#and of the ovechkin era. to have seen this team through so many ups and downs

[holtbys-left-eyebrow]

i am forever thinking about:

“the words that dc fans been waiting to hear since 1974, the washington capitals are the 2018 stanley cup champions! it’s not a dream, it’s not a desert mirage, it’s lord stanley, and he is coming to washington!!”

[sergeifyodorov]

would you actually be willing to give like a pretty long rundown of those main guys from the 2015 draft class?? because i would be Very interested

Of course! I wrote this in a Google doc so I could get it all down. It's a LOT btw -- this is the abridged version, leaving out what are probably important details, and it's still [checks] 11k words long. Sorry about that.

Anyone who tells you that the draft is a science is an idiot not worth their twenty-dollar stadium beer. The draft has analytical elements, sure, but it is a crapshoot through and through. If you dare to take a look back on draft histories from the past ten years -- the past twenty, the past thirty -- only rarely is the first pick, the “best in show,” actually the best of his class. I mean, no wonder, right? How well can you determine how good a man is going to be at hockey when you have only seen him as a teenager? Accuracy and prophecy are not kin.

Every ten years, though, you come across someone whose trajectory is easy to map. A prospect who is so head and shoulders above everyone else -- in numbers, in the eye test -- that you cannot help but say that they are going to be The Next One. God save the poor boy you put that name on.

In this case, it is 2014, and they are speaking those words again. On the dingy ice of an OHL arena, a red-haired Toronto boy with scared fawn’s eyes paces around the circles, faster than anyone else in the building. There are articles written about him already, calling his experience the torture test and labelling him Jesus, the saviour, the new great. It will get worse for him from here.

A Generational Prospect

It is 2004, and all eyes are on Sidney Crosby. He has eclipsed QMJHL scoring records. He performs highlight-reel antics. It is known that he will make the NHL as a teenager, and that whichever team has him will have an asset they should not ever think to relinquish.

Now, in 2023, all expectations of him are blown away. He is fifteenth on the all-time scoring list, having played most of his life in the dead-puck era, and will be inside the top ten by the time he retires. He has never been below a point per game, having gotten to a hundred points as an eighteen-year-old rookie and only slowed down to ninety at thirty-five. He has won three Cups; two Harts; two each Art Ross and Rocket Richard.

Something similar can be said for his contemporary, one Alex Ovechkin, sixteenth in all-time scoring, second ever in goals. While neither were always the most singular, dominant player of the past eighteen years (has it really been that long?) their longevity and consistent high-level play have cemented them into that tier of all-time greats. 

Such players only emerge once (or, for them, twice) in a generation; a “generational talent.” Gordie Howe was the first, before drafting happened at all, then Gretzky, joined as a part of the WHA merger, then Lemieux, then, debatably, Jagr through the early half of the dead-puck era, then Crosby and Ovechkin. Jagr was drafted fifth overall partly due to political constraints (it was 1990, and Czechia was behind the Iron Curtain), but all of the other drafted ones went first. While development curves for everyone else are hard to map, it is easy to tell, for them, how good they are as youths. We all call Gretzky the “Great One,” but he actually got that nickname before he was a teenager, because of how much better than the rest of his peers he was.

This is how we go up to the 2015 draft. Let’s say that it is September 2014, a full hockey season before the draft, so we can set the scene. Go back to the dingy Erie rink, watch the red-haired boy speed around the ice.

This is Connor McDavid. He was born in January just outside Toronto; if you are unfamiliar with the term “GTA,” I will pause now to tell you that it means Greater Toronto Area, and that it is the nexus of all hockey in the world. He is a Leafs fan, as so many of the GTA hockey-playing hopefuls are. 

Connor is an unusual child, even by young hockey prospect standards. Entry to any of the CHL major junior leagues -- the OHL, the WHL, the QMJHL -- starts at sixteen, but select few can apply early, and if they are academically, physically, and emotionally deemed adept they can be accepted for exceptional status and join at fifteen. This happens once every two or three years nowadays; Tavares and Ekblad were the only ones to predate McDavid. As well as being deemed exceptional by the board of the CHL, he is exceptional among peers, too: intelligent and analytical, black-and-white, painfully shy. He works hard in school, desperate to avoid coming off as a “dumb jock.” Media interviewers ask for him, but they have to change the settings on their microphones in order to pick up his voice, it is so soft. 

