Harry Kane has said he adapted his penalty-taking technique after watching Brazilian forward Neymar and other high-profile spot-kick specialists.

The England captain said he used to go for power and precision but now tries to spot an early move from the goalkeeper before taking a penalty.

"There's quite a few players over the years who have taken penalties like that," the Bayern Munich forward told TNT Sports Brasil.

"I think [some players] pop into my head, [Mario] Balotelli was like this, Neymar was like this. There have been players that wait for the keeper before they hit it. That was never something I used to do, I used to go for more power and precision."

Kane, 31, missed a crucial penalty in England's 2022 World Cup quarterfinal defeat to France, lifting his kick high and wide in the closing stages after converting a spot-kick earlier in the second half.

"When I missed that penalty in the World Cup I felt like there was something that I can change, especially if you take two penalties in a game," he said. "It's something I wanted to try to improve on. Thankfully, it's been good since."

Kane has scored 34 goals in 41 games across all competitions for league leaders Bayern this season.

He is the top scorer in the Bundesliga with 23 goals and has converted all of his nine penalties in the competition.

"I'm always trying to find little ways to get better," he said. "That [penalty taking] is one of them. For sure it's helped my penalties since. I'm obviously on a good run. I just have to keep doing what I'm doing."

Carlos Tevez wants former teammates Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to take part in his farewell game in Buenos Aires.

While a date has not been set, Tevez, who retired from football in 2022 after a successful career in the Premier League and Serie A, has begun to plan for the big day.

In an interview on streaming platform Olga, Tevez said: "Yes, I'm going to do it [farewell game]. I probably will do it. We just have to figure out when. It's not easy."

Asked if Messi and Ronaldo, who have won a combined 13 Ballon d'Ors, would play on different teams in the farewell game, Tevez said: "We'll get them together."

The farewell game is most likely to be played at Boca's home, La Bombonera stadium.

When asked about convincing Ronaldo, the ex-Boca Juniors star said: "I'll go get him myself."

Tevez played together with Messi in Argentina's national team from 2005 until 2015.

Alongside Ronaldo at Manchester United, Tevez won six titles, including two Premier League trophies and one Champions League.

Tevez, 41, says has kept in touch with both football icons.

Since hanging up his boots, Tevez has coached Argentinian sides Rosario Central and Independiente but is now without a club.

André Onana will return to the Manchester United team for their crucial Europa League clash against Lyon, head coach Ruben Amorim has confirmed.

Onana was omitted for the 4-1 defeat to Newcastle United on Sunday after making two errors in the first game against Lyon last week.

But the goalkeeper will return for the second leg at Old Trafford on Thursday, replacing No. 2 Altay Bayindir.

Joshua Zirkzee will miss the game against the Ligue 1 side after being ruled out for the rest of the season with a hamstring injury picked up at St. James' Park.

"Onana will play tomorrow," Amorim said. "I just think first of all as a coach and also as a former player, I try to do things that can help a player in this situation.

"So sometimes we talk about managing players physically, we have to manage them also mentally but they have to return to competition.

"Onana is ready, he had one weekend that I felt it was better for him to not play and a good thing for Altay to play and this week my thinking was to put Onana to play."

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Amorim was also asked whether he could look to sign a new goalkeeper ahead of next season.

"We need to improve every position on the field, goalkeeper is the same," Amorim said.

"We can work with André. Andre Onana already proved he is a top player with Inter. Altay the same with Fenerbahce. We are going to make that evaluation for any position in the squad. You can see my record. My record is the worst in the team. I am also underperforming."

The tie against Lyon is finely balanced after the 2-2 draw in France.

Zirkzee came off the bench to score at Groupama Stadium, but will miss the return fixture after suffering a hamstring problem in the second half against Newcastle.

Amorim confirmed the 23-year-old will not play again this season, leaving Rasmus Hojlund as the only recognised senior striker in the squad.

Hojlund is enduring a difficult campaign with just eight goals in 43 games.

"Joshua is out for the season," Amorim said. "He will not play more this season, let's prepare him for the next one. It is tough for him especially in this moment.

"He is improving in all aspects and it is hard for any player to stop."

Despite languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League table, United could still finish the season with a trophy and a place in next season's Champions League if they win the Europa League.

Victory over Lyon would set up a semifinal against either Athletic Club or Rangers.

Winning the competition would give Amorim a vital boost going into the summer and the Portuguese coach has admitted that playing in the Champions League would change what the club can do in the next transfer window.

"It is more about the budget," he said. "That is important when you are planning the next season. Champions League can change everything. You can see it both ways. If you have Champions League it is going to be tough to play against top teams on Wednesday and then top teams in the Premier League.

"We are in the moment when the team needs a lot of work, that means a lot of time to train. We want to win the title, that is the most important thing. If you don't have Champions League you have full weeks to rebuild the team."

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah will surely walk away with both glittering prizes for being the top player in the 2024-25 Premier League season. But are there are other serious contenders?

You can expect Salah, currently top of the charts with 27 league goals and 18 assists through 32 games, to collect the PFA Player of the Year award (as voted for by his fellow professionals), and also the historic Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year trophy (awarded by the nation's football writers and first won by the legendary Stanley Matthews in 1948.)

Perhaps things can change in the last month of the season when the trophies are handed out, but in truth, it's been an entertaining, up-and-down season in which only a chosen few have consistently sprinkled stardust on proceedings. Chelsea forward Cole Palmer, for instance, started the season sensationally, but suffered a dip in form after Christmas.

So here goes with my short list of the season's star players:

1. Mohamed Salah, FW, Liverpool

Quicksilver reactions and scoring instincts have been Salah's hallmark and he has often produced match-winning or -saving moments just when his team needed him to. He has 32 goals and 23 assists in all competitions (46 games), and now that his contract has been extended another two years, the mood at Anfield is buoyant to say the least. The Egypt international turns 33 in the summer, but seems to still be in mint condition. It'll be a treat for us to see what he can do next year and beyond.

2. Alexander Isak, FW, Newcastle United

Balletic and deadly, the 24-goal Sweden international has been almost unstoppable at times and fittingly scored a superb goal at Wembley as Newcastle lifted their first domestic trophy in 70 years when they won the Carabao Cup against Liverpool. His transfer cost 63 million from Real Sociedad in 2022 and would be worth at least double that now. Isak would be a target for most top European clubs if he became available, which is why it's important for Newcastle to offer him Champions League football next season.

3. Nikola Milenkovic, DF, Nottingham Forest

His transfer from Fiorentina only cost around 12m in the summer of 2024, but he has proven to be a key component in the Forest success story. He and young Brazil international Murillo have been the rocks on which opposition attacks founder, sparking the swift counterattacks which have helped to lift the unsung outsiders into a dizzy third place in the table. Others like prolific striker Chris Wood and playmaker Morgan Gibbs-White could easily have made this list, but Milenkovic has been monumental.

4. Morgan Rogers, MF, Aston Villa

Once a part of Manchester City's academy, but unable to break into the first team, Rogers has blossomed into a dynamic attacking midfield player who is never happier than when running dangerously at the heart of anxious defenses. One of the great bargains of recent years, his transfer cost an initial 8m from Middlesbrough at the end of the 2024 winter window and he has delivered 14 goals and 10 assists in 46 games (all competitions) as Villa have stormed into the last eight of the Champions League and reached the FA Cup semifinals. He is very much part of the England scene as well now.

5. Milos Kerkez, DF, Bournemouth

Kerkez's raids from left-back have been a trademark of Bournemouth's fine season. The Cherries signed him from AZ Alkmaar in 2023, when Richard Hughes was doing the recruiting, and Hughes is now at Liverpool, so there would be no surprise if the excellent Hungary international turned up at Anfield next season in a 45m deal.

6. Virgil van Dijk, DF, Liverpool

He had a rare off-day in the recent defeat at Fulham, but the Liverpool captain has been the best defender in the Premier League for a few years now and that has not changed at age of 33. He looks in cruise control on the field and is a fine ambassador off it. Liverpool have never invested 75m better than when they brought in the Netherlands international from Southampton in January 2018.

7. Carlos Baleba, MF, Brighton

The highly impressive 21-year-old Cameroon international is the latest midfield powerhouse to emerge at Brighton and rarely misses a game. Like Alexis Mac Allister, Moisés Caicedo and Yves Bissouma before him, his transfer will represent a sizable profit when he eventually leaves as he arrived from Lille for just 23.2m in 2023. He could be a summer target for some heavy hitters higher up the league table.

