On to my list.
Will the President’s Trophy winner earn 125 points?
The consensus after the free agent season was that the dominant Western Conference only got more dominant. The powerhouse clubs were mostly able to remain intact, while fringe teams like Minnesota, Dallas, Edmonton and Nashville all made significant additions. The flip side of this coin is that the path has likely been cleared for an Eastern Conference team to again feast on weaker competition and win the President’s Trophy.
Nothing new here, but I have a theory that the team with the best record has the chance to crack 125 points for the first time since the ‘95-’96 season. And that is because Connor McDavid is finally going to be eligible for the NHL entry draft. If you’re not familiar with McDavid, he is the latest in the long history of Canadian teen phenoms. He was so dominant as a youth, Canada granted an age exception so that McDavid could start his junior hockey career at the age of 15 instead of 16. He’s done nothing but dominate since. To put him in historical perspective, he’s doing things that only players with names like Crosby and Tavares have done.
But as good as McDavid is, there is now more incentive than usual for bad NHL teams to be very bad this year. The competition for the No.1 draft pick may be even more heated than the race for the playoffs. And that could mean that the good teams rack up points at a level we haven’t seen in some time.
Will the President’s Trophy winner be in black or blue?
Most of the teams you could expect to vie for the best record in the NHL actually have black in their color schemes (Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, LA, San Jose). With Tampa Bay and St. Louis representing the blue contenders (and yes, I’m leaving out the Rangers). But as I mentioned, I just don’t think a Western Conference team will be able to earn as many easy points due to playing so many more games against other teams in the west. So let’s look at the East.
Pittsburgh has a shot if their stars remain healthy and they aren’t hit with the massive number of depth injuries they had last year. But the bottom-feeders in the Metro have gotten better. The Islanders have filled holes in net and on defense, their biggest weaknesses. New Jersey finally shed the albatross of Martin Brodeur. And even the eliminated-before-game-one Hurricanes sound more likely to limit the damage of their own overpaid, aged goaltender Cam Ward.
The Bruins have an excellent shot to make it back-to-back seasons with the President’s Trophy. Though they are gradually starting to feel the cap crunch, with Johnny Boychuck joining Tyler Seguin and Jarome Iginla as players too expensive to keep. And the Bruins will have to contend with a Tampa Bay Lightning squad that is significantly improved from the team that already earned 101 points last season.
Will Detroit continue repeating recent mistakes?
Ken Holland is loyal, no doubt about that. But his loyalty has often caused him to pay a little extra and for a few extra years when signing his own players. All that little extra has begun to add up over the past few seasons. Holland has claimed all of these aging/ineffective veterans under contract are strategic and intended to build depth. Unfortunately the reality has been the exact opposite - stunted growth for prospects and thinner depth on the NHL club.
By artificially holding players down in the minors, sometimes 1-3 years into their prime, Holland has essentially wasted cheap contract years for talented players while overpaying to get the same (or lesser) results from veterans he then can’t trade when he needs to make space. The Red Wings have easily had $5 million to $10 million in wasted salary the past several seasons. Meanwhile, teams like Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles have deftly integrated cheap youngsters into their rosters and used the savings to sign and trade for elite, impact players.
The truth of Holland’s folly was finally laid bare last season, when a mountain of injuries forced the Red Wings to play their NHL-ready prospects. And shockingly (or not) the team did just fine. And this season appears like it will play out similarly, only on the blue-line. The pre-season made it clear that multiple prospects (Xaiver Ouellet and Nick Jensen) were superior to Detroit’s third pair Jakub Kindl and Brian Lashoff. Unfortunately, the market is pretty dry for unloading AHL-quality defenseman signed to NHL contracts, so Ouellet and Jensen will likely start the season in the minors, waiting for an injury to let them take the place on the roster they’ve already earned. How many games is Holland willing to burn using his less than best lineup? And will this strategy ultimately cost him his coach?
Will the Western Conference send 10 teams to the playoffs again?
When NHL re-alignment debuted, there was a fair amount of complaining about the unequal conferences. Don’t the teams in the West have an easier go of it since they only have 14 teams fighting for 8 playoffs spots versus the East’s 16 teams vying for 8? From a pure numbers perspective, yes. But that ignored the fact that most of the 14 teams in the West play at a level that’s on another planet than the teams in the East. Last year, the two teams moving West (Detroit and Columbus) both made the playoffs in the East. Will they be able to repeat? I’ve already touched on Detroit, but what about Columbus?
It took a long time drafting at the top and a rebuild of a team that was torn down before it even accomplished anything, but the CBJs finally look to be consistently competitive. Right now they’ve been hit by the injury bug, with Brandon Dubinsky, Boone Jenner and Ryan Murray all sidelined.
You’ll note that I left off Nathan Horton, whose return is uncertain right now. But having only gotten 36 games and 19 points out of the rugged winger since he signed in Columbus, the Blue Jackets have shown they can compete without him. And they may have to get very comfortable with his absence, you never want to hear words like “degenerative,” “back” and “condition” in the same sentence when a player’s injury status comes up. Long-term, this could hurt, since the oft-injured Horton is only in year two of his seven-year contract.
If all goes well for the squad, new addition Scott Hartnell will help cover up some of the thinned forward depth, Ryan Murray will take a step forward allowing Jack Johnson to play a reduced role and Sergei Bobrovsky will have another good-to-excellent season.
My hunch is Columbus will make it in again. While non-playoff teams like the Devils and Islanders should be better and make the race tighter, I think the Flyers are going to miss out. After all, the Flyers have yet to learn the lesson of goalie Steve Mason, one the Blue Jackets learned a long time ago. That lesson: Steve Mason is not an NHL goalie.
What happened to Vancouver?
I was very tempted to make my last question about Jaromir Jagr. The aged Czech had a monster year last season. Jagr showed he actually was the player that Teemu Seleanne imagined himself to be. The good year put Jagr within striking distance of moving into the top four all time for goals and points scored. But this is supposed to be about Vancouver.
Only two years ago the Canucks were coming off of back-to-back President’s Trophies. How is it possible they dropped so far, so quickly? Has father time finally caught up to Vancouver? Or was it just a case of John Tortorella being a terrible coach? Probably that one. Well, that and bad luck.
The Canucks actually had the 8th best possession numbers in the league and were 5th in the gauntlet of the Western Conference. Meanwhile, mediocre possession teams like the Ducks and Avalanche made the playoffs by finishing two and three in PDO (shooting% plus save%), meaning they were getting every lucky bounce offensively and defensively. Could one or both of these teams falter to make room for a playoff return for the Canucks?
The Ducks added Ryan Kesler and added by subtraction when Teemu Seleanne retired, but they also have the untested duo of Frederik Andersen and John Gibson in net. Meanwhile, the Avalanche let legit contributors Paul Stastny and PA Parenteau go so they could bring in washed-up Brad Stuart, Daniel Briere and cement-feet Jarome Iginla. I look forward to watching Nate MacKinnon and Ryan O’Reilly blazing up and down the ice as the aforementioned trio huffs and puffs, failing to keep up.
As to the Canucks? Despite losing Kesler to the Ducks and driving out Roberto Luongo and Cory Schnieder over the past few years, I do like the additions of Radim Vrbata, Derek Dorsett and even the maligned Ryan Miller. WIth a change of luck swinging their way this season, I would not be shocked to see the Canucks again break 100 points and return to the playoffs.
Alright, lets drop the puck already.
