A HAT TRICK OF THOUGHTS AFTER ANOTHER DEVILS WIN:
1. Delete the SOS calls for the Leafs and Rangers after their recent wins.
2. Here’s the new song for McDavid: “Did You Ever See a Dream Skating? Well, I did.”
3. Dave Hakstol is no hack. He could win the Jack Adams Award.
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ENJOYING THE SALARY CAP ERA
Some of my best friends loathe this Salary Cap Era. I love it.
I tell them to grin and bear it.
And if you can’t bear it, try Scrabble.
I knew that the salary cap was important because a very smart fella, named Gary Bettman, conceived it.
The opposition was Bob Goodenow, who became head of the NHL Players’ Association. Slowly – but relentlessly – Goodenow waged a two-front war.
On the one hand, he vowed that hell would get an expansion franchise before Goodenow would allow his team to sign any document that introduced a salary cap to the NHL game.
On the other hand, Goodenow did just about anything possible to outdo the commissioner.
Goodenow’s end game entailed an avoidance of the salary cap. Good try, but it didn’t work.
The devastating 1994 work stoppage was the NHL’s necessary move to turn a cockeyed league fiscal system into what now is a model of the industry. Really, it was a model example of the bromide, “pain and progress are inseparable.”
Not only is the salary cap here to stay, but so are the advances that include the closest thing to parity that Bettman, Inc. has ever enjoyed.
The Game has never been more exciting, widespread and internationally covered than ever.
This explains why Gary Bettman – as one well-informed insider told me – “can be commissioner as long as he likes.”
As for the union, months ago, its power brokers decided to find a replacement for executive director Donald Fehr. Eventually, we’ll find out what ideas will come up to challenge the commish.
Since Bettman took command over 29 years ago (30 in February 2023), union bosses have come and gone, like the dreaded three-goal lead.
Bettman not only has outlasted them all, but the NHL is thriving like never before.
And two big-little words have helped make it happen – salary cap.
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FOR A CHANGE, WRIGHT IS RIGHT AND JOHNNY IS RIGHT-ER – BY GLENN DREYFUSS
Hockey media from Montreal to Seattle focused on the spectacle of Shane Wright, who triumphantly returned from a four-goal-in-five-games AHL conditioning stint, to face the team which chose not to draft him first overall, but another first goal was scored that night. My pal Glenn Dreyfuss shifts the spotlight to that ‘overshadowed’ goal:
Three minutes before Wright’s goal, a goal was scored by Canadiens’ defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic. While it was only a matter of time before Wright lit his first NHL lamp, there was ample reason to believe that Kovacevic never would.
The 25-year-old 6-foot-4 D-man was cut from his OHL junior team twice. He went undrafted twice. Kovacevic persevered by playing college hockey, where he was finally noticed by the Winnipeg Jets. They made him a third-round draft choice, gave him a four-game NHL tryout and then waived him.
With his hockey future once again in jeopardy, Kovacevic was claimed by Montreal. Twenty-two games and zero goals later, he admitted he was “gripping (his stick) a little tight.”
Then his left point wrist shot eluded Kraken goalie Martin Jones.
“It’s a dream come true,” Kovacevic said, before posing with his first-goal puck. “It’s something I’ve worked for. Everyone has a different path, and I’ve taken the longer road to get here. I have a lot of appreciation for where I’m at.”
Coach Martin St-Louis called Kovacevic, “a very smart guy.” Johnny proved that by earning a civil engineering degree while playing at Merrimack College in Massachusetts. But that career will apparently have to wait.
“There are different paths, but they’re all rewarding,” St-Louis told me. “It’s not how you get (to the NHL), it’s finding a way to get there. I mean, you dream to play in the NHL. When you get your…
Read More: Bluelines: Enjoying the Salary Cap Era in the NHL