The Vancouver Canucks and goaltender Kevin Lankinen agreed to a five-year, $22.5 million contract extension on Friday.

Lankinen, 29, has stepped up in place of the injured Thatcher Demko, posting a 19-8-7 record with four shutouts, a 2.53 goals-against average and .905 save percentage over 34 games this season.

That's quite the return on investment for Lankinen, who signed a one-year, $875,000 contract in September.

"Kevin has done a great job for us in net this season," Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin said. "Right from the start of the year, he has shown a strong desire to compete and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win hockey games. A good leader and teammate, we wouldn't be in the position we are in right now without his strong play."

Undrafted to begin his career, Lankinen has a 64-51-19 record with seven shutouts, a 2.94 GAA and .905 save percentage in 146 games with the Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Predators and Canucks.

Lankinen represented his native Finland at the recent 4 Nations Face-Off.

The surprising smash hit 4 Nations Face-Off finished with a bang on Thursday night when Canada defeated the United States 3-2 in overtime to claim the international tournament's championship. In the process, the final became the most-bet hockey event in legal betting history.

On Friday morning, BetMGM, DraftKings and FanDuel reported that the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game was their most-bet hockey event of all time by total tickets, with DraftKings adding that it also attained the highest handle of any hockey event ever. Caesars and ESPN BET said the game fell just short of their records -- held by the 2024 Stanley Cup Final Game 7 between Edmonton and Florida -- but put up amazing numbers for a mid-February hockey contest.

"Handle for the 4 Nations Final surpassed last year's World Series games and was on par with Sunday afternoon NFL games, which is remarkable when comparing the general scale of hockey and football betting," ESPN BET director of North American sports trading Adrian Horton said via email.

Saturday's first matchup between USA and Canada had previously been the most-bet hockey game of the season, but Thursday night's finale attracted about double the amount of money at ESPN BET and 2 times the number of bets at BetMGM.

Bettors largely wagered along country lines in the championship, with ESPN BET reporting 79% of bets and 77% of handle on USA's money line, while the sportsbook's Canadian counterpart, theScore BET (also owned by Penn Entertainment), saw 84% of tickets and 87% of money backing Canada's money line; the game went off as a consensus pick 'em at -110 for each side.

BetMGM saw slightly fewer bets and less handle backing the Americans, but it was still a majority that, combined with the high volume, made Canada's victory a "good outcome for the sportsbook," per the sportsbook's trading manager Halvor Egeland.

As a whole, the 4 Nations Face-Off was a massive success for the sports betting industry. ESPN BET said that its four most-bet hockey games of the season were the United States' four games, with BetMGM adding that five of its top seven highest-bet hockey events of the season came from the tournament.

"The NHL absolutely nailed it with the 4 Nations Face-Off," DraftKings sportsbook director Johnny Avello told ESPN over text message. "Bettors saw how seriously the players took it and reacted accordingly. Every game of this tournament yielded significant action."

While bookmakers are expecting an initial rush of bets when the NHL returns on Saturday, the league could see its usual lull once college basketball heats up heading into March Madness. That said, the recent big stage for high-stakes hockey could create a bigger boom as teams compete for the Stanley Cup.

"I really think it'll ramp right back up again once we get to the playoffs, especially if we can get some fun matchups," Karry Shreeve, Caesars Sportsbook's head of hockey, told ESPN. "I think the playoffs can really ride off of this momentum more than maybe the rest of the regular season as a whole."

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner appears ready to make his season debut four months since having surgery to repair a shoulder injury.

President of hockey operations and general manager Don Waddell said Friday that Jenner and fellow forward Kirill Marchenko had been activated off injured reserve. Marchenko is back after having surgery on his broken jaw earlier this month.

Jenner's return to the lineup comes just in time for him to play in the Stadium Series outdoor game against Detroit on March 1 at Ohio State's stadium. The 31-year-old was injured during a training camp practice Oct. 4, and when he had surgery a few days later, Waddell was hopeful Jenner would be back playing games before the end of the NHL regular season.

