JR Ewing

The NHL has been around since 1918, and has spent most of that time on the wrong side of allowing their players to go to the Olympics. It's nice to see them smarten up again. --- edit --- Pros were obviously not allowed there for years. I mean that the NHL dragged their heels even when the players were allowed to participate...

TORONTO — The NHL is heading back to the Olympics. Commissioner Gary Bettman announced today during the league's all-star festivities that its players will be allowed to compete at the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, and at the 2030 Games, which is currently without a host city. "There is a recognition of how important this is to the players," Bettman said at a news conference. “Everybody felt on our ownership side that it was the right thing to do. … This really came down to doing something because the players really wanted it.” IIHF president Luc Tardif smiled and said, “We made it" after two years worth of work that picked up over the past six months. The NHL went to the Games five times between 1998 and 2014 — the last best-on-best men's tournament — before skipping the 2018 event for financial reasons. The league was set to return to the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, but backed out because of COVID-19 concerns. Milan, barring another unforeseen circumstance, will be the first Olympics for a generation of stars led by Canadians Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar and Americans Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel and Adam Fox. The tantalizing rosters could see the likes of McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Connor Bedard on the same team battling for gold. McDavid, a three-time NHL MVP and widely considered the best hockey player in the world, has been one of the most vocal players pushing for an Olympic return. “I feel like it’s super important for hockey to go back,” the Edmonton Oilers centre said. “Talking about growing the game, doing all these things well, you got to have the best on best, play on the biggest stage in sport, and that’s the Olympics.” The NHL also announced a four-team international tournament for 2025 that will include Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland. The "4 Nations Face-off" will be held next February in two yet-to-be-named cities in Canada and the United States. "This marks a new era for international hockey," NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said. “We view this event as a building block to a larger World Cup.” Bettman reiterated that the NHL would like to get on a cycle of having an international “best on best” tournament every two years. The league last held a World Cup in 2016. That event featured an under-23 Team North America and Team Europe made up of small hockey powers. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2024. https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/nhl-to-return-to-olympics-in-2026-2030-hold-4-nations-face-off-in-2025-1.2070919

In a league where the average goalie has an .899 SV%, Cam Talbot's was .928 for the first two months, and he's going to be 37 this summer. When he came down to Earth, the Kings were going to as well.

-Savage horse trading by Montreal... The Habs turned future considerations into a pair of 1st round picks and a conditional 3rd round pick. -The Jets paid, and did they ever pay in full. I wouldn't have guessed that Monahan would cost more than a 2nd round pick. -Monahan provides more defensive play for WPG's third line, but he's also a slow skater and getting slower by the day. I dunno... -He can still play, but the price was steep. --- edit --- -The fans may come away disappointed if they're looking for a lot of offense in the deal; he won't put up what he did in Montreal. Half of his points were scored on the power-play, and he won't be getting those sorts of minutes in Winnipeg. He's 213th in even-strength scoring, so he won't get a chance to pad the numbers with the new team. -My guess is that the team is more aware of that than a lot of fans are, and are looking more for a two-way game from him.

Step 1 - Carve out a chunk of your team for a guy who was whined/moaned his way out of two organizations in his first six years and who, when unhappy, completely quits. Step 2 - The guy comes in and plays abysmally. Step 3- Fire the coach. --- If Dubois had played up to standard the Kings would have lost this deal. I said it on the day it happened and maintain that. However, playing as poorly as he has makes this a devastating deal.

It's generally reported that LTIR relief = LTIR'd player's cap hit, but it's a bit more complicated than that. A team can put a player on LTIR whenever he fails a physical, and he will miss more than 24 days. After those 24 days, a team can also retroactively place him on LTIR. The first step in LTIR'ing a player is to determine the accruable cap space limit, and it depends on when (mid/off-season or by the end of training camp) they place the player on LTIR, and is largely based on how much accruable cap space the contract brings them. The ACSL is the new salary cap upper limit the team would have. If they operate below it, they begin to accrue cap space, and if they go above, they begin to use their LTIR relief. Mid/off-season formula: ACSL = Upper cap limit - team cap space Training Camp: team cap hit - LTIR'd player's cap hit So, in the case of Ryan Ellis... If placed on LTIR today: Upper cap limit = $87.7M Team cap space = $87.7M - $0.2M Accruable Cap Space Limit = $87.7M - $0.2M = $87.5M If Ellis was put on LTIR at training camp: Team cap hit = $83.3M Player's cap hit = $6.25M Accruable Cap Space Limit = $83.3M - $6.25M = $77.05M So, in the case of Ryan Ellis... If the Flyers placed him on LTIR today, and they didn't add anybody to the roster, they would accrue $0.2M in cap space, but if they had made this move at training camp, they would have gained his full cap hit of $6.25M. This goes back to your original question of why they haven't done it. They haven't said, but my best guess: -The team didn't think they would be this competitive, so there was no real benefit to placing him on LTIR, because they weren't going to spend an extra $6.25M this year just to lose games. -Since they can put him on LTIR whenever they like at this stage, there's no need to do it until the trade deadline is coming up, when a team wanting to make use of an LTIR contract could be willing to send something of value to make it happen.

