Spezza Retires, Finland Wins Gold, More on Giroux & More

Happy Monday, one and all. Let’s take a look around the league for the latest edition of Monday Links, News and Notes.

• On Friday, the Calgary Flames were booted from the playoffs on a controversial no-goal call. There’s no doubt the language in the “kicking” rule will be revisited this offseason, as it leaves much to be desired in terms of clarity.
• The World Championships wrapped up yesterday, with Finland securing Gold in an overtime thriller against Team Canada. While it made for entertaining hockey, there are plenty of fans out there who credit most of the Gold medal win to the officials - and, in my opinion, for good reason.
• Sam Carchidi, better known to many as @BroadStBull on Twitter, fanned the flames of the Giroux-to-Ottawa fire this weekend when he all but stated Ottawa was the front runner for the veteran All Star’s services.
• Yesterday, Jason Spezza announced his retirement after 19 seasons - a fitting number of years to play for number 19. The incomparable Ian Mendes put together a great retrospective on the pizza line and was able to grab quotes from both Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley on Spezza, his career and what that line meant to the Senators.
• On the same note, Spezza will be joining the Maple Leafs front office as an “Assistant to GM Kyle Dubas”. From all accounts, it looks like Spezza will spend year one in the role observing and getting comfortable before he receives more formalized responsibilities within the organization.
• Mendes also completed another Sens fan survey, with interesting shifts in some areas from the fan perspective. The intriguing but unsurprising results came on the topics of Pierre Dorion and DJ Smith, where fan satisfaction and happiness has dropped from two seasons ago to this past season. It’s quite clear that fans are ready for the team to take the next step. The seats will start to heat up in Ottawa if the Sens don’t come flying out of the gates.
• Gare Joyce posted a fantastic long form on the Cree Nation Bears and their journey to competing in the Quebec International Pee-Wee Tournament. It’s a long read, but totally worth it.
• As it always happens with UFAs, the Calgary hockey market has been abuzz with talk of what Johnny Gaudreau will do next. From all accounts, it doesn’t appear like he’ll be going anywhere, as he spoke very highly of the organization and they certainly have room for him, should they choose to spend. That being said, Gaudreau is coming off an insanely productive season, so it’ll be interesting to see what number they come to for the 28 year old who is likely to be signing his final major - maybe final entirely - contract of his career./