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Canadiens hire Dudley as assistant GM (The SportsXchange)

The Montreal Canadiens have hired Rick Dudley as their assistant general manager, the team announced Friday.

 

Los Angeles Kings Clinch Stanley Cup Finals Berth with Game 5 Win Over Phoenix: Fan’s Reaction (Yahoo! Contributor Network)

On Tuesday, May 22, the Los Angeles Kings beat the Phoenix Coyotes 4-3 in sudden-death overtime to clinch their second Western Conference title. The team will now move on to play either the New York Rangers or the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup Finals.

 

Islanders goalie Al Montoya, the most popular hockey player on Wikipedia? (Puck Daddy)

Over on Puck Drunk Love, David Rogers found a list from the WikiProject Ice Hockey group that ranks the most popular hockey-centric pages . The top five, in views per day: 5. Mike Comrie (3,389) 4. Wayne Gretzky (3,481) 3. Mario Lemieux (3,600) 2. National Hockey League (3,670) And at No. 1 … 1. Al Montoya (8,110) What the what? Seeing New York Islanders Al Montoya top a list of the most popular hockey pages on Wikipedia is seeing a Bobcat Goldthwaite comedy win the box office. It begs for investigation into what find of nefarious "Vote For Rory"-esque campaign may have influenced these tallies. Writes Rogers: Unfortunately, Montoya's popularity on Wikipedia likely has nothing to do with his skills on the ice. In reality, Montoya's popularity might be due to confusion with the character from "The Princess Bride", Inigo Montoya. Searchers hunting for the infamous Inigo Montoya quote ("Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.") likely stumbled on the goaltender for the Islanders by mistake. Well, that's one theory.

 

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?)

 

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.

 

King leads Kings to super-meta Game 3 victory over the Coyotes (Puck Daddy)

Make it eight. No, not Canadian teams -- consecutive wins for the Los Angeles Kings, who took a 3-0 series lead over the Phoenix Coyotes in the Western Conference Finals with a 2-1 Game 3 victory. While the result was the same, Thursday night's script was slightly different, at least for the first 21 minutes. The Coyotes came out stronger in Los Angeles, outshooting the Kings 11-8 in the first period and showing that they wouldn't go easily. A minute into the second period, they finally beat Jonathan Quick, as Daymond Langkow slipped a shot through the LA netminder's pads on a partial breakaway to give the Coyotes their first lead of the series. But only 127 seconds later, the Kings answered. Dustin Brown found Anze Kopitar streaking in behind the Phoenix defence, and Kopitar made two elite plays to tie the score: first, he deftly accepted the pass by kicking it from his skate to his stick, and second, he opened up Mike Smith up with a first-class deke, slipping the puck through the five-hole. And then the Kings kept answering.

 

Rangers shot-blocking mentality bad for NHL (The Hockey News)

The New York Rangers are the only team left that only plays defense, so if they win the Stanley Cup, the league will be worse off.

 

What We Learned: What to make of this Washington Capitals season? (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. There's been a lot of talk about what this season has meant for the Washington Capitals in the hours leading up to, and then immediately following, their final game of the remarkably eventful 2011-12 season. Wysh had a pretty good recap of the reasons the Capitals felt this little run to a pair of one-goal Game 7s against the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds in the Eastern Conference — both having been heavy favorites — vindicated the Dale Hunter system of everyone playing defense and collapsing to within three inches of the crease, and it's perfectly reasonable for people to feel that way. Certainly, no one expected these Capitals to do much damage in the postseason given that they frittered away a division they were picked to dominate. But the thing that everyone seems to forget is that, again, they were picked to dominate the Southeast, be a superpower in the East and the League at large. If the team tuned out Bruce Boudreau, and it appears they did, then wasn't his replacement, whoever it happened to be, more or less expected to get this far? Therefore, it becomes a question about what changed, and really, what didn't. Let's not forget, Boudreau came in originally and let guys like Alex Semin, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green have their run of the rink. Two-minute shifts? Sure! Goals aplenty? You bet. But in the end, what did it get them? Bounce-outs, and if you believe the talk, disappointing ones at that. So Boudreau changed the style, focusing more on defense, tethering Ovechkin and Co. to an extent, and … getting the same amount of success. Under each of the two clearly definable Boudreau regimes, the team lost in the conference quarter- and semi-finals. Which is of course notable because the latter is exactly how far Hunter got in his first chance at the tiller, despite doing everything in his power not to: like limiting Ovechkin to fewer than 20 minutes a night in every game in this series save for Saturday's Game 7 and the three-overtime Game 3, in which he played 35:14 — or, if you prefer 17:37 per three periods of play. This therefore vindicates Hunter only as far as it vindicated Boudreau; which, with a roster like this, and given the "choker" label being hung liberally on the former Caps coach this time last year. The philosophy changed radically under Hunter, and worked only as far as it did for Boudreau. Why? ( Coming Up: Team USA, international ass-kickers; getting stupid about Patrick Kane's drinking; Parise's future; Could Brad Stuart return to the Sharks?; Kevin Lowe says Ryan Murray is the top player in this year's draft class; Suter/Weber questions; Pancakes Penner's revenge; Bruins pumped for Dougie Hamilton; Alfredsson retirement watch; Leafs/Penguins trade?; Lundqvist is King; Alex Burrows runs and hugs a goalie; and Winnipeg Jets fans are burning Coyotes jerseys.)

 

Canada routs Kazakhstan 8-0 at hockey worlds (The Associated Press)

HELSINKI (AP) Dion Phaneuf scored twice and Devan Dubnyk stopped 24 shots to help Canada crush Kazakhstan 8-0 Saturday and reach the quarterfinals of hockey's world championships.

 

Canada rout Kazakhstan to confirm group lead (AFP)

Vacouver Olympic champions Canada maintained their world ice hockey championship preliminary group lead with an 8-0 thrashing of former Soviet republic Kazakhstan here on Saturday.