I mentioned this in the chatbox, but will comment on it here, re: the Canucks. There is such a profound misunderstanding of what is happening in Vancouver from a lot of people who watch and even report on hockey. There's a really easy way to measure what is, in extreme case, a sign of immense skill, but when the games pile up is basically puck luck: PDO. It's very simple, and is just shooting percentage + save percentage. There is a strong tendency for this number to be around 100, and almost all the time, most of the teams right around that number. The Canucks have spent most of the season at around 105. For an idea of how high that is, here are the highest sustained PDOs in history: 1. 80s Oilers: 104.2 2. 70s Isles: 104.0 3. 70s Habs: 104.0 And, of course at #4: 2023-24 Vancouver Canucks, 103.9 It’s unlikely for an individual team to maintain a PDO that is this high above the norm. However, it is very likely that a team or two will have a high PDO and another team or two that will have a low PDO when we look at the league as a whole. The high PDO team and their fans always try to justify how the unsustainably high PDO is "really sustainable this time" due to factors x, y and z. Sometimes the PDO stays high for the year but invariably over the long term it regresses. The whole argument every year boils down to "trust me bro, it's different this time". I don't want to hear about they're going to the dirty areas or committing to team defense. They give up more scoring chances than they create, and a team that wins doing that is getting by, not dominating. The only way it's different this time is if these Canucks are one of the greatest hockey teams of all time, and I just dare anybody to say that.

Message forums have been a thing since we were dialing in to a local BBS; it's just that when the internet came along, the ability to spread beyond regional areas became a thing. While the owners of the major social media sites are wealthy beyond belief, forums are mostly hosted by guys like @hf101 running a server out of their basement or renting server space on a hosting site, and their righteous goal is community. People attribute all sorts of nefarious New World Order-type goals to the big ones, but mostly they just want to harvest and sell our data. It always amuses when people talk about somebody like Mark Zuckerberg as pushing a woke agenda, as if his programming even received that update. All that man knows is money. So are forums social media? I would say so, but don't consider them the societal poison pill the facebooks, instas, etc, represent.

There really isn't a benefit to the Flyers if they LTIR Ellis. They're already running a 23-man roster, so they can use Ellis' IR spot to use as an emergency recall space, and they don't have anybody in the system to use up that cap hit. If they LTIR him, they would be wasting a little over $6.25 in available AAV, and since it can be used retroactively, it's more likely that they would LTIR him close to the deadline and then deal him to a team trying to stay above the cap floor. Also, this is a rebuilding year, and they're not really looking to load up.

