Articles in NHL Talk

NEW YORK (Dec. 28, 2022) – The 2023 Discover NHL Winter Classic^® will include Fenway Park in its celebration of hockey’s roots outdoors when the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins face off at Major League Baseball’s oldest operating ballpark on Monday, Jan. 2, the National Hockey League (NHL) announced today. The day’s festivities will feature the return of NHL legend Bobby Orr to Boston; appearances by former Bruins and Boston Red Sox players; performances by The Black Keys, Bell Biv DeVoe and the Boston Pops; and baseball-themed activations on the “Ice Diamond” auxiliary rink. Live television coverage will begin at 2 p.m. ET on TNT in the U.S. and on Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports in Canada.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Adding two intradivisional matches while increasing the NHL schedule to 84 games next season is tantamount to putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.

Such a move, which we’re told has a fair amount of momentum within the Board of Governors, would represent an increase from 32 percent of the schedule being played inside the division to 33 percent.

That is a difference without a distinction.

In fact, altering the schedule to ensure four matchups between division rivals (instead of four against five opponents and three against the other two) would only serve to codify the NHL’s infuriating setup that deprives paying customers of entertainment value.

The idea is to maximize meaningful confrontations over the year and to enhance rivalries in a league in which skill is spiking, but intensity often flatlines. It is to spotlight showdowns down the stretch in playoff races. The current matrix does exactly the opposite.

Do you understand that under the current system, it does not matter whether the winning team goes to overtime in the 39 percent of games played out of conference while it has great bearing on the standings in the 61 percent of games within the conference?

What kind of loopy system is that?

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from Michael Traikos of the National Post,

If what we know about the 10,000-hour rule is true — that it takes literally years of intensive practice to achieve the mastery of a complex skill — then maybe Connor Bedard does have a chance at becoming the next Connor McDavid.

After all, it’s not just their names that they have in common.

As early as the age of 10, McDavid has been practising with skills coach Joe Quinn, whose reactive-countering training technique is used by some of the best players in the NHL. Bedard started when he was just eight, giving him two more years — and hundreds, if not thousands — more hours of practice than McDavid.

“He’s one of the longest-serving superstars that we’ve had, no question,” said Nick Quinn, who runs Power Edge Pro with his father.

The Quinns still have video of an eight-year-old Bedard on the ice with a 16-year-old McDavid, both of them whizzing around an obstacle course that tests your ability to stickhandle and skate in tight spaces without losing speed. Even then, Bedard stood out. Not only because the North Vancouver native was so much smaller than McDavid and everyone else, as well as the only player wearing a full cage. But also because he was so good at what is basically a high-speed juggling act that has at times humbled the likes of John Tavares, Taylor Hall and Jack Hughes.

“I don’t say it lightly, because we’ve had so many top players come through the program, but he is the closest I’ve seen to Connor McDavid — both from a skill perspective and also his mental state.

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from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,

About once a year, I put on my commissioner-for-a-day hat and lay out changes I would love to see. I encourage our readers to add some ideas of their own in the comments section below.

In the spirit of the holidays, here’s a six-pack of changes I would love to see:

1. Fix the points system

One of the reasons I constantly remind people of the difference between losing streaks (all losses in regulation) and winless streaks (overtime/shootout points gained) is to point out that the NHL is not a win-loss league when it comes to tabling its standings. It’s a points-accumulation league.

As I like to say, a team could lose 82 games in overtime or a shootout, and while it wouldn’t make the playoffs, those 82 points would have been good enough for 21st overall in a 32-team league last season. That’s for 82 games without a win!

This is why I’ve long maintained the need for the NHL to reconsider its points system. I reminded our readers in April, that the NHL actually did consider a 3-2-1 points system almost 19 years ago at a rather famous meeting of general managers in Henderson, Nevada — a meeting that pushed for a number of rule changes that changed the game.

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from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

- The 84-game schedule proposal is expected to be on the agenda for the March GM meetings. Not having each team play each other home-and-home was a traveshamockery the first time they tried it, let’s not speak of it again. So we’re talking 28 against the other seven teams from your division, 24 against the eight from the other division in your conference and 32 versus the other conference. That would decrease the number of exhibition games, which wouldn’t upset your ticket-buying public. Remember that players have to agree.

