from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- There are two basic problems with the construction of the Montreal Canadiens. 1) No natural centremen; 2) Not enough quickness for today’s NHL.

- How is it that nhl.com, the league’s website, can’t seem to get player positions right? This isn’t new. I’ve chided about this before. There are five mistakes on the Maple Leafs roster, which lists 10 centres for a team that only plays five. If there are that many errors on one roster, how many in total are there for the other 30 teams?

- The early bet here: the Arizona Coyotes will finish with the worst record in the NHL, behind the Vegas Golden Knights.

- Before the lockout of 2004, and before there was a salary cap, Peter Forsberg and Jaromir Jagr were the highest paid players in the NHL, both earning $11 million a season.

And the reported value of the Toronto Maple Leafs at the time was $280 million US.

Twelve years later, as NHL payrolls have risen by 91% - and the value of NHL franchises have risen by 200-300% - the salary of the superstar players has remained relatively flat by comparison and the Maple Leafs are apparently worth more than $1 billion.

The simple way of looking at this: Owners have won, superstars, who sell the game, have lost, and have been taken for granted....

more on the last topic above plus other hockey notes...