from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

- I must confess, I was taken by surprise when pieces in support of Tuukka Rask’s Hockey Hall of Fame candidacy began popping up on my screen in the wake of the Bruins netminder’s recent retirement. Same for the suggestion that Boston should retire the Finn’s No. 40 and thus make him the first goaltender in franchise history to be so honored.

Number retirements are intensely local. But it seems odd that the franchise that has not retired Frankie Brimsek’s No. 1 or Gerry Cheevers’ No. 30 would bestow Rask with that singular decoration....

- Can’t say that I have seen all that much at all of the men’s hockey competition in Beijing, but I can say with certainty that the USA’s shootout loss to Slovakia in the quarterfinals is going to be a devastating one attached to David Quinn’s résumé in the coach’s hunt for a second NHL job.

- The regular season is not a worry, so Vegas is following the Tampa Bay-Chicago model in finagling with the cap by putting Mark Stone on long-term injured reserve in order to accommodate Jack Eichel’s addition to the roster, just the way the Lightning did last year with Nikita Kucherov and the Blackhawks did in 2015 with Patrick Kane.

The league has found no skullduggery with these courses of action designed to allow teams to bulk up beyond the cap for the playoffs, but it is interesting to note that the three teams that have pulled this maneuver are favored ownerships within the walls of the NHL’s Ninth Avenue headquarters.

I wonder if the view would be different if one of those outside the inner circle tried to pull it off. Maybe Jeff Vanderbeek, the Devils and Ilya Kovalchuk might have the answer.

- Finally, TNT hiring Stephane Auger as an officiating expert would be like the NHL somehow hiring Stephen Walkom as an executive to oversee the league’s officiating department.

more on the first topic plus other topics too...