News Clips Jan. 22-25, 2019

Columbus Blue Jackets PAGE 02: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets: Martin St. Louis will try to pump up power play PAGE 03: The Athletic: Blue Jackets hire Martin St. Louis as a consultant to give special attention to short-circuited power play PAGE 05: .ca: Martin St. Louis joins Blue Jackets as special teams consultant PAGE 06: Columbus Dispatch: Michael Arace | Rick Nash finds there's life after hockey PAGE 08: The Athletic: From 3 to 91: Blue Jackets sweater numbers equal interesting stories PAGE 13: Sportsnet.ca: Blue Jackets GM doesn’t close door on trading Bobrovsky, Panarin PAGE 15: Columbus Dispatch: Editorial: Columbus welcomes back favorite former NHL All-Star Rick Nash PAGE 17: Columbus Dispatch: He's just 24, but Seth Jones has All-Star consistency PAGE 19: The Athletic: Out of the spotlight: Jared Boll and other former Blue Jackets adjust to life once the cheering stops

Cleveland Monsters/Prospects

NHL/Websites PAGE 25: Seattle Times: Look for Seattle NHL team to hire a GM this summer rather than next PAGE 27: The Athletic: DGB weekend power rankings: Why the recent flurry of trades could mean a busy deadline period PAGE 32: Sportsnet.ca: Four interesting GMs to watch around the NHL deadline PAGE 35: Sportsnet.ca: Why it's time for NHLers to get over their Olympic love affair PAGE 37: TSN.CA: The undeniable link between save percentage and the Jack Adams Award PAGE 39: Seattle Times: Puck and player tracking gets TV test at All-Star Weekend PAGE 41: The Athletic: Down Goes Brown: A detailed breakdown of the subtle differences between the NHL and the WWE PAGE 44: Sportsnet.ca: John Shannon's Top 25 NHL Power Brokers 2019 PAGE 51: Sportsnet.ca: NHL Power Rankings: Step Your Game Up Edition PAGE 55: The Athletic: The Surge: The NHL’s influx of 100-point scorers and why it’s unlikely to end anytime soon PAGE 58: The Athletic: Goaltending, weaponized: How the next generation of goalies is ready to dominate PAGE 62: Sportsnet.ca: 31 Thoughts: What’s next for Oilers after Chiarelli firing

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Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets: Martin St. Louis will try to pump up power play By Brian Hedger – January 22, 2019

Mired near the bottom of the NHL rankings in power-play percentage, the Blue Jackets are calling in some Hall of Fame-caliber help from the outside. The team announced Monday that retired NHL forward Martin St. Louis, inducted last year into the Hockey Hall of Fame, was hired as a special-teams consultant. “I’ll try to help from my own experience and my own, I guess, reps in the trenches and what it feels like – and with that, along with feedback from the coaches, I think I can add something to the equation that is hopefully going to bring more success,” St. Louis told The Dispatch. “This is a good team that has had a tremendous amount of success. They’re just looking to get a little sharper in an area that is a very important area. They’re looking to get better and I’m hoping I can help with my knowledge.” Columbus, which is two days into a mandated five-day break, is ranked 28th of 31 teams on the power play at 14.6 percent success rate. The Blue Jackets went through a recent 0-for-25 drought that spanned 12 games (Dec. 13 to Jan. 8), but were more productive going into the break, having scored on the man-advantage in four of their past six games. The hope is to use St. Louis’ expertise as a player to help keep that going. During his 17-year NHL career, playing for three teams, St. Louis racked up 101 goals, 216 assists and 317 of his 1,033 career points on the power play. “Marty St. Louis made himself into a Hall of Fame player through sheer determination, hard work and a great understanding of how to play the game the right way,” Blue Jackets coach said in the team’s press release. “We’re still developing his role, but he has so much knowledge about our game and what it takes to be successful, both individually and within the team concept, that he’ll be a great asset to our players.” St. Louis won the 2004 with the , with Tortorella running the bench. He has also spoken by phone a few times with Blue Jackets assistant Brad Larsen, who coordinates the power play, and anticipates a good working relationship. St. Louis resides in Greenwich, Connecticut, and coaches his three sons in hockey but is expected to be in Columbus after the break. “I talked to Torts a few weeks back and he asked me if I would consider it, and it sounded like everybody was on the same page, which I believe we are,” St. Louis said. “I’m really busy with my kids, but I think I can help with my knowledge from a distance and come in every now and then and help out the group.”

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The Athletic: Blue Jackets hire Martin St. Louis as a consultant to give special attention to short-circuited power play By Aaron Portzline – January 22, 2019

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Despite rampant systemic and personnel changes in the past two-plus seasons, the Blue Jackets’ power play has been the organization’s black hole — a massive void of endless emptiness with a strong gravitational pull away from confidence and momentum. It has prompted Blue Jackets fans to turn to media and to social media to call for the firing of assistant coach Brad Larsen, rare in a sport that seldom shines much light on assistant coaches. It also prompted the Blue Jackets to announce a significant move Monday. NHL Hall of Famer Martin St. Louis has been hired as a special teams consultant effective immediately, meaning he’ll be in place when the Blue Jackets return to practice Sunday. “Marty St. Louis made himself into a Hall of Fame player through sheer determination, hard work and a great understanding of how to play the game the right way,” John Tortorella said in a statement. “We’re still developing his role, but he has so much knowledge about our game and what it takes to be successful, both individually and within the team concept, that he’ll be a great asset to our players.” Tortorella coached St. Louis with the Tampa Bay Lightning from 2000-08, and they’ve remained close friends. Tortorella spoke at St. Louis’ sweater retirement ceremony last season when the Blue Jackets played in Tampa Bay. St. Louis will not be on the Blue Jackets’ bench with Tortorella and assistants Larsen and Brad Shaw during games, and it’s unlikely he’ll be present for every practice. It remains to be seen how often he’ll be in Columbus, how often he’ll join players on the ice for practice, etc. The news release indicated that St. Louis would continue to live in Connecticut. “I have been coaching my boys since my retirement (in 2015),” St. Louis said in a statement, “so I am excited to share my knowledge while still being able to coach my kids. I’m looking forward to working with the coaching staff and players in Columbus.” Larsen has coached the Blue Jackets’ power play for the past several seasons, and it hasn’t all been a disaster. Through the first 35 games of 2016-17 — nearly a half-season — the Blue Jackets had the best power play in the NHL, firing at 27.5 percent. But since Jan. 4, 2017 — a span of 176 games — the Blue Jackets are last in the 31-team league at 15.1 percent, scoring only 72 goals in that span. More perspective since Jan. 4, 2017 … • Tampa Bay has scored 147 power-play goals, almost twice as many as Columbus. • Metro division rivals Pittsburgh (133) and Washington (122) have scored 61 and 50 more power-play goals, respectively • The , who have played 44 fewer games (they didn’t join the league until last season!) have scored more power-play goals (81) than Columbus in that span.

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This season the Blue Jackets have settled near the bottom again. After the 2-1 loss Saturday in Minnesota, the Jackets (14.6 percent) are 28th in the NHL, ahead of only Nashville (13.5), Philadelphia (13.3) and Montreal (12.6). It should also be noted that St. Louis killed penalties extensively during his 1,134-game career with Tampa Bay, Calgary and the , but it’s unclear whether he’ll help with the Blue Jackets’ kill. That’s been pretty good this season. The Blue Jackets are ninth in the NHL (82.9 percent), including a current 25-for-25 streak that stretches to Dec. 28.

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Sportsnet.ca: Martin St. Louis joins Blue Jackets as special teams consultant By Michael Singh – January 22, 2019

The Columbus Blue Jackets announced Monday that Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Martin St. Louis has joined the club as a special teams consultant. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018, St. Louis was a six-time all-star who boasts an impressive resume. He won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player in 2003-04, the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top scorer twice in 2003-04 and 2012-13, the Ted Lindsay Award in 2003-04, the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy three times in 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2012-13, and he led the Tampa Bay Lightning to the 2004 Stanley Cup championship. “Marty St. Louis made himself into a Hall of Fame player through sheer determination, hard work and a great understanding of how to play the game the right way,” said Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella, who coached St. Louis in Tampa Bay from 2000-08. “We’re still developing his role, but he has so much knowledge about our game and what it takes to be successful, both individually and within the team concept, that he’ll be a great asset to our players.” St. Louis registered 391 goals, 642 assists and 1,033 points in 1,134 games over his 17-year career as a member of the , Lightning, and New York Rangers. He also racked up 101 power-play and 29 shorthanded goals on special teams over his career. “It is a tremendous honour to have the opportunity to work with the Columbus Blue Jackets,” said St. Louis. “I truly love the game. I have been coaching my boys since my retirement, so I am excited to share my knowledge while still being able to coach my kids. I’m looking forward to working with the coaching staff and players in Columbus.” The Blue Jackets’ power play has struggled this season. They rank 27th overall with the man-advantage, converting on just 14.6 per cent of their opportunities. The team’s penalty kill has been better, ranking ninth league-wide. Despite their struggles on the power play, Columbus (28-17-3) currently sits second place in the , three points back of the surprising .

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Columbus Dispatch: Michael Arace | Rick Nash finds there's life after hockey By Michael Arace – January 23, 2019

Two of Rick Nash’s kids, McLaren, 6, and Ellie, 2, dropped ceremonial first pucks when Nash was honored before the Blue Jackets-New York Rangers game last week. Here was the Jackets’ first all-time great, whose No. 61 is destined to hang from the rafters at Nationwide Arena, receiving his first public honor after a distinguished 15-year career. A near-sellout crowd rose to its feet and roared. Nash grinned ear-to-ear. His wife, Jessica, beamed. Their infant son, Finn, sort of looked around in wonderment. “It was one of the most incredible moments of my career,” Nash said. “It’s not my kind of thing to do something like that, but it was such a cool thing with the Rangers there — cool for (McLaren), especially. He loves hockey. I would have regretted it if I didn’t take the opportunity to have my kids experience center ice like that.” Those two ceremonial first pucks? Where are they? “Best guess? They’re probably in the basement, where the kids are firing them around,” Nash said. Nash still lives in the Columbus area and recently reorganized the basement, so there’s space. He also cleaned the garage. Asked if he has begun hunting for antiques, he issued a denial (albeit not a firm one). “We just got a new water heater we’ve been needing for years,” he said. Nash is embracing his newfound normalcy. He started playing hockey as a little kid and, technically speaking, he just stopped last week. He had 805 points in 1,060 games with the Blue Jackets, Rangers and . (McLaren is a 33 percent fan of each team, Nash said.) He won a world championship and two Olympic gold medals with Team Canada. He was a wingman on an international shutdown line with Jonathan Toews and Mike Richards. That line was a bear. Ask Alexander Ovechkin. “It’s over,” Nash said. “I’ve come to terms with it. I’m OK with my decision. I’m excited to spend time with my family. We’ve had this house since the Olympics (2010) and now it’s time to make it more of a home.” Nash talks around the concussion problem that set him on a path to a new water heater and an organized basement. The last knock — which came at the end of a hunting expedition by Tampa Bay’s Cedric Paquette last March — got him thinking about cleaning his garage. I’ll say it if he won’t: Nash did not go out on his own terms. Paquette took long-range aim, came from the opposite side of the ice and brought his arms up into the hit. So ended the career of the Jackets’ all- time leading everything. Nash hoped to come home under different circumstances, but, he said, “I’m happy. I got to live my dream. I came out with a lot of friendships and a beautiful family. What else more could I want? To play another five or six years? This is just the way it went, and I’m happy.” Nash had lucrative offers. He could have extended his career just about as long as he wanted. “The best odds, by far” were on his chances of getting another twirl in Columbus, where he says he will live the rest of his life. He’s getting on with it. He admits that he is enjoying the fact that he doesn’t have to wake up and go right to the rink. Instead, he gets up and takes McLaren to preschool.

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“I’d love to get back to hockey, in some capacity, but right now I just want to get healthy and get back to where I don’t have lingering (concussion) symptoms, Nash said. “When you’re playing, you miss so much family time. I’ve got it now.” Next: His number, in the rafters. It won’t happen today or tomorrow or next week, but it should happen. More pucks for the kids.

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The Athletic: From 3 to 91: Blue Jackets sweater numbers equal interesting stories By Alison Lukan – January 23, 2019

There are a lot of numbers in the game of hockey. totals, assists, saves, standings points, rankings … but for all the things these numbers tell us about a team or a player, perhaps the most interesting number is the one each player wears on his or her back. For some players, a number holds great meaning. For others, it marks a moment in time or when they made it to the NHL. A few just take the number they are given. These are the stories of the number each Blue Jackets player wears and why. No. 3 — Seth Jones “I was always 4, and I went to Portland and an older guy had 4, so I went to 3 and now this is my seventh (NHL) year with 3. I would never change it unless I had to, like if a veteran came in who wanted it — that’s a matter of respect.” No. 4 — Scott Harrington “I picked 4 because my dad’s favorite player was Bobby Orr. When you’re a kid, whatever your dad thinks, that’s the coolest. I wore 4 in minor hockey but switched to 6 in London (CHL) because Michael Del Zotto was supposed to be sent back from the Rangers that year and he wore 4 the year before. “I finally was able to switch back to 4 last year. And ironically, my dad is my agent now.” No. 8 — Zach Werenski Thirteen was always Werenski’s number. He wore it growing up and in college. It was also the number that Pavel Datsyuk wore for Werenski’s hometown NHL team, Detroit. But 13 wasn’t available when the defenseman turned pro and joined the . “Thirteen was taken by (then player, now Monsters assistant coach Trent) Vogelhuber. The team gave me 8 because the jersey was already made. That summer coming to Columbus, they gave me available numbers to choose from, and 8 was one of them. I won the Calder Cup wearing 8, I was drafted eighth, so I just kept it. It’s served me well so far, so I’ll keep it.” No. 9 — Seventy-two was always the number for Artemi Panarin, but when he came to Columbus he ran into a familiar quandary. “Seventy-two is (Sergei) Bobrovsky,” Panarin said. “I had the same situation on the national team when Bobrovsky came and played on the team (at a World Championship). I chose 9 and I played in that World Championship and I played well. (Here in Columbus), it’s the same. Bobrovsky already has 72 and I’m playing well, so I won’t change from 9.” No. 10 — Alexander Wennberg Wennberg’s father wore 21 and had wanted his son to wear the same. But for Alexander Wennberg, 10 has always been the number for his jersey.

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“When I played soccer, every big star wore 10. All my idols did, including Alessandro Del Piero. In soccer, 10 was the number you wanted to have. When it came to hockey, I just kept going with the same number.” When Wennberg came to the Blue Jackets’ camp, the team gave him 41, and recently he became one of a few Columbus players who’ve made a midcareer switch. “Your first couple years (in the NHL) you don’t say anything (about your number). If you get to play here, you’re just happy to be playing, you’re not looking at the numbers. After my second year, they asked me if I wanted to change and 10 was available so it was nice they let me have it.” No. 11 — Kevin Stenlund Stenlund wearing 11 might seem like a situation in which the team assigns a rookie a new number. After all, the center wore 82 in the SHL and AHL. But 11 is the number Stenlund has loved all along. “I had 11 when I was growing up until I was 13, maybe,” Stenlund said. “And then my father — he gave it away. He was the ‘team leader.’ He didn’t think about it. He didn’t know I had 11 so it was kind of funny. He didn’t think about it at the time. So, I was given 28. When I couldn’t wear that, I just flipped it to 82. “It feels good to be back in 11. It was the first number I had.” No. 13 — Cam Atkinson Thirteen has been good to Atkinson. He married on the 13th. He’s also incorporated it into the mission of his foundation, the Force Network Fund, and the donations the organization makes. But it wasn’t the first number he wore. “I was 3 my whole life, and at Boston College, it was retired because Mike Mottau won the Hobey Baker. Thirteen was the next available and I had success with it. You hear all the superstitions (around No. 13), but I love the number, it’s a good number.” No. 14 — Dean Kukan Kukan was able to change his number to 14 coming into this season. “I always had 14 since I was young,” Kukan said. “Whenever it’s available, I will take it. When I was young, a friend of mine (Chris Baltisberger) wore 14 and he was my idol. I wanted to be like him. “The fun thing is, we both played on the national team this summer, so he wore 14 and I had 34. If 14 isn’t available, I don’t care (what number I wear).” No. 17 — Brandon Dubinsky Dubinsky has worn 17 his entire NHL career but he chose it because it was close to his original number, 19. Why 19? “Nineteen was the number I was given in junior,” Dubinsky said. “That team had different ownership then, so I can say this now. I think the team was so cheap then that the jersey sizes were based on the number and I was a small guy, so I got 19, a smaller number.” No. 18 — Pierre-Luc Dubois Dubois wears 18 to honor his father, Eric, who had a storied on-ice career of his own that included an IHL Turner Cup championship and back-to-back QMJHL President Cups.

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“He had 18 in juniors, and he had 11 in the pros,” Dubois said. “I had 11 when I was a kid. Eighteen was never available when I was in peewee and bantam, so I never had 18. Then I got to midget and I was the youngest guy on the team, which meant I would pick my number last. Eleven was taken, and everybody knew I wanted 18, so they left it open for me. I had a good year and that was what I wore ever since.” No. 20 — Riley Nash Nash grew up wearing 16 for Darcy Tucker, and also played in 15 and 14 because they were close numerically. But when he got to Carolina, they gave him 23. Wear Michael Jordan’s number? In Carolina? Nash was changing that as soon as he could. “They had 20 available and that was the best choice of the ones that were available,” Nash said. “So, I ended up with 20 in Carolina and have been that ever since.” No. 27 — Ryan Murray Murray used to wear No. 3, but when he and his older brother played on a summer club called the Saskatchewan Wheatlanders, both boys got too big for the jerseys they were originally given. Murray inherited his brother’s old jersey, No. 27. “After that, I didn’t even ask for 27,” Murray laughed. “I didn’t ask for it (when I came to Columbus), I didn’t ask for it in junior. They just kept giving it to me. So I keep wearing it. I’m also born on the 27th, but I never picked 27.” No. 28 — Oliver Bjorkstrand “(The team) gave it to me. I was 65 in my first camp. When I turned pro, they changed it to 28 and I didn’t feel like changing it. I was 27 in juniors. Murr has that so I didn’t have to think twice about it. Twenty-eight is fine for me. It’s all good.” No. 37 — Markus Hannikainen Hannikainen grew up wearing 15 in honor of his idol and legendary Finnish player Antti Tormanen. But when Hannikainen made the jump from his U16 team to a U20 team, he was the youngest player on the team. Fifteen was taken, and the only number left was 37 — “a goalie number.” “I felt fine with it and I played well,” Hannikainen said. “Then I went to the Finnish league and I kept the number because again, 15 was taken. But I’ve kept it. I just feel comfortable with it. It’s part of me now.” No. 38 — Boone Jenner As a child, Jenner loved 4. He and his brothers always wore it. But when he got to his first travel team, he and a teammate flipped a coin for rights to the jersey. Jenner lost and went with 22, because 2 plus 2 equals 4. Twenty-two became Jenner’s number and it was available when he broke into the NHL, but the forward decided it was time to switch. “When I got (to Columbus), my second or third camp I was 38 and when I was lucky enough to make the team out of camp wearing 38, I just felt like it was good, it felt right. I was happy to make the team, so I rolled with it. Eventually, there’s enough jerseys that the family members got and stuff that you don’t want to make them switch (back to 22).” No. 45 — Lukas Sedlak “It was given to me and I just kept it,” Sedlak said. “I don’t know why, I usually wore 22 or 11. I guess it’s because I played my first NHL game with that number (45), so I just kept it.”

