It’s even worse than that, I think this is actively doing harm. You want to be proven right about this draft pick, it’s only going to happen someday far in the future, and only if you give the guy the best possible chance to succeed. Hyping up meaningless crap and heaping on more pressure for his first season is not…

To be fair Gabe, I am not a fan of Cherry, but I thought he actually took the whole “Bunch of Jerks” phenomenon in excellent humour. He did not go off on the Hurricanes for that, and I think he sees the fun in it. He stopped short of endorsing it, but he honestly didn’t seem upset about that part.

One slightly odd thing about offside replays is that although the non-call is reviewable, the call is not. If you get incorrectly called offside and the whistle blows, you don’t have any appeal, no matter what kind of offensive chance was just interrupted.

The puck-in-the-netting rule would have similar interpretation issues. Imagine that neither Bjorkstrand nor Panarin scores on that play, but Columbus scores 30 seconds ... 60 seconds ... ??? later. You have to put a time boundary on it somewhere. And a similar injustice could happen in the neutral zone too — imagine a…

A window on what almost entirely white Canadians west of Ontario and Americans west of the Mississippi were naming their children in 2004. 

I feel confident that it is not the dads driving this naming trend. But I am probably being sexist.

Didn’t I just hear ramblin’ Don Cherry saying he wished they still had it? I am not sure I understood him.

That is not the current rule. Catching the puck is allowed, see rule 67.2. http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=26478.

In the olden times, the NHL had “offside” rules that would have prohibited that pass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offside_(ice_hockey)#Offside_pass). Under the current rules, the puck only had to cross the Isles’ blue line before Faulk. It was reviewed and the goal stood.

My thought exactly. Shows you how gifted all these guys are, and how rarely they get to show it because of all the even better specialists around them.

 You know, I never watched GoT.

I think it’s important to note that his trajectory as a professional has been unusual. He started in the league as a classic shit disturber type, scoring 40-50 points a season, and meanwhile getting under his opponents’ skin. It’s only in the last three seasons he has become a serious superstar at the skill part of…

That lineup—Steph Curry-Klay Thompson-Andre Iguodala-Kevin Durant-Draymond Green—played 178 minutes together in the regular season

Who gave that three stars??

NO ONE DENIES THIS

You might enjoy the opening episode of Michael Lewis’ new podcast AGAINST THE RULES for one take on this question.

That seems like an inordinate amount of pressure to heap upon a guy who was not exactly a highly rated prospect

Yeah OK Lee has an open net in that gif ... but the gymnastics move he is trying to pull off with a hockey stick and a pair of steel blades on his feet has a very high degree of difficulty.

Been to Baku, and they are well-supplied with Ladas.

Ms Harris has now written the two best hockey things I have read on Deadspin. Let’s get her back more often. Also, let’s just highlight this pre-season non-prediction here shall we: