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[Bits] Always Bet on Vanek, Fancy Fighting Stats, O'Reilly Off the Rails, Logo No-No?

The wiring is completely substandard for our power needs and the neighborhood is like a demilitarized zone.

By Dan Saraceni
How's the action looking?
How's the action looking?
Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sport

Islanders links

  • Before retreating to whatever rustic lake town all the hockey insiders shuffle off to every summer, HNIC's Elliotte Friedman dropped his final Thoughts column of the season and the Islanders were prominently featured. I broke out the items here, including the world-shattering information that Jack Capuano and his staff "know what the advanced stats say about" Nikolai Kulemin and Mikhail Grabovski playing together, whatever that means.
  • Last night saw the maiden voyage of a live Islanders analytics video cast hosted by garik and featuring the rest of us. The link is here (start at about the 2:00 mark), but warning: the video and audio are rough. Rest assured that Garik is already hard at work smoothing them out for later episodes.
  • Bleacher Report's Dave Lozo is a fan of the Islanders' moves this offseason.
  • The Hockey News is doing their annual (I guess?) logo rankings and it's just as in-depth and well-reasoned as their usual output. The Islanders logo comes in at... oh boy.

Meanwhile

  • #FormerIsle Thomas Vanek is involved - and right now, that's all we know - in a federal gambling investigation centered around three guys and a restaurant in Rochester, NY. Vanek spent yesterday in a courthouse and his story went from "no comment" to "I was a witness" to "I'm not under investigation" in just a matter of hours. [Deadspin, PHT]
  • The Leafs signed defenseman Cody Franson to a one-year, $3.3 million deal Monday, avoiding arbitration. Also, he could be traded for Josh Bailey, according to Maple Leafs Hot Stove.
  • Speaking of arbitration, it sounds like Ryan O'Reilly and the Avalanche are still not seeing eye-to-eye and will go to the mattresses. This could get ugly. Just pay the guy, for god's sake. [Denver Post]
  • Maybe O'Reilly is pushing the Avs to go back to their original name. No, not Les Nordiques... I'm talking about the Rocky Mountain Xpress. [Icethetics]
  • Dmitri Kulikov will stay with the Panthers for another few years, and not move to Russia. [Litter Box Cats]
  • Hockey is about doing the little things. And sometimes, it's about doing the even littler little things. Like these guys. [Bourne at The Score]
  • The annual Ivan Hlinka Under 18 Tournament starts in just a couple of weeks in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
  • The NHL Sustainability Report is so green it compressed a ton of information about the league's environmental efforts into one long, barely readable, infinitely scrolling webpage. Um, well done, everyone.
  • Finally, "Punch Corsi" is here, and that's good news for David Clarkson. [The Score]
  • Bad news for Alex Ovechkin: his engagement to tennis star Maria Kirilenko is off. I hope those two crazy kids find love again. [Russian Machine]
  • Cam Talbot's new mask is good enough for a Class 5 Full Roaming Vapor, a full torso apparition, a Slor or, most frightening of all, a New York Ranger. [Puck Daddy]

Here's Brock Nelson talking about how awesome it is to be Brock Nelson.

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