Screen Shots: NHL In-Season Tournament, Patrick Kane, Draft at the Sphere
Adam Proteau gives his take on calls for the NHL to consider an in-season tournament, expectations for Patrick Kane with the Red Wings and the 2024 NHL draft heading to the Sphere in Las Vegas.
Welcome to another edition of Screen Shots, an ongoing THN.com feature in which we tackle a few hockey topics and break them down into a few shorter paragraphs. Let’s get right down to business:
The NBA’s in-season special tournament is nearing its conclusion, and there have been some calls for the NHL to do something similar. However, we’re not overly enthusiastic about such an event in hockey’s best league, as the NHL’s current plans for a World Cup of Hockey tournament are well underway. Between that special event and participation in the Olympics, there’s really no pressing need for another version of an elite series of games.
Indeed, if the NHL and NHL Players’ Association tried to shoehorn in an in-season tournament, they’d be playing with fire. The regular season is already taxing as hell, and the last thing hockey fans should want is a spate of injuries at a mid-season tournament robbing their team of their best chance at a Stanley Cup championship. '
Besides, a mid-season tournament would be closer to an all-star game in terms of intensity than it would to a genuine, playoff-caliber, ferocious level of play. Are we really that starved for attention that we need to jam in pretend championships into a schedule that isn’t crying out for any publicity help?
In the end, a best-on-best showdown is going to take place at the next World Cup, as well as the Olympics. Hockey fans should be thrilled that those games are coming rather than consuming them as quickly as possible and demanding another series of games to help the NHL stick out on the sports calendar. The game and the league don’t need it, so let’s not attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill idea.
The Detroit Red Wings are going to get a boost Thursday night when new acquisition Patrick Kane plays his first game for the organization after signing a one-year, $2,75-million contract on Nov. 28. But the Wings and their fans should be tempering their expectations for Kane, at least until he gets his competitive feet under him and shows how much he has left in the tank.
We can’t forget that, as we’ve seen recently with Washington star center Nicklas Backstrom, attempting to restart your NHL career after major surgery is no small task, and there could be pitfalls ahead for Kane in Detroit.
Wings coach Derek Lalonde will almost certainly choose to keep Kane on a budget plan as far as his on-ice minutes go, and that's the right approach. It’s not as if Detroit is desperate for standings points. At this stage, they should be carefully easing Kane into action and moving forward from there.
The 35-year-old doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone at this stage in his potential Hockey Hall of Fame career, but like every player, he wants to go out on his own terms.
The way Kane’s body responds to hip resurfacing surgery will dictate how much longer he can play, but right now, a wait-and-see philosophy is the right one for him. Things could work out as hoped, but they just as easily could lead to an abrupt end for him.
Finally, kudos to the NHL for arranging for the 2024 draft to be held at the Sphere in Vegas. That's a great little coup for the league, and even if they're not going to have a centralized draft beginning in 2025, they can still use the Sphere for something like the NHL Awards in the future.
The technological marvel can only help raise the NHL’s profile, and being on the vanguard of new technology is exactly what the league needs more of. The league deserves praise for this move, and we’re intrigued to see how it all eventually plays out.