He has already won trophies; scholastic achievement, sportsmanlike behaviour, CHL rookie of the year. He will score at least one point in all but one of the first eighteen games of the 2014-15 OHL season, before breaking his hand in a fight (getting himself a Gordie Howe hatty, being that he already has a goal and an assist). He will score a hundred points in thirty-eight games, and a hundred and twenty points in the forty-seven games he will play.

Understandably, his name is penned in at number one on the draft board. Even such deficits as breaking a hand and being out for six weeks don’t tank his stock, it is so obvious how well on track he is to outpace all but the best.

He is sweet and shy, a captain of Erie based mostly on skill, and tight-laced into the destiny of future franchise saviour.

At least he has a friend, though, right?

Dylan

The 2014-15 Erie Otters are a good team. A great one, even -- third in league standings by season’s end, and you don’t get that far if your single generational superstar is sidelined half the year with a hand injury.

This is where Dylan comes in. Like Connor, he’s a GTA boy, and a young Leafs fan. Unlike Connor, he’s part of a serious hockey family -- the middle child of three. His older brother Ryan has already been drafted, in the first round, no less. He’s a real student of the game, too, a stats obsessive and a calm, steadfast personality. 

Remember how we said the draft is a crapshoot? That’s very true. Prospects may have precise rankings when all is said and done, but in the meantime I find it best thinking of them as instead arranging into tiers -- there’s the generational talent in this year, but disregarding him we have a first overall-level, then a small handful of top prospects. Not saviours in their entirety, but certain to make a team very happy. Dylan projects as the latter group -- he’ll be somewhere between three and five. In 2014-15, he’s the OHL scoring leader, and takes the Erie Otters’ single-season record.

He and Connor are also best friends. Connor’s quiet, anxious even, but Dylan has a coolheaded sort of confidence that brings out the best in him. Rarely are they pictured without each other; rarely are they spoken to without mentioning the other. There’s a sweet little video out there of the Otters going to New York state and going on this little ziplining/outdoor climbing gym, and Connor and Dylan are about as glued to each other’s sides as you can be while obeying the harness safety rules. In hockey terms, while a little young for it, they’re married. Much like Crosby and Malkin are, although over a much shorter term, and publically the two Otters are much closer.

Dylan is the one I feel as if I can talk the least about. He is mostly defined by what he is not: not Connor, to start, and before the actual draft takes place that is the most of it. 

Of course, that’s the most of what any of it is, isn’t it? These are teenagers, separated into imprecise tiers and mostly defined by which tier they slot into. The three boys below Connor, no matter how good they are, are defined by being not Connor.

Jack Eichel most of all.

Jack, to start, is American, unlike any of the other three. He’s a late birthday -- born in November of 1996 instead of  the first eight and a half months of 1997 -- so he’s, in theory, had another year to adapt. (Brief footnote: the September 15 cutoff is what determines draft eligibility, either the year you turn eighteen or the year you turn nineteen. If you were born in, say, June of 2000, you would be eligible for the draft in 2018. If you had the audacity to be born in October of 2000 instead, you’d have to wait until 2019.) His development pipeline is also unlike the others, having come up into the NCAA, college hockey, and playing at the US National Development team before committing to Boston University. He won the Hobey Baker award as a freshman, and led the NCAA in scoring as a rookie.

He was marketed, coming into the draft, as the American Connor -- the new face of American hockey, a homegrown star, a fellow generational talent, although that was a feeble marketing strategy to dull the disappointment of going second to greatness. He was proud and polite, quiet but not scared, a young man uncomfortably aware of his own myth and rather irritated at the fact he had a myth in the first place. Taken in and treated well, he would probably have a well-suited disposition to a high-stress, playoff-bound team.

It’s unfortunate that that wouldn’t realize until eight years after he was drafted.

The Draft Itself, or, What Caused All These Problems In The First Place

The draft lottery rolls around. The lottery and the draft take place on different days -- the lottery several weeks before, so that for a long time the boys have an idea of to whom they will go. The first four teams to pick are, in order:

Edmonton. Edmonton had been very bad, for a very long time, and had three shiny prizes already to show for it: Taylor Hall, drafted first overall in 2010; Nail Yakupov, drafted first overall in 2012; and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, drafted first overall in 2013. I’m sure you already know this, but Edmonton was Gretzky’s team, while Gretzky won all his cups, and they now stand to get themselves another generational talent in Connor McDavid.

