Down Goes Brown's Grab Bag: NHL Keeps Fans in the Dark, Vegas Puns, and Defending Marc Bergevin

(Editor's note: Welcome to Sean McIndoe's Friday grab bag, where he writes on a variety of NHL topics. You can follow him on Twitter.)

Look, I don't like summer reruns any more than you do.

We've already been over the NHL's bizarre league-wide fascination with not telling its fans what's happening. Teams announce signings without including the dollar values, even though that's the most newsworthy part. Players are given no-trade clauses which impact the entire market, but nobody knows who has what. Fans are dying to read about salary information, but Gary Bettman comically pretends that he doesn't know that.

Basically, the league's default position is to withhold information that you need as a fan. I promise, I'm as sick of this particular subject as you are, so I'll keep this latest chapter brief.

But last week, the Maple Leafs traded Jonathan Bernier to the Ducks for a conditional draft pick. That's the league's biggest market, trading away a guy who went into last season as their unquestioned starter. It's not a blockbuster by any stretch, but it's no minor deal. And yet nobody has any clue what the conditions are, or what picks might be involved. Is it a first? A seventh? For next year, or down the line? And what happens if the conditions aren't reached? Worse pick? No pick at all? This stuff kind of matters. You can't evaluate the trade without this information. And yet, we don't have it.

Needless to say, this is pretty much standard procedure. "Conditional pick," we're told. "Um, can you be more specific?" we ask. "No, but keep handing over your money you dumb suckers," says the NHL, and then it laughs and laughs. (For 15 minutes, at which point a media insider inevitably spills the beans. But they're all vacation now, which I will remind you should never be allowed.)

And yes, we can probably guess what's happening in this particular case. The Leafs made another trade with the Ducks just last month. It sure looks as if Bernier was actually part of that deal, and the two teams waited until his July 1 signing bonus had been paid by Toronto before making things official. The "conditional pick" here is almost certainly nothing at all, and the Ducks and Leafs are just gaming the system. But there's no good reason they should be able to without at least admitting it publicly, other than that everyone else does, all the time, because that's how this league works.

Actually telling the fans what they need to know would cost the league virtually nothing, and would help its customers have the sort of debates and discussions that make being a sports fan fun. All it would take is one memo from the league saying "Hey everyone, this is dumb, knock it off." But that memo will never come, because this is the NHL, and screw you that's why.

So be it resolved that I should just accept that this will never change, and give up on mentioning it. Will I actually do that? I'm not going to bother telling you. I learned that from my favorite hockey team.

This week's debate: The new Las Vegas expansion team named its first GM on Wednesday, appointing former longtime Capitals' boss George McPhee to the job. Did they make the right call?

In favor: Definitely. McPhee has a ton of experience, and he's one of the more respected front-office executives you'll find in the league.

Opposed: Well, I'm not so sure. I think it's fair to say that this decision was… a bit of a gamble.

In favor: Really? I mean, sure, I guess every hire represents risk in some sense, but McPhee seems like a fairly safe choice, one that's likely to work out well.

Opposed: Maybe. Apparently, the new Vegas team… likes its odds.

In favor: Well, yes. That's why they hired him.

Opposed: I suppose you could say that they've… laid their cards on the table.

In favor: Why do you keep pausing like that?

Opposed: They'd just better hope that McPhee can come through when… the chips are down.

In favor: Oh no. Are you one of those people who can't discuss the new expansion franchise without using a Las Vegas pun in every sentence?

Opposed: Let's just say it's my… ace in the hole.

In favor: Oh for the… look, we get it. The new franchise is in Las Vegas. They have gambling there. But that doesn't mean that every reference to the new team has to have some terrible pun wedged in. The novelty on that wore off roughly five seconds after the city applied for a team. They're not funny anymore.

Opposed: So you're telling me that I'm… pushing my luck?

In favor: I'm telling you that this is annoying and everyone hates it.

Opposed: Well you're certainly… calling a spade a spade.

In favor: Stop that!

Opposed: No dice.

In favor: You're an idiot.

Opposed: You bet.

In favor: I'm begging you to stop.

