ST. PAUL, Minn. — For years, Luke Kunin watched as his girlfriend, then fiancée, then wife, Sophia, supported his career.

She was a shoulder to lean on when things got tough in Minnesota. Moved to Nashville when he was traded there. Was a constant during the toughest season of his pro career — last year with the San Jose Sharks, when he tore his ACL.

So Kunin can’t wait to walk into Xcel Energy Center — the arena where he began his NHL career as a Minnesota Wild rookie seven years ago — on Saturday with the shoe on the other foot. The 1 p.m. CDT game will be his first time watching Sophia play at the highest level in person, as she’ll take the ice with Minnesota’s Professional Women’s Hockey League team to face Boston in its regular-season finale ahead of next month’s playoffs.

“I’ll get to see what it’s all about,” Luke said. “I’ve watched her games on the internet all year — as much as I can with our schedule — but I think of all the things she’s sacrificed for me over the years so I can live out my dream. I can’t wait to be there to support her and watch her live her dream.”

Luke and Sophia Kunin’s relationship has helped them come through so much to arrive at this point. Meeting as teenagers. Watching each other excel in hockey….

The NHL will be in Utah beginning next season. But the Salt Lake City-based team still needs a name.

We’ve seen a flurry of possibilities hit the internet since the Arizona Coyotes were officially sold to Qualtrics owner Ryan Smith and wife, Ashley, last week. Many have stemmed from recent trademark applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Uyte LLC, based in Delaware.

1. Utah Mammoth(s)
2. Utah Yetis
3. Utah Blizzard
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4. Utah HC
5. Utah Venom
6. Utah Outlaws
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7. Utah Ice
8. Utah Fury https://t.co/gBhOC2wJvw

— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) April 24, 2024

Just pick any damn animal that lives in/near the mountains and call it a damn day

— Slick Dueceman, Attorney-at-lawl (@slickdueces) April 24, 2024

As opinions on the options pile up, we decided to do a ranking, entrusting Julian McKenzie and Sean McIndoe with determining which name suits the new Utah team best. They both ranked each team name on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 is the best, 1 is the worst) and what you see below is based on the combined score between our judges.

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1. Utah Yetis

McIndoe: 8

McKenzie: 6

McIndoe: I like it. I’ve seen a few people saying it should be “Yeti,” but we already have one recent team that went with a singular version of a mythological creature. Yetis is one of those names that…

MONTREAL — Prior to the game, in warmups, the Bell Centre was perhaps a quarter full, if that.

PWHL Montreal and PWHL Toronto were doing their twirls around the ice, as they always do, except this time they were doing it at the Bell Centre, knowing a capacity crowd of 21,105 — a new world record for a women’s hockey game — would be filing in eventually.

Except they weren’t there yet.

There were people lined around the glass for warmups holding signs supporting their favourite players, just like they are for Montreal Canadiens games, and the environment — the stage — was definitely different for these players.

But the building was still mostly empty, and still, for Marie-Philip Poulin, a living legend, this was a lot to take in.

She skated over to the bench for an interview with the arena hostess that would go live in the building, and the first question was about how she felt in this moment, in this environment, on this stage, about to play a professional hockey game in her native Quebec in front of this many people.

In front of this many of her people.

Poulin paused and had to compose herself before answering, and that pause said so much about the work she has put in to create what was about to happen at the Bell Centre, about the women who came before her who never…

ELMONT, N.Y. — Jeff Carter retired from the NHL in a memorable way, scoring a goal in his final game Wednesday night.

“I kind of knew coming in at the start of the year that this was it,” Carter said after scoring on the power play in the third period of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 5-4 loss to the New York Islanders at UBS Arena.

“It was time.”

Carter, 39, was joined in New York by his wife, children and other family members. To his surprise, the Islanders requested he take a victory lap that is normally reserved for home team players.

“That was nice,” Carter said. “Bo (Horvat) actually came up to me and said a couple of the guys wanted to talk after. That was really nice of them. There’s guys on that other side that have been around for a while, too — and I’ve played against quite a bit.

“A lot of respect for those guys.”

A classy move for a classy guy. pic.twitter.com/6OdoBgH2dc

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) April 18, 2024

Carter played for four franchises during his 19 seasons, including a couple of Stanley Cup champions while with the Los Angeles Kings from 2011-12 through 2020-21, when he was acquired by the Penguins at the trade deadline.

Once a fierce rival of the Penguins’ long-serving core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang,…

Connor Bedard wasn’t nervous when he pulled on a Team Canada sweater and stepped onto the ice at the World Junior championships, the weight of a hockey-mad country’s expectations resting squarely on his shoulders. He wasn’t nervous when NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly kept flipping over placards with NHL team logos on them after the draft lottery, Bedard’s fate and his future resting face-down at the bottom of the pile. Honestly, he wasn’t even all that nervous the first time he donned a Chicago Blackhawks jersey in a real game and settled in at the opening faceoff dot against his idol, Pittsburgh Penguins megastar Sidney Crosby.

Hockey’s familiar. Hockey’s comfortable. Connor Bedard knows hockey.

But standing in the entryway of Nick Foligno’s house in Chicago on a September evening, fidgeting and shuffling and making meager attempts at small talk with Nick and his wife, Janelle, who had invited the new guy over for a nice family dinner?

Yeah, Bedard was nervous.

“I don’t think (it’s) intimidating,” Bedard said of his first forays into the world of grown-ups. “I didn’t know anyone, so you’re kind of nervous about that. Just how I’m going to fit in and stuff.”

The way Foligno remembers it, Bedard quickly started talking about hockey and seemed…

UTICA, N.Y. — The Canada—USA rivalry has been ongoing for decades now. But they’ve never played each other quite like they did on Monday night.

