NHL GMs don’t get second chances anymore. That might change how your favorite team is run.

If​ you had to​ guess,​ how​ many​ current​ NHL​ head coaches​ do you think​ have held that​ job​ for at least​​ one other team during their careers?

You might assume the number would be fairly high. After all, the NHL is often accused of being an old boys’ club, where teams prefer the safety of a familiar name to taking a chance on a fresh face.

If so, you’d be right. The vast majority of current coaches – 21 out of 31 – are on at least their second head coaching job. That includes nine coaches who are on their second chance, eight who are on their third, and four who are on their fourth. John Tortorella is actually on his fifth if you count his brief interim stint with the Rangers in 1999-00.

OK, now let’s move up the org chart and try the same question for the front office. How many of today’s 31 GMs are on at least their second chance at the job? If anything, we might think that the old boys’ club effect would be even more pronounced here. GM jobs don’t open up very often and they typically require plenty of experience, so you might expect to see the same old faces being recycled through the league.

But we don’t. In fact, only 10 of the league’s current GMs are on their second full-time job. (It’s 11 if you count Jeff Gorton’s interim stint with Boston, although that only lasted a few months.) Two-thirds of today’s GMs are on their first shot at the job. And only one GM in the entire league, Lou Lamoriello, has done it for more than two teams.

That seems pretty amazing. It didn’t used to be like this – even a decade or so ago, it wasn’t unusual to see guys like Cliff Fletcher, Bobby Clarke, Brian Burke or Bryan Murray show up for third, fourth and even fifth cracks at a GM’s job. But these days, most teams don’t seem interested in hiring a retread. More often than not, a GM’s career is one-and-done.

The two types of second-chance GMs

The trend gets even more pronounced if you look at the 10 GMs who did manage to get a second chance. Almost all of them fall into one of two categories: Stanley Cup winners, or guys who held their first job forever.

The Cup winner category includes names like Ray Shero and Peter Chiarelli, as well as Dale Tallon, who built pretty much the entire Blackhawks’ 2009-2010 roster before being fired after free agency. The Blackhawks made a point of giving him a ring even though he wasn’t employed by the team anymore, so we’ll defer to their judgment and consider him a Cup winner.

Then there’s the guys who didn’t win a Cup, but held their previous job forever. That would include George McPhee (17 years in Washington before going to Vegas); David Poile (15 years in Washington before Nashville); and Don Waddell (12 years in Atlanta before getting the Carolina job this summer).

Two more guys, Lamoriello and Jim Rutherford, fit into both categories, having held previous jobs for well over a decade while winning Cups in the process.

That leaves us with just two current GMs in the entire league who managed to get a second crack at the job despite not either winning a Cup or sticking around forever in their first.

The first is Doug Armstrong. He does have a Cup ring, earned as an assistant in Dallas, but didn’t have much success in five years as GM there. He still managed to work his way back to the big chair in St. Louis in 2010, and he’s held it ever since.

The second is Anaheim GM Bob Murray. You may not even remember his previous time as a GM, because it came back in the 1990s. He had a quick stint as GM in Chicago from 1997 to 1999, then waited nearly 10 years before getting a second shot with Anaheim in 2008.

That’s it. Two guys in the entire league who didn’t succeed in their first crack at being a GM and still got a second chance. One of them had to wait nearly a decade. And neither was hired within the last eight years.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Who's the best GM of all time? Just follow the bad trade chain.

Who’s​ the best general​ manager​ in​ the​ history​ of​ the NHL?

On​ the surface, that​ seems like the​ sort​ of question that​​ we can’t really answer. You’ll have your opinion and I’ll have mine, and we can have fun debating it back and forth. But ultimately, it’s all a matter of opinion.

Or is it? When it comes to these sorts of questions, I’ve always been a big fan of stripping away emotion and hometown bias and going with a calculated, scientific approach. And there’s an opportunity to do that here, because part of a GM’s job involves occasionally going head-to-head with their colleagues. We can never read too much into a matchup between goalies or coaches or players, because the results will be determined by the rosters around them. But when GMs sit down to hammer out a trade, it’s just them. Just two men, locked in a battle of wits to see who can get the best of the other.