8. Myles Lewis-Skelly, DF/MF, Arsenal

Nobody outside Arsenal had heard of him a few months ago and those who had saw him play mostly as a central midfielder. Now the 18-year-old academy graduate is a fixture for his club and looks like he might be England's left-back for the next decade. Like midfielder Ethan Nwaneri, who has also had a breakout season for the Gunners, Lewis-Skelly has been a revelation and could end up following in the footsteps of Ashley Cole.

9. Ryan Gravenberch, MF, Liverpool

On the fringes of the Liverpool team under Jurgen Klopp last season, the Netherlands international had been an attacking midfielder when he moved from Ajax for 34.3m in 2023, but has made himself indispensable in the deep-lying No. 6 role at Anfield under Arne Slot. He has been the complete package this campaign, breaking up opposition attacks and finding progressive passes to get his side moving forward.

10. Dan Burn, DF, Newcastle

One of the best stories of the season, Burn was stacking supermarket shelves and playing non-league football for Darlington in 2011, but he battled his way up the pyramid and moved to Fulham, then Wigan and Brighton, before landing at Newcastle for 13m in 2022. The 6-foot-7 defender was usually positioned at centre-back but converted to left-back and scored a classic header in Newcastle's Carabao Cup triumph last month (to end the club's 70-year wait for a domestic trophy) and won his first England cap a few days later. He gets in this top 10 on that basis alone.

Also in consideration:

Bruno Fernandes (MF, Man United)
Marco Asensio (MF, Aston Villa, on loan from Real Madrid)
Youri Tielemans (MF, Aston Villa)
Chris Wood (FW, Nottingham Forest)
Morgan Gibbs-White (MF, Nottingham Forest)
Matz Sels (GK, Nottingham Forest)
Ola Aina (DF, Nottingham Forest)
Moises Caicedo (MF, Chelsea)
Cole Palmer (FW, Chelsea)
Liam Delap (FW, Ipswich)
Jean-Philippe Mateta (FW, Crystal Palace)
Antonee Robinson (DF, Fulham)
Bruno Guimarães (MF, Newcastle United)
Jordan Pickford (GK, Everton)
Bryan Mbeumo (FW, Brentford)
Mikkel Damsgaard (MF, Brentford)
Christian Norgaard (MF, Brentford)

Fresh off winning the national championship, Florida sophomore Alex Condon told ESPN that he will enter the 2025 NBA draft while maintaining his NCAA eligibility.

"This was a surreal season," Condon said Wednesday. "There was so much depth on this team, and we all played unselfishly. A lot of guys stepped up in big moments. We had a great team, and that's the reason we won the championship."

Condon, the No. 29 prospect in ESPN's NBA draft projections, was named third-team All-SEC after averaging 10.6 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.3 blocks in 24.9 minutes per game.

He helped Florida to a 36-4 record, including 12 straight wins to end the season to both secure the SEC tournament title and cut down the nets in San Antonio. He had a memorable performance in what might be the final game of his college career, posting 12 points, seven rebounds and four steals in a win over Houston, diving on the floor for a loose ball in the final seconds to seal the 65-63 victory.

"That was a crazy play," Condon said. "Walt [Clayton Jr.] did a great job of getting out on [Emanuel] Sharp to deny his 3-pointer. The whole stadium paused because no one knew what was happening. I saw a Houston player running over to try and make a play to win it, so I did what I do best. Dive on the floor and get it back to Walt until time ran out. It was all based on instincts."

The Perth, Australia-born big man was an afterthought in Florida's 2024 high school recruiting class, a late bloomer who started playing serious organized basketball at the age of 16. Prior to that, he favored cricket, water polo and especially Australian Rules Football.

"My parents put me in a lot of sports," Condon said. "That was good for developing my hand-eye coordination. Playing football helped me develop my toughness. I didn't come to Florida with too many expectations. The coaching staff bet on me, and I wanted to reward them by playing as hard as I could. Coach [Todd] Golden gave me the opportunity to play as a freshman, which helped my transition to this year, where I played with more confidence and became an important part of the team."

Condon carved out a real role as a freshman, but he emerged as arguably Florida's most important player as a sophomore, a significant conduit in its continuity ball-screen offense with his ability to be a playmaker out of dribble handoffs, allowing them to invert the offense and put multiple big men on the floor. While he didn't always post huge scoring numbers, his strong feel for the game was evident with the way he passes and plugs gaps defensively off the ball, while his nonstop intensity running the floor and crashing the offensive glass set the tone for teammates.

"We play through the bigs at Florida," Condon said. "My job is to get the ball to our guards and then crush the glass. My defense is NBA-ready. I already know how to switch ball-screens and stay in front of smaller guards, which you need to do in the NBA. I still have a lot of room for improvement, especially offensively. Most guys have been playing a lot longer than me. The next thing I need to tap into is my shooting. I shoot very well in drills but need to transfer that to games. If I come back to school, I will shoot it with more confidence."

Condon has until May 28 to decide whether to withdraw his name from the draft. Should he remove his name at the deadline, he says he will return to Florida next season.

"There's no way I could go to any other school," Condon said. "If I have confirmation from NBA teams that I'm in the 15-30 range, if something is guaranteed, I will consider keeping my name in. I have a great situation at Florida. It would have to be something pretty special, my family would have to agree that we can't turn that down."

The NBA draft combine will be held in Chicago from May 11-18.

Jonathan Givony is an NBA draft expert and the founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service used by NBA, NCAA and international teams.

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration said Wednesday it is suing Maine's education department for not complying with the government's push to ban transgender athletes in girls' sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education based on sex.

The lawsuit follows weeks of feuding between the Republican administration and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills that has led to threats to cut off crucial federal funding and a clash at the White House when she told the president: "We'll see you in court."

"We are going to continue to fight for women," Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a news conference alongside former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has emerged as a public face of the opposition to transgender athletes.

Trump's departments of Education and Health and Human Services have said the Maine agency is violating the federal Title IX antidiscrimination law by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls' teams.

The lawsuit reflects a stark philosophical turnabout from the position on gender identity issues taken during Democratic administrations.

Under President Joe Biden, the government tried to extend civil rights policies to protect transgender people. In 2016, the Justice Department, then led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, sued North Carolina over a law that required transgender people to use public restrooms and showers that corresponded the gender on their birth certificate.

Maine officials have refused to agree with a settlement that would have banned transgender students from sports, arguing that the law does not prevent schools from letting transgender athletes participate.

Trump signed an executive order in February, "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," that gave federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with his administration's interpretation of "sex" as the gender someone was assigned at birth.

Trump was joined at the signing of that order by Gaines and other female athletes who were in support of a ban. Gaines tied with a transgender athlete for fifth place in a 2022 NCAA championship and has testified before lawmakers across the country on the issue. She and others frame the issue as women's rights.

During a February meeting with governors, Trump threatened to pull federal funding from Maine if the state did not comply with his executive order. Mills responded: "We'll see you in court."

Maine sued the administration this month after the Department of Agriculture said it was pausing some money for the state's educational programs because of what the administration contended was Maine's failure to comply with the Title IX law. A federal judge on Friday ordered the administration to unfreeze funds intended for a Maine child nutrition program.

Sarah Foster, Maine's assistant attorney general, said last week in a letter to the Education Department that nothing in the law "prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls' and women's sports teams."

Questions over the rights of transgender people have become a major political issue in the past five years.

Twenty-six states have laws or policies barring transgender girls from girls' school sports. GOP-controlled states have also been banning gender-affirming health care for transgender minors and restricting bathroom use in schools and sometimes other public buildings.

In his 2024 race, Trump campaigned against the participation of transgender athletes in sports. As president, he has signed executive orders to do that and to use a rigid definition of the sexes, rather than gender, for federal government purposes. The orders are being challenged in court.

Athletes Unlimited Softball League named Kim Ng as its commissioner Wednesday, entrusting the league's expansion this summer and beyond to the trailblazing baseball executive who was the first female general manager in a major men's North American sport.

Ng, 56, who ran baseball operations for the Miami Marlins from 2020 to 2023, had served as a senior adviser to the league as it prepares for a four-team, 10-city, 24-game tour that will serve as a test run for its move next year to six teams in permanent locations.

