Top o’ the morning to you, Kevin Cheveldayoff.
Geez, Chevy, where do we begin? With the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade? The Blake Wheeler buyout? The National Hockey League Entry Draft? Free agent frenzy?
I swear, you’ve had a busier week than a bartender at last call, and I’ve gotta tell you, if you get one more pat on the back in the next 24 hours you’ll have to spend the remainder of the Summer of Chevy in traction. At the cottage, of course.
I mean, by most accounts you turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse last week with your sleight of hand at the annual NHL off-season festival down there in Twang Town, and it’s been “atta boy, Chevy” ever since.
Little wonder, though, because you generally managed to pry three live bodies and a draft choice away from the Los Angeles Kings last Tuesday, and all it cost your Winnipeg Jets was Dubois, who certainly didn’t let the door smack him on the ass on his way out of Good Ol’ Hometown.
Dubois ran to Tinseltown faster than a scalded dog, and he promptly put his John Hancock on an eight-year agreement that averages out to $8.5 million per.
The big forward wasn’t prepared to spend eight more minutes in Good Ol’ Hometown, let alone eight years, so you and Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman made the best of a bad hand. And I say good riddance, because you’ll never convince me that a 63-point player merits that kind of coin, and I’m guessing neither of you boys will lose a wink of shuteye fretting because Dubois calls Hollywood and Vine home now instead of Portage and Main.
As a quick aside, Chevy, don’t you think the name Dubois might have possibilities in La La Land. Think about it: The House of Dubois. Sounds like a fancy shmancy night spot where only the beautiful people get past the large men posted outside the front door. Or an exclusive, by-invitation-only clothier where the glam crowd goes to purchase their finery for an evening at the Oscars. Why, just saying “The House of Dubois” reeks of high-class, turned-up-snout snootiness.
By contrast, a place called The House of Dubois in Winnipeg would be a deli next door to a 7-Eleven.
Anyway, Chevy, you and the Puck Pontiff have wiped Dubois off the Jets’ to-do plate, and I hope you recognize the lesson to be learned. That is, you can’t keep recruiting guys who regard playing in Good Ol’ Hometown as a hostage-taking. Do your homework, for gawd’s sake.
Toward that end, I trust your forensics people performed CSIS-level background checks on the newest kids in town—Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo and Rasmus Kupari—and found no allergies to snow, potholes and bad WiFi among the now-former Kings. Otherwise it’ll be same old, same old, whereby one or more of them will follow Evander Kane, Jacob Trouba, Patrik Laine, Jack Roslovic, Andrew Copp and Dubois out of Dodge. Heck, we can add Dustin Byfuglien to that group of escapees, although Big Buff has never explained his beef with the club. We know it couldn’t have been the weather, because fishing, even in an ice hut, is his jam, so we still wonder why he took a walk and never looked back.
All those guys skipping town might not be an exodus on a biblical scale, Chevy, but it’s not just a couple of kids playing hooky, either.
Speaking of kids, it looks like you landed yourself a good one in Colby Barlow, your first shoutout at the auction of teenage talent in Nashville. Rumor has it he grew his first playoff beard at age 7 and, after seeing him on my flatscreen the other night, I can believe it. I mean, Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas looks like his little brother.
And I must say, Chevy, that’s quite a stockpile of brainiacs you and your bird dogs have collected. Cole Perfetti, Adam Lowry and Josh Morrissey were scholastic player-of-the-year winners in Junior hockey, and now Barlow and Connor Levis, your fifth pick at the Entry Draf in Nashville, join that group. So many smart players. Now if you can only get rid of the smart asses in the room.
Hopefully you’ll have fewer malcontents in that room come autumn, Chevy, and you took a turn in that direction with the adios to former Captain Cranky Pants, Wheeler.
