Frank Cervalli

If you go through multiple trades, a massive knee injury, all these other things that happen to you, you're playing for way less than you used to, it's pretty easy to become jaded and say, you know what?

What am I doing this for?

Why?

uh to get your hands on the stanley cup last night as taylor hall did and fulfill a childhood dream his wife sent out an instagram photo of him hoisting a an aluminum foil stanley cup uh that he clearly had homemade uh when he was a kid that's that's what it's all about that's why a brandon bussey at age 27 makes his nhl debut and helps a team to a cup when you're faced with real

what ifs real consequences real oh man this might not work out it's really what separates the achievers from the the the non-believers is that chance to step forward when everything's down and persevere if you don't have that love of the game connected to it

those people end up tossed aside pretty quickly.

Nothing new.

The investigation is just getting going.

And, you know, I think the really interesting thing to me is going to be

First off, the timeline.

We don't have a sense of how long this NHL investigation is going to take.

And two, in the end, regardless of whatever the investigation finds short of a significant suspension, will the NHL have enough to prevent Mike Babcock from working?

That part is far less than clear.

And that's the thing that really stands out.

If Mike Babcock was honest with the Oilers and the Oilers were honest with Mike Babcock, these are two people and entities going into this with eyes wide open.

I don't know how you could get in the way of someone earning gainful employment.

That's my understanding, that Darnell Nurse, in providing the Oilers with that list of acceptable teams that he'd be willing to go to, those conversations also remain ongoing.

And in making my rounds today, following the Cup Final, beginning to, as teams really put the pedal down to try and make things happen, a common refrain that I heard today was,

Teams are calling around asking for players, and the response has been, well, yeah, I might consider moving that guy, but I don't want to create any holes on my team.

And I think that's where the Darnell Nurse situation is pretty interesting for the Oilers.