The NHL playoffs are under a month away, but Victoria Paulus takes a crack at predicting the first-round match-ups and the Stanley Cup final. The 2023 NHL playoffs begin on April 17 – but we just can’t wait.
While some match-ups look set in stone, such as the Leafs versus Lightning and the Devils versus Rangers, teams are still fighting for a playoff spot in an intense wild-card race. Here are some way-too-early first-round playoff predictions based on the league standings as of March 20 and projecting the remainder of the season. EASTERN CONFERENCE Boston Bruins vs. Florida Panthers: The Bruins have been by far the best team in the NHL this year. They are the fastest team ever to 50 wins in a season and are on pace to break the NHL record of 62 wins in a season. The Bruins are also the best defensive team in the league and the second-best offensive team. For these reasons, Boston will sweep Florida in four straight. Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Tampa Bay Lightning: This will be the most competitive series in the Eastern Conference because they are two evenly matched teams. Tampa Bay has been to three Stanley Cup finals in a row, winning back-to-back before falling to Colorado last year. This is a team that is built for playoff hockey. Even though the Leafs have had another strong regular season and boast a high-octane offence up front, they have not won a playoff series since 2004. The drought continues – we’re taking Tampa Bay. Carolina Hurricanes vs. Pittsburgh Penguins: On paper, this looks like a series that could be over in four or five games for Carolina. The Hurricanes have a young, fast team that is strong both offensively and defensively. Pittsburgh is a team with aging superstars and the Penguins have struggled to keep the puck out of their net this season. New Jersey Devils vs. New York Rangers: This looks like a long, hard-fought series between two teams that are very close statistically across the board. The series could come down to the hotter goaltender and Vitek Vanecek has had a strong season that will be the difference for the Devils. WESTERN CONFERENCE Dallas Stars vs. Edmonton Oilers: Even though the Oilers enter the series as underdogs, the team with the best player will win. Connor McDavid, like he did last year, will put the Oilers on his back and carry them to another long playoff run. Minnesota Wild vs. Colorado Avalanche: Colorado has not had a great regular season, but they are the defending Stanley Cup champions. With a lot of the same players back from their Cup team, they will be tough to knock off in a seven-game series. Determined to make another appearance in the Cup final, Colorado will take down Minnesota in the first round. Vegas Golden Knights vs. Winnipeg Jets: This series will possibly be the biggest upset in the first round of playoffs, with the Jets beating the Golden Knights in a long, seven-game battle. Although recently acquired Jonathan Quick brings both Stanley Cup rings and playoff experience to the Golden Knights, Connor Hellebuyck will outshine him in this goaltending duel and be the difference for Winnipeg. Seattle Kraken vs. Los Angeles Kings: Los Angeles still has their team leaders, Drew Doughty and Anze Kopitar, but lack goaltending experience. As we have seen many times before, goaltending wins in the playoffs and either of the accomplished Kraken’s veteran goaltenders, Martin Jones or Philipp Grubauer, will lead Seattle to its first-ever playoff-series win. STANLEY CUP FINAL PREDICTION Boston Bruins vs. Colorado Avalanche: Boston will take Colorado in six games. The best regular-season team does not always perform well in the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup. However, the Bruins have all the tools they need to make a long playoff run and win it all. Boston is strong at all positions, with star players like Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak ready to lead them to victory.
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BBC Scotland Thieves have stolen an 8ft gorilla ornament from a Lanarkshire garden centre. The fibre-glass structure, named Gary the Gorilla, has become popular with customers at Reynard Nursery in Carluke over the past 10 years. Owner Andrew Scott has posted a tongue-in-cheek video online pleading for Gary's safe return, but insists it is a serious situation. The crime occurred between 22:30 on Sunday and 00:00 on Monday. Mr Scott said he was bemused as to why someone would steal the ornament. He told BBC Scotland: "I'm really annoyed about it, I understand the funny side of it but I'm taking this very seriously, he's worth a fair bit of money. "It wasn't a Young Farmers' prank, this was planned." Mr Scott said CCTV showed a car arriving at the nursery around 22:30, with the occupants getting out and unbolting the ornament.
A van returned nearly two hours later and removed Gary from the premises. The van was seen leaving the garden centre and heading in the "general Glasgow" direction. The gorilla figure is used as a signpost to the garden centre by couriers and customers. Owners dress Gary up for occasions like Christmas and he even was seen sporting a face mask during the pandemic. Police have said inquires are continuing and anyone with information should contact. them. Rachel Doerrie explains why the NHL's top teams should take advantage of the playoff format and rest their top talent to an extent late in the regular season. We’ve officially entered the last four weeks of the NHL regular season.
