Articles in NHL Talk

from Nicholas J. Cotsonika of the NHL website,

The NHL general managers met for about five hours in Toronto on Tuesday, mostly going over fine points of rules and setting up in-depth discussions for their meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, from March 13-15.

The NHL hockey operations department showed the GMs videos of nuances in the game now and new moves that might challenge interpretations of rules in the future.

"It's a compelling product, it's evolving, and you have players doing all sorts of things we wouldn't have even thought about 25, 30 years ago," NHL director of officiating Stephen Walkom said. "We had some unique plays that we could show them, like a player picking the puck up on a shootout attempt and carrying it in lacrosse-style and keeping it below his shoulders. When's it legal? When's it illegal? What can he do when he gets to the net?"

One GM suggested adding video review to see if a player shoots the puck over the glass in the defensive zone, which results in a delay of game penalty. NHL senior executive vice president of hockey operations Colin Campbell said the idea comes up from time to time, but it's difficult to get the right camera angle and consistent TV replays.

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from the NHL,

Here are some of the key moments from the induction speeches of Daniel Alfredsson, Roberto Luongo, Riikka Sallinen, Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin and the family of Herb Carnegie, who was inducted as a Builder, as well as from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's comments.

HERB CARNEGIE: Stepping outside the box

Commonly regarded as the best Black player never to play in the NHL, Carnegie would channel his positive energy into making hockey a better game in myriad ways. On Monday, his inspirational, pioneering work was celebrated by his daughter, Bernice, and son, Dale, upon the late center's induction in the Builders category.

"He took the skills he learned from hockey and transposed them into his life-off-ice skills," Bernice said. "He was an entrepreneur, a trailblazer that kept stepping outside the box."...

Bernice brought the Meridian Hall Theatre audience to its feet as she closed her acceptance speech with a powerful, strong, timely message.

"I know my father is calling out to all of us to honor the sport he so loved by continuing to do it justice," she said. "We are responsible for making the sport better. We are responsible for ending sexism, gender bias, racism and homophobia.

"We are responsible for making all areas of our lives more accepting and inclusive. This was my father's life work. This is what I learned from him. This is why I'm grateful every day … that he gave me part of his vision and that we can share that with others." -- Dave Stubbs

much more

On this edition of 32 thoughts, Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman discuss if there's clarity to come with the Canucks coaching staff, the central topics at this weeks GM meetings and what's next with Mitchell Miller's contract with Boston Bruins.

Watch at Sportsnet

TORONTO/NEW YORK (Nov. 11, 2022) – The National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) today released the following statement regarding the World Cup of Hockey:

“Over the last year, the NHL and the NHLPA have been working on plans to conduct the next World Cup of Hockey, the premier international best-on-best hockey tournament, in February 2024. Unfortunately, in the current environment it is not feasible to hold the World Cup of Hockey at that time. We continue to plan for the next World Cup of Hockey, hopefully in February 2025.”

via Sportsnet's YouTube page,

On this edition of 32 Thoughts, Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek discuss the continued reaction to the Boston Bruins signing Mitchell Miller, Bo Horvat's future with the Vancouver Canucks, the potential sale of the Ottawa Senators, and more.

from Adam Proteau of The Hockey News,

A new report from Sportico ranking the valuations of every NHL team made one thing perfectly clear: it’s never been a better time to be an NHL team owner. Franchise values surged so that the average franchise is reportedly up nine percent and pegged at a combined total of $32.4 billion. That’s not chump change. That’s a success. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has done very well for the owners who employ him.

Indeed, if we take a closer look at the financial mechanisms in place for the NHL, we see why Bettman and team owners so willingly agreed to an extension of the collective bargaining agreement in 2020. Owners are making money hand over fist, while players’ salaries have, in some regards, flatlined. As owners have watched team values soar, many players’ paydays have hit a ceiling. Bettman’s hard salary cap has worked as intended, and players’ leverage has disappeared prior to, and under the reign of NHL Players’ Association boss Don Fehr. There are a few options the players have to try and regain some leverage, and the one that does exist is not a half-measure. We’ll get into that in a handful of paragraphs from now. But let’s get back to Sportico’s appraisal of NHL teams.