The injury news is not all good, though, as the Blue Jackets will be without forwards Kevin Labanc and Owen Sillinger for the rest of the season. The team said Labanc had shoulder surgery on Tuesday, while Sillinger is out with a knee injury.

Despite the rash of injuries and expectations of being near the bottom of the standings, Columbus is firmly in contention, one point out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 26 games left to play.

BOSTON -- The 4 Nations Face-Off has emerged as a transformative moment for the NHL.

"Nothing's done more for hockey in a decade than what this tournament's done," Team Canada coach Jon Cooper said.

What was supposed to be a midseason appetizer for the 2026 Winter Olympics has evolved into a transcendent event for hockey, which has lacked a best-on-best event since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. That was never more apparent than the first U.S. vs Canada showdown in Montreal, which produced three fights in the first nine seconds of the game followed by an elite representation of the sport as played by two bitter rivals.

The audience was massive -- the 4.4 million people who tuned in to U.S.-Canada on Feb. 15 was up 479% from the same matchup in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. The hype was something the NHL hadn't seen in recent memory. People who don't usually talk about hockey were suddenly talking about hockey.

It's just incredible how much of a home run 4 Nations has been for the NHL and hockey in general.

Friends who never watched a hockey game in their lives reaching out asking what the plan is for tonight's game, what food we're ordering, etc.

Definition of growing the game.

JJ Watt (@JJWatt) February 20, 2025

"The game is in a better place because that game existed," Cooper said.

Now that the 4 Nations Face-Off was a game-changer, how will the NHL capitalize on it -- and what comes next for its midseason events?

THE NHL HAS ANNOUNCED what is on the way in 2026. The All-Star Weekend, which took a hiatus in favor of 4 Nations this year, will return at the New York Islanders' UBS Arena next February. That will serve as a bon voyage event ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, which mark the return of NHL players for the first time since 2014.

The 2026 Olympics begin what the NHL and the NHL Players' Association hope will be a regular cadence of international best-on-best events. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh announced last week the next World Cup of Hockey is scheduled for 2028. Then come the 2030 Winter Olympics, and then potentially another World Cup and so on.

"We couldn't be more excited about making a reality: Olympics, World Cups, Olympics, World Cups on a regular schedule of the best hockey players in the world representing their countries," Bettman said. "We know the full-blown World Cup is going to be sensational."

Sources told ESPN that the future of the NHL All-Star Game beyond next season has yet to be determined.

The NHL All-Star Game isn't going anywhere -- sources said its status as a tentpole event and its history within the league make it an important part of the league's slate of events. But All-Star Weekend's cadence and format beyond next season hasn't been determined. Logically, it could be held in years when there isn't a best-on-best event. Perhaps the league continues to double up with the All-Star Game and the Olympics, like it is doing in 2026.

ALL-STAR GAMES are in a transient place in the sports world right now -- that's not just a function of the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off.

While the NHL's midseason tournament was being widely praised, the NBA All-Star Weekend received criticism from fans and players. Draymond Green called the game's format "absurd" and said it existed "because ratings are down and the game is bad."

The effort of the NHL's players in its best-on-best tournament was in stark contrast with basketball's midseason classic.

"You can go on an NBA court and go through the motions. You can't do that in hockey," P.K. Subban said on "Get Up." "The culture of our sport, you have to play it with passion. That's what fans are investing in."

While that's true, the NHL All-Star Game isn't exactly USA vs. Canada for the 4 Nations title, either.

"Different event, obviously. I don't remember any fights in the All-Star Games," Winnipeg Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey said. "There's definitely a place to have both. From what I've heard, that's the plan in the future. And I think both can be exciting."

THE ALL-STAR GAME brings some virtues that these international tournaments do not. The World Cup of Hockey will be awarded through a host city bidding process. The All-Star Game brings the world's best players to markets that may never host a World Cup game. It doesn't just spread the wealth among NHL cities -- it does the same among players.

"The one thing about this tournament is 'Where's Leon Draisaitl?' Or Nikita Kucherov?' Go down the list of guys that aren't here that you do get to see in an All-Star Game because those guys are special talents," Cooper said. "Maybe there's something down the road where everybody gets to play, and that would be super cool."