While only one team has officially clinched and only San Jose has been eliminated, the playoff picture is set for the most part. No one is catching any divisional seeds in the East, and three teams are fighting for two wild-card spots. In the West, the Central teams are all but confirmed, with seeding the only thing in doubt. Seattle may or may not catch Edmonton in the Pacific, and the wild-card battle comes down to Winnipeg, Calgary and Nashville. With 12 games remaining for most teams and playoff spots all but locked in, will teams start to rest their players in preparation for the playoffs? This argument has surfaced every season for the past few years, and the debate has legitimate pros and cons. The past trade deadline saw Jakob Chychrun, Luke Schenn and Vladislav Gavrikov sitting more than five games each for what amounted to trade-related reasons or asset protection. Did it drag on longer than necessary? Certainly, in Chychrun and Gavrikov’s case, it did. Arizona, Vancouver and Columbus weren’t resting them to ensure they were healthy for a playoff run but to ensure they were tradeable. We’ve seen this in basketball and football, and from an asset management perspective, it makes sense. In hockey, everyone is conditioned to believe you play through bumps and bruises, or worse, and asset protection is frowned upon. There is merit to what those teams did, even if they didn’t approach it the right way. The thing is, none of those teams are anywhere close to the playoffs. They won’t be playing more than the required 82 games this season. Load management is unnecessary unless you’re monitoring workload due to indicators that flag potential injury or if you are expecting to play extra games. Under the current CBA, teams cannot force players to wear Catapult tracking units that aid in monitoring various markers to help identify potential injury risks and candidates for load management. Professional soccer and the NFL use these units and Zone 7, an algorithm specialising in injury risk forecasting and load management. While some NHL teams have convinced their players to wear Catapult systems, it is not guaranteed. Therefore, teams are forced to trust what a player says he feels on any given day. Teams using this system have been successful at the league level, including an MLS championship and Liverpool FC’s four-trophy season. While hockey traditionalists don’t want to admit it, sport science shows that monitoring athlete output and resting players from practices or games benefits long-term performance. This does not suggest that teams adopt an NBA-style of load management. Some of the instances in the NBA are over the top. Sitting a star player one game of every back-to-back is unnecessary if you spread their workload over the two games. Assuming a healthy season, players should not need to sit more than seven or eight games of 82 in the NHL. That’s less than 10 percent. Instead of rotating the fourth-line players and bottom-pair defencemen on a back-to-back or three games in four days, teams should consider giving the guys who play upwards of 20 minutes rest to prevent muscular injury. It would be naive to think that teams would do this earlier in the season. That doesn’t mean the idea does not have merit. If Manchester City can afford to sit Erling Haaland for a few games, then Boston can afford to sit any of their top players. With publicly available studies on aging curves and load management, Boston should consider resting the likes of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Hampus Lindholm. Toronto should rest Mark Giordano, Auston Matthews and John Tavares. Any player that has had an injury or has more than a little knock should be given nights off in the last few games of the season. Rest is the biggest weapon at this point of the season. Teams who play shorter playoff series tend to be more successful because they play fewer games. With quite a few teams locked into their playoff spots, taking advantage of the ability to rest top players and manage their workload can be a major difference-maker. That extra time for the body to recover may be key in preventing muscle strain later. Boston will play a team fighting until the last day and will not have the luxury of resting players. The inherent advantage of being able to play a rested Bergeron, Charlie McAvoy, Lindholm and Krejci after the seasons they’ve had would be palpable. The goal is to win the Stanley Cup. The goal is not to win every single game in the regular season. Once you’ve clinched your spot and, in some cases, your opponent, teams should focus on readying themselves for a long playoff run. Yes, fans will complain they’ve paid money to see Player X and will be disappointed. That disappointment will surely be forgotten with a little bit of playoff success. Ask any fan of the top teams one question: Would you rather watch your stars play every night at the end of March or every night at the end of May and June? Every single one will say May and June. The owners, who don’t have to share playoff revenue, will surely opt for regular-season load management if it means their team was able to gain an advantage and potentially play more playoff games. To win the Cup, you need your key players to stay healthy. Resting your stars is a privilege you earn by playing well all season to ensure your playoff spot. It is a strategy that teams should take advantage of, and if the NHL wants to prevent it, they should find a way to make the playoff races a little more interesting. Until then, just like the Coyotes exploit the salary cap rules, good teams should use the format and get their stars some well-deserved rest to ensure they are at their healthiest when the playoffs start.
Luke Prokop has made it a point to be a leader on and off the ice with a personal goal of making hockey a more welcoming and inclusive sport.
