CINCINATTI, Ohio – Richard Hoffman, one of the owners of the legendary Hoffman Auto Racing open-wheel team, died on Tuesday. He was 76.

Hoffman wrenched entries over the years that earned a total of 11 AMSOIL USAC National Sprint Car Series owner’s championships, wearing the crown in 1989, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2014 and 2016.

His champion drivers through the years included the legendary Rich Vogler, as well as Robbie Stanley, Dave Darland, Tracy Hines, Jerry Coons Jr. and Brady Bacon, who authored Hoffman’s most recent USAC owner’s crown three years ago.

“It’s hard to even put into words what Richard meant to the sport,” said USAC Series Coordinator Levi Jones. “It doesn’t seem possible he won’t be with us in the pits anymore.  He was a fierce competitor and a staple of the series. Over the years, racing has made us all feel like family. He was always somebody you could lean on for advice and someone who was always there for the betterment of the sport.”

Born Sept. 2, 1942 in Cincinatti, Ohio, Richard Hoffman started his tenure in racing working for his father, Gus Hoffman, during the very first year of the United States Auto Club in 1956.

The Hoffman Auto Racing team came to USAC at the behest of Mari Hulman, who saw the team’s success building and invited them personally to race the circuit.

Then-crew chief Mutt Anderson suggested moving from midget to sprint car racing, and the rest – as they say – is history.

Hoffman’s first USAC win came in 1956 with Eddie Sachs driving one of the team’s midgets, not long before their move to sprint cars, and led to a total of 116 USAC victories over the past six-plus decades.

Bacon earned the team’s most recent score at Bloomington (Ind.) Speedway on April 19, during the running of the Larry Rice Classic.

Among those who drove for Hoffman and won races in his equipment were Jim Hemmings, Larry Cannon, Steve Butler, Cary Faas, Kenny Irwin Jr., Andy Michner, Brian Tyler, Jon Stanbrough, Daron Clayton, Kyle Larson, Darren Hagen, Chad Boespflug and Kevin Thomas Jr., as well as the six champion drivers he fielded during his legendary career.

Richard Hoffman was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2013.

Aside from his sprint car accomplishments, he also earned seven USAC Silver Crown Champ Car Series wins as a team owner, with the likes of Johnny Parsons, Pat Abold and Brian Tyler, who captured the 1999 Copper World Classic at Phoenix Int’l Raceway (now ISM Raceway).

Bacon paid tribute to Hoffman, for whom he has driven for this season and also drove a prior stint for as well, late Tuesday with a statement on social media.

“We are all deeply saddened by the loss of a great man,” said Bacon. “Please keep your thoughts and prayers with the family of Richard Hoffman. It’s truly been an honor to drive for him over the last several years, and the relationship we were able to build over that time is something I will cherish.”

As of the most recent USAC national sprint car event, Hoffman’s Dynamic Inc. team sits seventh in the series standings thanks to Bacon’s efforts this year.

It’s a testament to Hoffman’s long-held drive to always strive for more with his operation.

“I still have racing in my blood,” said Richard Hoffman in the Oct. 2018 edition of SPEED SPORT Magazine. “I can’t stop messing with it because I still really enjoy it. Every year I look at circumstances and resources and see if we can keep racing.”

Right up until his passing, racing is exactly what Hoffman and his team did, too.

DENVER -- The Colorado Avalanche will be without physical forward Matt Calvert for Game 3 against San Jose on Tuesday.

Calvert was banged up Sunday after taking a hit while delivering a pass to Nathan MacKinnon for an empty-net goal late in Game 2 at San Jose.

Sven Andrighetto will take Calvert's place in the lineup. The second-round playoff series is tied at a game apiece.

Sharks captain Joe Pavelski and forward Joonas Donskoi didn't travel with the team, coach Peter DeBoer said. Pavelski and Donskoi were both hurt during the Sharks' first-round series against Vegas and have yet to play in this one.

DeBoer also said center Gustav Nyquist went home to be with his wife for the birth of their child. He's expected back in time for the game.

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Rod Brind'Amour considers himself lucky to have two goalies he trusts. It looks like he is turning to the second one.

The first legitimate goalie dilemma of the playoffs belongs to the Carolina Hurricanes, now that starter Petr Mrazek is dealing with a lower-body injury that has him day-to-day.

With Mrazek unlikely to start Game 3 against the New York Islanders on Wednesday night, the Hurricanes will try to take a 3-0 series lead behind what could be the first playoff start for journeyman Curtis McElhinney in his 11-year career.

"I think what it is is a luxury that we have a guy that we have equal confidence in," Brind'Amour said Tuesday. "Thankfully, we have that situation. ... We have a guy that we all trust who's been good all year. It's not like we're hoping he's going to be good."

