Burnside’s Burns: Karma slays the Vegas Golden Knights

End of April. Playoffs hours away. Still got stuff I need to get off my chest. So, what are we waiting for?

Amanda Kessel breaks the ice in Pittsburgh

Caught up with Amanda Kessel a few days after it was announced she was going to be part of a pilot program developed by the Pittsburgh Penguins to give women and minorities an opportunity to experience the inner workings of the Penguins’ management team. It’s not all that surprising such an innovative program has surfaced in Pittsburgh. The Penguins, behind president David Morehouse, who announced on the eve of the playoffs that he was stepping down after 16 years with the team, have long been charting new ground as it relates to grassroots hockey, growing the team’s brand and in general thinking outside the box.

Under the guidance of the head of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Foundation, Jim Britt, the team’s Willie O’Ree Academy is opening up the game at an elite level to young Black players in the Pittsburgh area. It’s a program that should serve as a template for other NHL clubs looking to give underserved communities an avenue to play elite hockey. In some ways the new executive management program that three-time Olympian Kessel is entering is at the opposite end of the hockey spectrum but is equally important and likewise has a chance to create ripples that will or should be felt around the hockey world. Kessel, whose brother Phil won two Stanley Cups with the Penguins, first met Morehouse in a suite at a Pens game and the two have talked on and off about whether there was a role for Kessel in the organization. The interesting part of what lies ahead for Kessel is that she is having a hand in shaping what her experience will be like as she’ll have an opportunity to learn first-hand about the hockey club’s internal workings from hockey operations to broadcasting to marketing.

“They want to know how things are from my side and what I would be interested in,” Kessel said.

She recalled how, as a player at the collegiate and then the international and professional level, she and her teammates used to say, “If you can see it, you can be it.” This is that times 10, and Kessel’s experience will be critical in blazing a trail for those who will follow. Kessel described how important it was for her to have mentors like Kate Madigan, who is the executive director of hockey management/operations for the New Jersey Devils, and Vancouver assistant GM Cammi Granato for counsel on this opportunity and on other matters relating to her career.

“There are more and more women getting into roles that can inspire you,” said Kessel, who still hasn’t decided on how or if her playing career will continue. Regardless, Kessel hopes she will become the kind of person other women reach out to with similar questions, especially as she moves through this new chapter in her hockey life.

The Golden Knights go bust

It has been a precipitous fall from grace for the once lovable Vegas Golden Knights. Indeed, what happened to the irresistible expansion team from 2017-18? So warm and fuzzy. Not so much now. The team has in the past couple of seasons careened from one brushfire to the next, almost always of their own making, from the team’s shoddy treatment of its first true star, Marc-Andre Fleury, to its shading of the truth regarding Robin Lehner’s health for literally months, to their questionable handling of the Evgenii Dadonov trade that turned out not to be a trade.

We are told there was significant pressure put on Dadonov by Vegas management to accept the trade to Anaheim in spite of the fact the Ducks were clearly on his no-trade list, just another part of a narrative that suggests Vegas has quickly become a less and less attractive destination for players. Trust us when we say that it wasn’t just on social media that there was a sense of perverse pleasure as the talented Golden Knights played themselves out of what would have been a fifth straight playoff appearance as other teams quietly share many of the sentiments so obvious on social media. But the question now is: what’s next? Are there changes in management and/or the coaching staff? How about the roster, starting with Lehner, seemingly made the scapegoat by many around the team? Can he return even though he’s got three years left at $5 million annually and a limited no-trade? There are teams that will be looking for goaltending help but there does seem to be a scorched earth pattern to the VGK and their goaltenders that is also a bit unbecoming. In short it seems that once-charmed Vegas is learning something about karma.

Who heads up the NHLPA after Donald Fehr?

Have to believe that time was coming for NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr anyway. But the report into the union’s handling of the Kyle Beach sexual assault in 2010 that showed a stunning lack of accountability, really on anyone’s part within the NHLPA, should hasten Fehr’s departure. It’s been said many times throughout this process, Kyle Beach deserved more and better at every turn. He certainly deserved more from the union that was supposed to be representing his interests than to basically say “Oops,” and attribute doing nothing to help the young man to a breakdown in communication. So disheartening. Now what? Already Glenn Healy’s name has popped up as a possible replacement. And would it not be fitting on some level if Healy and former NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly, ousted in a tawdry kind of palace coup, returned to finish the business they never got a chance to finish? The NHLPA, which needs to address a general malaise within its membership, especially among younger players, could do a whole lot worse, especially given the tremendous work Healy has done in his time as head of the NHL’s Alumni Association.

