from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- Gary Bettman sent a loud message to Alexander Ovechkin Monday night: No Olympics for you.

At his annual state of the NHL address, commissioner Bettman basically said that no NHL players under contract to member clubs will be eligible to play in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea....

- Bettman said the much criticized video replay and coach’s challenge system is “working exactly as it was intended to.” He said that with a straight face. Then in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, Bettman’s words came to fruition. The first apparent goal of the Final was called off on instant replay. There is no way an offside that close could have been called on the ice. In fact, it took several views to determine whether it was offside or not, and still it wasn’t clear....

- Another piece of Bettman satire: When asked about the recent assault on star players he said “we expect officials to call the rulebook” as is. We expect it too. It just doesn’t happen. When a Pittsburgh writer asked Bettman about the safety of star players, he was later accosted by NHL vice-president Colin Campbell for asking a dumb question.

more on the first two points and additional topics from yesterday in Pittsburgh...