Connor Bedard is seen as a once-in-a-generation talent that NHL teams may be fighting for the best odds of acquiring.Getty Images
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman last week indicated he did not think there was any tanking in the league, and while the weighted lottery “may serve as a convenient tool for Bettman et al to dismiss the obvious,” it “doesn’t dismiss the reality, According to Kevin Paul Dupont of the BOSTON GLOBE. As of Friday morning, only five points “separated bottom-feeders” including the Sharks, Coyotes, Ducks, Blackhawks and Blue Jackets. If those teams are “not tanking at this point, with their playoff DNQs all but chiseled into center ice, all five GMs should be shown the door for gross negligence.” The “prize at the bottom of the tank” is Connor Bedard. Dupont: “The NHL freefall is on.” Of the five times “teams most likely to land Bedard,” three play in the Pacific time zone (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/28). In Toronto Steve Simmons sarcastically wrote if Bettman “says no one in the NHL is tanking — for Connor Bedard or anyone else, or an early draft pick — then no one in the NHL is tanking.” Simmons: “We believe Bettman, don’t we? Sometimes I wonder if the commish believes himself” (TORONTO SUN, 1/29).
DROWNING OUT THE NOISE: THE ATHLETIC’s Mark Lazerus wrote the Blackhawks “don’t care about your tank.” The team is having “quite a bit of fun messing with general manager Kyle Davidson’s (smart, if cynical) grand design.” Blackhawks D Seth Jones said, “We’re trying to win every game we play. We’ve got to control what we can control here.” Currently the Blackhawks have won “seven of their last 11 games,” and “nobody in that locker room is sitting around waiting for some 17-year-old to come and save them.” Davidson has acknowledged the “cognitive dissonance that comes with running a team that’s in tank mode.” His “grand plan hinges largely on the draft and maximizing the down seasons.” But Davidson also said that “every time the puck drops, he instinctively wants the Blackhawks to win.” Putting him and Blackhawks fans “in a similar position.” Fans a “savvy enough to know that losing is probably better in the long run, but… you want to see a win.” The average United Center crowd of 16,765 has “far exceeded the team’s internal expectation” (THE ATHLETIC, 1/29).