- One exec came up with a great schedule idea. He suggested that, in the last week of the season, each team has a home date booked and an away date booked. Games 81 and 82 are a divisional home-and-home with one-versus-two, three-versus-four, five-against-six and seven-against-eight. If you want, you could even expand it beyond the last two games — I’d personally consider the last four — and if you move a spot in your division (say down from two to three), your opponent changes with a re-seed after the first two games. What you could get are playoff implications and lottery implications. A team, say, four-to-six points out of the playoffs gets an opportunity for a late run. Someone’s going to come up with a reason why it wouldn’t work, but as a concept, I absolutely love it.

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NEW YORK (Dec. 21, 2022) – The 2023 Discover NHL Winter Classic^®, the outdoor matchup between the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins at Fenway Park in Boston on January 2, will feature performances by GRAMMY Award-winning rock band The Black Keys, legendary R&B group Bell Biv DeVoe, and renowned orchestra the Boston Pops, conducted by Keith Lockhart. The performances will be televised as part of the NHL Winter Classic broadcast on TNT in the U.S. and on Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports in Canada at 2 p.m. ET.

NEW YORK (December 19, 2022) – The National Hockey League (NHL) today unveiled a preview of the planned transformation of Fenway Park in Boston for the 2023 Discover NHL Winter Classic^® outdoor game between the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday, Jan. 2. The game, which will be broadcast live at 2 p.m. ET on TNT, Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports, will pay homage to the oldest major league baseball stadium and honor former and current Bruins and Boston Red Sox legends.

(Rendering Credit: NHL/Infinite Scale Design Group/Populous)

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- This is Year 18 for Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin as National Hockey League players and neither seems to be slowing down.

- Crosby is tied for sixth in NHL scoring and Ovechkin is tied for sixth in goals scored this season. Crosby is once again a Hart Trophy candidate, with his coach Mike Sullivan recently calling him the most complete player in the game.

- Ovechkin’s magical chase of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal-scoring record is ongoing and it’s basically three seasons away from fruition — and he just continues to chug on....

- And considering that, and the win for young players, I wonder when the last time was that the NHLPA negotiated anything of quality for its current crop of players, who are still trapped in escrow prison? This doesn’t just hurt players, it hurts fans who want better teams and can’t get them because of stalled numbers with the salary cap.

- Didn’t you expect Alexis Lafreniere to be better than this through three NHL seasons? … For about the next decade, the Leafs will regret passing on Kaiden Guhle in the first round of the 2020 NHL Draft. He’s going to be a sound defenceman for the next decade or more.

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On this edition of 32 Thoughts, Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek discuss the Vancouver Canucks' trade discussions, Hockey Canada's new board of directors, the NHL's potential move to an 84-game season, and more.

Watch at Sportsnet

added 9:23pm, or watch it below...

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

I have always believed that there is a lot of, “I told you so,” in Gary Bettman, who even when he didn’t, most often insists that he did.

That is what I think is at the root of the odd solo dance conducted by the NHL commissioner who in October, kind of out of nowhere, tantalizingly dangled the concept of a meaningful salary cap increase for next season before last week slipping into his familiar guise of Grinch in indicating to the Board of Governors that no such thing would be happening.

Instead, under terms of the collective bargaining agreement that was adopted in July 2020, the cap will be set to increase by just $1 million to $83.5 million, making 2023-24 another in a string of seasons in which at least half the league will be strangled by the cap. That is because the massive escrow debt incurred by the NHL Players’ Association during the pandemic will not be paid off by the end of this season.

Of course it won’t. We are told that last spring, the NHLPA advised agents that the debt would not be satisfied until the end of the 2024-25 season. The idea that somehow the debt would evaporate two years ahead of schedule is the type of concept based on voodoo economics.

But, like a practiced carny, Bettman threw it out there before reeling it back in. Magic!

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The hellacious open-ice hit that the Wild’s Ryan Reaves laid on Filip Hronek on Wednesday is legal under current rules. That tells you all you need to know about the efficacy of current rules in protecting players from brain damage.

from Greg Wyshynski of ESPN,

The NHL has discussed expanding its regular season from 82 to 84 games in an effort to create more regional rivalry matchups, sources confirmed to ESPN.

The league has been considering alternatives to its current schedule after some teams complained about an imbalanced number of divisional games against rivals.

Currently, each team plays either three or four games against divisional opponents, for a total of 26 games; they play three games against non-divisional teams within their own conference, for a total of 24 games; and they play two games, home and away, against opponents from the other conference for a total of 32 games.