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via the NHL PR department,

The first calendar month of the 2022-23 regular-season began with a back-to-back set in Prague and ended with a three-game Halloween that produced the first six-point performance by a player this season. With the calendar turned and Hockey Fights Cancer month underway, a look back at an October that yielded goals at a rate of 6.3 per game and saw 48% of contests finish as comeback wins:

from Kurt Badenhausenof Sportico,

The Nashville Predators were on the verge of relocating 15 years ago when a group of local businessmen stepped in to buy the team for $175 million and keep it in Music City. The club is now on the verge of another transaction, to former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, that values the franchise at roughly $775 million, mirroring a surge in franchise values across the NHL over the past decade.

The average NHL franchise is worth $1.01 billion—crossing the 10-figure mark for the first time—and up 9% from a year ago. The total value of the league’s 32 clubs, including ownerships’ stakes in real estate, venues, TV networks and team-related holdings, is $32.4 billion. The Toronto Maple Leafs rank first at $2.12 billion, $110 million ahead of the New York Rangers.

Like the NFL and NBA, which soak up many of the sports business headlines, the NHL has similar levers that make the clubs valuable. David Blitzer, global head of tactical opportunities at Blackstone, has acquired ownership stakes across the five major U.S. sports leagues, including the New Jersey Devils. He laid out his two most powerful drivers for the investment in sports teams at Sportico’s Invest in Sports event last month.

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Find the NHL Team Ranking value here.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

It isn’t a quirk that the Rangers and Islanders will meet just three times this season and just once at UBS. It isn’t a quirk that the Oilers and Flames will play only three times and just once at Edmonton. It isn’t a quirk that the Flyers and Penguins will face off only three times and just once in Philadelphia.

It is instead a feature of the NHL schedule and a league that has made it its business to devalue rivalries in favor of a more universal schedule that has become a significant factor in the wavering passion and diluted intensity across the league’s six-month tour.

Twelve of the 16 playoff spots are awarded by division standings, yet teams play a touch under 32-percent of the schedule within the division. Teams play more games against non-conference opponents than they do against division rivals … well, not really rivals, but instead, foes.

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from Greg Wyshynski of ESPN,

Is tanking worth it? Absolutely, when you're securing the services of a player like Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Kane, Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews. Or probably of Connor Bedard, whose presence in the 2023 NHL draft class encouraged some teams' apparent self-imposed mediocrity before a single puck was dropped this season.

But not everyone respects the tank.

"Is it an effective way to rebuild? Yes, if you totally lack integrity and character. Because it attacks the very soul of the game," Pittsburgh Penguins president Brian Burke told me this week.

When Burke was a general manager and his team was mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, he would speak with the players. His message would be clear: Don't worry about where we'll end up drafting. Your job now is to "wreck teams' playoff hopes" and win as many games as possible.

While with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Burke remembers going to the TSN studios in Canada for the NHL draft lottery show and watching his peers' giddy anticipation of the drawing.

"Everyone was rubbing their hands together like little kids at Christmastime," he said. "Aren't we all embarrassed? Isn't this the most embarrassing thing that we do all year is come to the lottery? I was mortified."

much more ($)

from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

- Vancouver has two points in seven games. I can find one team that made the playoffs since 2005-06 in a full 82-game season despite such a poor start. That was 2013-14 Philadelphia, which was 1-6. The Flyers went 41-24-10 to get there.

Of all the things Jim Rutherford said in his riveting After Hours appearance with Scott Oake, this is the most relevant right now: “We may very well be in a rebuild in the direction we’re going. But ideally, we’d like to transition this team on the fly. We do have some core players, some young players that are really good.”...