Buffalo. The Sabres have a few decent pieces: Ryan O’Reilly, Sam Reinhart. They haven’t made the playoffs in a few years, and have plummeted to the bottom of the standings, finishing thirtieth out of thirty.

Arizona. Arizona has never gotten off the ground, not once. They are a dust mote of a franchise, held in place by Gary Bettman’s fragile ego and the skimmings of Original Six markets. Their survival, as doomed as we know it is, is banking on a distant hope of good prospect luck and better PDO.

Toronto. While Arizona is the smallest of small markets, Toronto is… well, it’s Toronto. Remember earlier, how I said that the GTA is the nexus of hockey? Toronto is called the Centre of the Universe, and for good goddamn reason. The Leafs are one of the most storied franchises in the NHL, and simultaneously one of the winningest (the second-most Stanley Cups, after Montreal) and the losingest (their most recent Cup was almost sixty years ago.) Their fanbase dwarfs all but the most hardcore of French Canadian separatist contingents. There’s a common phrase now, when any hockey news is mentioned -- but how does this affect the Leafs? It’s well-done satire.

And with four teams, we have four boys. So I come upon the last one now: Mitch Marner. Mitch, like Dylan and Connor, is a GTA boy, a born and raised Leafs fan on an OHL team. He plays for the London Knights -- a diminutive forward (he weighs in at 160 pounds soaking wet at eighteen, and eight years later barely cracks 180) with fantastic playmaking skills, the creativity and gall to do things other players have never even thought of. He’s a sweet one, too, bubbly and energetic and cuddly and kind.

Here is how the draft goes:

The Oilers take the stage first, for the fourth time in six years. The ceremony is unnecessary. Connor McDavid is the name everyone knows they will say. Connor walks up to the stage, looking vaguely nauseous, and dons the jersey and the hat. (His facial expression in the interviews afterward is thoroughly dissected over the next eight years. Some say it’s simple stage fright; others say it’s personal distaste for the Oilers -- remember, Toronto boy, Toronto heart. I choose to believe it’s the first one. Not all of us are John Tavares.)

After a first-round prospect is chosen, they bring him down for an interview, then shuffle him off to some arena underbelly for photos upon photos. Connor performs his niceties, but before he is taken back, he asks to stay. He wants to watch Dylan get drafted.

The Buffalo Sabres come second, and pick Jack Eichel. Eichel is asked, throughout, how he feels about Connor, being behind Connor, coming second to Connor. The narrative being pushed is called McEichel -- the Canadian wunderkind versus the American one -- and he wants no part in it. He’s impressed by Connor’s play, in their few brief meetings he thinks of him as nice enough, he wants to carve out his own path.

This refusal to play along may have been the start of the discontent, in hindsight. The media clearly wasn’t going to get anything out of soft-voiced scared-eyed perfect Canadian boy Connor, but Jack, sharper edges and colder heart, might be good for a soundbite or two about this new league-made rivalry. Jack, though, ever aware, puts himself solidly into Generic Hockey Interview voice and backs off.

The Coyotes come third. Here is where a choice occurs, the first genuine decision. Connor McDavid had been slotted into first pick since the day he got accepted for exceptional status. Eichel had taken a few years more, but his place in second after Connor was well known for months on end. Dylan and Mitch, however, were up in the air. Do you pick the big one with more points, or the small one with star power?

The Coyotes follow the conventional hockey wisdom, and take the big boy. Connor waits to watch his friend take the jersey, then hugs him in the wings.

Finally, the Leafs.

Let’s actually take a step back to talk about the Leafs rebuild, for a second, because it, like everything the Leafs have ever done, is a testament to failure. Also, somewhat, because it is relevant. Also, moreso, because I can’t shut up about hockey and you’ve asked me to talk as long as I like. If you’re still reading, I want you to know that a) I am ever thankful for your time and b) we’re, like, just getting started here.

The Leafs’ last contending era was before the 04-05 lockout season, which means it predates the salary cap. They struggled in the midsection, for a long time, then finally fell enough to gain the fifth overall pick in 2008, with which they selected a big tough young defenceman named Luke Schenn, the first official piece of the Leafs’ rebuild, strange as it may be. Luke, while competent enough, was obviously not the sort of franchise-changing star the Leafs needed, and they struggled in the midsection again, before gaining, once more, the fifth overall pick, with which they selected Schenn’s partner, one Morgan Rielly. The two would be perfect partners, but we won’t know this for eleven years. Luke was traded twelve hours after Rielly’s draft.

