Happy Wednesday, everyone! Hope your week is coming along nicely.
For the second straight day, we have some big news that happened overnight to get to before we go over everything else. Late last night, the Broncos reportedly entered into a purchase and sale agreement with Walmart heir Rob Walton. Walton and his family are set to purchase the Broncos for a whopping $4.65 billion. That's more money than any American sports franchise has ever sold for.
OK, now let's get to the rest of the news.
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Good morning to everyone but especially to...
THE TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
You don't win two straight Stanley Cups by accident. The Lightning showed their championship pedigree with a dominant 4-1 win last night over the Rangers to even the Eastern Conference Final at two games apiece.
Pat Maroon opened the scoring in the first period, and Nikita Kucherov doubled the lead in the second. Steven Stamkos made it 3-0 in the third before Artemi Panarin made it 3-1. Ondrej Palat scored an empty-netter late to finish things off.Andrei Vasilevskiy made 33 saves on 34 shots.After losing the first five meetings of this season between these teams (three regular-season games plus Games 1 and 2 of this series), the Lightning have won two straight.
Just three days ago, the Lightning were a period away from a 3-0 series hole. Now, they're headed back to New York tied 2-2, and the quest for a three-peat is very much still alive.
Honorable mentions
And not such a good morning for...
USATSIJOE MADDON
As it turns out, losing a dozen games in a row isn't great for your job security. The Angels fired manager Joe Maddon yesterday after a promising start to the season was derailed by a 12-game losing streak. That streak was extended to 13 games last night in their first game under interim manager Phil Nevin.
Maddon finishes this stint with the Angels with a 130-148 record and zero playoff appearances.The Angels' playoff chances surged as high as 81.4 percent in mid-May according to FanGraphs; currently they are around 30 percent.Maddon is the second manager to be fired this season, joining former Phillies skipper Joe Girardi, who was fired on June 3. There are plenty of similarities between the two situations, notes our MLB expert Mike Axisa.
Axisa: "Similar to the Phillies and Girardi, the Angels gave Maddon a star-laden yet top heavy roster that was short on depth. Both teams have obvious roster construction issues, but, like Girardi, Maddon did not seem to do the best he could with the personnel available to him. His lineup and bullpen decisions left a lot to be desired, especially lately, during the 12-game losing streak."The Angels can only hope that there are similarities between how both teams respond, too. Philadelphia is 4-0 under interim manager Rob Thomson, including a sweep of -- hey, look at that! -- the Angels.
