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NEWS CLIPPINGS • May 31, 2019

By the numbers: The tangible impact of the Hurricanes’ 2018-19 season for hockey in North Carolina

By Sara Civian

It’s never fun when a season ends in a sweep, and the disappointment was palpable immediately after the Hurricanes fell to the Bruins in the Eastern Conference final. Now that almost two weeks have passed, though, it’s easy to see how much the Hurricanes’ deep playoff run is going to mean for hockey in the area.

“A run like we had this year both on and off the ice is going to positively impact us on the business side for years to come,” said Mike Forman, the Hurricanes’ VP of Marketing and Brand Strategy. “It’s definitely not a time to get complacent. In fact, the opposite. But when you start breaking down the influx of new season ticket members, the organic community support from local businesses, the buy-in from city and town officials throughout the state, support from all of our local universities and pro teams, the league-leading growth and engagement rates on our social accounts and then starting to convert non-fans at the very least into casual fans, if not more than that, we’ve put ourselves in a great position for success off the ice and now it’s on us to continue to capitalize on it.”

You saw the reinvigoration at every tailgate, all the people walking around in their “Bunch of Jerks” T-shirts and all the sold-out crowds. Some of the actual numbers might still blow you away.

Of course, it’s too soon for any definitive figures, but two weeks after the end of the 2018-19 Hurricanes season it’s clear that tangible passion for hockey is back in the triangle.

Attendance and new season ticket memberships

The Hurricanes have generated more than $5.1 million in new season ticket memberships as of May 30. That is nearly $4 million more than last year.

“This is the most important impact on the business side of things that comes from a run like the team had this season but also really important to note that it takes years of preparation by the ticket sales staff to be ready for this kind of success or they wouldn’t have been able to capitalize as much as they have,” Forman said. “I can’t put an exact number on it yet because, fortunately, we still have several months to continue to sell season ticket plans, but we are going to have thousands of more Season Ticket Members next year.”

The playoff run is obviously one of the biggest factors, but Forman is adamant that it has been about so much more than that.

“I think taking a look at our attendance growth in general the past two years especially shows that this has been more than just a playoff run,” he said. He also pointed out:

• 13 percent increase in attendance from 2016-17 to 2017-18

• Better than a 7 percent increase in attendance from 2017-18 to 2018-19

• Season average up 21 percent from 2016-17 to 2018-19

• Average attendance from Dec. 22, 2018, to April 4, 2019: 15,481 (up 31 percent from 2016-17 average season attendance)

• College and Military Rush programs: 28 percent increase in attendance during the regular season from 2017-18 to 2018-19 and 54 percent increase from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

The Hurricanes’ average attendance for the seven home games during the playoffs was 19,038 (102 percent capacity). The figure includes four games with 19,000-plus in the building, with the highest attendance in PNC Arena history in Game 4 of Round 2: 19,495 — more impressive when you consider that only one of these games fell on a weekend.

Prior to this year’s playoff games, the Hurricanes’ highest ticket revenue in nearly a decade came last season during the regular season vs. Pittsburgh. This year’s home playoff games exceeded that ticket revenue total by 50 percent to 150 percent per game.

Merchandise sales

Forman’s point is elucidated in merchandise sales. The Hurricanes had their top four regular-season nights in franchise history in 2018-19 from a merchandise sales standpoint.

1. Whalers Night (Dec. 23), was the Hurricanes’ highest grossing regular season merchandise revenue night in franchise history. They brought in nearly $200,000, obviously highlighted by the Adidas Whalers jerseys.

2. The unofficial “Bunch of Jerks” Night (Feb. 19) — the first home game after Don Cherry’s infamous comments and two days after the shirts went on sale. The Hurricanes have sold nearly 20,000 T-shirts to all 50 states and 17 countries. The Bunch of Jerks tees remain Carolina’s top-selling item per day, even throughout the playoff run and when playoff-specific apparel became available.

3. Last regular-season home game (April 4)

4. Second-to-last regular season home game (March 30)

Each home playoff game exceeded that $200,000 merchandise mark that was the previous record set on Whalers Night. From a league standpoint, the Hurricanes were fifth out of 16 teams during the first round of the playoffs in terms of merchandise per cap. They were first in the league out of eight remaining teams in the second round. Eastern Conference Finals data is not available.

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Forman points to the debut of the black third jerseys as another positive in terms of merchandise sales. They’d worked on it for two years and found it rewarding to get such positive feedback, both tangible and anecdotal. He said the Hurricanes gave the players a choice of what jersey to wear at home for the playoffs, and it was “pretty much unanimous” to wear the black ones.

Youth hockey

Boston Pride defender Alyssa Gagliardi is one of the first Raleigh natives to become a professional hockey player, so she knows how it used to be. She remembers being 11 years old, forced to play on the U16 team because that was the only option for girl’s hockey in the area.

Her talents took her to Cornell, then to Boston, but she stays involved in growing the game back at home. She’s part of the reason there are now two or three girls teams at every level where there used to be one overall. All of her efforts, and those of many others, have changed hockey in the area on their own.

But sitting in the stands during playoff hockey’s triumphant return to Raleigh, Gagliardi knew a variable that they’d been missing for a decade was about to make an essential difference.

“I think (the Hurricanes’ playoff run) will bring in a whole new generation of kids that want to get involved in hockey with all this excitement,” she said. “You feel the energy all around the building, around the city and around the state. I think people are passionate about hockey around here. I think people know the sport.”

She was right. Though it’s too soon to gauge conclusive numbers, initial indication of youth interest in hockey is better than it has been in years.

The Carolina Hurricanes First Goal Program, a partnership between the Hurricanes, the NHL, and the NHLPA and part of the Learn To Play program, gives first-time participants (ages 5-9) brand new equipment and the opportunity to take lessons with Hurricanes alum.

Hurricanes Youth and Amateur Coordinator Emile Hartman said that they sold 275 spots in the first 15 minutes of their 2019 Learn To Play registration. As of May 30, there are already 734 children registered for their 2019 Learn To Play program, including 124 girls. That’s a 117-person increase from where they were on May 30, 2017, and up 60 from last year. Six of the 10 locations are sold out.

There have been a handful of other developments that point toward the growth of hockey in the Carolinas, like the creation

of a women’s hockey team at NC State, and an effort to partner with an ECHL team closer to Charlotte and Raleigh, according to sources.

Social media

You were living under a rock this season if you didn’t notice the sometimes hilarious, sometimes savage, always interactive presence the Hurricanes had on social media. WRAL’s Lauren Brownlow did a great job capturing that here.

None of this was some happy-go-lucky afterthought. According to Forman, the Hurricanes led the league in nearly every growth/engagement metric across the three major platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook). They also led the league in Twitter Amplify (a new revenue source available to all pro teams this year) revenue generated, with hundreds of thousands of dollars gained via pre-roll advertisements on their native videos posted to Twitter. Storm Surge videos, Rod Brind’Amour’s postgame speeches and Whalers Night content were the three biggest contributors to that number.

Partnerships

There’s obviously only so much the Hurricanes can say about sponsorships, but they had a number of new local and national partners come on board this year from anywhere to in-ice logos, to dashboards, to in-game promotions, to rally towels, to concourse activations … the list goes on.

Impact on Wake County/Raleigh tourism

The Hurricanes worked with Visit Raleigh during the first round of the playoffs to measure the financial impact that playoff hockey has in Wake County, specifically. Forman found a few numbers particularly notable:

• Direct Tourism Economic Impact Per Playoff Game: $1.14 million

• Direct Part-Time Jobs Supported Per Playoff Game: 1,047

• Direct Local Taxes Generated Per Playoff Game: $38,356

They also studied where people were coming from during the first round based on billing zip codes:

67 percent: Wake County

21 percent: Daytrippers (outside of Wake County and within 89.99 miles)

12 percent: Overnight Visitors (90 miles and beyond from Wake County)

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DGB Grab Bag: Remembering history’s second most awkward Gary Bettman Cup handoff

By Sean McIndoe

Be it resolved

We made it through the first two games of the final without any Cody Eakin-level officiating disasters. But there was one clear missed call, and it came on Wednesday night when the officials managed to miss the Bruins playing with too many men shortly before scoring a goal. As always these days, that led to various fans and media wondering why that kind of mistake can’t be challenged.

I’ve stated my case against expanded replay in the past, but it’s clear that not everyone is convinced. So this week, instead of pointing out the obvious – that replay reviews of line changes would be a disaster because by the strict letter of the rulebook, virtually every one of them is technically illegal – I’m going to try to make peace with the other side.

If I understand the most common form of the argument, you want each coach to have one challenge that he can use on just about anything he wants. Leave it up to them to decide when they want to use it, and on what. If they’re wrong, they lose their challenge and take a penalty. And if they’re right, that means we fixed a mistake, which is a good thing.

You know what? I’m on board. Count me in.

On one condition.

Be it resolved that we give each coach one challenge per game where he can demand a review of an official’s decision – but only if we also give each official one challenge per game where he can review a coach’s decision.

Fair’s fair, right? And since coaches keep telling us how important it is to get everything right, surely they won’t mind a little bit of extra scrutiny on their work.

Imagine how excited you would be if the game was stopped and you heard, “The referee is challenging Mike Babcock’s decision to only give Auston Matthews like 18 minutes in this elimination game,” or, “The linesman would like to know what the deal is with Micheal Haley getting a lineup spot in the playoffs,” or, “All four of us were just wondering if you know you have a backup goalie or are we just sticking with Vasilevskiy all night?” Then everyone could gather around a little iPad for five minutes before the coach had to use a microphone to tell the crowd that he screwed up.

Would this make sense? No, it would be almost impossibly dumb. But so would letting coaches challenge line changes, and at least my idea would be funny. So sure, let’s have expanded coach’s challenge. But only if we also get the introduction of coaches challenge.

If we keep at it, we can eventually turn the entire game into people standing around staring at iPads. That’s apparently the goal, so let’s make it happen.

The week’s three stars of comedy

The third star: Tuukka Rask – Every postseason has one guy you would have never expected who emerges as a comedy presence. I did not have Rask in the pool, but here he is, making his second comedy stars appearance in three weeks.

The second star: Carl Gunnarson – This whole urinal story already feels like it’s being overdone; as we discussed on this week’s podcast, I think we’re collectively making too big a deal out of a guy asking for “one more chance” when he already plays a regular shift. Still, anything a hockey player says to their coach while they’re peeing is worth consideration for this section, and seeing Craig Berube sell the hell out of it is great.

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The first star: Teemu Selanne – You think you’re being dedicated when you break out your lucky shirt to support your favorite team. This guy went full gear, including skates, in his living room.

Debating the issues

This week’s debate: The Stanley Cup final has started, meaning the NHL can look forward to some of its very best television ratings of the year. But is there anything the league and its partners could do to make broadcasts better for fans?

In favor: Oh, for sure. Nobody’s perfect, and the NHL certainly hasn’t mastered the art of presenting its product. It does a lot of things right these days – compared to what they were like a generation ago, today’s broadcasts look fantastic. But that said, there’s certainly room for improvement.

In favor: So…

In favor: Um…

In favor: So yeah, they could do some things better. Do you want me to list some examples or something, or…

In favor: Sorry, is Opposed not here?

The final verdict: He doesn’t seem to be.

In favor: I thought we were starting.

The final verdict: Yeah, so did I. Apparently not.

In favor: Well, this is pointless.

The final verdict: Yeah. Sorry, everyone. Not sure what the deal is with this week’s debate. We might as well move on to the next section.

Obscure former player of the week

With the Bruins back in the final for the third time in a decade, it’s worth remembering that Massachusetts has produced a ton of NHL players. A total of 201 in all, according to hockey-reference.com, trailing only Minnesota among U.S. states. You could build a pretty decent all-time roster around players such as Jeremy Roenick, Keith Tkachuk, Jack Eichel and John Carlson. And you’d have plenty of help building that roster, thanks to the presence of GMs such as Paul Fenton, Garth Snow and, uh, Mike Milbury.