Rielly is still in the AHL the next year, 2013, when the Leafs make the playoffs. This is the infamous 4-1 series: the Leafs go down 3-1 in the series, claw their way back up to game seven. They gain a 4-1 lead, going into the third period, and then blow it completely and lose the game, and the series, in overtime. They do not make the playoffs in 2013-14, and before the 2014-15 season begins they change management. The man they install as President decides to tank, and tank hard, selling as much of the Leafs as he can in the hopes of landing that elusive first pick.

They end up with fourth overall, and Mike Babcock, the Leafs’ head coach, does not want Mitch Marner, instead asking the then-management for the bigger defenceman, a boy named Hanifin who will go fifth to the Hurricanes. The Leafs take Marner anyway. Watch him as his name is called. He, like the first three, sits in a nest of other prospects and their families -- Mitch actually sits right behind Jack Eichel -- but unlike them, when his name is called the other prospects lean over to offer him congratulations, as well as his parents and brother. Mat Barzal, from across the aisle, offers a bro-hug as Mitch goes by.

The rest of the draft goes as usual. The 2015 draft, beyond narratively, is one of the deepest drafts in recent memory; players you may recognize include Timo Meier, Mikko Rantanen, Travis Konecny, Sebastian Aho (the Carolina one!), Roope Hintz, Kirill Kaprizov, Troy Terry… the list goes on. These players have their own stories, but few really tie in to this one. (So far.)

Summer passes; we move on. Training camp rolls around.

Connor McDavid, as expected, makes the team. He moves in with Taylor Hall, a fellow first overall. Jack Eichel also makes the team.

Dylan and Mitch do not. Dylan’s reasons are unknown to me, but Mitch is sent down because, again, Babcock does not want him. He’s naturally undersized and does not have a frame that builds muscle; Babcock is not under the impression that young men in Mitch’s image make good hockey players. Both Mitch and Dylan are returned to the OHL.

The stage is set now; each boy has a team. Eight years on, only half of them are on those teams. But we can’t worry about that yet! We have to make it to the NHL first!

World Juniors and the Memorial Cup

Once Connor makes the Oilers, Dylan Strome is named captain of the Erie Otters. Very cool, to only get what you deserve after the golden boy is gone.

Jack and Connor are off playing with the big boys. They’ll get their own section later -- we have to work our way up, not up and down and up and down. I’ve got to be somewhat cohesive, you know? So, we’ll stay, for now, in the world of junior hockey.

The Otters and the London Knights, Mitch’s team, are in the wonderful circumstance of not only both being very good at the same time, but also being in the same division as one another. This means they see each other quite often (no plane travel in the OHL. Bus only.) and have thus formed… a bit of a rivalry. It is becoming difficult to dance around: Dylan Strome, despite the politeness they’ve shown each other at the draft, hates Mitch Marner.

And why wouldn’t you? He’s the one Dylan fought with all last season for the OHL scoring title; he’s fast on his feet and can shoot from impossible angles; he makes plays you’ve never even considered, much less considered possible. He dangles through the Otters and scores the easiest impossible goal you’ve ever seen and laughs as light as air about the whole thing. And he’s tiny. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Marner drew a lot of comparisons to Patrick Kane in his junior days -- thankfully without the character in common, but as a hockey player. An undersized (almost comically so) London winger with otherworldly ability to manifest scoring chances out of nothing. The exact sort of irritating worm that not one of us wants on the other team.

So, of course, they get put on the same team.

The 2016 World Juniors are summoned. Connor McDavid, then dealing with a broken collarbone and a great deal of pressure, is not on Team Canada’s roster. Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner both are. Suddenly and thankfully, the media’s focus shifts from one, false rivalry in McEichel to a very very real one.

I don’t want to dismiss what happens next as a mere symptom of the fact that hockey players are engineered to get along with their teammates, even if they don’t like each other. Admittedly, it does start that way -- Mitch is a winger and Dylan a centre, and both skilled, so the coach puts them on the same line. Simple enough. And then they spark up a friendship.

Dylan’s reasons for hating Mitch were not personal, just hockey-related. Dylan hated Mitch because he was good and he knew it, the simple way a teenager hates their direct competitor. On the same team, though, the competition aspect is removed, and the barrier for hatred is gone. This is the Dylan/Mitch enemies to lovers arc, if you want to put it that way.

