and his pending status as a free

The National Hockey League announced a tentative $18.9 million settlement Monday with more than 300 retired players who sued the league and accused it of failing to protect them from head injuries or warning them of the risks involved with playing.The lawsuit Womens Jared McCann Jersey , consolidated in federal court in Minnesota, was by far the largest facing the league. The NHL, as it has for years, did not acknowledge any liability for the players’ claims in the proposed settlement and can terminate the deal if all 318 players or their estates don’t elect to participate.The settlement is significantly less than the billion-dollar agreement reached between the NFL and its former players on the same issue of head injuries. Each player who opts in would receive $22,000 and could be eligible for up to $75,000 in medical treatment.“The cash amount of $22,000, that’s small, but we were always looking for (medical) coverage to begin with,” said former player Reed Larson Jonathan Huberdeau Jersey , who was among the first to sue the league over head injuries that could lead to the brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. “The bottom line is this is monitoring, testing and hopefully help for players that will either have (CTE) now or could get it in the future.”Players’ attorney Stuart Davidson said he knows there will be comparisons between the NHL and NFL settlements, even though they differ drastically.“When you have a defendant who has spent millions of dollars litigating a case for four years to prove that nothing is wrong with getting your brain bashed in, you can only get so far,” Davidson told The Associated Press. “I think it’s important for players who have an opportunity to settle their case with the NHL now to understand that before they get anything through a trial against the NHL it’s going to cost millions of dollars in experts to get there, and that’s going to have to be paid for before they see a penny from any recovery, assuming they win.”An NHL spokesman said the league would not make any comment until after the opt-in period of 75 days for players. There were 146 players who added their names to the lawsuit as plaintiffs between November 2013 and this August and 172 more who joined as claimants.In addition to the cash payment, the settlement includes neurological testing and assessment for players paid for by the league; up to $75,000 in medical treatment for players who test positive on two or more tests; and a “Common Good Fund” for retired players in need, including those who did not participate in the litigation http://www.floridapanthersteamshops.com/authentic-keith-yandle-jersey , worth $2.5 million.Pittsburgh star Sidney Crosby, who has dealt with concussion problems throughout his career but is not involved in the lawsuit that includes only retired players, told reporters after practice the league, Players’ Association and others must all have a role in the issue.“It’s something as players that we know that risk,” Crosby said. “Obviously we know a lot more now than we did before, even a lot more than we did when I had my first one. It’s something you hope they can mutually agree on. It’s something that I think is important from both sides.”Retired player Daniel Carcillo, one of the plaintiffs, urged players not to accept the settlement. In a series of tweets , he said players would be forced to see the same NHL and NHLPA doctors to determine if they’d be eligible for treatment.Carcillo also asked for Wayne Gretzky’s thoughts: “I want him to use his platform to help the men who protected him throughout his career. Lack of pressure from former players is a direct result of this insulting attempt at a settlement.”Charles Zimmerman, who was a lead attorney for players Womens Authentic Nick Bjugstad Jersey , said he was most disappointed the lawsuit couldn’t assure future benefits for all retired players like in the NFL.“I think it’s a very appropriate result and a good outcome in a very contested, hotly litigated matter,” Zimmerman said. “The main goal in the case was to get medical testing and treatment for the players, something that the NHL wouldn’t agree to for the four years that we’d been litigating and that’s what we achieved.”The settlement comes four months after a federal judge denied class-action status for the retired players, a significant victory for the league in the lawsuit filed in November 2013. U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson in July denied class-action status, citing “widespread differences” in state laws about medical monitoring that would “present significant case management difficulties.”The bid for class-action status would have created one group of all living former NHL players and one group of all retired players diagnosed with a neurological disease, disorder or condition. Had Nelson certified the class action, more than 5,000 former players would have been able to join the case.“It’s not surprising after the NHL prevailed on the class-action motion that there would have been movements in this direction,” NHLPA executive director Don Fehr told reporters in Toronto. “I’m glad for the parties that it’s all over. Hopefully people can go on with their lives and now we can perhaps deal with these issues with the NHL without having to worry about the effect on the litigation.”Davidson called Nelson’s decision a “watershed moment” for the case and that players lost leverage as a result.“It severely limited the damages to the NHL owners and benefits to the NHL players Roberto Luongo Jersey ,” Vanderbilt University sports economic professor John Vrooman wrote in an email to the AP. “This decision essentially forced the 140 (plus) players involved in the suit to settle and prevented the participation of all other potential litigants. So it will seem that both sides ‘won’ in what was really a lopsided victory for the owners. It’s just that all of the owners won by gaining current and future protection from damages and a minor fraction of the players won something that they would have zero chance in obtaining in isolation versus the league.”Settlement talks ramped back up in July with an agreement reached Nov. 7.Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly have, on multiple occasions, said the lawsuit had no merit.“When it comes to focusing on concussions and trying to understand them and how to treat them, we’ve been leaders in the field,” Bettman told the AP in May. “And that gets completely lost in the rhetoric of the litigation, and I don’t like discussing the litigation. There is a sense because it gets sensationalized that the reality of our position with player safety is somehow at odds with the reality of the science and the medicine and it’s not true. We study it very closely.”The NFL settlement covers more than 20,000 retired players, and lawyers expect payouts to top $1.5 billion over 65 years. As of last month , the NFL concussion lawsuit claims panel has approved more than $500 million in awards and paid out $330 million. The Columbus Blue Jackets reported today they have sent star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky home after an incident where he failed to meet team expectations. What he was sent home for has not been reported, but the 'incident' was serious enough that a message needed to be sent to the player that his behavior was not acceptable.Considering Bobrovsky's status as a pending unrestricted free agent with the Blues Jackets organization http://www.floridapanthersteamshops.com/authentic-vincent-trocheck-jersey , this news comes as a bit of a shocking development.聽 In the team-issued press release, the聽Columbus Blue Jackets聽stated Bobrovsky would not be with the team for Thursday's game against the Nashville Predators and Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen made the following statement on the official team website:advertisingThere are certain expectations and values that we have established for our players that define our culture. An incident occurred in which Sergei failed to meet those expectations and values, so we made the decision that he would not be with the team for tonight鈥檚 game. This is an internal matter and we will have no further comment at this time.Some are wondering if there's a connection between Bobrovsky's poor performance in a loss on Tuesday where he was pulled from the game and his pending status as a free agent. Head coach John Tortorella would not go into any more detail about the situation when asked by media but sources around the NHL have started to connect the dots.advertisingSo this would seem like a one-day thing.... although in the bigger picture, hard to fathom Bobrovsky re-signing at any time with UFA status July 1... [t.co]— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) January 10, 2019What This MeansIf an explanation is never given, speculation will run wild as to what led to this 鈥渟uspension鈥?by the team and more than that, it will be assumed that this is the beginning of the end of Bobrovsky's time in Columbus. He will immediately become a name to watch as the franchise and the rest of the NHL head towards the聽trade deadline on February 25.A former two-time Vezina Trophy winner will certainly garner some interest around the NHL as a rental but the聽public acknowledgments that he's interested in being the highest paid goalie in the NHL will be a story to watch as teams do or don't show interest in signing him long-term.聽He hasn't exactly been the Bobrovsky of old this season.advertising