HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Bubba Wallace is missing Sunday’s NASCAR race, and that is evidently not his only sanction after losing his cool in Las Vegas last weekend.
Denny Hamlin — who, along with Michael Jordan, co-owns the 23XI Racing team Wallace drives for — said Saturday that the team has dealt with matters in a way that goes “above and beyond” the penalties handed down by NASCAR.
Hamlin didn’t say what that means, choosing to keep those matters in-house.
“He understands where I stand, where the team stands, the values that we want to present on the racetrack, and he just didn’t represent it that well last week,” Hamlin said. “But you know, in the grand scheme of things, we’re very happy with his progress. And he knows he’s still got some stuff to work on when he gets out of the race car.”
Last week, Wallace intentionally wrecked reigning Cup champion Kyle Larson at Las Vegas in a dangerous act of retaliation. Playoff contender Christopher Bell got caught up in that wreck, smashing his car and denting his chances of becoming NASCAR champion. Bell remains in the playoffs but needs to rally.
Wallace was suspended for this week at Homestead-Miami, but he is not the only driver in the spotlight right now for causing trouble.
Two weeks ago, NASCAR issued $200,000 in fines after finding that Stewart-Haas Racing driver Cole Custer slowed on the backstretch of the final lap in Charlotte and helped teammate Chase Briscoe move up enough to reach the next round of the playoffs. Custer and his crew chief, Mike Shiplett, were both fined $100,000 after NASCAR determined Custer’s slowdown was deliberate.
“NASCAR’s like your parents a lot of times,” playoff leader and title contender Joey Logano said. “There’s a line of, you know, you’ve got to let the boys figure it out sometimes, and they’ll figure it out together and move on or Mom and Dad has to step in a little bit and control the situation because it’s gotten out of hand. So I believe NASCAR kind of decided it’s getting out of hand.”
Drivers tended to agree with NASCAR on these calls.
“In my opinion, those moves were extremely, extremely dumb — both of them,” Daniel Suarez said. “And with both of them, I was going to be extremely surprised if they were not penalties. … You have to be smarter. I don’t know what those guys were thinking.”
That question — “What was he thinking?” — has been a storyline for much of this NASCAR season, with no shortage of temper-flaring incidents.
Ross Chastain, who has had a big first season for Trackhouse Racing, has featured prominently in a few of those. He has clashed with Hamlin, had a starring role in a wreck that put a good dent in Kevin Harvick‘s title chances and had his name converted to a verb by Kyle Busch. Getting wrecked by Chastain is now, in NASCAR parlance, getting “Chastained.”
“Look, some of the things I did throughout the summer were just not … looking back, I would do them different,” Chastain said. “Some of it would just be my stance after the race. I would prefer it be different. But a lot of on-track stuff, I could definitely clean up.”
Wallace isn’t at Homestead this weekend, even to watch. He will be in the team garage, and Logano said he doesn’t think Wallace owes his fellow drivers an explanation.
“It’s kind of all in front of us. We all see,” Logano said. “I’m not looking for anything. He didn’t do it to me. If he did it to me, yeah, we’d have big problems.”
The days leading up to the 2025 NHL trade deadline were a furious final sprint as contenders looked to stock up for a postseason run while rebuilding clubs added prospects and draft capital.
After the overnight Brock Nelson blockbuster Thursday, Friday lived up to expectations, with Mikko Rantanen, Brad Marchand and other high-profile players finishing the day on different teams than they started with. All told, NHL teams made 24 trades on deadline day involving 47 players.
Which teams and players won the day? Who might not feel as well about the situation after trade season? Reporters Ryan S. Clark, Kristen Shilton and Greg Wyshynski identify the biggest winners and losers of the 2025 NHL trade deadline:
There are some who saw what the Carolina Hurricanes did at the trade deadline — or perhaps failed to do after they traded Mikko Rantanen — and believe they’re cooked when it comes to the Stanley Cup playoffs. However, based on the projections from Stathletes, the Canes remain the team with the highest chances of winning the Cup, at 16.7%.
Standing before them on Sunday are the Winnipeg Jets (5 p.m. ET, ESPN+). The Jets had a relatively quiet deadline, adding Luke Schenn and Brandon Tanev, though sometimes these additions are the types of small tweaks that can push a contender over the edge. As it stands, the Jets enter their showdown against the Canes with the sixth-highest Cup chances, at 8.7%.
Carolina has made two trips to the Cup Final: a loss to the Detroit Red Wings in 2002 and a win over the Edmonton Oilers in 2006. The Canes have reached the conference finals three times since (2009, 2019, 2023). Winnipeg has yet to make the Cup Final, and was defeated 4-1 in the 2018 Western Conference finals by the Vegas Golden Knights in the club’s lone trip to the penultimate stage.
Both clubs are due. Will this be their year?
There is a lot of runway left until the final day of the season on April 17, and we’ll help you keep track of it all here on the NHL playoff watch. As we traverse the final stretch, we’ll provide detail on all the playoff races — along with the teams jockeying for position in the 2025 NHL draft lottery.
Points: 43 Regulation wins: 12 Playoff position: N/A Games left: 17 Points pace: 54.3 Next game: vs. NSH (Tuesday) Playoff chances: ~0% Tragic number: 8
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 draw for the No. 1 pick. Full details on the process can be found here. Sitting No. 1 on the draft board for this summer is Matthew Schaefer, a defenseman for the OHL’s Erie Otters.
Hintz extended his stick toward Henrique, whose wrist shot sent the puck under Hintz’s visor during his club’s 5-4 loss to the Oilers. He was on the ice, with his face in a towel, as the team’s medical staff assessed him and helped him skate toward the dressing room.
After the loss, Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said Hintz was at a local hospital, receiving tests. The coach added that the initial report was fairly optimistic for Hintz, 28, who has 25 goals and 52 points.
“Everyone’s optimistic that it’s not ‘serious, serious,'” DeBoer said. “But we won’t know until we get testing.”
The short-handed Stars rallied from a 5-1 deficit before eventually losing. Trade deadline acquisition Mikko Rantanen had a goal and an assist in his debut for Dallas, which had its four-game winning streak stopped. Wyatt Johnston, Jamie Benn and Matt Dumba also scored for the Stars.