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Walsh is reacting to Gary Bettman's comments on the ads today at the BOG.

from Dan Rosen of the NHL website,

The NHL is in the process of devising a uniform fan code of conduct that will be in place next season, Bettman said.

The concept has the support of the Player Inclusion Committee, Daly said.

"We're making sure we do this as a collaborative effort with all the clubs and getting all the appropriate feedback, suggestions and comments before we finalize it," the Commissioner said. "We want everybody who comes to our game to feel welcome, to feel safe, to feel this is an environment they can be comfortable in and what the level of conduct that's expected from people who go to games."

Bettman said the code of conduct will be announced in all buildings during games and that it will require training staff in terms of how to deal with incidents involving fan behavior.

"It deals with what the response would be to somebody if there is an incident," Commissioner Bettman said. "That's all going to be encompassed in a code of conduct."

more topics...

from Nicholas J. Costsonika of NHL.com,

The black NHL All-Star jersey featured the League's old black-and-orange logo on the front. Instead of a last name on the back, it said, "COMMISSIONER." It was No. 1.

Gary Bettman pulled it on 30 years ago, after he was elected the NHL's first commissioner at the Board of Governors meeting at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, on Dec. 11, 1992.

To his left stood Gil Stein, the outgoing NHL president. To his right was Bruce McNall, the owner of the Los Angeles Kings and the chairman of the Board of Governors.

Bettman smiled wide.

He was already an accomplished executive as the senior vice president and general counsel of the NBA. But there were only four leaders of major sports leagues in North America, and now, at just 40 years old, he'd be one of them.

"It was almost like an out-of-body experience," Bettman says now. "It wasn't that I was intimidated or overwhelmed. It was more like … the odds of being selected for a position like that were probably less than the odds of getting struck by lightning."

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from Stan Fischler of The Hockey News,

Some of my best friends loathe this Salary Cap Era. I love it.

I tell them to grin and bear it.

And if you can't bear it, try Scrabble.

I knew that the salary cap was important because a very smart fella, named Gary Bettman, conceived it – and a very self-important man, opposed it.

That was Bob Goodenow, who became head of the NHL Players' Association. Slowly – but relentlessly – Goodenow waged a two-front war.

On the one hand, he vowed that hell would get an expansion franchise before Goodenow would allow his minions to sign any document that introduced a salary cap to the NHL game.

On the other hand, Goodenow went to war with Gary Bettman. Bob put aside the good and welfare of his Players' Association and did just about anything possible to win the war and outdo the commissioner.

more plus other topics too...

from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,

We’ve got some ’80s hockey back in vogue, minus the Cooperall pants and Jofa helmets, of course.

We’re talking about wild, high-scoring games.

On Nov. 29 in Los Angeles, it was a 9-8 overtime contest between the Kraken and Kings. Six days later, it was a ridiculous 7-6 overtime game between the Habs and Canucks in Vancouver. On Wednesday night alone, it was Tage Thompson scoring five goals in a 9-4 Sabres win over the Blue Jackets, the Oilers coming only one goal shy of that total in an 8-2 win over the Coyotes and the Canucks winning another high-scoring overtime affair, this time 6-5 over the Sharks.

These games are emblematic of a wacky NHL season full of lead changes and, of course, goals galore.

“It’s a pretty freewheeling game right now,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said Wednesday after practice in Toronto, his hair perhaps having added another tint of gray from that 9-8 game. “Probably not a lot of fun for the goaltenders or some nights for the coaches. But for the fans, it’s great.”

To wit: The NHL this season is averaging 6.36 goals per game, continuing the trend that saw the league average 6.29 goals per game last season, which was the first time above 6.04 since the 2005 lockout ended with new rules meant to open up the game and created a temporary spike to 6.17 in 2005-06 — followed by averages under six in every season from 2006-07 through 2017-18.

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via Sportsnet's YouTube page,

On this edition of 32 thoughts, Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman discuss how the Canucks are starting to explore a trade with Brock Boeser, the possibility of the All-Star game coming to Canada in 2024 & when the World Jr. roster will be announced.

NEW YORK (Dec. 2, 2022) – The National Hockey League today announced a season-long partnership with P-X-P (formerly Play-By-Play Sports Interpreting) to expand its commitment to Deaf and hard-of-hearing fans.

