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NHL bubble player: “No way” he’d be a replacement

Gary Bettman

Yesterday, we touched on the possibility of the NHL employing replacement players.

Let’s push aside questions of how likely or even possible that is for the moment and ask ourselves just this: How good would the replacement players be?

Given that this is a lockout and not a strike, it seems unlikely that many, if any, current NHL players would be part of this. Still, some might think that players on the AHL/NHL bubble would be warm to the idea.

Hold that thought.

“There’s no way. That kind of thing stays with you for your entire career,” said one such player in Joe Haggerty’s CSNNE report. “Guys want to make it to the NHL the right way and be accepted by the brotherhood of players. That would never happen for anybody that crossed the lines while the lockout is going on.

“Good luck finding players willing to do that.”

So if the NHL really attempts to put together replacement player teams, the quality of the players might not even be at the almost-made-it level.