Dan’s Daily: Why Phil Kessel Wasn’t Traded, NHL GMs Consider Kucherov Rule

Doing a Dan’s Daily so soon after the NHL trade deadline and without a myriad of trade rumors feels good. We can focus on hockey, the one-ice product, and results. NHL GMs will discuss the “Kucherov rule” and applying the salary cap to the NHL playoffs, so there won’t ever again be a team that holds back a well-paid player for the playoffs. Evgenii Dadonov is still with the Vegas Golden Knights, and for one (k)night, they were happy about it. Why didn’t Arizona trade Phil Kessel and Jacob Chychrun? And our Pittsburgh Penguins one-timers.

I was off playing politics on Thursday and getting quite the education. PA has some interesting gubernatorial candidates. One candidate likes to yell at the audience, one keeps mentioning that he only has a vo-tech education, and one guy wanted people with COVID to be public like Megan’s Law. It’s a gaggle of PA politics, to be sure. Most of them are good humans, which makes it all the more fascinating to me.

I’ll subtly drop a hint to ask for a bit of support for the Western PA candidate, former congresswoman (and PHN subscriber) Melissa Hart. But if it’s not your bag, I’m getting back to hockey right now…

Pittsburgh Hockey Now: One-timers. Where does Rickard Rakell fit? Should head coach Mike Sullivan keep Bryan Rust with Evgeni Malkin? And goodbye to Zach Aston-Reese. Pittsburgh Penguins analysis.

Penguins-Rangers tonight. We’ll have a full preview later today.

GoPHNX: Why didn’t Arizona trade Phil Kessel? Or Chychryn? Craig Morgan has the trade deadline postmortem.

NHL News & National Hockey Now:

TSN: Personally, I never understood why rules don’t apply in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Hooking? Holding? Just don’t kill the guy. Salary Cap? None. Pierre LeBrun reports that a small group of GMs is pushing to change the “Kucherov” rule at the GM meetings next week.

Sportsnet: This makes me feel good, though I’m not sure how important it is. The IIHF has called for an ethics probe of Rene Fasel, the former IIHF president who joined the Russian hockey federation and supported the invasion of Ukraine.

It’s horrendous what’s happening in Ukraine. Refugees are landing in southern Ontario, and some of my friends are raising money for them. If anyone has any charitable efforts to raise money for refugees landing near Pittsburgh, please let me know, and I’ll give it some good pub.

I thought struggling Calgary Flames Sean Monahan might show up on the Pittsburgh Penguins radar near the NHL trade deadline. Instead, the formerly prolific center is headed towards a healthy scratch.

NYI: The bad Islanders season just got even worse. Cal Clutterbuck is done for the year, and Scott Mayfield is pretty close. New York Islanders news.

Philly: The Flyers have been a hot mess this season, and that’s probably insulting to hot messes. They finally snapped their 13-game road losing streak. Sam Carchidi has the near giddy Philadelphia Flyers takeaways.

Vegas: The NHL eventually voided the nightmare trade, and Evgenii Dadonov remained in Vegas. It wasn’t the Golden Knights brass who was at fault (It genuinely appears Vegas didn’t get Dadonov’s no-trade list from Ottawa. How does this happen?!). So, Dadonov did what most hockey players do after getting traded then blocking it: he ripped through the Nashville Predators. Vegas Golden Knights update.

Montreal: A reliable source told us some time ago that the Pittsburgh Penguins were eyeing Canadiens prospect, Jordan Harris. There was a real possibility that the collegiate prospect would blow off Montreal and become a free agent. That was before Montreal cleaned house. Our guys in Montreal are reporting that Harris could sign right after this weekend’s Frozen Four. Montreal Canadiens news.