Mitch, for the record, I doubt ever hated Dylan. He doesn’t have that in him, never had. He saw a rival, sure, and as soon as that rival wore a matching jersey I assume he taped the word friend over whatever defined their relationship before. Mitch is probably one of the most gregarious, friendly, charming hockey players out there. Beyond his cute little face and on-ice highlights, even. He’s loud, sure, but when he talks he knows how to include you. He finds out what you like and talks about it, he singles you out if you’re shy and builds up your confidence. He’s just plain nice.

Dylan, like the rest of us, was charmed. Within weeks he went from calling Mitch annoying to telling us all about how he loves cuddling (!?) with him. They became fast friends and great linemates.

Dylan’s not the only one Mitch Marner befriends at Worlds, though. Somewhere between matches, Mitch takes an elevator at the complex they’re staying at, and ends up sharing it with a boy from the American team, a tall square-jawed Mexican centre with a Justin Bieber obsession. This is Auston Matthews, one of the projected top picks of the 2016 draft -- born just two days after the cutoff that would have made him eligible to go in 2015. He played with Jack Eichel at the USNTDP, before taking his age-eighteen year to go play pro in Switzerland. He holds the NTDP scoring record as a seventeen-year-old, and will continue to hold it until Jack Hughes breaks onto the scene. The two boys in the elevator do not yet know it, but they are about to share the mantle of franchise saviour, for the franchise most desperately in need of saving.

Either way. The Canadians place sixth at World Juniors, the Americans do better, the Finns win the whole thing. (In the long run, Laine turns out not to be better than Matthews after all.) Mitch and Dylan go back to their OHL teams.

Erie and London tie in points that year, but London wins the OHL title and goes to Alberta for the Memorial Cup, the CHL trophy. Mitch Marner takes home the scoring title, the Stafford Smythe (CHL equivalent of the Conn Smythe), and the Memorial Cup itself. He is one of the most decorated winners in OHL history, touted as being clutch, creating magic, and racking up points. He has close friends in Dylan Strome and fellow Knight Matthew Tkachuk, who will be selected sixth overall in the 2016 draft, the second American after Auston Matthews himself. And when NHL training camp rolls around in the fall, even Babcock cannot deny he is ready, no matter how slight he may still be.

Connor Complex

There’s nothing that fuels story like a good rivalry, and the NHL was obsessed with marketing this rivalry. The Canadian versus the American. The perfect child of a long line of red-blooded southern Ontario tradition versus the Boston boy with a chip on his shoulder. Jack and Connor, Connor and Jack. They hyped Jack up the time leading up to the draft, trying to hint that he was almost as good -- no, just as good -- as McDavid himself.

He was not, and everyone knew.

The 2014-15 Sabres, then the worst team in the NHL and having done an elite job at tanking (they are one of the worst teams in the analytics era, besides the 2022-23 Anaheim Ducks -- I wonder what prize might be waiting at that number one spot? Surely not someone named Connor.) wanted McDavid. The Pegulas, the owners of the Sabres, tried to hide their disappointment in him as pride. They had an all-American star, they said, someone who had grown up not too far from Buffalo himself, and in the same country, no less. He would be the sort of man to lead them into a new golden age, away from the misery of the tank years.

And yet the narrative persisted. McEichel, they whispered. Look at how good Connor McDavid is, and look at how much Eichel is not him. McDavid, they say, McDavid McDavid McDavid. No article could be written about Jack without mentioning how he came second to Connor.

The Sabres tried to quell the whispers. Look at our boy, they say. They signed Eichel to an eight-year, ten million dollar contract, and in the beginning of the 2018-19 season they named him captain. Isn’t our boy great.

The team does not improve. The Sabres hadn’t made the playoffs for three years when they drafted Eichel; they still haven’t made the playoffs today. I wasn’t around to look, but the team was bad. Eichel did his best, but he was young and inexperienced and did not -- never did -- have captain’s blood in him; Ryan O’Reilly lost his love for the game.

The whispers of character issues start to come out. Jack Eichel is a “locker room cancer;” he’s selfish, stuck-up, quick-tempered. He’s caught in a cage where the only key is to be Connor, something which he never wanted to achieve in the first place, and never could have even if he did want it. The whole narrative was completely fabricated. He liked Connor well enough when they met.

