from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

- Is New Jersey showing enough to Taylor Hall that the NHL’s reigning Hart Trophy winner will sign an extension this summer and thus alleviate fears he will flee as a 2020 free agent?

Does Hall believe enough in the club’s future to eschew hitting the open market, where he’d be welcomed with offers from multiple contenders an elite piece away?

More to the point: Is there a team whose pajamas No. 9 wore to bed as a child?...

- So wait. While we expand the playoffs to include play-in rounds featuring conference ninth- and 10th-place teams (presumably in a mini-tournament with the seventh- and eighth-place clubs), what is everyone else supposed to do? Sit around for a week?

Playoff expansion is a terrible idea, worse even than the absurd bracket format.

more on Hall plus two more topics...