INDIANAPOLIS — This was sometime in late April, during the puzzling month-long gap in the NTT IndyCar Series calendar.

Four weeks is too long for any racing series to go dark, especially in an age when the average American has the attention span of a Jack Russell terrier.

On the bright side, May 1 fell smack in the middle of that gap and May means Indianapolis, so the IndyCar faithful — from team members to local barstool bums — at least had plenty to talk about.

“I see Penske is struggling,” one guy said over lunch, and he said it with a smile.

Some people enjoy it when Goliath stubs his toe. I hate to argue over a meal, so I just nodded. It was all nonsense, and I knew that. Truth is, he probably did too.

Yes, Josef Newgarden’s victory in the series opener at St. Petersburg was Team Penske’s only triumph in the first four races. Yes, it was nice to see a couple of underdogs — rookie Colton Herta at Circuit of The Americas and Takuma Sato at Barber Motorsports Park — get things right on days when Roger Penske’s juggernaut got things wrong.

But after the first four races of his season, Newgarden had a win, two runner-up finishes, a fourth and a nice lead in the standings.

And while Penske’s other two drivers hadn’t fared as well, it’s worth noting that their best days had been plagued by trouble.

No one was in Will Power’s league at Circuit of The Americas, but a drivetrain failure left him parked in the pits. Simon Pagenaud’s weekends at St. Pete and Austin were scuppered by qualifying-session red flags that left him lining up 13th and 22nd.

But Pagenaud’s race pace had been fine; some of his passes were breathtaking. Power had started every race in the top three. And Newgarden had the league’s best blend of speed and consistency. Yeah, some struggle.

Every now and then, people tell themselves that Penske is slumping, because, deep down, that’s what they hope to see. And, without fail, Team Penske crushes those hopes.

Team owner Roger Penske brushes off praise for his accomplishments, in racing and in business, by quoting a favorite old saying of his dad’s: “Effort equals results.”

And why not? That motto says a lot in just three words, and Roger Penske is not one to waste time with small talk.

But if those three words explain his success, I’ve got a bunch more — 201, to be exact — that account for why so many folks begrudge him his glory. They come from a famous Cadillac ad entitled “The Penalty of Leadership.”

It ran just once, more than a century ago, in a 1915 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. It carried no photos or illustrations, no pricing or technical data, and the only mention of the Cadillac name was a small logo. Its text said everything and this was some of it:

“In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction.

“When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. …

“The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy — but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant.

“There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions: envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains the leader. …

“That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial.”

Among racing people, that clamor of denial takes the form of a guy grinning and declaring over his noontime French fries that Team Penske is going through a rough patch.

That fellow is best ignored, because in modern-day American motorsports, Roger Searle Penske remains the gold standard.

The smart people in the sport understand this. It’s impossible to read the line in that Cadillac ad that says “the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership,” without thinking of Chip Ganassi and Michael Andretti, who will admit they have attained their team-owning prominence by studying, following and sticking to the Penske model.

That model amounts to this: Hire good people, stay the hell out of their way and keep finding the money to keep everything rolling.

Down through the years, every team owner who wanted to win big in IndyCar — or in CART, or on the old USAC Championship Trail — watched how Al Dean did it, or A.J. Foyt did it, or Vel Miletich and Parnelli Jones did it, or Carl Haas and Paul Newman did it.

In the modern era, there has been only one man to study. Roger Penske leads, period.

If you think he’s struggling today, watch him win tomorrow.

MONTPELIER, Ind. – The 15th renewal of USAC’s annual Indiana Midget Week mini-series kicked off Tuesday night at Montpelier Motor Speedway to a rousing crowd and several diverse storylines.

Chief among the highlights during the 30-lap feature were runs through the field by USAC Triple Crown champion Jerry Coons Jr. and recent Shamrock Classic winner Cannon McIntosh.

Coons rose from 20th to 11th in the Petry Motorsports-owned No. 5 Toyota, garnering the KSE/Prosource Hard Charger Award for his efforts, but lamented he couldn’t have started further ahead after a lackluster time-trial run buried him for the main event.

“The Hard Charger Award, to me, is really the ‘you need to qualify better’ award, but we’ll take a decent night out of here,” said Coons. “Our engines were just off a little bit, tuning-wise, early on and it set us back. We were actually off on our fuel system; we leaned it down and ended up with gearing that wasn’t quite right for the heat race. It was a night and day difference.

