#and I like the oilers colors and they made the stanley cup this year so I think that’s my team!

[bigtheif]

rooting for the oilers this cup!

[luckylq50-blog]

This equipment features compression block technology

The link to BBC is great because I can see the entire video you are talking about and see all the journalistic qualities you pointed out. However as said in a previous post a link to a new window would be a bit more user friendly. I think perhaps you could have been a bit more explicit in your tone in terms of displaying your opinion.

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[carey-pricemas]

Can you help me out? I need an NHL team support, I barely/don't watch hockey and I wanna start watching next season. I'm from Virginia, so I feel like I'm obligated to go for the Washington Capitals, but I personally like the Montreal Leafs. I feel as though I would be considered a bandwagon fan even though they didn't win The Stanley Cup. Help me out here, who are other teams I can support?

TYou do you boo!!!! I’m from Virginia too!!!!

The Caps are a good team, but if you’re just not into them (let’s be real loving them is hard especially during the playoffs) then let’s go over good options!

The Toronto Maple Leafs are a GREAT TEAM (small bias I’m a Leafs fan). It’s not bandwagoning... I think that’s stupid anyway... Our little Leafs are in the swing of a rebuild (an upswing I think but we’ll see next season)!

The Montreal Canadiens are a good team too. We have Carey Price (considered the best goalie in the world)!

The Carolina Hurricanes are also close to Virginia (in NC) and they have a small hockey market so they could use support!

Let’s see... The Philadelphia Flyers are super orange, but they have an adorable baby goalie in Carter Hart!

The Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup two years in a row and they have Sidney Crosby!

The New Jersey Devils... well we’re struggling but we’re very underappreciated and need more love!

The New York Rangers have Henrik Lundqvist (a  very good, handsome, hilarious, Swedish goalie) and they play football on the ice.

The New York Islanders have just adopted me XD They have some good players and are struggling with fans right now because of location issues.

The Boston Bruins have VERY TALL Chara (like 6′ 7″) as Captain and Tuukka Rask who is a very angry goalie (he’s working on it though).

The Buffalo Sabres are just a very underrated team as well I think. Sassy Jack Eichel is gloriously fabulous!

The Ottawa Senators made it farther this season than EVERYONE guessed they would. Their main goalies wife also kicked cancers butt so I was rooting for them!

The Detroit Red Wings have Dylan Larkin whose a homegrown boy and fastest skater in the league and doesn’t know what an extension cord is!

The Columbus Blue Jackets have BOB (their goalie) and he and their captain hug after each win and it’s the most adorable thing ever!

You have the Nashville Predators... didn’t really cause a huge splash until this season. We love them for PK Subban and their pettiness (they had a car they painted in the opponents colors each round of the playoffs people took a sledgehammer to)

The Chicago Blackhawks have several Stanley Cups under their belts recently and their Captain is nicknamed Captain Serious.

The St Louis Blues have Colton Parayko and MY ROOKIE SANFORD THAT GOT TRADED THIS YEAR I’M NOT OK.

The Winnipeg Jets have Patrik Laine drafted second overall last year and they have Laine is better chants (not a good idea if you’re a Leafs fan, but hey whatever works for them)

The Minnesota Wild... I don’t know anything about them but I hear they’re a good pure team so...

The Dallas Stars... welll.... we have a lot of drama surrounding Tyler Seguin and we are up and down with seasons and let’s be honest we don’t actually know what we’re doing but love us anyway!

The Colorado Avalanche have SO MANY AMAZING PLAYERS BUT SUCK I DONT UNDERSTAND?!?!?! But they’re cute and funny.

The Vegas Golden Knights are going to be a new team this season and they’ll need love and not the bitter love most of us will have for taking our players.

The Arizona Coyotes are just pure boys who want to hockey and no one appreciates them enough!

The Edmonton Oilers have Connor McDavid who’s like super good and paired with super good Leon Draisaitl and the two make each other laugh otherwise they’re so serious with the pressure of the franchise on their shoulders.

The Calgary Flames have Johnny Hockey who is literally like a child who looks like he lost his dad and has questionable eating habits, but he’s good at hockey so the Flames love him anyway. Also they have Matthew Tkachuk who is making a name for himself.

The Vancouver Canucks are in a rebuild as well. They also have the Sedin twins... who baffle their game show host.

The San Jose Sharks... hands down the best beards in the league. Good solid guys... always wear shorts and flip flops... or at least good Canadian goalie Martin Jones does.

The LA Kings also have several recent Stanley Cups to their name... hard fought season after their primary goalie went down like a month into the season.

The Anaheim Ducks... well if you want a physical team this one’s for you. 

The Florida Panthers have the oldest player in the league (like seriously is Jagr ever going to retire?) and they have Ekblad who’s just... ridiculously good looking and good at hockeying.

And last but certainly not least... The Tampa Bay Lightning... Nikita Kucherov is literally my favorite person ever and I’d love to be his friend because he called out the whole team for not preforming this season.

So no matter who you choose... it’s your decision. Pick one, or many or heck even all, but there’s no such thing as bandwagon fans. Just pick teams and go wild. Let me know who you go with! 

[dsudis]

March 26, 1997: The Greatest Hockey Game Ever Played (As Determined by Red Wings Fans)

...Literally, there was a vote. During the 2004-05 lockout, the Detroit Red Wings released a DVD set of five games, and they had fans vote on which games they wanted. This one, played seven years earlier during the regular season for no special stakes (in terms of championship or league standings, anyway) was the runaway #1.

The thing you have to understand about this game, which plays out the violence in hockey on a truly epic scale, is that it is all about an emotional narrative. It is, in fact, all about revenge--and, from the Detroit perspective, all about standing up for your friend against a bully, and with your friends against all of the bully’s friends. It is the final act of the kind of sports movie no one would ever make. 

It

was

awesome.

And there was so much blood. Like. A lot of blood. A Detroit paper ran the headline BLOODY GOOD the next day, over a huge full-color image of a bloodied Colorado player. I will try not to get too gleeful about the violence (which, on March 26, resulted in zero serious injuries) but, uh, this was a formative hockey experience for me, so bear with me.

FIGHT NIGHT AT THE JOE: THE SWEEPING HOCKEY EPIC, under the cut.

So to set the stage: In 1995, the Quebec Nordiques, a team who had played since 1972 in Quebec City, ran into fatal financial problems and wound up being relocated from the heart of Canada--the spiritual home of hockey--to the city of Denver, which had no particular hockey culture or history or, so far as anyone could tell in 1995, any interest in hockey. 