I'm an Oilers fan, but I also never had any hate for the Flames, and I pull for their fans, because I understand the pain of cheering for a team in a small market that isn't a sexy destination or tax haven for the players. The league is full of a$$ hats that are happy to pull a Canadian jersey over their head for international events but would rather die than play in Canada; Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg in particular. I kinda get it with Edmonton and Winnipeg, and Edmonton was home for many years, but Calgary's a great city and has a lot to offer the players. Ah well... It's flat-out more difficult to make these teams into consistent winners. Anyway... I think the Flames did well here, but not really because of Kuzmenko, whom I consider to be the sweetener. He has skill, but as @yave1964 said, he's incredibly soft and will provide high calorie/low nutrition scoring numbers for Calgary. He's not exactly the most dedicated player away from the puck. Picks aside, the piece I really like is Hunter Brzustewicz, an emerging talent who could be a foundational piece, and who is having an exceptional draft +1. Lindholm was never going to stay, will soon be entering the decline phase of his career, and is an unrestricted free agent after this year. I like this deal for the Flames. Vancouver did bring in a really good player who will provide them classical Swedish two-way hockey. My God, that country spits out guys who play the right way; who don't cheat themselves or the team when they're on the ice. He's exactly what Vancouver needs in a year where the results have greatly exceeded what should be expected. This is a team gives up more scoring chances than they create, and is in the bottom 1/3 of the league in dangerous chances as well, but literally everything is going in the net and Demko looks like he could save a BB fired from a cannon on most nights. They're PDO'ing the league really hard, but it won't continue forever. Lindholm will give them a reliable piece that can help steady the ship in that way. The Flames cut the cord yesterday, and set sail in search of a brand new day. Some will say they should have done it a long time ago, but I'm not one of them. That team, built around Tkachuk and Gaudreau, was dangerous and headed in the right direction. Things beyond management's control conspired against them, and things have turned so quickly. All that's left is to stand on the dock, remember what was good, and feel the bitter truth of today. I feel for them. It’s so very hard to build something good, almost impossible to build something great, and nothing lasts forever.

My mother passed last year, and she was the only reason I kept my facebook account, so that's gone. I never was on twitter or instagram and TikTok seems a bit like a root canal where the dentist goes in through you a$$ and works his way up to your mouth, so I've never bothered with that. Reddit was my lone holdout, and I got rid of it about half a year ago. Half the time, it's quite likely I was arguing with a bot/AI designed to keep me on the site, and the discussion that might have been real wasn't scintillating stuff either. I still prefer the model presented by forums: a smaller community of people you actually get to know. In over 10 years on reddit, I don't think I ever spoke to the same person twice, unless it was in a thread. I don't miss it.

Social media is the lead paint of our age.

NHL players Carter Hart of the Philadelphia Flyers, Michael McLeod and Cal Foote of the New Jersey Devils and Dillon Dube of the Calgary Flames have been charged with sexual assault in connection with an alleged assault by several members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior team. Attorneys representing Hart, McLeod, Foote and Dube said Tuesday that each player has been charged with sexual assault by police in London, Ont. They denied any wrongdoing on behalf of their clients. Hart's lawyers, Megan Savard and Riaz Sayani, said their client is facing one count of sexual assault, adding, “He is innocent and will provide a full response to this false accusation in the proper forum, a court of law.” Legal teams representing McLeod and Dube said the players would be pleading not guilty. “[We] will vigorously defend the case,” McLeod's attorneys, David Humphrey and Seth Weinstein, said in a statement. "We ask that the public respect Mr. McLeod’s privacy, and his family’s privacy. Because the matter is now before the court, we will not comment further at this time.” Dube's lawyers, Louis Strezos and Kayleigh Davidson, said their client “maintains his innocence [and] will defend the allegations in court.” Foote's lawyer, Julianna Greenspan, said her client was “innocent of the charge and will defend himself against this allegation to clear his name.” “What is most critical at this time is the presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair trial that everyone in Canada is entitled to,” Greenspan said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. “As the matter is before the court, I ask that Cal’s and his family’s privacy be respected.” A Devils spokesperson said the organization is aware of the reports and have been told to refer all inquiries to the league. A Flyers spokesman echoed a similar sentiment, saying the team “will respond appropriately to this very serious matter when the outcomes of the investigations are made public.” “We have now become aware of the charge of sexual assault that has been laid against Dillon Dube,” the Flames said in a statement. “We take this matter very seriously. Because the matter is now pending legal proceedings, we will have no further comment at this time.” The NHL was not expected to address the situation Tuesday. Commissioner Gary Bettman is set to speak at the league’s upcoming All-Star Weekend. The latest developments in the case come two days after former NHL player Alex Formenton surrendered to police to face charges. Attorney Daniel Brown said Formenton is innocent "and asks that people not rush to judgment without hearing all of the evidence.” All five players have taken leave from their current clubs over the past 10 days. Their agents have not spoken publicly since. London police have scheduled a news conference for Monday to address the situation. A spokesperson for police told the AP by email no updates on the investigation will be provided before the news conference. London police launched their investigation in 2022 after it was disclosed that Hockey Canada had settled a lawsuit with a woman who said she was sexually assaulted by eight members of that gold medal-winning team after a Hockey Canada Foundation fundraising gala. London is approximately halfway between Toronto and Detroit. According to court documents, the woman, then 20, alleged that a man, identified only as “John Doe #1,” took her from a bar to a hotel room and invited seven other people into the room to perform undisclosed sexual acts, intimidating her and preventing her from leaving. The woman said in the lawsuit the men directed her to take a shower and asked her to say on video that she was sober. The woman sought $3.55 million in damages and dropped the lawsuit after reaching a settlement with Hockey Canada. The NHL opened its own investigation in 2022 and has pledged to make those findings public. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly last week said the league would issue a statement if and when it is appropriate. The Flyers said Hart requested and was granted a leave of absence for personal reasons. General manager Daniel Briere declined to provide details when asked follow-up questions related to the 25-year-old No. 1 goaltender’s departure. The Devils did not give a reason when announcing McLeod and Foote were granted indefinite leaves of absence. McLeod, who turns 26 on Saturday, is in the middle of his fourth full season with the team, while Foote — son of former NHL player Adam Foote — has spent much of this season in the American Hockey League and appeared in four games for New Jersey. The Flames said Dube was on indefinite leave to tend to his mental health. As part of their statement Tuesday, they said they “had no knowledge of pending charges at the time Dillon’s request for a leave of absence was granted.” The 25-year-old Dube has played for Calgary since 2018. https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/five-2018-wjc-players-to-plead-not-guilty-maintain-innocence-lawyers-1.2069655

