Toronto: Canadian teams dominated the top end of Forbes’ annual list of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) most valuable franchises yesterday with the Toronto Maple Leafs leading the pack for an eighth consecutive year.
For the first time since Forbes began tracking NHL team valuations in 1998, three of the league’s five most valuable franchises are Canadian.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were deemed the most valuable at $1.15bn, a 15 percent jump from last year, while the Montreal Canadiens ($775m)
and Vancouver Canucks ($700m) were third and fourth, respectively, in the survey.
The New York Rangers ($850m) were second on the list while the defending Stanley
Cup champions Chicago Blackhawks ($625m) rounded out
the top five.
The NHL’s 30 teams are worth an average $413m, a 46 percent rise over last year but still below the average values of franchises in the other major North American sports leagues.
Forbes has previously said teams in the National Football League are worth an average of $1.17bn, followed by teams in Major League Baseball ($744m) and the NBA ($509m).
Meanwhile, in NHL matches, yesterday, after Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby forced overtime with a goal in the final second of regulation, Boston’s rookie defenseman Torey Krug blasted one past Marc-Andre Fleury 34 seconds into OT to give the Bruins a 4-3 victory over Penguins
Loui Eriksson, who had a goal and an assist, assisted on Krug’s seventh goal of the season to give the Bruins (16-6-2) their second straight overtime win.
James Neal had two goals for Pittsburgh (15-9-1), and Crosby netted his 13th of the season on a final-second shot that had to be reviewed.
Alexander Steen scored two goals to end his mini slump and lead St. Louis to a 3-0 victory over Minnesota Wild.
Steen, who had not scored in his last four games, has 18 goals and is now one goal behind Washington’s Alex Ovechkin for the league lead.
St. Louis (17-3-3) goalie Jaroslav Halak recorded his second shutout of the season while stopping all 22 Minnesota (15-6-4) shots.
In another match, goaltender Ben Bishop made 37 saves for a shutout while Martin St. Louis and Teddy Purcell scored two goals apiece to lead Tampa
Bay.
Nikita Kucherov, a 20-year-old Russian right winger making his NHL debut, scored on his first shift as the Lightning (15-8-1) cruised past the Rangers (12-12-0) winning 5-0.
Elsewhere, right winger Ryan Johansen scored two goals and added an assist and goalkeeper Sergei Bobrovsky picked up the shutout as the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the
Toronto Maple Leafs 6-0.
Columbus registered two goals in each period to chase Toronto (14-9-1) goalkeeper James Reimer in the third.
Scoring all of their goals in the first period, Nashville held off the Phoenix Coyotes over the final 40 minutes to pick up a 4-2 win.
Martin Mazanec made 12 of his 29 saves in the third period for the Predators who won for the fourth time in five
matches. AGENCIES
