FORT WORTH, Texas — Tyler Reddick opened the round of 12 in NASCAR’s playoffs with a victory at Texas on Sunday, winning a week after being one of the first four Cup drivers knocked out of title contention.
After none of the contenders won the first three races of the playoffs — a first in any round in this postseason format — the trend continued with the eliminated Reddick leading 53 of the final 54 laps on a long race day that went into the night.
Reddick finished 1.19 seconds ahead of Joey Logano at the end of an extended race that had a track-record 16 cautions, a record 36 lead changes, a 56-minute red flag for lightning and multiple tire issues leading to crashes — including those involving playoff contenders Chase Elliott, the points leader going into the second round, and Christopher Bell.
“I was extremely worried, I’m not going to lie,” Reddick said. “Unfortunately, just about every time we’ve had fast cars, we’ve had some tire problems. That last run, the right sides were vibrating really, really hard there. … I was just trying to maximize and use the gap that I built over [Logano] just in case.”
Logano took over the points lead by 12 over Ross Chastain.
Elliott, who entered the round of 12 as the points leader, had a fiery finish after contact with the outside wall in Turn 4 when leading just past the halfway mark of the race.
Flames were already visible from under the right side of the No. 9 Chevrolet when he got onto the frontstretch, then turned across and came to a stop in the middle of the infield, where he climbed out uninjured as the car was being engulfed by flames. He finished 32nd.
“I’m not sure that Goodyear is at fault,” Elliott said. “Goodyear always takes the black eye, but they’re put in a really tough position by NASCAR to build a tire that can survive these types of racetracks with this car. I wouldn’t blame Goodyear.”
Goodyear and NASCAR officials said there were several teams that didn’t have tire issues, and the reports from those teams indicated that they were conservative with the air pressure they used in their tires.
Non-playoff drivers Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. also had tire issues when leading the race at the 1½-mile track.
Bell, the Oklahoma native who considers Texas his home track, couldn’t recover from a second tire issue that led to his race-ending crash after finishing only 136 laps. He was the only driver to finish in the top five in all three races in the first round of this postseason but was 34th at Texas.
Soon after the caution came out for Truex’s spinout from the lead on Lap 268, Hamlin was sliding through the infield after Byron made contact with him from behind. When pressed after the race, Byron acknowledged that he intentionally did it, upset about being pushed up against the wall by Hamlin during green-flag laps just before that.
Hamlin stayed side-by-side and nose-to-tail with Byron during the caution period, livid because of the position he was losing on the track. Since he couldn’t keep pace after going into the grass, Hamlin had to restart 22nd instead of near the front.
“I guess we can just wreck each other under caution. I tried to wreck him back,” Hamlin said. “Yeah, I don’t think we touched. I got to look. I don’t think we touched. Obviously, he sent us into the infield under caution.”
Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior vice president for competition, said officials didn’t see the incident in real time while focused on what caused the caution. He said the incident will be reviewed to determine whether there will be any penalties.
The race was about to resume following the caution period for the end of the second stage when NASCAR ran some extra laps under caution because there was light rain falling on some parts of the 1½-mile track. But when there was lightning in the vicinity, the cars were brought to park on pit road with 220 of 334 laps completed.
Drivers got a chance to get out of the cars for a break on a day with record heat. Temperatures in the upper 90s made for the hottest Cup race ever at the track that opened in 1997.
ANOTHER EARLY BUSCH EXIT
Kyle Busch completed only 48 laps and was last in the 36-car field, marking the first time in his 32 Cup starts at Texas that he didn’t finish the race.
Busch got loose when going higher up the track as he was getting close to teammate Hamlin.
“I went to the high groove where I was making time in the spray and the sticky stuff, but it is not so sticky apparently. I crashed,” Busch said. “I’m trying to go, trying to race. Banana peels out there for me.”
The race came a week after the two-time champion was eliminated from title contention in his final season with Joe Gibbs Racing before going to Richard Childress Racing. Busch finished 34th at Bristol after an engine failure just past the halfway mark of the race.
MULTIPLE IMPACTS
Cody Ware‘s car went nearly nose-first into the safety barrier on the outside wall in Turn 4, then shot down the track and onto pit road. There was then an even bigger hit when the car slammed hard just past a cutout in the pit wall.
Ware escaped serious injury, though he was put on a stretcher and into an ambulance after first being tended to for several minutes after getting out of the car. He was taken to the infield care center, where he was treated and released.
His team said he had some discomfort in an ankle but no broken bones.
UP NEXT
The middle race of the second round of the playoffs is Sunday at Talladega, where Chastain got his second win of the season in April. He hasn’t won since but has finished seventh or better in the past three playoff races.
