ICE BREAKING NEWS

What The Puck?!

Written by Chase Howard

1st Branch

It seems every week we have a new development on the Covid front in the NHL, if not the whole damn world. This week the most interesting example came in the form of Las Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner. Lehner expressed his frustrations about how he feels the NHL isn't fulfilling promises made to players, specifically regarding a loosening of restrictions for vaccinated players.

He pointedly told reports on Wednesday that "At some point, we gotta start looking at the mental health of people around us."

Lehner provided some details on the situation behind the scenes saying, "being lied to us about things changing, and to now when we have taken the vaccine to have the excuse of saying nah, we are not changing because of competitive advantage its outrageous."

I feel for both Lehner and the NHL here. Covid continues to surprise us, hopefully not for much longer.

2nd Branch

A massive congratulations are due for two teams this week. The Las Vegas Golden Knights and the Colorado Avalanche have officially become the first and second team, respectively, to clinch playoff spots in the NHL this season. The Las Vegas golden knights officially clinched a playoff spot after beating the San Jose Sharks 5-2 on Wednesday night. The Golden Knights have won the past eight games in a row and lead both the Honda West Division and the NHL with 68 points. Fun fact, the Golden Knights have become only the fourth team in the NHL history to make the playoffs in all of its first four seasons, not a bad way to start a franchise; Take notes, Seattle. The Colorado Avalanche became the second team to clinch a playoff spot on Thursday after beating the St. Louis Blues 4-2. This was in their first game back from having three postponed do the Covid protocols. Overall, head coach Jared Bednar was happy with his team's performance after the layoff, saying,

"It was a real good game for us for being the first one back. Pretty happy to get that result."

The Avalanche currently sits second in the Honda West Division with 66 points but has a higher win percentage than the first ranked Golden Knights due to having played two fewer games (46-44). The Carolina Hurricanes narrowly missed out on becoming the third team to clinch a playoff spot on Friday despite being idle when the Nashville Predators held out against the Chicago Blackhawks 3-1. However, it won't be long before the Hurricanes and others clinch their spots in the dance (mmmm, playoff hockey).

3rd Branch

All right, I know I warned everybody about this in advance, but I'm going to gush over Patrick Marleau this week because he is now officially the all-time NHL leader in games played. He passed the man himself "Mr. Hockey" Gordie Howe last week, and now Marleau gets to enjoy the pleasure of setting a record every time he steps on the ice. Funny enough, in his first game, after breaking Howe's record, he broke another two, first his own record for games played, and then he became the fourth player to play 900 consecutive NHL games. It seems fitting that it was Marleau or "Mister Shark" as he's affectionately known in the San Jose area to be the guy to pass Gordie Howe. He might have never been the most talented or flashiest player, yet he might be the most deserving.

Now former San Jose Sharks forward and alternate captain Patrick Marleau | Photo from Getty Images

Marleau has spent a vast majority of his career toiling away in San Jose (over 1500 games), all without a major individual award (despite being a two-time Lady Byng finalist) or Stanley Cup ring to show for it. However, he is Mr. Shark for a good reason, holding the most meaningful San Jose Shark records such as goals, points, games played, and shots. He is an institution in San Jose and frankly in the NHL. Don't believe me? Here's a series of weird facts to support my case. Firstly, Patrick has played in the NHL since before almost 20% of current players were born (948 skaters in the NHL, of which 166 were born after he debuted). To put into perspective how crazy that is, the current leading goal scorer in the NHL is Auston Matthews. He was born 15 days before Patrick Marleau debuted. While Connor McDavid, who paces the NHL in points, was yet to speak a whole sentence (assuming he's not a complete sorcerer of newborn syntax as well). Marleau remembers when two-line passes were illegal, and the trapezoid wasn't a thing, let alone the shootout. When Marleau started playing in the NHL, there were 26 teams. We now have 31, soon to be 32 (shoutout Seattle). He even single-handedly outlasted the Atlanta Thrashers, who played in the NHL from 1999 to 2011.

Subsequently, they relocated to become the Winnipeg Jets, who previously had a team until after the 95-96 season when they moved to Phoenix to become the Coyotes, just a year before Marleau entered the league. As a team, the Thrashers played 902 regular-season games, only slightly over half of the total games played of Patrick Marleau, whose career almost spanned the death and subsequent resurrection of the Jets franchise. Overall the point of this Branch is just to recognize the absolutely extraordinary career accomplishments of Mr. Marleau. I hope these most recent records have secured him his deserved place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Catch Marleau breaking the record below:

Watch Marleau breaking opponents spirits here:

Quick Hits

• While we're on the subject of active legends, let's congratulate Zdeno Chara on 1600 games played as of today, becoming only the fifth NHL defenseman ever to do so. Overall he is the 13th player to reach this mark; the 2009 Norris trophy winner is the oldest active NHL player at age 44. Of the huge moment, Chara said, "It's always nice to reach milestones, but once you reach them, it's just a short moment of kind of celebration or enjoyment, but the process to get to those milestones, it takes time. It takes years, days away from family, and I always enjoyed that whole process of going after those."

• In the same week, teams clinch playoff spots. Other teams go the opposite way. This week the Columbus Blue Jackets broke a four-year playoff streak as they were eliminated from the playoff race on Thursday after losing 3-1 to Tampa Bay. Given the Blue Jackets didn't seem to get what they wanted out of the Dubois-Laine trade, their struggles defensively, and their recent losing streak, this is not surprising. On the bright side, thanks to a lovely trade deadline, the Blue Jackets have three first-round picks (Their own, Tampa's and Toronto's) in the upcoming NHL draft, thus solid reasons for optimism in Columbus

• The NHL and NHLPA reportedly want a decision from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding the participation of NHL players in the 2022 winter games by the end of May. The NHL and NHLPA agreed to Olympic participation in 2022 and 2026 as part of a modified collective bargaining agreement in 2020. However, some details need to be set before NHL players can officially participate. This all comes after the NHL did not participate in the 2018 winter Olympics after five straight Olympics featuring all of hockey's best. Hopefully, this leads to progress, for who does not want to see the NHL players in the Olympics?