In this season’s first Celtics-76ers meeting, Boston lost at home on Christmas Day. In the second, the Celtics needed a 26-point comeback to beat a Sixers team missing two of its top three players.

The third was a much better representation of where the two Atlantic Division rivals sit in the current NBA hierarchy.

The Celtics bulldozed the ...Read more

DENVER — Will the Colorado Avalanche stop chewing their nails and twiddling their thumbs? Gabe Landeskog last suited up for Colorado 970 days ago as of Wednesday — or about 300 days longer than Jerry Lee Lewis’ first marriage.

Harper Lee wrote “To Kill A Mockingbird” in roughly 910 days. The Siege of Leningrad took 900. The Spanish ...Read more

DETROIT — The Red Wings have 27 games left this season and those 27 taken as a whole aren't easy.

In fact, the Wings own the toughest remaining schedule in the NHL, with opponents holding a .587 win percentage.

Included in those games are three against Carolina and two games each against Eastern Conference-leading Washington, Vegas, ...Read more

BOSTON — Teams USA and Canada will have two days off before they play each other in the climactic championship game of the 4 Nations Faceoff at TD Garden on Thursday.

The Americans may need all of that time to get healthy for the highly anticipated rematch with the hockey power to the north.

In their 2-1 loss to Sweden on Monday night, the ...Read more

BOSTON — The dream rematch is locked in.

Canada, facing the prospect of being bounced out of the 4 Nations Faceoff before the final, punched its ticket to Thursday’s championship game against Team USA with a too-close-for-comfort 5-3 victory over Finland at TD Garden on Monday.

Nathan MacKinnon led the way for Canada, potting a pair of ...Read more

PITTSBURGH — Mike Sullivan worried the opportunity might've passed.

When it was announced on Dec. 22, 2021, that NHL players would no longer participate in the 2022 Beijing Games, the result of COVID-19 complicating the league's regular-season schedule, it also meant Sullivan would lose out on a lifelong dream to coach for his country at the ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — To have less than a third of the season to go and be ahead of most of the NHL rather than behind is a point of pride for the Minnesota Wild.

After all, the playoffs were a pipe dream last year.

But the team also recognizes what’s at stake after a two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off: The Wild still have work to do to ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — What we’ve learned unequivocally about the San Jose Sharks through the first four months of the season is that they’re not one player away from being a playoff contender.

As the NHL’s 32nd-place team, the Sharks (15-35-7) are not one draft pick away; they’re not one free agent signing away or one trade away from ...Read more

PITTSBURGH — Sidney Crosby says he's good to go for the start of the 4 Nations Face-Off this week.

Crosby, who missed two Penguins games this weekend with an upper-body injury, practiced with Team Canada in Montreal on Monday. Afterward, he told reporters that he planned to play in Wednesday's tournament opener against Sweden.

Canada's ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Few NHL teams need some time away from the rink more than the San Jose Sharks.

In their last game before the league pauses its schedule to hold the 4 Nations Face-Off, the Sharks gave up three goals in a lopsided first period. They never fully recovered in an 8-3 loss to the playoff-bound Dallas Stars on Saturday before an ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Speaking to reporters on Friday, John Tortorella said he wasn’t worried about the Flyers getting up to play their last game before the 4 Nations Face-Off break.

After all, the team was on a five-game losing streak and had lost seven of the past eight. Plus, as the coach noted, they were playing their Keystone State rival, the...Read more

ST. LOUIS — The upcoming two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off was going to feel long.

But the result of Saturday's game against the Chicago Blackhawks would determine if it felt looooong for the Blues.

In beating the Blackhawks 6-5 in a shootout, the Blues entered the break on a high note and collected points in three of the last four ...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A feel-good rally is certainly one way to ensure the Minnesota Wild return from a two-week hiatus feeling upbeat about their game.

Down a forward because of another injury, the Wild overcame a successful homecoming by the Islanders’ Minnesotans to prevail 6-3 against the New York Islanders Saturday at Xcel Energy Center ...Read more

Tomas Hertl scored the go-ahead goal on a power play with 1:10 remaining, and the Vegas Golden Knights rallied for a 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins on Saturday at TD Garden.

The Knights (33-17-6) trailed 3-1 with 4:53 left in the second period before scoring three unanswered.

Pavel Dorofeyev tied it early in the third period, and captain Mark ...Read more

DETROIT — The Red Wings will head into a lengthy break in the schedule in a sour mood.

They'll have plenty of time, two weeks to be exact with the 4-Nations Face-off Tournament, to mull Saturday's 6-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Tampa's Dylan Duke, playing his first NHL game, scored his first goal at 4:10 of the third period, giving ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — The cure for the Carolina Hurricanes’ recently ailing offense?

Apparently, a rough-and-tumble game against a young Utah team trying to claw its way back into the Western Conference wild-card race.

Who knew?

In a game that nearly saw the goalies come to blows at center ice, the Hurricanes punched where it mattered most — ...Read more

EDMONTON, Alberta — The Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers produce brilliant hockey games when they face each other.

Colorado showed Friday night that it can throw haymakers with arguably the best roster in the NHL. Now the Avs have 25 games to make sure they don’t need to see Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and friends until the second ...Read more