I do imagine he has feelings about it, though, and feelings about Connor now. He didn’t know him, not enough to have an opinion on the boy, but the name followed him around long enough for him to think about it. Imagine it. You’re good in your field, great, even. You’re doing well enough to earn yourself a superstar contract, you’re an All-Star, and yet the only way you will get any recognition at all is when they say that you are worse than one of the greatest players ever to play the game. They lock you into a connection that you have never wanted, barring you from forging your own path. You exist permanently in that orange-and-blue shadow. I don’t blame Jack for being angry. I would be too.

Babcock

Auston Matthews was incredible from the jump. He was big, he was strong, his wrister is the stuff of legend. He won the Calder in his and Mitch’s rookie year, by a not insignificant margin, well ahead of Laine. He was a coach’s dream doll, unusual enough to be marketed and good enough to be useful. Unavoidably masculine even at nineteen.

Mitch less so. Mitch is still small, remember, and struggles to gain weight. I know I talk about his size a lot, but it’s genuinely important. Hockey and its fan culture has long been a group that prioritized size and raw power above all things. Mitch possessed neither of those things, and when he struggled with gaining muscle it was seen as an unwillingness to try. If you know anything about the ability of our bodies to gain or lose weight, you know that it is simply a genetic roll of the dice, a scale that puts a little bit of us into the “gains muscle mass easily” category and decides when to stop. Most hockey players actually aren’t very far up the muscle-gaining spectrum, especially when compared to American football or baseball players -- mass is strength, yes, but it’s also more to move around on ice -- but Mitch is especially low on the scale. Because of this, he is seen as unmanly, a dangerous thing to be.

The Leafs media market is a nightmare, and always has been. Because this is the Centre of the Universe, there are more eyes on the Leafs than on any other team. More eyes mean more writers, means you have to say weirder and wilder things to beg for clicks. Outrage is a good marketing tactic. Getting mad about one of the prize prospects seemingly not wanting to bulk up for the good of the team is a very easy thing to do.

What’s more, Mitch, after his entry-level contract had expired, had had a very difficult and long-drawn out contract negotiation, asking for a lot of money -- essentially the maximum that the Leafs could afford at the time. Because of the salary cap constraint, this was seen as kind of selfish. The angry clicks move. Mitch is sensitive, they say. Soft, selfish, weak.

It’s easy enough to dismiss out of hand when your uncle from Belleville does it, because what does he know. It’s different when it’s the head coach of the Leafs. Mike Babcock, is, at the time of hiring, the highest-paid coach in the NHL. He was signed before the 2015-16 season, and at that point had an eight-year contract, which would have carried him up until this year.

Mike Babcock sucked. Structurally, his teams were fine -- the Leafs made the playoffs in 2016-17, and haven’t missed it since, but he was awful, horribly mean to the boys under him, and especially, especially Mitch. 

We should skip ahead a little bit. It’s the beginning of the 2019-20 season. The Leafs have made the playoffs three times already, and lost in the first round each time -- but this, too, is not yet a phrase that strikes worry into our hearts. They’re young, and they have plenty of time left. 

Respected veteran Jason Spezza came home to the Leafs, having spent his career -- a player who might squeak the Hall of Fame, but is more likely just below its level -- in first Ottawa, where he was the captain of the Senators briefly and one of its most well-loved players, and then Dallas. Like the boys I talk about here, Jason Spezza is a former OHL player, a GTA boy, a Leafs fan. The Leafs’ season opener is against Ottawa, the team where Jason Spezza left most of his mark. There used to be a promotion with the Senators -- a local branch of some pizza chain would offer a free slice if the Sens scored more than five goals in a game. Spezza (and his linemates, Heatley and Alfredsson) were so good, they named his line the Pizza line. Mike Babcock makes Jason Spezza a healthy scratch on that day.

This is seen as disrespectful, but no more than a coach living up to his hardass reputation. You do what the coach tells you, don’t you? Lest you become a whiner, or worse, a locker room cancer. Scratching an extremely well-respected veteran on the opener against his former team is just something some guys do. A message, if you will. Stay the course, Babcock just wants his players to respect him.

And then news of the list leaks.

It happened when Mitch was a rookie, but they kept it hidden for three years. The Leafs went on a father-and-sons trip, one they do every season. They’re on a road trip, with only their fathers, isolated from their home.

(A brief aside to talk about Mitch’s dad; his name is Paul Marner, and he is the most stereotypical hardass hockey dad on the planet. A nitpicker, an armchair coach, a bully. I do not imagine Mitch felt particularly comforted by his and Babcock’s combined presence on this trip.)