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Is there an extra burden to wearing the number of storied Jackets alumnus and current broadcaster Jody Shelley? “We talked about it a little bit my first year, but he didn’t chirp me,” Sedlak said with a smile. No. 58 — David Savard “Growing up, my brother played for a team and six years later I played for the same team and they gave me his jersey when I walked in. It was 58, and I kept it. I don’t know why we had that 58 growing up. It’s a weird number. But I wore it for so many teams and when I got to junior, I asked for it. “When I came (to Columbus), the first few training camps I had it. And then the first year I was going to play (in the NHL), they gave me 44. (Equipment manager) Timmy (Leroy) asked me if I wanted to keep 44 and I asked if I could switch back to 58. I’ve always been happy with it.” No. 65 — Markus Nutivaara Nutivaara’s number growing up was 11. When he couldn’t get 11, he’d go for 77 “because it looks like 11.” But the defenseman is another player who has a new number thanks to the Blue Jackets. “I just got it from here,” Nutivaara said. “I don’t know who gave it to me, but I think it looks cool. I’ll keep it.” “And 6 plus 5 equals 11,” LeRoy interjected from the next stall over. “Yeah, that too,” Nutivaara said with a smile. No. 70 — Joonas Korpisalo Korpisalo used to wear 35 in honor of fellow Finnish Pekka Rinne. But that changed when he came to Columbus. “My first prospect camp, they gave me 70,” Korpisalo said. “I liked it. It was a little different, so I thought I might just keep it. I changed my number (to 70) back home in Finland, too.” No. 71 — Nick Foligno Nick Foligno was given No. 71 his rookie year in Ottawa (2007). A number his father, Mike, had worn (he also wore 17) during a 15-year NHL career with Detroit, Buffalo, and Florida. “I wanted No. 17, but the Senators had a veteran in camp (Denis Hamel) with that number,” Foligno has said. “I always wore No. 16 growing up because it was my mom’s favorite number, and I’m a mama’s boy. But Brian McGrattan, a tough guy, had No. 16, and I wasn’t going there.” No. 72 — Sergei Bobrovsky “When I was a kid I played with the number 1. We had the choice from 1-20, that’s it. I chose 1 and the other goalie chose 20. When I got to Philly, No. 1 was Bernie Parent, the legend. They gave me 35. When I got traded here, I wanted to create something of my own, and nobody used that number. I liked the combination of (sic) the numbers, the 7 and 2 and how it looks.” No. 77 — Josh Anderson Seven is a big number for the Andersons. Josh’s birthday is May 27, his brother’s is April 7, his mom falls on the 17th and his dad is also on the 27th. One of Anderson’s suits is even lined with a fabric covered in 7s. “I grew up wearing 17 and it was taken when I got to juniors (in London),” Anderson said. “I had worn 77 in the summer, so I chose that and 77 became (my number).”

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Anderson wore 77 in Cleveland, but he did have to wait a bit to wear it in the NHL. He started his Blue Jackets career wearing 53 before getting 34. In the summer of 2017, he finally was given the chance to reclaim his favorite 77. No. 91 — Anthony Duclair Duclair’s favorite number to wear is 10, but that is Wennberg’s number, so Duclair went with 91. “Nine plus 1, I guess.” What’s symbolic about 10 in whatever form? “My little brother’s birthday is Nov. 10,” Duclair said. “I always wore 10 since I was a kid. I really liked the number and it’s a tribute to my little brother.”

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Sportsnet: Blue Jackets GM doesn’t close door on trading Bobrovsky, Panarin By Staff - January 23, 2019

Just looking at the standings, the Columbus Blue Jackets should be no-doubt buyers around the trade deadline considering they’re second in the Metro Division as the bye week hits. But the uncertain futures of pending UFAs Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky are making their approach a little more complex. Neither has been interested in negotiating contract extensions yet, though Panarin was going to meet with his agent in January to discuss their plan. The outlook for keeping Bobrovsky was always the more bleak of the two, with the goalie only saying “we’ll see” in regards to staying with Columbus. The goalie also reportedly missed at least one meeting with GM Jarmo Kekalainen over the summer. With the trade deadline a little more than a month away, Kekalainen is facing the difficult choice of trading one or both players, or throwing caution to the wind and keeping them for one last big push for the Cup. In both scenarios the Blue Jackets could still be aggressive buyers at the deadline, though, and should not be expected to take any deliberate steps back. “We’re going to get some answers and then we’re going to have to make decisions,” Kekalainen told Columbus’ website. “They’re obviously two very talented players, two guys that have been a big part of our success, so that makes it a little bit more intriguing from the outside and people are curious to see how all of this is going to play out. “But we will do what we need to do, do our best to convince them that they’d like to be part of our future for a long time as a Blue Jacket in Columbus, and if that doesn’t happen, then we’re going to have to make decisions. That’s what we’ve said all along. I don’t think there’s anything tricky about it. You just try to handle it professionally, with class, as we always do, and if we have to make hard decisions, we’ll make them.” After a 4-0 loss to Tampa Bay two weeks ago, Bobrovsky was unofficially suspended one game by the team and since returning has been in net just twice in five games. While he allowed seven goals in those two appearances against the New York Rangers and , backup Joonas Korpisalo has earned two wins and posted a .943 save percentage in his three games. Last week Bobrovsky was asked to address a report that he would waive his no-trade clause prior to the Feb. 25 deadline. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he said. “I don’t want to make comments about that.” While the Blue Jackets do at least have one young goalie pushing Bobrovsky, their depth at left wing would be hurt if Panarin leaves over the summer. Trading him in-season would take the highest-scorer off the roster, which would be a tough move for this team to swallow without getting some immediate help back. But the GM doesn’t seem worried by any of this. Pierre-Luc Dubois was viewed as a head-scratcher of a pick at No. 3 overall in 2016, but has emerged as a key player on the league’s most quietly dominant line. Right winger Cam Atkinson is on the verge of hitting 30 goals for the second time, while Seth Jones and Zach Werenski gives Columbus a well-rounded top pair on the blue line. There are some other good pieces to build around here and, assuming the GM would add NHL talent if he does trade Panarin or Bobrovsky, it’s conceivable they could push on just as strong.

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“I feel great about our core, and it’s only going to get better,” Kekalainen said. “I’ve said it many times, we had 108 points in the regular season before Artemi Panarin arrived. That’s not to slight Artemi at all. We love him, he’s a great player and he makes our team better, and if for some reason he doesn’t want to stay here we’ll move along and we’ll be a strong team in the future as well. We hope he stays. We’ll do our best to convince him and we’ll see what happens. “We’ll do our best and that’s all we can do, and there’s nothing more we can do. Whatever they decide, we’ll move along and life goes on.”

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Columbus Dispatch: Editorial: Columbus welcomes back favorite former NHL All- Star Rick Nash By Staff - January 24, 2019

During this All-Star break, it is appropriate to reflect on how no hockey player has meant more to Columbus than Rick Nash. After a 15-year NHL career, nine of which were spent as the face of the Blue Jackets, he announced his retirement and plans to settle down in the adopted hometown he helped shape from the moment he was drafted first overall in 2002.

The history of the Blue Jackets can be described in three acts: Before Rick Nash, the Rick Nash era, and After Rick Nash. When former Doug MacLean traded up to him, the dreams and hopes of the Jackets faithful were heaped on his broad shoulders — a daunting assignment for an 18- year-old.

Nash showed uncommon maturity and ability. He scored his first NHL goal in his first game. He won the Rocket Richard trophy for most goals in the league his second season. He represented the CBJ in five NHL All-Star games. He served as captain over the course of five seasons. He was active and engaged in the local community.

The 6-foot-4, 211-pound left wing’s game was a mix of power and all-around skill. He had 437 goals, 368 assists and 805 points in 1,060 games, and remains the Jackets’ all-time leader in most offensive categories.

But maybe most importantly, the native of Brampton, , inspired countless kids in Columbus to hit the ice with their own NHL aspirations. While some professional athletes fall short when thrust to the level of role model, Nash fulfilled the lofty expectations with trademark humility and kindness.

It was for these reasons that Jackets fans felt particularly aggrieved when he announced during the 2011-12 season that he would be open to a trade. The guiding force of Columbus hockey wanted out.

After his off-season trade to the New York Rangers in 2012, Nash would be greeted with boos whenever his team visited Nationwide Arena. He also played briefly for the Boston Bruins.

There was a question whether the boos would continue when Nash dropped the ceremonial puck at the Jackets’ Jan. 13 game following his retirement announcement, but instead he received a rousing ovation. After all, his trade did set the foundation for the current team’s success. The transaction netted passionate center Brandon Dubinsky and eventually high-octane winger Artemi Panarin.

The 34-year-old Nash attributed his retirement to “unresolved issues/symptoms from a concussion.” In an interview with former teammate and now Jackets color analyst Jody Shelley, Nash said: “Now I can raise my kids in this city and live here for the rest of my life.”

His return to Columbus is validation that we’re a city in which NHL players want to live. He joins a host of former Jackets — some more visible than others — who have planted roots here, which also benefits youth hockey through the infusion of hockey wisdom.

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There was hope Nash would re-sign with the Blue Jackets this season and provide an offensive jolt to a team hungering for a deep postseason run, but unfortunately lingering symptoms forced him to retire prematurely.

No. 61 was able to exit the NHL stage much like he came onto it: with a smile and with class. The former face of the franchise is perhaps the first true Columbus Blue Jackets legend and a person we all can be proud of.

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Columbus Dispatch: He's just 24, but Seth Jones has All-Star consistency By Brian Hedger – January 25, 2019

He’s not the first name mentioned in All-Star discussions and voting for the Norris Trophy yet, but Seth Jones is at least being included in those debates. At age 24, that’s a lofty accomplishment for the Blue Jackets’ top defenseman — who was chosen this season for the NHL All-Star Game for a third straight time and is set to make his second All-Star appearance this weekend at the ’ HP Pavilion. “I think it definitely takes time for something like that to happen,” said Jones, who may have gotten a bump from name recognition. “It takes time for a young guy to have their game recognized and kind of be there every year with those top names, so I’m happy that I guess I’m in that discussion at this moment ... but there’s (also) me knowing myself and I’m my biggest critic. There’s still a lot of room to improve within my game.” That might be true, but don’t let Jones’ critique fool you. Despite missing the Blue Jackets’ first seven games because of a sprained right knee, he is having another All-Star caliber season. Jones, who missed the All-Star Game last year because of illness, has 29 points on seven goals and 22 assists. His averages in goals, assists and points are near where they were a year ago, when he set career-highs in goals (16), assists (41), points (57) and plus/minus rating (plus-10). Unlike the previous two years, though, Jones has skated with multiple defensive partners. Rather than playing the vast bulk of his ice time with Zach Werenski, who has fought some defensive struggles, Jones also has skated with Ryan Murray and a couple games with Markus Nutivaara. The lack of consistency in pairings hasn’t affected him much, if at all. He has become the consistency for whomever is paired with him. “Every night, he’s a 200-foot defenseman — whether it’s scoring big goals or making great plays defensively or offensively,” Werenski said. “He just brings his game every night. He’s someone that a lot of guys, older or younger, can watch and learn from and try to model their game after.” Jones also has made strides in another category, which has impressed coach John Tortorella the most. He has become one of the Blue Jackets’ strongest leaders, on and off the ice, saying something only when he feels it’s needed and getting his message across through actions. Jones first wore an “A” on his jersey last season, filling in during stretches as an alternate captain when the Jackets went through a spate of injuries. This year, it has been on there from the start and isn’t likely to come off until he someday becomes a captain. “He can bring everything,” Tortorella said, when asked about Jones’ signature traits as a player. “He can do a lot of things and that’s why I have always thought he should be in that conversation as one of the top defensemen in this league. It’s not always about the points he’s putting up, which he does, but it’s how he defends all of the situations he’s been put in — and now, just the leadership skills that he has.” All rolled into one, with Tortorella spearheading his Norris candidacy, Jones has developed a rare reputation for somebody his age. He plays and leads beyond his young age, and he plans to get even better. “It’s more exciting for my mom, to be honest,” he said of his recent All-Star nod, which may include another whirl at the NHL’s Hardest competition on Friday. “I just go out there and play hockey,

17 right? That’s my job. My first priority is to be the best I can be for the Columbus Blue Jackets and all the awards and the All-Star stuff is secondary on my list, but it’s also special. It’s an honor to be selected again, but helping my team was much more important than that.”

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The Athletic: Out of the spotlight: Jared Boll and other former Blue Jackets adjust to life once the cheering stops By Tom Reed – January 25, 2019

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Lauren Boll knew something wasn’t right the moment she heard her cellphone ring late last winter and saw her husband’s name flash across the screen. It was the afternoon of a game day, a time Jared Boll always spent napping. It had been part of his routine long before the couple met eight years ago in Columbus when Lauren was a graduate student and Boll was protecting teammates as the Blue Jackets’ resident . “I had a feeling something was seriously wrong,” Lauren recalled. “Jared just said, pretty much straight up, ‘I think I’m done.’ He was dealing with concussion symptoms that I wasn’t even aware of at the time. “It was a defining moment. We had just found out a few weeks earlier that I was pregnant. After that phone call, he began to open up a lot more about things.” Lauren was relieved to hear of her husband’s intentions. The couple had spent several months awkwardly dancing around the topic of his retirement. Boll played 518 games split between the Blue Jackets and Ducks, and he was winding down his 11th season playing for Anaheim’s top minor-league affiliate in San Diego. His parents were eager to see Boll — the NHL’s most active fighter from 2007-2018 — call it a career. So was Lauren. Boll knew it was time, but in announcing his retirement a few months later, he confronted a reality that, in his mind, was every bit as scary as the biggest, baddest opponent he faced. What was he going to do now? Hockey had been his entire life since age 5, growing up in suburban Chicago. Boll was always the first kid at the rink, making sure his mom had him there at least an hour before practice. Education had not been a priority. He recalls some days working harder on his autograph than his schoolwork. Three years ago, as Boll and Lauren were filling out their wedding guest list, he came face to face with how all-consuming hockey had become. “Other than family members, almost every name I was writing down was a teammate or a former teammate,” the 32-year-old Boll said. “It made me realize I had almost no friends outside of the game.” Boll had heard stories about former players struggling with their transition. It wasn’t just about the money, either. Most modern pro athletes, especially ones having played a decade in the big leagues, would be all right financially as long as they hadn’t squandered their savings. It was more about adjusting to a world outside the locker room and away from the game and its unique camaraderie. “I’m telling you, that’s what you hear from every guy,” Boll said. “It’s what you miss the most when you’re done playing. Sure, you miss the games, but you become so tight as a group. It’s crazy. They are your family, your best friends.” Boll officially retired in July. Acting on his wife’s advice, one of his first phone calls was to John Davidson, the Blue Jackets’ president of hockey operations.

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“If I could, I wanted to find a way to stay in the game,” Boll said. ‘A big, empty hole’ Davidson, known around the hockey world as “JD,” moves through life at a Zamboni’s pace. The former NHL goaltender is 65 years old. In his own words, 15 surgeries to his knees and back have turned him into “a walking piece of arthritis.” Davidson was a legendary television analyst. He made the transition to team management in 2006 and helped transform the fortunes of the Blues and Blue Jackets. He’s also a former player whose promising career was cut short by injuries. Most of us think of retirement as a happy occasion that occurs in our late 60s. It means more time to devote to the grandkids and pet projects. “I was 29 years old and my playing career was over,” Davidson said. “People tend to forget that. You’re a relatively young person and hockey is in your blood.” Davidson joined the Blue Jackets seven years ago. He got to know and like Boll, who played with the organization from 2007 until the team bought out his contract in 2016. The team president appreciated Boll’s service to the franchise. So did general manager Jarmo Kekalainen and assistant general manager . They agreed to meet with Boll. The former winger also spoke by phone to John Tortorella, who had coached him during his final season in Columbus. Boll reached out to several other teams, but the Blue Jackets were his desired destination. He had treasured his time here, becoming a fan favorite as a member of the first club in franchise history to qualify for the postseason in 2009. Lauren, a part-time speech pathologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, grew up in nearby Dublin. The Bolls wanted to raise their daughter, Annie, born Oct. 17, 2018, in central Ohio. “Jared has a great personality, and he wants to work,” Davidson said. “He was aggressive. He came knocking on the door, and he knew what he wanted.” Not every former player is as certain. Scott Hartnell, who played with Boll in Columbus and also retired in the offseason, is weighing his options. He’s serving as a guest analyst with the NHL Network and also is considering careers in player development and player representation. Hartnell isn’t in any rush to commit to one path and understands none will supply the exhilaration and perks of playing. “Everyone told me to play as long as I could because there’s nothing like being an NHLer,” said Hartnell, who had a 17-year career. “It’s so true. There’s nothing like wearing the uniform and traveling the way they travel and staying at the nice hotels and going out for nice meals. It’s a one-of-a-kind job. “I even miss a lot of the little things. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and this year it was weird not having a team party to go to.” R.J. Umberger, another former Boll teammate, retired after the 2015-16 season. He’s helping coach his 5-year-old son Matthew and remains active in the Columbus youth hockey scene. Umberger spent his first year out of the NHL traveling and immersing himself in family life. The Umbergers have three children.