IIHF makes right call on Russia

Good on the IIHF for pulling the 2023 World Championship out of Russia. No surprise, of course, but every little bit of international pressure put on Russia in the wake of its barbaric invasion of Ukraine is important and we know that hockey is an valued part of Vladimir Putin’s personae. Now, all we need is for the NHL and NHLPA to step up and confirm that there will be no Russian entry in the 2024 World Cup of Hockey.

Don’t blink now, Kevyn Adams

The more I watched the Buffalo Sabres down the stretch, the more excited I was for what is (finally?) ahead for the Sabres. He won’t get many (any?) votes for the Jack Adams Trophy, but hat’s off to Don Granato, who navigated the Jack Eichel trade and by the end of the season had his team with the top-ranked power play since the trade deadline and an overall offense that was tied for 11^th in goals per game since the deadline. Sure, the Sabres haven’t made the playoffs in an NHL record 11 straight years, but this off-season looms large for GM Kevyn Adams. Yes, Craig Anderson is an inspiring story, but he is 40 years old, and unless the idea is to continue to troll for top-three draft picks, this team needs a goaltender that can grow with the team. Is it Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen? Too early to tell after an up and down year statistically that included some injury issues. Luukkonen is just 23, so he has lots of time, but finding the right mix in goal – say, adding UFA Ville Husso – is going to be a key part of keeping the momentum going in the right direction for a franchise that knows little of momentum. In short, all of a sudden Adams finds himself in the position of having to be very careful he doesn’t screw things up.

Glass half full in Arizona

Maybe it’s me, but I’m kind of jazzed for next season and beyond for the Arizona Coyotes. This week marked the end of the team’s long and tortured relationship with Gila River Arena and the City of Gongdale, er, Glendale. Having covered the many machinations of the team’s existence in Glendale over the years, there’s a certain nostalgia for an end to all the chaos on the wrong side of the valley. Lots of folks up in arms over the team’s temporary (and not so short term) move to Arizona State University’s multi-purpose facility. But I think the vibe will be fun and, assuming plans continue to move forward for a real arena close to real fans in Tempe, well, maybe it’ll become part of the backstory to a long-awaited renaissance in the desert for the NHL’s most beleaguered franchise.

Lafleur, Bossy stir up magic memories

Part of losing icons like Mike Bossy and Guy Lafleur is in the memories those players conjure up, memories that might have been set to the side for years but which connect you to a vivid part of your life, your identity. I grew up a Montreal fan first on a farm in northern Ontario where you could see the lights of Ville Marie, Quebec across the way and where my father would often take a shotgun in his tractor in case he ran into wolves or bear. Later, we lived on a farm in western Ontario near the small town of Delaware. There was an old cement pad near the house and I spent hours there with a tennis ball worn down to the smooth rubber center shell from constant shots on an aluminum framed net whose netting had likewise been reduced to tatters. The stick was worn to a needle-like point. How many times with my internal Danny Gallivan play-by-play going in my head was I Lafleur, racing down the right side and blasting home an overtime winner? Too numerous to count. We sometimes search for answers as to why the game has a hold on us or what it means to us, and in the moment I learned of Lafleur’s passing those were the images that immediately came to me. I’m glad they were still there.

Watching the award vote from the sidelines for a change

And finally, for the first time, I won’t be casting a ballot for the PHWA annual awards, an honor I always enjoyed and always agonized over, but it’s time for fresh blood to weigh in and so I am Zen about watching for the outcome from the outside. In some ways I won’t miss trying to figure out who to put on my Frank J. Selke Trophy ballot. That was always the hardest one for me. My guess is Patrice Bergeron (way to step out on a limb, no?) but hope Elias Lindholm gets some love. I enjoyed my friend Mark Spector’s piece earlier this week wondering if there is some Connor McDavid ‘fatigue’ vis a vis the Hart Trophy, and even though he is going to win another Art Ross Trophy, it feels like it’s not a given he’ll end up on the final Hart Trophy ballot. I think there’s something to that, but I’d wager McDavid will be among the final three. I’d go this way; Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid and Johnny Gaudreau but Roman Josi, Jonathan Huberdeau and Igor Shesterkin are all worthy of consideration. Can’t wait to see what the voters come up with.

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Burnside’s Burns: Karma slays the Vegas Golden Knights

ARTICLE SPONSORED BY DAILY FACEOFF BRACKET CHALLENGE

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