The players at the 4 Nations Face-Off uniformly agreed that there's room for both best-on-best battles and All-Star games in the NHL.

"Obviously this brings out real emotions when you get to play these meaningful games," Sweden's Jesper Bratt said. "The All-Star Game has its cool things to it, too, and I think fans appreciate that part of it: to see the best individual players from each division and each team to participate in a skill competition."

Team USA's Jack Hughes, Bratt's teammate on the New Jersey Devils, said he's made some great memories at the All-Star Game.

"That's always fun for me personally, just because it's not as extreme as this. Obviously, you get to spend more time with your family and your friends and get to enjoy that with them. I think that's a great event," he said. "But as a hockey player for sure, [4 Nations] is the elite of the elite. Getting to play against the best players and represent your country. It means something to everyone on the ice."

Vincent Trocheck said the experience is different for every player at the All-Star Game.

"I've only played in two, and they've been extremely special to me. Every time I've been able to go, sharing that with my family is really cool. So those are ... awesome weekends, but something like this is just different," said the New York Rangers center, who played for Team USA. "It's more meaningful. It's more emotional. Stuff like this is what you dream of as a kid. So coming to a tournament like this is something that you'll never forget. You can't match it."

THE NHL PLAYERS deserve credit, having pushed for more best-on-best opportunities since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.

"Whether it's Team Canada, the U.S., Sweden, Finland, the other nations in the future, if there's more playing in these events when you put on your country's uniform, it just means something special," Morrissey said. "It's a different feeling, and you can't replicate that in any other way."

After the success of 4 Nations, everything is on the table. Could the All-Star Game become something that hues a little closer to nation vs. nation? Could those years between the Olympics and World Cup produce more international events, be it a 4 Nations Face-Off or a "summit series" between the U.S. and Canada?

The 4 Nations Face-Off has broadened the possibilities.

"Look to soccer. They have so much international play that gets so much attention. We're not soccer, as far as a global game, but we're not that far behind," Ron Hainsey of the NHLPA said. "That's the long-term goal here ... where fans look forward to these players representing their countries on a regular basis."

Shutting down the regular season for international events isn't without its risks or its critics. The 4 Nations Face-Off saw a handful of injuries, most notably to Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who was hospitalized Monday with an infection in his right shoulder and a significant injury to his AC joint.

"I don't know how the NHL teams feel about it, because guys are going so hard out there and we still have a quarter of the season left," New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes said. "But I think the guys inside the locker room have extreme care for this and are really, really enjoying this."

Canada star Connor McDavid agreed less is more for international tournaments.

"I'm not sure you could do this every single year. It's been pretty taxing. Obviously, we see guys going down and getting hurt." McDavid said. "But it goes to show how much guys care about playing for the country, how much pride they play with while they're wearing the jersey.

"I think with the Olympics and the World Cup, I think we'll get enough."

The World Cup of Hockey returns in 2028, although its final form has yet to be determined. There will be eight teams representing eight nations, without the "melded" teams from 2016 like Team North America and Team Europe. The NHL will not partner with the International Ice Hockey Federation for the World Cup, instead negotiating with other professional leagues themselves in order to populate teams like Germany and Switzerland with players.

There will be a bidding process for host cities, and that process will be open to European locations.

"The Olympics provides a good model for us in terms of how long the break will be for games in Europe," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.

Of course, the biggest issue around the 2026 Olympics and 2028 World Cup is whether Russia will be included, as it remains banned from international play through 2026 by the IIHF because of its invasion of Ukraine.

"I'd love to see our Russian players playing in these tournaments. Again, they're incredible hockey players," Walsh said. "The issues are political and it is not political as far as the NHLPA, it's the world politics that we have to get through and I'm hoping that as we get closer to the Olympics, as we get closer to the World Cup, we will start seeing the Russian athletes back in the competition."

THE 4 NATIONS FACE-OFF showed best-on-best hockey can cross over to the mainstream. But the conditions might not be there to capture lightning in a bottle a second time.