Opposed: No deal.

In favor: It's just that… wait, I don't think that last one was a pun.

Opposed: No, you know… "deal"? Like you deal cards? It was all I could think of.

In favor: Sort of a stretch.

Opposed: Yeah, I guess I you could say I've… overplayed my hand.

In favor: Please never speak again.

Opposed: Unfortunately, that's… not in the cards.

In favor: Look, this was cute when the Vegas expansion team was just a vague concept being discussed at meetings. But it's a real team now, and it's time to start giving it some real coverage. So is there any chance we could actually talk about the subject of the debate, which was supposed to be George McPhee?

Opposed: If we must.

In favor: Good. McPhee is a well-respected NHL mind, and we can expect that he'll fill out the rest of the front office with solid hires. They'll have their work cut out for them, there's no doubt. But with him in charge, the new franchise has a real chance at some legitimate success, at least assuming he can make the right moves early on.

Opposed: And if he doesn't?

In favor: Well then obviously all bets are off, but…

Opposed: HA!

In favor: WAIT! I didn't mean to do that!

Opposed: ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

In favor: Well, crap.

The final verdict: The terrible puns that you come up with about the new Vegas expansion team should stay in Vegas.

This week's obscure player probably shouldn't qualify as obscure, given that he scored the most famous goal in the history of one of the NHL's greatest ever rivalries. But you don't remember it. Well, you remember the goal, but not the player who scored it. And that's partly because he wasn't even on the ice at the time.

I'll explain.

Perry Berezan was a third-round pick of the Flames in 1983, and debuted with a cup of coffee in Calgary a year later. His first full season came in 1985-86, when he scored 33 points in 55 games as a rookie. That would end up being a career high, as he never topped 20 points again. But he took on a role as a defensive specialist and stuck in the league for nine seasons, five in Calgary and then two more in Minnesota and San Jose. He finished his career with 61 goals in 378 games played.

Those were his regular-season totals, but he also played 31 career playoff games, scoring four goals. The most famous of those came in 1986, when this happened:

That, of course, is Steve Smith's infamous own goal in Game 7 of the 1986 Smythe Final. It came in the third period of a tie game, and held up as the winner that gave the Flames an upset win and ended the Oilers' bid for a third straight Cup. It would be the only playoff series the Oilers would lose over the last five years of the Gretzky era.

And right at the start of the clip, that's Perry Berezan dumping the puck into the Edmonton zone before heading off on a line change. As the last Calgary player to touch the puck, he went into the record books as the man who scored the goal, even though he was already sitting on the bench when it happened. That has to be a weird feeling, watching from the bench as somebody else scored the most famous goal you'll ever get credit for in your career. (The fact that Berezan was from Edmonton made things especially tricky.)

As for Smith's gaffe, it held up as the consensus easy pick as the worst own-goal in hockey history until 14 years later, when a challenger emerged. More on that in a bit.

It's been two weeks since what may go down as the craziest half-hour in offseason history, and the debates over who came out ahead continue to rage. Montreal Canadiens' GM Marc Bergevin pulled off perhaps the biggest move of them all, trading P.K. Subban to the Predators for Shea Weber in a deal that's sparked plenty of criticism. Subban broke his silence with the media a few days ago, adding fuel to the fire.

But earlier this week, Bergevin gave an in-depth interview to NHL.com about the trade, in which he hinted that there was more to the deal than fans realize. This isn't the first time that fans have heard that. But Bergevin refused to go into any detail, and that's led to further criticism over him "offering vague comments and subtly tossing Subban under the bus".

So this week's annoyance is that you guys are going to force me to defend Marc Bergevin.

This won't come easy. As a Leafs fan, I'm more than happy to see the GM of the Canadiens stew a bit. And to be clear, the trade was a bad one. But now, Bergevin seems to be taking extra heat for refusing to follow one of hockey's worst traditions.

NHL teams have a well-established habit of hammering star players on their way out of town. Sometimes it's done directly. Far more often, information is leaked out to friendly media, who then do the job on the team's behalf. It happens in just about every market, some more than others—Boston is especially notorious for this sort of thing. And every time it happens, fans around the league roll their eyes.