I’m actually mildly surprised that you and the Puck Pontiff freed Wheeler. I didn’t think you boys had the brass monkeys to go that route, because you tied your wagon to him in 2018 and gave him the run of the room. He was still the lead alpha dog among the alpha dogs in the most recent crusade, even without the ‘C’ stitched on his jersey, and he delivered the loudest bark at head coach Rick Bowness during the players’ whiny, post-season pity party. So the guy had to go, even if it means co-bankrolls Chipper and the 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet will be paying him $2.75 million not to wear Jets linen the next two crusades.
No doubt the split with Wheeler tugged hard on the heart strings, but, frankly Chevy, it came two seasons too late and I think you know it. Ditto the Puck Pontiff.
Hey, I understand your loyalty to a guy who rolled into Good Ol’ Hometown with the Atlanta caravan in 2011, but I figure if the Beatles can break up during the Get Back sessions, it shouldn’t be so difficult to part company with a hockey player whose best-before date has expired.
Naturally you, also many others, had some parting hosannas for Wheeler, and that’s understandable. But you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t join the warm-and-fuzzy chorus. Unless I hear evidence to the contrary, I’ll go to my urn convinced that he cost you Patrik Laine (with Paul Maurice and Rink Rat Scheifele as his accomplices), and I didn’t fancy his oft-acidic natters with news snoops.
Truthfully, the former captain came across as a boor, a bitter man, and I suspect your Jets are well shed of him.
But here’s the concern, Chevy: Wheeler will leave residue, some of it good, some of it rancid. Your task, also Bowness’, is to make certain that only the good clings to the holdovers in the changing room. Failing that, you’re destined for another crusade that ends in a whiny pity party next spring.
I know you’re trying, Chevy, but I just don’t know who you’re trying to be. I mean, it’s out with the old, Wheeler, and in with the old, Vlad Namestnikov and Laurent Brossoit.
Now, I don’t think any among the rabble expected ultra-glad tidings from the first day of free agent frenzy, because selling Good Ol’ Hometown to young, millionaire NHL players is like trying to convince a teenager to go a week without their smartphone, but Namestnikov and Brossoit? Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.
I assume you aren’t done, Chevy. You can’t be done. You can’t be telling us that Wheeler and Dubois were the only rot on your roster and that three refugees from Los Angeles will make everything right.
If that’s your message to the masses, good luck with it.
Enjoy your summer, Chevy.
If it’s no-punches-pulled commentary that you’re looking for, check out the Kenny and Renny Show. The natter between Sportsnet’s Ken Wiebe and Sean Reynolds on Wheeler is fascinating, frank and spirited. Here’s a small sampling of their gum-flapper…
Reynolds: “There was no bringing Blake Wheeler back into this room. Blake Wheeler isn’t being bought out because he’s not a productive player. When he came out and talked about Rick Bowness the way he did at the year-end press conference, that was someone saying ‘I’m not gonna be back in this room so I’m gonna say whatever the heck I want to.’ I don’t think Blake Wheeler was fighting to stick around. You’re not gonna see any fingernail marks on the jambs of the door that Wheeler left behind on the way out of here. I think he was more than happy to move on.”
Wiebe: “We’re not gonna pretend that this is the way the Jets or Blake Wheeler wanted his tenure to end. There’s no way either side wanted it to end this way. I applaud both sides for putting on a happy face and trying to do this as easy as possible, and I think all sides are being genuine in their commentary, but that’s not to say it’s a smooth thing for either side. I mean, of course Blake Wheeler didn’t want to be bought out. By the end did he want a change of scenery? Yes. Knowing Blake after covering him for 12 years, he will be carrying around an enormous chip on his shoulder. He’s definitely going to try and prove to the Winnipeg Jets that they made a mistake. It was time for a new direction. Blake Wheeler will be thanked for his contributions, his number 26 will go to the rafters one day, he will be celebrated when he returns, but it was time for both sides to move along.”
That’s good talk.
The aforementioned Pierre-Luc Dubois deal is, of course, a branch of the Patrik Laine trade tree, whereby the Jets sent Puck Finn to Columbus in barter for Dubois in 2021. This is how that transaction shakes down today: Laine/Jack Roslovic in exchange for Daniel Zhilkin, Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari and a 2024 second-round draft choice.
