from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- Gary Bettman remains adamant there is no benefit to the National Hockey League, financially or in any other way, to have NHL players participate in the Winter Olympics. There is, his words, only disruption. Never mind that the players want to go. Never mind that the fans around the world want to see best-on-best Olympic hockey. The commissioner is pretty clear: He doesn’t care about what the players want and more than that, he doesn’t care about the fans of his sport … Can’t you just see a Winter Olympics in China with Auston Matthews and Patrick Kane lining up against Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby for a USA-Canada gold medal match. Nobody would want to see that, would they? And what a shame it would be if McDavid and Matthews and Johnny Gaudreau and Nathan MacKinnon and Mitch Marner and Jack Eichel never get a chance to play in the Olympics?

- It may be old school thinking but the Calgary Flames sure took getting pushed around in the playoffs to heart. They brought in Milan Lucic, who has next to nothing left, and have offered training camp tryouts to Devante Smith-Pelly and Zac Rinaldo, hardly known for their finesse.

a few more hockey notes...