Ice Cold Takes: You want RFA signings? Here are some team dogs instead

Ice Cold Takes is a humor column focused on what is trending around the NHL. Since the last article, your favorite team has done nothing except adopt a puppy.

NHL team dogs are a full-blown thing now, which we love. It was international dog day on Tuesday and every team with a puppy was flaunting them. Normally, I’d cover this and this alone, but this summer has been 90% dog news and 0% hockey (and 10% nonsense), so if you want to see the good boys and girls, click here.

Now that half of you are gone to NHL.com, we can discuss the real issues around the league. The 2019-20 NHL season is only 36 days away and while most of us are still fired up about watching football again next week, hockey is creeping up quickly.

There are a lot of restricted free agents left to be signed. The lost is headlined by Toronto Maple Leafs superstar, Mitch Marner. By no fault of his own, Marner has lost the crowd in Toronto. They’ve turned on Mitch, labeling him greedy and overrated just a few months after they overrated him on every media platform imaginable. In the eyes of the Leafs faithful, Marner went from “incredible” to “trash” faster than Jet putting out a second album.

That’s a deep cut and a completely unwarranted shot at Jet, but what can I say, I’m a Cold Hard Bitch. Anyway, that’s enough talk about Mitch Marner. Let’s get to the good stuff.

NHL Trends

Dogs

Did you really think international dog day was getting snubbed in this post? The NHL is currently leading the four major sports leagues in dog-owning and they flaunted it on Tuesday. Here’s Claude Giroux taking Gritty’s kids out for a ride.

https://twitter.com/NHLFlyers/status/1166040355885723650

The rest of the major leagues stack up like this:

2. NBA – The NBA put out a cute video for International Dog Day.
3. MLB – By doing nothing, you finished in third.
4. NFL – Dog masks, dog pounds dog fights are all bad and/or scary things.

Here are a bunch of NHL dogs for you to admire:

https://twitter.com/Sportsnet/status/1166052052369383424

Maple Leafs 

Remember when I said the Leafs fans were giving Marner a hard time? If you were a Leafs fan reading that you probably thought “Oh come on, this is blown out of proportion.” I present to you, Toronto police training:

Good boy, taking out the evil man like that. Take note, Leafs players, Kawhi Leonard won the city a championship, walked away and the Raptors fans want a statue erected and his jersey retired. Win and no one cares what you do (as if the Leafs are ever getting through the first round – HA!).

Evgeny Kuznetsov

Last Friday, Kuznetsov received a four-game suspension from the IIHF for testing positive for cocaine use. The NHL had already dealt with the issue by giving Kuzy a slap on the wrist. This is old news now, but a great opportunity to give this blog full of cocaine puns a little bump.

Cocaine is bad, but the content provided kept NHL writers lined up to crack jokes on a Friday.

Gritty 

Since we’re running through the Ice Cold Takes staples (Dogs, Mitch Marner, illicit drugs), it would be wrong not to add Gritty to the list. Shockingly, he wasn’t a part of the previous Kuznetsov story. He has been busy, though.

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to give Gritty ax-throwing lessons? This is going to lead to some interesting viral videos once Gritty gets on the ice between periods next season. Gritty’s most dangerous weapon isn’t an ax, though.

Hips don’t lie.

The next NHL superstar

Here’s a new segment for the rest of the NHL offseason. The next NHL superstar is definitely Ryan Donato, but in order to truly make this difficult, we’ll travel way into the future and pick out the star of the 2029 draft.

Seeing children perform incredible feats that you never have been or never will be able to do makes everyone feel great, right? Here’s an NHL superstar in the making training harder than you or I ever have.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1rp5YhHOn6/

The icing on the cake is that his name is Kaden. Everyone knows that “-aden” names are born to play hockey. This kid is a lock to be in the league by the time he turns 18. Have a great career, Kaden.

Keep your head up.