One team to blame for today's disaster in Lake Tahoe?

Some curious comments may place the blame.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
One team to blame for today's disaster in Lake Tahoe?

I have to begin here by stating that this is pure conjecture and speculation on my part, but stay with me for a moment. 

On Saturday the National Hockey League was dealt a terrible hand when their big plans for a beautiful outdoor game along the shore of Lake Tahoe was forced to be cancelled due to poor weather conditions, in this case too much sun. The forecast had expected clouds but the sun shone down brightly on the playing surface creating some slushy spots, especially at center ice, which resulted in difficult conditions for the players.

After the decision to postpone the game had been officially announced, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman made a comment that caught my attention.

"Some of the players wanted to continue playing, other players were more concerned," said Bettman. "I felt, as did the players association and everybody in hockey operations and most importantly the ice makers, that the most prudent thing to do was to discontinue the game now."

That left open the question of which players were willing to keep going, and perhaps more importantly which players were not? Either way it was certainly odd for the commissioner to mention that only some of his players were willing to continue while others were not, but he did not elaborate any further and that is where it would have ended.

That is at least until Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog was interviewed on the NBC broadcast where he made comments that suggested he and his team were prepared to continue playing. Landeskog would go even further by stating flatly that they actually wanted to keep going in spite of the conditions.

"Even coming back here knowing that first period was the way it was, and some spots on the ice were a little slushy, we were ready to go back out whenever they called us back," said Landeskog. And we kinda wanted to go back out."

Landeskog was actually one of the players who had been directly impacted by the poor weather conditions, taking a nice spill at center ice when his skate seemed to stick to the playing surface, but he made it sound like the Avalanche were having a great time.

"We were having fun out there," said Landeskog. 

Commissioner Gary Bettman says that only some of the players were willing to return to the ice, and Gabriel Landeskog says that his boys were ready to go back out. That would appear to at least indirectly point the finger at the Las Vegas Golden Knights, and considering they were down 1 - 0 after the first period of play I would not be surprised if they did in fact refuse to come back out under these conditions for the 2nd period. 

To be clear here, even Landeskog himself would reluctantly admit that delaying the game was probably for the best in the long run. However it sure would be a shame if today's game ended up delayed because only one of the two teams refused to continue playing in spite of the adverse weather conditions and poor quality of ice. 

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