That should give us an opportunity to answer the question of who was the best in an objective way. All we need to do is go back through the trading records and see who got the best of who. After all, you can’t be the best GM ever if some other GM took you to the cleaners in a head-to-head matchup. We just need to work our way down the chain, looking for any trades that were clearly lopsided, and we’ll eventually get to an answer we can all agree on. It’s practically foolproof.

The only question is where to begin. That’s tricky, but I think there’s a logical answer: We start with the reigning GM of the Year. After all, if the league says a guy is the best in the business at this very moment, that seems like as good a place as any to start our search.

As it happens, the current GM of the Year is a legitimate contender for our Best Ever crown. That would be George McPhee, who won the 2018 award after working a near-miracle with the Golden Knights. He has nearly two decades of experience as an NHL GM, and he’s taken two teams to the Stanley Cup final. If you’re looking for someone to call the best, you could do a lot worse than George McPhee.

Except that for all McPhee’s success, he made one of the worst trades in recent history back in 2013, when he sent Filip Forsberg to the Predators for Martin Erat and a minor leaguer. It was a disastrous trade, as Forsberg quickly developed into one of the league’s best young wingers while Erat barely did anything in Washington. The deal has been referred to as a “dumpster fire”. And who was the GM who robbed McPhee blind in that deal? That would be David Poile.

So McPhee clearly can’t be the best GM ever. Instead, it’s Poile. See how this works? Simple and straightforward.

Except that while Poile certainly won his fair share of trades over his 36 years on the job, his record isn’t exactly spotless. Back in 1992, Poile was GM of the Capitals when he traded winger Dino Ciccarelli to the Red Wings in a straight-up deal for Kevin Miller. The 31-year-old Ciccarelli had scored over 100 goals in his three full seasons in Washington; he turned out to have over 160 more left in him, on the way to joining the 600-goal club and making the Hall of Fame. Miller lasted all of 10 games in Washington.

So sorry, David, you can’t be the best GM of all-time when you get robbed like that. Instead, we’ll hand those honors over to the man that fleeced you: Red Wings’ GM Bryan Murray.

Murray’s a solid pick; he was a GM for four different teams over the course of a quarter century. Unfortunately, he also had some shaky deals. Back in 2013, he traded Jakob Silfverberg, Stefan Noesen and a first-round pick to the Ducks in a deal for winger Bobby Ryan. That pick ended up being in the top 10, and the Ducks used it on Nick Ritchie. Meanwhile, Ryan has largely been a bust in Ottawa, and the team is currently trying to unload his massive contract. It was a clear loss for the Senators, and a win for Anaheim GM Bob “No Relation” Murray.

So Bryan can’t be our best-ever GM. But maybe Bob can be.

Unfortunately, the best GM ever wouldn’t have traded one of the top defensemen in the league without getting any impact assets back in return. That’s what Murray did back in 2009, when Paul Holmgren got him to part with Chris Pronger for the low price of Joffrey Lupul, Lucas Sbisa and two late first-round picks. Pronger immediately led the Flyers to within two wins of a championship, making the deal a big win for GM Paul Holmgren.

So Murray isn’t the best GM after all. Paul Holmgren is.

Except that he can’t be, because he once traded James van Riemsdyk to the Maple Leafs in a straight-up deal for Luke Schenn. That was a bad deal on the day it went down, and has been getting worse ever since. Schenn was barely a useful third-pairing guy, while van Riemsdyk had multiple 30-goal seasons in Toronto and just got a ton of money to come back to the Flyers. Chalk up a big win for Leafs GM Brian Burke.

So Holmgren is out. The best GM ever was actually Brian Burke.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Explaining the Vegas Golden Knights

So what just happened? 
On Sunday, the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Winnipeg Jets to advance to the Stanley Cup Final. 

The win is the latest in what’s been a stunning campaign – they were 500-1 to win the championship at the start of the season – one that’s seen the Golden Knights stake their claim as the best expansion team in the history of North American sports. There’s a very good chance that they’ll win the next round too, becoming Stanley Cup champions in their very first season.  Nobody saw this coming – as a new team, the Knights weren’t expected to contend for anything aside from last place. But they’ve defied all the odds, and are now just four wins away from the most unlikely championship the sport has ever seen.

That sounds like an amazing underdog story. 
It sure is!

So how did the Golden Knights do it? 
No idea!

Ha ha. But seriously, how did they do it? 
Seriously … no idea. I don’t know. Nobody does. The entire hockey world is completely perplexed by this. There’s no logical explanation.

