We’re three weeks away from Thanksgiving — usually an all-important marker in the NHL.
In the salary cap era, if you’re in a playoff spot on the holiday, history says you have more than a 75% chance of making the postseason. It’s an indicator many front offices swear by, and will dictate how teams conduct business for the rest of the season — be it player additions, subtractions, or even coaching and management changes. Since the season began a week later than usual, those decisions may be pushed back. It’s still early, but here are some of the biggest stories percolating around the NHL early in the 2022-23 season.
World Cup of Hockey on ice?
There was a lot of optimism for the World Cup of Hockey returning in February 2024. According to multiple sources, that date is now in jeopardy — and the tournament could be pushed back. We should know an answer by the end of the month. This weekend is key, as the NHL, NHLPA and IIHF representatives will all be present in Toronto for Hall of Fame festivities and are expected to continue discussions and hopefully firm up answers.
However if solutions aren’t found soon, it would make February 2024 unrealistic. The logistics for the tournament are complicated. It will occur midseason for the NHL. There are expected to be early-round games in Europe; the final rounds would be in North America. If the NHL helps stage a tournament, it wants to do it right.
One of the biggest issues is the participation of Russian players as the war in Ukraine continues on. The IIHF has banned Russia from international events, but the NHL and NHLPA were hopeful that they could find a solution — such as having Russian athletes compete under a neutral name or flag. However, some participating countries have said that’s not satisfactory, and have advocated that no Russian players participate at all. Other remaining issues: The IIHF’s top business partners have also expressed trepidation over holding the tournament in the middle of the NHL season. And the NHL is still in negotiations over broadcast rights in North America.
Devils competing now and building for later
As Devils coach Lindy Ruff was introduced to the crowd at the home opener last month, he was booed by some. Then the Devils lost for the second straight game, 5-2.
“It sucked, it was terrible to hear that. The first Sunday of the season was not fun for me at all,” GM Tom Fitzgerald said. “But by no means is that going to persuade me on any decisions. It’s a tough market. Yankees fans booed Aaron Judge in the playoffs after he hit 62 home runs. Coaches have been booed in New Jersey before Lindy, too. The one thing that helps is winning.”
And that’s exactly what the Devils have done. New Jersey is one of the NHL’s biggest surprises, atop the Metropolitan Division at 9-3. Fitzgerald credits a commitment to team defense as the biggest reason. But the offseason moves have paid off.
“John Marino is better than I anticipated,” Fitzgerald said. And Vitek Vanecek has been an important 1B goalie, especially as Mackenzie Blackwood is shelved with yet another injury. Blackwood is being further evaluated by doctors Tuesday, but early word is that he sustained a mid- to low-grade sprained MCL, which should sideline him for three to six weeks
• The Devils were dealt a blow when their biggest offseason signing — two-time Stanley Cup champion Ondrej Palat — underwent groin surgery after just six games. While Fitzgerald says Palat’s impact is still felt off the ice — setting an example for young players — it doesn’t sound like the Devils will use the LTIR space to add short-term help. And even if their success continues, it doesn’t sound like the Devils will be in the market for any late-season rentals.
Fitzgerald said he has been working the phones for “hockey trades” (like the John Marino for Ty Smith deal) but it’s against his philosophy to bring in a player for a few months to help out, especially where his team is in their evolution.
“I believe you build a team over the summer versus over the trade deadline,” Fitzgerald said. “I was a trade deadline acquisition twice. One time I left two young boys behind [at home], the other time I left three young boys behind. It’s really hard on the player. I was also [in management] in Pittsburgh when we acquired James Neal midseason. He tried, but it was just too quick of an ask and he couldn’t do what he needed to do. When he was able to stay the summer and get work in with guys like Evgeni Malkin, you saw a much better version of him the following year.”
While the Devils have some needs — including wanting to get bigger — Fitzgerald said he is not “picking up something just to add.”
“We have been talking about player development for a while, now we owe it to these kids to see what we have,” Fitzgerald said. “They’re assets, whether they help us here or help us get players here.”
The Devils haven’t given a timeline, but I heard it’s looking like anywhere from two to three months for Palat. “When we get Ondrej back, that’s just a luxury,” Fitzgerald said.
