JR Ewing

Part 2 Some will say Vasilevskiy, who enters the All-Star break with a sub-.900 save percentage, hasn’t been the same after all the long Lightning playoff runs and his subsequent back surgery. NHL players, though, still view him as the Mount Rushmore goalie they don’t want to see in the other net. “He’s proven it over and over again,” one player said. “Just a big-game guy,” another said. “I have never seen a guy that big be that athletic and that competitive,” added another. Hellebuyck, The Athletic’s prohibitive staff favorite to win the Vezina Trophy this season at the break, was another popular pick. “He swallows up everything,” one player said. The New York goalie besties, Sorokin (Islanders) and Shesterkin (Rangers), both got a share of support, as well, and might have split the Russian vote. One Russian forward, who voted for Sorokin, first made sure that his name was being left off this story. “Don’t tell Shesterkin I said that,” he said. Fleury, who this season played his 1,000th game and passed Patrick Roy for No. 2 all-time in wins, might have been the biggest surprise, receiving five votes. The beloved icon might be getting credit more for his career achievements and infectious smile than his play in net for the Minnesota Wild, as one player admitted. “I know he’s not the best, but I like him the best,” he said. “He robbed me stacking the pads earlier in the year. He’s been so good for so long. I’m sticking with Flower.” Fleury, as The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reported, could be available on the trade market this year for any GMs sharing that sentiment. Perhaps even more interesting, Saros, who LeBrun reported the Nashville Predators might be willing to listen to offers on, got some of the strongest endorsements from his NHL peers. “Simply the best goalie in the league right now,” one player said. “He’s the most athletic and he reads the play the best,” another said. A few other sentiments: On last season’s out-of-nowhere Cup champion, the Vegas Golden Knights’ Hill: “The best goalie in the league right now. He won a Cup.” On Demko, one of the leaders of the Vancouver Canucks’ successful turnaround this season: “I’ve seen how hard he works.”

Part 1 A bit closer than you’d expect? Probably. But for most, it’s still McDavid. “There’s just nobody like him,” one player said of the Edmonton Oilers captain. “Nobody does what he does.” “I don’t think there’s going to be a discussion about that for many years,” another said. “It’s just everything,” another said. “He can do everything.” So where does the debate creep in? For many players, the league’s best player in the pre-McDavid era may not be getting his due. “If there was one game and everything was on the line? I’m going with Sid every time,” one player said of the Pittsburgh Penguins great. “With Crosby … you’re almost concerned about everyone else because he’s going to find everyone else,” another said. “With McDavid, you’re just trying to catch up to him, and that’s the hardest thing to do. But they’re both great.” And the MacKinnon-McDavid debate has taken a big step as MacKinnon got his ring and as he plows the Colorado Avalanche toward the playoffs: “I’ll go with McDavid still, but MacKinnon’s definitely pushing him,” one player said. “McDavid is the answer, but MacKinnon is right there,” another echoed. “Nobody else jumps onto the ice with a burst of speed like him.” Among those who picked MacKinnon, competitiveness, explosiveness and winning were the keywords. “He just brings all his teammates into the fight every night,” one player said. “To me, the most competitive star. And, obviously, he’s a winner.” “He’s just so explosive,” another said. “Whenever he’s on the ice, something is going to happen.” “He’s just a horse,” another added. “There’s not much you can do when he’s got the puck.” And what of the league’s scoring leader, Kucherov, a two-time champion himself with the Tampa Bay Lightning? “So good at so many things,” said one player who voted for him. “The kind of 200-foot player that doesn’t get enough credit.” “He just doesn’t get a lot of hype being in Tampa, right?” another added. “He’s a quiet superstar, man. He’s spectacular.” Justifications for other picks? On Makar, MacKinnon’s defensive counterpart in Colorado: “As a defenseman, he’s on the ice more and has got the ability to control the game a little bit more.” On Barkov, the captain of the reigning East champion Florida Panthers: “A true leader on the ice, and you can really look up to him.”

