TORONTO — The “T” word did not come up when training camps opened across the National Hockey League this week.
No one asked Buffalo Sabres general manager Tim Murray if he would trade both his goaltenders if they won too many games again or whether he would part ways with his best defenceman in exchange for another injured player. No one counted the number of Auston Matthews’ jerseys already floating around at the Arizona Coyotes’ practice facility. No one in Edmonton wondered aloud if it was better in the long run for the Oilers to lose.
That was the reality of last season when the Sabres, Coyotes and Oilers each lost more than 70% of their games in one of the most obvious examples of league-wide tanking.