from Chip Alexander of the News & Observer,

At 8 p.m. Sunday, John Forslund was to leave the basement of his Apex home, rejoining his family, symptom-free for the coronavirus, his self-quarantine at an end.

“It’s been an ordeal,” Forslund said Saturday, thankful that a 10-day period filled with uncertainty and mind games would be coming to a close.

Forslund, the Carolina Hurricanes’ longtime broadcaster, also quickly qualified that comment. Others, he said, face grave health challenges from COVID-19 during a global pandemic that has made life as we know it far from the life we once knew. And there are other life-threatening diseases.

“This is something totally different, where you have to sacrifice for the good of yourself and everyone around you, so that’s basically what I did,” Forslund said. “I do have to be honest. It has been harder than I thought it would be.”

continued

from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

All of these young players might have played their final game this season.

“Certainly, there’s some potential for development to have been stalled,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "There was in (Grand Rapids) a potential playoff run, and there’s development involved in that. When you go through experiences in life, you have the opportunity to grow. You don’t always, it’s up to you a little bit, but you have the opportunity to grow, both from good and bad experiences.

"Right now there’s no day to day experience. So for kids in college, for kids in pro, there isn’t that developmental opportunity."

Making matters worse, their training regimens are disrupted due to closures of team and exercise facilities.

“It’s a difficult situation that’s fluid, dealing with prospects in different countries with different regulations,” Shawn Horcoff, Red Wings director of player development, said. “The main thing is staying safe and following the guidelines that government is putting together.”

Horcoff provided an update recently on how some of the organization’s top prospects fared this season:

read on

from Karen Bouffard of the Detroit News,

Michigan had 1,035 confirmed COVID-19 case resulting in eight deaths through 10 a.m. Sunday, according to the latest numbers released by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services on Sunday afternoon.

The numbers included three deaths reported by area hospitals on Saturday.

The number of counties with confirmed coronavirus cases increased to 32, from 27 counties with cases reported as of Saturday. Allegan, Emmet, Gladwin, Grand Traverse and Roscommon counties were added to the list.

The greatest number of confirmed cases are in the city of Detroit, where 325 cases have been confirmed, including four people who died.

Of the newly confirmed cases, 86% are in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties. Statewide, 50 percent of the cases are in males, and 50 percent in females, according to state data.

There have been 277 confirmed cases in Oakland County, and one death. Wayne County has had 152 cases with one death, and there have been 140 cases and one death confirmed in Macomb County.

continued

from the Detroit News two days ago,

Red Wings beat reporter Ted Kulfan talks to coach Jeff Blashill about preparing for life in a post-coronavirus world and former NHL defenseman Marcus Ragnarsson says Gustav Lindstrom can be a 'top-four defenseman' with the Red Wings.

Ragnarsson, who is Lindstrom's uncle and coached Lindstrom in junior hockey in Sweden, is an assistant coach with the Swedish hockey team which is scheduled to compete at the world championships in Switzerland from May 8-24. (As of Friday morning, the IIHF hasn't cancelled the tournament despite the COVID-19 pandemic).

A veteran of 632 games with the San Jose Sharks and Philadelphia Flyers (37 goals, 140 assists, 482 penalty minutes), Ragnarsson was at Little Caesars Arena last week scouting players like Lindstrom for the Swedish team coached by former Red Wings forward Johan Garpenlov.

"I think he (Lindstrom) can be a top-four defenseman (with the Red Wings)," Ragnarsson said. "As he progresses, he's going to be even better as he gets more comfortable playing against better players."

continued with a podcast too...

Thanks to a KK member for the pointer.

from Evan Petzold at the Detroit Free Press,

Freelancers at Fox Sports Detroit are searching for answers.

Almost every FSD employee working home games for the Detroit Pistons, Red Wings and Tigers is a freelancer — stage managers, camera operators, audio technicians, editors, among others.

Those are the people Michael Abdella, an EVS operator at Fox Sports for 14 years, is fighting for. With the cancellation or postponement of sporting events because of the coronavirus pandemic, his self-described family members within the Sinclair Broadcast Group freelance industry are out of jobs.

There are more than 100 freelancers who work for FSD — 35 to 40 are needed to produce each game — and right now, they have no source of income, or any information coming from the corporate office.