“Unfortunately we had to start way back, and I got a few cars on the bottom early, but once it laid rubber up top you had to move up there and just get cars however you could,” he added. “It wasn’t a good start, but we recovered a bit and did the best we could with the cards we had.”

– It was a similar story for McIntosh, who had the move of the night by going from seventh to first in one lap on the bottom to win his heat race, but was buried in 21st on the grid after a poor qualifying lap.

The 16-year-old charged forward to come home 12th, one spot behind Coons, and missed out on hard-charger honors via the tiebreaker for overall feature finish.

“Qualifying is just the part right now where, as a young driver, I lack,” McIntosh explained. “It’s really a bummer that we had to start so far back, because we had a fast car. We’ve been good in heat races to bounce back, but being buried in the field on a track that rubbered up tonight just killed us.

“The heat race was fun, though,” he added. “Everyone was trying to race as hard as they could and go for broke, and I just rolled around the bottom and tried to make the veteran decision,” he added. “It worked out, we moved forward and made a pretty cool highlight for the night, I feel like.”

– The Golobic family and the Matt Wood Racing team had one of the longest hauls – if not the longest – to get to Indiana Midget Week, with Shane Golobic and his brother Dustin trading off over a 35-hour drive from California to Indiana for the six-night sojourn.

In fact, Shane Golobic debuted a new paint scheme on his No. 17w midget for the week, with the blue-and-orange colors of NOS Energy Drink supplemented with white sections to differentiate Golobic’s machine from the similarly colored cars of both Clauson-Marshall Racing and RAMS Racing.

“We’ve gotten people talking about the car, that’s for sure,” said Golobic, the 2017 Indiana Midget Week points champion. “Some people like it and some people aren’t sold on it yet, but we wanted to stand out from the crowd. It was a long haul to get here and we’re just happy to be back in Indiana.”

Golobic finished sixth in Tuesday night’s feature, his first USAC national midget start of the season.

– One notable competitor in the open sprint car feature at Montpelier was Clarklake, Michigan’s Brian Ruhlman, who is perhaps best known for his exploits in dirt late model and modified racing.

Ruhlman is a five-time Eldora Speedway track champion and four-time titlist with the Sunoco American Late Model Series, but has recently acquired a non-winged sprint car and hopes to learn more about the unique style of racing that the class is renowned for.

Though he finished 14th in the 18-car field on Tuesday, Ruhlman carried a smile throughout the night.

“We’re just seeing what we can learn with this thing, because the driver definitely has a lot to figure out in order to get up to speed against the guys who have been doing this for a while,” Ruhlman said. “Our goal here was to turn laps and not tear anything up, and overall we were able to do that.

“There’s a definite learning curve, but that just comes with more seat time as you go along.”

– Indiana Midget Week continues Wednesday night at Gas City I-69 Speedway. Though the forecast was iffy for much of Tuesday, a storm front moved through overnight and has led to dropping chances of precipitation and improved optimism that the program will occur in its entirety at the quarter-mile oval.

BROWNSBURG, Ind. – This weekend’s NHRA Heartland Nationals marks national event No. 250 for Funny Car driver Matt Hagan.

At 36 years old, Hagan is considered one of the young guns in the world of professional drag racing, but with 11 years behind the wheel of a nitro-burning flopper, the two-time world champion’s racing resume reads like that of a seasoned veteran.

It’s only fitting Hagan reach this incredible milestone in America’s Heartland. When not wrestling his 11,000-horsepower Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, Hagan spends his days manning his 2,100-acre cattle farm in Christiansburg, Va., where he raises more than 700 “momma” cows that produce calves for the market.

The father of four, who says he loves racing in Kansas because he ‘gets to talk farming at the ropes,’ is hands-on in every aspect – from growing feed to being able to handle every chore on the spread.

As he prepares for the 31st running of the Heartland Motorsports Park event, the “world’s fastest farmer” reflects on the years and the races leading up to his landmark weekend and provides a glimpse into where he sees himself in the future.

Q: What would you consider to be the pit and the peak of your career thus far?

MATT HAGAN: “One of the best moments was getting my first race win. Championships are unbelievable, obviously, but when you hit that very first milestone of qualifying the car and then winning that first round, and then winning the race, it’s amazing. Getting my very first NHRA Funny Car trophy in Houston (2010) really stands out to me. I got in the show on a pedal job. We qualified 14th, and I pedaled my ass off all weekend long and then ended up winning the race on a pedal job too. It was special because I felt like I really had to earn it.

