This Week in Sports (Double Edition): March 8th-21st

NHL:

Sid the Kid is back, and he looks as good as he's ever been coming off yet another long stint on the sidelines. Sidney Crosby has already picked up 5 assists in his first three games back in the Penguins' lineup, adding a whole other dimension to a team that was already riding an eight game winning streak thanks to the likes of Evgeni Malkin and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. The Pens extended their streak to 11 games but finally lost to the Philadelphia Flyers in overtime on Sunday. With the return of Crosby and Kristopher Letang, the Pens look primed and ready to make another run at a championship.

Last week gave us a jumbled mess in the middle of both the Eastern and Western Conference standings as playoff seeding seems to change on a nightly basis; win one, and you move into a playoff position... lose one, and you inch closer and closer to the edge, in danger of falling and becoming a forgotten team looking to book early off-season tee times at your preferred golf courses.

While there are plenty of interesting stories to go around, the highlights last week have to have been the impressive play of the NHL leading St.Louis Blues, the near-monumental collapse of the Toronto Maple Leafs (who are close to being completely out of the playoff picture) and the successful and long-awaited return of Canadiens defenseman Andrei Markov, who finally played after rehabbing a knee injury for over a year, picking up an assist in Montreal's 4-1 win against Vancouver that Saturday night.

NFL:

The biggest fish in this year's free-agent pool has finally found a home: Peyton Manning is going to the Denver Broncos. The news broke Monday morning as Manning informed the other teams vying for his services, Tennessee and San Fransisco, that he would be signing with the Broncos. He also told his agent to begin negotiating a deal with the Broncos; the Broncos, who were, of course, the beneficiaries of Tim Tebow's repeated late-game heroics last season, will now shop Tebow around and ultimately trade him for whatever they can get. So while PeytonWatch is now over, TebowTime is about to recapture the North American media spotlight once again.

NBA:

The Dwight Howard saga appears to be over for the time being, but fans of the Orlando Magic won’t forget it anytime soon. Howard toyed with the team and its fanbase the past couple weeks, swinging back and forth like a pendulum as to whether or not he wanted to be traded by the trade deadline or not. Ultimately, he signed an option in his contract, meaning he will be back next season, but the fact that he was ready to leave and kept changing his mind will not be lost on fans and executives around the NBA.

Last week, the Minnesota Timberwolves suffered a devastating blow as rookie sensation Ricky Rubio went down with a season-ending knee injury against the Lakers on Saturday. Rubio was averaging 10.6 points and 8.2 assists this year, and will be missed by Kevin Love and the rest of the Timberwolves.

Last weekend also marked the 20 year anniversary of NBA legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson's stunning retirement announcement when it was discovered that he was HIV-positive. The announcement remains a "where were you when?" kind of moment in which people can recall exactly where they were when they heard the news. The event is vividly portrayed in Nelson George's documentary "The Announcement" which aired on ESPN last Saturday afternoon.

MLS:

The Montreal Impact played their first ever home game in Major League Soccer on Saturday, coming out with a 1-1 result against the Chigago Fire. The Impact were buzzing around the Fire's end for a good part of the game, but were only able to capitalize once despite various scoring chances. Captain Davy Arnaud scored the historic goal but it did not stand as the Fire answered back later in the game. The announced crowd was close to 60,000 people, and while the rest of the Impact's games will be held at Saputo stadium, which holds a considerably smaller amount of people, the turnout bodes well for the future of the franchise as it appears the city will avidly support this club, and hopefully avoid a similar fate to that of the Montreal Expos.

-Andrew Maggio co-hosts Game Misconduct every Sunday from 12pm-2pm and runs a dedicated Habs blog that you can check out here