Though the players had been in the league as long as anyone, many of them transferring together from Quebec to Colorado, the brand new Colorado Avalanche tended to be viewed as upstarts because the city and the ownership were new to the NHL. Some new additions were also made to the team, including future Hall of Fame goalie Patrick Roy, and Claude Lemieux, who had been on the New Jersey Devils team that swept the Detroit Red Wings, 4 games to none, in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1995. 

In the 1995-96 season, the Red Wings dominated the NHL, winning 62 of 82 games (a win record that still stands today). As an Original Six team that had waited 41 years for a championship victory, they were the polar opposite of the brand new Colorado Avalanche--who, playing in the same division as all three California hockey teams and the Oilers at their lowest post-Gretzky ebb, sailed to victory in their division and right on into the playoffs.

The Red Wings met the Avalanche in Round 3 of the playoffs that year, the last round before the Stanley Cup Finals. For all of the above reasons, the Avs were a particularly hated opponent--and the personalities of their coach, Marc Crawford, and figures like Roy and Lemieux on the team, did not shy away from that dynamic. 

The Red Wings, meanwhile, were coached by Scotty Bowman and captained by Steve Yzerman. Bowman was famous for mind games--but he didn’t tolerate any player speaking out of turn, and was never bombastic in his own remarks. Yzerman was--kind of Jonathan Toews before there was a Jonathan Toews, the quiet serious captain, except he was ten years into captaining his team by then, still hoping to break the Cup drought for Detroit.

The playoff series between the Avalance and the Red Wings was... scrappy, but within pretty normal bounds, until a brief incident by the boards during Game 6. Claude Lemieux hit Kris Draper from behind at the boards, causing Draper to fall face-first against the dasher at the bottom, breaking his jaw.

You may notice that this happened directly in front of Detroit’s bench--and directly in front of Detroit’s #25. That’s Darren McCarty, who normally played on a line with Draper (the third line, nicknamed the Grind Line--they were far from the best or highest-scoring players on the team). McCarty was a good friend of Draper’s, and it was normally his responsibility to protect the small and speedy Draper on the ice. 

This will be important later.

Draper went on TV the next day with his jaw swollen to the size of a softball, one black eye swollen shut, and said he only wanted an apology from Lemieux. The hit itself wasn’t spectacularly vicious; accidents happen. Still, it’s normal to express regret when someone gets badly hurt.

Lemieux not only declined to apologize, he insisted that he had made Draper famous, made him plenty of money, made his career. 

And then the Red Wings played Game 7 against the Colorado Avalanche, and the Avs won. The Wings went home empty-handed for the forty-first season in a row.

And then the Avs--then Claude Lemieux--won the Cup.

In the following season, the 1996-97 season, the Red Wings and Avalanche played each other four times. They met in November, in Detroit, and the Avalance won, 4-1. They met in December, in Colorado, the Avalanche won, 4-3. They met on March 16, in Colorado, and the Avalanche won, 4-2.

And then they met in Detroit, at the Joe Louis Arena (named for Detroit’s most famous boxer) on March 26, 1997, and the Red Wings had had enough.

There were two fights in the first ten and a half minutes of the game, but things stayed pretty normal until 18:22 of the first period, which is when all fucking hell broke loose.

Peter Forsberg (Colorado) and Igor Larionov (Detroit) were both European skill players, not normally prone to fighting--but a collision near the boards led to the young Forsberg punching Larionov while he was down, and Larionov, seven years older and several inches shorter, surged up with a couple of punches of his own and tackled Forsberg to the ice. The two linesmen rushed in to break them up, leaving only the referee to keep order among the other ten men on the ice--who happened to include, at that moment, both Claude Lemieux and Darren McCarty.

Kris Draper, just then, was on the bench, watching.

Now, here’s the thing about fighting in the NHL: it is really regarded as a matter of honor, like a duel. When two players want to fight, to settle some score or to rally their team, there is a way that fights start--a little pushing and shoving and chirping, and then two men square up. Fighting is often referred to as “dropping the gloves” in hockey, because that is the most iconic way players communicate that they’re ready to go: drop the bulky protective gloves and hold up bare fists. There is often a moment of circling, and then someone lunges in to grab their opponent’s jersey with one hand and throw a punch with the other. 

(They have to grapple in order to fight, due to Newton’s third law: the force of a punch would otherwise propel a player backward out of reach on his skates.)

So. After all of this, Lemieux and McCarty are on the ice together, play has already been stopped by a fight, and McCarty wants to fight Lemieux--who hurt his friend, his linemate, and refused to apologize, who has triumphed twice now over his team--and after a single punch, Lemieux...

Turtles.

As you can see, McCarty has dropped his gloves. But Lemieux still has his on, and is using them to hide his head. In hockey cultural terms, he is refusing to square up and face the fight his actions have earned him. He’s easily as big as McCarty, perfectly capable of defending himself in a fight, but he refuses to engage.

So McCarty reaches down, yanks his helmet off, and starts punching him in the head. 

Now, there are still four other guys from each team on the ice watching this, and they all know that the linesmen and ref are not going to intervene--they normally don’t until a fight has run its course or both players are down on the ice, and in this instance they are also painfully obviously outnumbered. You can see in the top photo, other players are converging on McCarty and Lemieux. 

Patrick Roy, the Avalanche goalie, was one of the first to arrive--this is a fairly dramatic moment, as the fight is happening at center ice, and Roy was at his goal all the way on the Colorado side, so he skates almost a hundred feet as fast as he can--only to be tackled mid-air by Detroit player Brendan Shanahan, to stop him from interfering with McCarty.

(There are no good stills of that moment, but I’m gonna put the video at the bottom of this post, so you can watch the whole thing and, believe me, it’s beautiful.)

Shanahan and Roy went down to the ice and pretty much immediately Colorado player Adam Foote grabs hold of Shanahan to pull him off Roy--protecting the goalie is a strong principle for defensemen in all situations, after all. Shanahan and Foote wind up detaching to fight, which would have left Roy free to go after McCarty again, except that the Red Wings goalie, Mike Vernon, also skated out to center ice to engage Roy--leading to the fantastic spectacle of a goalie-on-goalie fight at center ice.

Remember how I mentioned that a Detroit paper ran the headline BLOODY GOOD over a bleeding Colorado player the next day? It was a picture of Patrick Roy after this fight, and it was this image or one very much like it:

But the whole Roy-Shanahan-Foote-Vernon altercation and the two proper standup fights it spawned were really only about the Red Wings protecting McCarty as he punched the shit out of Lemieux, the original villain. So how did that turn out?

