Look at the bright side. At least it’s over in Detroit.
The Devils, 10-5-2 in their last 17 before the doors got locked, get to stay hot. The Senators won’t have to go to the bother of refunding money for cancelled games since nobody was coming to begin with. As long as this lasts, Vladislav Namestnikov won’t be traded, Cal Pickard can’t be sent down and no coaches are going to get fired, although we shouldn’t give Jason Botterill and Terry Pegula any more ideas.
Tough times. Maybe even tougher than watching that Anaheim power play. But remember that nobody died of embarrassment when the Golden Knights in their first year were better than teams that had been in business for five decades. So we will survive and, as long as the arena workers are being taken care of, there are silver linings. Until the games resume, there won’t be a single player telling an intermission interviewer that, next period, his team has to get more pucks to the net. Even better, it appears it will be a while before a television director cuts to a shot of a coach looking at his tablet following an opposition goal.
So keep everything in perspective. If we’re not at games, not only will far fewer of us get sick, but also fans in Buffalo won’t get any more sick of looking at Jeff Skinner.
Pierre Maguire can sit down. Please. Zack Kassian can’t get suspended. Mark Friedman can get out of the car between Allentown and Philadelphia. Andreas Athanasiou can take it easy, although it might be hard to tell.
Stay calm. If we survived a whole year without Branko Radivojevic in 2004-5, we can get through this. People need to be there for each other, just not, as Dave Hakstol might suggest, get too close. Stay out of bars, restaurants, and, just to be safe, out of Brett Burns’ beard. A prohibition of all gatherings of more than two persons in the defensive zone has been effectively enforced by the Leafs for a few years now so we can do that, too. Social distancing has become an obligation for all of us, but already happened naturally on any team Sean Avery ever was on.
There is a bigger picture here than Phil Esposito ever saw when he ran the Rangers. Unlike Bob Goodenow, we will come out better for having endured hard times. We can’t blame the Chinese for this, but we’ll find a scapegoat because we always do, In the meantime we gotta keep our heads up as if Scott Stevens still was lurking.
As Badger Bob Johnson would put it, it’ll be a great day for hockey. In August, we mean, when the NHL resumes the regular season with teams playing twice in one day so the playoffs can start September 1 and all four rounds can be finished the morning of October 3, so the 2020-21 season can start that afternoon.
In the meantime, we here at Hockey Buzz realize you are desperate for an escape. Not quite as desperate as Artemi Panarin to get out of Columbus, but probably close. So we’re here not just with the usual suggestions of how to kill your time while the arenas are darker than a Brad Marchand mood, but with some general guidelines for how to comport yourself while enduring a case of the hockey shakes.
By order of the Director of Hockey Health—that’s me, not Tom Wilson–you should self-quarantine from the following:
1) Touching things unnecessarily. Exemplary habits in that regard already have been demonstrated by Jimmy Howard with apparently contaminate hockey pucks.
2) Do not believe everything you read. There is a lot of bad information out there, as later became apparent when the Canucks drafted Olli Juolevi with the fifth overall pick. Do not buy the spin of Jarmo Kekalainen how he would do it all again. Or go for a spin with Igor Shesterkin. Stay at home, like Marc Staal always has.
3) Use antiseptic wipes not only on all surfaces but all records, such as effectively performed by Kelly McCrimmon when he fired Gerard Gallant a year-and-a-half after coaching a first-year expansion team to the Stanley Cup finals. Never happened apparently.
4) Shaking hands with anyone is a bad idea these days, but especially on any deal in which you acquire Alex Galchenyuk. Also, from all appearances it is best to wash your hands frequently of Derick Brassard.
5) Finally, as the nights get interminably long and even Nystrom gets tired of watching the Nystrom goal, you can tune in Schitt’s Creek-the story of the 1979 Rangers after Potvin took out Nilsson.
But even if this goes longer than Patrik Nemeth between goals, under no circumstances should you try to pass the time with bad hockey movies like Youngblood and Mystery Alaska. They are more clichéd than a Robbie Ftorek press conference and less believable today than a Sharks’ one-year turnaround plan. Continuous loops of Slapshot or Miracle will get you through to 2025, or until Josh Anderson is good to go again, whatever comes first.
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