As the first player under NHL contract to come out as gay, Prokop has been an important role model in trying to make "hockey for everyone." But in a statement released Monday night, the 20-year-old Nashville Predators prospect expressed his "disappointment" for what he called "a step back for inclusion in the NHL." The statement comes days after San Jose Sharks goalie James Reimer did not take part in pregame warm ups last Saturday, saying the team's decision to wear Pride-themed sweaters in support of the LGBTQIA+ community runs counter to his religious beliefs. Reimer's decision followed a similar move by Philadelphia Flyers defenceman Ivan Provorov and recent decisions by the New York Rangers, New York Islanders and Minnesota Wild to not have players wear Pride sweaters during warm-ups on Pride Nights. Writing about these decisions, Prokop said it was disheartening to see some teams and players not embrace the significance of wearing the sweater but added that he was more disappointed that the negative attention was taking away from what should be important celebrations of inclusion. "Pride nights and pride jerseys play an important role in promoting and respecting inclusion for the LGBTQIA+ community and it's disheartening to see some teams no longer wearing them or embracing their significance, while the focus of others has become about the players who aren't participating rather than the meaning of the night itself," Prokop wrote. — luke prokop (@lukeprokop_6) March 21, 2023 When Prokop came out as gay back in July of 2021, he was a trailblazer in the hockey community. His announcement received an outpouring of support on social media from fans, fellow players, teams and organisations. It also prompted a $100,000 donation from the NHL to a number of LGBTQIA+ advocacy organisations. In a statement released after Provorov declined to wear a Pride sweater ahead of a Flyers game in January, the NHL said "players are free to decide which initiatives to support." "Everyone is entitled to their own set of beliefs and I think it's important to recognise the difference between endorsing a community and respecting individuals within it," Prokop wrote Monday. "Pride nights are an essential step towards fostering greater acceptance and understanding in hockey, and I strongly believe that by prioritising diversity and inclusion, we can create an environment where every player feels comfortable bringing their authentic selves to the game. As someone who aspires to play on an NHL team one day, I would want to enter the locker room knowing I can share all parts of my identity with my team mates." In a feature published on Sportsnet.ca, Prokop's family shared their concern about the opportunities to pursue his dream in a sport that isn’t always welcoming. "One of my fears, to be brutally honest, was: You’re a drafted player, you’re on the right track, is something like this going to impact you negatively as you try to pursue your dream?" Prokop's father Al said at the time. "Are you going to get the chance to pursue your dream as fairly as somebody else?" This season, Prokop — a defenceman who was a third-round pick by the Predators in 2020 — has split time between the WHL and ECHL registering 19 points in 40 games with the Seattle Thunderbirds and a point in eight games with the Norfolk Admirals. "While there's still progress to be made before hockey is for everyone, I'm optimistic about the change we can achieve and am committed to being a part of it," he wrote.
MONTREAL — I can only speak to this from my perspective as NHL reporter who’s been working the Montreal Canadiens’ beat for 15 years, but the league’s schedule always seems to have the same feel to it.
Whether the Canadiens are experiencing a good and exciting season, a bad and boring one, a blend of those two realities or something totally in between, for a reporter, training camp feels exhaustingly long, the first 20 games of the regular season seem to flash by in a blink, you get to Game 30 and think, ‘I can’t believe there’s 52 more of these,’ and then, after running through the sprint to and from the trade deadline, you wake up and realise you’re down to weeks and just a dozen games to go. You’d imagine players at different stages of their careers experiencing it differently from each other, or from their coach. But speaking to one rookie, one veteran and one young coach of the Canadiens Monday, I thought it was interesting to hear about how much overlap there was on the theme of this season going by fast. It was Jake Allen, the veteran goaltender in his 10th season, who I believe best summed up why he, rookie Johnathan Kovacevic and coach Martin St. Louis have all felt this way. “Just the way the guys have bought in, and the effort, has made all the difference,” Allen said. “We’ve laid a couple of eggs out there, but that’s going to happen no matter what. But just in terms of the effort and culture we’ve established as a group, for me, and if you’re watching on the outside, it’s been great.” It could’ve been completely different with the Canadiens leading the NHL in man-games lost and owning the fifth-worst record in the league. But, as Allen said, “It hasn’t felt as heavy and long as last year did under similar circumstances.” “There’s a lot of different aspects, but the culture that’s starting to be established here has lightened that load for a lot of guys in here,” Allen continued. “It could’ve really gone the other way. Some guys could’ve taken it harder than others, especially with some youth that we have in our locker room. To be able to say we only have a dozen games left and that it’s gone fast doesn’t feel as heavy as it would under similar circumstances results-wise.” For Kovacevic, it’s been the thrill of a lifetime, the type of amusement park ride he’d want to remain buckled into for as long as possible. Of course, the culture of the team has offered him the best environment to enjoy the experience and feel like it’s only natural it’s going by fast. But Kovacevic spent three full years in the AHL earning this opportunity, and he can’t even believe how quickly it’s flashed by. “That’s been the biggest transition for me, even from the AHL to here, is that the schedule is so quick,” the 25-year-old said. “In the AHL, you have a lot of back-to-backs, then two, three days off, then more back-to-backs—and they’re in the same city because you want to save on travel. Here you’re travelling basically every other day for a large chunk of the schedule. When you’re doing that before games, you’re trying to prepare for the game to have all your energy for that 7 p.m. puck drop. You’re almost on autopilot, so it just flies by. “It’s been my first year, and it’s gone by faster than I could’ve imagined. It seems like maybe a month ago that I got picked up on waivers and came to Montreal. It’s been five or six months now. I’m so locked into game-mode. Everything’s so new to me that every game, I’m almost like, ‘Wow, I have a game in the NHL today.’ It’s still like that, I don’t know what you call it, but like that magical aspect of it where I’m so in the zone. For me, it’s just been flying by.” It’s been St. Louis's first full season behind the bench, and the way he described it Monday made it sound like he’s barely had a moment to catch his breath. “I feel it’s kind of the life cycle. You hit a certain age, it’s like life goes like that,” St. Louis said, snapping his fingers. “All of a sudden you’re 60 and you’re like…*snaps fingers again.* When you’re young, the season’s like that too. It seems like when you’re young you have so much in front of you, and then it’s gone. I’m amazed we only have 12 games left. Since the break, how fast it’s gone, it’s amazing. I think, as a coach, you really have to stay on top of things and stay on your toes because things happen so fast and you don’t get do-overs.” In one respect, I’m sure Dominique Ducharme experienced a bit of that last season before losing his job and being replaced by St. Louis. In another, it must have felt interminable as the effort appeared faulty at best and the culture completely broken through the first half. It’s all seemed to move at the same pace for me, though. Each season is long. At times, it feels like it’s rushing by and, at other times, it feels like it’ll never end. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, the finish line is in view. Brendan Gallagher, Kirby Dach, Jake Evans a step closer to returning When I tweeted those three were donning non-contact sweaters at practice—for Gallagher and Evans it had been months, while it had been weeks for Dach—the responses were a mix of derisive, sarcastic and angry.
