10:33 PM ET The National Hockey League Players Association Executive Board has voted to approve a 24-team, conference-based playoff format for a potential restart of the 2019-20 NHL season this summer. “The Executive Board of the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) has authorized further negotiations with the NHL on a 24-team return to play

7:40 AM ET For a goalie who had just faced 102 shots on goal, Cory Schneider of the New Jersey Devils was looking curiously rested in his postgame interview. In fact, he hadn’t even broken a sweat during the game. “There are games where you just have to give a lot of credit to your

Feb 19, 2020 “What we have at hand is the rarest of sporting events, an event that needs no buildup, no superfluous adjectives. In a political or nationalistic sense, I’m sure this game is being viewed with different perspectives, but manifestly, it is a hockey game.” Al Michaels’ “Do you believe in miracles?” call in

7:00 AM ET With the 2019-20 NHL season on pause due to the coronavirus pandemic (here’s the latest update on where things stand), we’ve started the NHL Viewers Club, highlighting some of the most rewatchable games from this season — such as when EBUG David Ayres beat the Maple Leafs — along with some cool

7:00 AM ET Arizona Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet made news during the NHL’s season pause for a painful reason. “This is when you get cocky rollerblading,” Tocchet tweeted last month, along with a couple of nasty images of scrapes on his body. Since then, he has rediscovered biking. “I’ve explored Arizona a little bit more

9:00 AM ET There’s this perception about the hockey media: that we’re all bitterly jealous of the players we cover, because we secretly want their careers. Nothing could be further from the truth: Most of us are bitterly jealous of the executives who sign those players, because secretly we want their careers. We create trades.

7:30 AM ET Yaroslav Askarov is special. Any goaltender who can be comfortably projected to go in the top half of the first round anymore is. But 2020 NHL draft prospect Askarov stands out even among those few for so many reasons. The Omsk, Russia native has been described by some as the best goalie

10:08 PM ET The NHL and the NHLPA are discussing a 24-team, conference-based playoff format for a potential restart to the 2019-20 season this summer, sources confirmed to ESPN. The proposed format was first reported by Sportsnet. The NHL season has been on pause since March 12 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The playoffs would

5:05 PM ET Arizona Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet says he’s confident his team will be among the finalists for pending free-agent star Taylor Hall. “I’m not saying he is going to sign here, but I definitely think we’re a team he’s very interested in staying with,” Tocchet told the ESPN On Ice podcast this week.

7:30 AM ET The NHL draft by its very nature is all about comparison. How one player compares to another ultimately decides a team’s draft board. And in the 2020 NHL draft, the gap between the top two prospects and the rest of the class is fairly substantial. Alexis Lafreniere and Quinton Byfield project favorably