The New York Rangers are not affiliated with “Watch Your Tone,” a new podcast hosted by defenseman Tony DeAngelo, despite having briefly promoted it on their official Twitter feed on Friday. The podcast, which has yet to debut, kicked up a controversy after DeAngelo's teammate Brendan Lemieux tweeted that it would “push the ‘politically correct’ boundaries.” A source tells ESPN that Lemieux is “not a part” of that podcast, and he later deleted that tweet.
From the Dept. of "Is The Qualification Round a Playoff Round?": The NHL tells ESPN that stats from the play-in and round-robin games ARE PLAYOFF STATS, and will be tabulated as such. This comes after the league officially named stats-based regular-season award winners today: David Pastrnak and Alex Ovechkin shared the Rocket Richard (goals); Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak won the Jennings Trophy (goals against); and Leon Draisaitl won his first career Art Ross Trophy (points).
Don’t give Alex Ovechkin and David Pastrnak that Rocket Richard Trophy yet. NHLPA executive director Don Fehr tells ESPN that there’s been no collectively bargained decision on where statistics from the “qualification round” are going to be counted. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said that “for the purposes of nomenclature, record keeping and NHL Awards for the 2019-20 regular season has been deemed to be completed.” But could the players' chase for 50 goals continue?