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Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman was suspended 10 games by the NHL Department of Player Safety on Monday "for using his forearm to violently slam the head of Ottawa Senators forward Tim Stützle into the ice" during Saturday's matchup.
Players who are suspended at least six games are eligible to appeal to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and can file a second appeal to a neutral arbitrator. Hartman has 48 hours to appeal.
With 16 seconds left in the second period and Ottawa leading 3-0, Hartman and Stützle took a faceoff.
Hartman locked up Stützle's stick with his leg, placed his right forearm on the back of Stützle's neck and drove the Ottawa player's head into the ice. Stützle's helmet came off on impact, and he skated to the Senators' bench with a cut bleeding over his left eye.
Hartman was given a match penalty. Stützle returned in the third period and assisted on two Ottawa goals as the Senators prevailed 6-0 at home.
In the NHL's video, posted on social media announcing the discipline and describing the sequence, it said, "It is important to note that this is not a hockey play. ... With Stützle bent low, and focused on winning the draw, Hartman chooses to take advantage of a vulnerable player in an unacceptable fashion."
Stützle played in the Senators' 5-2 win at the Nashville Predators on Monday night. In 21:30 of ice time, he had an assist and three shots on net.
Madrid in CB crisis as Alaba suffers fresh injury
David Alaba has suffered a thigh injury, Real Madrid said on Tuesday, in the latest worry for the team's defence ahead of a crucial run of games including the Madrid derby and a Champions League playoff with Manchester City.
The centre-back had only just returned to fitness following a long-term absence with an ACL injury suffered in December 2023, featuring as a substitute in Madrid's LaLiga games with Las Palmas and Real Valladolid last month.
The news follows fellow defender Antonio Rüdiger's hamstring injury -- picked up on Saturday -- and with Éder Militão also out long-term with an ACL injury, that leaves midfielder Aurélien Tchouaméni and youngster Raúl Asencio as coach Carlo Ancelotti's remaining options in central defence.
"Following tests carried out on our player David Alaba by Real Madrid's medical services, he has been diagnosed with an adductor muscle injury in his left leg," the club said in a brief statement.
Madrid visit Leganés in a Copa del Rey quarterfinal on Wednesday, before hosting Atletico Madrid in Saturday's derby in LaLiga. They then travel to City in their knockout phase playoff first leg on Feb. 11, and visit Osasuna in LaLiga, before City visit the Bernabéu on Feb. 19.
The LaLiga and European champions went into this season with just three senior, first-choice centre-backs -- Rudiger, Militao and Alaba -- following the departure of Nacho Fernandez last summer.
Alaba has only been available for selection since last month, while Militao was injured in November and is not expected to return this season.
In their absence, Ancelotti has often picked Tchouameni at centre-back, while Asencio, 21, has made 10 appearances in LaLiga and four in the Champions League.
Club captain and right-back Dani Carvajal is another key defender who is unavailable until this summer, also with a serious knee injury.
Madrid opted not to sign a defender in the January transfer window, after an early approach for Trent Alexander-Arnold was rejected by Liverpool.
Source: Man United plotting major summer rebuild
Manchester United are hoping their conservative approach to the January transfer window will allow them to complete a major rebuild of the playing squad in the summer, a source has told ESPN.
United signed left-back Patrick Dorgu from Lecce and youngster Ayden Heaven from Arsenal in January while allowing Marcus Rashford and Antony to leave on loan. Tyrell Malacia is also expected to seal a temporary move to PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday.
There has been criticism from supporters over the club's reluctance to sign another attacking player despite a desperate lack of goals.
Strikers Rasmus Højlund and Joshua Zirkzee have scored just five Premier League goals between them so far this season.
A source has told ESPN that United looked at various options to bolster Ruben Amorim's attacking options, including Mathys Tel.
However, there was concern internally that any money spent would have reduced their budget for the summer window when it was more likely that players who better fit their long-term plans will be available.
United, according to an ESPN source, ended their interest in Tel because of Bayern Munich's demand for a loan fee of around 5 million ($6.2m) with no option or obligation to make the move permanent built into the deal.
The feeling was that they were being asked to provide game time to a young player to aid his development for the benefit of Bayern.
United's financial position is being described by insiders as "very tight" but there is hope that their approach to the January window will aid prospects of a substantial overhaul in the summer.
Victor Lindelöf and Christian Eriksen, both out of contract at the end of the season, are expected to leave on free transfers. United will also attempt to remove Casemiro's large salary from their wage bill with a permanent move.
A source has told ESPN that Sporting CP's Geovany Quenda is one of the summer targets. The 17-year-old has a release clause of 100m ($103m) but there is a belief that Amorim's former club will be willing to negotiate a fee closer to 60m.