Status of Blackhawks’ rebuild
When the Blackhawks went on a four-game winning streak early in October, people kept asking Chicago GM Kyle Davidson one thing: “Are you happy?” Because this isn’t according to plan. The Blackhawks aren’t supposed to be good this season. They’ve been transparent about it. They’re in a rebuild.
“It’s funny because it goes against what some people thought we were going to be,” Davidson says. “Everyone is focused on the draft, right? But we’re trying to do the best thing for the team and organization every night, and that’s putting a hardworking effort on the ice. Every night we show up, we want to win. We’re not putting a team on the ice that we expect to lose. Wherever we end up in the standings, it’s our job and our scouting staff’s job to find talent from that point.”
The one thing I have heard consistently about Chicago from players and player agents is that the vibes around the locker room are more positive than last year. Winning helps. There’s been a buy-in to the blue-collar style Luke Richardson and his staff have implemented. But the organization, despite their goals of a long-term build, have made sure everyone feels appreciated through the process. For example, the team stayed an extra night on their California trip. The players golfed at Pebble Beach while the staff got a day in Napa. That’s not an insignificant expense. But it can have a significant impact.
• Davidson is not putting a timeline on Patrick Kane to make a decision on where — if at all — he’d like to be traded. Asked whether he has had any conversations with other teams on Kane, Davidson was emphatic: “Zero. Zero conversations.” Since it’s expected to be a complicated trade — including a waived no-move clause, and probable retention of salary — Davidson said he “didn’t foresee anything soon.” On where things stand with Jonathan Toews, Davidson said: “We’re just glad he’s back and feeling good and producing.” I’ve heard that some teams are looking at Toews, especially given the start he’s having (seven goals in 12 games). Like Kane, Toews has a NMC, so it’s up to him if he wants to leave (and where).
I have heard some people around the league wonder about Seth Jones’ availability. Jones’ contract ($9.5 million cap hit through 2029-30) is more intriguing with the salary cap potentially rising by $4 million this summer. Davidson poured some cold water on that. He said every conversation his front office has had about future plans has included Jones. “Seth is a big part of what we’re doing here moving forward,” he said. “We feel really lucky to have Seth on our team and on our team long-term.” Now if a team calls with an offer on Jones that blows them away, the Blackhawks will listen, but they’re not going out shopping him. And that’s exactly where Davidson expects to be by the March 3 trade deadline for his entire roster. “Given the situation we’re in, we’re going to be a team that certainly listens,” Davidson said. “They have to be things that are advantageous for us, but we’ll see how it shakes out. The one thing we’re always going to have our eyes on is building the right way.”
Price will be high for Senators
The Ottawa Senators are for sale, and it’s expected to be a months-long process. Once the Senators identify their preferred buyer, the sale would need to be approved by commissioner Gary Bettman and the NHL’s board of governors. The sale is contingent on a background check.
The next BOG meeting is scheduled for December in Florida. However, because of the additional layers involved, it’s unlikely a sale would be approved then.
But here’s the good news for the league: While Sportico listed the Senators as worth $650 million in its latest valuations, one NHL owner told ESPN he’s “realistically optimistic” the Senators will be sold for more than that. There are expected to be multiple bidders — yes, including actor Ryan Reynolds, who has expressed interest — which will drive up the price. But perhaps more importantly, the sale will be tied to a real estate opportunity, as the new owner can help seal a deal for a long-coveted downtown arena.
“When Fenway [Sports Group] came in and took control of the Penguins, obviously they were interested in the team and getting involved with the NHL,” the owner said. “But I think that land around the arena was just as attractive to them.”
A winning trade
Could the Jack Eichel trade be the rare NHL deal that works out perfectly for both sides? Eichel (14 points in 13 games) and the Vegas Golden Knights (best record in the West at 11-2-0) are flying. But so too are the Buffalo Sabres, who began to feel a culture change in their locker room in the middle of last season. Buffalo (7-5) is keeping up in the competitive Atlantic Division and has a good shot of breaking its league-worst 11-year playoff drought. Eicher will be returning to Buffalo for the second time on Thursday night (ESPN+/Hulu, 7 ET).