"I love this sport," Ng told ESPN. "I grew up playing softball. From middle school on, I played softball, played in college and have, at some points in my career, worked to try and help strengthen the game. Have always kept my eye on it from afar, as I was in baseball, pursuing other things. But it's been a big part of my life. I have four sisters. Three of us played in college, so it's been a big part of our lives.

"When you talk about this, I think it's part of a movement. I think we're in the middle of this transcendence of women's professional sports, now a part of the mainstream conversation. And that's exciting to me."

While past attempts at professional softball leagues have failed, Athletes Unlimited has for five years run annual softball events out of Rosemont, Illinois, in which players accumulate points in games and the one with the most wins the event. Following the AUSL season, Athletes Unlimited -- which also runs women's basketball and volleyball competitions -- will hold the AUSL All-Star Cup, 24 more games in Illinois and North Carolina to crown another individual champion.

In Ng, the league has tabbed a seasoned executive who spent more than 30 years in the Major League Baseball ecosystem, ascending from intern with the Chicago White Sox to assistant general manager with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers to a senior vice president role at MLB before her time with the Marlins.

After taking over a Miami team that made the postseason in 2020, the Marlins lost 90-plus games in consecutive seasons. Following a surprise playoff run in 2023, Marlins owner Bruce Sherman sought to hire a president of baseball operations above Ng. She left the organization, which has rebuilt since Ng's departure, went 62-100 last year and has started this season a surprising 8-8.

Running a league, Ng acknowledged, is different than running a team. But with AUSL's stated intention to involve players in the decision-making processes and the entire league owned by one group, Ng's role is different than that of her former employer.

"When I hear the word commissioner, it just means leadership," she said. "And I think being at Major League Baseball really helped me to understand the commissioner's office and the services that they provide. It's not just to understand what the clubs need, but you have to lead as well."

Doing so, Ng said, means focusing on stability over growth, and the hope is that the response in each of the 10 cities on the schedule will lead to it. AUSL's season will start June 7 in Rosemont (Talons vs. Bandits) and Wichita, Kansas (Volts vs. Blaze), the two cities in which it will play the most games over the season. Other cities on the schedule include Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which will host the championship series July 26-28, as well as Sulphur, Louisiana; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Norman, Oklahoma; Omaha, Nebraska; Seattle; Salt Lake City; and Round Rock, Texas.

Ng said the league plans to lean on social media to boost its profile. In a video posted Sunday, Virginia Tech right-hander Emma Lemley was presented with a "golden ticket," an indication she had been among the dozen college players selected in the draft. The AUSL plans to hand out more golden tickets in the coming weeks, culminating in ESPNU broadcasting the "AUSL College Draft Show" on May 3.

"The reality is we need to reach more people," said Jon Patricof, the co-founder of Athletes Unlimited. "We need to get the product in front of more people. We need to expand the presence of the sport."

Beyond the media efforts, the AUSL is bringing together some of the sport's biggest names. The four general managers are Cat Osterman (Volts), Lisa Fernandez (Talons), Dana Sorensen (Blaze) and Jenny Dalton-Hill (Bandits). Advisers to the league include Jennie Finch and ESPN analyst Jessica Mendoza.

Softball will get an even greater spotlight in three years as well with its Olympic return at the Los Angeles Games.

"There are all these dots out there that I think just need to be connected in a smart, thoughtful way," Ng said. "If we can do that, we're still a few years away from '28, but if we can do that and make some good moves, hopefully we take gold back in '28, and that's another springboard for the sport."

Ng did not suggest how long she intended to remain commissioner, saying: "I'm not looking at it in terms of time. I want to make sure that this launch goes well, and I want to get us up running and in a good, positive direction." But Patricof spoke of Ng as if he saw her as an integral piece of AUSL's future.

"A very important part of getting things right is who you put in charge, and attracting the best caliber of talent not only on but off the field is essential," he said. "Kim sets the bar. 'A' talent attracts 'A' talent.

"She has been able to align the sport in a very powerful way. I will say one thing that really stands out is there have been people involved in the sport at the college level who have sat on the sidelines in pro softball. Kim has helped bring them into the league and into the sport. That's a major differentiator. We have all the greats aligned, past and present."

THE WORLD IS loud and fast and demanding, and to combat this, Paul Skenes forages for silence. He relishes the moments where the chaos gives way to blissful nothingness, just him and dead air. Right now, they are fewer and farther between than they've ever been in the past decade -- a decade spent working toward this moment, when he is arguably the best pitcher in the world and inarguably the most internet-famous, which is the sort of thing that tends to put a damper on his quest for quiet.

"You can't master the noise until you master the silence," Skenes says. A coach told him that this offseason, and it spoke to Skenes, whose mastery of his first season in Major League Baseball -- and a two-month stretch in which he went from top prospect to All-Star Game starting pitcher -- set him on a path that only upped his daily dose of cacophony. He had been enjoying partaking in sound-free workouts, a far cry from the weightlifting sessions in Pittsburgh's weight room -- a petri dish of decibels and testosterone, suffused with grunts and clanks, ringed with TVs whose visual clamor complements the music thumping out of speakers, a lizard-brained heavenscape.

As fast as Skenes throws a baseball -- last summer, it was a half-mile per hour faster than any starter in the game's century-and-a-half-long history -- he thinks slowly, methodically. There are things he wants to do -- real, substantive things. He seeks silence because in it he finds clarity. About how to extract the very best from his gilded right arm -- but also about who he is and who he aspires to be.

"The times that I'll figure stuff out is when I'm just sitting and not doing anything," Skenes says. "I'll figure some stuff out, on the mound or talking to people, but there will be times where I'm just sitting or lying in bed or something like that. Silence. And there's nothing else to do but think. I wonder -- and I'm not comparing myself to him by any stretch -- but Newton discovered gravity because he was sitting under a tree and an apple fell. You figure stuff out because you're sitting in silence. Compartmentalizing stuff, thinking about the game, doing a debrief of myself. That's how I'll get pitch grips. Just sitting around and imagining the feel of the baseball and like, oh, I'm going to try that. It works or it doesn't work. If you do that enough, you're going to figure stuff out."

The irony of this exercise is that the more Skenes figures out on the mound, the shriller his world will get. As Skenes embarks on his first full season in MLB, he's learning what comes with the commodification of an athlete. Alongside the demand for peak performance come requests for his time and his autograph, pictures taken by gawking fans and GQ photographers. He is pitcher and pitchman. His teammates sometimes wonder whether it's too much too soon -- when they're not needling him for it.

"You guys doing an interview about our savior?" one said this spring as a reporter queried two others about Skenes. They were, in fact, though the 22-year-old Skenes is far more than just the player Pittsburgh is praying can liberate its woebegone baseball franchise from the dregs of the sport. He is a generational pitcher for a generation that doesn't pitch like all the previous ones -- but he is also still just a kid trying to navigate his way through a universe not built for him. He is happy to forgo the convenience of an apartment adjacent to the stadium for a soundless drive to the suburbs that feels almost meditative. He can ponder the questions he would like to answer -- not the ones proffered by others. For instance: In this life so antithetical to the one he thought he would be living, who, exactly, is he?

"It's funny," Skenes says. "When you start thinking about stuff like this, you find that you don't know a whole lot more than you thought while also learning about yourself. I know myself a lot better -- and, in some ways, a lot less."

IN JANUARY 2023 -- six months after he'd left the only place he ever wanted to go, seven months before he started a career he never imagined he'd have -- Skenes was chatting with LSU baseball coach Wes Johnson about the year ahead. The previous summer, he had transferred to the SEC power from the Air Force Academy, where he had played catcher and pitched. For all of Skenes' power as a hitter, Johnson wasn't interested in grooming another Shohei Ohtani. This was big-time college baseball, and after a fall semester that for Skenes consisted of online courses and eight or nine hours a day of training for baseball, Johnson, the former pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins, understood before most the implications of Skenes' move.

"For the next two to three years, you will have a new normal every single day," Johnson said.

Growing up, there were no conversations about the pressures of major league stardom in Skenes' household. His father, Craig, was a biochemistry major who works in the eye-medication industry and topped out in JV baseball. His mother, Karen, teaches AP chemistry and was in the marching band. Skenes was not allowed to touch a baseball after school until he finished his homework.