“My lowest moment, well, there are two. My first fire when I was competing in another series, it was one of my first fires ever, that always stands out. It was so hot and so intense and I definitely kind of freaked out a bit. It was a scary feeling; you can’t see where you are at on the track, your legs are getting blistered because of the heat, and I just panicked. I wanted to just jump right out of the car, but it was still going probably 200-mph. People try and prepare you for those moments and tell you what to do, but until you’re in it and going through it yourself, it’s a whole different story. And then once you go through it, you look back and think ‘oh I should’ve done this,’ but at the time, you’re just reacting. I got the car safely stopped. It ended up burning to the ground, and we lost the race car. Something like that really puts everything in perspective.

“My other low was runnering-up on a championship. It was my second year here at DSR (2010), and I had a 38-point lead over John Force going into race day. I just had to go two rounds further than him, and I would’ve won the championship in my second year of driving a Funny Car. We went out first round, and John Force ended up winning the race and winning the championship. It was devastating, but we ended up going back the following year and winning the championship.”

Q: You have two NHRA Funny Car world championships under your belt (2011 and 2014), you notched 30 event wins earlier this season. What’s something on your bucket list that you’d still like to achieve?

MH: “I really don’t know. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to accomplish a lot of goals that I had set. Racing has opened up so many doors for me. I don’t know that I really have a bucket list, but I’m open to new ideas and new ventures. Drag racing has allowed me to have the capital to grow my farm while being able to support my family from racing. And now farming has grown to support itself and the next thing you know, I have more than 2,000 acres and 700 momma cows, and it’s all paid for because I’ve been able to race. The racing stuff has allowed me to be able to do a lot of different things, and I hope that it continues to do so.”

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BOSTON -- Bruins captain Zdeno Chara was not at TD Garden on Wednesday as the team practiced a day ahead of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final -- a likely sign that the defenseman will not be available to play.

The Bruins and the St. Louis Blues are tied at two games apiece, with the series shifting to Boston for Game 5 on Thursday night.

Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said he would provide a game prognosis for Chara on Thursday, saying only that the 6-foot-9 defenseman had a "facial injury."

Multiple reports emerged Tuesday suggesting Chara had a broken jaw after being hit with a deflected puck in the second period of Game 4. He left the game, got stitches and the trainers did not medically clear him to return, although he sat on the bench in the third period because he wanted to be with teammates.

Cassidy said earlier in the week that Chara might need more dental work later on.

The Bruins are considering several contingency plans if Chara is out, and they do have some encouraging news as defenseman Matt Grzelcyk skated Wednesday -- albeit in a red non-contact jersey. It was the first time Grzelcyk has been with the team on the ice since he was concussed in Game 2 on a hit by Blues forward Oskar Sundqvist.

Cassidy said Grzelcyk is still in concussion protocol, though that status could change on Thursday, meaning Grzelcyk could be available to rejoin the lineup.

"When he gets cleared, he'll be ready to go," Cassidy said. "Whether that's tomorrow or not, I couldn't tell you."

Grzelcyk said he was "feeling good" and "it was nice to join back with the team and get some reps on the ice."

Sundqvist was suspended one game by the NHL for the hit. Grzelcyk, speaking for the first time since the incident, declined to give an opinion on the play.

"The league handled the hit, so I'd rather not comment on it," Grzelcyk said.

Rookie defenseman Urho Vaakanainen also practiced with the main group Wednesday, although Cassidy said it was a "long shot" for Vaakanainen to play. The 20-year-old Finn played in only two regular-season games for the Bruins.

"That would be a big ask," Cassidy said, noting that Vaakanainen, who played a majority of the season in the AHL, has not been around the NHL club much. "A real big ask."

Veteran Steven Kampfer is a more likely candidate to plug in on the blue line. He played in two Stanley Cup playoff games this spring -- and he scored a goal while subbing for the suspended Charlie McAvoy in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.

"Whoever comes in, it's kind of a seamless transition," Kampfer said. "I think that's been our identity of our team this year -- next man up and making sure that you're ready to go."

Cassidy had floated the idea of suiting up seven defensemen and only 11 forwards, though that seems less likely now. It would probably only happen if Grzelcyk is medically cleared.

"We're almost at the point where we just ask guys to play more minutes," Cassidy said.

The 42-year-old Chara has a goal and four assists with a plus-12 in 20 playoff games this spring. He typically plays on the top pairing with McAvoy and is an important player on the penalty kill. Chara played over 24 minutes in Games 2 and 3.

