from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,

Some time before Wednesday, the 2016-17 NHL season will finally come to a close, likely with the Pittsburgh Penguins as the winners of the final game for the second straight year. Nashville, naturally, swears that’s a premature conclusion to reach, and indeed a two-game winning streak for the Predators is hardly impossible. So we’ll see.

The lasting imprint of the ’16-17 campaign, however, will extend beyond the winner of the clash between two clubs that nearly moved to Hamilton. It was hardly a tumultuous campaign, or a controversial one, aside from the silly video reviews of offside calls we apparently are going to be stuck with for the foreseeable future.

Once the Bettman administration digs its heels in on an issue, it is not easily moved.

There are four areas of noteworthy change, however, that are worth remembering, areas that will continue to influence the league for years to come:

• This was the year the NHL season truly became unofficially split in two; you have the regular-season champion, and then the winner of the post-season tournament, the team that’s awarded the Stanley Cup.

Once upon a time, they were, if not one in the same, clearly linked. Several teams would establish themselves as the cream of the crop from October to April, and then one would emerge as the Cup winner.

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