But today, let’s see if we can find a Massachusetts product who played for both the Bruins and the Blues. How about Eric Nickulas?

Nickulas was a right winger who lit up the scoreboard in high school, racking up 46 goals and 82 points in just 25 games for

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Cushing Academy Prep, a Massachusetts school that also produced hockey stars Keith Yandle, Conor Sheary and Meghan Duggan, as well as noted thespians Bette Davis and John Cena. The Bruins selected Nickulas with the 99th pick in the 1994 draft; the next four right wingers taken were Zdenek Skorepa, Craig Mills, Tony Tuzzolino and Daniel Alfredsson.

Nickulas went to college, but finally made his NHL debut midway through the 1998-99 season, playing two games against the Maple Leafs and totaling just seven minutes of ice time. He got a little more action over the next two seasons, but only a little, and signed as a free agent with the Blues in 2002. He finally put in close to a full season in 2003-04, a year he started in St. Louis before being claimed on waivers by the Blackhawks; in all, he dressed for 65 games that year, recording a career-high 20 points. He returned to the Bruins as a free agent after the lockout, but that 2005-06 season would be his last in the NHL.

Opposed: OK, I’m here, let’s start.

In favor: What?

Opposed: I’m ready to go. Showtime!

In favor: We were supposed to have already started a while ago.

Opposed: Says who?

In favor: Says the schedule. Scroll up to where it says “Debating the issues.” That’s when everyone was expecting us to start.

Opposed: Oh, that’s just a rough guideline. Sports fans don’t expect things to start when they say they will.

In favor: They don’t?

Opposed: No, sports fans like to wait around. It builds drama.

In favor: That sounds awful.

Opposed: Nah, they love the suspense. It’s like when a game says it’s going to start at 8 p.m. It can’t actually start then. It’s got to be way later.

In favor: OK, but when?

Opposed: Who knows? Maybe 8:20? Or 8:25? Some nights before that, some nights after. Fans love to be kept guessing.

In favor: If you’re going to start at 8:20, why not just list the start time as 8:20?

Opposed: Well, that wouldn’t make any sense at all.

In favor: I hate you.

Opposed: So anyway … (checks watch) … yep, time to start the debate.

In favor: Dude, nobody cares anymore, everyone’s already moved on to other things.

Opposed: And in conclusion, no, there is no way the NHL could improve on its presentation of playoff hockey.

The final verdict: In all, Nickulas played 118 NHL games, scoring 15 goals and recording 38 points. He’d play a few years in Europe before retiring in 2009.

Classic YouTube clip breakdown

Believe it or not, this could be the last Grab Bag of the hockey season. By the time next Friday rolls around, the Stanley Cup final could be finished. And that means we may have seen one of the best moments of the year: Gary Bettman’s awkward attempt at a Cup handoff.

I love them so much. I’ve actually gone back and ranked them from best to worst, with the most awkward of all time being the 2006 handoff to Rod Brind’Amour that wasn’t really a handoff because Brind’Amour just yanked it off the podium and left with it in what may be my favorite moment of the entire cap era. Unfortunately, I’ve already used that clip in this section. Can I interest you in No. 2?

As it turns out, that second-place handoff is probably more memorable than the 2006 version. And as luck would have it, it also involves one of the teams that could be getting a visit from Bettman over the next week.

• It’s June 15, 2011, and the Boston Bruins have just won their first Stanley Cup since 1972 by defeating the Canucks in Game 7. It’s a big moment, and Boston fans are no doubt delirious with joy. But this game is taking place in Vancouver, where the fans are, shall we say, not delirious with joy. They’re a little cranky. We’ll get to that.

• This is actually the second part of a two-part clip, but it starts with an underrated moment: Tim Thomas winning the Conn Smythe trophy and then having absolutely no idea what to do with it. He smiles his way through the photos, but keeps pointing his thumb in the universal gesture for “What are we doing here guys?” When that’s over, he doesn’t know whether the leave the trophy behind or take it with him, and nobody will tell him. Possibly because they realize these fans are about to riot and are busy planning escape routes.

• Thomas eventually skates away with the trophy while asking random cameramen what he’s supposed to be doing with it. He eventually just gives it away to the first man in a suit he can find. Typical Republican.

• Meanwhile, the fans are already chanting “Bettman sucks.” This should go well.

• We get a brief story about Thomas refusing to touch the Cup at Martin St. Louis’ party in 2004, because when it comes to the Stanley Cup, every Bruins goalie likes to ruin things for St. Louis. Am I right, Blues fans?

• Anyway, here’s the Cup. The fans kind of cheer, then go back to booing when they realize that Bettman is trying to sneak out behind it. I mean, it was worth a try.

• Bettman tries the old trick where you start talking before the audience has a chance to react, but his mic doesn’t work. By the time he gets going, the crowd is giving it to him with both barrels, even as he tries to defuse them by complimenting the Canucks. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

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• To his credit, Bettman soldiers on with his pre-planned speech. He mostly pulls it off, too, because by this point he’s been on the job for almost two decades. Gone is the fresh-faced rookie who tried to speak French and got mobbed by Habs players in 1993. This guy’s been here before. He’s an unflappable veteran.

• Except … as longtime fans of Bettman awkwardness will know, he has a tell. Whenever he gets flustered, you won’t see it in his face or his hear it in his voice, or even find it in his posture. But the giveaway is his one hand. Whether it’s an interview or a public appearance or a Cup presentation, when things start going bad that one hand achieves self-awareness and goes into business for itself.

• In this case, the first sign of trouble is when Bettman says that the Bruins had to win three Game 7s, and the hand holds up one finger. Bettman tries to catch it, but by the point it’s too late. The crowd is vicious, he knows he still has to be out there for a while, and his hand goes into self-defense mode. In this case, that means making finger guns at absolutely everybody. I’ve previously referred to this phenomenon as Bettman’s Tom Jones hand, and once you notice it, it’s all you can see whenever he starts talking.

• Bettman powers through, and gets to the part where he calls over Zdeno Chara. The Bruins captain skates out, turns back to his teammates, and … does a double finger guns? Oh no! The Tom Jones Hand is contagious, and it’s gone airborne! Everybody run! What do you mean, in which direction? (Furiously finger gunning toward exit.) That way!

• Doc Emerick makes a joke about this being the highest the Stanley Cup has ever been. The mid-80s Oilers might have something to say about that.

• Both Chara and Bettman make the rookie mistake of reaching the wrong hand for the wrong end of the Cup. Bettman tries to correct, but ends up just palming the bottom of the Cup for the traditional photo.

• I’ve asked this before, but who is taking those photos that Bettman always insists on making everyone

pose for? Have you ever seen one? Seriously, do a Google image search for “bettman stanley cup.” It’s all either screen grabs from TV or long-distance photos of Bettman and the captain looking at someone else. Where are all these posed shots that we have to wait for? Did he make a scrapbook? Does he have a private Instagram account? Is there a room in his house that only he’s allowed to enter that’s covered floor-to-ceiling with these things? This bothers me more than it should.

• Anyway, this pose is shorter than most because Bettman just wants to go home and Chara is making a face that suggests that he might unhinge his jaw and try to eat him. Run, Gary. It’s the right call.

• With that, the presentation is done. We get a shot of Chara’s legitimately awesome celebration, and you can feel free to watch nine minutes of the Bruins handing the Cup to each other while swearing into an open mic. Mark Recchi gets the 14th best handoff of all-time, we all get to remember that Tomas Kaberle was on this team, Brad Marchand is one of the last to get it because he’s just some fourth-line punk, and Milan Lucic actually gets a bit of a positive response because Vancouver fans don’t boo hometown players. Uh, maybe hold that thought.

• And that’s it for our clip. At this point, all the true Canucks fans quietly went home to read, while an entirely different group of people started a riot for completely unrelated reasons. Just a weird coincidence.

• As for Bettman, you don’t get to see it in this clip, but I recommend this view that’s shot from the stands and shows what happens after Chara takes the Cup. In my favorite moment of the night, Bettman bolts for the exit, and is immediately greeted by two league employees who put their arms around him like he’s a kid who just struck out to end the Little League game. It’s actually kind of adorable. “Good try, Gary, you did you best. Let’s go get you a snow cone.”

• Will Blues or Bruins fans give him a rougher ride this year? Only time will tell, but … no. The 2011 presentation will never be topped.

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Charlotte Checkers Corner: Chasing a Championship; Canes sign Luostarinen to ELC

The Checkers have their eye on the prize and are four wins away from their first Calder Cup in franchise history.

By Justin Lape and Jake Lerch

Four wins. That’s all that sits between the Charlotte Checkers and their first Calder Cup in franchise history. What seemed like a distant dream in October is now a realistic possibility. Much like their parent team, the drama followed the team on the way to clinching the Eastern Conference Championship.

A double-OT spectacular at Bojangles Coliseum helped the Checkers punch their ticket to the Calder Cup Final after Morgan Geekie crashed the net and tipped a puck in past Toronto Marlies goalie Kasimir Kaskisuo.

The Toronto Marlies were a tough test for the Checkers as the defending champs and a team that brings a balance of skill and toughness, similar to the Boston Bruins at the NHL level. The Checkers balanced offense took advantage of a tired Marlies team that allowed at least four goals in four of the six games.

Heading into the Finals, the Checkers look relatively healthy despite the deep run they are on. After an unfortunate fall which sent him crashing into the boards in Game 6, Julien Gauthier is progressing nicely despite not finishing the game.

With the Marlies in the rear-view mirror, Charlotte must face another tough opponent on their road to the Calder Cup: the Chicago Wolves, affiliate of the Vegas Golden Knights. Charlotte and Chicago played a best of five first-round series in 2017, when the Checkers were in the AHL’s Western Conference and the Wolves were the affiliate of the St. Louis Blues. The top-seeded Wolves won the series in five games, coming back from 2-1 down in the series to win on home ice.

The Wolves have plenty of high-powered offensive weapons led by Daniel Carr, T.J. Tynan and Cody Glass. Glass, Vegas’ 1st round pick in 2017, only played six games for the Wolves in the regular season but recorded five points and has 12 points in 17 playoff games. Carr and Tynan finished tied for 3rd in the league in regular season scoring with 71 points. Carr did it in 52 games, finishing with 1.37 points per game, the highest in the AHL among players with at least 50 games played.

Oscar Dansk has put together a strong postseason with a .921 save percentage and a 2.16 goals against average. Dansk has a few games of NHL experience and has been consistent

at the AHL level with a career despite one rough season with the Springfield Falcons. Charlotte’s best option offensively is to put screens in front of Dansk and score “dirty area” goals. Charlotte’s ability to score off the rush could also pose a threat to an underwhelming Wolves defense. But, as was the case with Steven Lorentz’s initial shot that Geekie redirected in after a strange bounce in front, sometimes just throwing it on net can be the best option.

The series kicks off at home for the Checkers with the a pair of games on the weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Checkers ticket representatives are offering the family and friends discount to Canes Country readers. Plus, a special guest will be in attendance this weekend.

The Checkers hold the advantage at home, losing just one of seven games there this postseason. As someone who has covered somewhere between 50-60 games in Charlotte over the past three seasons, Bojangles Coliseum in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals was one of the loudest in recent memory. The same energy is expected at the start of the Calder Cup Finals, especially given the fact the series starts on a weekend which should give plenty of opportunity for fans from Raleigh to make their way to the Queen City.

The Checkers berth in the Calder Cup Finals is a monumental accomplishment for head coach Mike Vellucci, who will be without a contract at the end of the season. He’s helped shape the Hurricanes’ minor league program into a disciplined, talented and well-oiled machine within his short time with the team.