"It was never the big leagues really," Skenes says. "It was 'be a good person, do your homework, go to church' and all that. There's nothing in my family that says that, yeah, this guy was born to be a big leaguer."

Skenes' parents told him to find what he loved and work really hard at it, which had led him to the Air Force. Skenes found comfort in the academy's structure and rigor; the academy embodied his values of discipline and routine and responsibility. Skenes wanted to fly fighter jets and took deep pride in being an airman. That's why Skenes cried when he decided, at the behest of his coaches, to leave for LSU after his sophomore year: He'd found what he'd loved and worked really hard at it and gotten it, only for something else to find him and cajole him away.

A big SEC school didn't feel like Skenes' speed -- not the random public approaches, not the fanfare, not the Geaux Tigers of it all -- but he understood why he needed to be there. He is a nerd who happened to stand 6-foot-6, weigh 260 pounds and throw a baseball with more skill than anyone in the country, and to turtle from that would be wasteful. The Air Force years had prepared him for the transition, and he ingratiated himself in Baton Rouge with a Sahara-dry sense of humor. Skenes would regularly walk around the clubhouse, stop at each teammate's locker and rib him: "I worked harder than you today." It was in jest, but it was also the truth, and when teammate Cade Beloso recounted the practice to ESPN's broadcast team during LSU's run to a College World Series title in 2023, Skenes recalls, "I'm like, dude, everybody thinks I'm a douche now. So there is still some of that. I still am that way, just not with everybody."

He grappled with his identity at LSU, a California kid dropped into the bayou and forced to find his way. Meeting Livvy Dunne only compounded his need to adapt. An LSU gymnast with an innate talent for making social media content that bewitched Gen Z, Dunne was introduced to Skenes by mutual friends and she was immediately smitten. If LSU raised a magnifying glass over Skenes' life and career -- he'd gone from a fringe first-round pick to the top of draft boards on the strength of a junior season in which he struck out 209 in 122 innings -- Dunne brought the Hubble telescope. He didn't even have Instagram or TikTok on his phone.

"I'm not perfect by any means, but I think that you can get yourself in trouble really quickly now because if you do anything, someone's filming it," Skenes says. "It takes a whole lot more energy to go out anywhere and pretend to be someone else than it does to go out and just be yourself. If being yourself doesn't get you in trouble, then great. So that's kind of the life that I think I was geared to live just based on the whole path coming up.

"I don't think anything's really changed. When I look at famous people or celebrities, I see a lot of the time people that do whatever they can because they think they can do whatever they can. Why is that? We're all people. What has gotten you there? What has gotten you to being famous, to being a movie star? Whatever it is, you're very good at what you do. So why change? I respect the people that don't change a whole lot more than the other people that are, 'Hey, I'm a celebrity.'"

Going with the first overall pick tested his willingness to stand by that ethos. Every pitch he threw invited more eyeballs, his rapid ascent to Pittsburgh an inevitability. The Pirates are a proud franchise hamstrung by an owner, Bob Nutting, fundamentally opposed to using his wealth to bridge the game's inherent inequity. Skenes was their golden ticket, the best pitching prospect in more than a decade, and the excitement for his arrival at LSU paled compared to what greeted him May 11, when the Pirates summoned him to the big leagues. He was Pittsburgh's, yes, but everyone in the baseball ecosystem wanted a piece of Skenes.

Over the next two months and 11 starts, he so thoroughly dominated hitters that he earned the start for the National League in the All-Star Game. His only inning included showdowns with Juan Soto (a seven-pitch walk that ended on a 100 mph fastball painted on the inside corner but not called a strike) and Aaron Judge (a first-pitch groundout on a 99 mph challenge fastball). He rushed home to spend the rest of the break with Dunne and settle back into a life he was learning to enjoy.

Skenes' first season could not have gone much better. He threw 133 innings, struck out more than five hitters for every one he walked and posted a 1.96 ERA. The last rookie to start at least 20 games with a sub-2.00 ERA was Scott Perry in 1918, the tail end of the dead ball era. When Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. announced Skenes as NL Rookie of the Year winner, Dunne broke into a wide smile and rejoiced as Skenes sat stone-faced before mustering a toothless grin. Memelords pounced instantaneously and Skenes was immortalized as the picture of utter disinterest.

Which is fine by him. He was proud, but pride can manifest itself in manifold ways, and if LSU and his first big league season taught Skenes anything, it's that he is not beholden to external whims and expectations. He's going to figure out who he is his way. And that starts with seeking out the people whose opinions do matter to him.

IN THE FIRST inning of a July game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Skenes left the Pirates' dugout and beelined into the bowels of Chase Field. Randy Johnson had just been inducted as an inaugural member of the Diamondbacks Hall of Fame, and Skenes was not going to miss the opportunity to shake his hand and pick his brain.

For someone as polished and proficient as Skenes, he remains fundamentally curious. However exceptional his aptitude to pitch might be, he's still enough of a neophyte that he's got oodles to absorb, and he's humble enough to know what he doesn't know. Skenes is not shy about trying to learn, and over the past year he has sought advice from a wide array of players whose careers he would love to emulate.

Johnson's would have ended 20 years earlier than his 2009 retirement had he not done the same. Like Skenes, he was an otherworldly talent. Unlike Skenes, he needed almost a decade to tame it. Johnson didn't find success until Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton, as well as pitching guru Tom House, advised him. So he was glad to talk with Skenes and try to offer a sliver of the assistance he'd been afforded. First, though, he had a question.

"It all depends on what you're looking for," Johnson said. "Are you looking for a good game, a good season or a good career?"

Skenes' answer was a no-brainer: a good career. The no-selling of his Rookie of the Year win is a perfect example. It's an award. It's nice. It's also the reflection of a single great season among the many more he anticipates having. For Skenes, the goal is game-to-game excellence and longevity, the hallmarks of true greatness. Johnson fears that the modern usage of starting pitchers inhibits players' ability to marry the two.

Over the past 25 years, the number of 100-plus-pitch games in MLB has dipped from 2,391 to 635 last season. There were 1,297 starts of 110 or more pitches in 2000 and 33 last year. Skenes -- and Johnson -- believe some of today's starting pitchers are capable of more. For a pitcher like Skenes to be limited by strictures based more in fear of injury than data that supports their implementation gnaws at Johnson, who regularly ran up high pitch counts before retiring at 46.

The second a career begins, Johnson told Skenes, it is marching toward its end, and the truly special players use the time in between to defy expectations and limitations. If Skenes is as good as everyone believes -- "He's where I'm at six or seven years after I found my mechanics," Johnson says -- then he will either convince the Pirates to remove the restrictor plate or eventually find a team that will. Which is why Johnson's ultimate advice to him was simple: "This is your career."

"It will be a mental mission for him," Johnson says. "I understood throughout the course of my career that if I can talk myself through a game, I will realize my mission. I trained myself to put me in those positions for success, get me through that. I know the pitchers can do these things I talk about, but they're not allowed to. And that, to me, is mind-boggling. It makes no sense to me. You're not going to see a pitcher grow mentally or physically if you take him out of situations."

Longevity was on the mind of another subject from whom Skenes sought advice. When the Pirates went to New York last year, Skenes met with Gerrit Cole in the outfield at Yankee Stadium. Cole is perhaps the best modern analog for Skenes: born and raised in Southern California, big-bodied hard thrower. Both went to college and then were drafted No. 1 by the Pirates; both are thoughtful, diligent, dedicated. Amid the de-emphasis of starting pitching, Cole blossomed into the exception, a head-of-the-rotation stalwart on a Hall of Fame track who made at least 30 starts in seven seasons before undergoing season-ending elbow surgery this spring.

Unlike Johnson, who is now 61, Cole speaks the language of a modern pitcher. He is fluent in Trackman data, the benefit of good sleep habits and the influence diet can have on success.

"In the true pursuit of maximum human performance, these tools are providing an avenue for people to achieve that quicker," Cole said earlier this month. "With the avenue out there to reach those maximum potentials quicker, the industry demands -- the teams demand -- almost a higher level of performance and, to a certain extent, an unsustainable level of performance. We've used the technology to maximize human performance. We haven't used the technology quite well enough to maximize human sustainability."

