Latest news with #Stars
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
WNBA Player Embarrassingly Denied Entry At Club After All-Star Game
WNBA Player Embarrassingly Denied Entry At Club After All-Star Game originally appeared on The Spun. A WNBA All-Star had an embarrassing time trying to get into a club while in Indianapolis for the All-Star Weekend. While streaming on Twitch, Minnesota Lynx guard Courtney Williams tried to get into a nightclub, but the bouncer wouldn't let her cut the line. Williams appeared almost outraged that the security personnel wouldn't give her any VIP treatment. "Bruh, we in the 'W' and (expletive) and we just got done at the All-Star Game," Williams said. "So, I'm sorry, I'm not even trying to be funny but we should not be waiting in no line." Things got a little more awkward later that night when Williams apparently went to Sports Illustrated party featuring world-renown DJ Diplo. Williams apparently demanded at one point that Diplo stop playing EDM music and change the music playlist to some hip-hop. While some fans took issue with Williams acting entitled, Diplo took it in stride: "I loved this party and I love a challenge as a dj. I was booked with the amazing @carlypearce . we had a country vibe going - if all the studs and WNBA All Stars want to turn up I'm goin to run it .. its not hard for me to go from country/ house / hip hop and take everyone on a journey and be as inclusive as possible . If Courtney comes with this energy I'm gonna match it - check my setlist from Saturday night in Indiana.. its a party for everyone where else but mid west America can we do this?" he wrote on X. For most of the rest of the world, Williams has now become a pretty polarizing player. She has no shortage of fans and is currently enjoying one of the best seasons of her career. But many new WNBA fans have quickly found that they're just not her target audience (to put it very mildly). All it all, it was a pretty good weekend for Williams on the court. Off the court, maybe not as Player Embarrassingly Denied Entry At Club After All-Star Game first appeared on The Spun on Jul 22, 2025 This story was originally reported by The Spun on Jul 22, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Kraken Named As One Of Seven Potential Destinations For Star Foward
Sportsnet's Ryan Dixon named the Seattle Kraken as one of seven potential destinations for Dallas Stars forward Jason Robertson. The Stars might be cornered into a situation where their only possible outcome is to trade their 25-year-old star forward. Robertson is heading into the final season of the four-year, $7.75 million contract he signed following the conclusion of his entry-level deal. Robertson will become an RFA at the end of the 2025-26 season. The Stars made a franchise-altering trade to acquire Mikko Rantanen and signed him to a $12 million AAV contract, but the Stars are now very tight with the salary cap. The Stars have been very keen on re-signing Robertson, but if an agreement is out of the question, the Stars have to look at other possibilities. The Kraken were named alongside the Los Angeles Kings, Carolina Hurricanes, Washington Capitals, Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings and the Utah Mammoth as the best destinations for the American winger with a career-high of 46 goals and 109 points. "The Stars' off-season housekeeping included dumping a salary to Seattle, as big winger Mason Marchment — with one year remaining on his deal — was sent to the Kraken for a fourth-round pick. Could that be the precursor to a much more major deal between these squads? As much as any team in the league, it feels like Seattle could use an injection of high-end scoring. Even if the Kraken — deep down in their bones — don't see themselves as a playoff squad this coming season, Robertson is a player who could help for many years to come. The Kraken — who have ample cap space — hold two first-round picks in both 2026 and 2027. Dealing from that cache could certainly form the basis of a package that might intrigue the Stars," said Dixon in his article. Robertson won't be a cheap add or re-signing, but he possesses the skill the Kraken's forward group lacks. The Kraken have ample forward prospects and picks they could send to the Stars to acquire Robertson if they believe he can drastically improve their roster. Should The Kraken Target Jason Robertson? The Seattle Kraken are looking for stars and entering a new era under head coach Lane Lambert, acquiring Jason Robertson from the Dallas Stars could help check that box off. Kraken Acquire Mason Marchment From The Stars The Seattle Kraken have acquired Mason Marchment from the Dallas Stars in exchange for a fourth-round pick in 2025 and a third-round pick in 2026.


Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
MA Stars loss for Humana baked into earnings bridge, says Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley analyst Erin Wright reiterated an Equal Weight rating and $290 price target on Humana (HUM) after a court granted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' motion to dismiss the case the company brought against it and defined all other pending motions as moot. While the firm awaits a decision on whether Humana will appeal or not, it said it is important to note that Humana's earnings bridge to 2028 already assumed Medicare Advantage Stars lawsuit loss in addition to continued Stars challenges in 2027 before returning to top quartile Stars performance in 2028. The firm added that Humana told it that it has exhausted the administrative appeals process with CMS and is exploring all available options including an appeal, a re-filing of the case, and other options. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Grading Matt Dumba trade between Stars, Penguins
The post Grading Matt Dumba trade between Stars, Penguins appeared first on ClutchPoints. The Dallas Stars and Pittsburgh Penguins have completed a trade in this NHL offseason. The Stars have traded Matt Dumba to the Penguins. This was a necessary trade for Dallas, but one that could have benefited both teams. Dumba was the seventh overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft by the Minnesota Wild. He would break into the NHL for the first time in the 2013-14 season, but spent part of the next year in the AHL as well. The Canadian became a top-two defender in his time with the Wild. His best campaign was in 2017-18, when he played all 82 games and had 50 points. He also developed into a leader with the franchise. The defender would win the King Clancy Memorial Trophy for leadership on and off the ice in 2020. Still, the Wild would not re-sign him in the summer of 2023, and he signed a one-year deal with the Arizona Coyotes. The Coyotes would trade him to the Lightning during the season. After his contract expired, he signed a two-year deal with the Stars last offseason. Now, Dumba will be playing with his fifth team in his NHL career. He was sent along with a second-round draft pick in the 2028 NHL draft to Pittsburgh. In return, Dallas received Vladislav Kolyachonok. Kolyachonok is a defender who was drafted by the Florida Panthers but spent time in the NHL with the Coyotes/Utah Hockey Club and the Penguins. The Stars dump salary After Dallas traded away Mason Marchment, it was rumored that general manager Jim Nill would be making more moves. He has lived up to that rumor. The Stars were in a precarious cap situation. They were nearly $2 million over the cap and needed to make a move to get back under before the start of the season. Trading away the $3.75 million contract of Dumba puts them back under the cap, and gives them just under $2 million to still work with. Further, the Stars may have upgraded long-term. The former first-round pick of the Wild is not the same level of defender as he used to be. He still stops the rush well, but many of his other defensive stats are down. He had become a top-four defender in the NHL, but is not anymore. His shots blocked and hits have both declined. He is also taking more hits, while he had the most giveaways of his career this year. His offense has also been on the decline. He was once a 50-point scorer and regularly scored in the high 20s. Over the past three seasons, he has not scored more than 15 points in a year. This year was one of his worst, with just one goal and nine assists. Meanwhile, the Stars snag a player on an expiring contract in Kolyachonok. Still, he is just 24, and if Dallas chooses to keep him around, he could develop into a solid defender. He is not a major offensive threat, but he has improved year over year in that category. Further, he has shown he can block shots and create takeaways. This past year, he had 32 shots blocked in just 35 games. If he can develop into a bottom-four defender, Nill may have pulled another steal. The Penguins make a confusing move The Penguins lost a prospect who has been moved around a fair amount. If he does not develop into a regular NHL player, general manager Kyle Dubas will not be praised for the move. Still, they only got back a second-round pick for helping the Stars with their cap situation. While a second-round pick can be great in a deep draft, such as is expected in the 2026 NHL draft, he got a 2028 selection. What makes this deal more confusing is that Dumba is a declining defender and regularly plays on the right side of the defense. That is the same position as Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, and Connor Clifton. Letang or Clifton could move to the left side, but, like their new acquisition, they are aging as well. Karlsson, Letang, Clifton, and Dumba are all 30 or older. If the Penguins were trying to reach the salary cap floor, this would have made more sense, but they are well above that. Further, if they were getting a pick in next year's draft, it would have been a more valuable trade. Instead, they bring in a declining defender for a 2028 pick. The only saving grace is the fact that his contract is expiring this year. Final thoughts and grade on Matt Dumba trade The Stars needed to make this move. They no longer needed Dumba on their roster, and they needed to make