On this edition of 32 thoughts, Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman discuss how there could be a new directive after Connor Hellebuyck's mask off incident, the concern of player safety from fans and how the Sabres could be dark horse for Jakob Chychrun.

Watch at Sportsnet

via Sportsnet's YouTube page,

On this edition of To The Point, the Hockey Night in Canada panel discuss Sidney Crosby's multiple exits in the first period against the Maple Leafs, Matt Murray dislodging the net numerous times, and Connor Hellebuyck losing his helmet during play.

from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

- It was the summer of 2002, right after Steve Yzerman’s greatest season. He led Team Canada to Olympic gold and the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup on a severely damaged right knee. Twenty years later, teammates still marvel at what he endured.

The questions became: Can his knee be fixed? Could he continue? During a visit to the industry-leading Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Birmingham, Ala., it was recommended Yzerman visit Dr. Peter Fowler at the University of Western Ontario. So, he did.

"The doctors in the United States saw him as an innovator," Yzerman said Tuesday. "He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, (illustrating) what he was going to do. He left a tremendous impression. He sat and talked to you as 'Pete,' not necessarily Dr. Fowler."...

- Some situations to watch: First, Florida. Anthony Duclair is on the road to recovery and the Panthers — twice forced to play with 17 skaters due to their cap crunch — must find room. Duclair’s salary is $3M, so that’s the figure that must be cleared, assuming (hopefully) the Panthers remain otherwise healthy.

- Ottawa: It’s not for a lack of effort that the Senators haven’t added a defenceman. Name someone who might be available, they’ve considered it. It’s one of my old lines — if you’re drowning, the other GMs throw anvils, not life preservers. I do think they’ve considered what kind of sweetener would be necessary to move Nikita Zaitsev, but there’s a limit.

more on the first topic and other Thoughts too...

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

- New rule time regarding the hated offside video review:

A team gains the offensive zone on an entry that will be subject to a coach’s challenge for offside, but proceeds in real time without a whistle. The defensive team gains control of the puck, but is unable to clear. An exchange or two of possession ensues before the offensive team scores a goal around 45 seconds after the initial entry.

Under current rules, the scored-upon team issues a challenge after taking whatever time is allotted by the officiating crew. Three minutes later, offside is confirmed. The goal is taken off the board, those 45 seconds are expunged and added to the game clock even as those in attendance have wasted about five minutes they will never get back.

New rule: The NHL should institute the delayed-penalty approach to continuation plays on offside challenges. Once the defending team gets possession of the puck, the opportunity for a review would end and everyone in the rink would be better off for it.

- Just when I was thinking that the Bruins had completely missed it with their reverse retro design by not going back to their football-styled numbered sweater popularized by Milt Schmidt and his ilk, along come the Blues with what seems to have been a Team Sweden-inspired yellowish and blue uniform that is as aesthetically pleasing an outfit as has been introduced in years.

Those all-green Minnesota North Wild outfits are not too shabby, either.

more topics, including a look at the New Jersey Devils...

from TSN,

Three-time Stanley Cup winner Joel Quenneville is looking to get back behind an NHL bench, but TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger reports it's unclear if he'll be approved to do so this season.

"He's ready but he's not able to get back in the game," Dreger said on Insider Trading Thursday. "He would like to return to an NHL bench sooner rather than later. Now any team with interest or offering a job would have to go through the Florida Panthers first for permission. That seems to be a formality but the big hurdle, of course, is commissioner Gary Bettman.

"Quenneville has to be cleared to return to the NHL by the commissioner's office – that hasn't happened yet and there are some who think that it may not happen until next season."

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Our TSN Hockey insiders Chris Johnston, Darren Dreger and Pierre LeBrun have the latest on how the NHL is handling helmet protocol in pre-game warmups, how the Jets are handling the injury to Nikolaj Ehlers, and more in this edition of Insider Trading.

Glenn Schiiler: Guys, the one chance fans get to see stars on the ice without a helmet is during warmups but Chris, are the days of the 'hair skate' numbered?

Chris Johnston: Yes, take a picture now because it won't last long, as the NHL has mandated that all future players wear a helmet during warmups. This will be grandfathered, of sorts, to begin with: any players that entered the league in the 2019-20 season or after have to immediately adhere to the rule, but any player that started before has the option to choose what they want to do with their helmet. It results from a recommendation from the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association committee on concussions and also the health and safety committee, so this was the way forward and it is now in effect.

continue and watch the segment too