“That might be one of the fastest and most physical games we’ve played against them ever,” Canadian defender Renata Fast said on Wednesday afternoon. “It was a really fun game to be a part of.”

The game was much more entertaining than a 1-0 score would suggest. It was fast-paced, each team was trading high-danger chances, there were big hits, great defensive plays, and the goalies were going save-for-save until Kirsten Simms beat Ann-Renée Desbiens in overtime.

The way the game was played can be credited to a few things. First and foremost, it’s the best rivalry in the sport. There’s also a ton of elite young talent on both teams now (from Simms to Caroline Harvey on the U.S., and Sarah Fillier and Danielle Serdachny on Canada) that are pushing the pace. And of course, there’s the start of the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

“I think we kind of knew that was going to happen,” said Canadian forward Jamie Lee Rattray. “Now that we have the PWHL, we’re coming into events at the top of our game.”

It’s been a common takeaway from the start of the 2024 women’s world championship: That the PWHL, three…

The goal was notorious before the puck even went in.

As Abbey Murphy skated across the blue line her coach, Brad Frost, knew exactly what she was going to do.

Two weeks earlier, the hockey world couldn’t stop talking — and arguing — about Ridly Greig’s emphatic slap shot into an empty net in the dying seconds of a one-goal game between the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs. Frost, the longtime head coach of the University of Minnesota women’s hockey team, knew that Murphy, women’s hockey’s preeminent pest, had found some inspiration.

So, in the dying seconds of a one-goal February game against rival Minnesota-Duluth, Murphy skated into the offensive zone, wound-up, and took a slap shot into the empty net.

“Yep, there it is,” Frost said.

Murphy immediately turned around, smirked, and put her hands up to welcome the challenge from Bulldogs forward Clara Van Wieren.

“That’s what is awesome about Murph is, she does that and goes to the corner and knows somebody is going to be coming after her,” Frost said. “She was almost like come on, go on, give it to me.”

#Gophers get one more! pic.twitter.com/epBmAKvGSQ

— Minnesota Women’s Hockey (@GopherWHockey) February 24, 2024

Murphy said she’d seen the goal from Greig and when she entered the zone thought,…

UTICA, N.Y. — Laila Edwards has become the first Black woman to play for the U.S. women’s national team at a world championship.

Edwards, 20, became the first Black woman to play for Team USA in November, when she played in the 2023-24 Rivalry Series against Canada. Now a member of the 23-player roster at worlds and on the ice in Wednesday’s opener against Switzerland, Edwards has officially arrived on the international stage, and solidified her spot on the national team.

“I’m super honored to have this platform, and to break that barrier is a great feeling. My only hope and wish is that it continues to flood as I’ve broken it open,” Edwards told The Athletic after the game.

“I think making the national team is a great step. To be at the World Championships, and representing Team USA at the international level is a great further step in the right direction, which I hope continues.”

GO DEEPER

Meet the teenage phenom set to make history with Team USA — even Travis Kelce is a fan

With a combination of size — she stands 6-foot-1 — and skill, Edwards is one of the most unique and exciting prospects in women’s hockey. She’s a highly skilled playmaker with the ability to slow the game down around her. She can find laser-thin seams in the ice, or see plays…

DURHAM, N.H. — The Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the Wisconsin Badgers 1-0 to win the program’s second NCAA championship on Sunday.

The game — a rematch of the 2023 championship, which ended in a 1-0 Wisconsin victory — was scoreless through the first two periods. Joy Dunne, the national rookie of the year, scored the first and only goal of a tense, evenly-matched championship game featuring the top two teams in the national rankings.

“That was one helluva game,” said Ohio State head coach Nadine Muzerall. “Whoever scored in the third I thought was going to win the game, just because it was such a good defensive side of the game from both teams. … It was just a feeling of if we can get to that one and then bear down defensively, we could win this thing.”

THE BUCKEYES BREAK THE SILENCE!!!!

ESPNU#WFrozenFour x @OhioStateWHKY pic.twitter.com/O7S1rw5c36

— NCAA Ice Hockey (@NCAAIceHockey) March 24, 2024

No teams in the NCAA scored more goals than the Badgers (205) and the Buckeyes (200) this season. The championship game, however, was more of a defensive effort with very little space for either team. Both teams were held to under 30 shots (Ohio State outshot Wisconsin 28-26), and there were nearly 40 blocked shots (Wisconsin had the edge 20-17).

“It seemed…

DURHAM, N.H. — Izzy Daniel won the 2024 Patty Kazmaier Award on Saturday – given to the top women’s college hockey player in the nation – becoming the first player from Cornell to claim the honor.

Daniel – who was named the ECAC and Ivy League Player of the Year – beat out Wisconsin Badgers forwards Casey O’Brien and Kirsten Simms, who led the NCAA in scoring this season.

Daniel finished the regular season tied as the third-highest scoring player in women’s ice hockey with 53 points and ranked second with 1.83 points per game. However, the Big Red captain was critically important to her team’s success this season. Daniel outscored her next-closest teammate by 25 points and either scored, or assisted, on 10 game-winning goals this season.

Paced by Daniel, No. 6 Cornell won the Ivy League title and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in five years.

“(She) epitomizes everything the Patty Kazmaier Award is about,” said Cornell coach Doug Derraugh last week. “Making the team and everyone around you better, production in the clutch, sportsmanship, and academics.”

Daniel, 23, was invited to Team USA’s evaluation camp ahead of the 2024 women’s world championships in Utica, N.Y., and is expected to be a top pick in the 2024 PWHL Draft, should she…