from Brad Mills at The Players' Tribune,

For guys playing in the NHL, personnel decisions often mean the difference between flying on chartered jets and eating filet mignon or riding the dusty bone-rattler bus and eating chicken parm that’s been steaming in a plastic container on the seat behind the driver. When you live your life on the bubble, it really is feast or famine.

I’m intimately familiar with the NHL/AHL bubble because I spent a lot of my hockey career squarely on it. When I played for the New Jersey Devils organization in 2011, my bubble remained in tact for the first 20 games of the season before it popped and I found myself back on the bus in Albany, inhaling a mixture of diesel fumes and the methane produced by my more flatulent teammates.

This is my first October as a retired hockey player, and as I look back on my career, I have to wonder: Why did my bubble keep popping year after year, while other players floated along to successful careers in the NHL?

A popular excuse for a lot of players is a lack of opportunity. They’re not getting power play time, or they’re not playing on the right line. You hear it all.

Well, believe it or not, coaches and GMs are primarily concerned with winning, and will give an opportunity to any player that they think can help them get two points.

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