In the NHL, coach firings are as common as parking tickets in New York City. Throughout the NHL season I'll be taking a bi-weekly look at five coaches who are the most likely to get fired. Be advised your local coach may be axed at any moment. Consider this fair warning. Things have changed quite a bit since our last look at coaches with warm cushions. For one, the Lightning are making me look bad at 3-1-3 since the last installment. The Leafs have won a few games and things have gone from bad to an Alexander Daigle brand of awful for the Hurricanes. We'll take a look at all of that and more after the jump.
WIMBLEDON, England (AP) -- Andy Murray has completed another comfortable win to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon, beating Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-2, 6-3, 6-4.
Murray saved the only break point he faced in the match on Saturday and hit 37 winners, sealing the win with an ace.
Of course, in the internet age, there are always people who can see the cloud behind every silver lining. Reading message boards and article comments, it's clear that more than a few tennis fans feel that Federer should get an asterisk next to his record if he wins out at Wimbledon. Why? Because if he wins and sets the new record, he will not have beaten Rafael Nadal to do so. Since Nadal is the top-ranked player in the world, it would seem that any title which doesn't pass through him is tainted.
WIMBLEDON, England (June 17) -- Rafael Nadal's French Open stumble failed to strip him of the world No. 1 ranking, and it won't cost him the top seed at Wimbledon either.
Nadal, the tournament's defending champion, was seeded No. 1 for Wimbledon on Wednesday. Top-ranked Dinara Safina, who lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova in the French Open final, earned the women's No. 1 seed.
There were no big surprises when the All England Club announced the seedings for the grass-court Grand Slam tournament, which opens June 22. The draw will be released Friday.
On February 20, the St. Louis Blues were an afterthought in the Western Conference playoff race. They sat in 15th place out of 15 teams in the conference, five points behind eighth-place Edmonton. It appeared to be just another non-playoff year for the Blues, who hadn't been to the postseason since before the lockout.
What has happened to St. Louis since then is nothing short of incredible. They went on a 16-5-3 tear to end the regular season, and the Blues climbed nine spots in the Western Conference, finishing in sixth place.
Entering the 2008-09 season, not much was expected from the St. Louis Blues. Most people recognized their talented young core, but few, if any, were predicting a trip to the playoffs. With just 13 games remaining on their schedule, the Blues enter Tuesday's game in Edmonton just two points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and have an opportunity to move into a tie for the No. 8 spot with a win (and a Dallas loss). So, how did they get here?
Andy Murray will have time to contemplate the pie floater this week. The No. 4-seeded Brit lost a five-set match to Spain's Fernando Verdasco (right) on Monday at the Australian Open, becoming the latest seeded player to get beat at a tournament that hasn't been kind to the "over-dogs."
It's been a rough season for the St. Louis Blues, a young team that's been decimated by injuries --ranging from the ridiculous, to the absurd -- so you'll have to excuse head coach Andy Murray if he's just a tad bit annoyed following 6-3 losses at home.
After Blake Wheeler and the Bruins completed their goal-scoring assault on Sunday, the St. Louis bench boss decided to go down the roster -- at least that's the way it seemed -- and point out the players who didn't exactly put on a strong showing against the top team in the Eastern Conference. Some guys played so poorly -- in his eyes -- that he mentioned them twice. And poor David Perron, I think that may have been the worst call-out of the bunch.
"I didn't think (Patrik) Berglund was good, I didn't think (David) Perron was good, I didn't think (Keith) Tkachuk was good ... I didn't think (Brad) Boyes was good," Murray said. "I thought (David) Backes was all right." "I expect Jeff Woywitka to be a lot better than he was today," he continued. "David Perron ... where's he? Berglund, I expect him to be better. Am I being a little hard on them here? That's just the way that it is."
To be honest, this is a little sad. Roger Federer was once the Tiger Woods of tennis, a sport that doesn't allow you to dominate for long -- too many rallies, too much athleticism, and too many young guys trying to take over your reign as the top dog.
Roger was defeated in the first round of the Masters Cup in Shanghai yesterday by a 23-year-old Frenchman named Gilles Simon. Federer, who was up a set and looking to cruise, found himself in a nasty situation he couldn't get out of.