With all the fighting--and officials--converging on center ice, McCarty wound up dragging Lemieux to one side. Over to the boards directly in front of the Red Wings bench, in fact, where Kris Draper was sitting. 

McCarty slammed Lemieux’s face into the boards, repeating the same thing he had watched happen to Draper ten months before, now with Draper watching.

Lemieux’s jaw was not broken, however. He went on to play the rest of the game, as did Roy and the rest of the players involved in the fights.

There were another five fights over the course of the rest of the game; a total of 18 (paired) major penalties for fighting were given out. (McCarty, for his actions in the brawl, took a double minor penalty for roughing, requiring the Red Wings to play one man short for four minutes.) The teams also scored five goals apiece somewhere in there, sending the game into sudden death overtime.

The game-winning goal--in proper conclusion-of-a-sports-movie fashion--was scored by... 

Darren McCarty!

With assists from...

Brendan Shanahan and Igor Larionov!

The Red Wings finished the season second in their division, while the Avalanche finished first in the league (as the Red Wings had the year before). And just as they had the year before, the Red Wings and Avalanche met in Round 3 of the playoffs--but this time it was the Red Wings who won, and the Red Wings who went on to win the Stanley Cup.

And the game winning goal of the final game of that series was of course scored by none other than the hero of Fight Night at the Joe: Darren McCarty.

So! Now you are ready to watch all the fights in their proper context, right?!

Here’s the Wikipedia article on what they term the Colorado Avalanche-Detroit Red Wings Brawl

And here’s the video--probably ripped from the DVD set the Red Wings released in 2005, so it’s from the Detroit broadcast and features Detroit-partisan commentary:

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Puck Daddy Bag of Mail: Who's the Olympic favorite?

Team USA is the team to beat in the women’s tournament because of how good they are at hockey and how bad Canada is morally. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)

Folks this is something that was a long time coming.

After weeks of questions from Matts and Andrews and Joshes and so on, I said, “That’s too many white-guy names!” Instead, I encourged everyone who doesn’t identify as a man to send in questions, and wouldn’t you know it, a lot of the questions are better than the dumb ones guys send in like “Buhhhhhhh is this guy on my favorite team good?”

So I gotta thank everyone out there who sent in the questions this week. They were above-average and I have to say: I’m not surprised. Please, everyone who is not a man, keep sending in good questions.

Let’s get right to it. A lot of us still have Christmas shopping to do.

Maya asks: “Who’s your favorite for Olympic hockey? And by this I of course mean wohockey, because who cares about the men’s rn.”

The United States of America is the team to beat in the women’s tournament because of how good they are at hockey and how bad Canada is morally.

They just had that little pre-tournament series of games against the Canadians who, surprise surprise, are the only real threat to their chances with all due respect to… I don’t know, Sweden? Russia? Tough to keep track in what has long been a two-team sport for all intents and purposes.

The international hockey system for saying what records are is so stupid, but here goes: The US went 3-0-2-3-0 against Canada in that tournament, but if you translate that to a real and actual readable format, the NHL would say they went 3-3-2. But in a lot of the games I saw, the US outplayed Canada at least to some extent, and a lot of them apparently looked like the game that closed the series: The US lost 2-1 in OT but only gave up 15 shots.

Maybe you want to make a shot quality argument here, but my counterargument is, “You don’t win many hockey games by only getting 15 attempts on net.”

Then again, I’m sure Canada will do something underhanded to screw the US like they always do.

Megan asks: “If the Oilers can’t turn things around, what deadline moves can/should Oiler fans expect and/or prepare for?”

Well first of all I would say you should bank on them not turning things around, but that leads to a lot of unpleasant thoughts about what Peter Chiarelli does despite Wayne Gretzky’s not-so-cryptic comments about how the team has been run the past few years.

To answer the question, the guy I think everyone expected would be moved before he went on a nice little hot streak here is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. I dunno, maybe the hot streak just adds to his trade value, huh?

Obviously such a trade would be made for defense and grit, as though that’s the Oilers’ problem right now, but this is Peter Chiarelli we’re talking about, so that is the only logical conclusion to make. But frankly there’s just not a lot of guys who both have moveable contracts and would be something someone wants that would do any more “shaking up” of the roster than Chiarelli has already done.

Just, honestly, prepare to be mad. Best you can do.

Angie asks: “Who do you have coming out on top in the Pacific Division?”

Vegas is the Pacific Division favorite.

At this point you gotta say it’s Vegas, right? After beating the Lightning on Tuesday night, they were tied with the Kings, and while I’m not a believer that either team is “for real” in the grand scheme of things, there’s a huge gap between them, San Jose and Calgary. Vegas also has a game in hand on LA.

Here’s a teaser for you: I’m gonna write in-depth about the Golden Knights in Trending Topics tomorrow. It will (probably) be (very) good.

Connie asks via email: “Are the Capitals good? They’ve won eight of their last ten, but have averaged 48 percent of the shot attempts on the season. Given top line and goal tending talent, is this sustainable, or are they destined to plummet?”

It’s actually a little below 48 percent these days, but the general point stands: The Caps generally get outplayed at 5-on-5 but have been winning anyway for two reasons.

First, they have a great goalie who’s having another great season. I think I mentioned it the other day, but Vezina aside, we don’t really talk enough about how good Braden Holtby is. That’s always gonna keep you in games — a la Carey Price with Montreal a few years ago — even when you shouldn’t.

But second, the Caps score a lot of goals because Alex Ovechkin is on one again this season. To a lesser extent, so too are Evgeny Kuznetsov and TJ Oshie, two guys who also traditionally carry high shooting percentages. The team has an above-average power play, and it almost makes up for their below-average PK, which is a problem because they take more penalties than they draw.

So I don’t think this is the best team in the division, which is where they sit in the standings right now, but they were always going to be perfectly good even after their blue line and forward depth thinned out so much this summer.

Fox asks: “What college hockey coaches do you think should be on the hot seat?

First of all thanks for sending a college hockey question. Second, I think there’s probably only one real answer, especially after so many coaches have changed jobs in the past few summers.

Vermont has long been mediocre-or-worse under Kevin Sneddon but last year won a bunch of games unexpectedly (thanks to a big ol’ all-situations shooting percentage of 10.2 and a soft schedule). People probably thought they were due for another 20-win season because in college hockey, people really don’t look far beyond a team’s record.

But so far this year, Vermont has just four wins from 17 games, and has a bunch of tough games on the schedule in the second half (Lowell three times, a surprising UMass team twice, two road games at Merrimack where few teams get results, then a February featuring Providence, Northeastern, and BU twice each.) It’s entirely conceivable this team doesn’t crack double-digit wins.

