Here's one idea that could light the lamp for NHL fans: a midseason Trade Week

Boston Globe

08-02-2025

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He's 100 percent right about that. We've witnessed it over and over again in Winter and Summer Olympics. Even with Olympus increasingly monetized and corporatized, and the IOC a commercial slave to billions of dollars' worth of broadcast rights, the athletes from around the world typically buy in for love of country.
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For those of us who grew up loving sports for reasons today we often can barely remember, or recognize, to witness today's athletes still giving it all for their homeland is sweet respite from the unremitting storm of malarkey we're otherwise subjected to across the calendar. It's not perfect. Money and TV rule the day there, too, but who's not a sucker for sincere tears rolling down faces of the crushed, the jubilant? All of it framed by pride of country.
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'When we're going up against each other, it's not going to be that All-Star mentality,' assured Marchand, noting the difference between international best-on-best competition and the corporate schmooze-and-snoozefest that is the All-Star break. 'You're trying to win, you feel the weight of the entire country on your shoulders. You may never have the opportunity to put that jersey on again, so you want to make the most of it.'
Marchand didn't go so far as labeling NHL All-Star Weekend the pileup of clown cars that it has become, but he came so close that I considered asking for video review. Mind you, the NHL is hardly alone in watering down what was once prime whiskey. Across the board, all leagues, all sports could excise All-Star events from their schedules and everyone would be the better for it.
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In fact, each league simply going dark for, say, 3-4 days around midseason actually might boost fan buy-in and enthusiasm for what goes on in the second half of a season. Universally, regular seasons are too long, games too many, and that's for fans and athletes alike. The NHL adds to the grind by tacking 5-6 exhibition games onto the front of a grueling 82-game regular season and then charges full price — a mandatory purchase, by the way, for season ticket-holders. That's value added?
Your faithful puck chronicler's idea for an ideal midseason break in the NHL: Shut down the entire Original 32 for 5-7 days, allow all the working help to get a rest (referees and linesmen in particular) and ratchet up fan interest by making it the league's official trade week. In fact, make it the only 5-7 days all season for any player swaps and roster reworks.
Currently, the NHL's biggest, most exciting time for player movement comes and goes in a span of 6-8 hours on July 1 when the free agent floodgates open. General managers make or break their rosters that day, beginning at noon, be it with the players they cut free from their roster or, far more exciting, the big-money UFA deals they write in hopes of setting their squad's Stanley Cup compass.
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For many of the puckophiles out there, and especially for the TSN desk in Canada, July 1 generates an excitement factor that transcends even each year's Cup-clinching game. But note the date: July 1, when even Iceland ain't thinking ice.
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Here in the Hub of Hockey, the Bruins around noon that day call the media to their headquarters, where we await GM
Don Sweeney's
late-afternoon news conference that will provide a glimpse of what we can expect when the puck is dropped 90-100 days down the road. Those moves don't always go to plan (see: July 1, 2024,
Nikita Zadorov
and
Elias Lindholm
), but that doesn't dull the anticipation factor, even when hockey, sunshine, and 90-degree temperatures might not be everyone's idea of a perfect summah day.
A midseason Trade Week in January or February would capture the attention of the entire fan base, including the handful of cities (this year the likes of Chicago, San Jose, Nashville, Buffalo, Seattle) where customers already need to escape to thoughts of next season.
Trade Week, which would have GMs working phones and framing deals for days prior to the official timeframe, would be rife with media chatter and speculation. The deals themselves would generate more coverage, more opinion, more talk-show chatter, more fan interest and reaction. All of it while no one is chasing pucks, allowing a focus on the moves and machinations that often get dismissed or overlooked in the unremitting flow of 1,312 regular-season games.
The annual holiday roster freeze would be eliminated, players assured they only can be moved during Trade Week each season. Not a big deal, but it's possible that added bit of workplace stability will help some players produce more in the first half, prevent them from being dealt.
For players who are dealt, allow them an added 3-5 days to pack up for their new cities. It would eliminate what we saw on recent consecutive Saturdays when
Martin Necas
(Carolina to Colorado) and
J.T. Miller
(Vancouver to New York Rangers) were dealt on Friday night and rushed to Causeway Street to make faceoff with their new clubs less than 24 hours later.
