Top Line: Anniversary of the Wayne Gretzky trade, more news links
Wayne Gretzky's trade to LA was hardly a magic moment for the folks in Canada.(Peter Read Miller/SI/Getty Images)
By John Rolfe
An annotated guide to this morning's must-read hockey stories:
• It's been 25 years to the day that Wayne Gretzky was traded to Los Angeles and the great big deal still resonates. Here's a cool interactive that somehow enables you to connect the dots between the Great One and ... Gilbert Brule?
• Berger Bytes cobbled together a nice compilation of front pages that captured that epic day as well as major moments from the Great One's career. The CBC put together a video on how the deal came together, and if you haven't seen it, TSN had some fun with the day's events, particularly the original auto-tuned remix of "I promised Mess."
• A certain beloved commissioner recalled where he was when news of the landmark deal came down and what he thought when he first saw the cover of SI's August 22, 1988 edition.
• As the great Ray Davies once sang, "you gotta give the people what they want" and if you're Gary Bettman, that means more outdoor hockey, lots of it.
• The Colorado Avalanche are the focus of today's installment of 30 in 30 on NHL.com: notable new coach, new division, and a pretty nice stockpile of young talent. The big questions are behind the bench and in net.
• Over at Kukla's Korner, George Malik has a Red Wings round-up that includes an interview with Henrik Zetterberg (he's gearing up for his fourth Olympics) and the cap squeeze confronting GM Ken Holland.
• The Rangers, meanwhile, don't expect any hassles in getting Henrik Lundqvist nailed down long-term. Keeping Derek Stepan may be another matter.
• The dreaded exodus of Russian players to the KHL continues. This time it's ex-Jet Nik Antropov waving farewell.
• Summertime and the livin' ain't easy if you're a junior player, according to Justin Bourne.
• The National Underwater Hockey tournament is underway. I'm surprised that the New Jersey Devils aren't in it. They're under water now, aren't they?
• Grantland presents 15 things that should always remain the same in the NHL. Too bad Rick Jeanneret, the Sabres' great play-by-play man won't be plying his considerable trade beyond the 2015-16 season.