from Mike G. Morreale of NHL.com, The New Jersey Devils were among the most aggressive teams remaking their roster this offseason, adding several high-profile players, including Jack Hughes and P.K. Subban. The Devils selected Hughes, an 18-year-old center, with the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NHL Draft on June 21 and acquired Subban in a trade with the Nashville Predators on June 22. New Jersey signed right wing Wayne Simmonds (one year, $5 million) on July 1, and acquired left wing Nikita Gusev in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights on July 29. The Devils are looking to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second time in the past eight seasons. Hughes, who gives the Devils depth at center, joining Nico Hischier, the No. 1 pick in the 2017 NHL Draft, had 112 points (34 goals, 78 assists) in 50 games for the USA Hockey National Team Development Program Under-18 team last season. "Jack has physical tools that are elite," Devils coach John Hynes said. "But the thing that really separates guys with physical tools is their love and passion for the game, the desire to get better. Jack has that component in spades in his personality." continued Watch the season preview below.

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun, - How have NHL stars been penalized by the league’s salary cap? Before the cap, 15 years ago, Peter Forsberg was the NHL’s highest paid player at $11 million a season. Now, it’s Connor McDavid at $12.5 million. That’s less than a 1% increase per year increase for the sport’s greatest player. Over the same period of time, the value of the Maple Leafs as a franchise has gone from $265 million to $1.4 billion. Up more than 500%. In other words, ownership wins once again. - The NHL must be just a little concerned that Pittsburgh Penguins majority owner, Ron Burkle, is being mentioned as a former associate of Jeffrey Epstein, the scandal ridden American who apparently killed himself behind bars. a few more hockey blurbs...

from Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, Al MacIsaac first heard of analytics approximately 4,500 miles away from his spacious United Center office. Shortly before the Blackhawks’ 2009-10 season opener in Finland, MacIsaac sat down alongside Stan and Scotty Bowman to meet a stranger in Helsinki’s grand Hotel Kamp for a brief presentation.... “It started as a project that we were going to build on,” MacIsaac told the Sun-Times this week. “Now we have analytics for everything. ... It’s evolved from that first chance meeting in 2009 to something that we feel proud of and that our staff have come to embrace.” The term ‘analytics’ itself is mentioned nowhere in MacIsaac’s job description, and it takes quite a bit of scrolling down the Hawks’ front office directory to find Andrew Contis, the lone listed member with it in his title. But MacIsaac will disclose there’s a whole team of employees — “young people,” he calls them — who compose the Hawks’ analytics department, collecting and analyzing data and looking for new areas to explore. “Our ideas can’t be cascading down from the senior guys like me and Stan,” MacIsaac said. “We want ideas cascading upwards, and that comes from guys like Andrew Contis and a number of others.” read on