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'They try to make a show for the fans,' noted Marchand, reflecting more on All-Star festivities. 'It gets long. It gets old. It can only be so repetitive, before it gets old for players and fans. I am a huge fan of the game, and those All-Star Games are terrible to watch.'
Enough. Out with the old, tired, boring All-Star goof show, and in with Trade Week.
David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, and Charlie McAvoy talk before a power play in the third period at TD Garden.
Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
FAB FOUR
Game back on
the world stage
For those finally able to devote head space to the 4 Nations Face-Off, the Russians aren't participating in part because of
Vladimir Putin's
invasion of Ukraine. The field consists of the United States, Canada, Finland, and Sweden, with play beginning Wednesday in Montreal.
The Czechs also weren't invited, which will have some of the NHL's most talented performers, such as the Bruins'
David Pastrnak
, vacationing.
A rested 'Pasta,' though, could provide a boost to the Bruins' playoff hopes. They'll have 25 games to go in the regular season once reporting back for the Feb. 22 visit by the Ducks. Given how the Eastern Conference standings looked at the start of the weekend, they'll need to produce at close to a .700 point pace, or even slightly better, if the DNQ cut line proves to be 100 points.
Former Boston mayor
Marty Walsh
, now executive director of the NHL Players' Association, said in his media tour on Saturday that time worked against the Czechs and Russians being part of the inaugural 4 Nations.
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'When I took over [the players' union] in 2023, one of the things was we wanted to get the World Cup back on pace,' he said. 'So we started to have the conversation with the league about the Olympics and were able to get an agreement.'
NHLers will return to Olympus a year from now with the Games in Italy, the first time they've participated since 2014 (Sochi). The World Cup, a derivative of the old Canada Cup tournament, was last held in 2016. The 2020 iteration was lost to stalled CBA negotiations between the league and the players. It is now targeted to resume in 2028, if all sides sign off as expected.
'We realize we didn't have enough time, we talked about having eight teams, six teams, four teams,' said Walsh, musing over the sizing of the 4 Nations field. 'We went with the four because we didn't have the time.'
Walsh said he talked to Russian NHLers in recent months and has been mindful of 'what the IOC does' with regard to the 2026 Games. The IOC could follow the lead of the IIHF, which on Tuesday banned Russia and Belarus from participating in upcoming world championships, which effectively could render Russia out of the '26 Olympics.
Predicting what the IOC will do (see above: broadcast rights) about anything can be a fool's errand.
'There's other political challenges we have to deal with,' noted Walsh, 'with other countries willing to, or not willing to, be in a tournament if Russia's there. So we will sort through all that as we move forward. I would love to see a tourney with every country represented.'
The Czech omission this time, Walsh added, 'just came down to logistics at the end of the day, we just didn't have the time.'
Following games in Montreal on Feb. 15, the four squads will practice on TD Garden ice on Feb. 16. There are two matches in Boston the next day (Canada vs. Finland, followed by Sweden vs. US), with the gold-medal game on Causeway Street, Feb. 20, 8 p.m.
The Czech Republic wasn't invited to the 4 Nations Face-Off, which means David Pastrnak will be vacationing.
Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
ETC.
Flyers finally
find the net
The Flyers finally broke through Tuesday night in Salt Lake City and scored . . . a goal. In fact, they scored twice, ending a protracted nightmare in which they were shut out for a franchise-record three consecutive games.
When
Scott Laughton
scored with 15 seconds to go in a 4-2 win over the Islanders on Jan. 27, the Flying P's didn't score again until
Rodrigo Abols
put one in the net at 2:02 of the first period in Utah.
The scoreless stretch spanned 182:17, encompassing blankings at the hands of the Devils (5-0), Islanders (3-0), and Avalanche (2-0).
Tyson Foerster
scored the Flyers' other goal vs. Utah, but they lost in overtime, 3-2, extending their winless streak to four games. Hard times for
John Tortorella's
stick carriers.
In 100-plus years of NHL back and forth, there have been but five instances in which a franchise has been shut out more than three consecutive times. The most recent was 1967-68, with
Barry Van Gerbig's
expansion California Seals blanked in four straight.
The league record belongs to the Black Hawks, who were bageled in eight consecutive games (aggregate score, 12-0) in February 1929. The stock market crashed nine months later, triggering the decade-long Great Depression. Just sayin'.
