When ownership becomes involved in hockey personnel decisions and its prime acquisition is presented as a social-media marketing vehicle, there is little time and little patience for slow starts.
This is the case in New Jersey, where the Josh Harris-David Blitzer combination at the top of the directory enthusiastically encouraged — how’s that for a euphemism? — general manager Ray Shero to pull off the deal for the Spirit of 76, who arrived with a boatload of charisma and as one half of a sports celebrity power couple with fiancée Lindsey Vonn.
There is PK Subban, there is first-overall draft selection Jack Hughes, and there is Taylor Hall, one of the league’s elite players who is a pending free agent and who certainly isn’t going to sign up for a program that doesn’t produce results.