Nice!  

OFFICIALS UPDATE: Linesman Michel Cormier left the @penguins / @Avalanche game in the second period due to injury and will be kept out the remainder of the contest for precautionary reasons. The game will continue with two Referees and one Linesman. — NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) October 17, 2019

from Jabari Young of CNBC, The National Hockey League is relying on the “good judgment” of its players as it expands overseas, particularly in China, and positions itself in the U.S. to profit from the newly legalized gambling here,  Commissioner Gary Bettman said on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” on Wednesday. The feud between the NBA and China hasn’t had any blow back on the NHL so far. NBA players can’t seem to avoid offending fans or politicians, no matter what they say... Bettman was asked if it was a good idea to continue expanding in China, given the fragile relationship with the U.S. right now. Selecting his words carefully, the commissioner responded: “When you’re dealing in foreign countries, geopolitical issues can impact your business, and you have to be mindful of that. “We probably have the most international player base of any of the sports,” Bettman added. “And to the extent we can do business internationally, we do it, and when there are impediments to it, we either pivot or choose another course. There are no hard and fast rules in terms of how you do it.” He said the NHL hasn’t has adopted a social media policy for its executives and players in light of the NBA’s plight in China, saying the NHL hasn’t issued a “memoranda” on the matter. “We rely on the good judgment of all of our on-ice and off-ice personnel to do what they think is sensible and responsible,” Bettman said, adding the league is “overwhelmingly proud” of the way players conduct themselves. more Watch the interview below.

Anthony Mantha up first, followed by Taro Hirose and Jeff Blashill below.   "You won't necessarily score on the first chance, it's going to be the second or third rebound that's going to go in and I think that's what we need to focus on." - Mantha x practice day. pic.twitter.com/lyq8WxSuXK — Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 16, 2019

via TSN's YouTube page, TSN Senior Hockey Reporter Frank Seravalli explains how hitting rock bottom in 2015 in Montreal triggered Zack Kassian to turn his life around, and paved the way to Kassian getting off to the best start of his NHL career this season. Seravalli also discusses how important Kassian is to the Oilers' success.  

Strange night in the NHL. Four of the five Canadian teams that played at home failed to sell out. Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal below capacity. Toronto sold out. Huge attendance problems in Ottawa. Not good for the NHL when Canadian teams struggle at the gate. — Ken Campbell (@THNKenCampbell) October 16, 2019

Dana Wakiji tweets, full llist of players not practicing today: DeKeyser, Nemeth and Erne Bertuzzi-Larkin-Mantha Glendening-Nielsen-Athanasiou Hirose-Filppula-Ehn Helm-de la Rose-Abdelkader Daley-Hronek Ericsson-Green Cholowski-Biega Bowey

@DetroitRedWings - One last center ice face off at The Joe! Gonna miss it, but the memories will last a lifetime!?? pic.twitter.com/glUDYUQR8M — Joe Kocur (@kocurfoundation) October 16, 2019

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. … The American Hockey League and NHL Network today announced a schedule of 20 live AHL broadcasts on NHL Network during the 2019-20 season, marking the most live AHL regular-season game telecasts ever in a single season on NHL Network.

from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, - Jinx alert: Heading into Wednesday’s games, there is only one player in the NHL who has been on ice for at least 80 minutes in all situations and not suffered through a goal against. That is Anaheim’s Rickard Rakell (107:48, 4-0 Ducks). He does kill penalties, and Buffalo’s lethal man-advantage is in town. There are only two players who have played 100 five-on-five minutes and not been scored upon. They are Anaheim’s Cam Fowler (101:57, 6-0 Ducks) and Tampa Bay’s Ryan McDonagh (100:46, 4-0 Lightning). Jordan Staal was in the conversation, but that ended with Pierre-Luc DuBois’ game-winner for Columbus last Saturday. (Source: Natural Stat Trick.) - One thing I’m hearing a lot: the bottom of the Eastern Conference is much, much better than a year ago. “Those teams are improved,” one scout said. “There won’t be as many (higher-seeded clubs) coasting to the playoffs, like a few of them were used to.” - Ottawa owner Eugene Melnyk halted the search for a President of Hockey Operations until at least the end of the season. What is uncertain is if the search will continue, or if GM Pierre Dorion’s work convinces Melnyk that no new hire is necessary. It is believed Melnyk was asking an experienced executive for suggestions (I’d heard Glen Sather), but we can’t be sure if that will continue, either. more

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet with a few Thoughts on the Wings, - Blashill felt a late-season winning streak last March gave his players some confidence. The Red Wings won eight of nine, including five over playoff-bound clubs: the Islanders, Vegas, San Jose, Boston and Pittsburgh. “Against real teams, we played really good hockey,” he said. “Confidence matters. The margin of victory in this league is razor thin. You better believe … it matters to an individual and a team.” Blashill praised the likes of Dennis Cholowski, Filip Hronek and current AHLer Joe Veleno for how they prepared during the summer, but we spent the majority of our conversation on the top line. “They have learned a shared responsibility. It’s not one of them looking at the other two (to do something). I don’t like the phrase, ‘two-way players.’ I prefer ‘winning players.’” What does that mean? “It means they are not cheaters. They have developed into that.” What percentage would you put on them to indicate how close they are to where they need to be? “I won’t answer that. It puts a ceiling on them and I won’t do that. This league is relentless and ongoing night after night. They are all better today than they were a year ago, three years ago, five years ago. Credit to them.” - Blashill on working with Ken Holland and Steve Yzerman: “They are not a whole lot different. Two of the most respected men in the NHL. (Holland) should be a Hall of Famer, his success speaks for itself. Great man. Yzerman is there, extremely respected. Both men believe in reality. No short-cuts. Build through the draft. And they both believe young players have to go through a process. Steve could have forced young players on our team, but would only allow it if they were 100 per cent ready.” a bit more which is on Mantha's 4th goal against Dallas...