It was on March 12 of that same 1928-29 season, here on Garden ice, that Chicago suffered one of its worst beatings in franchise history, the Bruins thumping the Black Hawks, 11-1, behind a pair of goals each by
Dit Clapper
and
Harry Oliver
. The new arena on Causeway Street only opened less than six months earlier.
Meanwhile, the hey-buddy-can-you-spare-a-goal Flyers are all but guaranteed their fifth consecutive postseason DNQ, equaling the franchise-record skid of 1990-94. Center/savior
Eric Lindros
was aboard for Years 4 and 5 of the futile run. The end was in sight. Hard to say when it ends for this beaten-up bunch of Broad Streeters.
The Flyers were shut out for a franchise-record three consecutive games before scoring against Utah.
Mitchell Leff/Getty
It's big in Minnesota, really big
Minnesota, a.k.a. the State of Hockey, early next month will stage its annual high school tournament, the extravaganza that perennially sells out (18,000-plus) the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
'You know what, all my years there,' lamented former Minnetonka High Skipper
Vinni Lettieri
, 'we never got there, I never got to play in it.'
Lettieri, returned this past week by the Bruins to AHL Providence, played two seasons with the Skippers and led the team in scoring as a freshman and sophomore prior to leaving for USHL Lincoln. He then played four seasons for the University of Minnesota en route to turning pro with the Rangers as a free agent out of college in the spring of 2017.
In his two years playing for Minnetonka, noted Lettieri, the Skippers fell just short of qualifying for Xcel, falling two wins short one year and only one short the other.
'We were like the Washington Caps, a really good team for a long, long time but never winning it,' he said. 'Like the Caps, that changed, thankfully. They've won it a couple of times in the last 4-5 years.'
'It's the biggest thing in Minnesota, 'added Lettieri. 'Everyone skips school. I remember being in middle school and whatnot, when it's the high school tournament and your team is playing, you can skip school, no questions asked, go to the games, spend the whole day there at the hockey expo.'
As popular as the high school product once was here in the Bay State, particularly in Boston, the craze never reached or sustained that level. The Garden did sell out for high school hockey in the 1970s, but the games and public high school programs have been on the decline for decades.
'Minnesota's called the State of Hockey for a reason, the land of 10,000 lakes,' said Lettieri. 'Everyone just grows up playing hockey, whether you like it or not. Most people do like it. It's just addicting. Especially during the winter. It's something fun to do. Kids come together and join each other on the ponds when it's freezing cold — moms bring out hot chocolate, chili, soup — it just becomes part of your culture.'
Loose pucks
Repeat offender
Ryan Hartman
, the veteran Wild forward, cost himself nearly a half-million bucks in surrendered wages with his poor decision last Saturday to drive
Tim Stutzle's
face into the ice during a faceoff at Ottawa. With the puck down, Hartman dropped an arm across Stutzle's neck, then shifted his weight (197 pounds) over Stutzle to complete the WWE-style face slam. Hartman was appropriately tossed (match penalty) and promptly tagged with a 10-game suspension via supplemental discipline. Hartman, not so proud son of Hilton Head, S.C., now has been suspended five times, along with seven fines. His 10-game tab came to $488,000. The Department of Player Safety sometimes comes up soft on miscreant behavior but adjudicated this one right. Those who target heads need to feel pain in the purse . . . Given his sister's busy schedule and his day job, said Bruins pivot
Matt Poitras
, he's been able to attend only three of
Abby
Poitras's
games this season with Merrimack. Abby is a freshman on the Warrior blue line. 'She's loving it,' said her brother, 'and getting a little bit of time lately on the power play.' The three Poitras siblings grew up outside Toronto in Whitby, Ontario. Older brother
Adam
Poitras
played lacrosse at Loyola-Maryland and now plays pro box lacrosse for the Las Vegas Desert Dogs . . . Upon NHLPA executive director
Marty
Walsh
wrapping up his media session at the Garden last Saturday, one old wag in the press corps kiddingly asked him to list the 10 best things about no longer working in Washington, where he was Labor Secretary for a substantial portion of the Biden administration. 'Uh, I'm gonna leave that one alone,' said a smiling Walsh. 'You can imagine the first one.'
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at