NHL notes: Jeremy Jacobs dishes on Vegas expansion, NHL skipping Olympics

Prior to the 2015-16 season, Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs was asked for his opinion regarding the NHL’s plan to expand. At the time, Jacobs, who is the chairman of the board of governors, said he didn’t think there was a desire to expand.

Well, hockey fans know how that worked out since the Vegas Golden Knights became the NHL’s 31^st team. It’s been met with great excitement and owner Bill Foley has done a tremendous job in the desert. Even Jacobs is impressed.

“Ownership up there has done a tremendous job,” he said. “It had some very high expectations, and I think they really exceeded them. I think their presale of tickets, or their season ticket sales is tremendous right now, and those were not necessarily to corporate, but to individuals. To that extent, I’m very impressed.

“And I’m very impressed with the leadership they’ve shown there in their development of the team. I think they are going to be quite successful. Honestly, I was skeptical at the beginning, but I’m converted now to believe that that is going to be a successful experience.”



Other cities are trying to get an NHL team, including Quebec and Seattle, but Jacobs doesn’t believe the league will move quickly to add more teams.

“There are no plans at this point to entertain any expansion. There are no requests for expansion,” Jacobs explained. “In a lot of ways, it takes a third party to come in and ask for it then we’re looking for. But, the time was well spent in developing a plan and the hurdles were high and (Vegas) had to establish that they were going to be successful before we put anything in it.”

Only minutes before Jacobs discussed the expansion process, the Golden Knights had claimed goalie Malcolm Subban off waivers from the Bruins.

Quebec, the former home of the Nordiques, would make the most sense and many around the league would like to see that happen. The Bruins played a preseason game against the Montreal Canadiens in Quebec, but it wasn’t sold out. A major reason for that was due to hometown boy Patrice Bergeron not playing in the game.

It’s not often, but when Jacobs comes into town it’s a good chance to get his thoughts on a variety of scenarios and issues that pertain to the league and the Bruins. A big issue this season has been the NHL’s decision not to participate in the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea. You will not find one player in the league that agrees with it. In fact, many hope the NHL chances its mind at the 11^th hour and allow players to represent their respective countries. Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin has been vocal about his desire to represent Russia and he’s said he would play in the Olympics no matter what.

“Look, none of us like to close down this league in the middle of February,” Jacobs said. “It made no sense. My one question to the Olympic committee was: Why is basketball in the summer time and we’re not? They decided we’re a winter sport but why don’t we go in our offseason? From a business standpoint, it doesn’t make sense and going to Korea where the time difference is so substantial, and the only chance of really seeing (a game) is a replay sometime the next day, so it takes a lot of the incentive out of it.”

Jacobs described the decision to skip the Olympics as a smart move by Gary Bettman. If Jacobs is concerned about the time change, it’ll be interesting to see if he changes his mind when the Winter Olympics is held in Beijing in 2022.

The NHL, including the Bruins, have invested in the Chinese market because there’s money to be made there, so it’ll be interesting to see how the league handles this the next time.

“It may be (a different situation). Collectively, where we are and what we’re doing, circumstances change,” Jacobs said. “We don’t want to turn off the Olympics. We think the Olympics are great display of sports. It’s something we would like to see if the time makes sense.”

Back to the on-ice product, a lot has been made this season about the workload for goalie Tuukka Rask. It’s well documented the statistics begin to go against him once he plays more than 60 games. Not having a solid backup the last couple of seasons has had a negative impact on the team and Bruce Cassidy is hoping Anton Khudobin can right the ship and perform in a manner that will give Rask amble rest time during the season. Fortunately for the Bruins, their schedule is light the first month of the season.

“Well, we’ve mapped out starts for our backup, where Tuukka needs a rest. We’ll keep that in-house but we have a good number where we feel Tuukka with analytics in years past, where he performs at his best,” Cassidy said. “We’d like to stick to that, adhere to it as much as possible. There are always factors that can take you away from that plan — injuries, the play of both goaltenders — but ideally, we know where Tuukka plays his best hockey, and that’s where we need good production from Anton. That would be paramount in our success, to get those quality starts from him and I thought we did at the end of last year and we have so far in preseason, so we feel pretty good about our tandem right now. Knock on wood they stay healthy and give us those performances.”

The Bruins have nine games in October and Khudobin is expected to play in two of them. He understands his role and has said he’s focused on stopping more pucks this season than he did last year.

In this edition of Drill of the Week, we’ll focus on stickhandling and skating in tight spaces. After watching the Bruins conduct this drill recently, we had our ’05 boys do it in practice and they enjoyed it. It was also evident during a recent game that they boys grasped the concept and it translated into a game. Using four bumpers, create a square and put a cone or tire in the middle. With a puck, the player skates in and out of the square in a figure-8. Even if you only have a half sheet for practice, this drill can be done in multiple stations in the neutral zone. To make it fun, I placed water bottles on the dasher and the players attempted to hit them after they completed the drill.

 



Untitled from Boston Sports Journal on Vimeo.