Um, aren’t you supposed to be some sort of expert? 
Look, I could try to make something up, and pretend that anyone could have seen any of this coming. But I’d be lying. None of this makes any sense.

>> Read the full post at The Guardian

The pros and cons of the Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup

The Vegas Golden Knights are the talk of hockey right now, and are becoming one of the rare NHL stories that breaks through into the larger sports world. They’ll open the Western Conference Final Saturday in Winnipeg, the latest chapter in a season-long story that’s seen them go from presumed bottom-feeder to Pacific Division champion and legitimate Stanley Cup contender. They’re already the greatest expansion team in pro sports history; now the question is whether they can actually do the unthinkable and win it all.

Well, that’s one question. Here’s another: Should we want them to win? Would seeing an expansion team win the Stanley Cup be a good thing?

Plenty of fans seem to think so; the Golden Knights bandwagon filled up quickly, attracting everyone from veteran fans to little kids to folks who’d never watched hockey before. But there’s a growing sense among others that this has all gone a little too far, and that seeing the Cup paraded down the The Strip might be the wrong ending to the story.

If you’ve been a hockey fan, you already know how this will go. We’ve already got the backlash. Next will come the backlash to the backlash. Then we’ll have a backlash to that backlash, and on and on, and by the time the Knights take the ice on Saturday we’ll all be fighting in the parking lot with tridents while stepping over pieces of the smashed conch.

But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe we can clear the air right now, with a good old-fashioned weighing of the pros and cons. Would that actually change anyone’s mind? The odds are against it. But then again, the odds don’t seem to mean much when it comes to the Golden Knights, so let’s give it a try.

Pro: This is an all-time underdog story that anyone should be able to enjoy

Everybody loves an underdog. There’s a reason that Hollywood doesn’t make sports movies about the best player or team just steamrolling over everyone on the way to an easy championship. Nobody would want to watch that. Instead, we want to see the also-ran or the never-was, who doesn’t have a chance right up until they prove everyone wrong.

Sound familiar? The Golden Knights aren’t just a team that was supposed to be bad. They’re a team made up from the outcasts of all the other, better teams. They’re a collection of misfit toys who were all told they were expendable. And now they might win the Stanley Cup. This is a clichéd Hollywood movie, only it’s playing out in real life right in front of us.

We’re watching the real-world version of Rudy. It’s the hockey world’s retelling of Rocky. You loved those stories for a reason. It’s the same reason you should love the Golden Knights.

Con: This is not how underdog stories are supposed to work

The original Rocky was a great movie. It won Best Picture, launched careers, and set the template for every underdog story that was to come.

Do you remember how it ends? Not with Rocky winning.

That’s because even though the underdog story was inspiring, having the no-name boxer win the championship would have been too much. It would have felt silly. They didn’t get to that until the sequels, because even the ultimate underdog with a room full of Hollywood scriptwriters behind him shouldn’t win it all right away.

We all loved Rudy. But that move ends with our underdog hero getting into the game for one play. He doesn’t become a star, get picked first overall in the draft and win NFL MVP in his first year. If he had, people would have left the theatre mumbling about how stupid the whole thing was.

Underdog stories are great – up to a point. We’ve reached that point with the Golden Knights. Save something for the sequel, boys.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Ranking the expansion draft screw-ups

So the Vegas Golden Knights are having themselves a bit of a season.

With everyone assuming they’d struggle to stay in sight of the playoff race, if not finish dead last, they came out of the gates 8-1-0. Soon they’d established themselves as legitimate contenders for the Pacific crown. Then the Western Conference. Then the Presidents’ Trophy. They climbed all the way to first place overall. They’ve already been crowned the greatest expansion team ever in any sport. At this rate, we may be days away from the rest of the NHL just conceding the next few Stanley Cups and begging for mercy.

So how did we get here?

Wait, let’s rephrase that: So what the hell was the rest of the league thinking?

Sure, the Knights were gifted with friendlier expansion-draft rules than previous newcomers. For $500 million, they’d better have. But they were still left choosing from players who were each, at best, considered their team’s 10-most-valuable asset. (And that’s not even counting all the prospects and younger players who were ineligible.) You shouldn’t be able to build a contender out of those kinds of spare parts.

Well, unless some of the other teams screw up.