A couple of observations after watching the Free Agent Frenzy marathon yesterday on TSN: 1) Shocking that James Duthie and his cast-o-plenty managed to squeeze in a mention or two of the Toronto Maple Leafs (yes, that’s sarcasm, kids); 2) hair is really important to most women I know, so what is Cheryl Pounder thinking?
Interesting times in Ponytail Puck, with the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises bullying the Premier Hockey Federation out of business by buying it out of business, and why do I get the feeling it’s about to get nasty? I mean, they’ve already voided all PHF contracts, some of them in six figures, and it’s a guarantee that one or two (more?) of its seven franchises will disappear. Also, between the PHF and the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association there are 200-plus players, many of whom will be discarded. You think that won’t lead to bitterness and anger? But, hey, those of us who pay attention to Ponytail Puck have yearned for one super league, and Billie Jean King is finally putting her money where her yap is. Question is, will the rabble buy it? At the get-go, probably. Over the long haul, iffy. PHF games and the PWHPA’s glorified scrimmages weren’t big sellers, and they were largely ignored by mainstream media. More to the point, squabbling among the women attracted more attention than what they did on the freeze. No doubt there’s a market for elite Ponytail Puck, but no one knows if it’s the size of an elephant’s ears or a house fly’s ears. Stay tuned.
I’m curious: Why was Paul Bissonnette on stage at the NHL awards show in Nashville last week? If his presence was meant to provide yuks, he failed miserably, unless you consider plopping a tiara on Linus Ullmark’s head a knee-slapping moment of high comedy. Oh, and passing Connor Bedard a silly kiddie’s cowboy hat? More belly laughs? Not! Biz Nasty was incredibly unfunny. His cave-dweller shtick was lame, like a lost dog with three legs. Grade him at a George Costanza level of obnoxious on your scorecard at home, y’all.
I wondered if Jim Montgomery would mention his battle with booze in accepting his trinket as NHL coach-of-the-year. Yup, he did. And good for Jim. Here’s hoping the Boston Bruins bench jockey struck a chord with someone caught in a similar struggle.
Country music fan here, with questions: They stage a grand gala in Twang Town, home of the Grand Ole Opry, and the Brothers Osborne and Mitchell Tenpenny are the best entertainment the NHL can buy? And who were those other performers at the awards show? Anybody outside Nashville ever heard of them? Sigh. Maybe it’s an age thing, but I do believe George Strait and Alan Jackson were right when they sang “someone killed country music” at the 1999 CMA awards.
Thankfully, the NHL upped its game for the Entry Draft, with Jo Dee Messina on stage. Jo Dee sounds like country music.
And, finally, remember the kids’ nursery rhyme This Little Piggy, where a little piggy went “wee, wee, wee all the way home?” Well, they have a different slant on it down there in Georgia, where the Macon Bacon play baseball in the Coastal Plain League. It’s more like “this little piggy goes wee, wee, wee all the way to barbecue pit,” because fans are hog wild (pun intended) for the menu at Luther Williams Field. They can pig out (pun intended) on tasty items like bacon-wrapped bacon, bacon-loaded mac and cheese, bacon chips, steak-cut bacon, fries with cheese and bacon, and there’s some pulled pork on the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon sandwich. And, hey, they can scarf it down in the Bacon Box or the Bacon and Kegs Beer Garden. Even team mascot Kevin (named after actor Kevin Bacon) is a slab of swine. And it’s all too much for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which believes all the piggyness “sends the wrong message to fans.” Thus they insist on a name change that promotes healthier eating habits, like Macon Facon Bacon. Not going to happen, though, in part because fans named the team. “Macon Bacon will be sizzling forever and will not consider a name change, ever,” says team president Brandon Raphael. So, in the immortal words of Porky Pig, “that’s all, folks!”
The River City Renegade 
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