Cole is acutely aware of this. After more than 2,000 innings and 339 career starts, his right elbow blew out during spring training and will sideline him for the remainder of 2025. The correlation between fastball velocity and higher risk of arm injuries is established to the point that most in the industry regard it as causative. Johnson was the exception, not the rule, and Skenes knows enough math to know the fool's errand of banking on outlier outcomes.

"My focus is on volume and durability," Cole continued. "In order to give myself a chance to pitch for a long time to pitch for championship-contending teams, I have to be healthy. There's a lot of incentives -- as a competitor, financial -- to make durability and sustainability the main goal.

"Skenes has the foundation to match that -- and exceed it. He's got more horsepower than me. He's asking better questions early -- questions about diet and sleep. He's asking questions about mechanics. He's tracking his throws. He has his own process with people that he surrounds himself with that are not only looking out for his performance right now but his performance long term. That's important for guys to have advocates in their corner, not looking out just for this year. It's really tough to find the right people."

With Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer on the precipice of retirement, and Cole and Zack Wheeler in their mid-30s, a baton-passing is afoot. Because Skenes is best positioned to be the one grabbing it, Cole says, his advice runs the gamut. They spoke about pitching game theory, and Cole pointed out that the approach of Verlander, with whom he was teammates in Houston, runs counter to the max-effort philosophies espoused by starters who know that regardless of their ability to go deep into games, they're not throwing much more than 100 pitches anyway.

Piece by piece, Skenes learns from those who have been what he intends to be. Pitchers, old and young, fill in some blanks, but he looks beyond the players who share his craft, too. He plans to spend more time talking with Corbin Carroll, the Diamondbacks' star outfielder he met on a Zoom call for a rookie-immersion program, and ask him: "What do you have that I need?" He reads books like "Relentless" and "Winning" by Michael Jordan's longtime trainer, Tim Grover, and "Talent Is Overrated," which has particular appeal for someone whose talent didn't manage to attract draft interest from a single team out of high school despite playing in arguably the most talent-rich area in America.

"I don't know if I'm going to get anything out of talking to anybody," Skenes says, but at the same time he sees no harm in asking. Considering how much the game asks him to give, he's owed a rebalancing.

THE FIRST TIME Toronto Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt met Skenes, he introduced himself with a proposition: "I'm gonna nominate you for the union board."

The executive subcommittee of the Major League Baseball Players Association consists of eight players who help guide the union, particularly during collective bargaining. And with the current basic agreement set to expire following the 2026 season, labor discord has left people across the sport fearful of an extended work stoppage. The board is expected to wield even more power in the next round of negotiations, so the eight members are paramount in helping shape the game's future.

Bassitt knew Skenes by reputation: that he was thoughtful, even-tempered, judicious -- the kind of guy whose poker face on the mound would translate into a board room. He knows, too, the history of the union, that it's at its strongest when the game's most influential players serve as voices during the bargaining process. With the encouragement of veteran starter Nick Pivetta and former executive board head Andrew Miller, Skenes accepted his nomination and became the youngest player ever selected to the executive subcommittee.

"If we're thinking about the future of the game," Skenes says, "I think it'd be stupid to not have someone at least my age in there."

Labor work is taxing. The game's best players today often avoid the hassle. It did not have to be Skenes. But he harkened back to his years at the Air Force Academy in which cadets are taught the PITO model of leadership: personal, interpersonal, team and organization. In their first year, they focus on personal responsibility. Year 2 calls for them to take responsibility for another cadet. Skenes left before experiencing of team and organizational leadership at the academy, but the principles he learned apply enough that he felt a duty to serve as a voice for more than 1,200 other big leaguers, even if his service time pales compared to many of theirs.

The union and its rank and file are far from the only ones in the baseball world leaning on Skenes. MLB has struggled for years to create stars, and Skenes entered the big leagues with a Q score higher than 99% of players. Dunne's presence alone invites a younger generation reared on the idea that baseball is boring to reconsider. Going forward, every marketing campaign MLB launches is almost guaranteed to include four players. One plays in Los Angeles (Ohtani). Two are in New York (Judge and Soto). The fourth resides in Pittsburgh.

More than anyone, the Pirates and their forlorn fan base regard Skenes as the fulcrum of their rebirth. They last won a division championship in 1992, when Barry Bonds still wore black and yellow. Their most recent playoff appearance was 2015, the last of three consecutive seasons with a wild-card spot (and losing the single game) when Cole was pitching for the franchise. Since then, they've finished fourth or fifth in the National League Central the past eight years and currently occupy the basement.

Nutting's frugality hamstrings the Pirates perpetually. Never have they carried a nine-figure payroll. (This year's on Opening Day: $91.3 million.) Since he bought the team in 2007, it has been in the bottom five 14 of 18 seasons. The Pirates' revenues, according to Forbes, are almost identical to those of the Arizona Diamondbacks (2025 Opening Day payroll: $188.5 million), Minnesota Twins ($147.4 million), Kansas City Royals ($131.6 million), Washington Nationals ($115.6 million) and Cincinnati Reds ($114.5 million). Other owners privately peg Nutting as among the game's worst.

Which only reinforces the fear among Pirates fans that Skenes is bound to follow Cole out the door via trade within a few years of his debut, lest the team lose him following the 2030 season to free agency. Rooting for the Pirates is among the cruelest fates in sports, with the combination of unserious owner and revenue disparities leaving general manager Ben Cherington to crank up a player-development machine in hopes of competing. Their free agent signings this winter were longtime Pirate Andrew McCutchen, left-hander Andrew Heaney, outfielder Tommy Pham, second baseman Adam Frazier and left-handed relievers Caleb Ferguson and Tim Mayza, all on one-year deals totaling $19.95 million. The last multiyear free agent contract Nutting handed out was to Ivan Nova in 2016.

"We're going to create it from within the locker room, and it's not going to be an ownership thing," Skenes says. "Having a group of fans that are putting some pressure on the ownership and Ben and all that -- it's not a bad thing, but we have to go out there and do it. I kind of feel like we owe it to the city."

Skenes never had been to Pittsburgh before he was drafted. "I do love it," he said, and those who know him confirm Skenes' sincerity. He wants nothing more at this point in his career than for his roommate and close friend Jared Jones, who's on the injured list with elbow issues, to get healthy, and for Bubba Chandler, the Triple-A right-hander who's topping out at 102 mph, to arrive, and for the Pirates' farm system to churn out position players as regularly as it does pitchers. A couple more bats, a few relief arms, a free agent signing that's more than a short-term plug and you can squint and see a contender.

So much is out of Skenes' control, though. All he can do is be the best version of himself. And bit by bit, he's figuring out what that looks like.

SKENES IS ALWAYS looking for new ways to occupy himself when he's away from the mound. In the back of his truck lays a compound bow. He shot it all of four times before abandoning it. In his bedroom sits a guitar gathering dust, $200 down the drain. He's getting into golf these days, but he's not sure it's going to last.

"I get bored easily," Skenes says. "I had a coach tell me that, and I was like, 'I don't think so. I think you're wrong.' And I've been thinking about that lately, and I think he's right, because I've tried plenty of different hobbies and none of them have stuck."

Similarly, Skenes wonders if the places his mind goes during his periods of silence are a function of boredom with baseball. "Not in a bad way," he clarifies, but in the manner that behooves a player -- that "there's always something to be better at."

In his most recent start Monday -- a typical Skenes outing in which he allowed one earned run, struck out six and didn't walk anyone over six innings -- he threw six pitches: four-seam fastball, splinker, slider, sweeper, changeup, and curveball and splinker, the hybrid sinker-splitter he throws in the mid-90s to devastating effect. He toyed around with a cutter and two-seam fastball during spring training and could break them out at any moment. He waited until the fourth or fifth week of his season at LSU to unleash his curveball.

"I absolutely don't believe that just because it's the season, all right, this is what you got," he says. "There's no difference between spring training and the regular season in terms of getting better every day."

This is his career, Skenes says, echoing Johnson, and he's learning that he must wrangle control of it. He needs to chat with others who are what he wants to be, and he needs to find the silence to find himself, and he needs to set stratospheric expectations. Of all the aphorisms Skenes repeats, his favorite might be one he read in a book: "How you do anything is how you do everything."

"There's no option to not do the work that I need to do," Skenes says. "... If I didn't want to get in the cold tub a couple years ago or whatever it is, I wouldn't. Now I do know whether I want to do it or not, it's a nonnegotiable."