It remains to be seen what Vellucci’s plans are and if he’d rather move to a separate team for an expanded role outside of AHL coach and assistant general manager. Could a move up to the NHL be in his future? Is Vellucci content with his current roles and decides to re-sign? However, if Vellucci does decide to move on, the visual of the team lifting the Calder Cup over their heads would be a pleasant parting gift.

The Hurricanes announced on Thursday that they have signed forward Eetu Luostarinen to a three-year, entry-level contract running through the 2021-22 season. The 6’3” 178-pound forward was drafted by the Canes in the second round, 42nd overall, in the 2017 NHL Draft. He registered 36 points (15g, 21a) in 54 games in the Finnish league in 2018-19. He also played four games in the 2019 IIHF World Championship, helping Finland bring home the gold medal.

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About Last Season: Micheal Ferland Performance Review and Grade

Ferland may be a one and done player for the Carolina Hurricanes but he brought energy and skill when he was healthy.

By Zeke Lukow

Micheal Ferland: 2018-2019 By The Numbers

• Age: 27

• NHL Seasons: 5

• Games Played: 71

• Scoring: 17 goals, 23 assists, 40 points

• Ice Time: 14:06 all situations, 12:08 ES, 1:57 PP, 0:01 PK

• 5 on 5 Stats: 53.60% CF, 62.69% GF

• Contract: Unrestricted Free Agent

Making the Grade

Micheal Ferland was one of the big pieces that the Carolina Hurricanes acquired in a trade at the 2018 NHL Draft that sent Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm to the Calgary Flames. They added him to bring energy and more hitting to Carolina, but he had also proven that he could play on a top line in Calgary.

Ferland had a tale of two seasons, the one when he was healthy and the one after he picked up a nagging injury in November. In his first 24 games he proved to be a valuable top six asset scoring 11 goals and contributing four assists including five power play goals. He also had 13 penalty minutes, including a fighting major.

During this time, there were many rumors surrounding a potential contract negotiation between Ferland and the Canes, most of which indicated that they were far apart in their

negotiations. The Hurricanes were reportedly offering around five million a year, and Ferland wanted a 7x7 deal. This also led to rumors that the Canes would trade him to get something back for his expiring contract, but they opted to keep him as “their own rental.”

His first injury came at the end of November when he missed eight games in a nine-game span. He missed four other games in the regular season. After this initial injury, he struggled to find the back of the net and just had six goals in the last 46 goals.

In March and April, after the trade deadline, he had just five assists in 17 games. He then reaggravated the injury early in the first round series against the Capitals and missed eight straight playoff games. In the playoffs he played in seven games with just a single assist and a -3 rating, when the Canes needed it the most.

He ended up the sixth lowest Corsi on the team with a 53.6% but have the second highest goals for with a 62.69%. The Corsi number is surprising given that he had a 59.67% offensive zone start percentage, so it would be expected that it would be even higher. This also explains why his goals for is so high, because he was rarely used in defensive scenarios.

Overall, Ferland showed flashes of brilliance throughout the season, but couldn’t contribute as consistently as the Canes had hoped when they trade for his expiring contract. While they will miss his physical play, he has yet to play a full season. Both his total points (40) and goals (17) were a step back from the previous season despite having a career high 19 power play points.

Both sides are likely to move on this offseason. Ferland will likely get a big payday from someone. It just won’t be the Canes, who are going to be more cautious spenders until they have all their key players re-signed. The Hurricanes should be able to replace his contributions next season with Martin Necas who will likely come in the top-six relatively quickly.

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Tight-knit Checkers aiming to cap off special season by delivering title to Charlotte

by Nicholas Niedzielski

By knocking off the defending champion Toronto Marlies last weekend, the Checkers punched their ticket for the Calder Cup Finals, something that no other incarnation of franchise has been able to do in its eight-year AHL existence. So what is it about this specific team that has given the Checkers their best season ever? There’s certainly an abundance of high-end talent on the 2018-19 Checkers, but there’s been no shortage of that over the years in Charlotte. There’s something bigger that has set this team apart, and it starts in the locker room. “This is the most fun that I’ve had in my five years in Charlotte,” said Trevor Carrick. “And it’s not because we’re winning games and doing well, it’s this group of guys.” “We’ve built a great culture here, even starting last year or the year before,” said Andrew Poturalski. “We love it here. We love showing up to the rink.” Fans have been lucky enough to get a bit of a glimpse into the locker room following wins during this postseason run, and that power of that positive culture is on full display.

“We’ve got to credit Dan Renouf for starting that little celebration there,” said Poturalski. “It’s been great and the boys are buying in. We’ve got good leadership and good coaches, the new guys come in and they fit in.” Even as they power through the grind of more than two months of extra hockey, the significance of this season to the

organization as a whole isn’t lost on the team. “Michael Kahn has put a lot of money and time into this organization and he loves this city and this team,” said head coach Mike Vellucci. “His family is around all the time. For me, it’s a pride to be able to do it for him.” If the record crowd on hand for the thrilling Game 6 victory is any indication, the city of Charlotte has started to pick up on how special this season is as well. “Sunday night was magical,” said Vellucci of Game 6. “I had chills, it was so loud. To see the jubilation and everyone hugging and high-fiving in the crowd, it was pretty exciting.” “When we showed up for warmups the place was already packed,” said Poturalski. “To have that support from the people of Charlotte has been great.” “We love playing in front of them,” said Carrick of the Charlotte fans. “That’s why we worked hard during the season to get that home-ice advantage.” The city of Charlotte has waited a long time for a championship, and that close-knit group in the locker room wants to be the one to deliver it. “It’d be awesome to go all the way with this group,” said Carrick. “There’s no better team to win it with,” said Poturalski.

TODAY’S LINKS https://theathletic.com/999660/2019/05/30/by-the-numbers-the-tangible-impact-of-the-hurricanes-2018-19-season-for-hockey-in-north-carolina/

https://theathletic.com/1003451/2019/05/31/dgb-grab-bag-remembering-historys-second-most-awkward-gary-bettman-cup-handoff/ https://www.canescountry.com/2019/5/30/18644335/charlotte-checkers-ahl-calder-cup-finals-chicago-wolves-carolina-hurricanes-eetu-luostarinen

https://www.canescountry.com/2019/5/30/18643581/carolina-hurricanes-season-review-micheal-ferland-performance-review-and-grade http://gocheckers.com/articles/features/tight-knit-checkers-aiming-to-cap-off-special-season-by-delivering-title-to-charlotte

CAROLINA HURRICANES


1145720 Carolina Hurricanes

Hottest thing on ice: The Charlotte Checkers look to complete their dream season

BY SCOTT FOWLER

MAY 29, 2019 06:12 PM

It’s always 90 degrees outside these days. But a local sports team has gotten even hotter than that – the Charlotte Checkers.

On Saturday at Bojangles’ Coliseum, the Checkers begin one last best-of-7 series against the Chicago Wolves. Minor-league hockey has roots in Charlotte dating back to 1956. But if the Checkers win this championship, it will be the most prestigious title the team has ever put on ice.

The Checkers already have a strong home fan base – they averaged about 6,700 fans during the regular season. But they shoehorned 8,393 people into their 64-year-old building Sunday night for a Game 6 playoff thriller in the Eastern Conference finals. Charlotte won in double overtime against Toronto on a goal by Morgan Geekie – yes, it was a Geekie goal — that pushed the Checkers into the Calder Cup Finals, which is minor-league hockey’s version of the Stanley Cup.

“It was electric,” said Pam Reddeck, a season-ticket holder. “When the Checkers got that last goal Sunday night, it just about blew the roof off the place.”

Reddeck and her husband have the sort of personal story that speaks to the deep roots that both Bojangles’ Coliseum (which opened in 1955) and the Checkers boast in Charlotte.

Jim Reddeck, 77, actually saw some of the city’s first minor-league

hockey games in early 1956

. The home rink for the Baltimore Clippers was obliterated by a fire that season, and the Maryland team needed a place to play its final five games. An investment group from Charlotte convinced Baltimore to relocate those games to Charlotte.

Close to 10,000 Charlotteans came to each one (they were sometimes preceded by on-ice tutorials, since most Southerners only had a vague understanding of hockey’s rules). The Clippers were used to playing to crowds of about 2,000 in Baltimore. So they pulled up stakes and moved to Charlotte for the next season, officially becoming the Charlotte Clippers. The franchise would first receive the nickname of “Checkers” in the late 1950s after a name-the-team contest.

“I didn’t know much about hockey at first,” Jim Reddeck said of those early years, “but I couldn’t get enough of those games.”

Twenty years later, in 1976, Jim and Pam both attended a Checkers game on the same night. They met for the first time afterward at a local Charlotte bar.

They have since been married more than 40 years (she worked mostly as a nurse; he was a truck driver). They have attended hundreds more Checkers’ home games together in the coliseum.

“There’s not a bad seat in the whole place,” Pam Reddeck said.

“And this Checkers team,” Jim Reddeck said, “is special.”

‘SOMETHING I’M NEVER GOING TO FORGET’

The current Checkers’ players, of course, don’t have that sort of Queen City history. They are mostly young men in their 20s from other, colder places who are now playing at the top level of minor-league hockey. Charlotte moved up to this level of hockey, which is analogous to Triple-A baseball, in 2010, and is the affiliate for the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes.

Several Checkers players already have some NHL experience. All of them want to get to the NHL and then stick there.

But in the meantime, the Checkers are one of the last two teams standing in the 31-team American Hockey League.

Patrick Brown, a 27-year-old forward and a team captain, said Sunday’s double-OT win was one of the season’s defining moments. “You grow up playing hockey with your buddies when you’re five years old, and you dream about scoring that double OT goal,” he said.

Afterward, Brown said, the players saluted the crowd. “They were just jumping, going wild, screaming,” Brown said. “It’s something I’m never going to forget.”

The Checkers will host Games 1 and 2 of the Calder Cup Finals on Saturday and Sunday.

But the Checkers can’t practice on their home ice in Bojangles’ Coliseum all week, in part because of all the high school graduation ceremonies scheduled in the building over the next couple of weeks.

Instead, they are driving a half hour down to Extreme Ice in Indian Trail. But that’s no big deal to this team – the players are used to sharing their coliseum with all sorts of concerts and events.

The Checkers also shared the Spectrum Center with the Charlotte Hornets uptown for a decade beginning in 2005, but then returned to their roots in a renovated Bojangles’ Coliseum. They seem to fit better in the old building, anyway, which is more intimate (it has less than half the capacity of Spectrum Center) and gets more of the fans closer to the action.

Said Mike Vellucci, the Checkers coach: “You know what I love about that old building? It’s loud, right? The acoustics are great.”

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HOCKEY IN JUNE?

Vellucci may be a future NHL coach himself. He guided the Checkers to a 51-17-8 record in the 2018-19 regular season – the best in franchise history – and was named the AHL’s Most Outstanding Coach. His team has already won three playoff series, including a victory over the defending champion Toronto Marlies in the Eastern Conference final.

“There are times I’ve got to steer the ship,” Vellucci said, “and there are times the players are going to steer it. I had to steer the ship when we were down 3-0 in Game 2 (against Toronto) and everybody looked in a little bit of a panic. My point to them was, ‘How good is it going to feel when we win?’ And we won.”

The Checkers have been doing a lot of that sort of thing lately, winning one close game after another. It helps that they also employ the AHL’s Most Outstanding Goalie in Alex Nedeljkovic and that the team is balanced enough to get scoring from all sorts of places.

Hockey in June is a rarity in Charlotte, but it’s about to happen. Bundle up.