So today, with Vegas riding high and Seattle kicking down the door to get in on this action, let’s look back at the expansion draft and the trades that came around it with the benefit of a half-season’s worth of hindsight. We’ll do this in tiers, starting with the teams that came out OK and working our way up to the worst of the regrets.

Tier 1: Teams that somehow improved

As it turns out, an expansion draft doesn’t represent an opportunity for only one team.

Carolina Hurricanes

Their trades: They traded a fifth-round pick to Vegas to get them to lay off veterans like Cam Ward and Lee Stempniak. Then they traded a second for Trevor van Riemsdyk, who the Knights had plucked from the Blackhawks, and later added Marcus Kruger for a fifth.

They lost: Connor Brickley

No team apart from the Knights themselves did more wheeling and dealing. Kruger hasn’t done much, but the Hurricanes managed to avoid losing anyone of consequence – Brickley was a pending UFA who ended up signing in Florida – and added yet another good young defenceman to an already strong blue line.

Colorado Avalanche

Their trades: None

They lost: Calvin Pickard

At the time, this seemed like yet another misplay by Joe Sakic, who let a reasonably well-regarded young goalie slip away despite Semyon Varlamov‘s struggles. Instead, the move freed up a roster spot for Jonathan Bernier, who’s been fantastic, and Pickard was on waivers (and eventually traded) by week one.

Tier 2: No harm, no foul

Oh, was there some sort of draft? We already forgot.

Winnipeg Jets

Their trades: Flipped first-round picks with Vegas, dropping from 13th to 24th, and threw in a 2019 third-round pick to steer the Knights away from everyone they wanted to keep.

They lost: Chris Thorburn

Dropping 11 spots in the draft isn’t nothing, but given the prices some other teams paid, the Jets seemed to get off easy. The Knights didn’t even bother to sign Thorburn.

Calgary Flames

Their trades: None

They lost: Deryk Engelland

Engelland’s a Vegas local who’s been a nice fit, but he probably wasn’t coming back to Calgary, meaning the Flames basically escaped untouched.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Seven abandoned plot points from the NHL offseason

The writers in charge of the NHL’s off-season script are struggling.

They spent the last year opening up all sorts of interesting storylines and plot holes, with lots of fun ways they could go. But now the summer is here, the credits are about to roll, and there are still all sorts of loose ends to tie up.

They’ve wrapped up a few. The Dallas Stars finally got that goalie they’ve been hunting for years, the touching Kevin Shattenkirk homecoming played out pretty much like we all expected, and the Connor McDavid contract plotline came together nicely. Some of it feels kind of derivative – haven’t we seen this Blackhawks roster already? – but for the most part it’s been fine.

But as the off-season wears on and things start getting quiet, it’s hard not to notice that several key subplots seem to have been quietly dropped by the league’s writing staff. So today, let’s look at seven NHL offseason storylines that we’re still waiting on.

The Matt Duchene trade

The Duchene trade watch has been on in Colorado ever since his coach, Patrick Roy, ripped him at the end of the 2015–16 season for celebrating wrong. Roy’s surprise August resignation may have bought some time, but as last season wore on a trade started to feel inevitable, with even Duchene himself acknowledging he was open to a fresh start.

The only question was when it would happen. With the Avalanche flatlining, there was plenty of pressure on Joe Sakic to get the best possible deal for the former third-overall pick, and timing was important. The rumoured asking price was high, and as the season wore on, some began to wonder if it might not make more sense to wait until the off-season. When the deadline passed without the Avs doing much of anything at all, the focus shifted to what Sakic could do at the draft.

Well, the draft has come and gone. So has most of free agency. So has almost all of July. And not only is Duchene somehow still in Colorado, but the rumour mill seems to be falling silent.

Maybe that’s a good thing — the calm before the storm, and all that. But with August approaching and the number of teams that could plausibly put together a deal getting smaller, it’s starting to look like not getting a trade done during the season could end up as a costly miscalculation by Sakic and the Avs. Duchene finished the season ice cold, and with cap space disappearing around the league after nearly four weeks of free agency, it’s possible that there just isn’t anyone left out there willing to pay a fair price.