Is that enough to get him fired? He had back-to-back seasons earlier this decade of eight and six wins, but that wasn’t coming off a run of three 20-plus-win seasons in four years. I think something has to change in Burlington, and probably the answer is the guy behind the bench.

Laura asks: “How do you project some B1G teams (OSU, PSU) to finish this year? Can either make noise or reach the Frozen Four?”

First of all thanks for sending a separate college hockey question. Second, Ohio State is better than anyone had any right to expect (they entered the season with literally no goaltending experience) and Penn State would be good if they had any goaltending at all.

As for their Frozen Four chances, I dunno. Are they even the third- and fourth-best teams in their own conference this year? I wouldn’t be too optimistic about that. It looks like Notre Dame is the class of the league and everyone else is fighting for scraps.

Zoe asks: “Why are the Hurricanes playing worse in front of Darling than Ward?”

Well they do and they don’t. For every hour they’re on the ice at 5-on-5, the Hurricanes allow more attempts, unblocked attempts, and shots when Ward is out there versus when Darling is.

However, the shots Ward faces are often far less difficult to stop (a combined 27 per hour from low- and medium-danger areas, versus 22.3 for Darling), while Darling faces a good deal more high-danger shots (5.6 versus 4.8).

Interestingly, though, things kinda balance out. In terms of expected goals against (that is, if a league-average goalie faced the same slate of shots) Darling “should” allow 2.25 per 60 minutes, while Ward “should” allow 2.33. It’s a very marginal difference.

Of course, when other teams are on the power play, things are very different. Simply put, that’s where Darling gets hung out to dry. He faces three times as many high-danger chances per 60 as Ward does, give or take.

Now, it’s tough to tell if that’s a function of “Ward is the backup and therefore plays worse teams” or what, but that’s going to be a troubling trend for the coach, and something to work out ASAP.

Jana asks: “Newell Brown’s PP seemed to have run its course during his previous stint in VAN. Has anything changed upon his return this season that is making it more effective/helping mitigate aging Sedins?”

I think the talent around the Sedins was really starting to deteriorate around the time Brown left Vancouver in 2013. Apart from the Sedins, the most common power play guys on the team were Alexes Edler and Burrows, Jason Garrison, and…….. Derek Roy.

This year, it’s Daniel and Henrik, Brock Boeser, Thomas Vanek, Bo Horvat, and Sam Gagner. That’s a pretty big difference in terms of skill level.

Is that the only reason the power play is good again? Almost certainly not, but if I had to point to one thing: Yeah, that’s it.

Boeser, Horvat, Sven Baertschi, and Vanek all have at least four power-play goals already this year. For the full 48-game season in 2012-13, the two leaders were Edler and Mason Raymond at five and four, respectively. Skill really does make that much of a difference a lot of the time.

Aliza asks: “Considering CBJ’s crazy lack of scoring ability this year and their 2 blowout losses this past week, if you could trade for one person to help them get better, who would you pick?

Connor McDavid.

Rebecca asks: “If/when Seattle gets an NHL team, what would you want the team to be named?”

There’s no “if about it,” but dawg have you ever seen the 1917 Stanley Cup champion Seattle Metropolitans’ jerseys? Click this link! They rule.

Update things as you see fit (i.e. get onboard with that neon green/navy color scheme the Sounders and Seahawks use), but if you call the team the Mets and have horizontal stripe jerseys (kinda in the vein of the thirds in this jersey concept) and some sort of stylized S logo, people would lose their minds.

And rightly so.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All stats via Corsica unless noted otherwise.

More NHL coverage on Yahoo Sports:

[rickhorrow]

15 to watch April 17 2017

As the NBA post season gets well underway and baseball settles into the new season, E-Poll Market Research takes a look at the metrics surrounding sports’ reigning MVPs, as well as public opinion of Russell Westbrook and James Harden ahead of this year's NBA MVP award. The MVP is a key distinguishing factor in establishing an athlete’s marketability, and MVPs often see an explosion in awareness and appeal from winning the award, like reigning NBA MVP Steph Curry. Using E-Score Celebrity data, the firm found that among reigning MVPs, Curry is the most popular. His 50% “Awareness” score among sports fans is 2.5 times higher than the next MVP, Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan.  And with the 2017 NBA MVP race narrowing to a two-man contest between Russell Westbrook and James Harden, E-Poll found that Westbrook’s 56% “Appeal” is 10 points higher than Harden’s, whose “Awareness” is 13 points higher than Westbrook’s due in part to his earlier relationship with Khloe Kardashian. However, both men fall well short of Curry’s pre-MVP “Appeal” score of 72% during the 2015 season. Curry’s popularity shot up dramatically after his MVP win, increasing by 20 points. This year’s winner will have to wait to see if there is a similar effect �� as will their current and would-be sponsors, who will likewise be dramatically affected by the award.

Fnatic has become the latest esports team to see an influx of investment money. The team is receiving a $7 million financing round with a board of investors including the likes of Raptor Group, which owns AS Roma and the Boston Celtics; Hersh Interactive Group, co-owners of the Houston Astros; and Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab. “There has been strong growth in esports…but the major shift has been in the acceptance and inclusion by sports franchises, media companies and high profile individuals," Fnatic Founder Sam Mathews told Forbes. "We’re incredibly excited by the opportunities available within esports, and having world class investors and advisors only enhances our ability to address these opportunities and continue to innovate.” According to market researcher Newzoo, the esports market now has close to 150 million regular enthusiasts and another 125 million occasional viewers, and is expected to be a $1.1 billion business by 2019. With new permanent venue Esports Arena Las Vegas scheduled to open early next year, and many more to come, those who dismiss esports as a fad or “fake sports” do so at their peril.

The United States, Mexico and Canada are teaming up to submit a joint bid to host the 2026 World Cup. According to SportsBusiness Journal, the North American countries have joined forces and are now looking to fast-track the historically “long, arduous process” of securing World Cup hosting rights. Multiple high-ranking officials said that CONCACAF is planning to make a proposal at May's FIFA Congress that “could accelerate the entire process,” which would normally be expected to last until 2020. In the proposal, the CONCACAF bid “will ask the world governing body's 211 members for a unique, noncompetitive window” in which it would prepare a report that “showcases the technical specifications of its bid, covering everything from stadium capacities and infrastructure to hotels and transportation.” Under the proposed bid, the U.S. would host significantly more games than its neighbors: 60 out of 80 total games and all matches from the quarterfinals on. While the CONCACAF bid looks like it could be a lock, politics and economics could heavily impact the bid and process. Stay tuned.

