from Matt Porter of the Boston Globe,

- Stars coach Dallas Eakins, formerly of the Oilers, on Taylor Hall’s years in Edmonton: “There was an immense amount of pressure on that young man. It was extremely unfair to him.” Hall, drafted first overall in 2010, has scored 0.86 points per game for his career. Among those picked No. 1 overall, Hall ranks between Joe Thornton (0.89) and Vincent Lecavalier (0.78).

- If you — the Canucks — have Elias Pettersson (age 24), Quinn Hughes (23), and Thatcher Demko (27), and know that Bedard badly wants to play for his hometown franchise, shouldn’t you tank?

- The Ducks had four regulation wins in their first 42 games. It’s bad in Anaheim.

- Entering the weekend, more than 80,000 people viewed a tweet I posted Monday night asking, “What worries you about the Bruins at this moment?” Of the 300-plus comments, it wasn’t all worries about David Pastrnak’s contract or post-Patrice Bergeron concerns. That diversity of response signals to me that all this winning hasn’t softened the paying customers.

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