Could Duchene start the season in Colorado? It’s starting to look that way. And since early-season trades have become all but extinct, that would mean yet another year of Sakic waiting for the trade deadline. Or maybe the draft. Or maybe July. Or maybe… well, to be continued, apparently.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Podcast: The Biscuits season finale

In the season finale of the Biscuits podcast, Dave and I cover:
- The Golden Knights' vaguely disappointing expansion draft
- Marian Hossa's contract situation
- The NHL awards show
- The little Drake controversy
- The time I wrote jokes for the NHL Awards monologue
- Shane Doan as the party guest who won't take the hint
- Reader questions, and lots more...

>> Stream it now on Vice Sports

>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.

Winners and losers from the NHL expansion draft

The Golden Knights finally exist in a form beyond a name, a logo and a handful of free agents.

After last night’s expansion draft unveiling, the Knights finally have a full roster. And while it may not look all that much like the one they open the season with, it’s a start.

Let’s take a look at what the Knights gained and what everyone else around the league gave up, voluntarily or otherwise, as the first expansion draft of the cap era played out.

Here are the winners and losers from the last few days – and weeks, and months – of expansion maneuverings.

Winner: George McPhee’s creativity

The league made sure that the Knights would have some decent players to choose from, shifting the rules from previous drafts to make sure Vegas wouldn’t be left with a roster made up entirely of castoffs and has-beens. (Hey, $500 million has to buy you something.) So we knew that McPhee and his team would be able to find some talent.

But McPhee didn’t just grab the best available names and call it a day. Instead, he spent the weeks leading up to yesterday’s selections setting the table to cut deals with any team that wanted one. And when the time came, he was aggressive in getting those deals done. Heck, by the time this week rolled around, he was sounding like a mafia kingpin collecting protection money.

"That's a nice little team you got going there. Be a shame if anything happened to it." https://t.co/TCoisJdCrV

— Jen (@NHLhistorygirl) June 17, 2017

Not all of those deals will end up looking like winners, but they should add up to a solid foundation. That’s what yesterday was about, and McPhee and his front office worked hard to squeeze every drop of value they could out of the situation. They even showed a willingness to get creative, which is a trait sorely lacking in many of today’s GMs. That’s a good sign for the Knights’ chances of mattering once the new-car small has worn off in a few years.

Loser: George McPhee’s roster

The team is certainly better than some of the disasters that have emerged from expansion drafts in the past. But it’s not good.

With the obvious caveat that there are going to be some pending trades we don’t know about yet, some of the picks were head-scratchers. Passing on Detroit’s Petr Mrazek to take an AHLer who’ll be 25 on opening night, Tomas Nosek, seemed odd. Grabbing Deryk Engelland from Calgary was unexpected, although maybe the local connection plays a role there. Alexei Emelin, among others, felt like a reach.

Add it all up, and those “the Knights could make the playoffs in Year 1” takes already aren’t aging well.

And maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world. McPhee probably could have built himself a decent team, or at least one that would have been good enough to hang around the edge of the playoff race. But that would have been short-term thinking. Instead, McPhee focused on the future, landing a pile of draft picks including two extra firsts for this weekend. Those are assets that will be far more important to the Knights’ long-term success than a few extra wins in 2017-18. If they stick to the plan, the Knights won’t be one of those expansion nightmares that misses the playoffs for the better part of a decade. They’ll get there sooner than later. But in the meantime… well, at least the uniforms are nice.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

The NHL's expansion list debacle, and what it can tells us about a league gone wrong

The NHL did something this week, so it goes without saying that they found a way to make their fans angry.

In this case, the “something” was the annual GM’s meetings. This is the time of year when all of the league’s general managers, fresh off of not doing all that much at the trade deadline, get together to talk about the state of the game. The meetings started off as usual – with lots of interesting ideas being offered as to how things could be improved. Then they ended off as usual – with the decision to change virtually nothing.

But it was something that happened in between that got the most attention, at least among fans who still pay attention to this stuff. And you get the feeling that the league didn’t intend for it to be that big of a deal. On Wednesday, word got out that during a discussion on expansion, the league had asked the GMs whether each team’s protected list should be made public. No, the GMs replied, they’d “prefer” to keep everything secret.

That’s right. For the first time since 2000, the league will be holding an expansion draft. And the league’s GMs want you to know as little as possible about the whole thing.