News Observer LOADED: 05.31.2019

1145721 Carolina Hurricanes

By the numbers: The tangible impact of the Hurricanes’ 2018-19 season for hockey in North Carolina

By Sara Civian

May 30, 2019

It’s never fun when a season ends in a sweep, and the disappointment was palpable immediately after the Hurricanes fell to the Bruins in the Eastern Conference final. Now that almost two weeks have passed, though, it’s easy to see how much the Hurricanes’ deep playoff run is going to mean for hockey in the area.

“A run like we had this year both on and off the ice is going to positively impact us on the business side for years to come,” said Mike Forman, the Hurricanes’ VP of Marketing and Brand Strategy. “It’s definitely not a time to get complacent. In fact, the opposite. But when you start breaking down the influx of new season ticket members, the organic community support from local businesses, the buy-in from city and town officials throughout the state, support from all of our local universities and pro teams, the league-leading growth and engagement rates on our social accounts and then starting to convert non-fans at the very least into casual fans, if not more than that, we’ve put ourselves in a great position for success off the ice and now it’s on us to continue to capitalize on it.”

You saw the reinvigoration at every tailgate, all the people walking around in their “Bunch of Jerks” T-shirts and all the sold-out crowds. Some of the actual numbers might still blow you away.

Of course, it’s too soon for any definitive figures, but two weeks after the end of the 2018-19 Hurricanes season it’s clear that tangible passion for hockey is back in the triangle.

Attendance and new season ticket memberships

The Hurricanes have generated more than $5.1 million in new season ticket memberships as of May 30. That is nearly $4 million more than last year.

“This is the most important impact on the business side of things that comes from a run like the team had this season but also really important to note that it takes years of preparation by the ticket sales staff to be ready for this kind of success or they wouldn’t have been able to capitalize as much as they have,” Forman said. “I can’t put an exact number on it yet because, fortunately, we still have several months to continue to sell season ticket plans, but we are going to have thousands of more Season Ticket Members next year.”

The playoff run is obviously one of the biggest factors, but Forman is adamant that it has been about so much more than that.

“I think taking a look at our attendance growth in general the past two years especially shows that this has been more than just a playoff run,” he said. He also pointed out:

13 percent increase in attendance from 2016-17 to 2017-18

Better than a 7 percent increase in attendance from 2017-18 to 2018-19

Season average up 21 percent from 2016-17 to 2018-19

Average attendance from Dec. 22, 2018, to April 4, 2019: 15,481 (up 31 percent from 2016-17 average season attendance)

College and Military Rush programs: 28 percent increase in attendance during the regular season from 2017-18 to 2018-19 and 54 percent increase from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

The Hurricanes’ average attendance for the seven home games during the playoffs was 19,038 (102 percent capacity). The figure includes four games with 19,000-plus in the building, with the highest attendance in PNC Arena history in Game 4 of Round 2: 19,495 — more impressive when you consider that only one of these games fell on a weekend.

Prior to this year’s playoff games, the Hurricanes’ highest ticket revenue in nearly a decade came last season during the regular season vs. Pittsburgh. This year’s home playoff games exceeded that ticket revenue total by 50 percent to 150 percent per game.

Merchandise sales

Forman’s point is elucidated in merchandise sales. The Hurricanes had their top four regular-season nights in franchise history in 2018-19 from a merchandise sales standpoint.

1. Whalers Night (Dec. 23), was the Hurricanes’ highest grossing regular season merchandise revenue night in franchise history. They brought in nearly $200,000, obviously highlighted by the Adidas Whalers jerseys.

2. The unofficial “Bunch of Jerks” Night (Feb. 19) — the first home game after Don Cherry’s infamous comments and two days after the shirts went on sale. The Hurricanes have sold nearly 20,000 T-shirts to all 50 states and 17 countries. The Bunch of Jerks tees remain Carolina’s top-selling item per day, even throughout the playoff run and when playoff-specific apparel became available.

3. Last regular-season home game (April 4)

4. Second-to-last regular season home game (March 30)

Each home playoff game exceeded that $200,000 merchandise mark that was the previous record set on Whalers Night. From a league standpoint, the Hurricanes were fifth out of 16 teams during the first round of the playoffs in terms of merchandise per cap. They

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were first in the league out of eight remaining teams in the second round. Eastern Conference Finals data is not available.

Forman points to the debut of the black third jerseys as another positive in terms of merchandise sales. They’d worked on it for two years and found it rewarding to get such positive feedback, both tangible and anecdotal. He said the Hurricanes gave the players a choice of what jersey to wear at home for the playoffs, and it was “pretty much unanimous” to wear the black ones.

Youth hockey

Boston Pride defender Alyssa Gagliardi is one of the first Raleigh natives to become a professional hockey player, so she knows how it used to be. She remembers being 11 years old, forced to play on the U16 team because that was the only option for girl’s hockey in the area.

Her talents took her to Cornell, then to Boston, but she stays involved in growing the game back at home. She’s part of the reason there are now two or three girls teams at every level where there used to be one overall. All of her efforts, and those of many others, have changed hockey in the area on their own.

But sitting in the stands during playoff hockey’s triumphant return to Raleigh, Gagliardi knew a variable that they’d been missing for a decade was about to make an essential difference.

“I think (the Hurricanes’ playoff run) will bring in a whole new generation of kids that want to get involved in hockey with all this excitement,” she said. “You feel the energy all around the building, around the city and around the state. I think people are passionate about hockey around here. I think people know the sport.”

She was right. Though it’s too soon to gauge conclusive numbers, initial indication of youth interest in hockey is better than it has been in years.

The Carolina Hurricanes First Goal Program, a partnership between the Hurricanes, the NHL, and the NHLPA and part of the Learn To Play program, gives first-time participants (ages 5-9) brand new equipment and the opportunity to take lessons with Hurricanes alum.

Hurricanes Youth and Amateur Coordinator Emile Hartman said that they sold 275 spots in the first 15 minutes of their 2019 Learn To Play registration. As of May 30, there are already 734 children registered for their 2019 Learn To Play program, including 124 girls. That’s a 117-person increase from where they were on May 30, 2017, and up 60 from last year. Six of the 10 locations are sold out.

There have been a handful of other developments that point toward the growth of hockey in the Carolinas, like the creation of a women’s hockey team at NC State, and an effort to partner with an ECHL team closer to Charlotte and Raleigh, according to sources.

Social media

You were living under a rock this season if you didn’t notice the sometimes hilarious, sometimes savage, always interactive presence the Hurricanes had on social media. WRAL’s Lauren Brownlow did a great job capturing that here.

None of this was some happy-go-lucky afterthought. According to Forman, the Hurricanes led the league in nearly every growth/engagement metric across the three major platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook). They also led the league in Twitter Amplify (a new revenue source available to all pro teams this year) revenue generated, with hundreds of thousands of dollars gained via pre-roll advertisements on their native videos posted to Twitter. Storm Surge videos, Rod Brind’Amour’s postgame speeches and Whalers Night content were the three biggest contributors to that number.

Partnerships

There’s obviously only so much the Hurricanes can say about sponsorships, but they had a number of new local and national partners come on board this year from anywhere to in-ice logos, to dashboards, to in-game promotions, to rally towels, to concourse activations … the list goes on.

Impact on Wake County/Raleigh tourism

The Hurricanes worked with Visit Raleigh during the first round of the playoffs to measure the financial impact that playoff hockey has in Wake County, specifically. Forman found a few numbers particularly notable:

Direct Tourism Economic Impact Per Playoff Game: $1.14 million

Direct Part-Time Jobs Supported Per Playoff Game: 1,047

Direct Local Taxes Generated Per Playoff Game: $38,356

They also studied where people were coming from during the first round based on billing zip codes:

67 percent: Wake County

21 percent: Daytrippers (outside of Wake County and within 89.99 miles)

12 percent: Overnight Visitors (90 miles and beyond from Wake County)

The Athletic LOADED: 05.31.2019

1145772 Websites

The Athletic / ‘He has all the tools’: Traits that make defenceman Philip Broberg one of the draft’s top-ranked prospects

By Sunaya Sapurji

May 30, 2019

Randy Edmonds remembers the moment well. A native of North Bay, Ont., he had spent many years coaching and playing in Sweden. On this particular occasion, he was working with a group of bantam-aged players — including his son Lucas — at the Furudals Hockeyskola in Sweden.

The summer hockey camp was located in Furudal, a small, remote town with a population of fewer than 500 people. Despite being situated in the middle of nowhere, Furudal has an arena where the well-known hockey school has been run for decades, boasting students like Mats Sundin, Henrik Zetterberg and Daniel Alfredsson.

In Edmonds’s group was a 13-year-old centre named Philip Broberg. The hockey school was so popular that Broberg told the coaching staff he was a defenceman in order to get more ice time in a camp awash with forwards. Broberg boasted a bit of experience on the blue line thanks to his minor hockey coach — his father Mattias — who would occasionally play him on defence against the better teams due to his size advantage. This happened maybe three or four times a year.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


At the camp it became clear to Edmonds that the blue line, given his size and skating ability, was where Broberg was meant to be. So, he told the Brobergs — Mattias and his wife Anna — that their son would make a great defenceman and they should consider having Philip switch.

“They looked at me like I was crazy,” said Edmonds.

Broberg laughs when asked to recall that discussion between his parents and Edmonds years ago at the hockey school. At that point in his hockey career, he had been a forward of some note with his hometown team in Örebro.

“I had played forward as a centre my whole life at that point,” Broberg said in a phone interview from his home in Sweden. “I had a really good season and I had grown back then as a centre — I had many points and all that.

“Randy told me and my parents that I should play defence and that I would one day be a better defenceman than a forward.”

The Brobergs took the advice and Philip converted to playing defence after that summer. (Edmonds would later go on to work for the same agency that now represents Broberg.)

“We listened to him and I’m very happy I made that decision.”

And why shouldn’t he be happy? Broberg is now one of the top-ranked blueliners for the 2019 NHL Draft next month. The left-handed shot D-man is ranked fifth among European skaters in the NHL Central Scouting Bureau’s final draft rankings. As of Thursday, Broberg had already met with 23 NHL teams at the scouting combine in Buffalo. Edmonds figured the talented defenceman would probably meet with the remaining eight teams at some point before the weekend’s activities were over. The Athletic’s scouting guru, Corey Pronman, has Broberg ranked ninth-overall and listed as a “high-end NHL prospect” on his final draft board.

“Broberg’s skating, mobility and confidence is outstanding,” Göran Stubb, the NHL’s director of European scouting said via email. “He has all the tools to become a top pair D-man in the NHL.”

It’s been a whirlwind year the 6-foot-3, 199-pound defenceman. He impressed at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup with three goals and an assist in five tournament games, won gold at the U18 world championships where he was named top defenceman and was named to Sweden’s world junior team.

On top of all that, he made the jump from junior to pro, playing most of the year for AIK in Allsvenskan, Sweden’s second division. His ice time was limited at times and there was inconsistency in his play, which is what you might expect given that Broberg won’t turn 18 until after the draft on June 25. He spent the most time paired with 33-year-old veteran Johan Larsson, which Broberg said helped improve his game.

“It was great,” Broberg said. “He was a guy that you could look up to in the locker room and on the ice. He would always teach me things, he helped me a lot.”

The 17-year-old finished the season with two goals and nine points in 41 games for AIK — the Allsvenskan’s top team in the regular season.

“It was a big difference from playing junior,” Broberg said. “It’s a more physical game. It’s more physical in the corners and in front of the net.”

At the world juniors in Vancouver, Broberg contracted a stomach illness which lingered upon his return to Sweden. Once he was on the mend, the team decided it would be best for him to play a

handful of games with AIK’s junior squad. It was an easy transition because Broberg also spent time practicing throughout the year with the junior team.

