Lightning Round: Rangers owner fires President and GM amid chaos

No drama, just hockey. After Tom Wilson smashed Pavel Buchnevich’s head into the ice and only got a $5,000 fine, things have been going badly in the NHL. On Tuesday night, Sidney Crosby did a similar act on Travis Konecny, and the New York Rangers released a strongly-worded statement calling out the league and George Parros at Player Safety.

Last night, the Capitals and Rangers played again and the game didn’t exactly go smoothly. 141 minutes in penalties were handed out as the two teams fought six times. However, the main story from the game was TJ Oshie scoring a hat trick only days after his father passed away.

Going back to the Rangers, yesterday it was reported that President John Davidson and GM Jeff Gorton were trying to distance themselves from the statement produced by owner John Dolan. As a result of that, they were fired. Former player Chris Drury was then promoted into both of their roles.

Meanwhile, Mark Messier, also a former player, is also transparently angling himself for a job with the Rangers. He doesn’t have any NHL management experience, but since when has that stopped any former player.

Lightning Links

The Lightning beat the Dallas Stars last night 6-2. [Raw Charge]

“Tampa Bay’s first seed hopes are still alive, but they’re hanging on by a thread. The Lightning needs to win out and hope Carolina doesn’t win more than one of their final three games. It’ll be close, especially with the final two games against another team looking to grab first place in the Florida Panthers. It’s going to be a dogfight to finish the season; the good thing is the Lightning are starting to look like the team that dominated their way to a Stanley Cup last summer.”

Boris Katchouk earned Player of the Month for April. [Raw Charge]

“On Monday, the AHL announced their April winners for Players of the Month. Syracuse Crunch winger Boris Katchouk was the top guy, alongside Manitoba’s Cole Perfetti, and Bakersfield’s Stuart Skinner. In 12 games, Katchouk scored seven goals, picked up 14 assists, for a total of 21 points. On the first line, he helped carry the Crunch to eight wins on the month, vaulting them into third place in the North Division.”

This was a funny joke.

With ESPN and TNT in need of hiring hockey personalities. It sounds like Eddie Olczyk is going to TNT as the top guy, while Ray Ferraro might be joining ESPN as their lead analyst. ESPN owns 30% of TSN so I’m sure there could be some arrangement to have him work in both countries (NHL and WJC?).

Cute pup!