I think they're a good team, but reallllly think that Adam Foote did long term harm to the middle of the roster with the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade and sign. I thought and think that it was indescribably bad. When Montreal backs out of a bidding war for a Quebec-born player, you know you've gone too far.

I have a list of hockey rules of thumb from over the years... Some are talked about all the time in the media, hockey circles, etc, and others aren't. You know: build from the middle and out, don't be scared to draft skinny kids, etc. There are two that apply well here: -Identify your core players under 30, lock them up, and be prepared to mercilessly shed/deal anybody not in that core when the time comes. -Never sign a non-core member over the age of 30 to anything more than a 1-year deal. These are obviously not rules that Brad Treliving and a bunch of other GMs live by, but I'll take the Pepsi challenge with them anyway. I like Kadri, but he was way too old for that contract, and the Flames are paying for production he won't match again. Looking over in the direction of Joe Sakic, we see a guy who shares my opinion about that situation, even being prepared to cut bait after winning a Stanley Cup. Nazem Kadri played big minutes for the Avs in 2022, and was a key member of that Cup win. Sakic was smart to not over-pay for that and didn't re-sign him, which would have cut into what needs to be devoted to his core. He did the same thing with Darcy Kuemper. Bring them back for pre-game ceremonies in their 40s and 50s, but never lock them up long-term in their 30s.

What I said on the day Kadri was signed: Treliving was in a tough spot, but I think it's pretty difficult to say that the team was improved in these deals. They went from winning the division to finishing 5th last year and are 6th in the Pacific as of today. Again; the Flames were in a predicament, and I have empathy for Treliving here. The bets were fair, but carried risk, since Huberdeau/Kadri were going to be asked to be #1s when they hadn't been before. Huberdeau had Barkov in Florida to do the heavy lifting and Kadri had MacKinnon in Colorado facing the toughs. I like Kadri in particular, but they paid the steep price of a 1st to make room to get out of Monahan's contract. How much will they eventually pay to get out of Kadri's?

Agreed. The culture of the sport is rotten and has been for a very long time. This isn't new.