But they were also ignoring a couple of critical realities. The first of which is considering what returns for at least two of the three players mean for the Laval Rocket. Montreal’s AHL affiliate is currently two points behind the Rochester Americans for the final playoff spot in the North Division and, in this season dedicated strictly to development, the Canadiens want it to make the playoffs. The Rocket only have 11 games remaining to Rochester’s 13, and the team is going to need some reinforcements. Earlier in the day, prospect Emil Heinemann was sent from Europe to Laval. Late last week, Jayden Struble was signed out of college to join the Rocket. But the Canadiens can’t get Jesse Ylonen and Rafael Harvey-Pinard there before two of Gallagher, Dach and Evans return to their line up, and it’s something they would like to be able to do soon. The other important thing, which St. Louis spoke to, is for these players who have missed a ton of time to get back into games and carry some positive momentum into summer. “Listen, hockey players want to play, and it sucks when they’re out of the line up,” the coach said. “The wait is difficult, and summer is long. The process is you train and you prepare for the following season, but it’s a lot easier to prepare when you finish on a positive note. And for injured players to return before the end of a season is positive.” Whether or not they have a positive effect on results is anything but guaranteed “The way those players play isn’t as important as them finishing the season healthy,” said St. Louis. “If they give us good hockey, that’s a bonus.” As for the risk of further injury, none of them are rushing back. All three of Gallagher, Dach and Evans have been slowly brought along to ensure they return at 100 per cent. Balance is key It is the St. Louis concept we hear most about, often defined by the coach as wanting to see his players spread out in all three zones to ensure they aren’t duplicating tasks and making it easy for the opposition to either defend two players with just one or attack one player with two. I like the way Kovacevic defined it earlier on Monday. “I’m trying to describe balance without using the word balance, but I guess being supportive of the puck but also being spread out enough to allow your other team mates to play with the puck or to move in space is what it is,” he said. “So we want to be moving, we don’t want to be stationary, just five guys on the die. We want to be moving but at the same time filling different space on the ice so the guy with the puck has as many different outs.” Five guys on the die? Like dice? “Sometimes when you defend, a coach might say five on a die because that’s how the five on dice looks (spread out and balanced),” Kovacevic said. “But you don’t want to just look like a stationary five on the die; you want to be moving, filling lanes. Balance would look different in different zones, but the concept behind it would be having guys in space being able to make plays, hopefully, with speed.” It was most interesting to watch a drill the Canadiens performed towards the end of Monday’s practice, which aimed at creating that sought-after balance, both offensively and defensively, as quickly as possible.