  The Chicago Cubs not only have a new World Series banner to show off, but a newly-renovated Wrigley Field. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Cubs used their home opener against the Dodgers to debut The Park at Wrigley, which is just one piece of the still-under-renovation stadium project. A large video screen on the team's new office building “showed the Cubs' historic 10-inning victory against the Indians” during the Dodgers game and “showed off part of the third phase” of the $750 million Wrigley Field upgrade. There was a ceremony “marking the opening of what the Cubs referred to as Wrigleyville's new town square and a year-round gathering place for neighbors, families, fans and visitors.” Cubs Chair Tom Ricketts and his real estate company designed, built, and financed The Park at Wrigley, which should allow the community to more deeply engage with the team.

  After seeing all Canadian NHL teams fail to reach the Stanley Cup playoffs last year, Rogers Media is expecting a “reversal of fortune” thanks to five Canadian teams reaching the postseason this season. According to the Globe & Mail, Rogers Media made a “billion-dollar” media bet on the NHL last year, but the company has yet to see the returns it initially expected due to the Canadian teams’ collective slump. The actual deal is set at 12 years and is worth C$5.2 billion over that span. Last year, TV ratings for Rogers fell 61% during the NHL postseason. The Maple Leafs “led a resurgence” along with the Canadiens, Senators, Oilers, and Flames that will “see hockey audiences back in the seven-figure range.” Rogers President of Sportsnet Scott Moore said, “Obviously, team performance drives a lot of it. I feel like there’s a lot of excitement about the sport generally and in some key markets. For us, that’s obviously good.” It’s also good for the NHL, as Canada traditionally represents one of hockey’s most fervent fan bases.

    The NFL tries to control what its players do off the field, and that could now include fining players for participating in an arm wrestling tournament. According to USA Today, NFL players who competed in the inaugural “Pro Football Arm Wrestling Championship” in Las Vegas “without pre-approval” violated the league’s rules against gambling. The competition already took place, but is set to air on CBS over two weekends in May. Notable participants include the Steelers’ James Harrison and Maurkice Pouncey, retired running back Marshawn Lynch, the Dolphins’ Kenny Stills, and the Raiders’ Marquette King and Mario Edwards. The first place prize was set at $100,000, with half of that going to charity in the winning players’ name. Some players spoke out against the impending fines, noting the irony of how the NFL just approved a team in Vegas, yet players can’t go there for a “charity event.” The NFL always goes to extreme lengths to protect “The Shield,” and this incident is no different.

      While many teams have been reluctant to reveal their inner workings to the public, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will likely be selected for HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” and are excited about that prospect. According to the Tampa Bay Times, the Bucs “believe they are among the top candidates to be chosen.” Speaking about the prospect, team co-Chair Joel Glazer said, “Our players are at a point in their maturity that they would be able to handle it…We'll always be supportive of the league. Nobody is rushing to the podium for that necessarily. But I do feel I have great confidence in this team.” Team executives firmly believe that “Hard Knocks” would be a good way for Tampa and the surrounding fan base to get to know the team on a more personal level. And after multiple seasons, the NFL generally feels that “Hard Knocks” participation is a plus for its teams – or they would have put a stop to it long ago.

      Despite having nine years remaining on their current deal with University of Phoenix, the Arizona Cardinals are in the hunt to find a new stadium naming rights partner. According to SportsBusiness Journal, the team is “shopping naming rights to their stadium, but incumbent sponsor University of Phoenix retains the title unless the team finds a replacement.” Regardless of finding a new partner, the university will remain an official team sponsor. University of Phoenix has been the only naming rights partner since the Cardinals’ stadium opened in 2006; the 20-year deal would be worth $154.5 million if carried through to the end of the term. The team noted that it is handling the sponsorship search internally. Following the trend of other teams in the region, the Cardinals might soon follow the Diamondbacks, Suns, and Coyotes as franchises that have all changed their stadium sponsors in recent years. The Cardinals may want to consider reaching out to the other thriving for-profit university headquartered in the market but growing internationally: Grand Canyon University.

      Representing a slight but significant change for the franchise, the Minnesota Timberwolves finally unveiled their new logo. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the team’s evolution “took another step forward” with this change. The color scheme is different – “the palette features a midnight blue, lake blue, aurora green, frost white and moonlight grey” – but the image of the howling wolf remains similar to how it has looked in the past. The team noted that the similarities are “meant to represent an evolution, not a revolution.” The look is “meant to represent the current team and the possibilities for its future, but also to honor the past.” The logo is the “first piece in what will be a new identity” for the T'Wolves. New jersey and court designs will be released to the public later this summer to round out the rebranding of the franchise. The T-Wolves, and indeed all sports franchises, should be closely watching the slow eradication of Chief Wahoo in Cleveland. While there’s nothing outwardly politically incorrect about Minnesota’s “howling at the moon,” unlike Wahoo, fans get attached to their teams’ visuals, and should be consulted every step of the way.

    The tarps are finally coming off in Oakland. According to the S.F. Chronicle, A’s President Dave Kaval announced that the outfield bleacher tarps on the third deck at the Coliseum will be taken down and that A’s tickets in the third deck “will be $15 for the remainder of the season, and during the next home stand, half the proceeds will go to Oakland Promise, which helps Oakland students attend college.” This move represents the latest one that is met with an “almost entirely positive” response by the Oakland fan base. The outfield tarps initially went up in 2006 to help improve visuals from games with sparse crowds, since the extra capacity was rarely needed. Without the tarps in place, stadium capacity will increase by 12,103 to 47,170. Ever since the tarps went up, fans have been lobbying to bring them down – their voices have now been heard. And with the Oakland Raiders on their way out, local fan interest in the A’s should intensify.

      English Premier League side Everton is trying to build a new stadium, and adding a running track to it could end up making a significant difference. According to the London Times, Everton may consider making a provision for a running track in its proposed $437.3 million stadium to help Liverpool win the bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. The host for the 2022 slot is still up for grabs after Durban, South Africa, failed to meet the host city criteria, giving other cities the chance to rebid for the right to host. During dialogue between the club and Liverpool City Council, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson asked the club to “consider including a running track” in its blueprint, which “would allow the arena to host athletics events.” The track would be covered with seats for soccer matches, ensuring fans close proximity to the field, while the track would bring in additional revenue for Everton and the community. As in all modern day sports facilities, both privately and publicly funded, multipurpose use and flexibility remain key to ongoing support.