room under the salary cap. The Stars did lose a second-round draft pick, but that is not until 2028. That will give them time to recover that pick as the class gets evaluated closer to their draft time. Meanwhile, they get a prospect that may or may not work out. The Penguins lost on this trade. They still have some solid players, although contention for the playoffs seems unlikely. Pittsburgh will be finishing off the final years of Sidney Crosby, looking towards the future without him. They may be in the running for Gavin McKenna, the top prospect in the 2026 NHL Draft, but a pick in this upcoming draft would have been more valuable than one three years from now. Overall, Nill showed why he has won the GM of the Year award three times, while Dubas may have shown the Penguins' plan on tanking. Dallas Stars Grade: A Pittsburgh Penguins Grade: D+ Related: NHL Draft rumors: 2026 prospect Gavin McKenna makes final NCAA decision Related: NHL rumors: Jack Roslovic linked to 4 teams in free agency


New York Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
NHL goalies see big benefits in changes to EBUG system: ‘A long time coming'
Over the grueling NHL season, goaltenders are often caught in a specifically tough predicament of balancing the needs of their team with their personal well-being. The scenario: In the middle of a road trip, the team plane lands in the next city at roughly 3 a.m. local time. The team is holding a skate the following morning, beginning at 10 a.m, but it's optional. Many of the top players won't be partaking, using the time to rest and recover, but the few skaters who do practice would love to have a goalie in the net. So, as most hockey players do, the goalies typically prioritize the good of the group, suck it up, and strap on the pads. Advertisement 'There are eight guys going, and you want to go because you want these guys to have a goalie to shoot on, but you also know that for your body, you probably should stay off the ice,' Stars goalie Jake Oettinger explained. 'We don't want to leave our guys hanging. We want them to have a guy to shoot on.' Due to the demands and the toll of the position, we've seen a decline in the number of starts for workhorse goalies over the last five or six years. Some argue these factors have reduced the value of a top-flight netminder. And with the new, recently ratified collective bargaining agreement beginning in 2026-27, the seasons will only get longer, extending to 84 games. But another tweak to the CBA might help lessen the overall workload: The system for emergency backup goalies is changing. Under the new CBA, the parameters for EBUGs will remain largely unchanged. The goalie cannot have any NHL experience, nor can they have played in more than 80 professional games in their career or played any professional hockey in the previous three years. The big difference is that now every team will have one who travels and practices with the team throughout the season, as opposed to only appearing on standby at home games. Much attention has been paid to how this will affect future storybook moments in games, like when David Ayres, the Zamboni driver for the minor-league Toronto Marlies, was thrust into action in 2020 and helped the Hurricanes beat the Maple Leafs. The actual NHL goalies are focused on the impact it will have on practices. The number of times an EBUG actually sees meaningful action is minuscule; it's happened only six times over the last decade, roughly once in every 2,178 games. But now these goalies will be available for every skate, offering starting netminders the opportunity to pick their spots. Advertisement Oettinger – who has played more games than any NHL goalie over the last three seasons – believes the benefits of this minor rules change could be substantial. 'This is a long time coming, and I think longevity-wise I think it could help goalies stay healthy, and goalies play longer into their career, because they have a guy there to take the load off sometimes,' he said. From the late 1990s through the mid 2010s, it was relatively commonplace for starting goalies to exceed 60 starts. Eleven netminders reached or surpassed that mark as recently as the 2016-17 season, led by the Oilers' Cam Talbot, the NHL's last 70-game goalie. Since then, the number has plummeted. This season only five goalies hit 60 starts: the Jets' Connor Hellebuyck, the Lightning's Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Canadiens' Samuel Montembault, the Rangers' Igor Shesterkin and the Islanders' Ilya Sorokin. Several factors contribute to this trend. The position has become more physically demanding, between the rise of post-integration techniques and increased time spent in the butterfly. As skaters on the ice get faster and more skilled, the margin for error in the net keeps shrinking; being a half-step behind is the difference between saves and goals. Finally, training has improved to a point where the goalie talent pool is considerably deeper. A starter at 90 percent capacity may no longer be a better option than the backup like in the past. As a result, teams are resting their No. 1 options more often. But with the current practice structure, Oettinger believes goalies aren't even getting the true benefit of those games off. 'Some of the hardest skates for me are when (Dallas backup goalie Casey DeSmith) is playing and I'm not,' he explained. 