Cristiano Ronaldo has said he is "the most complete player to have existed," saying he respects fans who prefer Lionel Messi, Pelé or Diego Maradona, but arguing that statistics back up his claim.
The five-time Ballon d'Or winner, 39, has broken a host of records during his career and is the highest men's goalscorer in football history with 923 goals, the latest coming in a brace in Al Nassr's 4-0 AFC Champions League win over Al Wasl on Monday.
"Who's the best goalscorer in history? It's about numbers. Full stop," Ronaldo told Spanish television show El Chiringuito in an extensive interview on Monday.
"Who's the player in history who's scored most goals with their head, their left foot, penalties, free kicks? I was looking the other day, and not being left-footed, I'm in the top 10 goalscorers with their left foot in history. And with my head, and with my right foot, and penalties. All of them."
Ronaldo faced constant comparisons with Messi throughout his career, as both battled to be recognised as the best player on the planet.
"I'm talking about numbers," Ronaldo said. "I think I'm the most complete player to have existed. In my opinion, I think it's me. I do everything well in football: with my head, free kicks, left foot. I'm fast, I'm strong.
"One thing is taste -- if you like Messi, Pelé, Maradona, I understand that and I respect that -- but saying Ronaldo isn't complete... I'm the most complete. I haven't seen anybody better than me, and I say it from the heart."
At 39, Ronaldo still isn't contemplating retirement from club or international football.
"I'm so competitive that sometimes I forget what I've achieved," he said, "Because it gives me motivation to do more and do better every year ... I think that's the difference with others. Somebody else in my position would have left football 10 years ago. I'm different, full stop."
Ronaldo was one of the first elite players to move to the Saudi Pro League, when he left Manchester United and signed for Al Nassr in 2023.
"People don't know, they give their opinion, they talk too much," he said, when asked about the quality of the Saudi league.
"It's a shame, because it's a different reality when people talk about Arabia and the USA. [Is Major League Soccer worse?] Obviously, but as it's Arabia, it's disrespected ... People don't know what they're talking about. With those [players] who are here, you have to respect it."
Ronaldo discussed his departure from Real Madrid in 2018, saying the club "didn't behave well with him" in contract negotiations, but said he wouldn't rule out a return to the Bernabéu one day when his career ends.
He praised Madrid star Jude Bellingham, saying the England midfielder "reminds me of [Zinedine] Zidane."
"Zidane was brilliant, beautiful," Ronaldo said. "Bellingham is 21, he has his whole future ahead of him. The lad will be a top player."
Tottenham Hotspur defender Radu Dragusin will undergo surgery on an ACL injury, the club confirmed on Tuesday.
The Romania international has made 28 appearances for Spurs in all competitions since joining from Genoa last summer, although his season now looks to be cut short.
Dragusin suffered the ACL injury in Spurs' 3-0 win over Swedish side Elfsborg last week in their final Europa League group game.
It is the latest injury that Spurs have suffered this season, with Guglielmo Vicario (ankle), Cristian Romero (hamstring), Destiny Udogie (hamstring), Dominic Solanke (knee), Brennan Johnson (calf), James Maddison (calf) also out injured.
Tottenham are next in action on Thursday in the return leg of their Carabao Cup semifinal clash against Liverpool, where Spurs hold a 1-0 lead on aggregate.
Head coach Ange Postecoglou has repeatedly cut a frustrated figure amid the club's ever-increasing injury list.
Ater their 2-0 win over Brentford on Sunday, when asked about changes to his infamously attacking style of play, he said: "How do I say this without sort of repeating myself and not sounding like an excuse? It's very difficult for a group of players to play Thursday and Sunday and maintain energy and levels.
"What they're doing is giving maximum effort and maximum effort in a game like today means that you can't be sharp and really dynamic with and without the ball, it's just impossible.
"They're human beings and not robots. People want to dismiss it, they want to talk about excuses, but that's the reality, I know the reality.
"These guys are giving everything. We knew today wasn't going to be a game where we could go out there and dominate, because Brentford had a week to prepare for this.
"We had 50-something hours [after the Elfsborg game] with the same group of players. So I think, with that context, I think the performance was outstanding."
CWI introduces 'data-driven scouting system' to identify and develop local talent
West Indies, well off the pace in both men's and women's international cricket in recent times, will now hope to benefit from what CWI has called a "groundbreaking, data-driven scouting system aimed at identifying and developing the best cricketing talent across the region".
The system will involve senior talent managers, territorial talent identifiers, and a network of scouts combining "to provide a structured, analytical approach to talent identification". With the West Indies Championship as their first major assignment, the scouting team will ensure that every performance is tracked, analysed, and reported, creating a clear pathway for emerging cricketers to progress to the highest levels."