If he keeps doing the work, Skenes believes, everything is there for the taking. The wins will come, and the success will follow, and the search for advice will give way to the dispensing of it. In the same way his training at the Air Force Academy readied him to handle the pressure cooker at LSU, it's likewise destined to propel him into a role as leader and elder statesman in baseball.

For now, though, Skenes is trying to focus on today, tomorrow, this week. Even if the clock on his career is ticking, the hour hand has barely moved, and he doesn't want this charmed life to fly by without taking the time to appreciate it. Earlier this spring, Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin asked Skenes: "What motivates you?"

Skenes considered the question and gave variations on the same answer: winning and getting better every day. Winning a baseball game is in his hands once every fifth day. But those are not the only wins within his control. Hard work is a win. Learning is a win. Leading is a win. Growing is a win. And in a life that's only getting louder and faster and more demanding, silence is the sort of win that will help remind him who he is.

With a combination of results on Tuesday, the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues clinched the two wild-card spots in the Western Conference, eliminating the Calgary Flames from postseason contention.

On the other side of the continent, the Columbus Blue Jackets won in regulation against the Philadelphia Flyers, keeping their slim chances intact. Will Wednesday see the clinching of team No. 16 in the playoff field, or will Thursday's games be the determinant?

Carolina Hurricanes at Montreal Canadiens
7 p.m. (ESPN+)

This is the most important game of the night by a considerable margin. With a win of any variety, or a loss in overtime/shootout, the Canadiens clinch the second Eastern wild-card spot. The only thing that keeps the Blue Jackets' hopes intact is a regulation loss for Montreal. It's unclear what type of roster the Habs will face from the Canes, as the latter have been locked into the No. 2 in the Metro for a while now.

Anaheim Ducks at Winnipeg Jets
7 p.m. (ESPN+)

The Ducks will finish no lower than ninth in the draft lottery order -- they enter this game with 79 points, and the teams lower than them have 82 or more. But a loss here followed by wins Thursday by the Penguins and Sabres could get them as high as seventh. The Jets recently locked up the Presidents' Trophy as the NHL's top regular-season team (and No. 1 seed for as long as they last in the playoffs).

Detroit Red Wings at New Jersey Devils
7:30 p.m. (TNT)

The Wings are currently 12th in the draft lottery order, with 83 points and 29 regulation wins, and can move up as high as 10th (if the Islanders win Thursday, and they lose their next two games). Like the Hurricanes, the Devils have been locked in to their playoff position for a while now, and it is Carolina against whom they match up in Round 1.

Dallas Stars at Nashville Predators
8 p.m. (ESPN+)

Two teams at opposite ends of the Central Division, and neither can make a move based on the results of this game; the Stars will open the playoffs in the No. 2 spot in the Central against the No. 3-seeded Colorado Avalanche, while the Predators are locked in to the No. 3 position in the draft lottery order.

Vegas Golden Knights at Vancouver Canucks
10 p.m. (TNT)

And here are a pair of Pacific Division teams whose results tonight will not change the standings. The Golden Knights clinched the No. 1 seed in the Pacific Division recently, and the Canucks are locked in as the No. 15 team in the draft lottery order.

Edmonton Oilers at San Jose Sharks
10:30 p.m. (ESPN+)

... and here's another pair of Pacific teams that are already locked in as well. San Jose has been in the No. 1 spot in the draft lottery order for quite some time, a position they clinched recently. Meanwhile, the Oilers will be the No. 3 seed in the Pacific Division bracket, taking on the No. 2-seeded Los Angeles Kings in Round 1.

Note: Playoff chances are via Stathletes.

Jump ahead:
Current playoff matchups
Today's schedule
Yesterday's scores
Expanded standings
Race for No. 1 pick

Current playoff matchups

Eastern Conference

A1 Toronto Maple Leafs vs. WC1 Ottawa Senators
A2 Tampa Bay Lightning vs. A3 Florida Panthers
M1 Washington Capitals vs. WC2 Montreal Canadiens
M2 Carolina Hurricanes vs. M3 New Jersey Devils

Western Conference

C1 Winnipeg Jets vs. WC2 St. Louis Blues
C2 Dallas Stars vs. C3 Colorado Avalanche
P1 Vegas Golden Knights vs. WC1 Minnesota Wild
P2 Los Angeles Kings vs. P3 Edmonton Oilers

Wednesday's games

Note: All times ET. All games not on TNT or NHL Network are available to stream on ESPN+ (local blackout restrictions apply).

Carolina Hurricanes at Montreal Canadiens, 7 p.m.
Anaheim Ducks at Winnipeg Jets, 7 p.m.
Detroit Red Wings at New Jersey Devils, 7:30 p.m. (TNT)
Dallas Stars at Nashville Predators, 8 p.m.
Vegas Golden Knights at Vancouver Canucks, 10 p.m. (TNT)
Edmonton Oilers at San Jose Sharks, 10:30 p.m.

Tuesday's scoreboard

New Jersey Devils 5, Boston Bruins 4 (OT)
Toronto Maple Leafs 4, Buffalo Sabres 0
Chicago Blackhawks 4, Ottawa Senators 3 (OT)
Columbus Blue Jackets 3, Philadelphia Flyers 0
Tampa Bay Lightning 5, Florida Panthers 1
Washington Capitals 3, New York Islanders 1
St. Louis Blues 6, Utah Hockey Club 1
Minnesota Wild 3, Anaheim Ducks 2 (OT)
Calgary Flames 5, Vegas Golden Knights 4 (SO)
Los Angeles Kings 6, Seattle Kraken 5

Expanded standings

Atlantic Division

y - Toronto Maple Leafs

Points: 106
Regulation wins: 41
Playoff position: A1
Games left: 1
Points pace: 107.3
Next game: vs. DET (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Tampa Bay Lightning

Points: 102
Regulation wins: 41
Playoff position: A2
Games left: 1
Points pace: 103.3
Next game: @ NYR (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Florida Panthers

Points: 98
Regulation wins: 37
Playoff position: A3
Games left: 0
Points pace: 98
Next game: N/A
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Ottawa Senators

Points: 95
Regulation wins: 34
Playoff position: WC1
Games left: 1
Points pace: 96.2
Next game: vs. CAR (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

Montreal Canadiens

Points: 89
Regulation wins: 29
Playoff position: WC2
Games left: 1
Points pace: 90.1
Next game: vs. CAR (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 89.6%
Tragic number: N/A

e - Detroit Red Wings

Points: 83
Regulation wins: 29
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 2
Points pace: 85.1
Next game: @ NJ (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Buffalo Sabres

Points: 77
Regulation wins: 28
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 78.0
Next game: vs. PHI (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Boston Bruins

Points: 76
Regulation wins: 26
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 0
Points pace: 76
Next game: N/A
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

Metro Division

z - Washington Capitals

Points: 111
Regulation wins: 43
Playoff position: M1
Games left: 1
Points pace: 112.4
Next game: @ PIT (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Carolina Hurricanes

Points: 99
Regulation wins: 42
Playoff position: M2
Games left: 2
Points pace: 101.5
Next game: @ MTL (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - New Jersey Devils

Points: 91
Regulation wins: 36
Playoff position: M3
Games left: 1
Points pace: 92.1
Next game: vs. DET (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

Columbus Blue Jackets

Points: 87
Regulation wins: 29
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 88.1
Next game: vs. NYI (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 10.4%
Tragic number: 1

e - New York Rangers

Points: 83
Regulation wins: 34
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 84.0
Next game: vs. TB (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - New York Islanders

Points: 82
Regulation wins: 28
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 83.0
Next game: @ CBJ (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Pittsburgh Penguins

Points: 78
Regulation wins: 23
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 79.0
Next game: vs. WSH (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Philadelphia Flyers

Points: 76
Regulation wins: 21
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 77.0
Next game: @ BUF (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

Central Division

p - Winnipeg Jets

Points: 114
Regulation wins: 43
Playoff position: C1
Games left: 1
Points pace: 115.4
Next game: vs. ANA (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Dallas Stars

Points: 106
Regulation wins: 41
Playoff position: C2
Games left: 1
Points pace: 107.3
Next game: @ NSH (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Colorado Avalanche

Points: 102
Regulation wins: 40
Playoff position: C3
Games left: 0
Points pace: 102
Next game: N/A
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Minnesota Wild