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More than two years after his retirement, the former Blue Jackets and Flyers forward is still searching for his calling. “I don’t know what I’m going to do the rest of my life, but I need to do something,” said Umberger, who played 11 NHL seasons. “That’s how a lot of us feel. We have been so involved in something that you need something else. … We’re used to being on the go constantly — playing, traveling, training, even in the summer. Downtime can feel like a century. “You need to find a way to challenge yourself and challenge your mind. We’re all athletes, competitive as can be. That’s how we got to be where we are. To just rip every competitive thing away from you at one time and move on to normal everyday life creates a really big challenge, a big, empty hole. I have tried to find little things to challenge myself — working on my golf game, working out five days a week.” Boll had no interest in taking a year away from the game. He interviewed with the Blue Jackets in July for an opening as an assistant development coach. A month later, he was still waiting on a final decision. Repercussions and reunions Lauren Boll cheered for the Blue Jackets before meeting her future husband. She attended games at Nationwide Arena with her father. Fighting was one of her favorite elements of hockey, and she thought it was neat dating a player who stood up for his teammates. Through her college courses, Lauren began learning about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Suddenly, the allure of fighting faded. Would her boyfriend develop symptoms such as depression, memory loss and dementia? All the fights. All the headshots. All the tragic tales of Derek Boogaard, , Steve Montador, Wade Belak. What would Boll’s quality of life be like after the cheering stopped? “When I went into grad school and started to get into in-depth studying of CTE, that’s when everything changed for me,” Lauren said. “It really started to concern me.” She’s proud of the proactive approach Boll is taking to monitor his cognitive functions. He’s visited a specialist in Detroit. He wants to be healthy for his wife and daughter. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t read stuff and see stuff,” said Boll, who underwent offseason back surgery. “It’s impossible not to see stuff. I feel bad for guys who are having problems. For me, it’s about surrounding yourself with good people and people who take care of you. “Now that I’m a dad, I know what my dad saw. I can’t imagine if I had a son fighting someone. I would want to fight for him. That’s how my dad was.” Hall of Famer Martin St. Louis, recently added to the Blue Jackets staff as a consultant, said allowing the body and mind to heal should be a priority for the newly retired. “First and foremost, the transition is going to be much easier if you’re healthy,” St. Louis said. “You have to get your health (in order). Then, you can get into a routine, or whatever it is.” The Bolls said they are fortunate to have Jody and Mandy Shelley as friends and confidants. Jody Shelley, the Blue Jackets’ television analyst, played 627 NHL games for four franchises, including Columbus. One of the game’s top enforcers, his role was almost identical to that of Boll’s. Nearing the end of his career, Boll sought the advice of Shelley.

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“I promised myself that when the fire in my belly, that fire you need to fight, was gone, I was done,” said Shelley, a longtime Columbus fan favorite. “I was not going to put myself in that situation.” In his final NHL season, Shelley played for the Flyers and was a frequent healthy scratch. As the team prepared for a tough game in Toronto, the coaching staff planned to dress him to combat Maple Leafs bruisers and Frazer McClaren. “I had a hip injury that had been lingering and I used it to pull myself (out of the lineup), knowing I didn’t want to put myself in that situation,” Shelley said. “I had never felt that way in my life. I remember telling the trainer, ‘I don’t think I can go.’ I was heartbroken and excited all at once. It was crazy. I was proud I made that decision although I would have never admitted it at the time.” Lauren said her frequent chats with Mandy Shelley were invaluable. “I used Mandy as a resource even before Jared and I started to have the retirement discussions because I didn’t want to bug him too much about it,” Lauren said. “He wanted to focus on the game. I would vent to Mandy about things. Jody and Jared had similar careers and the roles on their teams were not easy. She has been a huge mentor to me and a help through certain situations.” Jody Shelley loves retirement and wants others to savor it, too. He and Todd Sharrock, the Blue Jackets vice president of communications and team services, have founded the club’s alumni association. Still in its infancy, the organization provides outreach for former Blue Jackets and gets them involved in team functions. They invite ex-players and their families to about a dozen games a season and allow them to watch from a suite. Several players said they appreciate the gesture and admit it was difficult at first to come back to games. “After I got out of hockey, I wanted to get away from it,” said Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre, who played eight NHL seasons before continuing his career in Europe. “It took me two years to go to a Blue Jackets game. I don’t want to say it was depressing, it was just something I didn’t want to see. I wanted to build myself as ‘Jean-Luc the realtor.’ ” The former Blue Jackets defenseman has become a successful real estate agent in central Ohio and also shows promise as a part-time hockey analyst. Grand-Pierre and Umberger will co-host a Blue Jackets watch party next month from the team’s locker room for a road game in Montreal. The event was auctioned off at a recent charity function. “(The alumni association) has done things over the last year or so that makes you feel connected to something, and that’s important,” Umberger said. “It’s great and I’m anxious to see where it goes in the future. “My best years were here. We chose to live here. I want my son to grow up to be a diehard Blue Jackets fan. This is where I want to be.” Mentor and pupil reunited Blue Jackets skills coach Kenny McCudden was in Montreal working with Pierre-Luc Dubois in late August when he received a phone call that reminded him how small the hockey universe really is. Two decades ago, McCudden was trying to establish a youth hockey school in Chicago when he came across a kid named Jared Boll. Both were from Crystal Lake, Ill. Both harbored NHL aspirations. McCudden lost track of Boll but was proud to see one of his former students being selected No. 101 overall in the 2005 draft by the Blue Jackets. A few years later, the established NHL veteran called McCudden and asked whether he was willing to fly to Columbus to help improve his skills for a week in

22 the summer. The coach had been training pros in the offseason for years while also working with the Blackhawks’ minor-league affiliate. McCudden made the trek to Columbus for five consecutive offseasons. One day, Blue Jackets management saw McCudden on the ice with Boll and other pro players. Kekalainen was intrigued. In 2015, the club made McCudden one of the NHL’s first full-time skills coaches. “Boller was very instrumental in getting me seen by the Blue Jackets,” McCudden said. “I will never forget him for that. It helped change my life.” Davidson considers McCudden a “hidden gem.” Tortorella calls him “the best in the business.” Last season, former Blue Jackets forward Fredrik Modin assisted McCudden in working with players but opted to step away from the role to devote more time to family. Boll spoke to McCudden about the opening. The assistant coach told him to inquire with Blue Jackets management. The club made the hire official in late August. Boll immediately contacted his old mentor to share the news. “That was a terrific phone call,” McCudden said. “I could hear it in Boller’s voice. It was the start of him making a quick transition from retirement to joining a club he loves.” Jared Boll and his wife, Lauren, had their first child, Annie, in October. (Courtesy of Lauren Boll) Adjusting to new roles The Blue Jackets’ practice rink was empty late last week except for two figures carving up the ice. Injured winger Markus Hannikainen was being put through conditioning drills by the team’s new assistant development coach. Clad in a team-issued tracksuit and hat, Boll served as both taskmaster and motivator. “Come on, Hanny, come on,” Boll yelled as he checked the stopwatch on his iPhone. It was an exhausting session for Hannikainen, and Boll refused to let the player do all the suffering. At one point, he started doing line drills as the Finnish winger recovered. Reaching the end boards, Boll bent over at the waist, gasping for breath. “I was dying out there,” he said with a smile. “I still think I’ve got it and then I skate with (Hannikainen) and he’s lapping me.” Boll cherishes the interaction with players but is mindful of his place. He can walk into the locker room after practices and games, but he’s no longer part of its fabric. Shelley said that ranks among the biggest adjustments for former players. “I didn’t realize until I was outside that (locker room) door how small and tight that group was behind the door,” Shelley said. “It’s a major transition. You still get recognized, and people still welcome you in, but you are not one of them anymore. There’s a little bit of heartache involved in knowing it’s a place you are no longer supposed to be.” Boll echoes the sentiment. “When you are in that locker room as a player, you can say or do anything you want,” Boll said. “And when you leave it, you can’t do that. You can’t talk to people the way you did your teammates.”

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Boll skates with injured players and healthy scratches before practice. He’s also on the ice during practice. On game nights at Nationwide Arena, Boll observes the action from a booth in the press box with other assistants. He often converses with players not in the lineup. “He can put his arm around a player and talk to the player and share some thoughts,” McCudden said. “I have seen Boller do that, and it’s tremendous. One of the greatest things I have seen him do is relate to the healthy scratches. He keeps those players prepared, he keeps their spirits up. He’s been in that situation. He brings so much to the table in that way.” Boll doesn’t travel with the team. He has plenty of interests to keep him occupied, however, starting with helping Lauren raise Annie. Hartnell and Boll agree that caring for a newborn child has helped in their transition from playing hockey. “The baby takes my mind off what I’m missing with the guys and all the fun stuff which comes with being a player,” Hartnell said of his son Wesley. “It helps waking up with this little peanut at 2 a.m. It gives me something to focus on. Me and my wife are racing up the stairs to get that first smile. Changing diapers has been a 50-50 thing. … It has been great.” Boll’s biggest fear of leaving the game he loves has been averted. He understands how fortunate he truly is, especially given how many other retirees are looking to find their way, looking to fill that “big, empty hole.” Sharrock jokes that Boll is around Nationwide Arena more than when he was as a player. There’s still so much to learn, including how to break down film. Perhaps, his role will lead to other NHL opportunities. Maybe, there’s a more prominent job for him in the future. “I tell guys that coaching is as weird as you make it,” Boll said. “If you think it’s awkward, it’s probably going to be awkward. But so far I think it’s gone really well.” Jared Boll is still the kid who wants to get to the rink early. Even in retirement, he wants to be the first one on the ice.

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Seattle Times: Look for Seattle NHL team to hire a GM this summer rather than next By Geoff Baker – January 22, 2019

As the hockey world gathers in San Jose for next weekend’s NHL All-Star Game, a Seattle delegation will be there observing a daily FanFest, taking in the skills competition – and doing legwork ahead of our future team’s first major hockey operations move. The team’s hiring plans mostly stalled last month when its launch was delayed a year until October 2021. But the group is still apparently leaning toward hiring a general manager this year rather than next to prepare for a 2021 expansion draft that should be tougher than when the Vegas Golden Knights last manhandled everybody. No, the San Jose delegation, NHL Seattle CEO Tod Leiweke included, won’t interview GM candidates as most currently work for teams. Seattle’s team won’t play for nearly three more years, meaning the situation isn’t pressing enough to disrupt opposing front offices in-season. Leiweke’s group can wait until after the season for interviews. Over the last 20 years of NHL expansion teams, four of five GM hirings occurred during the June-through-September months. But that doesn’t prevent Seattle’s group from compiling a short list right now. They can spend the weekend speaking to third-party counterparts about potential GM fits and sleeper candidates not yet on their radar. There’s no historical success formula for when to hire an expansion GM, largely because some franchises had bigger lead times than others before launching. Vegas GM George McPhee was hired 15 months before the Knights began play and yet still manipulated the 2017 expansion draft to his liking. In fact, of hockey’s 10 expansion teams the past 30 years, seven hired GMs within 18 months of launching and two did it just seven months prior. The outlier was the Columbus Blue Jackets hiring GM Doug MacLean two years and eight months before taking the ice. Not that it mattered much: MacLean went 172-258-62 over six seasons and never made the playoffs. Seattle’s group would be going more the MacLean route than McPhee by hiring this year. And their reasoning would be that teams are wary after the Knights’ draft success, requiring Seattle’s franchise to be better prepared if hoping to replicate it. But the counter-argument is that hiring a GM this summer adds a year of unneeded salary with potentially limited upside. After all, there’s only so much Seattle can do if other teams approach the draft determined to give up just the one required player apiece and not get fleeced in pre-emptive trades. Also, they’d miss out on GM talent that becomes more available next year. But my guess is they hire this summer, given NHL Seattle managing partner has spared little expense in KeyArena renovations and seems determined to build a first-class organization. Saving some GM salary pales next to the $1.5 billion committed to the team, arena and practice venue. Also, highly qualified candidates are emerging that may not be around next year. There’s plenty of experience out there, making it unlikely the pricey new franchise risks going the completely untested route.

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It’s worth keeping an eye on Detroit, where longstanding GM has a year remaining on his contract after this season with former Red Wings captain poised as his successor. Yzerman, 53, is an obvious Seattle choice, given he built a Tampa Bay Lightning franchise – much of it under then-CEO Leiweke – currently leading the President’s Trophy race. But Yzerman resigned as Lightning GM last September and remains on a one-year contract as an advisor there, largely for family reasons. He still lives with his wife, Lisa, in Detroit, where he played all 22 seasons of his Hall of Fame career and won three Stanley Cup titles. Yzerman tired of regularly commuting from Detroit to Tampa as Lightning GM and his three daughters now attend college in the Northeast, so he’s almost certainly not coming here. It’s a matter of what happens with Holland. Not long ago, B.C. native Holland, 63, would have been most teams’ first GM choice, given his overall success and renowned talent-spotting and player development. Lately, his reputation has taken a hit in Detroit as the rebuilding Red Wings struggle under the salary-cap weight of Holland-approved contracts. Still, this is Holland’s 22ndseason as Red Wings GM and he’d made the playoffs every year until 2017, notching three Stanley Cup titles. The Red Wings aren’t playoff-bound now, so there’s opportunity for ownership to swap out Holland for Yzerman a year early. Seattle hiring Holland would give him and the Red Wings a dignified way out of a difficult situation. Or, Seattle could seek late-bloomer Vegas assistant GM Kelly McCrimmon, 58, a top candidate among NHL up-and-comers. McCrimmon differs from typical assistants given his stellar three decades’ experience in the as coach, GM and owner of the Brandon Wheat Kings – where he turned down multiple NHL offers. Brandon won the WHL title in 2016, defeating, of all teams, the Seattle Thunderbirds. Having accomplished that, McCrimmon accepted the Vegas job and helped navigate the 2017 expansion draft with unprecedented cunning. There’s also former GM , 60, who had a Finals appearance, still lives in nearby Victoria and is close friends with NHL Seattle chief operating officer Victor DeBonis. Former GM Dean Lombardi, 60, now with ’ management, was hired in L.A. by Leiweke’s older brother, Tim, and won two Stanley Cup titles there. Worth noting: Lombardi will be 63 when Seattle’s franchise launches, McCrimmon turns 61 that season’s first month, Holland turns 66 a month later and Gillis will be 63 a month after that. The average NHL GM is in his mid-50s, while the four prior expansion GM hirings before McPhee lasted between six and 20 seasons. So, Seattle might want slightly more youthful experience. If so, there’s former GM , 55, once a Hartford Whalers teammate of NHL Seattle senior advisor . Or, special assignment scout , 52, who preceded Gillis as Canucks GM and received a multiyear extension as GM in 2013 from Tim Leiweke. Also, former Philadelphia GM , 54, was only recently cut loose by that team. That’s why the Seattle contingent will make inquiries at the All-Star Break and any upcoming hockey gatherings. It pays to cast a wide net for names because not every favored choice accepts the job. But talent is out there. And in this case, with extra time to prepare and build an immediate contender, it behooves NHL Seattle to make this hire sooner rather than later.

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The Athletic: DGB weekend power rankings: Why the recent flurry of trades could mean a busy deadline period By Sean McIndoe – January 22, 2019

Something unusual is happening in the NHL these days. Teams are making trades. That shouldn’t be unusual. After all, trading has been part of the NHL since the league’s earliest days. The art of the deal has evolved over time, but the basic concept has always been the same. If there’s a hole in your roster, you find a way to make a deal to address it. An NHL GM only has so many tools in his toolbox, and two of the key ones – drafting and free agency – aren’t available during the season, while player development is a longterm play that can’t really be rushed. But you can make a trade right now. If your team isn’t good enough, get out there and make it better. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But in recent years, the in-season trade has been a dying art. GMs pull off their biggest deals around the draft and maybe work in a few more as the offseason drags on. But during the season, things stay quiet until a week or two before the trade deadline. Why? We’re told it’s because the makes it too hard to swing a deal during the season, but I’ve never fully bought that idea. Instead, we seem to be living through an era of conservative GMs who know they probably won’t get a second chance at the job and are driven more by a cover-your-butt mentality mixed with a healthy dose of loss aversion than an all-consuming desire to make their teams better. Or maybe, we were living through that era. Because lately, NHL GMs have been busy. Last week, NHL teams made seven trades. In the two weeks before that, there were ten more. That adds up to seventeen deals since the holiday trade freeze was lifted. In that same period last year – the holiday freeze through Jan. 21 – there were only three trades. Two more happened on Jan. 22, so bump it up to five if you’d like, but things went quiet again after that. In 2016-17, over the same period, there were five deals. The 2015-16 season was the outlier, with 11 trades, but 2014-15 only had four and 2013-14 had six. That’s an average of about six trades per season during the post-freeze period. And yet this year, we’ve had 17. What does it mean? One possible answer is that it doesn’t mean much of anything. After all, it’s not like any of these recent trades have been blockbusters. In fact, they’ve almost all been oddly similar: One-for-one swaps, perhaps with a middling draft pick or two tossed in, mostly involving depth pieces or minor leaguers that probably play the same position. Only two of the 17 trades have involved more than one player on either side of the equation (the two-for-two deal that sent Brandon Manning to and the Anders Nilsson deal between the Canucks and Senators). Other than that, GMs are keeping it simple. If you were a cynic, you might suggest that there’s an awful lot of deck-chair shuffling going on. There certainly hasn’t been anything approaching a blockbuster to be seen. If we’re being honest, some of these deals have been built around guys most of us have never heard of. But still … 17 trades? Even if they’re underwhelming paint-by-numbers moves, that’s a ton of activity for the middle of a season.

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One theory is that what we’re seeing is a function of the tight playoff races. Granted, the races are tight every year, but this season feels different, especially out West where the wildcard race has become a slow-moving traffic jam. Nine of the 17 deals involve some combination of the Ducks, Wild and Oilers, three teams that came into the season in win-now mode and are fighting over those final spots. Maybe we’re not actually seeing some sort of league-wide phenomenon so much as three desperate teams pulling everyone else’s average up. But even if you take those three teams out of the mix, we’ve still had more trades than normal, so that can’t be the whole story. There could be at least a bit of a domino effect in play, where each new trade shakes something loose somewhere else for another move. And it’s also possible that we’re seeing a little bit of peer pressure at play here. It’s one thing to tell your fans (and your owner) that making trades at this time of year is too hard. It’s another to do it when Bob Murray is out here finding a way to swing a new deal every second day. Nobody wants to be the GM who sits on his hands during the frenzy and then ends up missing the playoffs by a point in April. Or maybe it’s just a one-off fluke. There’s always that. Whatever it is, the next question is what it means for the five weeks between now and the trade deadline. It’s tempting to say that we’re in for a dud of a deadline since teams are getting all of their moves out of their system now. But that doesn’t seem right, because as I said, we’re talking about a bunch of relatively minor deals here. If anything, this feels like more of a warmup than anything. Maybe these smaller deals are the consolation prizes from bigger conversations that could still be revisited down the line. And if you’re the GM of a bubble team that hasn’t been wheeling and dealing lately, how much longer can you wait while everyone around you is already making moves? However all of this plays out, here’s hoping that it’s the start of a new trend. NHL trades are fun and arguing over the ones that happened and the ones that still could happen used to be a big part of the league’s in-season entertainment value. That’s faded over time. It would be cool to get it back. Road to the Cup The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties. With the All-Star Game a week away, a reminder that we’re now into bye week season. Ten teams are off as of today, with everyone else off next week. That’s going to lead to some light nights on the schedule and maybe not much movement within our rankings over the next two weeks. 5. Vegas Golden Knights (29-17-4, +20 true goals differential*) – The good news is that they’ve won nine of eleven, including an impressive 7-3 trouncing of the Penguins on Saturday. The bad news is that they’re not really gaining any ground in the Pacific and if anything a first-round matchup with the Sharks seems more likely now than it did a week ago. We won’t go overboard on “if the playoffs started today” here and there’s still a chance the Knights can claim the top spot in the Pacific. But we’re reaching that time of year when having three teams from the same division in the top five just can’t hold and right now the Knights would be the easiest team to bump. 4. San Jose Sharks (28-15-7, +26) – You could cut-and-paste a lot of the Knights’ entry here, although some of the models out there still seem to love them. If they win the Pacific, I love their odds. But right now they’re not winning the Pacific. 3. (31-15-2, +33) – It would have been nice to head into the bye on a five-game win streak, but Saturday’s loss to the Stars put a stop to that. Still, the Central is increasingly looking like a two-team division and the Jets just beat the Predators handily. With the western wildcard teams looking like relatively easy picking, the Jets are in good position to earn a very winnable first-round matchup. That’s getting ahead of ourselves a bit. But only a bit.