There hasn't been much instability at that position across the league during this postseason, which makes sense -- teams generally don't make the playoffs with shaky goaltending. Carolina became the third team to use multiple goalies, and there wasn't even a whiff of controversy for the two other teams making in-game moves.

Nashville pulled Pekka Rinne for Juuse Saros for the final 45 minutes of Game 4 during the Predators' first-round series with Dallas, and Aaron Dell twice replaced Martin Jones during San Jose's opening-round series with Vegas.

In Carolina, though, an injury has left the Hurricanes with some uncertainty.

Mrazek has started all nine postseason games for the Hurricanes, but he left the last one early with an injury that, as is usually the case in the NHL, has not been publicly disclosed. It was the first time all season that the Hurricanes made a midgame goalie switch.

Brind'Amour calls Mrazek's injury "a nagging thing," adding that "I don't know how long it's going to go, but it shouldn't be too long."

McElhinney stopped all 17 shots he faced to close out Game 2 in just his third postseason appearance.

"It's just gas and go," McElhinney said. "It's one of those things that I've been around long enough and I've been thrown into those situations before. Obviously, the playoff atmosphere's a little bit different but the game itself is still the same. I've felt pretty good all year long."

Less than 12 months ago, nobody saw a Mrazek-McElhinney combination coming, much less figured the pair would backstop Carolina to the verge of the Eastern Conference final.

The Hurricanes brought in Mrazek last July 1 -- the same day they allowed former Conn Smythe Trophy winner Cam Ward to leave for Chicago -- to compete with Scott Darling for the starting job.

When Darling was injured in the preseason finale, Carolina found the 35-year-old McElhinney on the waiver wire and the journeyman fit so well with the Hurricanes that they placed the largely ineffective Darling on waivers and sent him to their AHL affiliate in Charlotte.

Carolina allowed 2.7 goals per game during the regular season. Mrazek stopped 91.4 percent of the shots he faced; McElhinney's save percentage was .912. Both of their save percentages are better than any Hurricanes goalie since 2014 with more than 30 appearances.

It's also worth noting that the last time the Hurricanes made a goalie switch during the playoffs, it worked out pretty well for them.

Carolina began the 2006 postseason with Martin Gerber in net, but while dealing with health issues, he gave up nine goals during the first 75 minutes of the Hurricanes' first-round series with Montreal. Coach Peter Laviolette turned to Ward, who led the team captained by Brind'Amour to the Stanley Cup.

When highly touted Harvard defenseman Adam Fox refused to sign a contract with the Carolina Hurricanes, who had traded for his rights, there was widespread speculation that the New York Rangers were his desired NHL destination. The speculation was accurate: The Hurricanes traded Fox to the Rangers on Tuesday in exchange for a second-round pick in 2019 and a conditional third-round pick in 2020.

Fox, 21, had 48 points in 33 games with Harvard as a junior this season and was named a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as the top player in collegiate hockey. He also was named a first-team All-American. Fox has played for the United States internationally in world junior tournaments for three straight seasons.

The Hurricanes acquired Fox in a June 2018 deal with the Calgary Flames, along with defenseman Dougie Hamilton and forward Micheal Ferland. Fox opted not to sign with the Flames, who drafted him 66th overall in 2016, after his sophomore season with Harvard. So they shipped his rights to the Hurricanes, who hoped to sign him after his junior season and were unable to.

Once that happened, Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon said the team would "try to trade" the native of Jericho, New York. Fox did have the option of returning to Harvard for his senior season and becoming a free agent in 2020. Instead, he's expected to sign an entry-level deal to play for the Rangers.

A right defenseman, Fox was called the best defensive prospect not currently in the NHL by Carolina general manager Don Waddell when Fox attended the Hurricanes' prospects camp last year. But while Fox is considered a blue-chip prospect, ESPN's Chris Peters had him ranked 30th and behind eight other defensemen on Peters' list of top 50 best young players who were currently not in the league.

"High-end vision, poise and an ability to read plays especially well have all helped Fox become one of the top defensemen in college hockey. He is an assist machine, can quarterback a power play and gets up the ice especially well. Defensively there is room for improvement," Peters wrote.

Fox, 21, joins a Rangers team in the midst of a rebuild. The Rangers own the second overall pick in this summer's draft and have a bevy of strong prospects in their system. Fox should step right into the Rangers blue line and see significant minutes as a rookie next season.

The second-round pick shipped to Carolina is the one the Rangers own. TSN's Bob McKenzie reports that the 2020 third-rounder becomes a second-rounder if Fox plays 30 games next season. Were that to happen, acquiring a pair of second-round picks for a player who didn't want to play in Carolina should take a little of the sting away for the Hurricanes, even if their ultimate goal was having Fox join their impressive collection of defensemen in Raleigh.

Jurgen Klopp has admitted that Liverpool must "suffer" at the hands of Barcelona if they are to stop Lionel Messi from carrying out his "threat" to bring the Champions League trophy back to the Camp Nou.