“This feels like there’s no coming back from,” said Abdella, who specializes in instant replay. “That is the real punch in the gut for a lot of us. You preach teamwork, have meetings, send information out, then when the times get the hardest, you’re radio silent. That is devastating to us.”

continued

from Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun,

Trailing the bulky beast with its top speed of 15.6 km/h, there’s a surprising history, a lot of water under the blade. For nine decades, it has been the first on the ice every day and last off, still doing laps around everyone.

“It’s hard to believe it has been as successful as it has,” company president Richard Zamboni told the Toronto Sun in a previous interview from his office in Paramount, Calif....

Steven Galyean, who steers for the Carolina Thunderbirds of the Federal League, tried to convey the contraption’s unusual romance for spectators.

“It’s something being driven on the ice, a machine on wheels, it’s just something different,” he told journalnow.com. “It’s got a weird name. Every kid loves the Zamboni, even the big kids. The truth is everybody wants to drive it.”

much more

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

The NHLPA held a membership-wide conference call Friday in which the players essentially decided to defer a decision on how to handle upcoming crushing escrow losses until a verdict on this season is rendered, per a source who participated in the give-and-take.

As we reported Thursday, the league has informed the union that cancelation of the season could mean a revenue loss of up to $1 billion. That would translate to approximate escrow losses of up to 35 percent per player.

If there is nothing the union can do about that, and it seems to be locked in by the collective bargaining agreement 50-50 partnership on hockey-related revenue, the players are sure going to want to hold next year’s number down as much as possible, which is why it is impossible to predict what that cap might be, and what the personnel fallout might be across the league.

more, plus items like this...

... do you know whose ownerships have generally escaped scrutiny as the impact of the coronavirus moves at warp speed through society and we careen from one trauma to the next?

The ownerships of the Sharks, Blue Jackets and Capitals, that’s who.

Despite the fact the Santa Clara County public health officials recommended canceling sporting events, the Sharks opened their gates and played a March 5 home game against the Wild that had an attendance of 14,517...

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- So you’re Gary Bettman and you have all your plans on computers and on paper and just about everywhere else. When are your playoffs? What are your playoffs? Where are your playoffs? When is the draft? Is there a draft combine? When does free agency start? Are you doing awards? If so how and where? And none of us with a clue as to when there will be games again and under what constraints. I’m figuring nothing before June and all that is just a guess. That’s all we have. And it’s the same for Adam Silver and the NBA. Who knows who and when and what and where — nothing has prepared anybody for anything like this shutdown.

- Tampa coach Jon Cooper likes John Carlson for the Norris Trophy, assuming there are trophies to pass out this year. His general manager, Julien BriseBois, likes his own defenceman, Victor Hedman. Postmedia national hockey writer Michael Traikos favours Roman Josi. Me? I’m a Hedman guy. Just about every year. Three good choices from a season that is certainly over.

- Bobby Orr turned 72 the other day. In the 1970s, he scored 659 in 407 games played. That’s a ridiculous 132 point pace between injuries. Erik Karlsson led the past decade in scoring for defencemen, averaging 69 points a season, and Nicklas Lidstrom led the decade before that with 62 points a season. Orr remains in a world all his own.

- The NHL media blackout during these days of shutdown makes little sense to me. The teams are happy to control the message and send out the player washing his hands video — like you wouldn’t know how to wash your hands without Morgan Rielly — just not letting the player talk about anything more interesting than soap and water.

a few more hockey notes...

Quick vent time. I’ve had it w people who aren’t taking this seriously. Enough of your shit. Good buddy has the virus & says it’s unlike anything he’s had before. Grow up & do your part to help, not just what you “want” to do. None of us want to be isolating for weeks/mos

Stop playing your b-ball, football, rugby, hockey, etc. Stop hanging out like nothing is happening. Take 2-3 freaking weeks off like the rest of us. My family isn’t making a penny right now. We aren’t having any “fun” or “living our best life.” God damn, Be a better human

stop being so selfish/arrogant that U think your life is worth more than someone else’s. The virus is just starting to ramp up here. Do your part to stop it, not help it grow.

-Billy Jaffe via Twitter

from Matt Porter of the Boston Globe,

Zdeno Chara was sweating away his 43rd birthday Wednesday morning on his stationary bike at home. Fellow Bruins defenseman John Moore was doing pushups with his two young daughters on his back.