Sheldon Kennedy on Hockey Canada: ‘Incidents happen in systems that are unwilling to change’ Pierre LeBrun Sheldon Kennedy has spent the past 20-plus years of his life helping to reshape the grassroots of hockey and trying to make the sport a safer place. As a sexual abuse victim in a case that rocked the hockey world in the 1990s, his courage and dedication in this space has been incredible. And it continues. He is the co-founder of the Respect Group, an online provider of prevention education related to bullying, abuse, harassment and discrimination. In the wake of the Kyle Beach abuse scandal, Kennedy and his group were brought in by the NHL to implement training in this space. But you can imagine there’s been a lot on his mind when it comes to the London, Ontario, 2018 Canadian world juniors case, one which is shaking the sport to its core again. “First and foremost, always with these scenarios, my thoughts are obviously with the people who have been impacted in this event,” Kennedy said Monday morning in a phone interview with The Athletic. “And there’s many, I think, starting with the victim and others. However you want to slice it, it’s not good. “The way I look at it, we can never get better unless we get down to the truth. To me, one way or another with this case, we need to get to the truth. That’s what’s expected with these scenarios now. We’ve made a major shift. The whole strategy used to be — and we know the Hockey Canada strategy was — to bury it. Don’t say anything. Don’t respond to media articles around these cases, just don’t say anything, and it’ll go away. “That same strategy played out here in London. And I think we’ve realized that this is not going away. So there’s an accountability to do the right thing. To me, we need to find out, it needs to be very clear how the organization got to the decision that they got to. That is where we got to get to.” Members from Canada's 2018 world junior team told to surrender to police Kennedy said what happens in the courts and the legal part of it in London will play itself out. He’s focused on the Hockey Canada part of it, from how things were handled at the outset. “I know people don’t like to hear it, but I think we need to hear it: It’s that systemic piece,” he said. “The systemic piece doesn’t fall on an individual. It falls on a system. How did a system have so many people in leadership believe that this was the right thing to do? And to me, it’s because it’s what they always did.” It speaks to the issues still existing within the culture of the sport. “We talk about building good people, but I have not seen the tools that have been put in place within Hockey Canada at the national levels to actually do that,” Kennedy said. “We’re trying to build really good people with hockey skills, and to me, we have to be purposeful about: How are we going to educate on respect? What is it for these young men and women — what does that look like? What are our expectations and what are our values? How do we hold one another accountable? “How did we get to the point where there’s individuals in the room and not one person put their hand up and said, ‘Geez, this isn’t good’? “That one gets me.” That cuts right to the heart of it all. And it’s why Kennedy has been so dedicated for so many years in trying to chip away at the root issues with the education and training that his Respect Group offers. The NHL has been on board with it, with 10,146 individuals certified by Respect Group and all set to be re-certified this year. Respect Group has certified thousands more across the AHL (2,365), ECHL (732), USHL (531), IIHF (899), CHL (1,214) and PHF (143). “We trained every single employee in management on every single NHL team,” Kennedy said. And now the NHL Players’ Association is also on board, working to launch a program by the fall that will provide players with online tools to identify, prevent, and address bullying, abuse, harassment and discrimination. “We’ve now got a player-specific program that aligns with the respect in the workplace program with the NHL,” Kennedy said of the NHLPA respect training program. He also pointed to the work happening in the Western Hockey League, which is relevant when you talk about getting through to junior hockey players. “There is a real big effort there and they’ve delivered the respect charter,” Kennedy said of the WHL’s efforts. “Every team has to create a respect charter for themselves. What does that mean? How do we hold one another accountable? What’s our values? What’s our standards? It’s very good. “To me, it’s about putting these types of values and language into action.” Outgoing WHL commissioner Ron Robison explained Monday that last year, the league partnered with Kennedy and piloted a program called the Respect Charter. “It’s a workshop, which really is unique in many ways, because it empowers the players to set their position, if you will, on what type of culture they want for their team,’’ Robison told The Athletic. “We piloted last season with three teams: Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary. This year, we rolled that program out to all the teams. It’s a mandatory Respect Charter workshop.” It’s also worth pointing out that Respect Group has done work at the grassroots level with Hockey Canada. Last year, 73,000 individuals were certified through Hockey Canada’s partnership with Respect Group. But Kennedy’s point here is the disconnect at the leadership level when it comes to what happened six years ago. The London case has already had an impact at Hockey Canada as far as leadership changes, to be sure. But is that going to be enough? “Incidents happen in systems that are unwilling to change,” Kennedy said. “I still don’t feel in my gut that there’s an understanding (at Hockey Canada) that there was any wrongdoing. At all. I think the words were probably said, but I don’t feel it.” Kennedy says building a better Hockey Canada culture has to be purposeful. “We need a strategy from Day 1. What are our values? What is our culture?” Kennedy said. “How do we practice those values? How do we live those? And how do we teach those as our No. 1 priority when it comes to wearing the Hockey Canada badge on the front of your jersey? There has been nothing like that.” He paused before adding: “Our goal is to empower people and build confidence and understanding so that at least two or three of those people (in London) can put their hands up and say, ‘Listen, No, you’re not doing this, man. This is not who we are.'” And again, for Kennedy that starts with Hockey Canada leadership embracing it in a real way. “This is about actually living and breathing and believing that there’s a better way,” Kennedy said. “And looking in the mirror and stepping outside that box and understanding that we have to be the best we can be. The leaders have to do it. To me, that’s the disconnect.” It all goes back to how this was handled by Hockey Canada six years ago. “The expectations have changed in today’s society,” Kennedy said. “We expect to better understand when these things happen, instead of just having them go away. To me, the responses were archaic. They were out of touch with the reality — with where these issues are today — the way they responded to this case to begin with.” As Kennedy said, it will be important to understand what happened in London for many reasons. “Because it can’t happen again,” he said. Which means changing systemic culture in the sport in a meaningful way. https://theathletic.com/5235911/2024/01/29/sheldon-kennedy-hockey-canada-london/?source=emp_shared_article

I can almost picture Chuck Fletcher falling asleep at his desk, reading glasses drooping down on his face.

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