BETTMAN SAYS NYET TO OVIE’S OLYMPIC HOPES
Gary Bettman sent a loud message to Alexander Ovechkin Monday night: No Olympics for you.
At his annual state-of-theNHL address Monday, the NHL commissioner basically said no NHL players under contract to member clubs will be eligible to play in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.
The pronouncement came as the league announced the Tampa Bay Lightning will host the 2018 NHL all-star showcase.
The mid-season event will take place Jan. 27-28 at Amalie Arena and will be capped by a 3-on-3 all-star tournament featuring teams representing the four divisions: Pacific, Central, Atlantic, and Metropolitan.
In confirming the location, Bettman reiterated there will be no NHL participation at the Games.
Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals star, has been on record as saying he would play in the Olympics whether NHL players were cleared to go or not.
Capitals owner Ted Leonsis has been on record as saying what Ovechkin wants, he gets. He wasn’t about to stand in the way of his team captain.
Bettman, doing his best tap dance on the issue, said: “We have an expectation that none of our players are going.”
And then he paused and said: “No reason to pick that fight right now.”
While NHL players won’t travel to South Korea for the next Olympics, there will be preseason games in China in the fall between the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks.
MORE BETTMAN
Bettman said the much criticized video replay and coach’s challenge system is “working exactly as it was intended to.” He said that with a straight face. Then in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, Bettman’s words came to fruition.
The first apparent goal of the Final was called off on instant replay. There is no way an offside that close could have been called on the ice. In fact, it took several views to determine whether it was offside or not, and still it wasn’t clear.
The goal apparently scored by P.K. Subban was called off. The Predators never recovered from that ... Other Bettman views: He also said that goalie interference penalties are down 22 per cent from the time replay started, which to him indicated that players are more aware of the complications than ever before. To me, it indicated referees, waiting for instant replay, no longer make the appropriate call ... Another piece of Bettman satire: When asked about the recent assault on star players he said “we expect officials to call the rulebook” as is. We expect it too. It just doesn’t happen. When a Pittsburgh writer asked Bettman about the safety of star players, he was later accosted by NHL vice-president Colin Campbell for asking a dumb question ... The NHL will be playing preseason games in China in the fall ... Deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the salary cap for the 2017-18 season will be in the $77 million US range. It could drop slightly in escrow negotiations with the Players’ Association ... The NHL has sort of given up on waiting for a new arena to be built in Seattle, which would lead to a 32nd team. “We’ve kind of stopped holding our breath on new arenas,” said Daly. He also shot down the notion of an expansion team in Quebec City anytime soon. “I think we have to address (East-West) imbalance before we can give more consideration to the Quebec City application.” Quebec remains a possibility, though, if the league ever has to move a franchise.
SHOT AND DOTS
You don’t see this often: Pittsburgh didn’t register a shot on goal in the second period. Shots were 9-0 for Nashville in the period. It’s the first time in the history of shot counting, which began in 1957, that a team went without one shot in a period in a Stanley Cup Final game. Pittsburgh then went another 16:43 without a shot. In total: shotless hockey for 36:43. Nashville came back from 3-0 to tie the game midway through the third period. Then the first shot on Pekka Rinne in almost two periods, a hockey eternity, by Jake Guentzel beat Rinne high glove side ... Just before Guentzel scored, James Neal of Nashville beat Matt Murray with a shot that bounced off the crossbar ... Weird, weird game ... David Poile has been the general manager of the Predators since the franchise began in 1998 and he’s only hired two head coaches, Barry Trotz and Peter Laviolette. “That has to be some kind of record,” he said. Well, maybe. But he said that in Pittsburgh, where the NFL Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 ... Getting to the start of the series, the Preds have had winning goals scored from 10 different players ... In facing Chicago, Anaheim and the Penguins, Nashville has played against six of the past 10 Cup champions in these playoffs ... There have been 27 overtime games in this year’s playoffs ... Winger Patrik Hornqvist was in the Pittsburgh lineup for Game 1 after a six game injury absence. Carl Hagelin was scratched ... The surprise scratch for the Preds: veteran Colin Wilson ... One of the reasons Pittsburgh decided to trade James Neal: He was known for doing the foolish. He did one in Game 1. He took an unnecessary penalty after the Preds had already taken a penalty. That put Nashville down two-men for two minutes. They killed the first minute 42 of the power play when Evgeni Malkin scored the first official goal of the series ... Goal 1 for Pittsburgh: Leading playoff scorer Malkin. Goal 2: Started with a Sidney Crosby pass to Chris Kunitz, who fed Conor Sheary who scored into an empty net. Sheary needs that kind of net: It was his first goal of the playoffs ... The night turned bad for Nashville when the third goal went off Preds normally dependable defenceman Mattias Ekholm. That unlucky goal came with 17 seconds left in the first period and was credited to Nick Bonino.