Begone, Golden Knights

I'm not here to whine about the NHL's rules about salary caps in the playoffs. That's been done to death by hundreds, if not thousands, of people since the practice of using LTIR to gain an edge in the playoffs began. The loophole can't be closed until the new CBA is negotiated, so we can all give the "cheaters" comments a rest because, ultimately, teams will exploit loopholes. What we shouldn't overlook, though, is that the reigning Stanley Cup champions saw their defence of that title come to an end tonight at the hands of the Dallas Stars in Game Seven of their series.

I don't dislike the Golden Knights as much as some may imagine, but I do find their use of LTIR to be a tiny bit ridiculous when it came to Mark Stone's spleen injury this season. Let me say this upfront: the spleen can be easily injured of all the body's internal organs, and it can cause significant problems when it is injured. It hangs out just behind the lower-left section of the rib cage where the chest and abdomen meet. Contact sports such as hockey can cause injury to the spleen, so I'm not saying Stone wasn't injured. For all arguments' sakes, he was and I believe the Golden Knights did right by holding him out of the lineup to receive treatment.

Recovery for spleen injuries take anywhere from three to twelve weeks depending on the severity, so the timeline works out for Stone's recovery as he was diagnosed with the injury on February 20, was cleared to begin skating on April 12, and rejoined the Knights in game-ready form ten days later. Maybe he wasn't 100%, but he did have three goals in the seven games, looked fairly good when it came to his skating and physical play, and seemed to be in good health for the 18:23 of ice-time he was getting per game.

As per the National Library of Medicine,

"Two professional hockey players with grade III spleen injury were managed conservatively with serial CTs until radiographic and clinical findings suggested complete healing. They returned to full-contact hockey within 2 months without any complications."

That would align perfectly with the February-20-to-April-22 two-month period, so perhaps Stone's injury and recovery was fairly standard in allowing his general manager to acquire multiple high-priced players in his absence while returning precisely for the playoffs. For the third year in a row.

In case you've forgotten, Stone was put on LTIR with a back injury on February 9, 2022 before being activated on April 12 that season for the final nine games before the Golden Knights missed the playoffs.

Last season, Stone was injured on January 13 before being moved to LTIR on February 1 with what was described as a back injury, but looked every bit ready to start the playoffs where he helped Vegas win a Stanley Cup with zero flare-ups for that back injury.

And, of course, there was this season's spleen injury, so that's three campaigns in a row where the Golden Knights opened up $9.5 million to work with at the trade deadline. Quite a luxury to have, right?

Again, I can't hate the Golden Knights for playing by the very rules that the NHL wrote, and succeeding at figuring out how to work the loophole well enough so that they can capitalize at the trade deadline each and every year. That's masterful work by GM Kelly McCrimmon when it comes to improving his team, and he deserves praise for turning the tables on the parity that the NHL desperately craves and tries to enforce with the salary cap.

What I don't like, though, is that the NHL couldn't see this coming despite paying lawyers buckets of money to come up with the CBA. Seeing the Stars oust the Golden Knights tonight makes me smile because the one franchise that constantly exploits the rules is now out while the remaining eight teams will look to win the Stanley Cup with teams built within the constraints of the salary cap. This year's winner will have honoured the rule as it was written rather than trying to find a way to beat the system.

In saying that, there will be no repeat this season. Begone, Golden Knights, and we'll wait for the next major star to hit the LTIR list as you rebuild once more next season.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The First Day Of Summer

Officially, summer begins on June 20 this year, but tonight marked the first official day of summer. You know it's summer when the warm weather shows up regularly, rain is the only precipitation in the forecast, and everything starts going green in nature like the image to the left. And while that serene creek will likely be brimming with life soon, the flora in the area have clearly began their lifecycles as seeds and pollen will be produced. The picture also shows that the trees are blooming with life, and that means it's summer in Canada because the Leafs are out.

Clever word play aside, the Toronto Maple Leafs put their fans through the wringer once more this spring as they rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to force Game Seven. They took the lead in Game Seven as William Nylander continues to look more and more like former Leafs legend Mats Sundin before the Bruins erased that lead 1:21 after Nylander's marker. The two teams battled for the remaining 9:38 before the horn went, sending Game Seven to overtime. Collectively, Leafs fans held their breath.

Unfortunately, they could exhale just 1:54 into the extra frame as the release of that air came out as a disappointed sigh following David Pastrnak's overtime goal. Boston has now won four-straight Game Seven victories over Toronto dating back to 2013. The last time Toronto defeated Boston in a playoff series was in 1959, and that time will be extended for at least another season. At the end of the day, Pastrnak caught the Leafs snoozing at the absolute wrong time, and they'll pay for that lack of concentration for at least another calendar year. This one may sting for a while.

It wasn't like the Leafs were outclassed in this series either, so we can stop pointing fingers. Injuries to Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Joseph Woll played into how players were deployed by the Leafs, but Sergei Samsonov was every bit as good as Jeremy Swayman tonight as he kept Toronto in this game despite a handful of defensive breakdowns while, offensively, players like Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, and Matthew Knies had chances that were denied. Even the big three of Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Nylander had their looks, but the Leafs weren't outplayed in this game. In the end, it was one mistake that cost them the series.

