Tariq El-Bashir

He's actually been playing a lot of right wing the last couple of years.

Yeah, it's a good problem to have, but I think getting him to totally buy into what they envision for his role is going to be a key part of the conversation.

Like I said, he's on vacation halfway around the world right now.

There is time for that conversation, but I think the cast moves here over the last 72 hours were a pretty strong message that, hey, Alex, we love you, but we can't wait for you.

We're going to make these moves independent of your decision,

And hopefully you come back.

But we have to continue to make sure that we're looking out for the team as well.

Worried?

It's probably too strong a word.

Curious, maybe a little wary.

When Alex came here in 2005, his first season, remember he was drafted in 2004, but there was a lockout.

There were a couple of pretty soft seasons in his first two years.

I want to say they had back-to-back 70-point seasons.

The attendance back then was just abysmal.

I mean, it was like 6,000, 7,000 fans, even though they already had this kid who was scoring 50 goals and doing it in a way that no one had ever seen before.

They still were kind of struggling.

But what has transpired since then is not just Alex becoming the greatest goal scorer of all time, but what he did and leading up to that Stanley Cup championship in 2018, this is

transformed from a basketball and football town into a basketball, football, and hockey town.

And as a hockey dad, I mean, my kid now plays NCAA hockey, but, you know, I raised him in this area from, you know, he was on the ice starting at four years old.

I grew up playing hockey in this area when there were three rinks and like five teams.