"We are moving beyond just relying on what we see on scorecards. This system ensures that performances are seen with context and with a focus on the skill sets displayed, tactical acumen and game awareness," CWI director of cricket Miles Bascombe said. "We are collecting real-time data, analysing performances consistently, and making informed decisions about player development."
The key responsibilities of the territorial talent identifiers are:
"Players in the region will now be seen and evaluated by multiple talent identification operatives resulting in more information gathering, and better-balanced data on performances," Bascombe said. "With this accountability metric in place, our network of scouts ensures that no talent goes unnoticed.
"We are moving into a new era of role-based, data-driven selection that will have ripple effects across our cricket system from the way players prepare to the way we measure performances. In addition, it allows us to examine deficits in players and to optimise through our high-performance framework. However, I would like to reiterate that data-driven does not only quate to stats-based, huge emphasis will be placed on qualitative data. Beyond selection, this data will be used to refine player programming ensuring a targeted approach to getting players international-ready."
The latest edition of the first-class West Indies Championship is already one round old, but will run till April 2025 and take in 24 more matches featuring eight island teams: Barbados, Combined Campuses and Colleges, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago, West Indies Academy and Windward Islands.
"The West Indies Championship is where we expect to see our next generation of Test cricketers emerge," Bascombe said. "With this new system, we will have more eyes on players than ever before and clarity about what we are looking for. This ensures that selection methods are consistent over time and based on merit and data-backed insights."
Karunaratne to retire from Test cricket after making his 100th appearance
"It was the right time to go, considering there are three or four younger players who could come in for the next WTC cycle," Karunaratne told ESPNcricinfo. "Plus, this match was in Galle, where I made my debut, so it will be nice to finish things there.
"After the first Test against Australia ended, I told SLC that the next Test would be my last."
Karunaratne had made his Test debut in November 2012 against New Zealand, at the same ground where he is now set to retire. He was dropped from the team briefly in 2014, but struck his first Test hundred towards the end of that year. He has hit 15 centuries since, more or less enjoying a consistent place in the Test team, until becoming one of its senior-most players.
Through the course of his 12 years in Tests, Karunaratne has scored by far the most Test runs for a Sri Lanka opener, hitting 7079 at an average of 39.99 in that position. He will also become Sri Lanka's seventh cricketer to 100 Tests, following Sanath Jayasuriya, Muthiah Muralidaran, Chaminda Vaas, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Angelo Mathews.
"Playing 100 Tests is a tough thing to accomplish, especially when you're an opening batter and you're doing the dirty work for the team," Karunaratne told ESPNcricinfo. "If I have regrets, one of them would be not being able to get to 10,000 Test runs. I thought the way that I was going in 2017, 2018 and 2019, that I'd have the chance to get there. But then Covid hit, and Sri Lanka don't play as many Tests anymore.
"I'll take a bit of a break for myself after spending so many years playing cricket. But eventually, I'd like to get involved again"
Dimuth Karunaratne
"I'd also have loved to make it to a World Test Championship final and experience that feeling of being in a final. We were close twice, but it never happened."
Now based in Melbourne, Karunaratne hopes to pursue coaching after his retirement. "I'll take a bit of a break for myself after spending so many years playing cricket," he said. "But eventually, I'd like to get involved again."
The second Test against Australia - now Karunaratne's last - begins on Thursday.
Travis Head expects Sam Konstas to open in WTC final
"Most likely I'd go back in the middle order and Sam would open," Head told reporters in Galle. "But I'm glad I'm not a selector. Josh has had an amazing start, the guys are playing well, Greeny's going to be fit. So it's going to be hard to fit [them all] in. I think that's what we want. We want an Australian cricket team that's tough to get in.
"I think that's all we've ever known is players that are unlucky and players that are in the team and expecting good performances. And that's where the pressure comes [from], it's trying to hold your spot every Test, knowing that there's people behind you. We're in a strong position. It's better having seven or eight batters talked about than three or four."
When it emerged that Konstas was likely to lose his spot, stand-in captain Steven Smith stressed the value that could be gained from still being on tour. As it transpired, Konstas spent much of the opening match ill at the team hotel but was back training with the squad on Tuesday.
"I know there was a little bit of talk around whether he might play or not, whether there's a series that, I guess, you can blood [him]. But whether he played or not played, it's great to have him here and great to have him experience the conditions.
"I don't think there's been a Test match in the history that they've blooded someone or thought there was a free hit. We're here to win 2-0, and Sam's a big part of where we're going. There's no doubt about it.