Elsewhere on social media, star Colorado winger Mikko Rantanen was doing Bulgarian split squats — flexing his forward leg in a deep bend, trailing leg resting on a chair — while holding two armfuls of his mud-bellied Labrador. Vegas defenseman Deryk Engelland was bench-pressing his son. Sergei Bobrovsky, the Panthers’ $10 million goalie, was using his hands to catch tennis balls from an auto-serve machine.

In this new work-from-home environment, NHL players were doing what they could to stay active. Spending quality time with kids, pets, and spouses was a goal — “We’re getting to know each other,” one NHL coach texted, jokingly alluding to the catch-up many in the sport were playing with their loved ones — but players were trying to get a sweat in however they could.

A TSN report this past week indicated players were discussing the idea of a training camp that begins in early July, with the end of the 2019-20 season later that month, followed by playoffs in August and September, a shortened offseason, draft, and free agency in October, and the beginning of a full 82-game schedule in November.

It looks like wishful thinking.

continued plus more topics...

Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press with a few awards..

Most disappointing defenseman

Dennis Cholowski: Veterans Trevor Daley (seven assists, minus-22 in 43 games) and Mike Green (11 points, minus-32 in 48 games before being traded to Edmonton) disappointed, but they aren’t part of the team’s future and both struggled with health. It’s Cholowski (eight points, minus-26 in 36 games) who disappointed the most — he seemed like he was off to a good start, but while he’s a good skater and can move the puck, he didn’t show the assertiveness the coaching staff — and general manager Steve Yzerman — has urged him to play with. Cholowski, 22, is from the same draft as Hronek (2016) and was drafted in the first round (20th overall), but he had a chance to show he belongs in the lineup this season and failed to do so.

Most disappointing forward(s)

Abdelkader, Nielsen, Filppula: A group award that goes to Justin Abdelkader (three assists, minus-14 in 49 games against $4.25 million salary cap hit), Frans Nielsen (nine points, minus-13 in 60 games against $5.25 million cap hit) and Valtteri Filppula (21 points, minus-42 in 70 games against $3 million cap hit). I anticipate Nielsen and Filppula will still play in Detroit next season, because they can still skate/take faceoffs/kill penalties, but Abdelkader will be waived and sent to Grand Rapids.

more awards...

via TSN,

Earlier in the week on Insider Trader, Dreger noted that there is a growing concern that losses could mount upwards of $1 billion, certainly around $500 million.

Just over three minutes of recent big hits in the NHL.

via TSN's YouTube page,

With everyone wondering what the NHL playoffs will look like when the season resumes, Gino Reda, Ray Ferraro and Craig Button decided to examine the current field. With Button taking the East and Ferarro taking the West, they break down the whole bracket and crown a Stanley Cup champion.

from David Staples of the Edmonton Journal,

There’s no shortage of unknowns about the world, including the smaller question of unknowns about the immediate future of the National Hockey League. But what we do know is that the NHL is likely to take a massive short term hit in terms of revenues, and that this may force the league to do something it hasn’t done since the 2012-13 lock-out: allow for compliance buyouts.

NHL insider Brian Burke talked about this possibility with Bob Stauffer on Oilers Now this week: “I’ve heard discussion of compliance buyouts to help teams get to this new cap, to solve some of their problems. Which they gave in the last CBA, each team got two cap-compliance buyouts which were exempt from the cap. I’ve heard talk of that.”

When a player is bought out under the Collective Bargaining Agreement now, a percentage of his contract is paid out to him over time, and that amount still counts against a team’s salary cap....

Who might the Edmonton Oilers and other teams buy out if there’s a compliance buyout scheme this year?

That will come down to numerous factors, with perhaps the most important factor being the willingness and ability of a team owner to pay out a buyout, then replace that salary on the team. Given the financial hit folks are taking right now, some owners may not be willing to do so.

read on, candidates mentioned...

Wings win 6-3.

from awood40,

Detroit Red Wings @ Atlanta Thrashers. March 20th, 2009. Last ever Red Wings win against Atlanta. FSD Feed Commentators - Ken Daniels & Larry Murphy.

Nice work here by awood40 so click here for complete coverage.

Watch the highlights below too.