CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — I indicated a month or so ago the NHL will do just about anything to garner the lucrative TV contract money and as commissioner Gary Bettman said they plan to resume play with the Stanley Cup playoffs likely occurring sometime in July.
The top four seeds in each conference will receive a bye with the remaining 16 teams seeded as per points percentage when the league ceased play for a play-in series. Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington and Philadelphia earned the byes in the East while St. Louis, Colorado, Las Vegas and Dallas are in the playoffs in the West.
The Eastern Conference’s play-in series have Montreal Canadians (12) meeting the Pittsburgh Penguins (5), the Carolina Hurricanes (6) drawing the New York Rangers (11), the New York Islanders (7) playing the Florida Panthers (10) while the Toronto Maple Leafs (8) will tangle with the Columbus Blue Jackets (9).
The Leafs will have their hands full with the over-achieving Blue Jackets while Carolina could have a tough time against a young, up-and-coming Rangers club that swept all four games against Carolina in the regular season.
The Western Conference match-ups have Edmonton (5) playing Chicago (12), Nashville (6) entertaining Arizona (11), Vancouver (7) against Minnesota (10) while Calgary (8) plays Winnipeg (9).
Physical play
I have been told by reliable sources that one of the topics on Bettman’s table is the issue of reduced physical contact or no contact at all, something like all-star game rules.
If that is the case, and most likely it will be, it will favour teams like Montreal and Toronto in the East and will hurt big, physical teams like St. Louis and Vegas in the West. The Leafs do not like any form of contact and the smurf-size Canadiens with guys like Brendan Gallagher, Tomas Tatar, Jonathan Drouin, Max Domi, Paul Byron and company should excel in a skating series.
Host cities
There are 10 cities the NHL is considering for the two host locations or hubs and three are in Canada: Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. Canada’s policy that visitors must quarantine for 14 days upon entering the country could be waived for Vancouver, which has little or no coronavirus (COVID-19 strain) issues. Could such a scenario happen? If you know anything about money and politics, the answer is of course it can. Of the remaining USA cities, Columbus would be my pick because it’s a Republican Trump state and appears to do a better job of following coronavirus restrictive rules.
Memorabilia
Montreal Canadiens great Bob Gainey will auction off all his personal hockey collection and memorabilia, including his 1975-76 Stanley Cup ring and numerous sweaters, other rings, sticks and cups. The site www.classicauctions.net goes up for bidders on June 16. Gainey’s 1977-78 Stanley Cup 14k gold and diamond ring has a reserve bid of $5,000. I expect Habs lifetime fans like Jamie (Squid) MacLeod will be active.
Although Gainey did not play in the 1972 Canada-Russia series, he has items from the Summit Series. Winning players did not receive rings but watches. Maybe they’ll cut such a ring as part of the 50th anniversary.
Harness racing
The second set of qualifiers went Thursday at Red Shores at the Charlottetown Driving Park.
The Moase-owned and highly touted Berazzled with Mike McGuigan in the bike won the fifth of eight qualifiers in 1:56.1.
The sharp-looking two-year-old filly from last season Woodmere Nasha, co-owned by Harry Simmonds, Graham and Darlene Robinson and John Likely for trainer Jamie Smith, finished second in 2:01.4 in the opener with Ken Arsenault driving. Live And Let Di won in 2:01.2 with Marc Campbell in the bike.
In Bible Hill, N.S., Somewhereinverona (by Somebeachsomewhere) has been training for Emmons MacKay and the two-year-old co-owned by Ozzie MacKay, Reg Pettipas and Gilles Landry will be sent to Ontario trainer Blake MacIntosh, who also is a co-owner.
Doug Polley Jr.’s three-year-old Wind Blown will also be headed to Mohawk shortly. Mohawk has four days of qualifiers as they get ready to open. Theamazingsando, who is with Ontario trainer Billy Budd, is ready to qualify while on Monday, Wade and Ed Peconi’s Lovedbythemasses, who won five of seven races as a two-year-old, finished off October in ultra-impressive fashion, a life best of 1:55:4 with the last panel showing a sizzling 27:4. He could be among the top three-year-old trotters in the Ontario stakes.
Qualifiers are set to go at The Meadowlands today and word out of New York indicates racing will start there in mid-June. Pennsylvania is still dark.
Former Maritime trainer-driver Todd Trites has joined the Casie Coleman’s Ontario outfit.
Fred MacDonald's column appears every Saturday in The Guardian. He can be reached at [email protected].