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2. Calgary Flames (32-13-5, +46) – There’s no more important race right now than the one for the Pacific lead. It’s a three-team division, and two of them are going to have to face each other in the first round while the other gets a much easier matchup against a wildcard. And while the Knights are 8-2-0 in their last ten and the Sharks are 7-3-0, the Flames have managed to increase their lead over both teams over that time. That’s impressive. 1. Tampa Bay Lightning (37-10-2, +56) – They’ve lost three of eight, which is probably about as close as we’re going to get to declaring a slump in Tampa. They also gave up 39 shots to the Sharks on Saturday, but poured six goals past Martin Jones on their way to what the scoreboard says was an easy win. You’ll notice something about this week’s ratings – it’s the Eastern Conference-leading Lightning on top, followed by four Western teams. That seems a little odd. If we’re trying to predict a future Cup winner, shouldn’t we have a little more balance? Probably, yeah, but right now the Lightning are head and shoulders above everyone else in their conference, to an extent we rarely see at this time of year. Toronto and Boston are both good teams, but they’ll probably play each other in round one with the bruised and battered winner heading to Tampa, and that’s a brutal path. And the Metro is a four-team question mark, as we’ll get to in the next section. Meanwhile, the West feels much more wide open, with a handful of teams gaining separation but no obvious powerhouse. Since we’re trying to pick a Cup winner here, it makes sense that the teams that don’t have to go through Tampa until the final get nudged up the list. Still, I’m not sure that four-to-one split can work in the long term. Well before the end of the year, we should expect to see a more even mix between East and West. That will probably come from a Metro team pulling away. Speaking of which … *Goals differential without counting shootout decisions like the NHL does for some reason. Not ranked: New York Islanders – EVERYBODY CALM DOWN I CAN EXPLAIN. The “When will the Islanders get the respect they deserve?” narrative has become a whole thing lately. We took a deeper dive into both sides of the debate a few weeks ago and have been having some fun with it ever since. Many Islander fans are happily playing along. Others are, um, decidedly not doing that. That latter group is probably wondering what their team has to do to crack the top five. They’ve won five straight and 15 of 18. Nobody can score on them. They’ve gone from wildcard bubble team to first place in the Metro. And they’ve caught up to and passed teams like the Capitals, Maple Leafs and Predators that have spent much of the season in the top five. Where are the Islanders? At this point, isn’t this just a case of an embittered writer being too stubborn to admit defeat? Not really, although I’ll acknowledge the embittered part is mostly accurate. The Islanders’ case is a strong one. They’re just not there quite yet. It’s worth a refresher on what these power rankings are trying to accomplish. Unlike a lot of rankings out there, these aren’t meant to be a snapshot of what’s happening right now. The idea here isn’t to try to figure out who’s playing the best today, or who’d win a game between two given teams if it were held tonight. That’s a perfectly valid way to rank teams; it’s just not what this list is about. Instead, we’re trying to figure out which teams are the most likely to win the Stanley Cup in June. That means these rankings tend to shift somewhat slowly because we’re looking at the bigger picture. A hot

29 streak can certainly move a team into consideration, as we saw earlier this year with teams like the Wild and Sabres. But as those teams remind us, those moves can end up feeling like overreactions in hindsight. We try to avoid that around these parts, albeit with mixed success. If you’re furious that the Islanders (or any other hot team) isn’t in the top five, ask yourself: Do you believe that they’re one of the five teams that’s most likely to be skating the Stanley Cup around the rink in June? If your answer is yes, then OK, you can think we’ve got it wrong here, although you’d also be disagreeing with most of the models out there, including this one and this one. (You’d find more support here). But if your answer is something along the lines of “Maybe not, but they’re playing really great right now,” then you’re looking for a different set of power rankings. All that said, the Islanders are now absolutely in the conversation. As readers who’ve followed the rankings all year could tell you, it’s basically become the Lightning on top and then a rotating cast of about seven or eight teams without much to separate them bouncing in and out of the top five. The Islanders have worked their way into that group. And there’s going to be a Metro team in the conference final, so if the Islanders emerge as the cream of the division then they’ll be in good shape. But right now, the Metro looks more like a four-team traffic jam to me, with no clear favorites and nothing that looks like an easy matchup for anyone. That’s why nobody from the division is in the top five right now. For what it’s worth, the people who make their money on figuring out this sort of stuff aren’t sold on the Islanders either – the oddsmakers have recently had them as about the 10th or 12th best bet to win the Cup, often still listing them behind the Capitals, Penguins and Blue Jackets. Those odds are partly influenced by public betting patterns, so an underrated team can show up lower on the list than they deserve, but betting lines are still a decent indicator of what the people with actual money on the line are thinking. If you still think I’m dead wrong and the Islanders are definitely one of the five most likely Cup winners right now, you may want to consider putting your money where your mouth is by dropping a longshot wager or two while you still can. After all, think how much fun it would be to send me a photo of you at the Stanley Cup parade waving the middle finger of one hand and a fistful of cash in the other. The bottom five The five teams that look like they’re headed towards hoping the ping-pong balls deliver Jack Hughes. That was an ugly, ugly weekend in Edmonton, with the Oilers giving up 12 goals on the way to dropping a pair of decisions in regulation. It was enough that the vultures have started circling Peter Chiarelli again; with just one game left (tomorrow against the lowly Wings) before an extended break, you really do wonder if some kind of change is coming in Edmonton. 5. (18-23-7, -23) – They head into the break having lost three straight and six of eight to drop to last in the Metro. 4. (17-24-9, -34) – The Hawks briefly dipped back into last place overall during the week, but yesterday’s high-scoring win over the Caps shot them all way up to the logjam for second last. Progress! 3. (18-25-7, -25) – If you missed it, this piece on what the Red Wings need to do to get back to contention during Dylan Larkin’s prime was very good. They have some pieces in place and maybe more than you’d think, but they’re not all that close to having them all.

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2. (19-25-5, -30) – How much fun will it be if we can look back at the end of the year and say that this week’s win over Colorado ends up being the one that costs the Avs the Jack Hughes pick? Either way, the Senators drop out of the top spot for the first time in a few weeks. Let’s celebrate! WE LOVE A GOOD CELLY. PIC.TWITTER.COM/ZCJYLKM0WZ — NHL GIFS (@NHLGIFS) JANUARY 19, 2019 1. Los Angeles Kings (19-26-4, -37) – Saturday’s 7-1 loss to the Avalanche was ugly. They’ve got the Blues tonight and then the bye, after which they come back with a six-game Eastern road trip. Maybe getting away from L.A. for a few weeks will help. Maybe it will be the final step along the path to rock bottom and a trade deadline strip-mining. Not ranked: Philadelphia Flyers – Last week’s number two team falls all the way out of the top five thanks to three straight wins. Just a disappointing showing all around. You just can’t have a streak like that at this point in the season when you’re trying to win a championship first overall pick. Inexcusable, really. Here’s hoping they use the break to refocus and come back ready to keep their eyes on the prize.

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Sportsnet.ca: Four interesting GMs to watch around the NHL trade deadline By Rory Boylen – January 22, 2019

A little more than a month from the trade deadline, the market is still trying to sort out who the real buyers and sellers are. We know the likes of Tampa Bay, Toronto, Winnipeg and Nashville will be looking to make some additions and that Los Angeles and Philadelphia will be trading off parts, but as the playoff picture in the West tightens up, there may be fewer teams willing to sell than initially thought. Aside from the playoff picture, the specific situations of a few GMs have them in interesting spots in the lead-up to trade deadline — will they buy? Sell? Will their impact on the market be substantial? How much does job security play a role? Here are four GMs who will be particularly interesting to watch work this trade season. Ryan Dixon and Rory Boylen go deep on pucks with a mix of facts and fun, leaning on a varied group of hockey voices to give their take on the country’s most beloved game. PETER CHIARELLI, Sitting three points out of the playoffs, the Oilers are forced to be a buyer at the deadline. They’ve already traded for, then waived, Ryan Spooner this season and more recently picked up depth defencemen Brandon Manning and Alex Petrovic. That’s not going to make the difference the Oilers need. Despite the lack of depth and the fact they’re outside of the playoffs right now, this team is all-in. “They realize that missing the playoffs this year will have a hugely negative impact on their business and they’re going for it,” Elliotte Friedman said last week on Prime Time Sports. “I think they’re looking at adding. They got Klefbom, their top , coming back soon. He’s been a big player for them this year. So they think they can handle the blue line. But now they’ve gotta handle getting some more scoring. “I think they’ve made it very clear that missing the playoffs this year is not an option.” But because they’re no more than a playoff bubble team, and thin on the NHL roster, finding a trade that gets Edmonton what they need could be difficult. You have to believe Evan Bouchard is off the table, but their first-round pick and Jesse Puljujarvi are regularly showing up in trade rumours and both are risky to give up at the moment. On top of it all, the man who will be making these moves is also on the hot seat. Peter Chiarelli hasn’t been able to make progress in four years with Connor McDavid on his roster, and the belief is that if his team misses the playoffs again, he could very well be replaced in the front office. If you don’t have a rooting interest here it makes for potentially interesting theatre, but if this is the team you live and die with, it’s worrying times. “Peter Chiarelli’s trade record has everybody in this town, fans of the team, very nervous he’ll go out and try to make a big trade,” Sportsnet’s Mark Spector said recently on the FAN 590’s Jeff Blair Show. “His big trades have been awful. “People here are wondering, does Bob Nicholson have a leash on this, is he the one that will be okaying the trade? What about owner ?” , STARS First CEO Jim Lites called out his team’s two biggest stars. Then, coach Jim Montgomery vented his

32 frustration over not being able to change Dallas’ “culture of mediocrity.” Jamie Benn was blunt about the Stars’ lackluster power play last week. Alexander Radulov got benched for half a period. There’s a lot of drama unfolding in Texas and, sitting in a playoff spot by just one point, the Stars’ trade acquisitions aren’t likely to stop at Andrew Cogliano. Jim Nill has been GM in Dallas since 2013 and signed a contract extension in 2016. The interesting thing about that is the contract he was extending didn’t expire until this season so he’s actually signed through 2022-23. Does that provide any security for a GM who has made the playoffs twice in five completed seasons? “I do think he’s on the hot seat,” The Athletic’s Sean Shapiro told the Tape to Tape Podcast. “I think he’s in a situation where you don’t get to miss the playoffs again. I really think it’s a situation where if the Stars miss the playoffs, I have a high likelihood in my mind I’ll be covering another GM search. “The Stars need a fall guy for this and they tried to put it on Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin. Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin are the two most untouchable people in the organization.” This team had been in on John Tavares and even linked to Erik Karlsson, but came away from last summer with Blake Comeau as their most notable free-agent acquisition. Valeri Nichushkin, the 10th- overall pick in Nill’s first draft as GM, returned from two years in the KHL and has been a non-factor with zero goals. There isn’t a lot of difference in where the Stars and Oilers find themselves. They have the star power at the top, but lack depth beyond a super-loaded first line. Just this month Dallas has been held to one goal or less in regulation six out of nine games. Since Dec. 1 their total of 54 goals in 23 games ranks 30th in the league. “I think they’re at a spot where it could be something before the deadline, but I think they have to kind of make these moves sooner because they have to get ahead of it and really get themselves to a spot where whoever they bring in, they can mesh and they’re not in a spot where the Stars were last year when they just fell apart at the end.” , ST. LOUIS BLUES A lot has changed in a short period of time for Armstrong and the Blues. On Dec. 1 they sat last in the Central Division and were nine points out of the second wild-card spot. Since then they’ve gone 12-9-2 and in the past two weeks they earned their first three-game winning streak of the season. A month and a half ago the Blues were thought of as sellers and the likes of Vladimir Tarasenko, Brayden Schenn and Alex Pietrangelo were grist for the rumour mill. Now what does the situation look like? The interesting thing here is that being in the playoff race hasn’t stopped Armstrong from being a seller before. In 2017 he sent pending UFA Kevin Shattenkirk to Washington at the deadline, on a day St. Louis actually held the second wild-card spot. They ended up third in their division and got to the second round. Last season they sold pending UFA Paul Stastny to the Jets and missed the playoffs by a point. This year’s Blues don’t have any UFAs at the level of those two — Pat Maroon and declining Jay Bouwmeester fall into that category and may be in new places after the deadline. They are five points out of a playoff spot, but have played fewer games than every team ahead of them and with Jordan Binnington in net, now seem to be turning a corner. Even Tarasenko has five goals in his past eight games. Could the Blues go from potentially blockbuster sellers to at least minor buyers by the deadline? Will Armstrong still move one of his big-ticket players? After aggressive off-season acquisitions to shore up

33 depth at the centre position the expectation was clearly to make the playoffs this season, but how will that be reflected in the lead-up to Feb. 25? PAUL FENTON, MINNESOTA WILD At Fenton’s introductory press conference last summer, Wild owner noted that there was one thing about his team that the new GM and all the others who interviewed for the job agreed on: They were good. “The goal remains to bring a Stanley Cup to the State Of Hockey,” Leipold said at the press conference, smiling and looking over at Fenton. “No pressure, Paul.” Despite these expectations from the very top, on Monday the Wild sit one point out of the playoffs and have scored the fewest goals in the league since Dec. 1. For this roster, that can only be described as a disappointment. Still in a position to potentially buy and shake things up, what makes the Wild so interesting around the deadline is they can theoretically trade NHL players and pull off “hockey trades.” When looking at in-season buyers and sellers you often expect one team to give up picks or prospects, but if the Wild add anything, their market doesn’t have to be restricted to teams looking for futures. There is no doubt they have a good amount of depth with the likes of Zach Parise and Charlie Coyle currently on the third line — they’d almost have to trade out a roster player to pick up another of significance. Because of this, Minnesota could be a trade partner for almost anyone. Closing in on the all-star break in Fenton’s first season as GM, there have only been minor changes to ’s roster. In fact, Fenton’s biggest trade to date was the one he made last Thursday, sending 2010 fifth-overall pick Nino Niederreiter to Carolina for Victor Rask. Far from a slam dunk improvement, this looks like a risky move the Wild would be lucky to come out on top of. Niederreiter may be struggling, but he has the pedigree and history, while Rask had just six points at the time of the deal. But it’s the type of deal that sets a tone for the next four weeks. “We’re looking for consistency,” Fenton told reporters after the trade. “For me, when you make change like this, it shows players that nothing is forever and it gives them an alert that if they want to be here they’re going to have to play and play the way that we want them to play and be successful.”

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Sportsnet.ca: Why it's time for NHLers to get over their Olympic love affair By Jeff Blair – January 22, 2019

At some point, NHL players will need to grow up and treat themselves as professionals as opposed to looking at times like guys who really would play the game for nothing. The first step? Get over this love affair with the Olympics, a competition that makes other people and organizations richer despite the fact the players assume all the risk. Without that, we’re going to see more silliness like the clock “running out” on a potential 2020 World Cup, which has effectively made it even more difficult for this event to gain legitimacy. It’s like two steps back and the next event – whenever it’s held – won’t be taken seriously because continuity is absolutely crucial to maximizing an event’s impact. Now, I get it: there are great, wide swaths of this country where weekend warriors and Beer League dudes think “man, I’d do that for nothing,” and they’ll be shaking their heads because – dammit – those NHL guys owe it to us to play for the Maple Leaf. Except they don’t, of course. That’s why they’re professionals. And beyond the fact that one of my first sports editors told me never to take advice from people who’d do your job for nothing … well, the simple fact is that NHL players need to realize that until they get over this attachment to the Olympics they are always going to be short-handed when they negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. As long as they hang on to the notion that it’s OK for everybody else to make money on their labour – driven into them as juniors – in return for hunks of metal to hang around their necks, they are presenting ownership with a scab ready-made to be picked at. It is one of the most remarkable things in sports labour: NHL owners hate the idea of the Olympics themselves, yet they can still use it as leverage with their players because players are married to some goofy notion of honour. It’s the same reason a guy like Ryan Johansen can say he thinks players shouldn’t leave their teams as free agents, even though he himself has been traded. Talk about misguided loyalty. The NHL and its players need to strike out on their own and grow their brand, and the way to do that is to strike an agreement with the KHL and hold a World Cup of serious hockey countries with the flexibility to have it in consumer societies where the game has a realistic chance of pushing product and brand. You want to make inroads into China? Great … stage a World Cup round there and control the revenue. Pull out of the Olympics for good and make it clear that every two, three or four years there is only one place to watch the best players in hockey. But show all the other stakeholders that you are ready to commit. Be bold and, if necessary, a little greedy. Show owners you’re ready to claim your ground and hold fast. Toss off the albatross of Olympic involvement. Give us – and yourselves and the game – a real World Cup. NOW TWEET THIS In which we contemplate Mike Trout in pinstripes … enjoy the NFL overreacting to that most ancient of occurrences: a botched call … lobby for a Marner-Matthews pairing … start talking up Jays minor leaguer Kevin Smith, who we’ll be hearing a lot of … declare that Tony Romo is god. • A thing you’re hearing more and more: what if the Yankees have eyes on Mike Trout and are readying to make the Angels a deal they can’t refuse? #MantleEsque • Man, if the Islanders pass the Leafs somebody’s going to have to remove all the sharp objects within reach of ’s fan boys in the Toronto media. #StickYerFancyStats

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• I find it comforting that the most over-officiated, over-coached, over-video reviewed, stultified league in the world – the NFL – can still have a big game screwed up by a blown call. Watch the overkill. #CelebrateRandomness • The Flames have five players with 50 points in 50 games (Johnny Gaudreau, Mark Giordano, Sean Monahan, Matthew Tkachuk and Elias Lindholm) for the first time since 1987-88 (Al MacInnis, Mike Bullard, Joe Nieuwendyk, Hakan Loob, and Gary Suter). #Scorching • There will be no other injury this season in the Premier League as significant as the Spurs losing Harry Kane until the end of March: since Mauricio Pochettino became manager, Kane has accounted for 36 per cent of the squad’s goals. #Dominant • I’m convinced we’ll see Nikita Zaitsev on a line with Auston Matthews before we see Mitch Marner. Really does seem that Mike Babcock has it in at times for Matthews. #Puzzling • Jays not named Vladdy to keep an eye on this spring: shortstop Kevin Smith and infielder/outfielder Cavan Biggio. Blue Jays President and CEO Mark Shapiro said in a Q and A at Winterfest that Smith will get a great deal of playing time as a call-up for Grapefruit League games. #Future • James Harden is having a season for the ages but, yikes, those Rockets: 18-6 when scoring over 110 points this season after going 43-5 last season. They’ve lost six games in which they’ve led by double digits and only lost five last season. #Duh-Fence • I hate the NFL because it’s everything bad about the world … but I might watch it for Tony Romo, one of the few NFL analysts who can convert jargon to English and isn’t afraid to use the telestrator before the play. #Romodamus Each week, Jeff Blair and tackle the most impactful stories in the world of sports and their intersection with popular culture. Come for the sports; stay for the storytelling and cigars. THE ENDGAME The results of balloting for baseball’s Hall of Fame will be known Tuesday, and I’ve already made my ballot public through Ryan Thibodaux and @NotMrTibbs, voting for Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Larry Walker. Yeah, I’m one of those voters who doesn’t use all 10 of their available votes and, yeah, I’m one of those people who ultimately believes the process will be overhauled to allow some combination of living Hall of Famers, broadcasters and BBWAA members to make the decision, most likely at the cost of my ballot. Which is cool, and will likely keep happy those who think there’s no room for old farts with grudges or other subjective, personal things – such as disliking Curt Schilling for being a right-wing zealot – when it comes to voting for the Hall (although as a cautionary note, I’ll remind readers that it was the Veterans Committee, not baseball writers, that put in Harold Baines this winter after what one committee member described to me as “nothing less than lobbying” and “futures trading” by Tony La Russa and Jerry Reinsdorf). If the Hall ever admitted 10 players in one year there would be an ungodly hue and cry about cheapening the induction, so why the hell should anyone be obligated to vote for that many on a single ballot? And as I’ve said often: I made my peace with steroids years ago knowing full well there are folks in the Hall I suspect of using performance-enhancing substances as much as I know Bonds and Clemens did. Teammates and managers of some of those elected in recent years have told me so. Bonds (the best hitter I’ve seen in person and the most feared by miles and miles) and Clemens were jerks … but that’s a function of personality as it is chemistry. Reggie Jackson was right this weekend when he said it’s time they’re both in, although I’d miss the debate when and if it were to ever happen … sort of.