The geopolitical undercurrents to the USA vs. Canada rivalry heightened its passions. The tournament featured the first opportunity for a generation of stars -- McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, the Tkachuk brothers and Auston Matthews, among others -- to represent their countries in a best-on-best event.

And what, exactly, do they do for an encore? Four fights in eight seconds next time?

"The expectations were high. I think the tournament's done a good job of setting that bar and going beyond it," Team USA's Brock Nelson said.

The 4 Nations Face-Off was meant to be the appetizer for the Olympics. Based on its success, the NHL needs to capitalize on the moment.

Like every American hockey player over the past 45 years, the NHL stars on the United States 4 Nations Face-Off roster are obsessed with the Miracle on Ice.

More to the point, they're obsessed with the movie "Miracle," which chronicled that seminal moment in sports history when the U.S. upset the Soviets in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics before eventually winning the gold medal.

After the U.S. beat Canada in Montreal, cameras caught Jack Hughes singing along to Aerosmith's "Dream On," which was featured in the movie. When Matthew Tkachuk declared that Team USA wanted to send a message that "it's our time," it echoed Kurt Russell's epic speech as coach Herb Brooks before playing the Soviets: "This is your time. Their time is done. It's over."

The Miracle on Ice still resonates because it's the greatest moment in U.S. hockey history, precisely because it remains the last time the men's team captured gold. The next four decades featured promising teams and talented players with the potential for Olympic glory, but all fell short of the ultimate goal.

The 2026 Olympic men's hockey team feels like the culmination of those years chasing gold. Generations inspired by the Miracle. NHL expansion into "non-traditional" markets, which created an unprecedented spike in elite talent. The slow, steady domination of Team USA at other levels of hockey -- such as world juniors, where the U.S. has won back-to-back titles.

"Our player pool is second to none. Over the last 20 years, USA Hockey has done a terrific job, with the overall focus on development of players at a young age," U.S. general manager Bill Guerin said last year. "But we're going to have to play the game and find out on the ice."

LAFC fended off Lionel Messi's Inter Miami to retain their status as the most valuable Major League Soccer team for a third consecutive year, according to the annual 2025 list published by business magazine Forbes on Friday.

LAFC were valued at $1.25 billion, up 4% from last year and nearly double the $690 million average value of the league's 29 teams. Expansion club San Diego FC, who begin playing this year, were omitted from the ranking.

Miami, fueled by Messi's impact which has led to record-breaking sponsorships and surging fan engagement since his arrival in July 2023, were second on the list after their value rose 17% to $1.2bn.

According to Forbes, Miami's valuation has doubled since 2022.

During the 2024 MLS campaign, Miami claimed a league-record 74 regular season points and Messi took MVP honors but the team suffered a shock first-round elimination from the playoffs.

Reigning MLS Cup champions LA Galaxy ($1bn), Atlanta United FC ($975m) and New York City FC ($875m) rounded out the top five.

MLS's 30th season kicks off on Saturday.

The highest court in global sport dismissed an appeal by former Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales on Friday after he was banned from any football-related activity for kissing player Jenni Hermoso without her consent at the 2023 Women's World Cup final.

World football governing body FIFA had banned Rubiales in October 2023 for three years, and an appeals committee had also dismissed his appeal in January last year. Rubiales, 47, had the option to appeal the decision before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

However, a CAS panel determined that his behavior at the presentation ceremony "constituted multiple and serious violations of the FIFA Disciplinary Code," adding that it saw no reason to consider the sanction to be disproportionate.

"The appeal sought to set the contested decision aside, or in the alternative to set it partially aside and amend the sanction, or in the further alternative, apply any other disciplinary measures," CAS said in a statement.

"The appeal by Mr Rubiales is dismissed and the contested decision is maintained."

On Thursday, Spain's High Court found Rubiales guilty of sexual assault for kissing Hermoso without her consent and fined him more than 10,000 ($10,454).

The ruling also banned Rubiales, the former president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), from going within a 200-meter radius of Hermoso.