“He played on the junior team to get more ice time,” Jussi Salo, head coach of AIK’s U20 side said. “With the junior team, he was playing 28 or 29 minutes in each game which was good for his development.”

Unlike the pro team where he was playing with and against much older players, he found his groove with the juniors scoring a point per game with two goals and six assists in eight games.

“He was dominating all the games with us,” Salo said, who was recently named head coach of AIK’s pro team when his predecessor, Tomas Mittel, joined the Chicago Blackhawks as an assistant. “He was always a positive kid and giving off positive energy to the team. He was a good leader — not that vocal — but he’s the kind of player that leads by example. He kills penalties and blocks shots.

“He’s really coachable. He wants to know as much as possible always and that’s a good thing. He has a nice personality — he’s a good kid.”

Broberg will be the first to tell you there are improvements required in his game and first and foremost on the list is improving his strength. The scouts know it, too.

“He needs to bulk up and get stronger in order to use his size and strength even better,” Stubb said. “In my opinion, it would be good for him to stay in Sweden and play at least one more year either in the SHL league or the minors. Then he might be ready to play (regularly) in the NHL. He does have the tools.”

Broberg said spending the season in the pro ranks and playing against older, more experienced players helped his defensive game a lot, especially when it came to “how to think in the D-zone and the areas I have to defend the most.”

Another area of improvement in Broberg’s game that Salo notices is his decision making.

“He has to make the right decision a little faster,” Salo said. “Sometimes when he takes too long, he can get into trouble. It was fine when he was with us (on the junior team) but to be in the NHL he has to make those decisions faster.”

If there’s one thing Broberg has shown consistently, it’s his ability to adapt and improve.

Two years ago — at age 15 — he left home and moved some 200 kilometres east to Stockholm in order to join AIK’s junior team.

He had two friends — teammates with AIK — who were his neighbours in the same small housing complex. They helped him with things like navigating Stockholm’s subway system since Örebro — which Broberg describes as “10 times smaller than Stockholm” — had nothing of the sort.

Living alone also meant Broberg was left to his own devices when it came to things like cooking, house cleaning and laundry. It was a great learning experience and one that taught him to be self-sufficient.

“You can’t just go to a restaurant and eat every night,” Broberg said. “Some nights I had to make my own dinner, but usually a small group of guys would get together and we’d just cook for each other and have a good time.”

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According to Broberg, Swedish meatballs — yes, seriously — became his go-to meal and it was a hit whenever his teammates would gather for dinner.

“I would say I’m not a good cook, but I’m not bad,” Broberg said with a laugh.

The most difficult part of his transition was being away from his family, particularly his younger brother Marcus.

“It was difficult but we were always calling each other,” Marcus Broberg said. “We were always in contact.”

This season when Marcus, 15, joined AIK’s U16 team the whole family decided to leave Örebro and move to Stockholm permanently, where they now all reside together.

The two brothers have always been very close and extremely competitive. According to Marcus, it doesn’t matter what it is, they’re always trying to outdo each other, whether that’s playing tennis, comparing test results at school or working out at the gym.

When it comes to hockey, however, they’re always looking out for each other. Often they’ll watch each other play — sometimes even breaking down video together — to provide an honest critique of things that went well and things that didn’t.

Marcus echos the same strength and weaknesses the scouts see in his brother’s game.

“He would be an even better hockey player if he used his body to its full potential,” the younger Broberg said. “But he’s a really good skater.”

That skating Philip Broberg honed at a remote summer camp where a chance meeting with a Canadian coach might have changed his hockey trajectory. And, even though it’s only been a few years since he became a defenceman full-time, his time as a forward is still paying dividends en route to the draft.

“It has definitely helped my offensive game a lot to be able to think in the offensive zone as a forward and not just be a defensive defenceman,” he said.

“I have that offensive upside.”


1145773 Websites

The Athletic / Trevor Zegras’ incredible playmaking skills make him a top NHL prospect

By Corey Pronman

May 30, 2019

When people went to the USNTDP games hoping to see a show from projected top pick Jack Hughes, there were many games where Hughes’ occasional linemate Trevor Zegras stole the show.

Here is a look at one of, if not the most, purely skilled players in the draft.

Playmaking

Zegras is a constant on the highlight reel due to his playmaking. He made some of the most creative, if not the most absurd plays, I saw all season. His highlight reel is too long to put into one article, but I put together some of his best passes from this season. As a fan of the sport, it was fun putting this article together and remembering, “Oh, yeah, Trevor did that crazy play in January.”

Let’s start with my favorite assist from Zegras this season, which came at the 5 Nations tournament in February against the Czech Republic.

He takes a quick peek over his shoulder as he goes behind the net to see teammate Patrick Moynihan heading to the slot. Zegras then determines the only way he can get the puck there is 1) a very crisp pass, and 2) on the backhand since No. 11 on the Czech team is blocking a forehand pass. So the net result is Zegras spinning the puck on his backhand and firing a bullet pass to Moynihan in the perfect spot to be one-timed. No. 16 on the Czech team probably could have blocked that play with better awareness, but the sheer improvisation and skill by Zegras was incredible.

This play versus Adrian College is another example of his split-second awareness and improvising skills.

He sees his teammate Hughes coming down the middle and there’s open ice near the slot. However, Zegras has a checker close to him blocking the passing lane with his stick. So Zegras finds space with a backhand pass behind both of them to get the puck on tape to the streaking Hughes.

You will hear me use the term “improvising” a lot with Zegras. That goes to how special his brain is. He reacts so quickly and develops unique solutions to problems on the ice very quickly. Take this play here as yet another example.

The play the whole time is to feed the streaking Hughes as he gains the zone. Zegras loses the handle after the entry, though. Instead of that being a turnover as four (!) defenders close in on him, he finds the puck in his feet, and figures out in a split-second how to position his body and stick to bat that puck onto Hughes’ stick so he can catch it in stride.

The things Zegras attempts are ludicrous to most players. Like this spinning, blind, backhand pass across the offensive zone through several players, on the tape!

Or this 360 spin pass hitting his teammate in stride after deking an opponent out!

This play looks pedestrian by Zegras’ standards, but it is still incredibly impressive how he makes a skilled play to create space, spots his open teammate and realizes he needs to turn onto his forehand to create the only lane to get it there.

I put a 75 on Zegras’ hockey sense, indicating I think he has the capability to be one of the smartest players in pro hockey, and I can’t see a convincing argument otherwise. His playmaking ability is off the charts good.

Puck Skills

As you’ve seen in a few clips above, Zegras has a very high skill level. I’ve talked to scouts who think his hands are the best in the draft. I don’t agree with that assertion, but it’s a big reason why he’s a projected top 10 pick. He has the ability to make highly skilled plays on the move to open up the ice for his playmaking.

And you won’t be shocked to hear he has flashy 1-on-1 moves in his game. Like this play here where he makes the between the legs play seem so smooth and generates a clear chance at the net.

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Skating

Zegras’ skating is an area of debate I’ve had with scouts. Some argue he’s a very good skater, and some argue he’s average.

His straight-ahead speed is just fine. He’s rarely going to blow you away with his speed, but he’s got enough to gain the zone.

I’ve seen him turn on the jets before. It may just be the pace he plays with. Some scouts argue his strength comes from his edge work too, where his skating shines in small areas with his elusiveness.

Physicality

Zegras’ strength is when he has the puck. He’s not a future Selke candidate, and he’s not much of a penalty killer. With that said, he has a little push back in his game.

If opposing players try to get too close to him, he doesn’t mind engaging. This Canadian checker got a first-hand glimpse of that (not to mention the very cute pass that follows it).

I would say for the most part Zegras controls his emotions, but this incident from February where he was thrown from the game comes to mind as something you don’t want to see. He was frustrated on this play (and was having a heck of a game up to that point) and throws a knee out, earning himself 25 of his 94 penalty minutes on the season.

Production

Zegras’ production is the biggest argument against his case as a true top prospect. His numbers in the USHL and NTDP are more in line with Jeremy Bracco, Sonny Milano, Joel Farabee and Jack Roslovic, rather than Clayton Keller. The biggest difference between Zegras and those players is the quality of teams they played on. Milano and Farabee, for example, were leaned on much harder due to the depth of their teams.

Zegras wasn’t always on the first line or first power play unit this season on such a deep team, but in the second half he became a mainstay. The counter argument would be Zegras got to play with Hughes, Cole Caufield, etc., so he should have produced more if he was a true top of the line prospect.

The names Milano and Bracco, though, are names I have heard as a potential worst case projection for Zegras from NHL scouts.

Hockey World’s Impressions

An NHL scout said: “High-end skill, high-end creativity. He’s a very good playmaker. He can break defenders down 1-on-1, he make plays through seams with the best of them. He’s deceptive and has so much confidence it’s fun to watch.”

An NHL scout said: “Elite, elite skill. From the offensive blue line in, he’s the most dangerous player in the draft.”

An NHL scout said: “Trevor has star No. 1 center potential. He’s such a special playmaker.”

USNTDP center Jack Hughes said: “He’s the most creative player on our team. He thinks outside the box, he’s really smart and super crafty with his hands and movements. He’s really slippery. He’s an easy guy to play with knowing he’ll always give you great passes.”

USNTDP U18 coach John Wroblewski said: “He was our best power play guy at picking apart the opposition, including over Jack [Hughes]. He is that skilled. He’s very quick.”

Trevor Zegras said: “I have really good vision. I can read through things very quickly.”

Projection

Teams looking to draft Zegras are not picking a guy hoping to get an elite burner like Hughes or Alex Turcotte, who is going to run over guys on his way to the net. You are drafting Zegras with the intention of finding your first power play unit QB for the next decade. He is going to be the player who will get the puck to his team’s goal-scorers.

He may not have had the most elite production this season (although he produced very well), but he looked so good so consistently. He showed very often why his playmaking ability is elite and attributes that will translate to the higher levels.

Zegras projects as a first-line forward at the NHL level, whether at center or on the wing, who will be an elite presence on the power play.


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Sportsnet.ca / Maple Leafs' Dubas dreaming of Raptors-like run with current core intact

Chris Johnston | @reporterchris

May 30, 2019, 9:08 PM

Kyle Dubas has a dream.

It not only includes what it might be like to watch his Toronto Maple Leafs one day stop the city with an extended playoff run the way the Raptors have this spring, but also what that particular team will look like.

In the eyes of the general manager it includes Mitch Marner, the unsigned 22-year-old winger whose ongoing contract talks have become a plentiful source of speculation. While some muse about the possibility of Marner signing a July 1 offer sheet to play somewhere other than his hometown, Dubas envisions him as a lifetime Leaf.

“I’ve told him and I’ve told [agent] Darren [Ferris],” Dubas said Thursday in Buffalo, during a media scrum at the NHL draft combine. “[Mitch], Auston [Matthews], Morgan [Rielly], they’re the types of guys that should play their whole career here. William [Nylander] would be in that same bucket, right?

“I think that’s what the dream is when you’re with a franchise, you want the players to play their whole careers, especially when they’re core parts of it, and then the rest is history.”

In other words, those are the cards Dubas is comfortable going all-in with. He’d take a hand that includes Matthews, Marner, Rielly and Nylander — not to mention John Tavares, already under contract for another six seasons — and try his luck in the NHL’s highest-stakes poker game until either the Leafs won the Cup or they found someone else to do his job.

It a sensible approach.

That’s what Boston has done with Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Brad Marchand. That’s what Washington did with

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Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov and John Carlson. That’s what Pittsburgh did with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.

There’s no guarantees, as each of those championship cores has demonstrated in their own way, but until you establish a group of reliable, proven drivers you’re not really in the conversation.

Solving the Marner equation will be akin to locking the Leafs’ final cornerstone in place, at least until Rielly’s second contract expires in 2022. It will provide a clearer picture of how much money is available for dispersal among the support pieces — including Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson, who, like Marner, are both RFA’s this summer — and place an even greater emphasis on the need to find NHL talent deep in the draft.

