MONTREAL – You can’t have it both ways. You can’t ridicule the NHL All-Star Game for featuring rosters that include players of modest renown and then turn around and ridicule Gary Bettman for insisting that those stars chosen to play in the game actually, you know, show up.
The commissioner couldn’t be on firmer ground here in enforcing the policy he enunciated at last February’s GM meetings that any selected player choosing to skip out on the event would be required to miss either the league game immediately prior or following All-Star weekend in order to verify claims of injury.
Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk, Red Wings who apparently are lame and aren’t here for the festivities, will not be allowed to play in Detroit’s match on Tuesday in Columbus. Sidney Crosby, who has a bad knee and will not play in tonight’s game, will be permitted to play in against the Rangers in Pittsburgh on Wednesday because he’s here, participating in all off-ice festivities.
That’s as it should be. The NHLPA and myriad players are apparently aghast that the commissioner is enforcing his edict, but no one should blame Bettman. If players are seeking someone to blame, they should turn their eyes to Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo, who both cited personal/family reasons for bypassing last year’s match. That was the spark that detonated Bettman’s warning.
“I’m gratified to see that the commissioner is following through on this,” Vancouver GM Mike Gillis told Slap Shots. “What’s the point of having a policy if it isn’t going to be enforced?”
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How hilarious, meanwhile, that Detroit’s GM Ken Holland, who led the misguided charge to limit information released to the media concerning player injuries, now believes it appropriate to tell the world that one guy’s got a bad hip and the other’s got a bad elbow. Guess that whole thing about protecting his players isn’t quite as critical as Holland posited last June.
The NHLPA’s vote not to opt out of the CBA at the end of the season is no endorsement of the bad deal under which the union and the league cooperatively operate. Rather, it was a vote to continue playing next year and the year after rather than being locked out. No more, no less.
Even if NHL revenues somehow do increase by the two-percent projection that has been commonly suggested here this weekend, keep in mind that this year’s cap included a five-percent revenue projection bump claimed by the Players Association. That’s one of the reasons there’s going to be a shortfall, one of the reasons the players are going to get beaten up on escrow.
The total payroll for NHL players this season will amount to approximately $1.65B, according to Players Association executive director Paul Kelly. If the players turn over 15 percent in escrow to the league without a refund, as Kelly expects, that will bring the net to $1.402.5 … or 56.67 percent of the gross.
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No kidding the Coyotes operate under an onerous lease. But that’s exactly what previous owner Steve Ellman signed on for in exchange for his land-grab in Glendale, which was exactly the wrong spot to build a new arena and everyone but everyone knew it. Ellman didn’t care. He got his land.
But now the NHL is supposed to bail out the franchise? Now the NHL is supposed to pump money into an organization that, somehow, is paying head coach Wayne Gretzky more than $5.5M this year and will pay Gretzky between $7-and-8M next season?
Please.
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When Garth Snow talks about expanding the Islanders’ fan base in explaining why the team is playing a preseason game in Kansas City and spending the opening week of training camp in Saskatoon, it sounds like nothing more than an insult to the suffering fan base on Long Island.
What is it about going to work in a suit and tie rather than in illegal pads that has turned Snow from an insightful, candid fellow into a suspicious, uptight individual?
Tampa Bay management can deny, deny, deny in the best tradition of all sorts of scoundrels, but it is most certainly true that 2008 first-overall draft pick Steven Stamkos is available for trade, at least according to two franchises that have been in contact with the Lightning and have no reason to fib about it.
Forget the Twelve Days of Christmas. Beginning tomorrow, the Rangers will unroll the Nine Days of Adam Graves as a lead-in to the number retirement party at the Garden on Feb. 3.
Coach of the Year? The question isn’t who should win it, the question is whether Brent Sutter will win the award by a unanimous vote.
Snapshot. Elite Eight: 1. San Jose; 2. Boston; 3. Detroit; 4. New Jersey; 5. Chicago; 6. Washington; 7. Montreal; 8. Calgary.
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Finally, Sean Avery, exiled to Elba, is participating in a series of counseling exercises that include meditation classes, according to a friend.
OK, but does anyone else think it’s odd that Avery has chosen, “Phaneuf” as his mantra?