“It starts with a 4-on-4 and, whenever there’s a change of possession, that team has an extra player coming in,” St. Louis explained. “So now that fifth player has to help us get balanced right away. As soon as that team loses possession, that player’s out, so the other team gains a player and it creates chaos. You’re trying to make it muddy for them to really find that balance (and find it) quick.” One of the reasons it stood out to me today was because the Canadiens had previously done this drill many times this season, but just at 4-on-4, which made it harder to decipher the objective. It became clear what it was really about when a fifth player rotated in, especially after I heard St. Louis tell his players, before running it Monday, “It’s about getting where you need to be at the right time, and think about balance when you’re the guy coming in.” “We used to do that drill just 4v4,” St. Louis confirmed, “and I felt it was hard to attack on the inside. So a lot of our drills kind of evolve because I feel like we’re not getting enough of what we want. So we try to make it better over time, and today was the first time we added a fifth guy to help us find that balance and to have an opportunity to attack more and just solve really the issue in a chaotic environment. I feel we benefit from that.” Every drill the Canadiens run incorporates that element of chaos because, as St. Louis and director of hockey development Adam Nicholas have explained several times, they want to simulate games as much as possible and games are chaotic. This particular drill the Canadiens ran on Monday was chaotic, but you could also see how effective it would be to work on the concept of balance that St. Louis feels is so vital. Dave Gardner, twice a 50-goal, 100-point centre with the Toronto Marlboros juniors and a first-round pick of the Montreal Canadiens in 1972, had died. The 70-year-old had complications from a blood infection in the past while, according to a Facebook post from brother Paul, himself a former NHLer. “Dave first made his contribution by letting me play with him and the older kids in our (Toronto) backyard,” Paul told the Toronto Sun in an earlier interview. Dave scored 54 goals with the St. Michael’s College Buzzers in the Metro junior league, before winning the Red Tilson Trophy as the Ontario Hockey League’s top scorer in his draft year on a super-charged line with Steve Shutt and Billy Harris. Gardner went eighth over all to the Habs, one of four picks the club had in that round after Shutt, goalie Bunny Larocque and before defenceman John Van Boxmeer. Shutt, Gardner and Harris came close to 400 points that season, Harris was chosen first over all by the expansion New York Islanders. Gardner carved out 36 games on a Habs’ dynasty that was stacked at centre, later playing for St. Louis and the California Golden Seals before that team morphed into the Cleveland Barons. After a brief stop with the Philadelphia Flyers, Dave finished his career in the late 1980s in Switzerland and Europe.
Dave and son Ryan, who played in the OHL and Europe as well, are in the Aurora, Ont., Sports Hall Of Fame. Paul, who played for the Leafs and coached their farm team in Newmarket in the late ‘80s, were the sons of Leaf great Cal Gardner, who played on the 1949 and ’51 Cup champions and was named to the top 100 in franchise history during its 2017 Centennial. Each son inherited Cal’s Cup rings and the trio is also in Toronto’s Leaside Sports Hall of Fame. “Dave was a great brother, son, father and grandfather,” Paul said in his Facebook entry. “I was lucky to have him as an older brother who taught me so much. He was a gifted athlete in all sports. In hockey, he was a tremendous puck handler and playmaker. He loved golf and was probably happiest being on a course.” The ex-Leafs goalie said his faith wouldn’t allow him to wear a rainbow-themed sweater. Religion has been used as a skirt for bigotry for an awfully long time. By Bruce Arthur Columnist TORONTO STAR I feel bad for James Reimer. He’s had a decent NHL career, especially for someone from the tiny town of Morweena, Man. He was a sheltered evangelical Mennonite kid whose belief in Scripture was so profound that he would apologise to someone for saying unkind things about them in private; things that person would never have known about had Reimer not apologised. In his own words, Reimer believes in loving everyone. We should all aspire to that.
But Reimer can’t quite get there, and it’s a shame. On Saturday, the San Jose Sharks goaltender — a Leafs goaltender all those years ago — became the latest data point in the NHL’s ongoing Rorschach test when he was the only player on his team who refused to wear a rainbow-themed sweater on Pride night. Reimer talked about how it was a hard decision, but his religion was his guide. He said he believed everyone should be welcome at an NHL game and then eschewed the very basic gesture whose entire meaning, as Pittsburgh Penguins president Brian Burke put it, was showing LGBTQ people they were welcome at an NHL game. Which is Reimer’s right, sure. “My faith said, like I said before, everyone has worth and value and I love them,” Reimer told reporters. “When a guy gets traded to a team, often I’ll ask the people in charge, what’s their number? So I can send them a text. Welcome to the team, ask if they need anything. I don’t do that based off what they believe or what they identify with. I do that because I’m taught to love and to care for people. That’s who I am. “But the counter side, or the other side, is I just can’t publicly or personally endorse something that goes against my beliefs. That’s kind of where I’m at so far.” Reimer may have been the only San Jose player not to wear the sweater — and that matters, that part — but he’s not alone. Philly’s Ivan Provorov was the first visible holdout in January, citing his Russian Orthodox faith. A couple of weeks later, the New York Rangers decided not to wear the planned Pride-themed sweaters for their night; the New York Islanders didn’t wear Pride sweaters for their night because the franchise only mandates pre-game shirts for cancer, the military and the Irish, which is certainly a choice. The Minnesota Wild followed the Rangers and abandoned the sweaters on March 