Two facts about the Sabres: They are the youngest team in the league and have the highest cap space in the league. GM Kevyn Adams would like to reward the fan base and have his young team experience playoff hockey, but he’s not going to lose sight of the larger plan, which includes sustained success.
Asked how he plans on using his cap space, Adams laughed. “That’s a good question,” the Buffalo GM said. “We’re always going to talk about every opportunity to get better, but you also have to know long term there are bigger goals, and in the evolution of where we want to be as a franchise, we’re still building. One thing we know we want to do is reward the players who are here, and the next step is signing them to big contracts.”
Dylan Cozens is an RFA this summer while No. 1 overall picks Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin are eligible for long-term extensions beginning this summer. All three players are viewed by the Sabres as critical in the larger plan.
One of the big things Adams and coach Don Granato have done is empower their young players. Part of that is letting them know they don’t have to be perfect. “We’re encouraging our players to play fearlessly, to make mistakes,” Adams said.
That has helped unlock a new level for Dahlin, who is playing with more confidence than we’ve seen since he entered the NHL.
Latest in Boston
The Bruins’ signing of Mitchell Miller summed up in a text by a rival executive: “One of the biggest unforced errors I’ve seen in my two decades working in this sport.” Boston cut ties with the 20-year-old defenseman on Sunday, but it’s a stain on the judgment and processes for Bruins president Cam Neely (who apologized Monday) and GM Don Sweeney. It’s embarrassing enough to note that “new information” came forward after considering the signing for a year. Mitchell was convicted in juvenile court in 2016 of racially abusing and bullying a classmate, Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, who is Black. Bruins management never reached out to the parents of the victim, who have maintained that Miller never properly apologized to their son.
• Jim Montgomery and Bruins management addressed the team ahead of training camp, a typical practice in the NHL. When Montgomery was done with his speech, Bergeron stood up and gave his own speech. And then Charlie McAvoy, who wears an A, stood up and said something. And then the rest of the leadership group followed. Montgomery didn’t know it was coming. He just watched in awe. “I’ve never seen that in all of my years in the game,” Montgomery said. “I think it’s something they’ve always done, going back to [Zdeno] Chara. The leadership in this room is different than anything I’ve ever experienced.”
Montgomery has a theory for why his team has been so quick to adapt to his systems. The team already played good defense, and had centers who take pride in a responsible game. “They already knew how to play away from the puck,” he said. “I didn’t need to change anything there; that eliminated a lot of teaching.”
So a majority of drills have featured how the Bruins wanted to play with the puck. “And that was fun for guys, right? It’s exciting,” Montgomery said. “More practice was slanted toward offense, playing with the puck, and the guys really took to that.”
• One bright spot on the Bruins is the resurgence of Foligno. Many fans were counting out the 35-year-old former Blue Jackets captain, who makes $5.5 million but scored just two goals last year. He was put on waivers to start the season.
Foligno has been a revelation for Boston’s bottom six, with three goals and four assists in his first 12 games, looking more like the version we knew in Columbus.
“He was recuperating from a massive surgery. He didn’t get time to train. When you’ve lived comfortably somewhere for a decade, and you have three young kids, and you move and now your wife doesn’t know anyone, and you don’t know where to go, you come home and your house is kind of a mess,” Montgomery said. “He told me before the season, ‘I hate to make excuses, but all of those things are not a problem anymore.’ And he’s been so much better for us.”
Early draft rumblings
Before the season, a director of amateur scouting suggested to me a story idea: “Will Connor Bedard really go No. 1?” He then watched one of Bedard’s games with the Regina Pats, and reported back. “Never mind,” he said. “Clear-cut No. 1.”
Bedard has had a terrific start to his WHL season, which should cement his status come June. The only reason for trepidation is that behind him are elite players who might have had the chance to go No. 1 in other years. The University of Michigan’s Adam Fantilli and Sweden’s Leo Carlsson have both received very high praise. Then there’s Russia’s Matvei Michkov, who is expected to still go top five — despite the inherent risk of when he’ll be able to come play in North America, since the winger is under contract in Russia through the 2025-26 season.
