Diamond Sports Group has reached a deal with the 11 NHL teams it has regional broadcast rights for to televise their games through the end of this season, sports business reporter Daniel Kaplan reports (Twitter link). With that agreement being made through bankruptcy court, it stands to reason that those affected will not be receiving the full value of their contracts, some of which lasted until 2030. After this season, the broadcast rights for those teams will revert to the league with future plans uncertain at this point. However, Amazon has held discussions with some MLB teams that are in similar situations (regional rights with Diamond for this season and reverting to the league after) so it’s possible that they could look to hold talks about NHL rights as well. Detroit, Columbus, St. Louis, Anaheim, Carolina, Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, Florida, Nashville, Dallas, and Minnesota are the teams that will be impacted by this news.
Elsewhere around the hockey world:
- After missing last night’s game, Sharks defensemen Jan Rutta (illness) and Calen Addison (lower-body injury) were both feeling better today and could suit up Thursday versus Arizona, relays Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now (Twitter link). Rutta has five assists and 43 blocked shots in 26 games so far this season, his first with San Jose after being acquired from Pittsburgh. Addison, meanwhile, has picked a goal and five helpers in 19 games since being picked up last month in a trade with Minnesota.
- Before tonight’s game against the Islanders, the Capitals announced (Twitter link) that forward Connor McMichael was a late scratch due to an illness. Matthew Phillips took his place. McMichael is off to his best start, notching six goals and seven assists through his first 28 games; last season, he was limited to just six NHL contests, being held off the scoresheet.
- Veteran forward Jaromir Jagr has officially started his 36th professional season, playing in his first game of the year with Kladno in his native Czechia, the team he owns. The 51-year-old played nearly 14 minutes, picking up an assist. Jagr’s participation in that game will delay his Hockey Hall of Fame eligibility by another season.
- The Canadiens will loan defenseman Nicolas Beaudin to Team Canada for the upcoming Spengler Cup, reports BPM Sports Radio’s Anthony Marcotte (Twitter link). The 24-year-old played in the event on a loan last year as well. Beaudin, a 2018 first-round pick by Chicago, has been in and out of the lineup with AHL Laval this season, recording six assists in 13 games so far.
- The Golden Knights announced (Twitter link) that goaltender Logan Thompson is day-to-day with an upper-body injury. To get a second netminder on the roster for Thursday’s game against Carolina, Isaiah Saville was recalled from AHL Henderson. Thompson has posted a .904 SV% in his first 19 games this season for Vegas while Saville, who was just activated from SOIR recently, has a .950 mark in three games with the Silver Knights.
Back in 1999, I wrote an article for a hockey site called “The Hockey Hall of Fame of 2020,” where I predicted the players then active who’d go to the HHOF, dividing them into three groups: aging players, players in their prime, and young studs. I had a lot more hits than misses; every single “prime” forward I predicted made it except one: Jaromir.
(chuckles)
Do you have a link to the article? It would be really cool to read it.
Nah, the site went under years ago. I do have the original saved to disk, though. Truncating the article to the lists, for players active in 1999, I predicted the following:
Aging forwards: Mark Messier, Ron Francis, Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, Igor Larionov and Adam Oates. (100% hits)
Prime forwards: Peter Forsberg, Jaromir Jagr, Teemu Selanne, Joe Sakic, Eric Lindros, Mike Modano and Pavel Bure. (100% hits, because they’ll induct Jagr eventually.)
Young forwards … well, young players were always pretty speculative. I predicted Paul Kariya and Joe Thornton, but I also thought Mike Peca and Jere Lehtinen would make it, and figured that three guys of the Lecavalier/Demitra/Tanguay ilk would get in.
Veteran defensemen: Ray Bourque, Chris Chelios, Al MacInnis, Paul Coffey, Larry Murphy; 100%.
Prime defensemen: Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Leetch, Rob Blake, but I thought that age group was weak, and that the voters would pass over the Hatchers and Numminens in favor of Scott Stevens and Phil Housley. Good call.
The kid defensemen, I booted hard. I predicted Chris Pronger, but threw up my hands at the rest. Oleg Tverdosky? Wade Redden? I had no idea. And that turned out to be a weak lot: Sergei Gonchar was voted in (a bad call, IMHO), and Zdeno Chara will be.
Veteran goalies: Dominik Hasek, Grant Fuhr, Patrick Roy.
Prime goalies: Ed Belfour, Martin Brodeur and Mike Richter. Obviously I punted on Richter.
Young goalies: another crap shoot. I mused over Nikolai Khabibulin, and thought Manny Fernandez was in a great situation to show what he could do. As it turned out, the only goalie in that group who made the HHOF — or will — was Roberto Luongo.
And one encomium I wrote in 2017 was that the “young” bracket — those players starting their career from 1994 to 1999 — was really soft. Normally you’d get about fifteen of them making the Hall. And as it stands, it’s just looking like Luongo, Pronger, Gonchar, Chara, Kariya, Thornton, Hossa, St Louis, Iginla, Alfredsson and Marleau … and several of those picks are very, very soft, in the “Hall of Very Good” camp.
“With that agreement being made through bankruptcy court, it stands to reason that those affected will not be receiving the full value of their contracts, some of which lasted until 2030. After this season, the broadcast rights for those teams will revert to the league, with future plans uncertain at this point.” Impacting one-third of the league isn’t insignificant. That sound you just heard is the rug being pulled out from under 11 teams. It wouldn’t be the NHL without pegging the old Chaos-O-Meter, would it?
Yep. Let’s just say that no team should be betting the farm on that projected salary cap increase actually happening. That was based on revenue *growth*, not in revenues crashing for a third of the league.
I think I’ll take the over on 10.5 for the number of pairs of asbestos underwear Bettman gets during the always-popular post-Christmas sale at his fave department store.
“I know what you all are thinking. I just said the cap will go up, but, umm, things have changed. We may have to reduce the cap by twice as much as we’ll be losing with this Diamond Sports junk. Either that, or we’ll have to invent NHL-streaming-tollbooth.com to get some of the revenue back. I’ve heard Pay-Per-Game is a great business model.”
Just wait till sportnet deal ends. The fees are going to drop huge amount in Canada . Sportsnet has had too gut the channel because massive losses.
Just waive the waiting period for Jagr imo.