- Several sources described Bettman’s revelation that the cap could go up $4M next season as “ambitious,” but have also indicated that the league legitimately believes this is possible based on early-season revenue projections. While I was surprised at the possibility, I wasn’t surprised that Bettman would paint an optimistic picture. That’s what he’s always done, and we shouldn’t expect otherwise. It’s also very possible he wants to show that the NHL is a healthy investment in a challenging economy. One of the indicators to watch is the Canadian dollar. Apparently, the estimates include a valuation of the Canadian buck at 75 cents.

- I see some of your DMs about the board advertising. I do think everyone is looking at solutions for horizontal movement. Vertical doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue.

- Love, love, love Mickey Redmond’s nickname for the Michael Rasmussen, Elmer Soderblom, Oskar Sundqvist line: The Treesome. And if Redmond says it, you know Red Wings fans accept it.

more Thoughts

via Chris Pronger tweets,

For those always wondering what happened to your favorite player from your childhood, for many, there is not a good answer.

As a professional athlete everything revolves around structure and a schedule.

You are told where to go and what to do from the time you wake up.

After retirement that is not the case. For many former athletes they struggle with purpose.

They have always been Player X “the professional athlete”. Their whole identity has revolved around their respective sport.

Many more tweets in a long thread

On this edition of 32 Thoughts, Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman give an update on where Jakob Chychrun may land and also discuss the NHL looking to play future games in Australia and the candidates for the top jobs in Hockey Canada.

Watch at Sportsnet

added 9:42pm, or watch below///

NEW YORK (Oct. 18, 2022) – The National Hockey League (NHL) and its 32 Clubs released a comprehensive report, ‘Accelerating Diversity & Inclusion: NHL Report on Strategies, Initiatives and Progress,’ highlighting intentional efforts to promote positive social change within the sport.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

The pandemic made them do it.

Advertising on helmets? The pandemic made the NHL do it.

Besmirching the sweater and cheapening the logo while enriching the bottom line by selling advertising patches on jerseys? The pandemic made the NHL do it.

I know, you don’t have to tell me because Deputy Bill Daly, in myriad interviews, has already told everyone that, “It is not the end of the world.”

Of course, nothing is the end of the world except for, literally, the end of the world. But had my 13-year-old self told my mom that the 67 I got in my first chemistry exam at Bronx Science was not “the end of the world,” I’m not so sure she’d have played along the way we are supposed to with Daly and the Merchants of Manhattan.

(Fact is, she didn’t’!)

Yes, I know, the ad money (Don’t you love how teams attempt to spin these sponsors as “patch partners,” or whatever other equally foolish euphemism they can find) will boost the salary cap, but there is that whole pesky means-to-an-end thing to consider.

Does every swatch of space in out lives have to be sold off to the highest corporate bidder just because it can be? Is it possible that the uniform, even if it is only laundry, could remain sacrosanct?

The pandemic made them do it.

continued plus more topics like this...

Finally, with Mike Keenan on Friday named head coach of Italy’s national team in advance of the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will be held in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, I wonder how long it will take him to reach out to, say, Denmark, to see if he can get a better deal.

NEW YORK (Oct. 15, 2022) – The National Hockey League announced today that it had concluded its investigation into anonymous allegations posted on social media against Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Ian Cole, having found no evidence to substantiate the allegations.

The investigation of the allegations, which were made anonymously in a social media post on Oct. 7, was conducted by the League’s Security and Legal departments.

The investigation included two separate interviews with Mr. Cole as well as interviews with NHL club personnel and other individuals with potentially relevant information. Further, the investigation included a detailed review of on-line and social media, public data, and court records and law enforcement checks. In addition, despite attempts by the League to make contact with the anonymous source of the social media post, those efforts were unsuccessful.

On the basis of the foregoing, the National Hockey League now considers this matter closed.

added 7:50pm, NHLPA statement is below.

The NHL viewing experience in 2022: You’re trying to follow the play, then this unwanted screensaver jolts away from the close-up and pans out to the whole sandwich. The word “IMPOSSIBLE” was painted in shouting capital letters in the rest of the available board space.