A little over 5 minutes to watch.  

from Chris Ryan of NJ.com, The Devils added assistant general manager Tom Fitzgerald to the team’s coaching staff, where he’ll serve as an assistant coach under John Hynes. The move isn’t meant to be permanent. He likely won’t spend the entire season as an assistant coach, but he will be with the team at daily practices and meetings for the time being, whether that be a few weeks or months.... Fitzgerald isn’t replacing anyone on the current staff. Instead, he’ll join the current group to add an extra set of eyes and another voice to the room. Fitzgerald has served as an assistant coach in the past with the Pittsburgh Penguins. read on

from Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The afternoon included a tour of the White House, including the East, Blue, Green and State rooms and Library. The team also spent some time in the Oval Office with the President, but there was no meal. Binnington noted that he had previously visited the Vatican. “Really didn’t like it,” he said. “This tour. A thousand times better. Smooth. I understood everything. It was just really cool to see what it’s like over here, have an idea where they live in the White House.” During the actual ceremony, Binnington said he had an idea he might be called upon when he saw his name among several listed in a binder brought by Trump to the podium. “So I had a second to get myself together,” he said. “I was going to make a shout out to the media, to tell them to take it easy on (Trump). He’s just a human. “It was really cool. Being part of that whole process and actually (Trump) talking politics up there. . . . He was talking about the stuff that was going on. It was cool to be up there to experience what it’s like for him. “He was pretty smooth. And he’s funny. He did a great job. And he’s a really nice guy so it was a great visit.” more

Six games into a miserable start to their season, the Wild are proving to be an aging, plodding, aggravating-to-watch team and one that’s finding itself outmatched just long enough in games against younger, faster, more skilled teams that they’re unable to overcome the spurts of ineptitude that have occurred in every game except versus bottom-dwelling Ottawa. -Michael Russo of The Athletic after the Minnesota Wild lost 4-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Russo has more (paid) on the state of the Wild.

from Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News, The Red Wings road trip didn’t start the way they wanted it to, by any stretch. Vancouver defeated the Wings 5-1  Tuesday as the Wings opened a quick three-games-in-four-days trip through western Canada. The loss dropped the Wings to 3-3 on the season. hrough the opening five games, there were stretches where the Red Wings’ didn’t play well, but not for lengthy periods of game. But Tuesday, many facets of the Wings’ game simply weren’t good enough, despite Dylan Larkin opening the scoring 30 seconds into the game and getting the Wings going quickly. continued from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press, Not even a week has passed since Dylan Larkin stood in a visitors locker room and talked after a victory about how the Detroit Red Wings are building an identity, how they won’t go away. The past two games, that team has not shown up. The 3-1 start has segued into a 3-3 record after two straight losses where the Wings can fault their work ethic. A 5-1 loss at Vancouver Tuesday came three days after a 5-2 loss at home to Toronto, and both nights the score reflected that the Wings did not show enough hustle. “It wasn’t enough for our team to come in and start a road trip and not have compete level anywhere near to where theirs was, to what it should be in an NHL game,” Dylan Larkin said after the stinker at Rogers Arena. “It was unacceptable. Frustrating, I think — if we play like that every night, it’s going to be the same result. We’re not good enough to come out and just throw our sticks out there and play hockey. We need to battle, we need to block shots, and the PK needs to be good. We need to win battles in front of our net. We didn’t do any of that and it’s frustrating.” continued Below, catch the game highlights and post-game talk.

from Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News, It’s not fair (or even a good idea) for a city to have dueling hot seats for coaches, so there is no place for the Stars’ Jim Montgomery on one right now. Besides, we are talking about seven games out of 82 after a rather special rookie campaign for the Dallas coach. So even with the Stars having won just one of their first seven games, no one here is suggesting change or even thoughts about the next coach in a sport where change is always right around the corner. Montgomery did two things well last year in leading the Stars to the seventh game of the second round against St. Louis. He wasn’t Ken Hitchcock, and that was an important step one. Players always need a breath of fresh air after a run with Hitch, and that’s not to suggest Monty was some sort of pushover for this team, coming out of the college ranks as he did. But he was different, and he explained things and they worked pretty well. On top of that, the Stars had Ben Bishop in net where he finished second in Vezina Trophy balloting behind his former Tampa Bay backup Andrei Vasilevskiy. This year Bishop has struggled, the power play (1 for 22) has been invisible and the Stars have positioned themselves along the bottom of the West with a 1-5-1 record. continued

Rielly ties Vaive with four assists in second period; Kuemper maintains NHL’s best goals-against average since late March; Hurricanes off to best seven-game start in franchise history  

If you watched the first 30 seconds of the game (Larkin goal), you saw the best of the Wings tonight. Vancouver scored the next 5 with the Wings looking a bit flat including the PK, which allowed 3 goals. Vancouver wins 5-1 and the goals are below.