The Penguins’ captain tied Hall of Famer Joe Sakic at 1,641 points with an assist on Bryan Rust‘s first-period goal. Crosby then moved past Sakic with an assist on Drew O’Connor‘s sixth goal of the season later in the period as the Penguins raced to a 4-1 advantage.
Crosby’s 12th goal 5:42 into the second put the Penguins up 5-1, providing some welcome wiggle room for a team that has struggled to hold multiple-goal leads this season.
The next name ahead of Crosby on the career scoring list is none other than Penguins icon Mario Lemieux, who had 1,723 points.
“I’m running out of superlatives [about Crosby],” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan told reporters after the game. “What he’s accomplishing, first of all, his body of work in the league, his legacy that has been built to this point, speaks for itself. He’s the consummate pro. He just represents our sport, the league, the Pittsburgh Penguins in such a great way.
“He just carries himself with so much grace and humility and integrity. And he’s a fierce competitor on the ice.”
Rust also had a goal and two assists for Pittsburgh, which snapped a three-game losing streak by beating the Oilers for the first time since Dec. 20, 2019.
“For us, that was our goal — to be on our toes, be all over them, be on top of them, because they’re very fast, a skilled team,” Rust told reporters after the game. “I think just a result of that was us being able to get some offense.”
McDavid finished with three assists. Leon Draisaitl scored twice to boost his season total to an NHL-best 31, but the Penguins beat Stuart Skinner four times in the first 14 minutes. Skinner settled down to finish with 21 saves but it wasn’t enough as the Penguins ended Edmonton’s four-game winning streak.
TAKEAWAYS
Oilers: Their attention to detail in the first period was shaky. Though Skinner wasn’t at his best, the Penguins also had little trouble generating chances.
Penguins: Pittsburgh remains a work in progress at midseason but showed it can compete with the league’s best.
UP NEXT
Edmonton finishes a four-game trip at Chicago on Saturday. The Penguins continue a five-game homestand Saturday against Ottawa.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Wild have added defensemen Jonas Brodin and Brock Faber to their list of key injured players, leaving them out of the lineup for their game against Colorado on Thursday night.
Brodin’s status is day to day. He has a lower-body injury from blocking a shot late in the 6-4 win over St. Louis on Tuesday night. Wild coach John Hynes had no update after the team’s morning skate on Thursday on the timetable for the return of Faber, who has an upper-body injury from an elbow he took from Blues forward Jake Neighbours at the end of his first shift.
The Wild already were missing captain Jared Spurgeon (lower body), who is expected to be out for another week or two after taking a slew foot from Nashville forward Zachary L’Heureux in their game on Dec. 31. That leaves Minnesota without three of its top four defensemen. Jake Middleton just returned from a 10-game absence because of an upper-body injury.
The Wild also have been without star left wing Kirill Kaprizov (lower body), who missed his seventh straight game on Thursday. Kaprizov, who is tied for fourth in the NHL with 23 goals and ninth in the league with 50 points, has skated on the last two days and could return soon.
The Columbus Blue Jackets placed forward Sean Monahan on injured reserve Thursday because of an upper body injury sustained in the 4-3 shootout win at Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
Adam Fantilli is expected to move up to center the top line when the Blue Jackets host the Seattle Kraken on Thursday.
“Guys have watched how [Monahan] conducts himself, and hopefully they try to do the exact same thing,” coach Dean Evason said Thursday. “Our bench is calm in large part because of him up front and [defenseman Zach Werenski] on the back end. They’re both very calming influence players, but we have other guys that do that as well.
“But if the guys that are playing in tonight’s hockey game have learned anything from ‘Monny,’ it’s that he’s even-keeled. He doesn’t get too high, too low, all those clichés. He just goes about his business. We expect our team to do that here tonight.”
In a corresponding move, the Blue Jackets added rookie forward Owen Sillinger on an emergency recall from the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters.
Monahan, 30, has 41 points (14 goals, 27 assists), 14 penalty minutes and a plus-17 rating in 41 games this season. He ranks second on the team in plus/minus rating and third in goals, assists and points.
He has 579 career points (258 goals, 321 assists) in 805 games with the Calgary Flames (2013-22), Montreal Canadiens (2022-24), Winnipeg Jets (2024) and Blue Jackets, who signed him as a free agent in July. The Flames selected him sixth overall in the 2013 NHL draft.
Sillinger, 27, is on a one-year, two-way NHL/AHL contract with the Blue Jackets. He has eight goals and 17 assists with 18 penalty minutes in 34 games with Cleveland this season.