8, citing concern for Russian star Kirill Kaprizov. Hockey is for everyone, they say, and in the NHL that includes bigots and it can’t be helped, or won’t, depending. The league itself often seems scared of the conservative movement, and there’s a reason Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has used the league as a punching bag. A men’s gay choir at the all-star skills contest aside, the league doesn’t do much in the way of punching back. It’s a shame partly because the current storm over LGBTQ rights in the United States is a full-blown moral panic, with conservatives howling about drag shows, outlawing medical therapy for trans kids and more or less accusing anyone who preaches gay-positive ideas of being a paedophile, a groomer. We’ve seen a little of that here in Canada, too. The conservative movement has re-harnessed that old anger, fear and hatred. And real people, as always, get hurt. James Reimer isn’t a part of that, or doesn’t think he is. He just decided his faith only extends so far. To their credit, the Sharks talked with Reimer, agreed to disagree, and 19 of the 20 players went out on the ice with rainbow-themed Sharks sweaters. Logan Couture — who once claimed he was sucker-punched in Toronto for talking about voting for Republicans and mentioning Donald Trump — said he thought a lot of players were excited to wear them. He said: I think hockey really is for everyone. Which is a loving way to look at it. Religion has been used as a skirt for bigotry for an awfully long time, and if you want to selectively pick from Biblical teachings, you’re allowed. But as the writer and priest Michael Coren put it on a recent podcast about gay rights, “When did this become the test of my faith? It’s actually heretical. I don’t use that term very often, but it’s a form of heresy, to reduce Christianity to this question of: Where do you stand on this issue? And it’s an issue of love, so you should say: I stand with love, which is the teaching of Jesus.” Jesus, of course, never mentioned homosexuality and preferred to hang out with society’s marginalised people, but some people choose a different version of their faith. Again, that’s their right. What bothers me is this: I accept that Reimer is indeed someone who cares about other people, reaches out and asks what he can do to help. Well, it was 13 years ago now that Burke marched in his first Pride parade in Toronto; he marched with his son Brendan, who had come out publicly as gay. That year, Blackhawks defenceman Brent Sopel took the Stanley Cup to the Chicago Pride parade to honour the Burkes. Burke marched again the next year, after Brendan’s death; he wore sunglasses to hide the tears, and had trouble talking. He still marches. One of the goalies Burke had as general manager of the Leafs at the time, and for several years after, was Reimer. Boy, did Burke defend Reimer, in public and in private. He went to the wall for that kid. And all these years later, the best lesson of Brian Burke doesn’t seem to have quite reached James Reimer. Indeed, Reimer’s confused explanation of how he couldn’t wear an Islamic-themed sweater despite being a friend of former Leafs team mate Nazem Kadri showed a man who has chosen a fundamental and fundamentalist insularity. And that’s why I feel bad for him. That is a gap in humanity that Reimer could have bridged, you’d hope, and been better for it. Maybe one day. The ‘loser point’ awarded to NHL teams for losing in overtime and the shootout is giving teams playoff spots they didn’t earn. The Los Angeles Kings benefitted from the loser point on their way to winning the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in 2012.
If a team loses in overtime or a shootout, it’s a loss – end of story. And teams shouldn’t be rewarded with a point in the standings for losing a game.
Here are nine examples of how ludicrous the NHL standings and playoff seeding have been since the 2005-06 season when the league introduced the shootout format to break ties. 1. 2005-06 VANCOUVER CANUCKS & LOS ANGELES KINGS Fresh out of the 2004-05 lockout, NHL hockey had returned. With its return, the NHL had a new format of settling games - the shootout. Like with the previous formats with ties, the shootout resulted in the losing team earning a point. The 2005-06 Vancouver Canucks had eight overtime or shootout losses compared to the 13 the Edmonton Oilers had. The Canucks’ record that season was 42-32-8, and they finished with 92 points, which ranked ninth among Western Conference teams. The Los Angeles Kings finished 10th, also winning 42 games. The Oilers, meanwhile, finished eighth in the conference with a record of 41-28-13 for 95 points. The Oilers embarked on a magical playoff run which ended in defeat to the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup final. But they shouldn’t have qualified for the playoffs at all because the Canucks’ and Kings’ winning percentages (both .512) were better than the Oilers' (.500). 2. 2006-07 COLORADO AVALANCHE Six years after winning their second Stanley Cup, the Avalanche missed the playoffs for the first time since they were the Quebec Nordiques in 1993-94. The Avs finished ninth in the Western Conference with a 44-31-7 record, good for 91 points - which was one less point than the eighth-seeded Calgary Flames, who finished 43-29-10. Colorado won one more game and finished with a better winning percentage (.537) than Calgary’s (.524). 3. 2011-12 DALLAS STARS In 2011-12, the Stars were in the middle of a five-year playoff drought. The Stars’ record that season was 42-35-5. Despite losing their last five games, they had a superior winning percentage than Calgary (37-29-16) and eventual Stanley Cup-champion Los Angeles Kings (40-27-15). The Stars’ winning percentage (.512) was above .500, while the Flames (.451) and Kings (.488) finished with worse marks. But thanks to the loser point, the Flames and Kings also finished with 90-plus points, while the Stars finished with 89. Without the loser point, the Kings wouldn’t have won the franchise’s first Stanley Cup - because they wouldn’t have even made the playoffs. 4. 