BOSTON — The Red Sox activated All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman from the 10-day injured list before Friday’s game against Tampa Bay.
Bregman, who has been sidelined since May 24 with a right quad strain, returned to his customary spot in the field and was slotted in the No. 2 spot of Boston’s lineup for the second of a four-game series against the Rays. He sustained the injury when he rounded first base and felt his quad tighten up.
A two-time World Series winner who spent the first nine seasons of his big league career with the Houston Astros, Bregman signed a $120 million, three-year contract in February. At the time of the injury, he was hitting .299 with 11 homers and 35 RBI. Those numbers led to him being named to the American League’s All-Star team for the third time since breaking into the majors with the Astros in 2016.
Bregman missed 43 games with the quad strain. Earlier this week, he told reporters that he was trending in a direction where he didn’t believe he would require a minor league rehab assignment. With three games left before the All-Star break, the Red Sox agreed the time was right to reinstate a player to a team that entered Friday in possession of one of the AL’s three wild-card berths.
“He’s going to do his part,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said before Friday’s game. “Obviously, the timing, we’ll see where he’s at, but he’s been working hard on the swing … visualizing and watching video.”
JIM ABBOTT IS sitting at his kitchen table, with his old friend Tim Mead. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were partners in an extraordinary exercise — and now, for the first time in decades, they are looking at a stack of letters and photographs from that period of their lives.
The letters are mostly handwritten, by children, from all over the United States and Canada, and beyond.
“Dear Mr. Abbott …”
“I have one hand too. … I don’t know any one with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy.”
“I am a seventh grader with a leg that is turned inwards. How do you feel about your arm? I would also like to know how you handle your problem? I would like to know, if you don’t mind, what have you been called?”
“I can’t use my right hand and most of my right side is paralyzed. … I want to become a doctor and seeing you makes me think I can be what I want to be.”
For 40 years, Mead worked in communications for the California Angels, eventually becoming vice president of media relations. His position in this department became a job like no other after the Angels drafted Abbott out of the University of Michigan in 1988.
There was a deluge of media requests. Reporters from around the world descended on Anaheim, most hoping to get one-on-one time with the young left-handed pitcher with the scorching fastball. Every Abbott start was a major event — “like the World Series,” Angels scout Bob Fontaine Jr. remembers. Abbott, with his impressive amateur résumé (he won the James E. Sullivan Award for the nation’s best amateur athlete in 1997 and an Olympic gold medal in 1988) and his boyish good looks, had star power.
That spring, he had become only the 16th player to go straight from the draft to the majors without appearing in a single minor league game. And then there was the factor that made him unique. His limb difference, although no one called it that back then. Abbott was born without a right hand, yet had developed into one of the most promising pitchers of his generation. He would go on to play in the majors for ten years, including a stint in the mid ’90s with the Yankees highlighted by a no-hitter in 1993.
Abbott, and Mead, too, knew the media would swarm. That was no surprise. There had been swarms in college, and at the Olympics, wherever and whenever Abbott pitched. Who could resist such an inspirational story? But what they hadn’t anticipated were the letters.
The steady stream of letters. Thousands of letters. So many from kids who, like Abbott, were different. Letters from their parents and grandparents. The kids hoping to connect with someone who reminded them of themselves, the first celebrity they knew of who could understand and appreciate what it was like to be them, someone who had experienced the bullying and the feelings of otherness. The parents and grandparents searching for hope and direction.
“I know you don’t consider yourself limited in what you can do … but you are still an inspiration to my wife and I as parents. Your success helps us when talking to Andy at those times when he’s a little frustrated. I’m able to point to you and assure him there’s no limit to what he can accomplish.”
In his six seasons with the Angels, Abbott was assisted by Mead in the process of organizing his responses to the letters, mailing them, and arranging face-to-face meetings with the families who had written to him. There were scores of such meetings. It was practically a full-time job for both of them.
