Paul Stastny knew people were going to figure it out eventually.

But he didn’t see the point in making a big deal of it.

And so when I reached out this week to see how he was doing, curious whether he was talking to teams about one last run, I got a completely different answer.

“I haven’t filed anything, but in early September we decided we were done,” Stastny said.

After putting up 822 points in 1,145 career regular-season games over 17 NHL seasons, the 37-year-old forward has called it quits.

Without much fanfare.

“I didn’t put anything out on social media or anything,” Stastny said with a chuckle. “I kind of came into the league quietly and I’m leaving the league quietly. That’s the way I like it.

“All the people close to me know, and then word always gets out eventually.”

Well, we all know now.

Stastny said he had some calls from teams this summer but wanted to wait and see how he felt.

“I wanted to take all the emotions out of it,” he said. “The summer got further along, and I got on the ice a few times … I wouldn’t say the spark wasn’t there — I still love the game — but I think I was just ready to move forward to the next chapter.

“When you know, you know.”

Stastny and his wife and two kids, aged 8 and 6, are currently at their home in…

Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson took offense with a recent tweet from President Joe Biden, who claimed the Vegas Golden Knights were the “first major professional franchise in such a proud American city.” Here’s what you need to know:

• Wilson led the Aces to the WNBA title in September, their first in franchise history.
• Wilson, a two-time WNBA MVP, added in her tweet that the Aces have not visited the White House since their championship.
• A member of the Aces front office confirmed to The Athletic that Las Vegas was invited to the White House.
• The Biden administration previously invited the 2020 WNBA champions, the Seattle Storm, to the White House after their title run, but the 2021 champion, the Chicago Sky, did not make an official visit.

Twitter not letting me quote tweet potus tweet but …BFFR when is our White House visit cause … pic.twitter.com/o9uc88Qg6U

— A’ja Wilson (@_ajawilson22) June 14, 2023

Backstory

The Aces defeated the Sun in four games in the WNBA finals to take home the title. With the WNBA season having started in May, it is presumably too late for the team to make a White House visit. The Aces are 8-1 to start the season, the best record in the league.

Following the Golden Knights’ championship-winning Game 5 performance Tuesday,…

The Athletic has live coverage of Stanley Cup Final Game 5 Panthers vs. Golden Knights

The Stanley Cup will be in the building on Tuesday night. And the Vegas Golden Knights will lift it with a win over the Florida Panthers in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final. The Knights are big favorites to win the Cup on home ice and with good reason. They’ve been the dominant team throughout much of this Stanley Cup Final. Vegas even led into the final minutes of Game 3 before the Panthers scored a goal with an empty net and then won it in overtime.

It wouldn’t be the first Stanley Cup awarded at T-Mobile Center if the Golden Knights win. The Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup in Game 5 in 2018 and then partied the night away in Las Vegas. It would be the second championship for Las Vegas in less than 12 months after the WNBA’s Aces won the title in September.

Game 5 – Panthers at Golden Knights

Vegas leads 3-1

8 p.m. on TNT, SN, CBC

If Vegas wins the Stanley Cup on Tuesday night, who will take home the Conn Smythe? Jesse Granger did a great job breaking down the cases for favorites Jonathan Marchessault and Adin Hill. Both have a convincing argument to be named the MVP of the playoffs. Neither got out off to the best start, but have since surged. Marchessault is (-550) at BetMGM to…

The top creditor of Robin Lehner accused the Vegas Golden Knights goaltender of fraud in obtaining the debt and asked a bankruptcy court to require him to pay what he owes the lender, according to a court filing. And in a separate motion, credit card brand American Express is also alleging fraud in seeking payment of the Swede’s outstanding consumer bills.

Lehner and his wife, Donya, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 30, later listing $5.2 million of assets and $27.3 million of liabilities. The creditor filing by Aliya Growth Fund (AGF), which loaned Lehner $4.75 million six weeks before he filed for bankruptcy, is the first signal that the process will not be smooth and is unlikely to end by the close of the year, as the debtor had suggested in previous court filings. Its 14-page complaint, in which Aliya asks for a trial, uses the terms “fraud” and “fraudulent” 10 times.

In bankruptcy proceedings, individual creditors can object to their debt getting wiped out, or discharged, and seek what is called an adversarial proceeding, which is essentially a bench trial. The bankruptcy code does not allow debt to be eliminated if it was obtained under false pretenses.

Aliya’s lawyers wrote that the Lehners solicited and received significant sums of money from…

Alec Martinez has known Jonathan Quick for 15 years. The two were roommates on road trips during their days in the American Hockey League in 2008. They lifted the Stanley Cup together as Kings in 2012, when Quick won the Conn Smythe Trophy, and again in 2014, when Martinez scored the Cup-clinching double-overtime goal.

They hadn’t been teammates since the Kings traded Martinez to the Golden Knights in February 2020. That is, until Vegas traded for Quick ahead of Friday’s trade deadline. Martinez said that after the news broke, he got a text message from Quick’s wife, Jaclyn, with a video of Jonathan and Jaclyn’s youngest son, Cashton, jumping up and down chanting “Vegas!”

Martinez smiled and joked in his distinguished sarcastic tone, “Rumor has it Quicky was doing the same thing.”

Quick may not have actually been jumping up and down, but at the end of an emotional 48 hours, in which he was traded by the only NHL franchise he’d ever known, he was excited to join a playoff contender that was close to home. After 16 seasons in Los Angeles, changing teams wasn’t easy.

“There were a ton of emotions, obviously, considering how much time my family and I spent there,” Quick said Friday after his first practice in Las Vegas. “At the end of the day, they made a…

Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner and his wife Donya owe creditors $27.3 million, according to a bankruptcy filing released Friday. Here’s what you need to know:

• The new filing shows a large percentage of that debt is tied to his solar company SolarCode, which is being sued by a lender for $3.9 million over the alleged failure to repay a business loan.
• Lehner also lists assets totaling about $5 million in the filing, most of which are tied to his home in Las Vegas.
• Lehner and his wife filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection late last year, joining a large number of athletes who have done so over the last few decades.

Backstory

Lehner, who has estimated career earnings through 2026 of $43 million, according to Spotrac, had listed liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million, and assets of $1 million to $10 million in his original Chapter 7 petition. The new filing gives more details, including listing all his creditors.

Lehner, who is on a five-year, $25 million contract with the Golden Knights, joins NHL star Evander Kane, who filed Chapter 7 in January 2021. Kane’s process is still ongoing. They are hardly alone. High-profile bankruptcies have included Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Michael Vick, Vince Young, Warren Sapp, Antoine Walker, Kenny Anderson, Lenny…