By Joseph Durie
Dust off your mix tapes and that Chasing Amy DVD, because The Phoenix Coyotes and Wayne Gretzky situation has all the signs of a bad high school break up.
Only with almost US$ 10 million dollars involved.
This week the sale of the somewhat orphaned child of the NHL – The Phoenix Coyotes – was finalised, with the NHL taking control of the team.
The NHL now has to decide whether it will pay the US$ 8.2 million that former coach Wayne Gretzky is owed in deferred salary.
So what are the NHL and Commissioner Gary Bettman to do?
Surely he can not risk offending the greatest player to ever play the game, and one of best ambassadors for the sport?
Gretzky has done anything and everything for the sport of ice hockey, including not filing the paperwork in court to chase his money down.
Had he done that, it would have further slowed down the messy bankruptcy/ownership debacle that was to play out over the summer, which only just finished this week.
Gretzky even stepped aside as coach to begin the season as the off-season drama continued, to help speed up the court proceedings.
The NHL has said they will do their best to ensure Gretzky gets the money he is owed, but have not guaranteed it.
This is an ugly situation that could only get uglier, and could damage the sport’s most loved icon’s relationship with the league permanently.
Meanwhile, it was good news for Toronto Maple Leafs’ fans as marquee off-season acquisition Phil Kessel made his debut.
Although things did not go exactly to plan, as not even halfway through the first period, Kessel showed the rust of not having played a game since the playoffs last season.
With Kessel using his blinding speed darting through the neutral zone, he crossed the Tampa Bay blue line with his head down when Mattias Ohlund stepped up and crushed Kessel with a text-book open ice hit.
Kessel appeared shaken and headed straight to the dressing room with all of “Leafs Nation” holding their breath.
Kessel returned shortly with a cut lip and was easily Toronto’s best player by far.
Finishing with a career high 10 shots on goal, his skill and speed added something to the Leafs line up they had been missing all season.
Now all Kessel will need is someone to pass him the puck. Of his 36 goals last season, Boston centre Marc Savard assisted on almost fifty percent of them.
The game of the week matched the youthful New York Islanders - riding a three game winning streak - against the offensively anaemic Edmonton Oilers.
Goalie Dwayne Roloson, playing against his former club for the first time since signing with the Islanders in the off-season, played well - stopping 22 shots.
The Oilers scored first on a broken play as Ethan Moreau tried to centre the puck out in front and it bounced off a New York defender and in.
However, from here the Islanders took over the game with 2009 No. 1 overall pick John Tavares finished off some hard work by Matt Moulson, putting a perfect shot past Nikolai Khabibulin.
Hard-hitting defenseman Brendan Witt was the unlikely offensive hero for New York scoring the next two goals with shots from the point. Witt had not scored in his last 92 games and has only scored 25 goals in his 14 year career.
The Oilers struggled to get anything going offensively for the rest of the game and the Islanders held on for their fourth straight win.
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