Funny how that works, eh? There's a shameful amount of articles which make it on to what one should think are legitimate outlets which have obviously not had the even the slightest amount of editing and, in this case, a key fact which is woefully incorrect. Sexual assault is a serious crime at any age, but the difference between a victim being underage or not is a pretty big deal, and The Hockey News couldn't get that much correct. I'm just waiting for the media outlets which will be all AI, save for a human editor.

That reporting runs contrary to literally every other article I've read, which indicated that E.M. was 20 years old.

They're likely all finished as players. They could maybe play in the KHL if they escape conviction, but their futures in hockey are pretty much done.

I can share this one as well, from yesterday:

Courtesy of the CBC, Michel McLeod officially charged.

There's no longer any question whether or not Hart has taken leave for any other reason than that he, Michael McLeod, Dillon Dube, and Cal Foote will be charged with sexual assault. We can close down this thread and further discussion can be re-directed to the new one:

Four National Hockey League players – Carter Hart, Michael McLeod, Dillon Dube, and Cal Foote – have been directed to surrender to police in London, Ont., to be charged with sexual assault in connection with an alleged incident that occurred during a Hockey Canada event in the city in June 2018, two sources familiar with the matter told TSN. The players are expected to surrender before the London Police Service holds a press conference on Monday to update the public on the high-profile case. Lawyers for the four players either declined to comment or did not respond to a request for comment. The Globe and Mail reported on Jan. 24 that London police have instructed five members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior team to surrender to be charged with sexual assault. Former Ottawa Senators player Alex Formenton, who currently plays in Switzerland, reported to police on Jan. 28 to be officially charged. Gary Ellis, the former head of Toronto Police Service’s sex crimes unit, told TSN in an interview that the players would be photographed, fingerprinted, and directed to sign an undertaking not to have contact with the alleged victim, either the first time they report to police or at a subsequent date. The five players are accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a London hotel on June 19, 2018, following a Hockey Canada Foundation golf and gala event. The complainant, a woman referred to as E.M. in court documents, met some of the players at a downtown bar following the event. She has alleged in a civil lawsuit that she left the bar with one man and had consensual sex with him. That man then invited other players to his room, without E.M.’s consent, to have sex with E.M., she alleged. None of the allegations against the players have been proven. London police initially investigated E.M.’s allegations before closing the case in February 2019 without laying charges because the lead detective didn’t believe there was enough evidence. In May 2022, TSN reported Hockey Canada had – without consulting any players involved in the alleged incident – quietly settled a $3.55-million lawsuit brought by E.M. against Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League and eight unnamed players in connection to the alleged attack. The story led to parliamentary hearings and a maelstrom of public backlash. The NHL and Hockey Canada commissioned investigations and the London police in July 2022 said they would re-open their investigation. In October 2022, London police filed a 94-page document in court requesting authorization to seek various court orders. In the filing, which was first reported by The Globe, a London police officer wrote that he believed there were reasonable grounds to believe that five members of the 2018 World Junior team had committed sexual assault in connection to the hotel incident. The four players who have yet to report to police are all 25 years old and have all taken leaves of absence from their NHL teams. Hart, a goalie with the Philadelphia Flyers, is playing in his sixth NHL season and in his final year of a three-year, $11.9 million contract. Dube, a centre with the Calgary Flames, is in his sixth NHL season and is in the final year of a three-year contract worth an average of $2.3 million. McLeod, a centre with the New Jersey Devils, is in his sixth NHL season. He signed a one-year, $1.4 million contract in July 2023. Foote, whose father is former NHL defenceman Adam Foote, has played in four games with the Devils this season and also has played in the American Hockey League. He signed a one-year, $800,000 contract in August. https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/sources-confirm-nhl-players-facing-charges-in-sexual-assault-investigation-1.2069570