It’s a crucial piece of business — labelled the organization’s No. 1 priority by Dubas last month — and the GM remains confident that the parties will find a happy resolution.

“I’m very hopeful,” Dubas told reporters. “I’m a very optimistic person, so I’m hopeful that we are and we’ll keep working towards that. I think that’s what’s been expressed on everybody’s end, so I think if everyone is in on it that way we should be able to get there.”

The challenge is finding a contract that provides fair market value, satisfies Marner’s wishes after a 94-point season and leaves the organization with the ability to build around the stars. The Leafs likely aren’t in a position to pay him at the same rate as their top two centres — Matthews earns $11.634 million, Tavares $11 million — but must find a compromise.

(One industry source not connected to the talks believes a $60-million, six-year deal is the sweet spot since it would make Marner the NHL’s second-highest-paid winger behind Patrick Kane and still leave him in position to cash in again well before age 30).

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Marner’s leverage is restricted in these negotiations. The Leafs can reasonably assume he’d prefer to continue playing for his childhood team in a city where he resides 12 months a year and have the ability to match any offer another team could theoretically entice him to sign.

The same goes for Kapanen and Johnsson.

“There’s a system in place and they’re all restricted free agents and the market has kind of beared out where everyone fits in,” said Dubas. “It’s just trying to work around the edges of that to come to conclusions.”

With the calendar about to flip over to June, he is managing a couple different situations. Dubas acknowledged Thursday that Russian defenceman Nikita Zaitsev has requested a trade, which will be no easy transaction to pull off with five more years at $4.5 million still remaining on his contract.

As much as the GM is willing to try and accommodate the player’s desire for a fresh start, he’s not guaranteeing anything.

“It’s not any definitive type of [promise] he’s definitely not going to be back because I think especially as the year went on, especially as he was paired with [Jake] Muzzin, I think his value began to shine through a little bit more,” said Dubas. “His penalty killing, he’s a right shot, plays in our top-four and is signed reasonably for a long time.”

It’s already clear there will be some significant changes at the margins of the roster.

Jake Gardiner is a pending UFA who isn’t expected back. Ron Hainsey’s status is up in the air. Then you have trade possibilities with Zaitsev, Nazem Kadri (whose name is circulating in the rumour mill), Connor Brown and potentially one of Johnsson or Kapanen, depending how negotiations play out and the overall cap picture takes shape.

The one thing Dubas has avoided doing is looking at the current Stanley Cup Final and believing that the Leafs were a fraction of a hair from that kind of run after squandering a 3-2 series lead to Boston in Round 1. He joked that it would take “some real manipulation of the space/time continuum to forecast that.”

Still, he can’t think they’re too far off if he manages his cards right.

“You see the Raptors and what’s happening around them and how amazing the city is, I can’t imagine what it would be like if we were…,” said Dubas, before catching himself.

“Well I do imagine what it would be like at this point. I think that’s part of being in sports is you dream about that stuff all the time. You’re trying to make it happen for the fanbase and the city and for everybody.”

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Sportsnet.ca / Conn Smythe Power Rankings: Blues' Binnington answers the bell

Emily Sadler | @EmmySadler

May 30, 2019, 4:57 PM

Looking back at the first three rounds this spring, we’ve seen a number of goaltenders shine in these unpredictable Stanley Cup Playoffs. Robin Lehner stole the show against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Sergei Bobrovsky rewrote his playoff script, the Hurricanes’ duo set the stage for an impressive run in Carolina, and Ben Bishop played like the Vezina nominee he is.

In a post-season as unpredictable as this one, there’s one key to playoff success that proves true year after year: If you want to go far in this game, you have to be able to rely on the steady hand of the man in the blue paint.

It’s no surprise, then, that we’ve got a pair of netminders atop this week’s Conn Smythe Power Rankings two games into the Stanley Cup Final.

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1. Tuukka Rask, Boston Bruins

19 GP | .939 SV% | 1.91 GAA | 2 SO

When you look back at the Bruins’ journey to the Cup Final — their third this decade and the second with Rask as the No. 1 netminder — it’s Rask who has been the biggest difference-maker in all three rounds. The 32-year-old let just one puck past him in Game 7 against the Maple Leafs, halted the momentum of two of the hottest

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teams this spring when he posted back-to-back elimination game shutouts in Rounds 2 (vs. Columbus) and 3 (vs. Carolina), and went on an eight-game win streak that was finally snapped in Game 2 of the Cup Final against the Blues.

The higher the stakes, the hotter his play, and the cooler he gets. One of the most notable aspects of Rask’s performance this spring has been his calm, steady demeanour — something that has been put to the test already through two games against the heavy-hitting Blues.

“I just think he’s been real calm for a while now, on and off the ice, really even-keeled,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters earlier this week. “He’s gotten upset … but he always gets it right back. That’s typically Tuukka.”

2. Jordan Binnington, St. Louis Blues

21 GP | .915 SV% | 2.37 GAA | 1 SO

You want to talk about calm, cool, and collected in the crease? Binnington basically wrote the book on that.

The 25-year-old rookie set the league on fire with his incredible play to propel the Blues into the playoffs and while he hasn’t been quite as solid through three rounds as the guy across the rink from him, Binnington has been the biggest reason for the Blues’ first Cup Final run since 1970 — and their first ever win in a Cup Final game.

Wednesday’s Game 2 overtime victory to even the series at 1-1 was another impressive example of Binnington’s ability to leave a loss firmly in his past and come out on top a game later, improving his career record to 12-2-0 with a 1.82 GAA and .935 SV% following a loss (regular season and playoffs).

3. Jaden Schwartz, St. Louis Blues

21 GP | 12 G | 6 A | 18 Pts | 2 GWG

Vladimir Tarasenko finally found his scoring stride in the Western Conference Final and now has a point in eight straight games (including goals in four consecutive matchups), which earns him a mention in the Conn Smythe conversation if he’s able to keep that streak alive. But it’s his teammate, Jaden Schwartz, who remains on this list thanks to his steady scoring and elite offensive play this post-season.

The 26-year-old, who had just 11 goals in 69 regular season games this year, has a dozen markers through 21 playoff games this spring which is the most among players not named Logan Couture. He’s tallied 18 points to lead the Blues and ranks second in the category behind only Brad Marchand.

4. Brad Marchand, Boston Bruins

19 GP | 8 G | 11 A | 19 Pts | 2 GWG

Marchand was kept off the scoresheet in Game 2 against the Blues and admitted to reporters following the matchup that he hasn’t been at his best so far in this Cup Final.

“Yeah, we need to be better. Personally, I wasn’t good the last two games so we can’t be playing like that,” he said Wednesday.

When you look at the bigger playoff picture, however, it’s clear Marchand has had a pretty major hand in the Bruins’ third Cup Final appearance since his arrival in Boston — and should the Bruins claim the Cup, he’ll be a big reason why.

His 19 post-season points lead all active peers and he’s been a force on special teams with a league-leading 10 power-play points.

Marchand has six multi-point games, including three games with three points this spring.


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Sportsnet.ca / How the Bruins and Blues can take control of the Stanley Cup Final

Andrew Berkshire

May 30, 2019, 1:19 PM

The Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues are headed to Missouri tied 1-1 in the Stanley Cup Final.

With all the time off the Bruins had after sweeping the Carolina Hurricanes, the opening most people saw for the Blues in this series was to surprise a rusty Bruins team in Game 1. But Boston showed absolutely zero signs of rust, out-chancing the Blues 26-9 in all situations to start the series.

With not many people picking the Blues to win the Cup in the first place, that they were dominated in Game 1 seemed a real kick in the gut for their chances. But in Game 2 they responded with an excellent performance, erasing two Bruins leads before taking the win in overtime on a ripper from Carl Gunnarsson.

With the Blues stealing home ice by earning the split, logically they’re in a better position to win now than they were heading in to the series. But how have things actually played out on the ice between these teams through two games? Let’s get into the details.

On the surface through two games at 5-on-5, things are remarkably even. A dominant Game 1 by the Bruins and a dominant Game 2 by the Blues have left us with almost identical numbers for the two teams in high danger chances, scoring chances on net, scoring chances overall, and perimeter shots.

That would lead us to believe that the two teams are on even ground, but when we get into more details and look at the extra factors that increase the likelihood of scoring, things look a little different.

So far, the Bruins have a strong advantage in getting screens on their shots on goal, 18 to the Blues’ 11, and they’re also getting more of their chances off the rush, more are preceded by cycle passes, and their forecheck has been much more successful at generating chances as well.

The Blues have been forced into attacking in straight lines more often than usual. They’ve gotten most of their scoring chances from static positioning, making it easier for Tuukka Rask to not only make saves, but control pucks to reduce second chances.

In the series so far the Blues have produced more offensive zonetime, and more shot attempts overall, but the Bruins are forcing more shots wide, blocking a higher percentage of them, and the same is true of passes.

St. Louis has attempted significantly more passes to the slot than Boston, 62 to the Bruins’ 43 at 5-on-5, but the Bruins have cut down

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the Blues’ slot pass success rate all the way to 30.6 per cent. Boston, meantime, is completing 46.5 per cent of its slot passes and have ended up connecting on slightly more overall.

This is a hallmark trait of the Bruins. They are masters of intercepting or interrupting passes through the middle in their own zone, and it often results in frustration for opponents, who either end up circling the perimeter constantly or take bad penalties.

Unfortunately for the Blues, the penalties seem to be a problem through two games. They’ve taken nine minor penalties at 5-on-5 through two games to Boston’s four, which brings us to special teams.

The Blues and Bruins have each taken another penalty outside of 5-on-5 hockey. So in viewing these numbers keep in mind that the Bruins have a 10-5 advantage in power play opportunities, which in real time has shaken out to 16:43 of power play time for the Bruins and 8:16 for the Blues.

With twice as much time on the power play, you’d expect the Bruins to have produced twice the quality chances if all things are equal, but that hasn’t been the case. The Bruins are absolutely dominating chances off the cycle, but the Blues have produced just as many high danger chances and completed just as many passes to the slot in half the time.

Those are good signs for the Blues, especially when you consider how absolutely lethal the Bruins’ power play has been this post-season. But it likely won’t convert into anything meaningful for them if they can’t get back to the disciplined hockey that got them here in the first place.

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The Bruins are a great team, but how they flex on other great teams is almost always by pushing the envelope and managing to get away with it, while annoying their opponent so much that they retaliate and put themselves in trouble. Despite the numbers not being fantastic so far in the Stanley Cup Final, Boston’s power play is dangerous, so maintaining this 2:1 ratio in minor penalties against the Blues would be massive for the Bruins over a full series.

At 5-on-5, the Bruins could probably use a bit more offensive zone possession time in order to further exert control over the passing game, which is something they’ve done all playoffs long. But as things have played out so far in terms of shot quality, they’re in a strong position heading forward. Boston is still the favourite here.

The Blues are going to have to stay disciplined. Boston can drive teams crazy, but they also usually take a fair amount of penalties themselves and St. Louis has looked pretty good on their infrequent power plays so far. That could be an area of exploitation as long as they’re not giving Boston twice the amount of chances they get.

The other main area that the Blues are going to have to work on is connecting on their slot passes. It’s one thing to simply not get the ensuing high quality look that comes with finding a teammate in the slot, but to have those passes intercepted as often as the Bruins have been able to through two games creates a defensive risk, and over time can make the Blues’ attackers more cautious. That all plays into the Bruins’ impeccable slot defence.

The most common ways to get the puck into the slot are either a defenceman from the point passing down for a forward to turn and shoot, or an East-West lateral pass that could be one-timed. The Bruins are exceedingly good at cutting down the East-West passes, and the ones from defencemen usually aren’t as dangerous.