“Thinking back on these meetings with families — and that’s the way I’d put it, it’s families, not just kids — there was every challenge imaginable,” Abbott, now 57, says. “Some accidents. Some birth defects. Some mental challenges that aren’t always visible to people when you first come across somebody. … They saw something in playing baseball with one hand that related to their own experience. I think the families coming to the ballparks were looking for hopefulness. I think they were looking for what it had been that my parents had told me, what it had been that my coaches had told me. … [With the kids] it was an interaction. It was catch. It was smiling. It was an autograph. It was a picture. With the parents, it ran deeper. With the parents, it was what had your parents said to you? What coaches made a difference? What can we expect? Most of all, I think, what can we expect?”
“It wasn’t asking for autographs,” Mead says of all those letters. “They weren’t asking for pictures. They were asking for his time. He and I had to have a conversation because this was going to be unique. You know, you could set up another player to come down and sign 15 autographs for this group or whatever. But it was people, parents, that had kids, maybe babies, just newborn babies, almost looking for an assurance that this is going to turn out all right, you know. ‘What did your parents do? How did your parents handle this?'”
One of the letters Abbott received came from an 8-year-old girl in Windsor, Ontario.
She wrote, “Dear Jim, My name is Tracey Holgate. I am age 8. I have one hand too. My grandpa gave me a picture of you today. I saw you on TV. I don’t know anyone with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy. I hope to see you play in Detroit and maybe meet you. Could you please send me a picture of you in uniform? Could you write back please? Here is a picture of me. Love, Tracey.”
Holgate’s letter is one of those that has remained preserved in a folder — and now Abbott is reading it again, at his kitchen table, half a lifetime after receiving it. Time has not diminished the power of the letter, and Abbott is wiping away tears.
Today, Holgate is 44 and goes by her married name, Dupuis. She is married with four children of her own. She is a teacher. When she thinks about the meaning of Jim Abbott in her life, it is about much more than the letter he wrote back to her. Or the autographed picture he sent her. It was Abbott, all those years ago, who made it possible for Tracey to dream.
“There was such a camaraderie there,” she says, “an ability to connect with somebody so far away doing something totally different than my 8-year-old self was doing, but he really allowed me to just feel that connection, to feel that I’m not alone, there’s other people that have differences and have overcome them and been successful and we all have our own crosses, we all have our own things that we’re carrying and it’s important to continue to focus on the gifts that we have, the beauty of it.
“I think sometimes differences, disabilities, all those things can be a gift in a package we would never have wanted, because they allow us to be people that have an empathetic heart, an understanding heart, and to see the pain in the people around us.”
Now, years after Abbott’s career ended, he continues to inspire.
Among those he influenced, there are professional athletes, such as Shaquem Griffin, who in 2018 became the first NFL player with one hand. Griffin, now 29, played three seasons at linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks.
Growing up in Florida, he would watch videos of Abbott pitching and fielding, over and over, on YouTube.
“The only person I really looked up to was Jim Abbott at the time,” Griffin says, “which is crazy, because I didn’t know anybody else to look up to. I didn’t know anybody else who was kind of like me. And it’s funny, because when I was really little, I used to be like, ‘Why me? Why this happen to me?’ And I used to be in my room thinking about that. And I used to think to myself, ‘I wonder if Jim Abbott had that same thought.'”
Carson Pickett was born on Sept. 15, 1993 — 11 days after Abbott’s no-hitter. Missing most of her left arm below the elbow, she became, in 2022, the first player with a limb difference to appear for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.
She, too, says that Abbott made things that others told her were impossible seem attainable.
“I knew I wanted to be a professional soccer player,” says Pickett, who is currently playing for the NWSL’s Orlando Pride. “To be able to see him compete at the highest level it gave me hope, and I think that that kind of helped me throughout my journey. … I think ‘pioneer’ would be the best word for him.”
Longtime professional MMA fighter Nick Newell is 39, old enough to have seen Abbott pitch for the Yankees. In fact, when Newell was a child he met Abbott twice, first at a fan event at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan and then on a game day at Yankee Stadium. Newell was one of those kids with a limb difference — like Griffin and Pickett, due to amniotic band syndrome — who idolized Abbott.