This would be, to put it mildly, idiotic.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Grab Bag: Pointless secrecy, Vegas puns, and defending Marc Bergevin

In this week's Friday Grab Bag:
- Enough with the Vegas puns
- More pointless NHL secrecy
- An obscure player who scored a very famous goal without being on the ice
- Defending Marc Bergevin
- Making fun of Marc Bergevin

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Firing squad: Who's in and who's out around the NHL

With the end of the second round of the NHL playoffs, we have reached an unofficial milestone on hockey’s calendar: the end of the annual coach and GM firing season.

It’s unlikely any of the four remaining teams will be making changes to their bench or front office, which means everyone (with one odd exception we’ll get to in a moment) who is going to get fired has been fired. And that makes this a good time to run through the current openings to see if we can figure out who could wind up with those jobs.

But first, here’s a recap of the teams that have already filled vacancies since the regular season ended:

• The Predators fired Barry Trotz, the only coach in the team’s 15-season history, and moved quickly to replace him with former Flyers coach Peter Laviolette.
• The Hurricanes replaced longtime GM Jim Rutherford with director of hockey ops (and former Hurricanes/Whalers franchise player) Ron Francis. For now, Rutherford remains in the role of team president.
• The Flames ended their five-month search for a new GM by plucking former Coyotes assistant GM Brad Treliving out of Phoenix.
• The Flyers “promoted” Paul Holmgren to president, making room for Ron Hextall to take over the GM’s job. Incidentally, the move came just days after team owner Ed Snider told the media that wouldn’t be making the change.

That’s a lot of movement, but it still leaves several openings around the league, with more than a few big-name candidates available to fill them.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Who they fired: General manager Ray Shero and head coach Dan Bylsma. Wait, no, not Bylsma. Yet.

The Penguins were expected to make changes after another disappointing playoff run, with Bylsma’s firing considered all but a sure thing and Shero also a possible casualty. So when the team called a press conference just days after being eliminated by the Rangers, it wasn’t hard to figure out what was coming. And pretty soon, various media were reporting the news: Bylsma and Shero were both gone.

Then the press conference got started, and it turned out Bylsma hadn’t been fired after all. This was … strange. You get false reports circulating on Twitter all the time, but this wasn’t some random blogger looking for a lucky scoop; it was several of hockey’s most trusted insiders all getting the same bad info. It’s almost enough to make you wonder if something changed at the last minute.

In any case, Shero is out and Bylsma probably will be too. The Penguins say the new GM will make the call on the coaching staff, and the assumption is that Bylsma will still end up getting the pink slip. It will just come a few days (or weeks) later than everyone expected.

Intriguing candidate: One interesting name that surfaced in multiple reports was player agent Pat Brisson, whose clients include franchise player Sidney Crosby. That would have certainly made it clear who was running the team, and Brisson has been linked with GM openings in the past. But he’s apparently decided not to pursue the job, possibly because he couldn’t afford the pay cut. That leaves a wide-open field that includes former Shero assistant and current interim GM Jason Botterill.

As for that likely head coach opening … I’ll just leave this here.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Coaches and GMs on the hot seat

The exact moment Hartley realized that the little
photo of a tank Brian Burke left on his desk
wasn't meant as a reminder to keep on rolling.

We’re now into month two of the NHL season, and patience is running out in various cities around the league. With several teams struggling and the playoff races already tightening, some franchises will be looking to make major changes very soon.

We’ve already had one coach fired, and there’s little doubt that more will be on the way – probably joined by a GM or two. But who?

Based on my conversation with sources around the league, here are some of the coaches and GMs who find themselves on the hot seat as we head into the season’s second month.

Ron Rolston, Buffalo Sabres – Is rumored to have angered Buffalo management through his failure to do things “The Sabres Way”, such as that time a small child asked him for an autograph and he politely declined instead of repeatedly hitting him in the head.

Dallas Eakins, Edmonton Oilers – Is gradually running out of ways to change the subject every time Kevin Lowe corners him in his office and starts asking him to remind him which Cup-winning Oilers team they were teammates on.

Paul MacLean, Ottawa Senators – Was briefly worried when he recently walked into his office and found a pink slip on his desk, only to realize it was just a $5 bill from the stack of Monopoly money Eugene Melnyk now uses to pay everyone.

George McPhee, Washington Capitals – Even though it’s worked for years, can’t help but worry that owner Ted Leonsis will eventually figure out that there really isn’t an NHL bylaw that says that all GMs must actually have the initials “GM”.