One area the Blues have had some success with through two games has been going from low to high, either from behind the net or at the goal line to a forward in the slot. In order to maximize those plays, the Blues could get their more offensively inclined defencemen to start pinching into the high slot when the puck is down low to open up another passing lane to the slot for a one-timer, forcing the Bruins’ coverage to thin out a little.

That strategy carries more risk for odd-man rushes if the pass fails, either by being blocked, redirected, intercepted, or simply if the pinching defenceman bobbles it. But in order to solve the Bruins’ defensive scheme the Blues are going to have to take some more risks. This one, I think, is worth it.


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Sportsnet.ca / How NHL offer sheets work and which players could sign one

Rory Boylen | @RoryBoylen

May 30, 2019, 1:19 PM

It’s the white whale of summer scenarios. Agents of chaos the hockey world over drool at the possibility, and dream of the fall out, just one offer sheet could have on the future impact of how business is conducted in the NHL.

But it’s been six years since the last offer sheet was signed, when Ryan O’Reilly was inked by the Calgary Flames in a lockout-shortened 2013 season. The Colorado Avalanche matched that one and later traded him to Buffalo because they felt his contract trajectory priced him out of being a fit within their cap structure.

You have to go all the way back to 2007 to find the last time an offer sheet wasn’t matched by the team whose player was offered on. That was when Dustin Penner, then of the Anaheim Ducks, signed a five-year, $21.25-million offer sheet with the Edmonton Oilers, leading to the infamous Brian Burke-Kevin Lowe barn fight proposition. The Ducks got a first-, second- and third-round pick as compensation.

It’s not that offer sheets don’t ever get handed out. Shea Weber, David Backes, Steve Bernier and Niklas Hjalmarsson all signed them between Penner’s and O’Reilly’s. It’s just that in recent years we’ve had the possibility for the likes of Steven Stamkos or Vladimir Tarasenko or even William Nylander through his contract impasse to sign them, and it hasn’t happened. It’s a tease at this point, but again there are rumblings that this summer could be different.

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On the Jan. 21 edition of the 31 Thoughts Podcast, Arizona Coyotes GM John Chayka was asked if this would be the summer of the offer sheet.

“I think it’s certainly possible. I know there’s lots of discussion out there,” he said. “I think our situation is unique and we’re not adverse to using an offer sheet that’s for sure. Just with the crop of free

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agents, it really is amazing how much of the cash spent is being shifted towards young players and is that going to create an instance where there is an offer sheet? I think it’s certainly possible. Whether or not it’s us, there’s a lot to be played out before that occurs so I can’t tell you for sure if it’s us or not.”

The landscape is a little clearer today. Aside from Auston Matthews, who signed a five-year deal in February, all the best RFAs are still unsigned, including Patrik Laine, Mitch Marner, Brayden Point, Brock Boeser, Charlie McAvoy, Mikko Rantanen, Kyle Connor and Matthew Tkachuk. With less than a month until all of these players can start talking to other teams, and just 32 more days until they can sign with one of them, there are a lot of offer sheet possibilities out there.

All it took was one big UFA, John Tavares, to leave the team that drafted him in the prime of his career for everyone to wonder if more players would at least consider that route less travelled. Now, all it takes is one of these RFAs to do the deed and sign on the dotted line of an offer sheet for this market to possibly change for good as well.

“(Offer sheets) haven’t been in play a lot recently, but there’s been a lot of talk, and a lot of people thinking this is the year it’s going to happen,” Tkachuk said in the wake of Matthews’ signing. “You can’t predict that stuff, but you never know. Maybe.”

So how exactly do these things work and which players (high-end or not) could sign an offer sheet this summer? Here’s a quick primer of what to look for.

Ryan Dixon and Rory Boylen go deep on pucks with a mix of facts and fun, leaning on a varied group of hockey voices to give their take on the country’s most beloved game.

How offer sheets work

For an RFA to be eligible to receive an offer sheet they either have to a) receive a qualifying offer, but not sign it or b) not be going to arbitration. Any player who does not receive a qualifying offer will become a UFA (like Robin Lehner last summer) and any player who elects for arbitration has to go through that process with their team in July or August. After that, if the team chooses to walk away from the arbiter’s decision, the player will become a UFA.

Of course a player could receive any number of offer sheets, but none of it becomes binding until one is signed. Once the signature is down, though, it’s considered a new contract for the player. At that point, the player’s former team has seven days to either match the offer, or walk away with the compensation.

How much compensation a team gets in return for a player left unmatched on an offer sheet is determined by what the Average Annual Value of that contract is. Each year the compensation scale adjusts based on the average contract value in the league. This is what the scale looks like for the summer of 2019:

The thing is, you must use your own draft picks for the compensation. So, if you’ve traded away your own first-round pick, but have another team’s instead, you cannot sign a player to an offer sheet that requires 2020 first-round compensation until you re-acquire your own selection.

But even though there are some teams who have dealt away their first-rounder for 2020, every club can theoretically still sign someone to an offer sheet that requires two or more first-rounders coming back. The CBA explains the parameters for which years compensatory picks must be available:

• Clubs owing one (1) draft selection must have it available in the next draft

• Clubs owing two (2) draft selections in different rounds must have them available in the next draft

• Clubs owing three (3) draft selections in different rounds must have them available in the next draft

• Clubs owing two (2) draft selections in the same round, must have them available in the next three (3) drafts

• Clubs owing three (3) draft selections in the same round must have them available in the next four (4) drafts, and so on.

• When a Club owes two (2) or more draft selections in the same round, the signing Club does not elect the years in which such selections shall be awarded to the Prior Club; rather, the selections next available will be transferred to the Prior Club (i.e., a Club that owes two (2) selections has them available in the next two (2) drafts – that is when they are transferred).

Who are the candidates to sign an offer sheet?

The depth and skill in this year’s RFA class is driving the idea that this summer is fertile ground for offer sheets. But for a team to not match an offer sheet on the best players available, someone probably has to offer an exorbitant amount of money over the player’s market worth that risks hindering them in the future. Simply offering the expected rate to a player is likely an easy match for their current team.

Still, the Marner’s and Point’s of the world are susceptible to these, and we’ll all wonder if they’ll be offer sheet targets until they sign.

But where a team might be able to try and steal a player without offering an amount that would singlehandedly lead to a cap crunch, or demand expensive compensation, is in that secondary or tertiary market. Teams with plenty of cap space could target those types of RFAs on a capped out team that’s maybe hoping to keep an AAV low on a short-term deal. In those circumstances, the required return if the offer sheet is unmatched could be as low as a second-round pick.

So rather than focus on only the big guns, we have to keep in mind there are tiers of players who could get offer sheeted. Here are some candidates from three different skill groups.

Tier I

Mitch Marner: Everyone in Toronto is wondering what will happen here. Will Marner wait until the free agent negotiating period in late-June, and then July 1, to see what his market is? And then, will someone make him the highest-paid winger in the game, eclipsing Patrick Kane’s $10.5 million AAV? How high does that need to go before GM Kyle Dubas chooses to take the picks rather than match?

Matthew Tkachuk: In a class that includes Laine coming off a down season we’re not saying Tkachuk is the best goal-scoring winger on the market, but his 34 goals did tie Connor for the most among RFAs at the position this season. Tkachuk improved by 28 points, plays with an edge that translates well into the playoffs, and is future captain material. All that makes it unlikely the Flames wouldn’t match an offer sheet. They have $14.4 million in space already and seem motivated to part with Michael Frolik ($4.3 million). Still, other teams could make it hard on the Flames by setting Tkachuk’s value.

Kyle Connor: The Jets have $25.3 million in projected cap space, but have both Laine and Connor to sign as high-end RFAs. Plus, they need to figure out what to do with RFA Jacob Trouba (trade him or not), while Dustin Byfuglien and Tucker Poolman are the only

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blueliners signed beyond next season. The cap crunch is here, and if Laine brings a heavy cost even on a short-term deal, some opportunistic team could put the squeeze on GM Kevin Cheveldayoff by throwing another expensive contract at Connor, who has 64 goals over the past two seasons.

Brayden Point: We have to address Point, who is most likely to re-sign in Tampa for a price in line with the rest of the team’s cap structure. The strength of that lineup and the tax implications make that the expected outcome here, but he’s also the best goal scorer available in this RFA class (41 this season) and he’s a centre, which comes with built-in higher value. Nikita Kucherov will be Tampa Bay’s highest-paid player next season at $9.5 million and it’s hard to imagine Point getting more from the Lightning than the Art Ross winner. Steven Stamkos, another centre, comes in at $8.5 million. Point likely falls somewhere in that range, but how many centre-hungry teams out there think Point would vastly improve their fortunes? We talk about the possibility Marner gets $11 million-plus on an offer sheet, but there’s far more reason to believe Point would fit that scenario.

Tier II

Timo Meier: The Sharks have $24 million in cap space and we’d presume they’ll re-sign Joe Pavelski. If they manage to also keep Erik Karlsson, that space tightens much more and would make Meier an interesting offer sheet candidate. He is the leader of the next group of Sharks who will be leaned on to keep their long stretch of success going. Meier’s coming off his first 30-goal campaign and was the ninth overall draft pick in 2015 after a couple of big scoring seasons in the QMJHL. He’ll likely make more on his next deal than Vrana, but not as much as the Tier I players. However, if there’s a GM out there who believes Meier will eventually join that class of upper-echelon goal scorers, now would be the time to offer a long-term deal for $6.3 million. Heck, go a little higher to make the compensation a first, second and a third, which San Jose would probably match. If the Sharks did match, though, it would tighten the screws on their cap outlook a little more.

Tier III

Jakub Vrana: The 23-year-old took a nice step forward this season, finishing with 24 goals and 47 points, but he didn’t get on the board at all in the post-season. He will be a key figure for the Caps heading forward, as Washington will need younger players like him to start taking up more important roles in the offence. GM Brian MacLellan’s team has $10 million in cap room and Vrana is easily the most important expiring contract to extend, but things start to get interesting a year from now. Braden Holtby and Nicklas Backstrom are UFA eligible next July, followed by Alex Ovechkin in 2021. We’d expect all of them to stay, but at what combined cost? EvolvingWild has Vrana at $4.3 million on a five-year contract, but if a team comes in and offers a little more than that, it may start to become an issue for the Caps. At that point, though, the compensation would be a first and a third.

Kasperi Kapanen: Whether the Leafs have to deal with a Marner offer sheet or not, they only have $8.7 million in projected cap space to start with, plus another $5.3 million when Nathan Horton goes on long-term injured reserve. EvolvingWild’s model has Kapanen slotted in at $2.26 million on a two-year deal, which would be manageable for Dubas. He could even go a little higher. But could a big believer swoop in and offer the soon-to-be 23-year-old a longer-term contract for, say, $4.2 million? The compensation would still only be a second-round pick, but may become too rich for a Toronto team that also has to take care of arbitration-eligible RFA Andreas Johnsson, plus upgrade its defence. Toronto has no shortage of

cheap, young wingers in the system that could possibly slot into the bottom-six, so an offer like this could pry Kapanen away.


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Sportsnet.ca / Former Leafs centre Tyler Bozak happy to see Raptors in NBA Finals

Luke Fox | @lukefoxjukebox

May 30, 2019, 11:30 AM

ST. LOUIS – Tyler Bozak may not have courtside views like his former wingman Mitch Marner and longtime teammate Nazem Kadri, but nine winters working in Toronto turned him into a fan of the Maple Leafs’ Scotiabank Arena roommates.

Bozak was the longest-tenured Maple Leafs player until he joined the St. Louis Blues last summer in free agency, but he’s kept a close eye on the Toronto Raptors’ run.

