GOOD ON YOU, JUMBO JOE THORNTON AND PAT MARLEAU.

who had the heavier burden, after being run out of Boston and devoured by his critics there, but he has been such a standup guy through it all — funny, insightful, cooperative, ever-present at his locker, win or lose — he has earned this the hard way. From former Montreal Gazette and Sports Illustrated whiz Michael Farber after the Sharks gathered around the Clarence Campbell Trophy without actually taking it from deputy commish Bill Daly: “Another advanced hockey metric: Teams that don’ t touch conference championship trophies win the Stanley Cup roughly 50 per cent of the time.”

As with most hockey trades, the winner of Wednesday’s Vancouver Canucks-Florida Panthers deal may not be known for at least a few years.

But social media being what it is, everyone and his dog had an instant opinion on …

(a) the stupidity of Canucks GM Jim Benning in letting such a prized talent as 19-year-old forward Jared McCann go, not to mention the 33rd overall draft pick, which is practically a firstrounder.

(b) the mystery of why Florida, with its radically (some would say inexplicably) overhauled hockey operations department, would trade away that rar-

National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell should be sending Tom Brady and the New England Patriots flowers for keeping DeflateGate alive by mounting another appeal of the quarterback’s on-again fourgame suspension.

As long as Brady is making headlines, all Goodell has to answer for is being a bully who won’t let go of his grudge despite gaping legal and scientific holes in the NFL’s case.

Better that than having the public pay attention to a U.S. congressional staff investigation which found that the league tried to improperly influence a National Institutes of Health grant for a study into degenerative brain disease.

The NFL, according to Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (DN.J.) not only backed out of funding a supposedly nostrings-attached $30-million commitment to NIH because it didn’t like the Boston University specialist who was to lead the study, but tried to re-direct the grant to league-approved researchers.

Goodell responded by saying the $30-million offer still stands, but criticized the congressional group for issuing the report “without even talking to any of our advisers.”

As usual, the commissioner is talking out of both sides of his mouth, spinning it to sound as if “advisers” make the decisions, not the four NFL administrators who were, in fact, consulted: Jeff Miller, NFL’s executive VP for health and safety, and three members of the NFL’s head, neck and spine committee.

But the league really cares about its players. Honest.