Liverpool, last season's beaten finalists, face the Spanish champions in Wednesday's semifinal first-leg after cruising past Porto in the previous round to book a place in the last four.

But after destroying Manchester United in the quarterfinals with a virtuoso performance in the home leg a fortnight ago, Messi goes into the clash with Liverpool closing in on fulfilling the promise he made to the Barca fans at the start of the season.

- Hunter: Liverpool have potential to be Barca's kryptonite

- Marcotti: Barcelona's title win about more than Messi

"Last season was really good as we did the double, but we all felt bad about how it went in the Champions League," Messi said in September. "We promise that this season we will do all we can to bring that beautiful trophy back to the Camp Nou."

And although he goes into the game having failed to manage a team to victory against a Spanish club in Spain, Klopp insists that Liverpool can overcome Barcelona and Messi despite the Argentine forward's own determination to lead Barca to glory.

"Messi said at the start of the season that they wanted to bring back this cup," Klopp said. "That sounded already like a threat to me!

"But now we are here, we want to go to the final as well.

"We won't be perfect tomorrow, we will make mistakes, we will suffer, 100 percent. It will be so difficult, but I couldn't be more excited to play and I hope I can transport my players so they feel the same.

"It is not only about Messi, but it is about Messi of course. Can we concentrate on Messi? We should, in certain moments, but then they have 10 world-class players around who can decide the game.

"They have the highest quality team, they are already Spanish champions.

"But we saw the game against Real Sociedad and [Sociedad] did really well. Levante did really well a couple of days ago.

"Barcelona, the better the opponent, the better the competition, the higher the stakes, the more they are in. They are champions of Spain, so now they can focus completely on the Champions League. We are really looking forward to it, but it will be tough."

With Liverpool hosting the second leg at Anfield next Tuesday, Klopp admits the priority is to keep the tie alive for the return fixture.

"I would say that a draw is not the worst result in the world," he said. "Not that we will go for it, but it would be OK.

"So many people came to Barcelona and had an idea on how to play, and in the end they got a proper knock, so we know how tough it will be.

"But two years ago it was a big, big thing for the club to qualify for the Champions League. Now for the second time in a row we are here in the semifinal, that's big.

"It's only positive and everybody sees it like that. We don't need a guarantee.

"But we want to stay in this competition, to get a result tomorrow that gives us a good chance to do it at home. Whatever that result is, we want it."

Liverpool, meanwhile, travelled to Spain with striker Roberto Firmino in the squad after the Brazilian missed last Friday's 5-0 win against Huddersfield with a muscle injury.

"If Bobby is 100 percent ready, then he will maybe play," Klopp said. "He's here, he trained today, we have another session tomorrow. Then I have a decision to make."

Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen had to be helped off the field shortly after trying to continue to play following a clash of heads in their 1-0 Champions League semifinal loss to Ajax on Tuesday.

Vertonghen challenged for a header in the Ajax area just after the 30-minute mark, but slammed his face into the back of teammate Toby Alderweireld's head, leaving him with blood pouring from a cut on his nose. Vertonghen received treatment on the field and went to change his bloodied white jersey before returning to the game.

Referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz was pointing at his head as he spoke to Vertonghen, before allowing him to return to action in the 38th minute.

He didn't last long before going across to the sideline, leaning over and struggling to stand. He had to be helped down the tunnel by two medical officials and was replaced by Moussa Sissoko.

UK broadcaster BT Sport said that Vertonghen remained in the stadium dressing room after the incident and was being looked at by medical staff.

Following the match, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino said of Vertonghen: "I don't know; I didn't see him. Of course, we will assess in the next few days and will see."

Multiple reports following the match said that Vertonghen passed concussion tests and was also seen walking through the mixed zone after leaving the dressing room.

When asked about allowing Vertonghen to return to the field, Pochettino said it was a decision made by the team's medical staff.

"I wasn't involved, that was a doctor decision," Pochettino said. "I think it's so important things that the rules and the protocol are there and the medical staff follow the protocol. I was never involved, the decision was the doctors and the referee then asked to put him in and said 'go in' and in this action we need to put him out because he didn't feel well.

"Tt wasn't my decision, I repeat. For me, first of all its your life. We must protect the player and of course I was out of the conversation and our medical followed the protocol and decided it was possible to restart the game and it's time to play again.

"But of course it was Jan in that moment and the following action that he started to follow unwell and we check him with the doctor."

Pochettino said he hoped that Vertonghen wouldn't have any more issues following the knock and said he appeared to look OK when he left the stadium.

"He was walking away from the stadium now," Pochettino said. "I hope he is well and you know very well that always you need to keep eyes watching him, others beside him because it was a big knock. I hope it is not a big issue but at the moment he is OK."