Much like the resilient Blues, the Raptors fell behind in at least two of their playoff series en route to the championship.

“The Raps are awesome. I was watching that game,” said Bozak, referring to the Eastern Conference clincher at home over the Milwaukee Bucks.

“I’m a fan after spending the time I did in Toronto. They were the team I cheered for. I’m happy for the city and them being in this position.

“That was a cool moment for the city.”

With the NHL purposely scheduling its championship games on the NBA Finals’ off nights, Bozak, happy to fly back from Boston with a split, is hopeful to root on the Raps’ first Finals game from the comforts of his new home, in a town equally buzzing with playoff fever.

“I’ll tune if I have the chance – if my kids let me,” Bozak said. “I don’t see them too much.”


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TSN.CA / Leafs D-man Zaitsev requests trade; Dubas ‘hopeful’ of Marner deal before July 1

Kristen Shilton

BUFFALO – While the Toronto Maple Leafs work urgently to keep pending restricted free agent winger Mitch Marner in the fold with a

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new contract extension, top-four defenceman Nikita Zaitsev has unexpectedly expressed he wants out of his deal.

Zaitsev still has five years remaining on a seven-year, $31.5 million contract, making news of his trade request due to “personal reasons” on Thursday, a surprising twist in what’s already been an interesting week for the Leafs.

Just on Tuesday, TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger appeared on TSN1050’s Leafs Lunch and reported the Leafs “have had exchanges” with Marner’s agent Darren Ferris in regards to a new deal but not much more has happened ahead of his hitting RFA status on July 1. Dreger said Marner’s camp is already looking at negotiations to go beyond then, and he’d be “shocked” if Marner’s group doesn’t start the visiting process with clubs that might be willing to offer sheet him.

No RFA in NHL history has ever explored that negotiating window before, and if any of the potential upheaval surrounding his club is getting to general manager Kyle Dubas, he didn’t let on in Thursday’s media press conference.

“I’m probably not going to give anybody as much [information as] they’d like,” Dubas said from Keybank Center in Buffalo at the NHL’s Scouting Combine. “The Dreger Café got [Marner’s situation] kicked back up when it landed back in North America, which is fine, but there won’t be anything coming from us.”

Neither will there be much information to come on Zaitsev’s future. Dubas said it would be on Zaitsev and his agent Dan Milstein to reveal his motivations in asking to be moved, and Milstein refused comment to TSN.ca. But given that the 27-year-old Zaitsev is still well under contract, and coming off a season where he averaged the fourth-most minutes per game among Leafs at 20:28, Dubas was clear nothing has been decided just yet on the next steps.

“It’s not any definitive type of ‘he’s definitely not going to be back,’ ” Dubas said. “Especially as the year went on, as he was paired with [Jake] Muzzin, I think his value began to shine through a bit more. His penalty killing, his right shot, he plays in our top-four, and is signed reasonably for a long time. So that’s where that’s at.”

With Nikita Zaitsev having asked the Maple Leafs for a trade for personal reasons, GM Kyle Dubas explains how they are looking for a fresh start for the defenceman.

And finding a new home for Zaitsev doesn’t bear the same importance for Toronto as getting Marner’s deal done. When the Leafs’ season ended in another disappointing first-round playoff exit last month, Dubas called signing the 22-year-old forward, preferably before July 1, the club’s top priority.

Asked point-blank on Thursday if he’s still confident an extension will even get done by then, Dubas characterized himself instead as “hopeful. I’m a very optimistic person. I hope that we [will] and we will keep working towards it. I think that is what has been expressed on everybody’s end. If everyone is in on it that way we should be able to get there.”

It’s all very familiar territory for the Leafs, who just last summer were in a similar spot with then-RFA William Nylander. Not until the final minutes before the NHL’s Dec. 1 deadline where players must either sign or miss the entire season did Nylander agree on a six-year, $45 million extension. And then Toronto used up more of its cap space inking another pending RFA, Auston Matthews, to a five-year, $58.17 extension in February.

Dubas saw the error of his ways in dealing with Nylander though, specifically in not initiating conversations with his agent, Lewis

Gross, until last June’s NHL draft. This time around, Dubas has been far less passive, engaging Ferris in talks for more than a year.

“It is a totally different situation,” Dubas said. “But with that in mind and learning from that, it is continuing to stay on it and not let it slip. And not let anyone think we’re not wanting to get an agreement done.”

The question is whether Toronto has enough money to entice Marner, a local product from Thornhill, Ont., away from exploring his options. He was their team-leader in points the last two seasons after all, and in 2018-19 set career-highs in points (94), goals (26) and assists (68), playing for the first time on a line centred by John Tavares.

Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas talks about his discussions with Mitch Marner about a new contract and says that, as an optimistic person, he hopes they can have a new deal in place before July 1st.

Dreger reported on Tuesday that Toronto’s offer would have to be “aggressive” to get a deal done with Marner by July 1, something in the $11 million per season range, pushing him past Patrick Kane as the highest paid winger in the NHL. At this point, the Leafs have just $8.8 million currently available on the cap for next season, and could add another $4.5 million to that if they trade Zaitsev (although whatever players Toronto received in return would eat into that amount).

Even if a market-setting payout to Marner isn’t one the Leafs can execute, Dubas wouldn’t want his talented forward to be perceived as greedy as this process continues.

“Mitch is a wonderful person and a player, great energy and enthusiasm,” he said. “I’ve told him and I’ve told Darren, he’s the type of player – him, Auston, Morgan [Rielly] – they’re the types of guys that should play their whole career here and roll on. I think that’s what the dream is when you’re with a franchise; you want those players to play their whole careers, especially when they’re core parts of it. And then the rest is history.”

While Dubas remains committed as ever to finding a solution with Marner, he has changed his tune since the end of the season. At that stage, Dubas said the Leafs wouldn’t be finalizing other contracts until Marner’s was complete. But he sees now it’s not realistic to simply stop everything, whether that’s signing other pending RFAs Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson or eventually accommodating Zaitsev’s desire to find a new home.

“We can’t hold up the whole operation of our team, either, right?” Dubas said of working with Marner’s camp. “We can’t stop trying to improve our team because one of the three free-agent situations is slow. We’d like to get them all done. At the same time, I don’t think it’s fair to the remainder of the players on the team for us to put everything on hold when we can be trying to improve the club.

“The market has kind of [dictated] where everyone fits in and it’s just trying to work around the edge of that to come to conclusions.”

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TSN.CA / Defence the story so far in Stanley Cup final

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Travis Yost

On Monday I wrote that I expected the 2019 Stanley Cup final to be a defensive-minded, low-scoring affair.

The opening pair of games in Boston only served to solidify that line of thinking. Game 1 featured six goals, just a tick under the league average during the 2018-19 season. But there’s plenty of nuance there. First, one of those six goals was the empty-netter by Brad Marchand late in the third period. Second, and perhaps more importantly, an extensive amount of game was played along the perimeter and in the neutral zone. More than anything, the Blues and Bruins managed to capitalize on the small number of opportunities they had.

Game 2 – a five-goal overtime affair – wasn’t much different. That was especially true at 5-on-5, where the two teams have already played about 100 minutes of hockey.

In Game 1, it was St. Louis that couldn’t generate much of anything in the Boston offensive zone. The Blues carried just 28 shot attempts in total, and their offence certainly faded in productivity as the game progressed. In Game 2, the roles merely flipped. In the 50 5-on-5 minutes in Game 2, the Bruins managed just 37 shot attempts and collapsed as the game wore on. (The Bruins managed just one high-danger shot attempt at 5-on-5 in the third period and overtime combined.)

Looking at the distribution of shots, two things become obvious. The first: both teams are having real difficulty piercing the interior of the opposition’s defence and generating those low slot and high slot opportunities. The second: both teams are having a difficult time generating a lot of offensive volume. The defences are doing a fantastic job of bottling puck carriers up in the neutral zone and at the blueline. When the offensive zone is gained, the defences are mostly limiting it to one-and-done attacking sequences.

To show this, I have built up all shot attempts taken during the first two games, along with a heat map of the shot spread provided by Natural Stat Trick

Game 1 was incredibly low event at 5-on-5. If Boston had trouble getting into the interior of the St. Louis defence – well, you needed a much stronger adjective for how much difficulty the Blues had going the other way. Over the course of 45 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey, the Blues were credited with just nine shots from reasonably dangerous areas of the ice.

Three shots stand out in particular – Oskar Sundqvist’s rush attempt, Brayden Schenn’s first-period goal and Vladimir Tarasenko’s second-period goal. They all had one thing in common: they came from between the circles, where shooting percentages substantially increase. (Actual goals in the game were 2-2 at 5-on-5; our expected goal calculations had it 1.7 to 0.6 in favour of Boston.)

The Blues did a much better job in Game 2 – the frequency with which they generated shot traffic from in and around Tuukka Rask’s net was night and day from what we saw on Monday night. It was the Bruins who were offensively challenged.

One notable takeaway for me was how well St. Louis did in taking two key Boston lines out of the game. The Patrice Bergeron line managed just four shot attempts at 5-on-5 in Game 2, none of them considered dangerous. The Sean Kuraly line managed just six shot attempts in nearly 11 minutes, though they did log the one Boston 5-on-5 goal by way of Joakim Nordstrom’s backhand right outside of the Boston crease.

Both teams have proven capable of applying pressure on one another offensively, but the theme of the first two games is that the losing team was generally overwhelmed by defensive pressure and struggled tremendously to generate meaningful offence.

I anticipate we are going to see this trend continue in what is looking like a series that may go the distance.

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USA TODAY / Blues' Oskar Sundqvist suspended one game by NHL for boarding Bruins' Matt Grzelcyk

Mike Brehm, USA TODAY

Published 9:27 p.m. ET May 30, 2019 | Updated 10:36 p.m. ET May 30, 2019

St. Louis Blues forward Oskar Sundqvist will miss one game and the player he injured could miss more.

The NHL announced Thursday that it was suspending Sundqvist for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final for his Game 2 hit from behind on Boston Bruins defenseman Matt Grzelcyk. Sundqvist got a two-minute penalty on the play.

Grzelcyk, who had been taken to the hospital for evaluation, has a concussion and didn't make the trip to St. Louis, where the best-of-seven series resumes Saturday night. The Blues won 3-2 in overtime Wednesday night to tie the series 1-1.

"He's in protocol," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters about the status of Grzelcyk. "Obviously we're going to list him day-to-day. It's Thursday, we don't play till Saturday. Typically I’ll give out the lineup either Friday or Saturday. ... (We'll) see how it goes from there."

The NHL said in its suspension video that Sundqvist had adjusted his course in a way that made the hit more dangerous.

"While we acknowledge that Grzelcyk does adjust his body position in making a play on the puck, he does not do so in a way that absolves Sundqvist of responsibility for the nature of this hit," the video said. "From the moment Sundqvist hits the bottom of the faceoff circle until contact is made, Sundqvist sees nothing but Grzelcyk's numbers."

Grzelcyk grabbed his head after the hit, and he fell to the ice. He had to be helped to the dressing room.

The defenseman has three goals and four assists in 19 playoff games and was averaging about 17 minutes a night.

Cassidy isn't sure yet who would step in if Grzelcyk can't play in Game 3.

"Johnny Moore played, Steven Kampfer played," Cassidy said. "Johnny is a left stick. Talked about that. That's the easiest thing, keep everyone on their strong sides. We'll look at that a little bit more."

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Sundqvist plays on the Blues' productive fourth line and has nine points in 21 games.

"Sunny has always been a good defensive player, penalty killer for us, hard-working guy," Blues coach Craig Berube told reporters. "His offensive side has really come through this year, scoring quite a few goals (14) during the regular season. He's gotten four in the playoffs here. ... He's playing a real good 200-foot game."

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