Patrice Bergeron said he did not see Chara on Wednesday and has not talked to him. Neither did Cassidy, though the coach said the two texted but would not reveal anything about the exchange.

"Things you can't control, it's important not to let them distract you," Bergeron said. "When players are missing, it's up to the others to raise their game. We will see who will be with us tomorrow and who will not be there. Still, for us, the recipe does not change. Our wins are team wins. This is what we're gonna have to do to be successful."

BOSTON -- With an inspiring story and boundless enthusiasm for her St. Louis Blues, 11-year-old Laila Anderson has become a celebrity super fan during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Now, she hopes that fame can help support the children's hospital that's helped her battle a rare disease.

The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee announced on Tuesday that it was producing a doll featuring Anderson, who is fighting hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a syndrome that attacks the immune system and has only been found in 15 other children in the world.

The St. Louis Children's Hospital will receive $5 from every bobblehead sold. The dolls sell for $25 and are available for presale on the Hall of Fame's website.

Hochman: The famous face of Blues fan Laila Anderson is now on a bobblehead https://t.co/lVQSLbeZDN via @stltoday

— National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum (@BobbleheadHall) June 5, 2019

The bobblehead features Laila on a hockey-rink base. She's wearing a jean jacket, as she does to every Blues home game, and is holding a replica of a sign that she brought to a recent playoff game that reads "I'm Here Boys ... Let's Do This, (Love) Laila." There's also a bell she's ringing, which a replica of the one at the children's hospital that young patients ring when they finish their chemotherapy treatment.

"I'm really excited to be having my own bobblehead, especially since they support such a great cause," Anderson said. "Thank you to the St. Louis Blues and to hockey fans everywhere for all the love and support."

Anderson captivated hockey fans in a viral video that the Blues posted before Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals, when Laila's doctors cleared her to attend the playoff game and her mother surprised her with tickets. She's attended every Blues postseason home game since then, following months of confinement to either her home or the children's hospital after a bone marrow transplant.

Blues players have credited Anderson with inspiring them during their run to the Stanley Cup Final. She's met with them around games, has been featured on the Jumbotron to hype the crowd and even served as a reporter for local television stations to collect postgame quotes.

Defenseman Colton Parayko, who developed a friendship with Anderson in the last several months, said she's "a warrior" for battling through her treatments.

"We get to show up to the rink and be with the guys, do things like that. But you go to the hospital, and you speak with her, and you watch her go through all that stuff. I can't imagine what she's going through. What kinds of things they're putting in her body to try and help her recover," he said before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. "She continues to have a strong attitude. A positive attitude. It's so special. We might lose a hockey game, and we're frustrated or go home really upset. But there are people out there trying to battle for their lives."

The Bobblehead Hall of Fame has previously created charity bobbleheads for inspiring figures like Purdue super fan Tyler Trent and ESPN Special Olympics Analyst Daina Shilts.

Coming into the Stanley Cup Final, the Boston Bruins had an edge on the St. Louis Blues in just about every statistical category. You name it, it leaned toward the Bruins: power play, goaltending, scoring and more.

But the Blues did have one point of advantage, and that was in their defense depth. Through the first three games of the series, the Bruins were dominating the power play, but the Blues controlled play at 5-on-5. And Boston was getting quality shot attempts.

But in Game 4, the Blues forced the Bruins to take worse quality shots from the perimeter, which resulted in a series-tying win. And it could be what turns the series in their favor.

The Stanley Cup Final between the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues has gone back and forth between games. Each offensive spurt has been met with a counterpunch. Each loss is followed by a necessary adjustment. No real fireworks (yet), though plenty of players are trying to antagonize opponents. (Exactly how many David Perron wrestling matches have we seen in front of Boston's net? Our unofficial count is three.)

The result? A series tied at two games apiece heading back to Boston for Game 5 on Thursday. Here are seven observations through four games, both on how this series will shake out and how it will affect the NHL on a bigger-picture scale.

This series might be decided by the availability of Boston's defensemen

The Bruins have already been without starting defenseman Matt Grzelcyk (concussion protocol), which has thrust John Moore into the lineup. Now they might be primed for an even bigger blow: losing Zdeno Chara for the rest of the series.

The Athletic reported that Chara suffered a broken jaw after taking a puck to the face in Game 4 -- in which he was not cleared to return for the third period -- and the Bruins should provide a more thorough update after the captain meets with doctors in Boston. Chara had been averaging nearly 22 minutes per night in the postseason and was a big factor on Boston's penalty kill, which has been excellent. (The Bruins recently had a string in which they killed off 19 consecutive power plays, spanning the Eastern Conference finals and Stanley Cup Final.)

