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        <title><![CDATA[Slap Shots: NHL going crazy inside bubble]]></title>
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            <media:title type="html">Slap Shots: NHL going crazy inside bubble</media:title>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Let me be the first to observe that there has never been a week like this in NHL history.</p><p>The teams that finished 22nd, 23rd and 24th in the overall standings are in the Stanley Cup playoffs ,and a team that finished in the top 10 is alive in the lottery for the first-overall draft pick. The stuff about the bubble, COVID-19 testing and protocols, and no fans in the building(s)? Old news.</p><p>At approximately 10:15 Friday night, it was common wisdom that the Maple Leafs were a structural disaster and would obviously have to re-examine the wisdom of devoting $40.5 million of cap space — essentially half of the club’s allotment — to four forwards.</p><p>Fifteen minutes later, those four forwards — Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander — had been on for the three Toronto goals within the final 3:57 of the third period that erased a 3-0 Columbus lead and created the overtime in which the Leafs <strong>completed the most stunning comeback in playoff history</strong> to stave off elimination.</p><p>Which means we won’t know until late Sunday night, following the decisive Game 5, whether everyone was right about the Maple Leafs in the first place.</p><p>It is not Davey Kerr, .567 at 17-13 (and two ties).</p><p>Not John Davidson, either, at .552 with his 16-13 record.</p><p>It is … Eddie Mio, clocking in at .600 by going 9-6 in 1982 and 1983.</p><hr /><p>The Puddy Tats of Florida, now coached by the estimable Joel Quenneville, have not won a playoff round since 1996 and are looking at six more years of Sergei Bobrovsky at $10 million apiece.</p><p>Are you really so sure that Aleksander Barkov, 25 in September, is sticking around when his contract expires in two more years?</p><p>I’ve heard it too from a number of sources the last couple of months. The folks at Sixth Avenue are lobbying for Peter Chiarelli to snag another shot as an NHL team’s general manager, and I guess I’d have to ask why?</p><hr /><p>Finally, ratings for last weekend were lukewarm in the heat, with the audience for Pittsburgh-Montreal on NBC down about 9 percent from 2019’s first-round Boston-Toronto telecast over the network.</p><p>Which serves as a welcome reminder for those who think this new crazy calendar might suit the NHL: It is the summer and it does not.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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