings ] • PK and Malcolm Subban talk race and hockey with Complex. And also, the ladies. Who "pulls the most ladies" in the Subban family? PK says: "Wow, well definitely me. I'm the oldest, I have the most experience, and I'm the best looking. I've been told that on numerous occasions, numerous. Now that doesn't take anything away from my brothers, Malcolm is good looking and Jordan's a good looking guy, too. I mean they are related to me so they get a little bit of the looks. But right now I have to say I have the most experience. I'm a veteran when it comes to that, they're still learning. They have lots of potential. They're like first-round picks right now in the game, they still have to develop." [ Complex ] • Coach Bob Hartley's Zurich Lions are ready to bid him adieu as he returns to the NHL. [ Swiss Habs ] • Speaking of the Lions, that's where Ryan Shannon of the Tampa Bay Lightning will be for the next three years. [ SB Nation ] • What kind of grade would Ville Leino receive for his effort with the Buffalo Sabres? [ Die By The Blade ] • In which Shane Doan compares the Phoenix Coyotes' plight to Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail. [ Arizona Sports ] • This is so strange: An entire column written about embellishment in the playoffs and how it needs to stop, without a single mention of Mike Smith's flopping. Oh, Arizona Republic you say? Well then. [ AZCentral ] • Look, we don't like to judge, but embezzling $144,000 from a Youth Hockey Association is a sort of [expletived] up. [ Cap Times ]

 

What We Learned: Embarrassing LA sports media moments while covering Kings playoff run (Puck Daddy)

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it. It's possibly the greatest bit of investigative journalism conducted since Woodward and Bernstein brought down Richard Nixon. This exemplary, collective effort of sleuth work is currently ongoing in Los Angeles, Calif., where an entire media market has unearthed the NHL's shocking secret: The city has a professional hockey team. Over the past week or so here at Puck Daddy, we've tried to document every startling discovery made by the intrepid Los Angeles media, like how to properly pronounce Anze Kopitar's name (it's hard because he's from Bosnia or something), the real name of this Drew Doughty character ( it's actually Brad !) and that hockey is in fact not played with a ball, but rather a little piece of rubber known as a "puck." That last one makes me pretty uncomfortable because of the word it rhymes with. ("Duck" — sorry, I just don't trust 'em; they have weird beaks). Just how villainous is this team, operating as a sort of sporting sleeper cell? They got all the way to the Western Conference Finals without one local noticing. That takes real criminal talent. And not only that, but, the NHL had the diabolical idea to hide it right under the Los Angelinos' noses, by having their home games played at the Staples Center. You know, where the Lakers play. Further, they named the team the Kings to intentionally confuse even the savviest media organization into thinking they are the NBA's Sacramento Kings. Astonishingly devious stuff. More twists and turns than the Da Vinci Code, which I've read three times just to make sure I understood it all. The best bit of this journalism on this pressing issue comes, of course, from the city's paper of record, the Los Angeles Times, winner of 44 Pulitzer Prizes since 1942, including three in 2012. It was for that towering beacon of journalistic excellence that columnist Chris Erskine successfully scruted several of the team and sport's most inscrutable mysteries . For instance, that thing I said earlier about the puck (again, yuck… oh and that's another gross word it rhymes with), I learned it from Erskine. Apparently they even freeze the thing. And that's a huge point of concern, because, "The hardest shots can reach 110 mph and tear flesh, crush bone, even kill you if you're not careful." Yikes, you guys! ( Coming Up: Rick Nash to Boston?; Tororella defends Prust; Ryan Suter faces his future; Evegni Malkin is having a pretty good season; why Lundqvist is King; why the Capitals can't win with Ovechkin; the Islanders know how to party; Canucks might keep Luongo; Ryan Miller on the CBA; Flames and Oilers coaching news; and are the Kings in trouble?)

 

Brandon Prust of Rangers suspended for Game 4 after elbow on Devils’ Anton Volchenkov (Puck Daddy)

New Jersey Devils Coach Pete DeBoer called Rangers forward Brandon Prust's Game 3 elbow against defenseman Anton Volchenkov "headhunting … plain and simple." New York Rangers Coach John Tortorella called Prust an "honest player" and inferred that Volchenkov sold the incident. Prust himself said "it wasn't vicious at all," while Volchenkov said it was "pretty dirty." The NHL Department of Player Safety? It determined it was worth a one-game suspension for Prust, who will miss Monday's Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final in Newark: The incident occurred at 2:31 of the second period. There was no penalty called on the play. As the video shows, Prust flailed out his arm to clip Volchenkov in the head after the Devils defenseman spun away from a check. That fact that there was no injury on the play and that Prust has no prior interaction with Brendan Shanahan and the Department of Player Safety might make a one-game suspension in the Eastern Conference final seem severe. But Shanahan and the NHL have sent a message twice about this kind of hit, with this type of result.

 

Russia back on top, defeats Slovakia 6-2 in final (The Associated Press)

HELSINKI (AP) Russia won the world championship Sunday by defeating Slovakia 6-2.

 

Russia faces Slovakia in hockey worlds final (The Associated Press)

HELSINKI (AP) Russia and Slovakia will meet in the world hockey championship final on Sunday for the first time since the Slovaks won their only title a decade ago against the Russians.

 

Slovakia beat Czechs, face Russia in the final (AFP)

Slovakia grabbed their ticket into the world ice hockey championship's title-decider with a tight 3-1 semi-final win over former compatriots Czech Republic here on Saturday.

 

Malkin scores 3 goals in semifinal for Russia (The Associated Press)

HELSINKI (AP) Russia's Evgeni Malkin scored three goals to lead his team to a 6-2 win Saturday over Finland in the semifinal of the World Championships.

 

Evgeni Malkin’s hat trick puts Russia in World Championships gold medal game (VIDEO) (Puck Daddy)

In a little over a month, Evgeni Malkin will be awarded the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading scoring and most likely the Hart Trophy for league MVP. Bouncing back from a torn ACL and MCL last season, Malkin put up 50 goals and 109 points for the Pittsburgh Penguins this season. After their first round elimination by the Philadelphia Flyers where he scored eight points in six games, Malkin has continued his tear with Russia at the World Championships in Helsinki and Stockholm. In today's 6-2 semifinal victory over host Finland, Malkin tallied his second hat trick of the tournament as the Russians moved on to Sunday's gold medal tilt against the winner of Slovakia-Czech Republic: With the hat trick, Malkin has points in all nine games and overtook Patrick Thoresen (!) as leading scorer in the tournament with 10 goals and eight assists. Second in scoring for Russia is Alexander Popov with 11 points. The Finns won the tournament last year, but according to IIHF.com , home ice hasn't been kind host teams. The Soviet Union in 1986 was the last host side to win gold. Next year's tournament will again be hosted in Helsinki and Stockholm. Maybe the Finns and Swedes can ask to have all of their games be played away from home? Follow Sean Leahy on Twitter at @Sean_Leahy

 

LA Kings fight excitement about playoff run (The Associated Press)

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) Dwight King has been living in a hotel since the Los Angeles Kings recalled him from the minors just over three months ago, and the playoff hero isn't about to move out of his temporary digs.