"For someone to come in and take the game [on] the way he did in Melbourne, the confidence he's got, it's a good thing to have a young kid around that's a bit naive and just plays the game the right way. He's got a huge future for Australia. It'll just be how he, over the years, deals with adversity. At this stage, he looks like he deals with it really well."
Head, named the Allan Border Medalist on Monday night after a dominant 12 months, reflected with a degree of satisfaction at being able to play the role asked of him in the opening Test, which included taking three boundaries off the opening over, although added there had not been a preconceived plan to attack from the outset.
"It was not by design to go out and score as quick as I did," he said. "If they present an opportunity to score, I want to score. Probably disappointing [was] the fact that the one risk I took did end up being the one [that got me] out. The percentages, I still felt like I was a chance, but I did flirt with danger and was out.
"But sometimes you've got to take those risks and sometimes you've got to try and push the game. I felt that was the right moment to really try and put the foot down. I guess that's hard to say in Test cricket, but I felt like I played well, I played positively, I played what the team needed at the time. It goes different ways in terms of what they offer and how they bowl. It was nice I was able to take the opportunity at the start of the Test."
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo
Varun Chakravarthy added to India's ODI squad for series against England
Varun's inclusion is a significant development considering these ODIs against England are the first 50-over games India are playing since August last year and the only series before the upcoming Champions Trophy. A number of specialist bowlers in the Champions Trophy squad - Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah - are on the comeback trail from injuries. Bumrah is part of the squad for only the third ODI against England, with Harshit Rana in the 16 for the first two games.
India play England in Nagpur, Cuttack and Ahmedabad on February 6, 9 and 12 before heading to Dubai for the Champions Trophy. They can make changes to their Champions Trophy squad until February 11 without approval from the ICC.
India ODI squad vs England
Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana (first two ODIs), Jasprit Bumrah (third ODI), Varun Chakravarthy
Eagles' Moore: Focused on SB, not on Saints talk
NEW ORLEANS -- Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore smiled expectantly as a crowd of New Orleans-based reporters rushed to crowd around him and start peppering him with questions about his future.
The fact that the New Orleans Saints are the last team looking for a head coach points to Moore as their top candidate; he's the only named candidate who can't be hired yet because his team is playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday.
"It's obviously been a good process," he said of his preliminary meetings with Saints general manager Mickey Loomis and other team officials in Philadelphia last week. "Having an opportunity to meet with Mickey and their leadership group has been great, and it's set up in a way that allows us to focus on this game and we'll see what happens after that."
Sitting on a stool Monday night along what is normally the home sideline area for Saints games in the Superdome, Moore grinned as he danced around questions about whether he was imagining himself back there -- and in charge -- next fall.
He offered additional assurances that his "pure focus" was on Sunday's matchup with the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, and he doesn't "have to worry about a single thing except this opportunity" to coach in the Super Bowl.
Moore is a former backup QB who played behind Dak Prescott in Dallas in 2017 before becoming his position coach the next year. This season, he directed an Eagles offense that featured Saquon Barkley as the ninth running back in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards.
During the regular season, the Eagles ranked eighth in the NFL offensively (367.2 yards per game), but gained most of their yards on the ground. Philadelphia ranked second in rushing (179.3 ypg) and 29th in passing (187.9 ypg).
"You build around your players," Moore said. "There's different styles we've played over the years and that's the fun part of it.
"You have certain things that you have strong feelings about from a coaching perspective," he added. "But I think it's important to do what your players do best and surround yourself with as many opportunities to get those guys in those situations as you can."
If he is hired in New Orleans, he'd take over an offense starring dynamic running back Alvin Kamara. And his quarterback could be Derek Carr, against whom he once played in college when Moore was at Boise State and Carr was with Fresno State.
"Tons of respect for him as a quarterback in this league," Moore said of Carr. "He's had a tremendous career and done a lot of really good things."
Moore hasn't had extensive experience in New Orleans but has a relationship with the family of Archie Manning from his days at the Manning Passing Academy in Thibodaux, Louisiana, which he called an "awesome experience."
Whenever he winds up being a head coach, Moore said he would expect to continue to be the primary playcaller for the offense.
"Certainly it's a passion of mine, something that had gotten me to this place," he said. "You hate to stop doing what you love as you go through this journey."
Eagles offensive players didn't seem surprised to see Moore on New Orleans' short list.
"He's the worst coordinator I've ever had," Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata said jokingly, as if that might prevent the Saints from hiring him.
"Kellen's been the best," Mailata continued. "He's done a great job setting up plays, explaining the schemes and the whys behind certain motions, formations. It's a magical thing. It's no wonder why he's a finalist to be a head coach here."
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