It does seem somewhat far-fetched, does it not, this scenario we tweeted midweek under which, A) Toronto general manager Kyle Dubas would leave the Maple Leafs on an expiring contract to take over the Penguins; B) He would bring coach Sheldon Keefe with him; C) That, in turn, would leave Mike Sullivan without a job; D) Which would allow the two-time Stanley Cup winner with ties to Chris Drury to take over behind the bench for the Rangers?
I would acknowledge that would appear to be in the Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson realm of possibility, but at the same time I should tell you that I received an unsolicited text from a player late Thursday who said the rumor “was getting pretty loud.”
That might mean nothing more than the tweet and resulting follow-ups bouncing around an echo chamber, but we’ll see, won’t we, in the wake of Toronto’s latest disappointment? Dubas will probably exit. Keefe almost certainly will not return.
It is surely possible they could continue as a matched set after more than a decade’s relationship that stretches back to the OHL.
But the fly-in lab pertains to Sullivan’s relationship with the Penguins’ Fenway Sports Group ownership that fired president Brian Burke and GM Ron Hextall after the season, yet not only retained Sullivan but has included him as a member of influence in the ongoing GM search.
The question in Pittsburgh is this: Would the incoming GM be obligated to retain Sullivan, who has four years remaining on his contract?
And if not, could the wheel spin so that Sullivan, a Rangers assistant for four years under John Tortorella, winds up back on Broadway? The far-fetched sometimes does come to fruition.
It is always about Gary Bettman’s relationships with individual team owners. Never forget that.
So though the “fix” might not have been in for the lottery, in which the draft’s golden child wound up on the league’s favorite-son franchise, the commissioner enabled that by refusing to exact any meaningful discipline on the Wirtz ownership in Chicago relating to the Kyle Beach sexual abuse case and decade-long coverup.
The Devils lost a first-rounder and a third-rounder and were fined $3 million over the contrived Ilya Kovalchuk circumvention case before the first-rounder was returned after the team was sold to a more kindly viewed ownership. The Coyotes were stripped of first-round and second-round picks for violating combine testing rules. The Blackhawks?
A chump-change fine of $2 million was levied in mid-December of 2021 and permission was granted with eyes wide open to participate in the 2023 Connor Bedard sweepstakes.
Bothsidesism has made its way into the NHL.
That’s the takeaway after the notoriously incompetent vice president of player safety George Parros’ decision to even it up by giving Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo the same one-game sentence for taking a sledgehammer to Leon Draisaitl’s wrists as was handed down to Edmonton defenseman Darnell Nurse for a debatable instigator in the final five minutes of Game 4.
Pietrangelo’s blatantly obvious attempt to injure the playoffs’ leading goal scorer should have resulted in the same four-game suspension that was levied against Adam Graves in 1992 when he chopped Mario Lemieux across the gloves.
We are repeatedly told that injuries do not influence punishment, so it should have made no difference that No. 66 sustained a broken bone in his hand and that Draisaitl escaped harm.
Instead, this was simply another example of the Department of Player Safety failing to protect players. Who needs stars, anyway?
Seems to me that GM Tom Fitzgerald’s offseason mandate in New Jersey is crystal as the Devils attempt to make the jump from contender to champion, and that is to acquire a franchise goaltender.
And there is likely going to be one available in Winnipeg, with perennial Vezina contender Connor Hellebuyck one year away from free agency and unlikely to sign an extension after seven seasons with the Jets.
There would likely be a bidding war for the netminder, who will turn 30 this coming Friday. The Penguins, currently without a GM, would be interested. The Senators might take a look. The Kings might take a gander at the Vezina finalist who carries a $6.2 million cap hit into next season, which would be a disqualifier for some.
New Jersey could start by offering Jesper Bratt, the 24-year-old winger coming up on restricted free agency with arbitration rights and a required $5.45 million qualifying offer — and coming off the most disappointing playoff performance of any Devil.
Their 2023 first-rounder is gone, off to San Jose for Timo Meier — who found the way to be a valuable presence in the playoffs with relentless physical play despite the 40-goal scorer getting just two in 11 games.
But the Devils have depth in their system even while facing the impending unrestricted free agencies of Ryan Graves and Damon Severson.
At this juncture, they have just five varsity forwards, five defensemen and two goaltenders under contract for next season. Vitek Vanecek had a stabilizing year in net but was inadequate in the postseason. MacKenzie Blackwood would be a good one to offer up to the Jets in a package for Hellebuyck.
Of course, if executive VP of hockey operations Martin Brodeur believes that 23-year-old Akira Schmid is a franchise goaltender in the making, then never mind about Hellebuyck. But I bet the Devils will be in the mix for the 2020 Vezina winner.
Meanwhile, a weird season for goaltenders, whose overall save percentage of .904 was the NHL’s lowest since 2005-06, continues to hold form into the playoffs, with none of the three Vezina finalists making it to the second round.
Ilya Sorokin’s Islanders, Hellebuyck’s Jets and Linus Ullmark’s Bruins all went down in the first round. That marks the first time since 2009-10 and just the second time since the award has been decided by vote, beginning in 1985-86, that no finalist advanced to the league quarterfinals.
Ryan Miller’s Sabres, Ilya Bryzgalov’s Coyotes and Martin Brodeur’s Devils were all KO’d in Round 1 in 2009-10, and in 1993-94, Dominik Hasek’s Sabres and Patrick Roy’s Canadiens were eliminated in the opening series while John Vanbiesbrouck’s Panthers did not qualify for the postseason.
Finally, if this were a home for conspiracy theories, I would ponder why the NHL invited three journalists to watch the live lottery ping-pong ball exercise so that the trio would immediately and all in unison claim, “It was not rigged!” so that the folks from Ninth Avenue would not be obliged to issue the disclaimer when Columbus and Anaheim were leapfrogged by Chicago.
But that’s only if this were a home for conspiracy theories.
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