The Premiere Games in Europe that have opened the NHL season the past five years could be a casualty of collective bargaining, though sources within the league and the NHLPA have told Slap Shots the sides are attempting to strike an agreement under which the matches would be scheduled.
The uncertainty over whether the 2012-13 season will begin on time given the Sept. 15 expiration date of the CBA has at least for the time being prevented scheduling of the games, with the parties as yet unable to agree on the parameters regarding revenue allocations and risk should the matches be canceled.
Regardless of whether the issue is settled in a timely manner, the Rangers will not open the season in Europe for the second straight year, sources have confirmed.
Though the Rangers ultimately emerged no worse the wear for their lengthy trek overseas that culminated with a pair of regular-season matches in Stockholm, there is no enthusiasm within the club for a repeat performance.
The plan is for the Rangers to open next season in California before working their way back east until the Garden becomes available in the final week of October after construction on the second phase of the arena’s renovation has been completed.
* Submitted for your approval in this season during which there has been no offensively dominant defenseman: Dan Girardi for the Norris Trophy.
It certainly would be a twilight zone of a choice, given the throwback nature of the bedrock Ranger’s game, but hockey people have argued for years that if the worth of strict defensive play has not quite been ignored in the voting for the prestigious trophy, it certainly has been overshadowed by the value of dynamic offense from the blue line.
Girardi, who has gotten more ice time per game at 27:34 than any player in the NHL in five years — since Zdeno Chara averaged 27:57 in 2006-07 in his first year in Boston — is the personification of the defensive defenseman who does all of the grunt work all of the time matched against every opponent’s top line while also possessing the ability to make the outlet pass and get up on the play in joining the rush.
No one will be blinded by Girardi’s offensive stats. At the same time, the modesty of his 17 points (four goals, 13 assists) should not blind anyone to his value on the club with the best points-per-game record and second-best goals-against average in the league.
The numbers project to a 28-point season. Just two defensemen in history have won the award with fewer than 30 points since its inception in 1953-54, both in the Original Six era.
Pierre Pilote, the anchor of the Blackhawks’ defense during the Glenn Hall–Bobby Hull–Stan Mikita glory days, won the Norris with an all-time low 26 points (8-18) in 1962-63, during which he played 59 games of the 70-game NHL schedule.
He was, however, tied for the league’s fourth-highest scoring defenseman in capturing his first of three straight Norris Trophies.
Doug Harvey, hockey royalty, recorded 27 points (6-21) in winning the Norris for the fifth time in 1959-60. Harvey, who won the award seven times in eight years, the last of which when he was player-coach of the Rangers in 1961-62, was seventh in scoring by defensemen in the Canadiens’ fifth straight Cup-winning season.
Chara is having another imposing season in Boston. The Norris has almost become a birthright for the great Nicklas Lidstrom, the cornerstone of yet another excellent Red Wings season. Lidstrom would equal Bobby Orr’s record by winning it again this year for the eighth time.
But if history would be equaled with another Lidstrom victory, history would be made if the award for best defenseman goes to Girardi.
* The only rental deals over the previous four years proximate to the deadline in which the return has included a first-round draft pick were for marquee attractions Ilya Kovalchuk (2010, Thrashers to Devils), Marian Hossa (2008, Thrashers to Penguins) and Brian Campbell (2008, Sabres to Sharks).
So Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford seems to be asking a bit too much, at least at this point, in marketing supporting actor Tuomo Ruutu for a first-rounder that sources report is the price of exchange.
* Credit the Islanders for their runs of 5-1-1 and 10-5-1 going into last night’s match against the Sabres, but to suggest this revival after having been buried in the standings is indicative of great progress in the building process hardly resounds as fact since the team proclaimed something similar last season while constructing an 8-3 run in February.
Progress, let alone success, can be proclaimed when games are won when they carry meaning in the standings.
And, hey, if this resurgence leads to a playoff berth, I will be the first to admit my mistake after being reminded of it by Islanders loyalists.
* “Who’s Larry Brooks?” Ryan Smyth seems to have asked, the existential question Slap Shots ponders every day.
This just in: “That is not an opinion — that’s science,” Kings GM Dean Lombardi testified at the Scopes Trial.