| in the lineup on Saturday night when the Florida Panthers play host to the Detroit Red Wings.Matheson missed the past two games after he was suspended by the NHL for his check on Vancouver Canucks rookie Elias Pettersson New York Islanders T-Shirts Authentic , who suffered a concussion on the play.“It was an unfortunate sequence of events,” Matheson said. “The first thing I thought of after the game was if he was OK. That was my main concern, and it still is, but it sounds like he is doing better. That’s great to hear.”Article continues below ...Matheson said he and Pettersson exchanged text messages. Matheson, who had never previously been suspended by the NHL, said he apologized to Pettersson.“As a player, you don’t go around trying to injure guys,” Matheson said. “That’s not part of my game.”Matheson will return Saturday to a joyous team as the Panthers (1-2-2) came up with a huge road win on Friday night, beating the reigning Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals 6-5 in a four-round shootout.It was Florida’s first win of the season.Meanwhile, the Red Wings (0-5-2), who have won 11 Stanley Cup titles — more than any other U.S.-based team — are off to a dreadful start. They have been outscored 33-15 in seven games.Wings goalie Jimmy Howard, who stopped 28 of 30 shots against Tampa Bay on Thursday, including all nine on the power play, is the likely starter on Saturday.Howard, a 34-year-old who is in the final year of his contract, was probably Detroit’s best player last season, posting a 2.85 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage.This season, Howard has a 3.57 goals-against average and an .893 save percentage, but the Wings are off to one of the worst starts in franchise history, similar to 0-8-1 in 1985-86.“It’s not fun, that’s for sure,” Howard told NHL.com. “But we’ve got to keep moving along. We’ve had a better effort the past couple of games.”Wings coach Jeff Blashill agreed with Howard that progress is being made.“But I still think we are passing up chances to shoot the puck,” said Blashill, who is in the final season of a four-year contract. “We have to get that figured out.”The Wings New York Islanders Hoodies Authentic , who last season missed the playoffs for the second year in a row — the first time that has happened to Detroit since 1983 — are short of quality, proven defensemen.Center Dylan Larkin, 22, is the team’s biggest rising star. He is a huge part of Detroit’s future, along with other under-25 forwards (Tyler Bertuzzi, Andreas Athanasiou, Anthony Mantha, Christoffer Ehn and Michael Rasmussen).In addition, three of Detroit’s top six defensemen are rookies: Filip Hronek, Joe Hicketts and Dennis Cholowski.Those rookies will face a high-flying Panthers offense that has averaged exactly four goals for the past four games. That includes a game against the Philadelphia Flyers in which Florida fell behind 5-2 but rallied to force overtime before losing 6-5 in a shootout. NEW YORK (AP) There is usually another guest at the table when Gary Bettman and his wife, Shelli, go out to dinner with other couples during the NHL playoffs.Friends come to accept the glow of the TV screen set up so Bettman can keep an eye on games, ready to go from enjoying a nice meal to running a multibillion-dollar business and back again. The commissioner of a storied league with 24 teams in the United States and seven in Canada doesn’t put work on hold for life or vice versa. When his 11-year-old grandson, Matthew, wanted to hang out with him in Tampa during All-Star weekend, he brought him along for meetings.”They all blend together because I’m never off,” Bettman said. ”It’s all part of what I do and who I am.”For 25 years, Bettman has overseen the growth of the NHL from $437 million in annual revenue to nearly $5 billion, guiding the league into and out of work stoppages and expanding hockey’s reach to places that never seemed a fit for the fastest game on ice.The Stanley Cup Final opens Monday in Las Vegas, where Bettman had a guiding hand in the expansion process that yielded the Golden Knights and led to the most successful inaugural season in league history. When he was there in November 2016 for the unveiling of the team name, Bettman was booed by the crowd and could not have cared less.”No, no, keep the booing,” he told the crowd. ”That proves you’re now an NHL city.”Once perhaps an unlikely leader for a game with its roots north of the border New York Islanders Hats Authentic , the 65-year-old lawyer from Queens who got his start in the NBA has become one of the most powerful and long-lasting influences in professional sports. More than two decades into the job, Bettman still feels energized by the thrill of work – and the sugar supplied by dark chocolate Milky Way candy bars doesn’t hurt.He isn’t going anywhere, either.”I think he’s the best that we could do,” said Jeremy Jacobs, the Boston Bruins owner and board of governors chairman. ”I mean, there are things that might irritate you from time to time about him. But you know where his heart and soul is, he’s always interested in the game, the improvement of the game.”It hasn’t always been pretty. Bettman has had a role in three lockouts, the relocation of five franchises, has repeatedly denied any link between head injuries and the degenerative brain disease CTE, and recently refused to allow NHL players to go to the Olympics after doing so five times. Confident in his decisions and willing to accept the ramifications to his reputation and legacy, Bettman has earned respect – sometimes begrudged – and made some enemies while serving longer than the other three major sports commissioners combined.”He’s a force, so he’s not going to roll over because somebody thinks it’s a good idea,” said John Collins, a former NHL chief operating officer. ”He’s very principled and he sticks up for his principles. And those principles could be business principles or they could be just kind of moral principles and he’ll fight for that. That’s the way he lives his life, and that’s the way he runs the league.”Part of Bettman’s work involves keeping 31 ownership groups and markets on the same page. Former Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment President and CEO Richard Peddie said Bettman bringing almost every owner into the league has its benefits.”They’re all there because Gary ultimately blessed them, so I think they always have some kind of IOUs,” Peddie said. ”I don’t mean that in a disingenuous or unfair way. But he was the gatekeeper, so he has that going for him.”Bettman, who was NBA general counsel under then-Commissioner David Stern and a senior vice president before starting at the NHL on Feb. 1, 1993, orchestrates things in such a way that there’s rarely public dissent. Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis has watched how Bettman builds a united front among owners.”He’ll pre-brief and sell some of the key owners, if you will, and he backchannels and he’ll literally call and brief every owner personally on a subject so that when you come to the meeting Custom New York Islanders Jerseys , you’re briefed, you’ve asked your questions,” Leonsis said. ”Because he puts in the work and he has the data and his competence is not questioned in any way and he does have the data, he’s able to land the planes, if you will, with efficiency.”Bettman acknowledges some events during his tenure were not of his making. To this day, he insists moving the Quebec Nordiques to Colorado and the original Winnipeg Jets to Arizona had to be done, and that the 2004-05 lockout that wiped out an entire season was necessary to ensure the long-term health of the league.”There are things I wish might not have happened,” Bettman said. ”Work stoppages are a good example. The fact is I knew what we needed, and we had to get it. And if it took a long time to ultimately convince the Players’ Association that this was in everybody’s best interest, I wish it could’ve happened sooner, but it didn’t.”There are some in hockey who can’t forgive Bettman for the lockouts, most recently one in 2012-13. There are others like Peddie who’d rather consider them part of an entire body of work that includes overseeing expansion into the Sun Belt.”It’s putting hockey where it hasn’t traditionally been,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. ”That’s proven successful. … I think his legacy of having franchises there and putting hockey in nontraditional markets and making it relevant in nontraditional markets kind of exceeds the business success of the teams.”The deaths of enforcers Derek Boogaard and Bob Probert brought CTE and hockey to the forefront, and the NHL is currently facing a federal lawsuit from more than 100 former players who allege it had the resources to better prevent head trauma, failed to properly warn players of such risks and promoted violent play. In a July 31, 2015, deposition, Bettman said: ”There’s no medical or scientific certainty that concussions lead to CTE.” |