Points: 97
Regulation wins: 33
Playoff position: WC1
Games left: 0
Points pace: 97
Next game: N/A
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - St. Louis Blues

Points: 96
Regulation wins: 32
Playoff position: WC2
Games left: 0
Points pace: 96
Next game: N/A
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

e - Utah Hockey Club

Points: 89
Regulation wins: 30
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 0
Points pace: 89
Next game: N/A
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Nashville Predators

Points: 66
Regulation wins: 23
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 66.8
Next game: vs. DAL (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Chicago Blackhawks

Points: 61
Regulation wins: 20
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 0
Points pace: 61
Next game: N/A
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

Pacific Division

y - Vegas Golden Knights

Points: 108
Regulation wins: 45
Playoff position: P1
Games left: 1
Points pace: 109.3
Next game: @ VAN (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Los Angeles Kings

Points: 105
Regulation wins: 43
Playoff position: P3
Games left: 1
Points pace: 106.3
Next game: vs. CGY (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

x - Edmonton Oilers

Points: 99
Regulation wins: 35
Playoff position: P2
Games left: 1
Points pace: 100.2
Next game: @ SJ (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 100%
Tragic number: N/A

e - Calgary Flames

Points: 94
Regulation wins: 30
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 95.2
Next game: LA (Thursday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Vancouver Canucks

Points: 90
Regulation wins: 28
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 91.1
Next game: vs. VGK (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Anaheim Ducks

Points: 79
Regulation wins: 24
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 80.0
Next game: @ WPG (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - Seattle Kraken

Points: 76
Regulation wins: 28
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 0
Points pace: 76
Next game: N/A
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

e - San Jose Sharks

Points: 52
Regulation wins: 14
Playoff position: N/A
Games left: 1
Points pace: 52.6
Next game: vs. EDM (Wednesday)
Playoff chances: 0%
Tragic number: E

Note: A "p" means that the team has clinched the Presidents' Trophy as the top team in the regular season. A "z" means that the team has clinched the top record in the conference. A "y" means that the team has clinched the division title. An "x" means that the team has clinched a playoff berth. An "e" means that the team has been eliminated from playoff contention.

Race for the No. 1 pick

The NHL uses a draft lottery to determine the order of the first round, so the team that finishes in last place is not guaranteed the No. 1 selection. As of 2021, a team can move up a maximum of 10 spots if it wins the lottery, so only 11 teams are eligible for the No. 1 pick. More details on the process are here. Matthew Schaefer, a defenseman for the OHL's Erie Otters, is No. 1 on the draft board.

1. San Jose Sharks

Points: 52
Regulation wins: 14

2. Chicago Blackhawks

Points: 61
Regulation wins: 20

3. Nashville Predators

Points: 66
Regulation wins: 23

4. Boston Bruins

Points: 76
Regulation wins: 26

5. Seattle Kraken

Points: 76
Regulation wins: 28

6. Philadelphia Flyers

Points: 76
Regulation wins: 21

7. Buffalo Sabres

Points: 77
Regulation wins: 28

8. Pittsburgh Penguins

Points: 78
Regulation wins: 23

9. Anaheim Ducks

Points: 79
Regulation wins: 24

10. New York Islanders

Points: 82
Regulation wins: 28

11. New York Rangers

Points: 83
Regulation wins: 34

12. Detroit Red Wings

Points: 83
Regulation wins: 29

13. Columbus Blue Jackets

Points: 87
Regulation wins: 29

14. Utah Hockey Club

Points: 89
Regulation wins: 30

15. Vancouver Canucks

Points: 90
Regulation wins: 28

16. Calgary Flames

Points: 94
Regulation wins: 30

Eugene Melnyk believed in the Ottawa Senators -- bullishly, unabashedly and with trademark bravado.

It's what made the Senators' late owner such a lightning rod around the league. And his stance was firm until he passed away that Ottawa would rise again to be a playoff contender.

"I truly believe that we are a Stanley Cup winner within four years," Melnyk said in 2020. "It can happen any time, but within four years."

The declaration was bold, and totally befitting Melnyk's persona. At the time, Ottawa hadn't reached the postseason since falling in Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference finals. The Senators went from being one goal away from a Stanley Cup Final to racking up one losing season after another.

Melnyk backed up his audacious words with a reported 112-page plan devised with then-general manager Pierre Dorion on how Ottawa would clear the high bar Melnyk had newly set. They were prepared to spend right to the salary cap in pursuit of his vision.

What else was written in that document may never be known publicly. What is obvious is that Ottawa failed rather spectacularly in living up to Melnyk's expectations.

For seven long years the Senators struggled. There were definitive highs and sweeping lows. And now, at last, a breakthrough.

The Ottawa Senators are officially playoff contenders again, staking their claim on Sunday to the Eastern Conference's first wild-card slot.

It wasn't the prettiest of landings; Ottawa actually punched their ticket after a dreadful 5-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. But because the Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings that same night, the Senators clinched anyway.

They don't ask how, right?

But seriously. How did the Senators do it, exactly? That's a long story. But there are at minimum a few key elements that pushed Ottawa over the top -- and brought them one critical pace closer to possibly making good on Melnyk's prediction of a championship-caliber future.

"It's a good first step for this group," GM Steve Staios said of reaching the postseason. "I'm really excited for our players. From day one when they came into training camp you could see that there was this motivation."

THE SENATORS DIDN'T get back to the playoffs before Melnyk passed in 2022. Dorion -- who came on board with the Senators right before that magical run to the conference finals -- failed to guide Ottawa back into the postseason before he was fired in 2023.

The freefall Ottawa took from Eastern Conference darlings to basement dwellers was baffling. The Senators finished the 2017-18 season in 30th place to signal the start of a surprisingly swift rebuild. Top defenseman Erik Karlsson was traded to San Jose in September 2018, before the start of a miserable season which ultimately pushed away Matt Duchene, Mark Stone and Ryan Dzingel -- all three veterans were traded by the 2019 deadline. The Senators were in last place by March 2019 and head coach Guy Boucher was axed. Ottawa was desperate for change.

DJ Smith took over Ottawa's bench for the 2019-20 season and attempted to turn the youthful Senators around -- Brady Tkachuk, Josh Norris and Drake Batherson were already in the lineup then, and by 2020 Ottawa had drafted first-rounders Tim Stutzle and Jake Sanderson.

Dorion upped the ante in 2022 in an effort to end the rebuild, trading for Alex DeBrincat (then a pending restricted free agent) and Cam Talbot, and signing free agent Claude Giroux to bolster the Senators' chances. Ottawa missed the playoff that next season by six points.

DeBrincat, though, had seen enough. He told the Senators he wasn't open to signing a long-term deal, so Dorion traded him to Detroit. Talbot wasn't retained, either. Suddenly the Senators were in the swing of significant turnover from seemingly every corner -- following Melynk's death in 2022, the franchise was sold in June 2023 to businessman Michael Andlauer. A new era -- at least in that respect -- had begun. But it was a bumpy beginning.

Near the start of the 2023-24 season, Ottawa was reprimanded by the league and docked a first-round draft pick for their invalidated 2021 trade involving Evgenii Dadonov and the Anaheim Ducks. That punishment cost Dorion his job in November 2023; Staios, who was Ottawa's president of hockey operations at the time, took on GM duties, too.

The Senators' on-ice performance was reprehensible amid the background drama. Their woeful 11-15 record put Smith out by December, to be replaced by former coach and team advisor Jacques Martin. Despite Ottawa's depth of young talents, the Senators slumped again to finish seventh in the Atlantic.

There were three key philosophical shifts thereafter that led them from the basement to the postseason, with the long-term belief that this is just the beginning of a new era of contention.

Ottawa trusted the process

Stutzle didn't hold back after the Senators clinched their postseason berth. In fact, he probably spoke aloud what most of his teammates were thinking.

"We've been through some s--- here," Stutzle said, directly following that loss to Columbus. "Some tough years. I'm just really proud of the guys, how we're all hanging in here. I don't think there's a team who deserves it more than us. I think we worked really hard this year."

Ottawa's current success wouldn't have come about -- or feel nearly so good -- if it weren't for a challenging recent history.