That’s as best I can describe one of the new virtual board ads, which are superimposed on the boards in each TV market’s broadcast. Those watching the Root Sports Seattle broadcast on Thursday, when the Kraken beat the Kings, might have seen the Impossible Burger ad; those watching the Los Angeles feed would have seen something else.

Watching NHL games these days, you think a little too much about a local-market power semiconductor company, which … sigh … is the point.

-Matt Porter of the Boston Globe where you can read more on this plus other topics like...

Mattias Samuelsson is the first NHLer to sign a seven-year, $30 million contract before scoring his first NHL goal. The pain-in-the-butt Sabres defenseman entered this season with all of 54 games on his ledger, but now will make some $4.3 million a year until he’s 30.

Quite a bet for Buffalo. If the cap really is going to rise by some $10 million in the next three years, as the league has estimated, and Samuelsson (son of Kjell Samuelsson) continues to hold down a top-four role next to Rasmus Dahlin, then that figure looks fine.

Other teams are making similar calls. The trend is for teams to sign their under-23 players — ones who aren’t at the Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, Adam Fox, or even Miro Heiskanen levels — to seven- and eight-year extensions as their rookie deals are expiring. In the last two seasons, Buffalo (Samuelsson, Tage Thompson), Carolina (Jesperi Kotkaniemi), Montreal (Nick Suzuki), New Jersey (Jack Hughes), Ottawa (Josh Norris, Tim Stutzle), and St. Louis (Jordan Kyrou, Robert Thomas) signed young talent through the bulk of their 20s.

Will long-time Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane be on the move this season? What's the latest on David Pastrnak's future in Boston? Does an eight-year deal make sense for Michael Bunting and the Leafs? The TSN Hockey Insiders discuss these topics and more in the season premiere of Insider Trading.

Watch at TSN

* In another Golden Knights-Kings matchup to feature a back-and-forth affair, captain Mark Stone scored within the final 60 seconds of regulation to lift Vegas past its Pacific Division rival.

* Mika Zibanejad recorded a pair of firsts for the Rangers, highlighted by a shorthanded and power-play goal, as New York toppled Tampa Bay in the NHL’s inaugural 2022-23 regular-season game contested in North America.

* ESPN opened the season with a video feature on NHL ice expert Dan Craig and his son Mike titled Clean Sheet which was narrated by Penguins captain Sidney Crosby.

Oct. 10, 2022 – Entering its eighth season operating out of its Secaucus, NJ headquarters, NHL Network™ is set to provide unparalleled coverage of the 2022-2023 NHL® regular season. Daily studio programs include:

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- I’m a list guy. I devour them. But didn’t have a lot of disagreement with TSN’s annual list of the Top 50 NHL players. For me, I thought Sasha Barkov of the Florida Panthers was a touch high at No. 9 and I thought Adam Fox and Charlie McAvoy, two of those rare No. 1 defencemen, were too low at 18 and 30.

- No one wants to say this because of the politically correct police and all, but those who coached Akim Aliu must cringe every time they see him in a news report or a commercial talking about what’s wrong with hockey. Like he would know. By my count, Aliu played for 23 teams in nine different leagues in 12 professional seasons and rarely finished any season with the same team he started with. If that was colour-related, how is it that Wayne Simmonds spent just about the same 12 seasons playing in the NHL?

- Matthews is already being talked about as the best American hockey player ever, with good reason. But it’s still early and still too soon to place him ahead of Brian Leetch or Chris Chelios at this time in history. Leetch won a Conn Smythe Trophy, which is really the ultimate individual award. Chelios is a three-time Norris Trophy winner. Matthews might get there, just not yet. My list of top Americans would start with Leetch, then Chelios, then go to Patrick Kane, then maybe Matthews, ahead of Mike Modano and Pat LaFontaine. And I don’t count Brett Hull as an American, no matter what his passport says. He learned to play in Winnipeg and Vancouver while growing up. He only played for Team USA because when he was a slow-developing teenager, Team Canada didn’t want him."

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