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TSN.CA: The undeniable link between save percentage and the Jack Adams Award By Travis Yost – January 22, 2019

It’s that time in the NHL season when you start to hear about serious candidacies for year-end awards. By now, the contenders have separated themselves from the pretenders and voting bodies – be it media, coaches, general managers, fans, whatever – are starting to get a strong feel for who their respective finalists may be. Award season is a bit of a funny business because criteria can be rather difficult to follow. One of the trickier awards to vote for is the Jack Adams – awarded to the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success. In recent years, it seems as though the finalists can be isolated into one of two categories: the coaches who led their team to the top of the standings or the coaches who led an over-performing team into the playoffs. Both of those buckets make sense, but it’s a rather tall order to expect a voting contingency – the Jack Adams is voted on by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association – to be able to untangle how much of a team’s success can be tied back to a coach. The first scenario (among many other things) is contingent on a front office being able to build a talented, cap-compliant roster. If you think that segment of coaches is a tricky one to analyze, consider the other bucket. The second scenario has much more to do with our prior assumptions and preconceptions. Why did we believe that team would struggle during our preseason analyses? What did we miss? Moreover, how much of that team’s gain in the standings can be tied back to coaching impact as opposed to a slew of other factors? It’s for this reason that I posit there are generally only two criteria for whether or not a head coach becomes a Jack Adams Award finalist: a coach being in charge of the winningest team in a given regular season, or a coach being in charge of the team with a substantial (and often random) increase in save percentage. Consider the table of Jack Adams winners since the 2008-09 season. Here we can look at a team by the percentages in the year their coach won the trophy versus the team’s save percentage in the prior year and future year. It is, in one word, stunning: The average save percentage (all situations) has been generally stable over the last decade or so at about 91 per cent, though 2017-19 has seen slight save percentage drops relative to prior years. Over that same timeframe, the average Jack Adams Award winner saw a prior year save percentage around 90.5 per cent, a winning year save percentage around 92.2 per cent, and a future year save percentage of 90.8 per cent. This cuts two different ways. One, it seems clear to me that we intentionally or otherwise tend to heavily shape our outlook of a team’s future probability of success on save percentage. In addition, when we see sharp upticks in save percentage over a future period, we tend to reconcile that as general team improvement that ties back to coaching impact. Yet in the following year that same save percentage – the save percentage that, by and large, earned a head coach hardware – regresses right back to league average, much closer to what it was in the prior season than what it was in the award- winning year. It’s worth keeping in mind that I didn’t remove any Jack Adams winners from the above data set. A few of these teams were in bucket one – conference winners from the above list include Boston in 2008-09

37 and Washington in 2015-16, with a couple of other teams (Pittsburgh 2010-11, St. Louis in 2011-12) missing by just a point or two. Another important distinction is you really can tie this back to just goaltending performance. It would make intuitive sense that the percentages – the things that descriptively drive goal differential – correlate well with a team’s win-loss record. But shooting percentage, which is just the offensive version of this same discussion, doesn’t have nearly the same relationship: It is almost perfectly flat. Again, same rundown as above: the prior year shooting percentage is around 9.1 per cent, the winning year around 9.3 per cent, and the future year around 9.1 per cent, where the league average sits right around 9.0 per cent. So what does this mean for the Jack Adams Award in 2018-19 and beyond? Is it as predictable as taking the coach of the league’s winningest team and appending two coaches of teams with suspiciously high save percentages and calling it a day? It certainly seems that way, which means you can already pencil in two coaches for as Jack Adams finalists right now: Tampa Bay’s , and New York’s Barry Trotz. Give it another 10-15 games and you can probably predict all three finalists with laser accuracy. I sympathize with voters on this. It’s difficult to understand true coaching impact for a multitude of reasons, but simply taking the best team and the team with a rocketing save percentage doesn’t seem right. I suspect it is one of the reasons why, ironically, a stunning majority of Jack Adams winners are fired rather shortly after their winning season. We are basing their positive impact on something that is largely out of their control, and when it dissipates, perception is that they have lost something. At any rate, it’s something to consider when the ballots come in a few months.

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Seattle Times: Puck and player tracking gets TV test at All-Star Weekend By Stephen Whyno – January 23, 2019

Twenty-three years after Fox’s glowing puck made its debut, the NHL’s next big technological advancement will be on display this weekend during All-Star festivities. NBC will showcase puck and player tracking as part of its broadcast of the skills competition Friday night and then as the centerpiece of a digital-only broadcast of the All-Star 3-on-3 tournament Saturday night. It’ll be the first chance for American hockey fans to get an up-close look at the system that could be in place as soon as next season. With each player and puck fitted with a microchip, the amount of available information could be overwhelming. Look for everything from NASCAR-like bubbles over players’ heads to skating and shot speed to ice time and even a small trail behind the puck as NBC takes tracking technology in hockey for a test drive. “Eventually it’ll go to possession time and more advanced (data), but right now it’s mainly focused on speed, shift time, distance traveled, mph on the shot and virtually connecting players on a goal,” NBC Sports producer Steve Greenberg said. “We’re scratching the surface here, and what we’re able to display this weekend is not what we’re going to be able to display next year and in the future, but it’s going to be able to be a really good first look at what these chips are going to be able to give us.” The NHL privately tested puck and player tracking in two regular-season games in Las Vegas earlier this month, but this will be the first time the data is available for public consumption. While other types of tracking technology were tested at previous All-Star Games and the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, this is something of a dry run for the radio frequency system the NHL has been working with developers to perfect. Much like the glowing puck was criticized by purists, there’s the danger of overloading fans with too much, too fast. So this is as big a test for NBC as anyone to experiment with how much puck and player tracking data can and should fit onto a TV broadcast. “It’s a balancing act,” NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood said. “Think about years ago when the yellow line came in for the first down in football. It’s now universal. There are going to be elements that’ll become universal in hockey telecasts based on what we learn over the next period of time.” Kenny Albert, who will call the puck and player tracking-heavy telecast available on NBC Sports’ app and online, likens this to the kind of ball-tracking technology that has become ubiquitous in golf coverage. He was with Fox in the 1990s when the glowing puck was perhaps ahead of its time but thinks fans are ready for puck and player tracking on TV. “We live in an age of information overload and people want stuff like ice time and the mph on a shot for example or how fast a player’s skating,” Albert said. “I have two teenage daughters and I don’t think anybody in that generation now just sits there and watches TV. They want information, whether it’s looking at their phone, their iPad, their computer, and there’s so much information out there.” Eventually, once the NHL implements player and puck tracking, fans will be able to take a deep dive into all the numbers and there will be an element of real-time sports gambling. But Commissioner Gary Bettman and other league executives have pointed out that the first goal was always to make it TV- ready.

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Puck and player tracking is ready for its close-up this weekend with a focus on showing how fast hockey is. “The most obvious thing that (viewers will) probably notice is just sort of the correlations tied to speed,” NHL senior vice president of business development David Lehanski said. “It’s kind of the thing everybody talks about: how fast the game is, how fast the players are, how fast the puck moves.” Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson missed the final three games before the break with a lower-body injury, but there’s somehow still a chance he takes part in All-Star Weekend in San Jose. Obviously, coach Peter DeBoer said, the organization would love to have Karlsson on the ice in its home arena, but not at the risk of making it worse. “If there’s more damage to be done, no one in their right mind would play,” DeBoer said. “So I think it’s pretty simple.” Karlsson returned to California for tests, and defenseman Brenden Dillon said it’s a positive for the team to play it safe with the two-time Norris Trophy winner. Karlsson has fit in well with San Jose after an offseason trade from San Jose and gives the Sharks the look of a Stanley Cup contender with the deepest blue line in the league. “He’s an unbelievable talent and a guy that’s fit in our locker room great too,” Dillon said. “It’s something where collectively as a group we realized that it was going to be a little bit less whether that’s in minutes or situations … I think for everybody it’s kind of been a little bit less is more and understanding the kind of common goal. So far, so good.”

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The Athletic: Down Goes Brown: A detailed breakdown of the subtle differences between the NHL and the WWE By Sean McIndoe – January 23, 2019

This weekend is one of the stranger ones on the sports calendar. We’re in the middle of the two-week break between the NFL conference championships and the Super Bowl, and with the 800-pound gorilla of the sports world going quiet apart from the Pro Bowl, there’s a chance for everyone else to strut their stuff. That includes the NHL, who’ll be gathering in San Jose for their annual All-Star weekend. But if they want to steal the sports spotlight, they’ll have some tough competition, because the WWE will be putting on their annual Royal Rumble pay-per-view. Granted, we’re getting a little loose with the definition of sports here. But the NHL and WWE have a lot in common, and it’s possible that some fans might get them mixed up with both running major events over the same weekend. So just in case, let’s walk through some of the key differences to help everyone tell the two organizations apart. WWE: An anguished voice screaming “Burn it down!” signals the arrival of former world champion Seth Rollins. NHL: An anguished voice screaming “Burn it down!” signals that another Los Angeles Kings fan has just looked at the roster. WWE: Fans are expected to suspend their disbelief and play along with the show despite the occasional presence of wrestling demons, cult leaders who can teleport, and 7-foot-tall zombie morticians with superpowers. NHL: Fans are expected to suspend their disbelief and play along when Gary Bettman swears he doesn’t want a lockout this time. WWE: Phrases like “shattered dreams,” “rock bottom” and “tombstone” refer to popular finishing maneuvers from the sport’s glory days in the late 1990s. NHL: Phrases like “shattered dreams,” “rock bottom” and “tombstone” refer to experiences a Blackhawks fan can look forward to before the team is ready to win another Stanley Cup. WWE: You may find yourself wondering why the competitors are often seen openly discussing their nefarious plots against their enemies without noticing the various cameras around them that are filming them and broadcasting every word they say. NHL: Actually, that’s a surprisingly easy mistake to make, mutter several Ottawa Senators crammed into an Uber. WWE: Fans will often count backwards from 10 in unison, signaling that a new competitor is about to arrive in the Royal Rumble. NHL: Fans will often count backwards from 10 in unison, conclusively proving that the most recent hit wasn’t really that late. WWE: Brock Lesnar has been known to infuriate fans because he makes more money than pretty much everyone, disappears for long stretches and only seems to show up once every month or two. NHL: Same, but with William Nylander.

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WWE: If you hear thousands of people all furiously screaming things like “Get him!” and “Make him pay!” and “Rip his stupid head off!”, you’ll know that one of the show’s bad guys is doing an especially good job of riling up the crowd. NHL: Don’t worry, that’s just Islanders fans scrolling down to the comment section. WWE: Braun Strowman is a massive wrestler from Carolina who can often be heard screaming his catchphrase, “Get these hands.” NHL: It’s been years since anyone in Carolina had any hands. WWE: If you see someone furiously sprinting toward the action after it’s already begun, you’re probably seeing what’s known in the wrestling world as a “run-in.” NHL: If you see someone furiously sprinting toward the action after it’s already begun, it’s probably just Charlie McAvoy trying to get to a team meeting. WWE: The company runs additional shows under the banner of NXT, a farm system of sorts that allows prospects to get experience before joining the main roster at some point in the future. NHL: Confused Penguins fans are trying to figure out the meaning of words like “farm system,” “prospects” and “future.” WWE: If you see someone set up a large stepladder and begin to climb it, it means they are attempting to retrieve the “Money In The Bank” briefcase hanging over the ring. NHL: If you see someone set up a large stepladder and begin to climb it, it means that Tyler Johnson has something he needs to tell Victor Hedman. WWE: Becky Lynch has recently become one of the company’s most popular stars, thanks in part to an unfortunate incident in which she absorbed a roundhouse punch directly to the face. NHL: That might not help Matthew Tkachuk, fans of other teams acknowledge, but they’re sure hoping somebody gives it a try anyway. WWE: One of the company’s most memorable moments to this day is CM Punk’s infamous 2011 “pipe bomb” promo, in which he took advantage of a live microphone to rant angrily, swear repeatedly and brutally insult most the company’s key employees. NHL: Sounds like a pretty standard day at the office, thinks Jim Lites. WWE: If you suddenly hear an engine revving late in a match, it could mean that The Undertaker is about to make a surprise return in his old biker gimmick. NHL: If you suddenly hear an engine revving late in the third period, it means that Sergei Bobrovsky is already on the team bus and is ready to leave now. WWE: The three-hour shows are still referred to as “pay-per-views” even though these days most fans actually access the events through an online network that allows them to watch on mobile screens. NHL: Three-hour shows watched on a mobile screen are referred to as “offside reviews.” WWE: If you see a man drive into the arena in a beer truck, chug six cans at once, and then begin spraying beer on all the fans with a firehose, you’ll know that legendary star “Stone Cold” Steve Austin has returned to reenact one of his most famous moments.

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NHL: If you see a man drive into the arena in a beer truck, chug six cans at once, and then begin spraying beer on all the fans with a firehose, you’ll know that somebody has reminded Alexander Ovechkin that he won the Stanley Cup. WWE: One of today’s most popular performers is a relative newcomer named Elias, who can often be seen delighting the fans right up until the point where one of his dastardly opponents blindsides him by brutally attacking him when he can’t defend himself. NHL: Look, the Canucks swear that if that happens six or seven more times this season they’re totally going to get around to doing something about it. WWE: “Empty arena match” refers to a rare type of contest that takes place without the presence of an audience. NHL: “Empty arena, match” is ’s answer to the two-part question “What’s stopping the Coyotes from offer-sheeting Auston Matthews this summer” and “What will you immediately do if they try?” WWE: If you see a superstar desperately fighting to reach the exit, clawing and scraping with every fiber of will they can summon despite being mercilessly dragged back away from the door, you’re probably watching what’s known as a steel cage match. NHL: If you see a superstar desperately fighting to reach the exit, clawing and scraping with every fiber of will they can summon despite being mercilessly dragged back away from the door, you’re probably watching Connor McDavid after the latest Oilers game.

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Sportsnet.ca: John Shannon's Top 25 NHL Power Brokers 2019 By John Shannon – January 24, 2019

When I made my first visit to the NHL office in New York City in the late ’70s, seven employees worked there. Seven! In 2019, I think there are well over 400. That growth reflects the change from cottage industry to mainstream sports and entertainment juggernaut, a change that has resulted from the work of many people both in the league office and beyond its walls. This list is a little glimpse at some of those people, who are still working to grow the game. There are more players on this year’s Power 25 than there were in 2018 or 2017. There’s one simple reason for that: The game on the ice demands it. Players today are younger and more creative, and they’re demanding a share in the business. Over the next year, that trend will evolve even more as 2019’s restricted free agent market manoeuvres for new and bigger contracts, putting salary cap pressure on teams across the league. There is also a greater focus on Canadian teams and their contributions to the game. Again, the explanation is simple: They have produced some of the best stories of the season. Calgary, Toronto and Winnipeg are all near the top of the standings. Montreal and Vancouver are surprising playoff contenders, and Edmonton and Ottawa remains tremendously, compellingly frustrating for their fan bases. In short, passion for the game is alive and thriving throughout the whole country. Agree or disagree with these rankings. Rant or rave about them if the mood strikes you. But promise me one thing: Enjoy! 25. Glenn Healy: Healy has seen the game from many angles and his passion to get it right always shines through. He is now executive director of the NHL Alumni Association, that group of retired players that at times has felt ignored by the players’ union and the league. Through Healy’s bulldog style, though, that’s changing. The Alumni has built some strong corporate partnerships and leveraged the ability of players to sign their rights back to the group as a whole so that there are now more than 1,600 former players receiving some level of compensation. Healy’s ability to sell both corporations and the game’s great former players on the aim of “good of all” is key to the Alumni’s renewed profile and success. Next on the agenda has to be to create a better relationship with the NHLPA, where Healy once worked. 24. Kay Whitmore: The former Whalers and Canucks goaltender has been instrumental in the evolution of goalkeeping equipment as a member of the NHL’s Hockey Operations group. Soldiering on despite complaints and criticism with support from the rest of Hockey Ops and a few current goalies, Whitmore has championed the streamlining of equipment, working diligently, and well, with the NHLPA and manufacturers. Pads, pants, chest and arm protectors continue to be works in progress, and the glove is next to draw Whitmore’s focus with the hope that its radius will be reduced by more than two inches and the cuff (normally called “the cheater”) will shrink as well. 23. Shyam Das: An independent arbitrator who has worked for Major League Baseball and the National Football League, Das is the man the NHL and the NHLPA have agreed to use for appeals of any suspension greater than six games upheld by the commissioner. In three recent decisions, Das reduced the amount of games in the original suspensions for Dennis Wideman (from 20 to 10), Austin Watson (from 27 to 18) and Tom Wilson (from 20 to 14), and he looks like he’ll remain the game’s neutral discipline arbitrator for the foreseeable future.