      Seattle is back in the mix for landing a professional sports team now that two groups are “prepared to spend more than $500 million apiece” renovating KeyArena. According to the Seattle Times, Oak View Group and AEG each submitted proposals of more than $500 million and each “involve eventually attracting NBA and NHL teams.” The OVG proposal runs up to $564 million and the AEG bid would involve spending $520 million. Both groups said the arena renovation “could be done” by October 2020 if “no unforeseen delays hit,” with construction beginning before being awarded a professional team in both cases. KeyArena’s iconic roof and general exterior structure are set to be preserved by both AEG and OVG in the renovation process. “We're going to do this and stand on our own two feet,” said OVG CEO Tim Leiweke. “And we believe by doing that we give Seattle its best chance at getting one or two teams.” The OVG-led group also includes Madison Square Garden Co. and Live Nation and is primarily focused on turning the venue into a concert specialist like the Forum in Inglewood. That bid is supported by the band Pearl Jam – ironic since Pearl Jam once sued Live Nation over monopolistic ticketing practices. Want change? Wait 20 years.

    St. Louis is officially suing the NFL “over the relocation of the Rams 15 months ago.” According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the 52-page suit filed by St. Louis lists the NFL and all 32 teams as defendants as the city “seeks damages and restitution profits.” The plaintiffs claim the Rams and the NFL “made intentionally false statements, unjustly enriched themselves” and “interfered with business expectations.” The suit further claims that the city has lost around $7.5 million in property taxes, $1.4 million in sales tax revenue, and “millions” in earning taxes since the Rams moved to Los Angeles. The NFL is now getting ready to defend itself and its franchises in this case, which is expected to “remain in the Missouri court system because the Chiefs operate in Missouri.” It is unlikely that this lawsuit will move to the federal court, “where defendants without a clear connection to a given state are more likely to get a more fair shake.” It is also unlikely that this lawsuit will result in compensation to St. Louis, if past history is any guide.

    Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment wants the Islanders back in the Nassau Coliseum, and it is ready to make further “adjustments” to the facility in order to pull the move off. According to Newsday, BS&E is “preparing to pitch to bring” them back to the recently renovated area. The Islanders moved to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn after the Nassau Coliseum closed to undergo a $165 million modernization. Still, BS&E is ready to invest further in the arena to satisfy any of the Islanders’ remaining concerns – such as having too few of seats. Long Island Association President & CEO Kevin Law said that the presentation will be made to Islanders co-Owners Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin when they “meet soon to talk about renegotiating the 25-year license agreement with Barclays Center.” Both the Islanders and Barclays Center can “opt out of the deal.” Returning the Islanders to their core fan base should boost the franchise; winning enough games to not miss the Stanley Cup playoffs by one point would help, too.

      The NFL Draft has migrated around multiple cities over the past few years, but New York thinks it is time to bring it back to the Big Apple. According to the N.Y. Daily News, New York has “expressed interest” in hosting the NFL Draft in 2019 “and beyond.” This year’s draft is scheduled to take place outdoors in Philadelphia, while the last two years’ drafts took place in downtown Chicago. New York is set to be just one of the multiple cities vying to land to rights to host. Other cities in contact with the league noting their interest in hosting the 2019 draft include “Philadelphia, Canton, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Green Bay, Jacksonville and Los Angeles. Radio City Music Hall appears to be the likely location to host the draft if it does wind up being held in New York City. To the general onlooker, it may not seem that hosting the NFL Draft is a big deal, but it has actually “become as competitive as hosting the Super Bowl” thanks to the positive economic impact it generates. It’s also the second most important tent pole event on the now-year-round NFL calendar, and the league doesn’t take its locale lightly. Expect the draft circus to continue to travel for the foreseeable future.

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What if ... Vegas Golden Knights didn't drop the 'Las'? (NHL Alternate History)

(Ed. Note: It’s the NHL Alternate History project! We’ve asked fans and bloggers from 31 teams to pick one turning point in their franchise’s history and ask ‘what if things had gone differently?’ Trades, hirings, firings, wins, losses, injuries … all of it. How would one different outcome change the course of history for an NHL team? Today, it’s our final one, and obviously our most important post: Ken Boehlke of The Sin Bin on the Vegas Golden Knights! Enjoy!)

By Ken Boehlke

While most people who were tasked with this year’s version of “Greg makes everyone else do his job for him” had hundreds if not thousands of choices to re-write their favorite team’s history, my task was a bit different.

Thus far in the life of the Vegas Golden Knights, they were awarded a team (I’ll let our friends in Quebec toy with that option), they hired George McPhee (he gets a pass until Martin Erat 2.0), picked a bunch of players (let’s wait for them to out-suck the 2016-17 Avs before we kill them) and are a ways off from playing their first game.

So, it’s slim pickin’s to say the least, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t options to pick from in order to fill the revisionist history of the Vegas Golden Knights.

That NHL Draft Lottery sure was awful, having the first pick would have been nice, but with the change I made, that’ll take care of itself.

Hiring a different coach, signing some free agents people have actually heard of, or picking the good players that were available in the Expansion Draft rather than cashing in for the future were all available as well.

But none of that felt right because what do I know, maybe they’ve done everything right to this point and the Vadim Shipachyov, James Neal, and Marc-Andre Fleury led Vegas Golden Knights will shock the world and Leicester City their way to the Cup.

So instead, I went in another direction.

We go back to a decision that seems trivial to most. A decision a majority of the hockey world didn’t even realize happened, and a decision just three letters long that would unquestionably have left fans of the NHL’s newest franchise scoffing at Bill Foley’s “Playoffs in Three, Cup in Six” mantra and believing, the Las Vegas Golden Knights are Cup contenders… right now!

That’s right, I said the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

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When Bill Foley invited all comers out to T-Mobile Arena to unveil the adjective he chose to proceed the word Knights, show off his new logos, and introduce the city to their new favorite brand, he did so having made the onerous decision to leave those three letters, L-A-S, off the name of the team. Once the video finally played, the name Vegas Golden Knights was revealed, and many in the crowd rubbed their chins and thought, “Isn’t the name of the city Las Vegas?”

It may sound like a joke, but people were, and still are, legitimately pissed. Look, here’s an article I wrote, more than two months before they announced the name, hinting that Vegas may be chosen instead of Las Vegas. 67 comments, most of them angry, and that was just with of the possibility of “the missing Las.”

Believe me on this one, November 22nd, the night it became official, was  much worse.

Luckily, Puck Daddy has given us the chance to go back in history and see exactly what would have changed …

What if the Vegas Golden Knights were named the Las Vegas Golden Knights?

So off we go, into the time machine, for easily the worst “What If” article in Puck Daddy’s 31-team series.

