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Detroit’s veteran blueliner Niklas Kronwall is in the final year of his contract. Drafted in 2000, Kronwall has spent his whole NHL career with Detroit, lifting the Stanley Cup with the team in 2008. Despite often struggling with injuries, he’s been a loyal servant to the organisation and there’s not a fan out there who isn’t grateful for the massive hits he’s laid out. Embed from Getty Images GM Ken Holland has confirmed that Kronwall won’t traded before the window closes, which make sense as the Red Wings are known for being ridiculously loyal. Ken Holland told the Detroit News: “I’m not calling teams aboutRead More →

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With lots of talk lately in regards to offer sheets, there seems to be a lot of confusion regarding what teams can and cannot do with offer sheets. Therefore, we bring you the official 4th Line Guide to NHL Offer Sheets. What is an offer sheet? Simply put, an offer sheet is a way to either poach a player from another team by offering a better contract, or force that team to spend more than they originally intended to keep the player. Thus eating up more of their cap space. Sounds straight forward, why aren’t they used more often? Timing is everything, only players withRead More →

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The Ottawa Senators are running out of time to tie up Matt Duchene on a new contract. TSN’s Darren Dreger reported that some pretty high numbers are being thrown about: Talks between Duchene camp and the Sens expected to continue this week. The range for Duchene on 8 yr term is believed to be between $65 and $75 mil. So, either in the 8’s or 9+ aav. Still ballpark discussions. — Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) January 20, 2019 If we take the lower number, you’re looking at an 8 by 8 deal which feels excessive, especially for a player who did his best work for theRead More →

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Last year it was Kid Rock, this year it’s equal pay. It seems if there’s a way to bring controversy to the NHL’s All Star Game (ASG), then the NHL can find a way. The #paydecker campaign found a resolution when equipment manufacturer CCM recognised Brianna Decker’s achievement and offered the $25k. The NHL then jumped on, but missed the bandwagon by agreeing to make charity donations in the names of the Decker, Renata Fast, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Rebecca Johnston. Why the NHL didn’t foresee any issues with having female skaters ‘demonstrate’ the events that their male counterparts would take part in is beyondRead More →

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Connor McDavid needs defending? Yeah. If you haven’t read Mike Filce’s team-building article yet, go read it, otherwise the rest of this won’t make any sense. I’ll wait. Mike’s excellent article discusses which NHL-ers are the best to build an expansion team around, and of course while this is a well-structured and researched opinion piece, there is an omission that I need to challenge my friend and colleague on: the idea that you can’t build a team around the Edmonton Oilers’ captain Connor McDavid. Firstly it should be made clear that McDavid wasn’t forgotten about. Mike explained his reasons why he didn’t include the 2015Read More →

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At Christmas we look for peace on Earth, and goodwill to all men (even Maple Leafs fans). But the Dallas Stars’ CEO Jim Lites didn’t get that message and instead of spreading seasonal joy, decided to let rip on some the Stars’ top talent. So much so that the NHLPA have released a statement: NHLPA statement on Dallas Stars CEO Jim Lites’ comments about Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn: pic.twitter.com/S4CzyKRUmh — Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) December 30, 2018 The comments, about the Stars’ Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, compared the two to horse excrement. The pair were singled out while the rest of the team avoidedRead More →

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With the NHL’s Global Series drawn to a close for another year, commissioner Gary Bettman has announced plans to bring it back in 2019. Germany and Switzerland have been touted for some potential pre-season games, while Prague and Stockholm could get a season opener and back to back series respectively. Of course this is all tentative at the moment, although the NHL is in the planning stages. I feel there’s another European market that’s open to exploitation, but is being ignored. The mighty UK. The NFL hauls a couple of its teams over each season to ruin the Wembley turf and the games pretty muchRead More →

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Here at The4thLinePodcast.com, we like a good arbitrary scale to give context to how we’re feeling about something. Now that we’re nearly a quarter of the way through the regular season, I wanted share my thoughts on the Detroit Red Wings’ rebuild and in particular, head coach Jeff Blashill. To this end, I give you the Maxner – Bowman scale. It’s difficult to say who the worst ever coach was. The Red Wings, at times, have scraped the bottom of the proverbial barrel, but I’ve gone with Wayne Maxner. Maxner was behind the bench in the early 1980s, and his team was by no means packed withRead More →

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Known as ‘The Scourge Of Colorado’, Elias Pettersson is setting the league alight with his dazzling play. The Vancouver Canucks’ Swedish rookie has 17 points from 11 games and is easily the early favourite for the Calder Trophy despite already missing a few games due to injury. To put Petterson’s achievement into perspective, he’s only the 5th NHL player ever to score 10 goals in his first 10 games. But how does this compare to previous Calder Trophy winners? Since the lockout there have been 10 offensive players who’ve lifted that silverware. At time of writing, Elias has played 11 games, so we’ll set thatRead More →

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“I don’t even know who Craig Billington is, that’s a name you just made up.” – Joel. Here at 4th Line Towers, we answer the questions that other podcasts (and their affiliated websites) dare not. In episode #202, Carl made a reference to Craig Billington, a former Colorado Avalanche goalie that Joel believed to be a fabrication. While not one to usually question Carl’s knowledge about one of his beloved teams, I had to admit that I’d never heard of Billington either. Is Craig Billington Real? Yes. Not only is he real, but he also tended the goal of the Colorado Avalanche between 1996 andRead More →