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22. John Tavares: Choosing Toronto in free agency, Tavares potentially changed the fate of two franchises, one he loved from childhood, the other he joined as a child and left as a man. Leaving money on the table for his best chance to win in Toronto — and the chance to move home — he just might have set a precedent that others will follow. After all, hockey is a game of tradition and loyalty. Matt Duchene, Artemi Panarin, Jeff Skinner, Erik Karlsson — all took note of Tavares’s decision, and the success that followed. His influence just might be a factor for some of those unrestricted free agents this summer. And Tavares has also delivered for the Maple Leafs as a leader, goal scorer and consummate professional. He is a big part of the frenzy in Toronto, and the possibility of winning the team’s first Stanley Cup in 52 years. 21. Kyle Dubas and : Living under the microscope hasn’t stopped either of these Canadian-based GMs from assembling teams that win far more than they lose. Both have been creative and unafraid of change in their pursuit of deep playoff runs, and it will be interesting to see whether they stand pat over the next month or help their teams with a timely trade. The pressure to win in a Canadian city is immeasurable. Not bowing to pressure — from ownership, media and fans — is a full time job. Staying the course and believing in the process makes you stronger. While Dubas has improved his team through the financial resources of MLSE in free agency, Treliving has fired his coach and traded away the highest-scoring defenceman in the NHL and seen those moves pay off. And his trades on recent draft days are proof of his desire to build a winner in Calgary. Both GMs have stressed building from within, and that approach has delivered, with the likes of Travis Dermott, Rasmus Anderson, Mitch Marner and Matthew Tkachuk becoming vital players for their teams. 20. Connor McDavid: For my money, No. 97 is the most exciting player in the NHL, a guy who consistently delivers those moments that make you turn in disbelief and say, “Did you see that?” He has returned the Oilers to their place as one of the most interesting franchises in the league, and willed his team to victories with skill and pure heart. I would like to see him be more demonstrative on the ice. Get angrier. Get louder. Don’t let the opposition and officials take advantage of his ability to recover from interference, holding and slashes. He chooses not to because raising a fuss just isn’t in his DNA. In the end, one player can’t will his team to the playoffs. He needs help. But that won’t stop the hockey world from marvelling at his skill, speed and scoring. 19. Barry Trotz and Lou Lamoriello: When the Maple Leafs faced the Capitals in the playoffs in 2017, I don’t think any of us imagined that Trotz and Lamoriello would work for the same team anytime soon — and that the team would be the Islanders. Well, it happened, and the structure and accountability they’ve instilled on and off the ice have made the Islanders a factor in the Metro Division. Like all great coaches, Trotz is thorough in his preparation and relentless in his execution. He has turned the blue line from a liability into an asset and might be coaching at an all-time high this season. As for Lamoriello, his return to the New York area has only reinforced his image as the Godfather. Players always know where they stand and that he always has their backs. And there are rules. Lamoriello and Trotz have proven that the franchise can be relevant, even without Tavares. They’ve rekindled the Islanders’ pride, and just might make the playoffs. The added challenge of having two home arenas hasn’t helped, but one has to think that Lamoriello will be able to solve that sticky issue sooner than later. 18. Brian MacLellan: MacLellan now has his name on the Stanley Cup as both a player and a GM, and not to knock his playing career, he’s had much more impact on the game from the front office. He’s worked to give his team a better chance to win at the trade deadline, and his cap management following the

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Stanley Cup victory — moving goaltender Philipp Grubauer and D-man Brooks Orpik to Colorado in order to sign John Carlson (only to re-sign Orpik after the Avs bought him out) — was brilliant. Along with his assistant GM, the great player evaluator Ross Mahoney, MacLellan has brought stability to the Caps’ front office, which in turn smoothed the coaching transition from Trotz to Todd Reirden. Though he’s certainly not the most outgoing manager, making the Capitals a championship team has made MacLellan one of the most influential. 17. John McDonough: After turning the organization around and putting his name on the Stanley Cup three times since 2010, the president and CEO of the Blackhawks has his work cut out for him as he tries to rebuild the team without compromising the tremendous growth he has supervised. Like the Red Wings of the 1990s and 2000s, Chicago has become the best ratings grabber for network television in the United States. But facing the possibility of missing the playoffs for the second consecutive season will put McDonough’s guile and elite marketing skills to the test. There is no doubt the dismissal of Joel Quenneville as coach came directly from McDonough’s office. The confidence and autonomy given to him by owner is testimony to everything McDonough has done for this once sad franchise. Now, though, he and his right-hand man Jay Blunk, must keep the cavernous United Centre filled while re-tools on the fly, handcuffed by a few of those long-term contracts given out while the Hawks were the talk of the hockey world. 16. Stephen Walkom: The NHL’s VP and director of officiating still thinks like an official and has built a team of on-ice personnel that think the same way. Walkom faces a huge operational challenge: Trying to get that many people to watch the same game the same way and make the same decision is close to impossible. In those terms, he has done a very good job, and I have seen firsthand at officials’ training camp the camaraderie and loyalty he has promoted amongst the referees and linesmen. The best example of Walkom’s feel for the game was his insistence on having a supervisor in the situation room as a conduit with the officials on the ice. While some feel it isn’t necessary, it created the perception of authority working together, and quelled the public critiques of the coaches’ challenge. Also know that Walkom is in constant communication with his staff to ensure the standard of calls is as consistent as possible. He has a huge impact on the shape of the game on the ice. 15. Judd Moldaver and Mike Liut: Agents Moldaver and Liut will be taking a lot of calls in the months to come. Moldaver, from Wasserman/Orr, has Auston Matthews; Octagon Sports’ Liut has Mikko Rantanen, Brock Boeser and Patrick Laine. All of those players are in the final months of their entry level deals, and the challenge for the agents is simple: how to create leverage in restricted free agency, which still puts much more control on the side of the teams. Moldaver, Liut and agents like them will try to dictate the market and create budget problems for the teams. Also out there is the possibility that one or two of their clients might receive an offer sheet from a team in desperate need of a marquee player. Is Matthews worth giving up multiple first round picks? Maybe. Laine? Maybe. Marner? Interesting. We have never seen a summer like this in the NHL. So many quality, young players seeking new long-term contracts. Moldaver, who moved over from CAA with Matthews, and Liut, the former NHL goaltender, are going to be front-and- centre in the negotiations. 14. René Fasel: Fasel’s time as president of the International Federation is coming to an end. It’s common knowledge in international hockey circles, that he will probably be gone of his own volition in the next two years. But he wants to leave a legacy. Fasel’s inability to convince the NHL to send its players to South Korea, after great success in Vancouver and Sochi, was as frustrating as it gets. So recently, when

46 he announced the 2020 World Championships in Finland and perhaps the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing will be played on NHL-size ice, it was viewed as the first of many olive branches meant to convince Bettman and Co. to consider the Beijing games. While Fasel is probably supported by the IOC, NHLPA, NBC, CBC and European Broadcast Union, it will certainly be difficult to convince NHL owners to sacrifice prime February dates — particularly when the NHL has its own plan for the Chinese market. Fasel wants to leave his mark. NHLers on the ice in Beijing would be that mark. 13. Peter DelGiacco: Hockey fans see DelGiacco’s influence at every game. As the league’s chief technology officer, DelGiacco is responsible for every piece of technology the NHL uses. Cameras on the blue lines, video review, tablets on the benches and with the referees, and the arena-to-situation room intercom are all part of his domain. His biggest current challenge might end up being his greatest influence in the game: player tracking. Not only could tracking make the game more watchable for some, it will become the backbone of the NHL’s new partnerships in sports betting. DelGiacco has consistently and quietly delivered for the league on every project. His work touches every department from marketing and sales to hockey operations to game presentation to the NHL Network, the archives and beyond. Delgiacco is that low- key guy in the background that always gets things done. 12. : Mandatory days off, the five-day mid-season break, the all-star format and some recent equipment safety measures have Schneider’s influence written all over them. The former defence man who played for more than two decades and 10 NHL teams has become Donald Fehr’s consigliere, his hockey whisperer. At the same time, Schneider has learned a great deal from Fehr about the art of negotiation. Over the next few months, as the CBA becomes an issue and the tweaking of some player-first demands becomes public, we’ll start to see Schneider’s influence there as well. He has always worked hard on behalf of the players. 11. George Parros: Princeton trained and street smart, Parros has put his stamp on the Player Safety Department. He has tried to instill a more respectful style of hockey, expanding his purview well beyond the typical head hits the department was created to police, tackling things like the often-ignored stick fouls and slew-foot plays guys felt they could get away with. Has he raised the bar? Probably, a bit. Has he gone too far? For some, yes; for others, not far enough. Parros hasn’t been afraid to use the power of the CBA and levy fines without hearings to keep players aware that someone is watching. His aggressive approach to leadership of the department makes the decision to put one of the toughest players ever to wear skates in charge a wise one. 10. Mark Chipman: The last year has been a good one for the co-owner of the Winnipeg Jets. His team has become a powerhouse in the Western Conference, and Chipman, along with his partner, David Thomson, deserve credit for helping give downtown Winnipeg a bit of a facelift around the arena. Chipman’s stature within the NHL family continues to grow. He’s a member of the commissioner’s Executive Committee and a strong voice from one of the smallest markets in the league — and a Canadian small market at that. His management skill in landing the Atlanta Thrashers remains a tremendous example of how to navigate the demands of NHL owners and the New York Office. Chipman has also joined the selection committee for the Hockey Hall of Fame, cementing his position as a true league insider. 9. Sidney Crosby: Crosby remains as prolific on the ice as ever, and it’s almost as if his greatness is now taken for granted. He still is the most marketable player in the NHL, his endorsement deals reflect that fact. And there is little doubt that as long as he’s healthy, the Penguins remain one the game’s elite franchises. After

47 starting his career as one of the loudest rookies, maybe chirping a few too many times, Crosby has become a public voice of reason. He knows what’s expected of him, and he delivers. On the ice, that calm demeanour is replaced by a demanding one, with a great will to win. His work ethic truly leads his team on a daily basis, and is the single biggest reason the Pens compete at such a high level. 8. P.K. Subban: The Nashville defenceman has had tough year on the ice, missing 19 games with back issues, but make no mistake about it, Subban and his personality remain crucial to the NHL. We all joke about “growing the game,” but Subban wields the power to spark and nuture that growth. His outgoing personality transcends our sport. Whether it be his charitable work or his work for minorities, Subban’s voice is one that gets heard. As he matures, his message of fun and inclusiveness can help the game in a serious way, particularly outside the core hockey audience. His next step is to create a production company and partner with NBC for an upcoming series of shows. And, oh yeah, he can still really shoot the puck from the point and play some decent defence for the perennially great Predators. 7. Colin Campbell: I have always believed that Campbell is the conscience of the game. As a former player and with his name on the Stanley Cup, there isn’t a waking moment that he isn’t thinking about what is best for the sport. Any rule changes under consideration will have been sliced and diced by Campbell. A disciple of the late, great , Campbell thinks the game at a much higher level than most, and with the betterment of all top of mind — from owners to players and fans. Don’t let the Southwestern farm boy cadence fool you, Campbell is one smart cookie. Staying in his position for as long as he has is testament to that, and to his love of the game. The fact he isn’t in charge of player discipline has, in fact, become a blessing as he’s able to devote more time to ensuring the quality of play is at its best, and technology has its proper place in the game. He is still one of the great complex thinkers in hockey, and remains one of the commissioner’s closest advisors. 6. Elias Pettersson: If there was still any question how the Canucks were going to fill the four skates of Daniel and , Pettersson has answered them by filling all four himself. Comparisons to Gretzky — because of his slight frame and his shooting style — have been made. The Canucks have become a good road attraction, and have given their rabid fan base hope for years to come. As good as Pettersson is in the offensive zone, he’s also working hard to perfect his defensive play. And, remember, he only played centre seven times last season before filling that position in Vancouver. Coach , himself a pretty good player, admits he doesn’t really coach Pettersson about hockey, focusing instead on life in the NHL. Not that Pettersson seems to need much off-ice guidance either. He is polite, honest, articulate and confident without being cocky. Constantly in demand for interviews, he appears to understand that it is part of the job. Quite frankly, I think he’s really having fun, and it shows. And give the Canucks credit too, for creating a small Swedish culture for EP40. Having a handful of other Swedes on the team probably cuts down on Pettersson’s time thinking about home. 5. Jeff Vinik: Vinik is the posterchild for how new NHL owners should conduct themselves. Take a moribund franchise, hire quality hockey people and watch the world unfold as it should — as if it was that easy. How about right place at the right time? Sure, but you have to be able to execute a plan to be successful. Vinik has done a great job with his team, his arena and the surrounding area. He has also become a community leader in the Tampa area, and gives hundreds of thousands of dollars away every season to community groups at home games. A visit to is impressive, with great in-game entertainment, knowledgeable hockey fans and a quality product on the ice. Vinik has also become a go- to guy for the commissioner. He is a member of the Executive Committee that most often sets the

48 agenda for the other owners, and has become a barometer for Bettman on key business issues. You got a true sense of how Vinik runs his business with the departure of Steve Yzerman as GM. The team on and off the ice just kept on motoring, a testament to what Yzerman built for sure, but also to Vinik and his organization. 4. Alex Ovechkin: The Great 8 had a very good 2018. He finally won the Stanley Cup, and with it (finally) earned the unqualified admiration of the hockey world. If we ever doubted that Ovechkin wanted to win in North America, those thoughts were doused in the Stanley Cup Final last June, and in the many fountains and champagne celebrations that followed across the world. At this writing, he is again leading the NHL in goal scoring, proving he is the best pure goal-scorer since the league expanded in 1967. As a proud Russian, Ovechkin voiced his displeasure at not being able to join his country’s Olympic team in 2018, and many saw his early January announcement that he would not attend all-star festivities in San Jose as a protest. True or not, the reaction to that pending absence was a real sign of respect to a player who has endured more criticism than any superstar in any sport, all the while posting scoring records and missing just 29 games in 14 seasons. 3. Bill Daly. When Gary Bettman delegates, much falls onto the desk of the deputy commissioner. International hockey, NHLPA relations, concussion protocol and more all fall primarily on Daly. But in reality, everything that falls on Bettman’s desk, also finds its way down the hall to Daly’s in some form. In the two previous editions of the Power 25, I’ve mentioned how approachable Daly always appears to be; nothing has changed. I truly believe that as Bettman has relaxed as commissioner, it has enabled Daly to be much more persuasive and authoritative. He can easily work on the broadcast file in both Canada and the United States, as well being a source of information and counsel for the owners. Ever since the departure of former NHL chief operating officer John Collins, the senior team has reported directly to Bettman and Daly has taken a more active role in the business side of the NHL. And with Player Safety situated in NYC, rather than Toronto, you have to know he has some influence on that high-profile group as well. 2. Don Fehr. There is no question Fehr is brilliant, and while he has had a few detractors, it would appear the rank and file of the NHLPA have full trust in their executive director and his lieutenants. With the help of Schneider, Fehr has built a structure of outreach, a layer of regional player reps such as Steve Webb, Chris Campoli and Rob Zaminer to maintain constant communication with the players. What is interesting to me is that this group, led by Fehr, also appears open to building revenue. The World Cup and the new player tracking are two great examples of ways the partnership between the league and union can grow while contentious CBA issues continue to be negotiated. It should also be noted that quietly, he has also used former NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow as an advisor. One cautionary note about Mr. Fehr: He loves deadlines and negotiates accordingly. The first deadline isn’t until September. Just sayin’. 1. Gary Bettman. Boring, I know. But make no mistake, Gary B. Bettman still has a hold on the NHL game like no other. In many ways, the commissioner is coming off his most successful calendar year on the job, both personally and professionally. Revenues are up, and with sports betting on the horizon, the opportunities to increase those dollars are certainly there. The game on the ice is very good, and an expansion team is in the midst of putting $650 million in the pockets of its owners. As 2019 begins, and with CBA discussions already underway, Bettman once again finds himself at the centre of the action. Let’s face it, while he will downplay the conflict between the league and the PA, he was born to

49 negotiate. He loves the fight. By the way, I have never seen the commissioner more comfortable in his own skin. He is more relaxed, accessible and willing to delegate to his senior management team than at any time since 1993. That is an indication of his confidence in what he has done and in the game itself. All that and the Hockey Hall of Fame, too. As for the near future, franchise stability is always paramount for the commissioner. You would have to think that Ottawa and Arizona will need some quality time with Mr. Bettman. Ones to WATCH: 1. Travis Green. Green appears much younger than his 48 years, and he has brought a new attitude to NHL coaching. Part tough love, part player-first. Having already paid his dues in the WHL and AHL, he is a huge part of the Canucks’ resurgence. 2. Chris Pronger. The great former player has worked in the NHL office and now the Panthers front office. He has to be on the short list when the next round of NHL GM jobs open up. 3. Kelly McCrimmon. McCrimmon is key in the expansion front office in Las Vegas. His long tenure with the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings and his ability to evaluate players make him a GM in the future. 4. Darren Ferris. Ferris has been on his own as an agent for just six years but he’s not afraid to ruffle feathers. He’s had two RFAs with little or no leverage sit out camp (Josh Anderson and Andreas Athanasiou), and both Taylor Hall and pending RFA Mitch Marner number among the 26 players he reps. 5. Adam Oates. Oates has created his own business model. He has become a personal coach for shooting and passing (almost like a swing coach in golf), putting his Hall of Fame stick to work with players around the league. And now, the Kings are using Oates, who helps with the power play and breaks down tape with each individual on the team. 6. Jim Murren. The Chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International was first in line to sign a sports betting deal with the NHL. He just might become one of the league’s best and biggest corporate partners. 7. Valerie Camillo. Camillo is the new president of business operations for the Philadelphia Flyers and Wells Fargo Arena. She joins Amy Latimer, who runs TD garden in Boston, as high-profile women at the team level in the NHL. Camillo will oversee sales, marketing and all business for the team and arena. 8. Tod Leiweke. As Seattle prepares to join the NHL in 2021, we will hear Leiweke’s name a great deal, tied to arena construction, the unveiling of colours and name and the hiring of a hockey operations group. 9. Dallas Eakins. Eakin’s first NHL tenure in Edmonton was a disaster — for many reasons. But he has taken his time in the AHL to become a better coach and will be back in the NHL somewhere, sooner than later. 10. Gritty. Honestly, I tried to avoid putting the old redhead on this list, but I couldn’t help myself. No other mascot has become as universally recognizable as fast as the Flyers’ hairy monster. In a year in which the iconic franchise has lost far more than it’s won, Gritty has played a key role in deflecting from the on-ice product. Mind you, being owned by a multi-tiered media company, sure helped get Gritty a fair share of network time.

