He also won the Daytona 500 pole earlier this year.

“They’re a heck of a team,” Edmonton star Connor McDavid said in the on-ice televised ESPN interview Thursday night when asked about the Panthers. “Obviously, it’s their third finals. They’re a special group. We’re a special group. It’s going to be fun. Couldn’t ask for a better opportunity than to go up against the team that beat us last year. Really excited about it.”The mind-games are already underway. Florida touched the Prince of Wales Trophy after winning the East in 2023 and lost the final; the Panthers didn’t touch the conference trophy in 2024 and won the Cup, and didn’t touch it on Wednesday either to preserve that tradition. In turn, the Oilers didn’t touch the West trophy last year — but McDavid grabbed it this year, trying to change up the Cup luck.

When the East title series ended, Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour paid the Panthers — who won their first Cup last season — the ultimate compliment.“They’re the standard now,” Brind’Amour said.It has been a long time since the league has seen a run like this.

Tampa Bay made three straight finals from 2020 through 2022 (with two of those seasons shortened by COVID), but no team — until now — has navigated three consecutive full regular seasons and gotten to the Stanley Cup Final in each of those years since Edmonton from 1983 through 1985. By the time this year’s title series is over, the Panthers will have played more games in a three-year span than any team in NHL history.It’s an accomplishment, for certain. Zito wasn’t thinking about any of that after the Carolina series. There were travel plans to put together, reports to look at, somewhere between four and seven more games left in this season to think about.

”I don’t think that the elation or the appreciation for the moment diminishes,” Zito said. “I think perhaps the way it manifests itself, it’s just channeled differently. ... That level of respect and appreciation for where you are, in tandem with the hunger, you want to do it again. You want to do it again. What can we start doing now? Don’t stop. Don’t get content. And those guys, they woke up with 100 texts each from everyone telling them how great they are. Everyone did. And it’s not over.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Tyrese Haliburton followed hisHe said U.S. support would not require local governments to align with the West on cultural or climate issues.

The sun is about to pull another disappearing act across North America, turning day into night during aon April 8 will last up to 4 minutes, 28 seconds in the path of total darkness — twice as long as the

This eclipse will take a, entering over Mexico’s Pacific coast, dashing up through Texas and Oklahoma, and crisscrossing the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and New England, before exiting over eastern Canada into the Atlantic.