NHL

Kane could be causing trouble for Blackhawks

The dysfunction on display within the Blackhawks’ hierarchy makes one yearn for the days when Bill Wirtz ran the Original Six franchise into the underground.

Well, no, not at all, but the decision early last week out of the executive suite to centralize power in coach Joel Quenneville’s office sure was a baffling one, following a season in which signs consistently pointed in the opposite direction.

And listen, 23-year-olds are prone to act like, well, 23-year-olds, but Patrick Kane’s display of immature (if not worse) 23-year-oldness last weekend in Madison, Wis., can only be ignored on Madison Street, Chicago, at the organization’s peril, and most assuredly Kane’s as well.

Coming up on a summer immediately following one in which the hockey world was darkened by death, it would appear the Blackhawks, the NHL and the NHLPA have an obligation to intervene in the matter of Kane, a partier of some previous renown whose documented exploits on a college campus present a harbinger of trouble.

Guaranteed to happen the moment the Blackhawks dismiss general manager Stan Bowman: Père Scotty Bowman will leave his role as a senior advisor in Chicago and return to Montreal in a similar capacity to work beside GM Marc Bergevin.

Marc Crawford, we’re told by an informed operative, essentially has no chance to be hired by Bergevin as the Canadiens head coach.

The question being asked is whether Crawford — out of the league this season following his dismissal in Dallas after 2010-11 — would be willing to make his return behind the bench as Quenneville’s assistant coach in Chicago, 17 seasons after Quenneville served as Crawford’s assistant in Colorado for the 1995-96 Stanley Cup champion Avalanche.

* Perhaps if the Predators simply had suspended Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn for breaking curfew without the self-serving but ultimately self-destructive chest-pounding “This isn’t who we are!” proclamation, the matter would not have turned into the franchise’s defining moment of the season. …

Cannot remember a highly regarded team as unready and ill-prepared to face a playoff opponent as the Flyers were against the Devils this year since the 1995 Finals, when the favored Red Wings were swept by the Devils.

The pre-series question of whether the Devils defense could cope with the Flyers forwards was turned on its head, and the answer was a resounding no — no, the Flyers defense could not handle the forecheck pressure from the Devils forwards.

Moreover, the Flyers back end contributed little, if anything, to the team’s offense, not that Scott Hartnell was close to good enough or that Wayne Simmonds could even be found.

Thus, it would be a surprise of the greatest magnitude if the Flyers don’t offer Nashville’s impending unrestricted free agent defenseman Ryan Suter a massively front-loaded contract the Predators would have a very difficult time even coming close to matching. …

If there is a movie role for which the unique Jaromir Jagr, who would have a spot on my team anytime he wanted, is suited to play, it is the lead in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

* Neither is guaranteed to win the Stanley Cup, but either the Kings’ Jonathan Quick, who started 69 games, or the Coyotes’ Mike Smith, who started 67, will compete for it in the Final. …

So maybe this tired notion that goaltenders are too tired to win the Cup by starting more than 62-64 games in the regular season can be put to, well, rest.

* Slap Shots’ Mount Rushmore of NHL defensemen includes six sculptures of granite, of course it does: Bobby Orr, Doug Harvey, Denis Potvin, Raymond Bourque, Nicklas Lidstrom and Larry Robinson. …

Slap Shots’ Most Dubious Achievement in NHL history is awarded posthumously to Gilles Marotte, for being involved on the wrong end of perhaps the three most lopsided multi-player trades ever made, as follows:

1) May 15, 1967: Marotte, Pit Martin and Jack Norris to Chicago from Boston for Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield;

2) Feb. 20, 1970: Marotte, Denis DeJordy and Jim Stanfield to Los Angeles from Chicago for Bill White, Gerry Desjardins and Bryan Campbell;

3) Nov. 30, 1973: Marotte and Real Lemieux to Rangers for Mike Murphy, Tom Williams, Sheldon Kannegiesser and What Were You Thinking, Emile?

So will representatives from the NHL’s Sixth Avenue hierarchy come to Glendale to preen and gloat upon the announcement essential services have been cut, taxes have been raised and employees of the municipal work force have been laid off so the Coyotes continue to play in Arizona?