NHL again appears ready to take on the world
The World Junior Championship, of much greater interest to Boston hockey fans this year with Bruins rookie Matt Poitras wearing his Team Canada colors, wraps up with Friday’s gold-medal game in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The kids are superb entertainment, primarily for their energy and exuberance and patriotism, and all the more as an exercise in how we think they’ll project as pros when they get their crack at the NHL. They are the game’s crude-cut diamonds, finish and settings to be determined.
Poitras, 5-8—13 in 27 games with the Bruins this season, showed promise as a potential top-six center. Encouraging, but too small a sample size to know for sure.
The 19-year-old will hurry back next weekend, just as the Bruins pack for a four-game swing against the Avalanche, Coyotes, Golden Knights, and Blues, and it will be left to coach Jim Montgomery and staff to figure out how he best reboots with the Black and Gold. Wednesday’s move of Pavel Zacha from No. 1 center to left wing against the Sabres could prove a precursor to Poitras picking up again at No. 3.
Meanwhile, the NHL and its Players Association finally appear to be closing in on making play on the world stage a regular fit. Commissioner Gary Bettman, quizzed recently about the chance of the NHL adopting an NBA-like InSeason Tournament — please, no! — offered the World Cup and the Olympics as potential better alternatives.
Provided all the parts can be pieced together in time, a scaled-down version (read: Russia not included) of the
World Cup could be held in February 2025. The NHL would shut down for, say, 10-12 days, and some 100 players would stock four teams — the United States, Canada, Finland, and Sweden — for tournament play. A year later, the NHL would shut down again for the better part of two weeks, players released for the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy, the Games scheduled for Feb. 6-22.
Per Bettman, the World Cup then would be played again in 2028, followed by the Olympics in 2030 . . . and then on and on. Looks good from here. So good, in fact, maybe the NBA could be forced to consider approaching the Lords of the Rings about shifting basketball to the Winter Olympic menu — far better than the contrived, millionaires-bobbing-for-dollars In-Season Tournament.
For those new to the rink, there have been only three World Cups of Hockey, the first won by the United States prior to the start of the NHL’s 1996-97 season. The other two, won by Canada, also were end-of-summer events, in 2004 and 2016.
The NHL, which first released its players for Olympic play for Nagano 1998, opted out in 2018 (PyeongChang) and 2022 (Beijing). The former because the International Olympic Committee was not willing to foot enough of the expenses, the latter because of the financial bite the COVID-19 pandemic took out of NHL business.
NHL players always have been eager to suit up for the Games. Interest after not participating since 2014 in Sochi is spiked even higher. NHL owners historically have had mixed feelings about closing shop during the season. But with business for the most part back to normal, and promising salary-cap projections, the Lords of the Boards are predominantly of the mind to follow Bettman’s lead. If they weren’t, he wouldn’t be so freely offering up the World Cup/Olympic 1-2 punch as the In-Season Tournament countermove. When it comes to counting votes, Bettman sizes up the room with Nancy Pelosi-like acuity.