"This matchup is not good with Z out, let's face it," coach Bruce Cassidy said Tuesday. "[The Blues] are a big, heavy team, so we lose that element. But someone else is going to have to step up, and I think we can do it as a group."

There's a chance Grzelcyk can return in this series. Meanwhile, Cassidy floated the idea of dressing seven defensemen because there is no obvious singular replacement for Chara. Steven Kampfer is the most experienced reserve the Bruins have available, and he's played in two playoff games so far, but he's a right-shot defenseman, not left like Chara, so that messes up some pairings. The Bruins could turn to youngsters: Urho Vaakanainen, Jakub Zboril and Jeremy Lauzon are all left-handed shots, but they have very limited NHL experience (20 combined games among them). This is an area where St. Louis can exploit Boston.

Special teams matter

A team can win a Stanley Cup without exceptional special teams; in fact, the 2011 Bruins had a pretty crummy power play. The Blues have been, at times, a better team at 5-on-5 but lost two of the first three games due to taking a combined 14 penalties (and also being without one of their primary penalty killers, Oskar Sundqvist, in Game 3). Boston's power play is historically good and has the power to deliver big punches. Look no further than Game 3, when Boston went 4-for-4 on the power play ... on only four shots.

The Blues' power play, meanwhile, was almost a liability for them in the Game 4 victory; they couldn't sustain any momentum from it and even gave up a short-handed goal. Credit the Bruins for having an underrated penalty kill, but it's clear that special teams will matter in the outcome of this series.

Binnington, Johansson, Krug will get paid

Rookie sensation Jordan Binnington has been the avatar for the Blues' unflappability in the second half of the season. There's no way St. Louis makes it to this point without the goaltender, and he's up for a new contract this summer. The problem for St. Louis is that there are no obvious comparables for Binnington's next deal. The Blues obviously want to keep him around, but as a by-product of their own success, they'll just have to shell out more money to do so. It's likely the sides settle for a bridge deal if they can't agree on terms.

Boston orchestrated two of the season's best trade-deadline moves in acquiring Charlie Coyle (nine goals these playoffs) and Marcus Johansson (11 points in 19 games). Johansson is a particularly interesting case because he becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer. His current contract (a shade under $4.6 million this season) was viewed as a value for a top-six forward, but he wasn't producing like one. The Bruins have used Johansson on the third line, and he's flourishing in that role. That could inspire teams to reexamine where he belongs in the lineup come next season. But regardless, his contract value will be much more than what would have been offered a few months ago.

Torey Krug enters unrestricted free agency after next season. Boston knows Krug loves to play for the Bruins, but the team also knows he's due for a raise from the $5.25 million he's making. The 5-foot-9 undrafted defenseman broke into the league because of his offensive prowess, but over the past few years, he's emerged as a standout all-around defenseman and should be paid as such. The Bruins will likely figure something out, but this playoff run has certainly raised Krug's profile. Other usual big spenders might try to get in on the action. It's worth wondering if Krug, a native of Livonia, Michigan, might consider the Detroit Red Wings. On a rebuilding team with new general manager Steve Yzerman, Krug would instantly become the No. 1 defenseman and a piece around whom to build.

A new trend in goalie workloads?

The two goalies left standing in the Final weren't overworked during the regular season. The Bruins lightened Tuukka Rask's load (he also missed some time with injuries and a personal absence) as the Finn started only 45 games this season -- a far cry from his 67 starts in winning the 2014-15 Vezina Trophy. It helped that Boston has an ultracompetent backup in Jaroslav Halak.

Rask was the most outstanding goalie in the first three rounds, leading Boston to the Final with a .942 all-situations save percentage. "I don't know exactly how many games we were going to play Tuukka [in the regular season], but it was definitely going to be less than a typical No. 1," Cassidy said earlier in the playoffs, noting he preferred somewhere around the 50- to 55-start range. "It's been lower than that. I think it's helped him. I don't know how much -- only he can answer that."

Binnington comes in at 30 starts, since he didn't make his debut until late December. That means we'll have the seventh consecutive season with a Stanley Cup-winning goalie making fewer than 60 starts (Braden Holtby led Washington last season after also seeing a decrease in his usual responsibilities, in part because Philipp Grubauer was challenging for the No. 1 role).