But Bergevin and the Canadiens don't seem to be doing that. A few minor stories aside, there hasn't been much at all coming out of Montreal that would shed any light on why the team felt it had to move on from Subban. That's understandably frustrating for fans, who are left feeling like they're not getting the whole story. But we can't have it both ways. We can't complain when teams shiv a guy on the way out of town, then grumble that we're missing out when they don't.

And yes, we have to consider the possibility that nothing is leaking out because there's just nothing to leak; that Subban was a model citizen and any rumors of behind-the-scenes drama were just wrong. Maybe the Canadiens actually think they made a smart hockey trade here, despite what all the numbers say. But even then, given the fan reaction, you'd think there had to be a temptation to find something—anything—to take some of the heat off.

But if there is, the Canadiens are keeping it in-house. For once, an NHL team isn't sending a star player packing with a knife sticking out of his back. That's a good thing.

So while it pains my small, crusty Maple Leafs fan heart to say it: Everyone stop picking on Marc Bergevin.

OK, back to picking on Marc Bergevin.

• Yes, it's the infamous Bergevin own-goal from 2000. NHL defensemen have a proud history of scoring into their own nets, one that includes Cup winners and Game 7 clinchers. That makes it all the more impressive that this one may indeed be the worst of all time.

• OK, first things first: This is from the official NHL YouTube account, and it lists the date of this game as Dec. 7, 2000. But that's wrong—the Sharks and Blues didn't play that day. The NHL apparently just borrowed that incorrect date from other YouTube posts. What else has been a lie, NHL? WHAT ELSE?

• The truth, of course, makes the whole thing even worse, since this play actually happened during the playoffs. Specifically, this is Game 2 of the 2000 Western Conference quarterfinals. The Presidents' Trophy-winning Blues were leading the game and the series at the time; they'd go on to lose in seven, an upset that most of their fans still can't bring themselves to talk about to this day.

• Other than that, no, not a very important moment.

• Without question, the best part of the clip is the five seconds or so where nobody knows what just happened. (Well, almost nobody—we'll get to that in a second.) You can even see the puck in the back of the net, somehow, making this the only time in the standard-definition era that anyone could actually tell where the puck was. But in real time, nobody's brain can process what they've just witnessed.

• I think you can tell a lot about a person by how they celebrate when their team "scores" a goal like this. There are basically three options: act sheepish, be genuinely confused, or announce to the world "I am a huge jerk" with the full-out arms in the air celebration like you actually just did something. Here, Sharks defenseman Gary Suter immediately goes for door number three. Weird, he always seemed like such a nice guy.

• By the way, Suter also earned the Perry Berezan Award as the guy who gets credit for a terrible own goal he had virtually nothing to do with. Suter and Berezan were teammates for three years in Calgary in the '80s. I know you need to know this stuff.

• OK, go back and watch the clip again, but this time focus on #44 for the Blues. That's Chris Pronger, and I'm like 99 percent sure that he absolutely knows what just happened, given that he's looking right at the play the whole time. And he reacts in the most Chris Pronger way possible—by just staring angrily into the middle-distance and skating away in disgust. Seriously, the play is still going on and Pronger is just like "Screw this" and starts heading for the bench. The Pronger reaction is my favorite part of this clip and it's not close.

• We get our first replay, which is fantastic because it only shows the puck going in without really helping us figure out how it got there. That moment comes on the second replay, where he can clearly see Bergevin catch the puck in mid-air and then just fire it directly into his own net. It's not even subtle. He just fires it in there, like a Habs fan throwing his child's favorite Subban jersey into the trash.

• "I was just trying to pass it out, but I couldn't pass gas back then." That's a real quote. I can't stay mad at you, Marc Bergevin.

• Epilogue: Game 7 featured Owen Nolan's long-distance series-winner, which became the defining moment of the series and kind of pushed Bergevin's gaffe out of the spotlight. Owen Nolan ruins everything. Boo hoo.

• Meanwhile, we never did find out what kind of behind-the-scenes character issues the puck must have had to be tossed away like that, but I'm sure it was something.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com.