2019/20 NHL Season

I would trust you to deliver a 100-carat diamond but not a sixpack.

Brent Burns once picked up San Jose teammate Joel Ward en route to the airport for a road trip. Understand that Burns, earlier in his career, had been late for a meeting and never wanted that to happen again. He said that if he had to be on the plane 30 minutes before it took off, he’d try for 75 minutes. Anyway, Burns said he was “freaking out” because Ward was late, and then when they got to the plane, Ward realized he forgot his passport.

“Now I’m freaking out — for him,” Burns laughed.

But Ward didn’t. He said a professor at university had told him, “It already happened — you can’t change it. Freaking out doesn’t work.”

That stuck with the winger, who retired this week after a 726-game NHL career.

“That advice never worked for me,” Burns said, “but (Ward) was always so composed and relaxed.”

It’s why Ward will make an effective executive as his hockey journey continues.

There's Newsom, Pelosi & Willie Brown. Feinstein is not there because she's giving top secret information to her Chinese Spy driver she hired

Matthew Sekeres
@mattsekeres
· 22h

My understanding on why the #NHL is still considering completion of the regular season despite the fact it is roughly 85% complete & time will be of the essence in any re-start:

Twelve U.S.-based clubs have Fox regional TV deals & those deals stipulate that regular season game must be completed.

Failure to do so comes with a severe penalty: the deals roll over to next season at no cost to Fox. So, those teams would face no regional TV revenue, which would in turn hurt hockey-related revenue (HRR) for the whole league.

With this happening the end is near

Holy shit, he looks 20 years younger without the beard.

He'd also need some disappearing magic on that 20 pound fanny-pack.  But an NHLer would probably skate that off in a week of normal routine.

That's awesome

They'll Kill You Where You Play!

Yesterday Josh Yohe of The Athletic posted a story on the goalie situation in Pittsburgh,

The Penguins’ salary cap space is always limited and, while it’s impossible to determine what the salary cap figure will be for the 2020-21 season, the number won’t be as high as originally projected and won’t be as high as the current $81.5 million figure.

“We know that much,” Rutherford said. “It’s certainly not going up. And that is going to give us some very, very difficult decisions.”

Should the NHL announce the cancelation of the 2019-20 postseason at some point in the next couple of months, the offseason will immediately be triggered. If the much-discussed possibility of a postseason comes to fruition this summer, then the offseason will wait until autumn. No matter when it comes, the Penguins’ goaltending situation will be front and center.

Matt Murray and Tristan Jarry are both scheduled to become restricted free agents next season. Both will require a hefty raise.

Given the uncertainty of the salary cap and the reality that the Penguins already have more than $68 million committed to their 2020-21 roster, keeping both goaltenders seems like quite a challenge.

“Well,” Rutherford said, “I’ll say this: If we are going to keep both of them, we’d have to move a few things around on our team. There is a way to do things and to make that work, yes. There are some very, very tough decisions ahead.”