Even without Hart's issues, it was a good decision to draft good goaltending prospects. It's really just about impossible to have too many good goalies, especially with injury being a possibility.

I can't imagine the Oilers wanting to move Philip Borberg at all. Coach Woodcroft was giving him spot starts in his 12F/7D lineup, with few minutes, and when Kris Knoblauch took over the team, he switched to a conventional 12/6, and gave the first start at 3LD to Brett Kulak with Broberg initially being pressboxed. The first thing that happened was that the Oilers went on an 8-game winning streak, so the coach wasn't going to change too much in the lineup. Rather than have a 22-year old defenseman sitting around and not playing, he was dispatched to Bakersfield, where he's been their top-pairing LD, playing in all situations. Coach Colin Chaulk is thrilled with him: Since he's been down, Knoblauch has referred to wanting to bring him up to get back in the lineup, but after winning 8, then losing 3, now they've gone on the 16 game winning streak. He's not going to make a change like that in the middle of such a streak, so Broberg will continue to get at-bats in the AHL for now. That isn't to say that he's untouchable prospect, but he is key for the Oilers future. Connor Brown's league minimum contract will slide into next year, and the team will be in cap trouble. Brett Kulak's contract probably paves his way off the team, slotting Broberg in nicely and cheaply in that spot. For on-ice and cap reasons, it's difficult to see the Oilers move on from Broberg for anything other than an over-pay.

Let's pretend for just a moment that statistics compiled by the FBI have the slightest thing to do with an allegation made, and charges presented, in Canada. I can do that... You're conflating "unfounded" with false when they're not necessarily the same thing at all. The FBI's labelling of these 8% of cases includes allegations where the victim was intoxicated, couldn't find a witness to the assault (rapists strangely tend to commit their assaults without an audience), gave conflicting testimony. Many police departments have only the one designation of "unfounded" instead of other names like "uncorroborated" which is often more accurate. The very report you've quoted has come under heavy fire as being wildly inaccurate due to these reasons, and due to that reason, the FBI was forced to tighten up their case recording process. You're quoting stats from 30 years ago which were founded to be gathered poorly. Going back to Canada, where the alleged crime has brought the charges, the London Police Service has an "unfounded" rate of 34%, 1.8 times that the rest of the country and 10x that of nearby cities like Toronto. They, like most investigators, have been trained not to properly investigate sexual assault, but mostly to poke holes in the statements of those making allegations, finding unfounded cases. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail... Many times, they don't undertake even the crudest of investigative techniques, such as talking to witnesses or the accused before labelling cases as "unfounded". When pressed to provide clarity to their investigative process, the London Police responded with reports that redacted everything other than their detachment letterhead. They are not open, they are poor investigators, and they were embarrassed by the sort of spotlight that this case has brought to their Keystone cops routine. Quite frankly, I think they're a disgrace.

Yeah. It's his ability to process the game at that speed that really separates him from the pack. Hockey Psychology put it pretty well: One of the goals in that clip, he was clocked at 40.4 km/hr, or 25.13 mph. The last three years leaders from NHL Edge top speed: 2024 - Owen Tippett, 24.20 2023 - Ryan Poehling, 24.32 2022 - Denis Gurianov, 24.60 In the time that NHL Edge has been tracking, Gurianov is the only player in the league to come to within 0.5 mph to McDavid. Paul Maurice suggested that McDavid is likely the fastest player in history, and if somebody was ever quicker, surely didn't have the hands or brain to keep up with his feet.