from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

In an alternate universe, I would have devoted this entire space to the ongoing talks between the NHL and NHLPA and how absolutely sidesplittingly hilarious it is that the league, which shut down the sport for an entire season in order to gain its revenue-linked hard cap it could not live without, is now relying on the union to save the system it cannot live with under these adverse conditions.

And get this, Mrs. Maisel, the union actually appears to be going along with it, knee deep in negotiating ways to reduce the pain of expected enormous escrow losses through at least 2020-21 instead of aiming for a reset that would rid the NHL forever of its linked hard cap/escrow system the players have decried since the moment it was established.

But, honestly, I doubt very many of you are terribly invested in reading about hockey labor negotiations. The players seem unwilling to fight over the CBA and about eliminating the unyielding hard cap even when at this juncture in which they hold a fair amount of leverage. But you probably don’t want to hear much about leverage, either, in the midst of this pandemic that has created so much emotional and economic wreckage and whose work is probably not remotely close to done.

So I will move on even as the NHL moves to at least temporarily de-link the cap from revenue, which is something Gary Bettman once said (once?) he and the Board would never, ever, never consider. Well, never is a very long time. And now that de-linking works in the league’s favor, well, of course it’s a good idea, and why not, and good night, everybody, here’s Shy Baldwin.

We’re hearing tales of confusion within the Devils hierarchy as ownership and its proxies continue to conduct interviews for the GM position that continues to be filled on an interim/acting basis by Tom Fitzgerald.

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