When Thomas Chabot debuted in 2016-17 with the Senators, they had missed the playoffs only four times since 1996-97. The young blueliner thought he would see plenty of postseason action in the NHL. Instead, it would take over 500 career games before Chabot was assured his first crack at Game 83.

"You're not going to see me smile a whole lot after a loss," Chabot joked when the Senators secured their spot, "but, man, it feels great."

Tkachuk can relate. The Senators captain has more than 500 pro games under his belt and over 400 career points. He's tried willing Ottawa to the postseason in prior seasons, and they've come up frustratingly short. Tkachuk's commitment to the Senators was never in doubt though -- something he doubled down on when trade rumors began circulating earlier this season.

The Senators were still clawing their way up the standings in early February when Tkachuk found himself linked by media reports to the New York Rangers.

Andlauer was furious, and even wanted the Rangers investigated for soft tampering with Ottawa's top forward. Tkachuk let his play do the talking as he continued to lead the Senators up front. The whole situation though was an unneeded distraction for the Senators, and directly opposed to an internal strategy focused entirely on leveraging its young core towards that elusive playoff return.

But those rising stars couldn't get there alone. It's veterans like Giroux and David Perron who have supported the club's maturation with critical leadership. Giroux has been in the fold since signing as a free agent in 2022, proving he hadn't lost a step by pumping in 35 goals and 79 points the following season. The 35-year-old has continued to play a considerable role in Ottawa's offense, and keeps the group even-keeled when inevitable roadblocks crop up.

"Some games maybe we weren't at our best. But we've been finding ways," Giroux said. "When you're not playing your best and you're finding ways to win, that's a good sign. You can just tell that everybody wants to play the right way. It's fun to play that way."

Giroux can also lean on past playoff experience -- although he hasn't had much of it in the last decade. Since the 2012-13 season in Philadelphia, Giroux has been to the postseason just five times, most recently as part of Florida's 2021-22 campaign. And he's never won a Stanley Cup.

Perron has, with St. Louis in 2019, along with a Cup Final run with Vegas the year prior. He knows what it takes to scale that mountain. And while it's hard to predict the Senators will be making it all the way there this year, an initial stride towards that loftiest of goals is a crucial stage of Ottawa's development.

"I've won [before], but I see other guys like Claude, and so many other guys [who haven't]," Perron said. "You want to do it for them. You want them to experience a run, you want to give that experience to the younger players."

Ottawa slowly, surely put themselves in position to do it now. The lean years toughened up the team's top skaters. They won't take this opportunity for granted. But they will want to expect that it becomes an annual event.

Ottawa found the right coach

The Senators needed a new voice to go along with their new owner and general manager. Travis Green -- hired in May 2024 -- was their guy.

It didn't take long for Green to recognize Ottawa was ready to put its losing ways on the shelf.

"From day one, they were open-minded, and open to wanting to win badly," Green said. "They're open to coaching, and it's the whole team. That's not always the case."

Green's prior resume included just one other full-time head coaching role -- with the Vancouver Canucks from 2017 to 2021 -- and an interim head job closing out the New Jersey Devils' 2023-24 season.

He was referencing the Senators' coachability after the club endured its most trying stretch of the season -- a 5-8-1 run through November that could have torpedoed all hopes of playoff-level traction.

"[That] was a big part of our season," Green said. "It's one thing to say you're open to coaching. It's another thing to do it. Being able to have an honest conversation and players be open to hearing things they do not necessarily want to hear. But there are certain parts of every player's game where they must be a little better. [Then they have to] agree with it, and then try to do it."

In return, Green has earned praise from Ottawa's front office for the way he's steering the ship.

"The vision that Travis had, and how he's been able to coach this group and turn it from where we were last year to be able to play the type of hockey to give ourselves a chance to make the playoffs [is huge]," Staios said.

It was how Green shifted Ottawa's mindset -- and installed a winning structure -- that brought the organization's playoff vision to life. Staios knew Green was capable of setting the Senators on a path towards winning hockey games. But lots of coaches can draw up the X's and O's. What has made Green special is how players received his messaging and actually implemented it -- which is ultimately turning the tide for Ottawa.

"I know how badly they want to win," Green said. "You don't always get into the playoffs, but being on the side of our room, I truly felt like this group was willing to do whatever it took to take the next step. Now we've gotten there."

Ottawa fixed its defense, and got the right goaltending

This was the Senators' pièce de résistance: a full-scale buy-in to the defensive side of their game.

Ottawa had to lock in at both ends of the ice if they were ever going to see the playoffs. Green provided a blueprint. The players went to work seeing it through.

"I've learned a lot from [Green], especially [with] the defensive side of things," Tkachuk said. "It's easy to see now when he shows the mistakes that we've made and how we can correct them."

Again, it goes back to Ottawa's patience. Because the Senators didn't start this season as defensive stalwarts. Ottawa opened the season with an 11-12-2 record, sitting 26th overall and eighth in goals against per game (3.20).

Emotions ran high, and often boiled over. But Green stuck to his philosophies and stood behind his players as they absorbed what he was trying to teach them. The faith Green had that he could turn Stutzle, Tkachuk & Co. into 200-foot players was a complement to his belief in their abilities. The Senators' core only needed to apply itself.

"He's got a unique way of being hard and holding players accountable," Staios said of Green. "But also developing that relationship and having a real, honest, open line of communication."

Eventually, Ottawa was on track. In the next 25 games from early December through January, the Senators showed true progress on the defensive end, going 15-8-2 and giving up the second fewest goals per game in the league (2.20).

All told, Ottawa has improved dramatically. They went from allowing 2.34 goals per game at 5-on-5 last season to just 1.84 this season. The Sens have 21 wins this season where they were outshot by an opponent, tied for fourth most in the NHL. By comparison, that's more than the Senators had their previous two seasons combined.

Ottawa had to be diligent defensively given they couldn't always rely on offense to save the day. The Senators rank 22nd this season in scoring (2.89 goals per game) and are 30th in even-strength goals (131). The club's 15th-ranked power play (22.8%) has come in handy on occasion.

Regardless, what Green is establishing in Ottawa isn't a one-and-done system. This is a foundation for how the Senators can be reborn as a team that anticipates a postseason run each year. And Ottawa's defensive upswing is owed not just to Green and the skaters up front, but to the Senators' (finally) reliable goaltending.

Ottawa had churned through their share of goalies during that seven-year playoff drought. Craig Anderson made the most starts (133) in that span before departing in 2020. There were failed experiments with Matt Murray and Talbot. Anton Forsberg (with 130 starts) did his best to fill the voids and Joonas Korpisalo had a short, unsuccessful stint with the Senators too.

It wasn't until June that Ottawa reeled in the right No. 1. Staios brokered a deal with Boston to bring on Linus Ullmark, and Ullmark immediately signed a four-year extension to affirm his own commitment to the organization.

Ullmark had just won a Vezina Trophy in 2023 and shared the William M. Jennings Trophy that same season with Bruins' teammate Jeremy Swayman. That Boston decided to back Swayman as their guy going forward and not Ullmark was all the better for Ottawa; notably, the Senators are in the playoffs this season while Boston is in line for a top-5 draft pick.

Ullmark endured injury issues, but emerged as a bona fide stalwart compared to what Ottawa has been used to in the crease. Last season, the Senators boasted a collective .879 save percentage. This season, Ullmark has a 24-14-3 record, with a .911 SV% and 2.67 goals-against average. That's the third most wins ever by a goaltender in his first full season with Ottawa. And Ullmark has been a terrific partner to Forsberg, who has seen his own stats improve this season as well (10-12-2, .904 SV% and 2.66 GAA).

Now Ullmark wants the Senators' tandem to excel in a playoff scene. The veteran has his own memories of long playoff-less stretches from a seven-year run with the Buffalo Sabres. And while Ullmark did get to experience hockey's second season in three consecutive years with Boston, he still commiserates with Ottawa teammates who are just stepping on that stage now.

"I'm happy now that the guys now that have been there for a long time," Ullmark said. "Like [Chabot] and [Tkachuk], for example, to have been there the longest, and now have an opportunity to play really meaningful games and get into a position where you can battle for the Cup."

Ottawa may not hoist Lord Stanley's chalice this season, or in years to come. The point is that they're now officially in the fight. That's all Chabot wanted when he arrived in Ottawa, to be a player -- rather than spectator -- of late spring hockey.

At long last for the Senators, that dream has officially come to life.