2015-16 BOSTON BRUINS The NHL changed its playoff format in 2013-14 to have teams qualify as wild cards. The Bruins dominated the early 2010s, with two Stanley Cup final appearances, including a Cup championship in 2011. From 2010-11 through 2013-14, Boston made the playoffs every year and won at least one round in all but one season (2011-12). But the Bruins missed the playoffs in 2014-15 for the first time since 2006-07. The following year, they missed the playoffs again - but they shouldn’t have. The Bruins finished with a 42-31-9 record and 93 points, which put them in ninth place in the Eastern Conference, three points behind the Philadelphia Flyers in the second wild card with 96 points on a 41-27-14 record. The Flyers won one fewer game than the Bruins and made the playoffs with an inferior winning percentage. 5. 2015-16 COLORADO AVALANCHE The 2015-16 Avs won one more game than the Minnesota Wild, who finished in the last wild-card spot in the Western Conference. Colorado finished with 82 points, while Minnesota had 87. Both teams had winning percentages below .500, but the Avalanche (.476) had a better mark than the Wild (.463), who had seven more overtime losses. 6. 2016-17 TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING The Toronto Maple Leafs clinched the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference in 2016-17, finishing ahead of the New York Islanders and Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning, however, won more games than the Leafs and Islanders. The Islanders’ regular season record was 41-29-12 for 94 points, while the Leafs’ record was 40-27-15 for 95 points. New York had a .500 winning percentage, but Toronto's was just below. The Lightning, on the other hand, had a winning percentage of .512 thanks to a 42-30-10 record for 94 points. It’s egregious that the Lightning missed the playoffs and finished below two teams despite winning more matches than them. 7. 2017-18 ST. LOUIS BLUES The respective seasons of the St. Louis Blues and Colorado Avalanche were on the line in a regular-season finale on April 7, 2018. Colorado won 5-2 and clinched the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference with 95 points. With a winning percentage of .524, the Avalanche bounced the Blues from a playoff spot. But St. Louis should’ve taken Colorado’s place in the post-season, as the Blues had a better winning percentage at .537. Fortunately for St. Louis, they rebounded with the franchise’s first Stanley Cup championship the following year. 8. 2018-19 ARIZONA COYOTES The Coyotes hadn't made the playoffs since they changed their name to Arizona from Phoenix. Their last playoff appearance was their run to the Western Conference final in 2012. But 2018-19 should have been their return to the post-season. They finished the regular season with a 39-35-8 record for 86 points. That put them four points behind Colorado, who clinched the final wild-card spot in the West. The Avs’ record, however, was 38-30-14, which meant Colorado had a worse winning percentage (.463) than the Coyotes (.476). 9. 2020-21 CALGARY FLAMES After the 2019-20 season was extended until September 2020, the NHL returned in January 2021 with a regular season that lasted 56 games. The Flames’ 2020 playoffs ended with a blown 3-0 lead in Game 6 of their first-round matchup against the Dallas Stars. In 2021, they missed the playoffs, ranking fifth in the North Division behind the Montreal Canadiens. Calgary won two more games than Montreal, but the Canadiens had 11 'loser points' to the Flames' three. The Canadiens went all the way to the Stanley Cup final against the Tampa Bay Lightning - but they shouldn’t have even made the playoffs at all. Montreal-area man acquitted of criminal harassment after flipping off neighbours Jacob Serebrin · The Canadian Press Giving someone the middle finger is a "God-given" right that belongs to all Canadians, a Quebec judge said, as he recently acquitted a Montreal-area man of criminal harassment and uttering threats. In his ruling, Quebec court Judge Dennis Galiatsatos wrote that not only was Neall Epstein (juif!) not guilty, the fact that he was arrested and prosecuted at all was a bewildering injustice. "To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger," the judge wrote in his Feb. 24 ruling. "Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter-enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian. It may not be civil, it may not be polite, it may not be gentlemanly. Nevertheless, it does not trigger criminal liability." Police arrested Epstein, a 45-year-old teacher, on May 18, 2021, as he returned home from a walk. Earlier in the day, he had run into a neighbour — Michael Naccache — who lived on the same Beaconsfield, Que., street and with whom he had previous conflicts. Naccache, 34, swore at Epstein and threatened him while holding a power tool "in a menacing way," the judge found. Epstein replied with two middle fingers and continued walking. Naccache alleged that Epstein also made a throat-slashing gesture and said he feared Epstein would come back and try to kill him — claims that the judge did not accept. "On what basis did he fear that Mr. Epstein was a potential murderer? The fact that he went for quiet walks with his kids? The fact that he socialised with the other young parents on the street? If that is the standard, we should all fear that our neighbours are killers-in-waiting," Galiatsatos wrote. *Neighbourhood quarrelling* The incident was the culmination of a series of interactions between the two men and members of their families. Naccache claimed those interactions amounted to months of harassment, but the judge found them to be innocent behaviour. "To the complainants, the presence of young families outside is a source of scorn and vivid resentment that ultimately spilled over into a criminal complaint against their neighbour," the judge wrote, describing Epstein as a "caring father of two young daughters who committed no crime whatsoever." He called it "deplorable" that the complainants "weaponised the criminal justice system in an attempt to exert revenge on an innocent man." Naccache said he thought Epstein regularly and surreptitiously filmed him and his family. In reality, the judge concluded, it was Naccache who had been filming Epstein and other neighbours from cameras mounted outside the home in which he lived with his parents and brother.