'Then you're doing the morning skate and skating with the scratches.' Whereas that night's starting goalie typically leaves the morning skate early once they get their body moving a bit and feel prepared for the game, the backup goalie stays out much longer, giving the rest of the players someone to try to score on. They'll even stay out long after the regulars leave the ice to work with the healthy-scratched players. Advertisement 'You're backing up because they want to give you rest, but then if you're getting killed at morning skate, you're like, 'Did I actually get rest, or am I actually just as tired as if I played in a game?'' Oettinger said. Even a short skate on an off day is more taxing for goalies than skaters. And besides, the vast majority of practice time isn't beneficial to the goalie in the first place. They spend very little time working with the goalie coach on improving technical aspects of their game and far more serving as a target in shooter-focused drills. 'No offense to the players, but a lot of them can just throw their gear on and go out there on the ice,' Oettinger said. 'For a goalie, there's a lot more warming up. It takes me half an hour to get my body ready to feel like I won't hurt myself when I go on the ice. 'The cumulative buildup of all of that preparation and the cumulative tax that takes on your body and on your mind throughout the course of a season can be pretty big when you add it all up at the end.' Enter the full-time EBUG. These ordinary puck-stoppers are more than happy to step in and face shots from the best in the world. Ayres, who is the only emergency replacement to ever win an NHL game, also served as a practice goalie with the Marlies and Maple Leafs for eight years. He can remember former Leafs goalie Freddie Andersen once telling him with a laugh, 'I'm glad you're going in for this drill and not me.' Continued Ayres, 'They would put me in for 5-on-0 drills, and (then Toronto coach) Sheldon Keefe would say to me, 'We're putting you in this drill because we don't want our goalies to get hurt.' That's fair. They were straight up with me. 'I loved it. I'll take a puck off the head or collarbone to be out there with the guys. I didn't care what it was.' Ayres, now working as a train conductor driving freight trains back and forth from Canada to the U.S., said the experience of getting into an NHL game in 2020 completely changed his life. 'I would go to the store and people would take pictures of me while I was getting groceries or eating food,' he said. 'Even to this day, I cross the border fairly often for work, and I'd say once or twice a week I'll get someone who will recognize me.' Advertisement Ayres used his platform to speak at charity events and raise awareness about organ donation, drawing inspiration from his mother's 2004 donation of a kidney to him. And while he's disappointed many of his EBUG brethren may not get to experience the thrill of NHL action under the new CBA, he understands why the overhaul is happening. 'Not that I wanted it to change, because there are a lot of guys in the EBUG fraternity who put their heart and soul into it,' he said. 'I knew it was only a matter of time until they changed it at some point.' With the stipulations on professional experience remaining relatively similar, there's a chance the dream won't end for every current EBUG. These changes won't take effect for a full year, leaving teams with plenty to still iron out. 'When I first saw it come out, I thought it was done, but now I'm not as sure,' said Connor Beaupre, who has served as EBUG for the Minnesota Wild since 2016-17. 'I'm curious as to what teams think their prototypical EBUG will be.' Beaupre has practiced with the Wild extensively over the years. He has seen the relief on goalies' faces when they realize they can take a few drills off, and the elation on skaters' faces when they see they have a goalie — any goalie — to shoot on. 'With a goalie, they can be a little more competitive and push themselves a little bit more, instead of doing the drill around the dot and shooting into an empty net,' Beaupre said. Providing teams with a full-time practice goalie is a minor adjustment that could have significant consequences, allowing NHL goalies to focus their practice time on improving their own technique. 'The goalies love it,' Ayres said of his practice time with the Leafs and Marlies. 'They would actually get to spend time at one end with the goalie coach to work on some things to tighten their game up, and I'd be at the other end taking a beating.' Advertisement It could also lead to healthier NHL goalies playing games, an obvious win for both league and sport. 'Even if it's three skates a month that you take off, throughout the course of a season you put your pads on 20 less times, and that could be five more games you can play,' Oettinger said. 'It gives you the opportunity to be more fresh, and gives the performance guys more opportunity for you to pick your spots.' Some of the changes to the CBA sparked contentious debates between the NHL Players' Association and the owners. But not when it came to revamping the EBUG system. 'I don't think there was any pushback,' said Oettinger, the Stars' alternative player representative on the NHLPA executive board. '(The owners) understood why we were asking for it. It's a win-win for both sides, and a no-brainer.' (Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photo: istock)