The first difference is an obvious one, and one that would have made my life a hell of a lot less awful for the days following the name unveil. We would have never heard mythical team names like the Frisco 49ers, Big D Cowboys, Jersey Devils, and Golden State Warriors (oh wait, never mind on that one). I would have avoided the weirdos who stormed up to me screaming bloody murder and asking how they go about cancelling their season tickets, seriously, it wasn’t just one person, and Twitter would have been about 2% more bearable where people were just picking on the colors, the logo, the word Golden, the word Knights, the connection to the city, and everything else they were bitching about, rather than the missing “Las.”

But enough about me: No one cares, I know. What exactly would have changed on the ice if that Las was indeed on the team name rather than them choosing to go with Vegas Golden Knights? What could possibly have been different? The answer is everything, literally, everything.

The biggest change would have come at the NHL Draft Lottery. Due to the fact that the Golden Knights would have been alphabetized under the letter “L” rather than “V” their combinations of ping-pong balls would have been different. Naturally, a team starting with the letter “N”, which is pretty darn close to “L” if you ask me, won the lottery, meaning obviously, if the Golden Knights were Las Vegas Golden Knights, they would have won.

(Dumb logic? No [expletive], Greg asked me to do this for an Expansion team, just effing play along.)

So the Golden Knights now own the 1st overall selection in the NHL Entry  Draft, and are heading into the Expansion Draft with much more confidence and bravado, much less willing to accept lousy offers like a 1st round pick to lay off the Islanders mediocre forwards and take Mikhail Grabovski’s LTIR eligible contract. Phst, 1st round pick, laughable, George McPhee now wants three first rounds picks, and you’ll give the Las Vegas Golden Knights GM what he wants, or else.

But it doesn’t end there, the protection lists would have been vastly different. Marc-Andre Fleury would never have waived his No-Movement Clause and accepted a move to Las Vegas. The only reason he did so in real life was because he thought the franchise was going to be fun, whimsical, and open to pranks because if they were willing to be progressive and drop the Las, there’s no telling how much freedom he, as the veteran on the team, would have.

But no, they are the Las Vegas Golden Knights, serious, and here for business. Fleury ain’t having none of that nonsense. Therefore, the Penguins had to expose Matt Murray, and were forced to give up multiple first round picks in order to keep Murray in Pittsburgh, and LVGK got Ian Cole via Expansion.

Let your imagination run wild with the rest of the teams, but by my count the Las Vegas Golden Knights would have ended up with 24 of the 31 first round picks in 2017, give or take a few, and about 25% of the first rounders over the next three drafts.

Selecting 1st and 2nd they would pick Nico Hischier and Nolan Patrick, they would trade picks 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 31 in multiple deals to acquire Nathan MacKinnon and Matt Duchene, Brent Burns, Carey Price, Patrick Kane, Erik Karlsson, Vladamir Tarasenko and Alex Ovechkin.

Having an acceptable core, George McPhee would decide it would be better to have a more seasoned coach, so he fired Gerard Gallant before he even coached a game, and used two of his 2018 first rounders to trade for Joel Quenneville.

The Las Vegas Golden Knights would go on to win the Stanley Cup each of the first 10 seasons they participate in…

But no, instead they are just Vegas Golden Knights. A team stocked with the likes of Jason Garrison, Deryk Engelland, Teemu Pulkkinen, and some dude named Stoner. Their season points total at local sports books is set at 68.5, and the under is the favorite. The thought of making into 2018 still “in the hunt” is laughable, and Foley’s “Cup in 6” idea seems about as promising as the possibility of Wyshynski pulling the handle of the MegaMillions slot machine at the Bellagio and walking away with a cool $15 mil.

Oh what could have been. Oh well.

Viva VEGAS Golden Knights… I guess.

—

PREVIOUSLY ON NHL ALTERNATE HISTORY

What if … the Islanders never hired Mike Milbury?

What if … Dallas drafted the other Lundqvist brother?

What if … Jonathan Drouin’s Tampa time wasn’t so chaotic? 

What if … Minnesota Wild hired Pierre McGuire as GM? 

What if … Florida had traded Roberto Luongo for Joe Thornton?

What if … the Martin Gelinas goal counted for Calgary?

What if … the Oilers never traded for Chris Pronger?

What if … the Blues had drafted Jonathan Toews instead?

What if … the Bruins never lost Marc Savard?

What if … the Anaheim Ducks drafted Sidney Crosby?

What if … the Red Wings had signed Marian Hossa? 

What if … the Canucks won the first NHL Draft Lottery?

What if … the Hurricanes had signed Sergei Fedorov?

What if … the Flyers hadn’t lost Chris Pronger?

What if … Avalanche never matched Joe Sakic offer sheet?

What if … the Capitals didn’t hire Dale Hunter and Adam Oates? 

What if … the Coyotes never moved to Glendale?

What If … Terry Pegula owned Sabres in the 1990s?

What If … the Predators had let Shea Weber walk?

What if … the Senators had traded for Gary Roberts?

What If … Wayne Gretzky was sold to Winnipeg Jets?

What if … the Penguins had drafted Bobby Clarke?

What if … LA Kings missed 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs?

What if … NY Rangers didn’t win 1994 Stanley Cup? 

What if … Montreal Canadiens never drafted Carey Price?

What if … the Columbus Blue Jackets had drafted Anze Kopitar?

What if … the Sharks traded Thornton and Marleau in 2014?

What if … the Maple Leafs didn’t trade for Tom Kurvers?

What if … the Blackhawks had traded for Lindros?

What if … the Devils hadn’t won Scott Stevens from Blues?

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What if … the Sharks traded Thornton and Marleau in 2014? (NHL Alternate History)

(Ed. Note: It’s the NHL Alternate History project! We’ve asked fans and bloggers from 31 teams to pick one turning point in their franchise’s history and ask ‘what if things had gone differently?’ Trades, hirings, firings, wins, losses, injuries … all of it. How would one different outcome change the course of history for an NHL team? We promised Puck Daddy’s own Ryan Lambert that he’d get a crack at one. That one is the San Jose Sharks. Enjoy!)

By Ryan Lambert

“I want players that want to play here not just live here.”

That was Sharks GM Doug Wilson in June 2014, giving voice to one of those things that seemed to be lingering forever. Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton were the backbone of the Sharks teams over the previous several years, and if there was any term that best described how the hockey world saw those San Jose clubs, it was, “Perennial bridesmaids.”