"But Teebz, teams don't win or lose series in one game" is the protest I'll hear, and that's true except for not being able to correct mistakes in Games One through Six, so the Leafs should have learned from those errors. Game Seven is a one-and-done opportunity to clear the slate with a win, and the Leafs blundered at the absolute wrong time. One can say Rielly should have hauled down Pastrnak or dove to knock the puck away, but he didn't. One could say that Marner should have obstructed Pastrnak as he built speed through the neutral zone, but he didn't.

There were five guys on the ice who fell into the 1-3-1, and not one of them picked up on the set play that Lindholm and Pastrnak ran against them. By the time they had realized what the Bruins were doing, the chase was on, and no one caught Pastrnak before he slipped the puck past Samsonov, crushing the collective dreams of "Leafs Nation" once again. One mistake ended the season for the Leafs.

Things don't get easier for the Bruins as they'll venture to Sunrise where the Florida Panthers await. Florida ousted Boston last season before they did the same to Toronto, and the Bruins will need to be better than having the lapses we saw in this series against the Leafs. This piece isn't about that series, though, so it's back to the drawing board with the high-priced foursome and their no-movement clauses that provide very little flexibility for GM Brad Treliving this summer. For all the fixes he made this season, the end result is all too familiar.

It has to be summer tonight because all of the golf courses in and around Toronto are open for play. Tee times are available.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

An Early Night

I went looking for an image of someone who had a cold, and it's pretty incredible how many stock images have someone with a thermometer in their mouths. Growing up, I don't recall ever using a thermometer to determine my body temperature, so I struggle to understand why all the stock photos show someone with that device sticking out of the model's mouth. In any case, I'm not blogging or watching hockey tonight as I seem to have contracted a bit of a head cold as the congestion in the sinuses and headache are sapping me of any and all energy to stay awake. In that vein, I am calling it an evening as staying up to watch the Vancouver-Nashville game moves to "not a priority" since I can catch the highlights tomorrow.

If there's one series for which I need to have my energy back, it's Saturday's Game Seven between Boston and Toronto. As I've explained before, HBIC adheres to a strict ABT policy - "Anybody But Toronto" - due to Canadian sports media spending an obscene amount of time covering the Maple Leafs, so I'll temporarily be a Bruins fan tomorrow. And if things don't go Boston's way, I'll be a Florida Panthers fan in the next round. That's how it goes.

Tonight, though, it's an early bedtime for me as I try to shake this cold before the week starts on Monday. It's another busy week as Round Two starts in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, we're closing out Round One exit interviews on The Hockey Show, and the IIHF World Championship starts in Czechia, so I'm taking the night off to get back to one-hundred percent.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 606

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns tonight with the first wave of exit interviews in the Survivor: NHL Playoffs contest as we are set to send five entrants off the island this evening. There's always good discussion about why teams finished their playoff runs earlier than they wanted, so we'll dig into those reasons and chat about a few other things tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

We're bringing back our good friend Jeff Probst to assist with the exit interviews as Teebz and Jason welcome Tom (Kings), Zoee (Islanders), Ethan (Lightning), Skippy (Capitals), and Barry (Jets) to tribal council tonight. As Jeff says in the GIF to the left, there's no need for a vote as we know these five teams are done in the playoffs, so we'll hear from each of the entrants about where their teams went wrong and discuss those points. Depending on time, our hosts will also talk about Jon Cooper's choice of words and owning his mistake, Salt Lake City business owners apparently don't understand economics, and they'll announce the winner of the Pledge-O-Rama bonus draw for a pair of Jets t-shirts! We'll have lots to discuss with Survivor entrants tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat with Tom, Zoee, Ethan, Skippy, and Barry about their teams' shortcomings before breaking into some other hockey chatter and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: May 2, 2024: Episode 606

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Back In The Booth

Last summer, I saw an opportunity that I thought would be fun as I applied to be one of the official scorers for the local professional minor-league baseball team. I figured it would be a tough job when it comes to learning all the nuances of the league and scoring software, but it turned out that the software was something with which I was already familiar, so my biggest job was more just scoring the games accurately than trying to figure out how to score games. In saying all that, I had a blast last year, the team asked me to return this year, and I am off to staff orientation night this evening!

The majority of the scoring team is returning, and it will be good to reconnect with a number of my colleagues as we had too much fun in the pressbox last season watching baseball. We do have one new recruit, but I feel this person will be easily incorporated into our group as everyone was there to work hard, have a laugh, and watch some ball while being paid. That's the part that seems so surreal: I'm being paid to watch baseball!

Anyway, the orientation goes tonight for all staff, so I'm off to the ballpark for that event. Enjoy the hockey games as I'll have my mind on baseball for the next few hours, but we'll be back with a fun episode of The Hockey Show tomorrow where the first exit interviews will be heard as we start to clear the beach on Survivor: NHL Playoffs island! As a side note, I'll have all the challenge prizes that have been won either sent out or delivered by Friday, so keep your eyes on your email if you're a winner!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!