Greg Sherman, Colorado Avalanche – Was absolutely shocked to see his name on this list, since even he had forgotten that he’s still technically the GM in Colorado.

Read the rest of this post...

Gary Bettman's Labor Day BBQ

They actually just repackaged the same
tools that Leaf fans got tired of two years ago.

Scene: A spacious backyard. Various hockey personalities are milling around, enjoying one final summer BBQ. The host wearing a "Kiss The Commissioner" apron, and greeting the guests as they arrive.

Gary Bettman: Colie, it's great to see you. Glad you could make it.

Colin Campbell: Oh, you know I'd never miss a Gary Bettman party. How's it going so far?

Bettman: Not bad. My world famous potato salad is a big hit.

Campbell: That's great. But shouldn't somebody have laid out all the paper plates and cutlery by now?

Bettman: Yeah, one of the players said they would do it.

Campbell: Well, whoever it was, they got started and then only finished about two-thirds of the job.

Bettman: They did what... uh oh. Sigh. Um, Brad?

Brad Richards (casually wandering by): Yeah Gary?

Read the rest of this post...

A look at the agenda for today's NHL general managers meeting

Hello, complaints hotline?
This breadstick tastes terrible!

All 30 NHL general managers will be in Toronto today for their annual discussion on the state of the game. And while that may sound like just another boring business meeting, there could be some fireworks this year.

The meeting has become an important part of the league calendar, as it gives each GM an opportunity to let his colleagues know what's on his mind. And this year, many of the league's highest profile general managers appear to have plenty that they want to get off their chests.

According to sources, every general manager was given the opportunity to submit one agenda item for discussion. Here's a sampling of what's been bothering several of the league's biggest front office names:

Don Maloney, Phoenix Coyotes - The use of social media by players like Paul Bissonnette violates our league marketing policy by allowing fans to become aware of the existence of players other than Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin.

Doug Wilson, San Jose Sharks - We'd like to rescind our previous support for the league's new policy on headshots, as we were not told that those rules might be enforced against players on our roster.

Dale Tallon, Florida Panthers - We must institute a detailed coach's review system for initiating replays on all goals scored by Colton Orr, because man, you just know that guy did something.

Glen Sather, New York Rangers - We should definitely renew that league bylaw that prevents teams from firing general managers. Wait, we don't have that rule? Seriously? Wow.

Lou Lamoriello, New Jersey Devils - Hey guys, remember in the summer when you said you'd veto the Ilya Kovalchuk contract if there was any evidence of collusion? Well, craziest thing, but guess what I found behind the filing cabinet this morning?

Steve Tambellini, Edmonton Oilers - That whole thing with the jersey number was bad enough, but now Taylor Hall is obsessed with getting Kevin Lowe's executive parking spot too.

George McPhee, Washington Capitals - Hey, what if just to mix it up this year we gave the President's Trophy to the team that won four playoff rounds and the Stanley Cup to whoever wound up with the most regular season points?

Ken Holland, Detroit Red Wings - In an attempt to reduce the role of the shootout, maybe we could try a radical new system in which tie games would be settled by playing actual hockey.

Dean Lombardi, Los Angeles Kings - We must move quickly to institute a limit on the length and value of contract extensions for third year players, or at least convince Drew Doughty's agent that we did.

Greg Sherman, Colorado Avalanche - Look, I know I'm not exactly a veteran here, but I've been on the job for over a year now so it would be cool if I could sit at the big table with you guys instead of at this little folding table off to the side and … no? OK, just checking, I guess I'll be over here if anyone needs me.

Brian Burke, Toronto Maple Leafs - We must find a way to prevent fans from doing disgraceful things like booing Dion Phaneuf, and get them to start doing more reasonable things like booing the entire team, coaching staff, and front office.

Chuck Fletcher, Minnesota Wild - You know that whole thing about the sins of the father being visited upon the son? That doesn't apply to Jeff Finger, right?

Joe Nieuwendyk, Dallas Stars - Just spitballing here, but maybe we could spend a few minutes trying to figure out what the Hall of Fame selection committee's problem is.

Darcy Regier, Buffalo Sabres - Instead of waiting until the first week of November, we should consider having the season start in early October. Wait, what do you mean we already do that? But we told our players that… Uh oh.