“And I didn’t really understand the gravity of what he was doing,” Newell says now, “but for me, I saw someone out there on TV that looked like I did. And I was the only other person I knew that had one hand. And I saw this guy out here playing baseball and it was good to see somebody that looked like me, and I saw him in front of the world.
“He was out there like me and he was just living his life and I think that I owe a lot of my attitude and the success that I have to Jim just going out there and being the example of, ‘Hey, you can do this. Who’s to say you can’t be a professional athlete?’ He’s out there throwing no-hitters against the best baseball players in the world. So, as I got older, ‘Why can’t I wrestle? Why can’t I fight? Why can’t I do this?’ And then it wasn’t until the internet that I heard people tell me I can’t do these things. But by then I had already been doing those things.”
Griffin.
Pickett.
Newell.
Just three of the countless kids who were inspired by Jim Abbott.
When asked if it ever felt like too much, being a role model and a hero, all the letters and face-to-face meetings, Abbott says no — but it wasn’t always easy.
“I had incredible people who helped me send the letters,” he says. “I got a lot more credit sometimes than I deserved for these interactions, to be honest with you. And that happened on every team, particularly with my friend Tim Mead. There was a nice balance to it. There really was. There was a heaviness to it. There’s no denying. There were times I didn’t want to go [to the meetings]. I didn’t want to walk out there. I didn’t want to separate from my teammates. I didn’t want to get up from the card game. I didn’t want to put my book down. I liked where I was at. I was in my environment. I was where I always wanted to be. In a big league clubhouse surrounded by big league teammates. In a big league stadium. And those reminders of being different, I slowly came to realize were never going to go away.”
But being different was the thing that made Abbott more than merely a baseball star. For many people, he has been more than a role model, more than an idol. He is the embodiment of hope and belonging.
“I think more people need to realize and understand the gift of a difference,” Dupuis says. “I think we have to just not box everybody in and allow everybody’s innate light to shine, and for whatever reasons we’ve been created to be here, [let] that light shine in a way that it touches everybody else. Because I think that’s what Jim did. He allowed his light to permeate and that light, in turn, lit all these little children’s lights all over the world, so you have this boom of brightness that’s happening and that’s uncontrollable, that’s beautiful.”
NEW YORK — Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong is projected to receive the largest amount from this season’s $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool based on his regular-season statistics.
Crow-Armstrong is on track to get $1,091,102, according to WAR calculations through July 8 that Major League Baseball sent to teams, players and agents in a memo Friday that was obtained by The Associated Press.
He earned $342,128 from the pool in 2024.
“I was aware of it after last year, but I have no clue of the numbers,” he said Friday. “I haven’t looked at it one time.”
Crow-Armstrong, Skenes, Wood, Carroll, Brown, De La Cruz and Greene have been picked for Tuesday’s All-Star Game.
A total of 100 players will receive the payments, established as part of the 2022 collective bargaining agreement and aimed to get more money to players without sufficient service time for salary arbitration eligibility. The cutoff for 2025 was 2 years, 132 days of major league service.
Players who signed as foreign professionals are excluded.
Most young players have salaries just above this year’s major league minimum of $760,000. Crow-Armstrong has a $771,000 salary this year, Skenes $875,000, Wood $764,400 and Brown $807,400.
Carroll is in the third season of a $111 million, eight-year contract.
As part of the labor agreement, a management-union committee was established that determined the WAR formula used to allocate the bonuses after awards. (A player may receive only one award bonus per year, the highest one he is eligible for.) The agreement calls for an interim report to be distributed the week before the All-Star Game.
Distribution for awards was $9.85 million last year, down from $11.25 million in 2022 and $9.25 million in 2023.
A player earns $2.5 million for winning an MVP or Cy Young award, $1.75 million for finishing second, $1.5 million for third, $1 million for fourth or fifth or for making the All-MLB first team. A player can get $750,000 for winning Rookie of the Year, $500,000 for second or for making the All-MLB second team, $350,000 for third in the rookie race, $250,000 for fourth or $150,000 for fifth.
Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. topped last year’s pre-arbitration bonus pool at $3,077,595, and Skenes was second at $2,152,057 despite not making his big league debut until May 11. Baltimore shortstop Gunnar Henderson was third at $2,007,178.