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Sportsnet.ca: NHL Power Rankings: Step Your Game Up Edition By Luke Fox – January 24, 2019

I believe it was the great poet O’Shea Jackson who warned, “You betta check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self.” As the breaks for all-star weekend and everyone gets a chance to tap the reset button with a few sunny days off, a list of under-performing players should think long and hard about where their game is at between sips of their bye-week Mai Tais. In our NHL Power Rankings: Step Your Game Up Edition, we single out a player from each organization who hasn’t lived up to expectations through the first 50 games of 2018-19. All of the culprits below could help their teams by making big strides down the stretch. With 6 grams of delicious, crunchy, energy-giving protein, there’s nothing you and almonds can’t do. Visit Almonds.com for more ways to slay your day. 1. Tampa Bay Lightning OK, I’m questioning this week’s theme already. The Lightning are quite light on under-performers, but we’ll go with Yanni Gourde. The top-six winger wowed with a 64-point rookie campaign but has struggled to light the lamp of late. Gourde scored just once in 20 games prior to finding the net versus San Jose Saturday. 2. Calgary Flames For all the good things Brad Treliving has done, James Neal’s five-year, $28.75-million contract sticks out like a sore thumb. The Real Deal ranks 11th on his own team in goals (five) and holds a team-worst minus-10 ranking. 3. Winnipeg Jets We’re big on the Jets, so this is nitpicking. Winnipeg’s winning percentage is, shockingly, better when Laurent Brossoit is in net. The backup has a save percentage (.943) 33 points better than last year’s Vezina finalist, Connor Hellebuyck (.910). Despite playing behind one of the league’s elite D corps, Hellebuyck’s performance thus far has hovered around the NHL average. Average goalies don’t win Cups. There’s another level for Bucky. 4. New York Islanders Tough to criticize one of the greatest stories in hockey. If we need to single out an underwhelming Islander, it must be Andrew Ladd. The Isles’ highest-paid forward next to Jordan Eberle can’t stay healthy, and with four-and-a-half seasons still remaining on his hefty contract, he’s become a very expensive third-liner. He has seven points in only 14 games played. 5. San Jose Sharks Marc-Edouard Vlasic is usually the picture of quiet consistency and reliability. But this season he has taken a noticeable and curious step backward. The 31-year-old is a team-worst minus-13 and is on pace for his first negative plus/minus season in 11 years. 6. Kyle Turris simply has not been the impact player Nashville hoped he’d be when they gave him his payday. The centreman was a ghost in the playoffs, and now his first full season as a Predator has been hampered by injury and middling production (six goals in 30 games).

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7. Vegas Golden Knights As wonderful as Marc-Andre Fleury has been — I voted him No. 1 on my Vezina ballot for the PHWA’s Mid-Season Awards — the Golden Knights have instilled little trust in the sparingly used Malcolm Subban. The backup is 2-5 with a .904 save percentage. The scenario is chicken-or-egg: Subban needs more work to keep the Flower fresh; Subban needs to perform better to be trusted with more work. 8. Columbus Blue Jackets It’s incredibly bizarre to see the Blue Jackets succeeding despite, not because of, Sergei Bobrovsky. Under the weight of an uncertain future, the two-time Vezina champ has been abnormally streaky. Goalie Bob’s .904 save percentage is below the league average (.908) and certainly not helping his case to be elevated to Carey Price’s tax bracket. 9. (14 points in 39 games) has been an ill fit in Pittsburgh, and now he’s being shopped at the second consecutive trade deadline. Perhaps if he’s given a second-line centre role, he can rediscover his game. 10. Boston Bruins Part of the reason Boston will be scouring for secondary scoring ahead of the deadline is that young forwards like 23-year-old Danton Heinen (six goals, 13 points in 47 games) have taken a step backward in terms of production, failing to springboard after a promising 2017-18. 11. Toronto Maple Leafs Frederik Gauthier, Ron Hainsey, and Igor Ozhiganov each have more goals than William Nylander. For those scoring at home, none of the first three Leafs mentioned will cash a juicy $8.3-million signing bonus on July 1. 12. Washington Capitals The Capitals are fielding trade offers for winger Andre Burakovsky, a first-round pick in 2013. The fifth- year NHLer is mired in the worst season of his career. He’s only 23 and could have 20-goal potential, but right now he’s hard-pressed to reach 10. 13. We don’t blame anyone for taking the money, but the fact Karl Alzner has contributed more of his season to the Laval Rocket, a middle-of-the-pack AHL squad, than the Montreal Canadiens is atrocious. 14. Carolina Hurricanes Coach Rod Brind’Amour admits he’s still trying to figure out Dougie Hamilton, the blue-chip blue-liner for whom the Hurricanes gave up a ransom of goods. Hamilton is producing offence at the worst rate of his career (0.33 points per game) and the puck goes in his team’s net when he’s on the ice (minus-13). Available for trade, again, at age 25. 15. Minnesota Wild It’s never cool to pick on the new guy. And, yes, he’s been hurt and traded. But former 21-goal centreman Victor Rask has just one goal and six assists this season. He’s only 25. Step yo’ game up. 16. The Avalanche gave up the 47th pick in the 2018 draft and ate Brooks Orpik’s old contract so they could acquire Philipp Grubauer, arguably the most promising emerging starter available last spring. He fumbled away his temporary starting job in Washington during Round 1 of the playoffs and has posted just a .895 save percentage this season. Semyon Varlamov (13-12-5, .908) hasn’t run away with the gig either. Colorado needs more from its netminders.

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17. The Sabres are being dragged down our Power Rankings by a lack of depth. Kyle Okposo and his pedestrian 19 points top a group of well-compensated forwards (Jason Pominville, Vladimir Sobotka, Conor Sheary) who need to provide more punch. 18. We’ll save the expletives, but we do agree that 90 players should not be outscoring Jamie Benn. He’s too good. 19. Vancouver Canucks Here’s your regularly scheduled reminder that Loui Eriksson is the highest-paid member of the Vancouver Canucks. 20. As the club’s leading scorer, Clayton Keller will represent the Coyotes at all-star weekend, but the 20- year-old is actually on pace to come up shy of the 20-goal mark and take a step back offensively from his incredible rookie campaign. 21. Injury-hampered Nick Bjugstad was a 24-goal player on the rise at age 22. At 26, we’re already wondering if his best playing days are behind him. 22. St. Louis Blues We live in a world where David Perron is out-sniping Vladimir Tarasenko in St. Louis, and the latter is the one subjected to trade rumours. 23. New York Rangers We’re starting to wonder if Vladislav Namestnikov’s numbers may have been pumped up by some of his talented linemates in Tampa. With four goals, 16 points and a minus-11 rating, he looks like a shadow of the Lightning’s 20-goal solid role player. 24. Edmonton Oilers It’s wonderful that Milan Lucic recently celebrated a two-goal game. But the mere fact that a big deal is made when a $42-million investment scores twice within 60 minutes indicates where the never-ending rebuild sits. 25. Anaheim Ducks Time and pain have caught up to , who’s been braving lingering injuries to the tune of four goals and six points through 44 games and is now back on the injured reserve. Tough contract for the organization to swallow at this point. 26. Philadelphia Flyers Take away Gritty and Claude Giroux and there are a lot of under-performers to choose from. Top-10 draftees Ivan Provorov and Nolan Patrick stick out. Patrick’s struggles as a sophomore have been underscored by the rise of Elias Pettersson, the centre selected three picks later in 2017. 27. Los Angeles Kings Sniper-for-hire Ilya Kovalchuk commanded (and received) the price of a 30-goal scorer. His goal column is still stuck in the single digits. 28. Ottawa Senators There are three more seasons beyond this one attached to Bobby Ryan’s contract, which carries a $7.25- million cap hit. Ryan is actually having his best showing in three years (29 points in 46 games), but the output will be hard-pressed to measure up to the pay rate.

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29. New Jersey Devils Marcus Johansson has never been the same player since he left Washington. The concussions didn’t help, of course. The 28-year-old forward has a disappointing point line of 7-9-16, and New Jersey isn’t deep enough to hide a $4.6-million trade bust. 30. Chicago Blackhawks Riddled with injuries, Corey Crawford has a record of 6-14-2. Plan B, Cam Ward, is operating with a .884 save percentage. It’s the type of goaltending that ensures a trip to the draft lottery. 31. Detroit Red Wings No one expects Justin Abdelkader to light the world on fire with his production, but when you’re pulling down $4.25 million for five more years, they need you to do better than 13th in team scoring.

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The Athletic: The Surge: The NHL’s influx of 100-point scorers and why it’s unlikely to end anytime soon By Dom Luszczyszyn – January 25, 2019

Today’s goalies are probably getting real tired of the red light behind them constantly flashing; constantly flashing at the hands of the same players night after night. The goals keep coming — 6.12 per game for those counting at home, the highest mark since 2005-06 — and it’s because players are finding ways to score outside the power-play. The league is currently averaging 4.9 goals-per-game there, the highest figure since the 1992-93 season. More importantly for the NHL, it’s the league’s best and brightest, the superstars, that are leading the way. Fans pay to see the stars shine and the NHL’s most talented players have delivered this season. Going into the All-Star break, there has been a surge of potential 100-point scorers this year with 14 players currently playing at a 100-point pace or higher: Nikita Kucherov, TBL – 130 points Connor McDavid, EDM – 123 points Mikko Rantanen, COL – 122 points Johnny Gaudreau, CGY – 120 points Nathan MacKinnon, COL – 117 points Patrick Kane, CHI – 117 points Brayden Point, TBL – 109 points Blake Wheeler, WPG – 104 points Mitch Marner, TOR – 104 points Sidney Crosby, PIT – 104 points Patrice Bergeron, BOS – 102 points Auston Matthews, TOR – 102 points Mark Scheifele, WPG – 101 points Sean Monahan, CGY – 100 points This assumes every player plays all 82 games and while that won’t happen (and for Bergeron and Matthews missing over 10 games each, 100 points is very improbable), the fact these players are playing at this rate is still a magnificent feat, one that is nearly unprecedented in the salary cap era. Since the 2005-06 season, there have been 46 players who have scored at a 100-point pace or higher, or 3.8 per year. What’s more is that 33 of those were in the first five seasons after the cancelled season. Since then, there have been 13 players in seven years (one less than this year) on pace for the mark and only eight actual 100-point seasons. The century club has been the gold standard for scoring for most of hockey’s history, but has felt almost unattainable since 2010. That’s changed drastically this season, leading to an explosion of potential 100-point seasons. The 14 players currently playing above a 100- point pace would be the most since the 1995-96 season where there were 16 such players (with 12 actually earning 100 points or more). The 2018-19 season has been a renaissance, back to the days of the high-flying early-90s, representing a shift from where the game was trending just five seasons ago. It was then that the league sensed it needed change and it seems to have found the right path thanks to being proactive (goalie equipment changes are likely a big part of this) as well as the natural development of the next generation. It’s likely no coincidence that many of the potential 100-point scorers are part of the NHL’s next wave of stars, with the median age of the group being 24.5-years-old and 10 of the 14 being 25 or younger. That

55 extends a bit to the 15 others on pace for 90-or-more points. Of those 29 players, 17 are 25-or-younger and the group has a median age of 25. On top of the influx of 100-point seasons, 90 points has become the expectation for a team’s best player – the new normal. Yes, that’s 29 players who are on pace for 90 points or more, the most since the 1992-93 season when there were 31. Remember when a 90-point season screamed superstar? As it has been in the last two decades where there have been zero seasons with more than 20 such players, three with 15 or more, and just seven with 10 or more? This year, it’s almost one per team on average. There are only 10 teams without a point-per-game scorer and nearly half have a 90-point scorer. Eight of those teams have two, and five of those teams have three. The scoring surge has led to some astronomically silly scoring leaderboards. The question now is will it continue? The important thing to remember with a player’s current pace is that it doesn’t always last, not with two-and-a-half months of hockey left to play. It was at this time last season that Josh Bailey was on pace for 96 points (with 54 points in 46 games). He closed the season with 17 points in his last 30 games to finish with 71 in 76, a 77-point pace. A career high, yes, but far off from the pie-in-the-sky numbers he had going into the All-Star break. For Bailey, a player who’s never scored at that level, regression was obvious, but it effects all players, not just the expected targets like him. My current projections have six players maintaining their 100-point pace and 16 players at 90 points. Both marks would be the highest since 2006-07, but perhaps too far off the current numbers shown this season, a year that looks poised to be a special one for high-end scoring totals. While I adjust my projections for higher scoring rates, it’s difficult to account for teams leaning on their stars much more than usual. On average, a team’s highest scoring player has accounted for over one-third of a team’s offence this season, peaking at a mind-boggling 52 percent for McDavid. That figure has risen over the last five years, another likely factor accounting for this year’s surprising rise. 2018-19: 34.5% 2017-18: 32.3% 2016-17: 31.0% 2015-16: 30.9% 2014-15: 30.4% 2013-14: 30.5% While my projections might be a bit too conservative, it is still fair to expect a small drop-off over the remainder of the season, at least based on past season’s scoring marks at the All-Star break. In terms of pace, there is a high retention rate at both 100 and 90 point paces, with about 87 percent of players staying the 100-point course and 93 percent for 90 points. That means by season’s end you can expect roughly 12 players at a 100-point pace and 27 at a 90-point pace. But actually hitting those marks? That’s where things change much more drastically as many players don’t get into enough games to reach the required marks. The retention rate there is 56 percent for 100-point players and 65 percent for 90-point players, meaning that based on historic scoring rates since 1990 at this point of the season, the 2018-19 campaign should see about eight 100-point scorers (two more than my model projects) and 19 90-point scorers (three more than my model projects). If those figures come to pass, the end of this season could see one of the most prolific scoring seasons for the NHL’s best since 2005-06 (7/19 split) or maybe even 10 years before that in 1995-96 (12/22 split).

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Either way, the 2018-19 season has and looks to be a truly magical year — and hopefully a sign of things to come for the league.

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The Athletic: Goaltending, weaponized: How the next generation of goalies is ready to dominate By Fluto Shinzawa – January 25, 2019

AVON, Conn. — A warning to shooters: You are in trouble. The next wave of goalies is approaching. They are equipped with tools granted to no other generation. Today’s teenage puckstoppers are holding their edges, reading plays to their conclusion, stickhandling brashly, attacking pucks with their hands, studying video and building resilience. They are not going down automatically, camping out in reverse vertical-horizontal (RVH) position, sliding needlessly from side to side on limited threats, or hanging their heads after an early goal. Meanwhile, NHL teams are learning that sky-scraping size is no longer a priority. Shorter goalies once bypassed without a second thought are now given proper consideration. The result: a deeper pool of smart, technical, athletic and confident goalies. “Now we have all this other information. Now we have all these other tools,” said Jared Waimon, founder of Pro Crease Goaltending and goalie coach at Quinnipiac University (currently ranked No. 6 in the NCAA). “How can we use those? What’s the emphasis? The emphasis is on reading longer, having great skating, having patience, having edge control. Then you can use all these other things we have developed over the past years.” So dangle, one-time, and go bar down as much as you want. The goalies of the future will stop most of them. The pucks that slip through will not bother them. If anything, they will be more determined to keep everything that follows out of the net. Thumbs down to being down Steve Mason is 30 years old. Only two years ago, Mason was Philadelphia’s No. 1 goalie. But one reason Mason is unemployed is because the NHL’s speed and skill ran him out of the league. Like most goalies of his generation, the 6-foot-4, 210-pound Mason was taught to take away everything down low. He slid from side to side to make spectacular last-second stops. Mason incorporated RVH into his game, keeping his lead pad down and trail pad cocked at 45 degrees to seal strong-side posts and negate low-flying threats. But today’s turbocharged game has blunted these tools. Skaters fly. Passes are accurate. Pucks zoom off blades over shoulders or slip through slivers that bigger gear once sealed shut. It’s why goalie coaches like Waimon have turned their teaching manuals upside down. Stay up, they say. Shuffle, don’t slide. Think through the game instead of executing pre-programmed technique. Older goalies raised on going down are struggling to adjust movements long baked into their games. Younger goalies such as John Gibson (25) and Andrei Vasilevskiy (24) have had to relearn some of their tactics. Teenage goalies have the least to rewire. On Dec. 21, 18 youngsters, from bantams to collegians, attended Pro Crease’s one-day clinic at Avon Old Farms, a boarding school and longtime hockey powerhouse in central Connecticut. During two on-ice sessions, the goalies worked at six separate stations positioned around the rink, overseen by Pro Crease coaches and targeted by shooters.

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Pro Crease students stretch after their second on-ice session at Avon Old Farms. The goalies were accompanied by one hockey reporter who is wobbly, at best, on his skates. But from the ice, instead of my usual seat in the press box, I could process some of the factors in play when it’s time to make a save. There are plenty: defensemen joining the rush, forwards driving to the far post, passes crossing the middle of the ice, attackers parked in front for tips. Everything is happening. It’s why one of Waimon’s principles is expanding the window of gathering information. “The No. 1 thing I’m about now is reading longer,” Waimon told his students. “I’m not saying ‘patient’ anymore. It’s, ‘read longer.’ If you skim a page — I’m assuming a couple of us can read — versus read a page, you know the difference. The only way to do that is invest time in it. So off the play, we’re going to read longer. Off the shot, we’re going to read longer. We’re going to push ourselves to wait it out for more. Results of that should be longer on the release, holding your edges more, more shuffles, hopefully some lateral release, and no slides.” Waimon’s coaches were well aware of the latter. Before the clinic began, Waimon distributed printouts detailing the drills of the day. For one drill, a two-pass scenario across the middle of the ice, Waimon dispensed with subtlety when describing how he wanted his goalies to play the situation. “NO FUCKING SLIDES,” read the instructions. “GET BETTER AND FASTER.” Waimon, like most goalie coaches, is leading a movement away from previous teachings. As recently as five years ago, they were telling their netminders to take away the ice. By going down, and often staying there, goalies could close off low pucks, remain tall enough to obstruct high shots, eliminate the holes that open by standing back up, and block everything that approached. Shooters and their sticks have since progressed. Elite attackers think nothing of popping a puck past a goalie’s ear when parked in RVH. They are good at exposing the goalie that slides to meet an expected shot and cannot recover when a pass cuts across the grain. Sliding captures what goalies are doing wrong. There are times to slide. Waimon is OK when a goalie slides to track a pass that travels below the hashmarks. But in today’s speed game, a slide should be a last-ditch save, not a crutch of a technique. Sliding and going down early are like a goalie crossing his or her fingers, hoping to arrive at the same time as the puck. “Being down is becoming more of a style instead of a save selection. I think it’s becoming a problem at the younger ages,” former AHL veteran Scott Munroe, a Pro Crease instructor and assistant coach at Trinity College, told the students. “I really like how at Pro Crease, we’ve worked on holding edges longer. The one thing I’ve been talking a lot about in practice is making sure we see the puck leave the blade of the stick before we make any kind of reaction. Then we can go to the puck instead of dropping and having our hands come down. Then we have to react up from it.” Every year, the NHL spits out goalies who cannot keep pace with modernity. Mason is a recent casualty. Cam Ward could be next. Part of the reason is that they were not raised on principles being taught today.