Considering teams often try to emulate the most recent Cup winner, we'll start to see teams reexamine their practices. This feels particularly pertinent to a few teams on the cusp. The Vegas Golden Knights, Winnipeg Jets, Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens all overworked their starting goaltenders (60 or more starts for each of them) and might begin looking at contingency plans to lighten the load as soon as next season to keep those guys fresh for playoff time.

There's still a place for heavy hockey

At the end of the Western Conference finals, Sharks coach Peter DeBoer made this observation: "I think the two hardest, heaviest teams are in the Final. Everyone talks about skill and all the small players, and there is room for that, but I don't think it's an accident."

DeBoer is onto something. Yes, the league has been trending shorter and speedier (which was spurred, in part, by the Penguins' back-to-back championship teams), but there's still a place for heavy hockey, especially in the playoffs. The Blues are a tall team -- they have eight players who stand 6-foot-3 or taller. Even though Boston, on average, is a smaller team, the Bruins play a tough brand. Replay any of the first four games, and there's a good chance you'll see these teams beating each other up and shoving each other around.

What does this mean going forward? That the big guys won't be phased out as quickly as we thought. Patrick Maroon had a somewhat disappointing regular season but has been an important presence in the playoffs. In fact, Maroon and the Blues' playoff run could directly boost the value of some other aging, bigger-bodied vets looking for new deals this summer.

Get ready for more retreads

We know what you're thinking: NHL GMs haven't exactly been creative with hirings in the past. In fact, five of the head-coaching vacancies this year were filled by men who already had NHL head-coaching experience.

But Cassidy and Craig Berube's respective successes are going to mean this trend won't end anytime soon. Consider that when Berube was fired in Philadelphia in 2015, his future as a head coach looked bleak. His two-year stint was unmemorable, and then-GM Ron Hextall categorized Berube as a coach who couldn't get the most out of his players. The Blues gave Berube a chance when they needed a replacement in the middle of this season. He maintained a similar style, and this time it worked (or the circumstance was right). Berube instilled the right confidence to help his players out of a funk. What's more, people in the league have been lauding Berube for the way he guided his team past the hand-pass fiasco in the Western Conference finals.

Cassidy was also a flameout in his first stint behind the bench. Much younger and in Washington, his tenure ended because he was clearly out of his depth. He lost the locker room and struggled to communicate with some players. "I was young. I had really no NHL experience," Cassidy said recently. "So you walk into an NHL locker room and there's still a little bit of awe in that." He rehabbed his reputation as an assistant, and then in the AHL, and appears much more prepared this time around.

Seeing these two coaches thrive will likely inspire the next round of hiring, so chin up, all you coaches out there looking for a second chance!

All is quiet now, but expect some officiating reform

With the exception of Berube complaining that his team was getting called for too many penalties, we haven't heard too much about officiating in the Stanley Cup Final so far. Let's not forget, though, that officiating controversies consumed everyone -- in and out of the league -- for the first six weeks of the playoffs. So much so that commissioner Gary Bettman showed rare candor in his pre-Stanley Cup Final news conference, explaining he was just as frustrated as fans by missed calls and rule-book loopholes when it comes to video review.

"It would be good if I kept my head from exploding," Bettman said of the uncalled hand-pass play that marred the San Jose-St. Louis series.

So even if we make it through this final week without any controversy, don't think the conversation about expanding video review will go away anytime soon. Change should come next season in some form. The competition committee is scheduled to meet June 11 in Toronto, and the next GMs meeting will be June 20, ahead of the draft in Vancouver, British Columbia. A resolution could be announced shortly after that.

Diego Maradona has told Manchester United he is the man to help restore them to former glories following a desperate campaign that ended trophyless, while rivals Manchester City and Liverpool won major silverware.

United have not won the title since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 and Maradona, coaching Dorados in the Mexican second division, believes he is the man to change their fortunes.

"If Manchester [United] need a coach, I'm the man to do it," Maradona told FourFourTwo. "I know they sell lots of shirts around the world, but they need to win trophies, too. I can do that for them."

Maradona, a World Cup winner with Argentina in 1986, had a spell in charge of the national team between 2008 and 2010.

The 58-year-old admits to having a soft spot for United but revealed they have now been overtaken by City.

"Manchester United used to be my favourite English team for so long," he said. "So many great players and a great team under Alex Ferguson.

"But now I have to say Man City. I know you shouldn't change like that but it's because of Kun [Aguero]. We speak a lot and he plays in a very good team.

"With United I liked Ander Herrera. Paul Pogba? Doesn't work hard enough."