There was always a reason the Sharks did big numbers in the regular season — thanks to the talent not only Thornton and Marleau brought to the table, but also a great supporting cast. You could explain away just about any postseason collapse by attributing it to any number of factors. It was, of course, wise to look at season after season of 100-point performances as being a better indicator of team quality than a few bad games in any given playoff round.

But after the Sharks got reverse-swept by the Kings, blowing a 3-0 series lead as Los Angeles rolled to its second Stanley Cup in three years, it seemed Wilson ran out of patience. Justified or not, you can see where any GM might.

In conducting the infamous interview, Wilson was careful not to name names, but Thornton and Marleau had become famous for being the kinds of guys who really liked playing in San Jose in addition to routinely turning in phenomenal (regular) seasons. Maybe all the winning in the postseason and having nothing to show for it grates on you, but this was clearly a shot across the bow of the franchise’s two best forwards.

Immediately, rumors started to swirl that Thornton and Marleau — who just the previous summer had signed twin sweetheart AAV deals of three years apiece, though both also had no-move clauses — would likely be traded as the Sharks tried to revamp their “culture.” And about a week after those Wilson quotes came out, Thornton added more fuel to the fire by saying, essentially, he would be fine with leaving if the fans didn’t want him there.

Of course, the Sharks went on to make the Stanley Cup Final two seasons later, in large part because the 2014 trades didn’t happen.

But what this column presupposes is… what if they had?

It wouldn’t have been a good idea.

The obvious thing to say here is that both Thornton and Marleau — coming off seasons of 76 and 70 points, respectively — would have been highly desirable to just about any NHL team. And because Wilson’s comments were in early June, there would have been plenty of wiggle room to get something done before or at the draft, or even just before July 1. It was an advantageous time for Wilson to play his hand, if nothing else, because maybe you see what you can shake out over the course of three weeks or so.

But with that having been said, you also have to recognize that in most cases, trading stars isn’t likely to net you star players in return. Someone is always going to come out on the losing end of any given deal, and that’s something Wilson should know all too well given what little he had to give away to pull a future Hall of Famer like Thornton in the first place.

Moreover, despite their continued proficiency, Thornton and Marleau were also both 34, which isn’t exactly young, so the return probably would have been a bit limited. The nice folks at Fear the Fin were kind enough at the time — through their tears — to look at reasonable returns the Sharks might have pulled based on trades of other relatively high-performing players after their 30th birthdays. Have a look at the returns FTF put together: They’re not great.

Generally speaking, if you traded a good or even great player over the age of 30, you could expect to get back some combination of an okay prospect, an NHL roster player, a pick or two.

There was certainly a line of suitors around the block, for Thornton especially, not that this should be any sort of surprise, and Wilson would have been able to pit those teams against each other to sweeten the pot. But the fact remains, the return here would have almost certainly diminished the quality of the Sharks’ roster significantly.

The biggest caveat to that is, of course, that a lot of the trades listed on the FTF list were made mid-season, when cap flexibility is limited. But trades in June tend to get better returns because teams know what they have to work with for an entire offseason. But even still, all involved would acknowledge you’re not getting back equal value — not in a one-for-one and certainly not collectively across a few players — for players of this caliber, even if they come with a very obvious amount of cost certainty.

Another caveat: If you only trade one of those two guys, the impact is obviously diminished. Thornton was still a top-five center in the league at that point, so if you’re only looking to make one trade, that’s not the guy you move, right?

But since we’re imagining a world in which the Sharks trade both those guys, what it really means is Wilson is committing to a rebuild. You’re not getting fair value or anything close to it for a top-five center, and trading a very good winger like Marleau gets you a paler shade of that same color.

So that means Wilson was probably looking for something like a roster player, a good prospect and a first-round pick. They’d already traded Dan Boyle, still a solid defender, for just a conditional fifth-round pick in early June, so that might have honestly been the mindset.

And if the Sharks start to rebuild in 2014, they certainly don’t make a Cup Final. They probably trade one or two other “core” guys like perhaps Joe Pavelski or even Brent Burns — and certainly don’t trade FOR Martin Jones the next summer. They don’t become such a nice, fun team that we all like so much, and the entire Western Conference is rewritten for the past two or three seasons, as well as a few in the future.

It’s tough to guess what a full-on tear-down in San Jose looks like; they can’t possibly go all the way in the tank, right? Probably not in that market. But without Thornton and Marleau, they’re guaranteed to go from a strong team to, perhaps, a borderline playoff team more or less overnight. And at that point, why not sell off the other assets because of how old this core generally was anyway? Even “younger” guys like Joe Pavelski and Brent Burns were 29 and 28, respectively, in 2014. Only Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl, and Matt Nieto were regular players under the age of 25 at that point.

To some extent, the Sharks are already different, thanks to Marleau jumping to Toronto as a free agent. So if those trades happen in 2014, the Sharks as we’ve known them for about a decade are gone three years ago. They’re probably still in the middle of that rebuild today. And maybe, just maybe, Wilson doesn’t have his job any more.

Fortunately, Wilson wised up and avoided this self-inflicted pitfall. Keeping this in the realm of what-if was a very good decision, probably for all involved.

PREVIOUSLY ON NHL ALTERNATE HISTORY

What if … the Islanders never hired Mike Milbury?

What if … Dallas drafted the other Lundqvist brother?

What if … Jonathan Drouin’s Tampa time wasn’t so chaotic? 

What if … Minnesota Wild hired Pierre McGuire as GM? 

What if … Florida had traded Roberto Luongo for Joe Thornton?

What if … the Martin Gelinas goal counted for Calgary?

What if … the Oilers never traded for Chris Pronger?

What if … the Blues had drafted Jonathan Toews instead?

What if … the Bruins never lost Marc Savard?

What if … the Anaheim Ducks drafted Sidney Crosby?

What if … the Red Wings had signed Marian Hossa? 

What if … the Canucks won the first NHL Draft Lottery?

What if … the Hurricanes had signed Sergei Fedorov?

What if … the Flyers hadn’t lost Chris Pronger?

What if … Avalanche never matched Joe Sakic offer sheet?

What if … the Capitals didn’t hire Dale Hunter and Adam Oates? 

What If … Terry Pegula owned Sabres in the 1990s?

What If … the Predators had let Shea Weber walk?

What if … the Senators had traded for Gary Roberts?

What If … Wayne Gretzky was sold to Winnipeg Jets?

What if … the Penguins had drafted Bobby Clarke?

What if … LA Kings missed 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs?

What if … NY Rangers didn’t win 1994 Stanley Cup? 

What if … Montreal Canadiens never drafted Carey Price?

What if … the Columbus Blue Jackets had drafted Anze Kopitar?

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