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By contrast, when the 18 Pro Crease pupils execute their drills, going down and sliding are not common maneuvers. They are up. They are reading plays. They are slamming their pads down only when necessary. These are the new-school goalies. Hockey sense matters Waimon likes Arthur Smith. He believes the 14-year-old has the potential to play for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program. Waimon notes Smith’s athleticism and tracking. He saves his highest praise for the most critical component of any successful goalie: intelligence. One of the critiques Waimon has about goalies, in general, is their tendency to lean on prescribed movements. They are programmed to select saves that can be predictable. Modern shooters incorporate deception to add another layer of devilry on their targets. Waimon believes goalies should respond in kind. It’s why he likes to remind his charges they are hockey players first and goalies second. So when he runs clips of Mike Smith, Calgary’s puckhandling wizard, Waimon wants his goalies to process the game similarly. Look to one teammate and pass to another. Use the net as protection from forecheckers. “Your chance to impact the game might not be a save,” Waimon told his goalies. “It might be a touch. It might be a stop, a quick up, and now you’re going 200 feet. Your guys score, or you have a chance.” Mike Smith handles the puck like he’s Sidney Crosby. But the 36-year-old veteran could not stickhandle like he does without reading what’s happening and thinking about what he’d like to do. His brain is at work. Young puckstoppers are taught to mimic this trait. Quick thinking is what Matt Michno, University of Connecticut goalie coach and Pro Crease director of coaching, explains to the students after the morning session. With the sweaty goalies stuffed in a locker room, Michno connects his laptop to a TV and breaks down a clip of Adam Huska, his No. 1 goalie at UConn. On a play against the University of Massachusetts, Huska reacts to a pass out front to an initial attacker. Huska drops into RVH to play the threat. But when the puck pops over the attacker’s stick and onto the blade of a second-wave forward, Huska has to react to the broken play. Instead of staying down, Huska gets back on his feet, giving himself more options. As he reads the release, Huska is square to the shooter. When the shot arrives, he goes down and gobbles up the puck. “When he’s back on his feet, everything is tracking toward where the puck is,” Michno explained. “These are really basic things. What are we looking for you guys to do? See the thing, not chase it. Not get crazy, reaching and sprawling for pucks. We want to see us put all the pieces together because our eyes are telling us what to do. When we get so caught up in, ‘I need to go into RVH here, I need to keep my feet here,’ we lose sight of the simplicity of the game. Which is, ‘Where’s the puck in relation to my body? Where’s my body in relation to the net?’ That’s what we’re looking for you to do with this theme of reading plays, reading longer.” Reading plays is not the only activity required of a goalie’s brain. Building resilience After the first on-ice session, the Pro Crease goalies gather for a presentation by Dr. Jason Emery, founder of Northeast Psych. The theme of the psychologist’s talk is about fortifying the muscle that is

60 regularly under attack from bad goals, surging crowd noise, teammates’ misplays and equipment malfunctions. The trick for every goalie is to maintain performance when things go sideways. “It’s not a trait you’re born with. It’s just not,” Emery tells the students. “Anybody can develop this. It is a process.” Emery presents a checklist for the goalies to follow to build resilience: be optimistic in problem-solving, be motivated, be robustly confident amid stress, practice selective focus, and insist on social support. “Not doing this part,” Emery said, “is not training.” Prior to the second on-ice session, which Emery joins for one-on-one chats with the goalies, he reminds the students it’s OK to fail. This aligns with Waimon’s approach. During the clinic, Waimon wants his goalies to try a technique that isn’t comfortable, read a play a hair longer, or play a puck that might lie outside a comfortable perimeter. In fact, Waimon tells his coaches to take away the net if any of the goalies boil over after allowing too many goals. So when the goalies return to the ice, they are pushing the boundaries of their abilities. As Waimon watches over Arthur Smith and fellow bantam Brendan Holahan, nodding his head forcefully in sync with every expected save, some of the pucks they should be stopping slip through. He has no problem with goals allowed at his clinic. “Where do you want success?” Waimon asks Holahan with a smile. “Now, or at nationals?” Holahan does not need to respond. The answer is obvious.

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Sportsnet.ca: 31 Thoughts: What’s next for Oilers after Chiarelli firing By Elliotte Friedman – January 25, 2019

“There’s something in the water,” Oilers CEO Bob Nicholson said Wednesday, “here in Edmonton that we don’t have right.” It’s time to start swimming in a different lake. I’m not buying the “old Oilers are interfering” narrative. Oh, they’ve got opinions, but how much did they really stand in the way of anything Edmonton did or didn’t do the past four seasons? I’m not convinced it happened often, if at all. And it will be important for the organization to line up in support of Nicholson during this search, rather than splintering into separate fiefdoms. But, what must be addressed is if there is a comfort zone with familiar ideas. Or, more importantly, if the organization falling further and further behind what other teams are doing in the areas of scouting, sports science, analytics, draft research or whatever else you can think of. You don’t have to believe in everything, but you have to know about them. I have a theory: that there are more “quiet hirings” in these positions across the NHL than anyone wants to admit. For Edmonton, this is more than just a GM search. This is an audit, an investigation into every pore of the Oiler way. For several months now, this has been happening throughout the business side of the operation. Now it is time to extend into hockey. Nicholson made one immediate change in philosophy: more AHL time is coming for younger players. But why stop at that? The timing allows him the opportunity to talk to a wide swath of people. Information is powerful currency. Interview lots. Ask about best practices. Find what else is out there. There is plenty to discover. No matter what you think of the situation, there is going to be no shortage of interest. The Oilers are resource-rich, featuring a nuclear weapon as the number-one centre. (A “Weapon of McDavid Destruction,” as NHL Network’s Stephen Nelson called him.) As Doug MacLean said Wednesday, Nicholson has to gauge Steve Yzerman’s interest. It’s unlikely to be a fit, but you have to shoot your shot. Nicholson has a long history with the Hall of Famer, although one executive joked, “Doesn’t everyone have history with Nicholson if they are Canadian?” Potential first-time GM options include , Mark Hunter and Kelly McCrimmon. Sources indicate all have been discussed internally, and not just in the last few days. Hunter (a serious candidate) could be an immediate hire if that’s what the Oilers wanted to do. I don’t know if Winnipeg assistant GM Craig Heisinger desires the job, but if I’m Nicholson, I’m asking. The Jets, in an intense market, held off pressure to deviate from process and are reaping the benefits. The Oilers should be asking how Winnipeg management sold its vision and stayed on path despite criticism for doing so. Nicholson promised not to trade their young players and assets for short-term fixes, but the playoffs are not merely an option. They are an expectation, a directive from ownership. Daryl Katz has made that very clear, even to the players themselves. There will be temptation to do what you don’t want to do. That is also Ron Hextall’s strength. There is some doubt he wants to jump back in so quickly, but, again, no harm in asking. Nicholson’s history with Doug Armstrong and Ken Holland puts them into the picture if their current situations change. I’m not sure if Mike Gillis is a candidate, but it would be a waste if the Oilers didn’t reach out. He brought a lot of different ideas to Vancouver, an organization with similar location-related issues as Edmonton. Why not hear what worked, what didn’t, and what he’d do differently?

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You know the old saying: “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” Time for the Oilers to commit some grand larceny. 31 THOUGHTS 1. Tyler Dellow, who worked for Edmonton from 2014 through 2016, is going to be hired by another NHL team. The question is not if, but when. If there’s one thing I believe, it is that we are always being judged and graded by the right people. He’s blunt, but his work in The Athletic is not going unnoticed by those people. And I’d bet there are still some in the organization who respected his stuff. He grew up an Oilers fan. Why let him help someone else? 2. On Monday, McDavid told assembled media, “If there’s guys that believe [this group can’t get it done], they should get out of the room. If you don’t believe in this group and you’re in the locker room then you need to leave.” Apparently, he told his teammates the exact same thing he said publicly. There’s a lot of in McDavid — goes about his business, loyal to the cause, determined to succeed no matter the circumstances. There’s a lot of debate about his mood. He despises losing, but it is not DEFCON 1. 3. The thing I liked most about Nicholson’s presser was that, given the chance to throw Peter Chiarelli under the bus one final time for the Mikko Koskinen signing, he didn’t do it. He called it a collaborative effort. The Oilers checked in on Washington’s Andre Burakovsky, but a couple of sources threw cold water on that. They like Detroit’s Andreas Athanasiou, whose speed seems a perfect complement to McDavid, but there’s no guarantee the Red Wings want to do anything and the price would be costly. There were also rumblings they were talking to Chicago about something bigger and are trying to move Tobias Rieder to open some cap room. Whatever the case, it should be a smooth transition for Keith Gretzky, since he’d be part of the group working on these files. 4. There was a rumour flying around yesterday that, in all the craziness of the last few weeks, at least one team asked about Evan Bouchard. It went nowhere. 5. A final one on Chiarelli: In the fall of 2016, a few sources indicated he came close to a blockbuster at the 2016 NHL Draft, days before the Taylor Hall–Adam Larsson deal. Asked about it, he laughed but said he wouldn’t tell. Believe me, I tried. The Oilers had the fourth selection, snaring Jesse Puljujarvi after Columbus grabbed Pierre-Luc Dubois. There was a potential three-way that would have moved the Flames to third, the Blue Jackets down a spot and the Oilers to sixth. That obviously never happened. In Monday’s 31 Thoughts: The Podcast interview, Arizona GM John Chayka admitted the Coyotes were working on something with the Oilers to make sure they got Clayton Keller. (They succeeded, staying in the seventh spot.) There are two teams suspected to have taken big swings as well: the Rangers and St. Louis. New York did not have a pick until 81st, but, as Jeff Marek has said several times, loved Keller. The Blues were picking 26th. Someday, it will all shake loose. A weekly deep dive into the biggest hockey news in the world with hosts Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek. New episodes every Thursday. 6. Koskinen’s extension will have an effect down the highway in Calgary. Because that’s a contract for a pending unrestricted free agent, it cannot be used as an arbitration comparable for David Rittich. The Flames’ rapidly improving goalie is a year from UFA status, but if he keeps trending in this direction, they’re going to be happy to take care of him. 7. On Burakovsky: The Capitals have asked for a couple of mid-to-high round draft picks in exchange (seconds and thirds would be a good get) for him. That would give them more flexibility and assets to chase what they need. Even with a seven-game losing streak, absolutely no one is writing them off.

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8. How to interpret Toronto GM Kyle Dubas’s proclamation that the Maple Leafs are having good dialogue with Auston Matthews? My take is this: both team and agent Judd Moldaver see an eight-year deal as extremely unlikely. The salary would be too high for the team, which wants to keep the best possible team around him and knows Mitch Marner’s agent, Darren Ferris, is waiting to see Matthews’s cap number. A four-year contract walks him right to unrestricted free agency, so that’s not happening. We’re looking at a five- or six-year contract. That puts the number under Connor McDavid’s $12.5 million, but exactly where is what’s still to be decided. Dubas’s proclamation that they’d like to know before the deadline means February will be an important month in the process. 9. The highest five-year contracts in the salary-cap era belong to Sidney Crosby (2008–09 to 2012–13) and Evgeni Malkin (2009–10 to 2013–14), at $8.7 million. The largest six-year deal went to (2008–09 to 2013–14) at $7.5 million. Assuming Matthews and the Maple Leafs choose either of these lengths, we’re going to have a new record. This term — rather than the max eight — will be the choice for some teams and their restricted free agents. 10. Why? One reason is the choice to keep the AAV down as younger players increasingly grab a larger share of the salary pie. Another is speculation on the next U.S. television deal. (NBC has two more seasons on its current contract.) If the NHL gets a spike, some will want the ability to capitalize sooner. Not every player (or their agents) feel this way, but others do. 11. The CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game Wednesday in Red Deer gave teams a choice the night before: either the similar CJHL event in Okotoks, Alta., or the Hurricanes/Flames in Calgary. The Maple Leafs chose Option B, but I don’t believe the scouting target was Dougie Hamilton. Process of elimination indicates Brett Pesce, but I can’t say it for sure. 12. If Dubas chooses a left-handed option, the top target is Jake Muzzin. But he has made it clear to those who have asked that Kasperi Kapanen is a no-go and 2018 first-rounder Rasmus Sandin has similar status. 13. reported Ottawa’s eight-year, approximately $64-million offer to Matt Duchene last week. We all know tampering does not exist in the National Hockey League, but those numbers getting out allows other potential suitors to decide how that fits in their plans. According to a couple of sources, Mark Stone’s situation is slightly different. The Senators did not initially present an offer as much as a “concept” of what they’d be comfortable with. I believe that cap number is higher than Duchene’s. There is a quiet optimism Ottawa can keep Stone, but hurdles always exist. 14. As of earlier this week, didn’t sound like there was much negotiation with Ryan Dzingel. Contenders always look for scoring. Ottawa should get some nice assets if that’s the route they choose. 15. I think a few contenders (Calgary makes a lot of sense) are considering Chicago’s Chris Kunitz. It makes a lot of sense. Another Blackhawk being watched is John Hayden. He’s had nine straight games under 10 minutes, and Drake Caggiula’s arrival affects his role. He’s got an edge, and someone else might see some value. 16. Tuesday night, Vancouver GM told Sportsnet 650 radio hosts Scott Rintoul and Andrew Walker that he will begin conversations with about the defender’s future with the team upon returning from the two prospect games. 17. The mystery of Sergei Bobrovsky’s future continues in Columbus. The Blue Jackets are wisely playing this very close to the vest, and there’s an understanding he will consider other situations — but has he actually committed to them on paper? One of the theories was that he and agent Paul Theofanous verbally considered some possibilities, but didn’t want to give Columbus an actual written list. Once you agree to that, the team has more control.

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18. BSN Denver’s Adrian Dater reported that Rangers scouts consistently tailed the Avalanche over the last little while. Unless that’s about something Colorado would want the Rangers to take from their roster to facilitate, say, a Kevin Hayes trade, I don’t think New York’s primary interests would be at the NHL level. The obvious connection is Shane Bowers, who Rangers bench boss David Quinn coached at Boston University. But the Rangers will be seeking much more. The Avalanche will zealously protect their most appealing draft assets. 19. Colorado, however, will see what Nikita Zadorov can return. 20. Alexander Radulov did Dallas a huge favour, accepting blame for his first-period benching last Thursday against Los Angeles. The last thing the Stars needed was more controversy, especially as GM Jim Nill works on repairing the relationships with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin. According to a couple of sources, Nill wants to show them the last few weeks “are not who the Dallas Stars are.” If Radulov reacts negatively, it is another five-alarm blaze. Instead, they recover with a great win over Winnipeg and get their schedule break at a perfect time. No one needs a refresh and reset more than the Stars do — it’s an excellent opportunity for a mental clean-out. 21. In addition to Valeri Nichushkin and Brett Ritchie, Dallas is also dangling Mattias Janmark. A couple of years ago, they felt his injuries removed sorely needed speed from the roster. Janmark scored 14 even-strength goals in 2015–16, and, after returning from injury, 13 more in 2017–18. He’s got just three in 49 games this season. He’s better than he’s shown. Stream over 500 NHL games blackout-free, including the Flames, Oilers, Leafs and Canucks. Plus , Rogers Hometown Hockey, Scotiabank Wednesday Night Hockey and more. 22. For about 10 seconds, Anders Lee admitted, the Islanders were annoyed at themselves for losing a point Tuesday night in Chicago. Then, the players remembered Mathew Barzal lining up on the wrong side of the ice to take his shootout attempt. “How could we not laugh and razz him?” the’ captain asked, the smile obvious through the telephone. What a first half for the Islanders, the NHL’s most pleasant surprise — leaders of the Metropolitan Division. Asked about All-Star Weekend vacation plans, Lee said, “I’m going to be with half the league in the Bahamas.” But you’re going there much happier than most, right? “Yes, we’ll have bragging rights,” he replied with a laugh. “We’re going to walk around proudly.” What would he have said if told in September this would happen? “‘Where do I sign?’” 23. Another NHL executive said the Islanders’ strength is that they play their system so well they keep themselves in games. That increases the chances of finding a way to win. “Every night we have a feeling that there’s not much to worry about,” Lee said. “We’re poised on the bench. Calm. If you stick to the plan and play the right way, you’re in a good spot. Getting production from different guys every night is a huge part of the morale. A lot of us believe in the guys in our room and who we have. The work we have done is validating that. It’s different. Things are different.” 24. Did any of Lou Lamoriello’s rules surprise him, or seem unusually difficult? “Well, I can barely grow a beard, so that’s not much of an issue for me,” he laughed. “You just do it. Don’t argue.” Lee paused.

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“We needed it in a way. If you understand what I’m saying here, the rules were easy to follow because they are perfect timing for us.” 25. Lee is unrestricted this summer. “This is my home. I don’t see anything that makes me want to do anything different. I’m not worried about it.” 26. Whenever I’d ask Garth Snow or Doug Weight about prospects to come, both would mention Devon Toews. That prediction is looks better by the day. Ryan Dixon and Rory Boylen go deep on pucks with a mix of facts and fun, leaning on a varied group of hockey voices to give their take on the country’s most beloved game. 27. In the weeks after All-Star, the league will bring something new to the three iPad Pros on each NHL bench. Currently featuring real-time video highlights, what is called the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights App will be added to the system. These will be data-based, eliminating the wait for printed sheets for updates. Done in consultation with the teams and their coaches, each staff will be able to customize what they wish to see. “For example,” said David Lehanski, the NHL’s senior vice-president of business development & global partnerships, “a team could set up notifications for a certain amount of time on ice. Once a player reaches the threshold set by their team, his name could turn red or be highlighted.” Another thing the app can do is show faceoff results in each circle as opposed to each zone. “Our job is to put the information out there, and [teams] can decide what and how much to access,” he said. 28. Lehanski said most teams were curious about ice time and faceoff numbers. Were there many disagreements? “Shootout stats,” he replied, after thinking about it for a few seconds. “Some teams said they knew who their guys are. T.J. Oshie, for example, is going out no matter what, whether he’s hot or cold. Some teams wanted more histories… current streaks or certain player versus certain goalie. Tendencies versus each other.” Do teams ever say, “Oh my God, enough with the iPads, we want our guys watching the game?” “There was concern in 2017 when we launched before the playoffs…. Nobody wanted to change what they were doing. But it got back to us the behaviour was not as bad as feared. Players came back with interesting insights into what they were looking for. Sometimes it is different than what coaches look for. Players and coaches want to be the best they can be.” 29. You guys want to know, so I always ask: Will this be available to the public? “Yes,” Lehanski says, “but we don’t know exactly what. We haven’t sat down and completely gone through this with the NHLPA and the people here. But it is part of the plan.” 30. Saskatoon Blades forward Kirby Dach — who played for Kelly Hrudey at the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game — is No. 2 among North American skaters on the Central Scouting 2019 NHL Draft list. But that’s not the most impressive thing about him. Dach joined with the Howe Foundation to create a program called First Blades, giving kids the opportunity to skate. The initiative gifts a pair of skates to those who might not otherwise be able to purchase them. It’s a great thing. 31. Twenty-Five years ago, I was a young magazine reporter looking for an interview with Calgary Stampeders quarterback Doug Flutie. I was new. The startup publication I worked for, The Sports Pages, lasted two issues. But I called the Stampeders, who were going to Hamilton, and made a request. A few

66 days later, following their day-before walkthrough, I was talking with Flutie for five minutes in the middle of Ivor Wynne Stadium. It was definitely not what I expected, and it was appreciated. Most people remember Peter Watts as a reporter. I didn’t know him too well in that role, but I was always thankful how, in a brief stint as Calgary’s media-relations contact, he was generous to a young reporter. All the best to his friends and family.

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