He also had cameras on his motorcycle and in his parents' cars. In one incident, video submitted as evidence shows Naccache's mother, Martine Naccache, driving dangerously near neighbourhood children, the judge wrote. About an hour later, Naccache's father, Frank Naccache, "deliberately and spitefully" did the same, the ruling says, leading to a confrontation with several neighbourhood fathers, including Epstein. Epstein testified that during that episode, Frank Naccache threatened to intentionally hit the children with his car. Michael Naccache claimed in court that Epstein assaulted his parents during that confrontation, but the video evidence instead showed Naccache's brother, Ari Naccache, pushing Epstein, who then walked away in what the judge called a "remarkable exercise of restraint." *Judge wanted to throw the file 'out the window'* Galiatsatos wrote that Martine and Frank Naccache should consider themselves lucky they weren't ticketed for reckless driving. He added that the two Naccache brothers were fortunate they weren't charged with assault or uttering threats. Galiatsatos wrote in acquitting Epstein that he wished he could literally — not just figuratively — throw the case out of court. "In the specific circumstances of this case, the Court is inclined to actually take the file and throw it out the window, which is the only way to adequately express my bewilderment with the fact that Mr. Epstein was subjected to an arrest and a fulsome criminal prosecution." The Montreal police service said it is analysing the decision and declined to comment further. The provincial prosecutors office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A message left for Epstein through his lawyer was not immediately returned, and a phone message left at the Naccache (dirty muzzie cunt) home was also not returned. Adam Proteau looks at the NHL's top performers of the past week, highlighting a goalie's victorious stretch, a scoring Coyote and a bolt of offence in Tampa Bay. This is THN.com’s Three Stars of the Week, an ongoing column in which we pick out the three top NHL players of the past seven days. Simple, right? Let’s get straight to it.
3. BRANDON HAGEL, LIGHTNING ********************************** A couple of people – namely, Avalanche stars Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar, who each had nine points in four games – had slightly more productive weeks, but Hagel gets the nod for the third star because he generated four goals and eight points (including two game-winners and two shorthanded assists) in four games. Hagel’s most recent game came against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, and the 24-year-old netted his second-career hat trick to give himself a career-best 27 goals and 59 points in 70 games. The fact Hagel is playing on the Lightning’s top line with stars Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point certainly helps him on the points-getting front, but Hagel also has five goals and nine points in his past five games, proving he’s making good use of the top-line minutes. If the Bolts are going to make noise in the playoffs, they’ll be looking to Hagel to contribute offensively the way he has this week. 2. CLAYTON KELLER, COYOTES ******************************** Keller led the league in goals this week with five, including one game-winning marker. The Arizona forward is on an eight-game points streak, putting up seven goals and 16 points in that span. He has demolished his previous career highs of 28 goals, 42 assists and 65 points, posting 32 goals, 43 assists and 75 points in 70 games this season. Keller is far and away the Coyotes’ top point producer, as the next-best ‘Yote in the points department is Nick Schmaltz, who has 21 goals and 47 points in 51 games. There were some questions about Keller being available via trade, but we can see why Keller is one of the few untouchables on the sad-sack Coyotes. At 24 years old, he’s young enough to be part of Arizona’s complete-and-total rebuild, and with his cap hit of $7.15 million for the next five seasons, the Coyotes desperately need him to continue leading the way on offence. Keller is one of the league’s up-and-coming stars up front, and it would be great if we could see how productive he can actually be on a team that, unlike the Coyotes, wins more games than they lose. 1. IGOR SHESTERKIN, NEW YORK RANGERS ********************************************* With five wins in their past six games (5-0-1), the Rangers are on a roll, and superstar goaltender Shesterkin is one of the key drivers behind it. Shesterkin went 3-0-0 in three appearances this week, with a .948 save percentage, 1.67 goals-against average, one shutout and one assist. The 27-year-old Russian is currently enjoying a five-game win streak, which has given him a 32-11-7 record this season. And while his individual statistics (including a 2.57 GAA and .912 SP) weren’t up to his career highs of a 2.07 GAA and .935 SP (both set last season), Shesterkin has a chance to improve on his career-best 36 wins (also set last year). With 50 appearances thus far this season, he will certainly pass his career-high of 53 games played. The Rangers have wobbled at times this season, and Shesterkin has not had consistent support – 13 of his defeats this year came when the Rangers scored two goals or fewer – but he’s still one of the league’s premier netminders. Any team the Blueshirts play in the coming post-season will be well-aware Shesterkin can flat-out steal games. He’s in his prime, and after the NHL’s trade deadline, he’s playing in front of arguably the Rangers’ best line up in recent memory, so expect Shesterkin’s numbers to improve in the final stretch of the regular season. |
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