Babcock approached Mitch and asked him to organize all of his teammates in a list. He wanted Mitch to arrange them in order of hardest workers to laziest; he thought Mitch was one of the lazy ones, and wanted to drive this point home by making him categorize his teammates like this. Mitch, as a rookie hockey player does in the presence of the Maple Leaf hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, obliged. He was under the impression it would be a private affair, just an assignment from Babcock to teach him some sort of lesson. Whether it be out of fear or honesty, he placed himself last on the list. 

Babcock told the others.

Specifically, two Leafs vets that Mitch had placed low on the list -- Nazem Kadri and Tyler Bozak. Imagine this: you are a decent centre on a bubble team, but nonetheless an established NHL veteran of about a decade, and your coach shows you a list a rookie made. He tells you that the rookie arranged everyone by work ethic, grinders to lazy shits. You are firmly on the “lazy shit” end.

How much does the coach have to suck, or how much does the rookie have to be loved, for Kadri and Bozak to react like they did? The rumour says they called for Babcock’s head on the spot. Mitch was in tears. I wouldn’t want to stay in Toronto if that happened to me. No wonder he and Auston signed for so much -- Babcock was barely halfway through his contract when they did. If I’d thought that I would have to deal with him for that long, I wouldn’t accept anything less than as much as they could possibly pay me.

In the end, in the beginning of December, 2019, Mitch got hurt and the Leafs went on a road trip. They were already losing by the time they’d left, and they kept losing. Normally, a team on a road trip doesn’t take the hurt players with them, but they took Mitch. The Leafs lost six in a row and finally fired Babcock, letting Sheldon Keefe take his place. Mitch’s presence was a comfort.

Go West

The Leafs make the playoffs first, and take Mitch with them. The Sabres are fighting a silent war with their star centre, but they are no closer to success. 

Connor McDavid is named captain at nineteen, the youngest in the history of the NHL. He scrapes the team to a playoff spot, then to a second round loss. He wins the Art Ross and the Hart.

The year before his entry-level contract expires, when he is first eligible, he signs what is then the most expensive per-year contract in NHL history -- eight years, a hundred million dollars. He is looking forward to spending the rest of his prime as an Oiler. He wins the Art Ross the next year, comes very close the year after. The Oilers do not make the playoffs again until after Covid hits.

He gets hurt a lot, too -- he breaks his collarbone as a rookie, missing half the season, and at the very end of the 2018-19 year, crashes into the net irons and shatters his knee. There are rumours of the man who broke Connor’s collarbone doing it on purpose; Connor claims that he overheard the man bragging about it, and I am inclined to believe him. This guy gets traded to the Oilers not too long after that.

In the meantime, Dylan is struggling. The Coyotes stick him in Tucson, a team he is obviously too good for. His entry-level contract slides another season. He wiffles between Tucson and Arizona, not being considered good enough to stay up but being too good to stay down. In the end, on the last year of his entry-level contract, he is traded from the Coyotes to the Chicago Blackhawks, a similarly bad team with a few remnants of its Cup-winning days. Dylan, a feeble icon of Chicagoan hope for one last dance with the aging core, centres Patrick Kane.

In his first half-season with the Blackhawks, he scores 51 points in 58 games. There are hopeful flashes of what he can be, the touted prospect he once was. 

Things wrap up on New Years like this: Connor is beyond a hundred-point pace; Dylan, although in no less danger, is at least out of the dust at the bottom of the barrel; Jack is caught in a cold war; the team loves Mitch. 

John Tavares has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Playoff Series

March of 2020 rolls around, and with it the coronavirus pandemic. The league is shut down before the season ends, and the playoffs re-formed in July, inside a bubble -- no one in, no one out until they are eliminated. The Sabres stay with their families, having once again missed the playoffs. The Leafs are set to play the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Oilers are set to play the Blackhawks.

This, to date, is Dylan’s only playoff appearance, and he is set to face Connor.

Dylan wins.

The qualifying round -- functioning as the first round of the bubble playoffs -- is a best of five, not of seven, and the Blackhawks defeat the Oilers 3-1. They then proceed to lose in five games (this one is a best of seven) to Vegas, but Dylan’s job is done.

The Leafs lose in the first round again. The Leafs have made the playoffs since Auston and Mitch’s debut, every single year, but they lose each time; in six, to the Capitals, then in seven every year after that. Or, in this case, in five.

Covid had not stopped by the end of the 2020 season ( :/ ) and the NHL was rearranged for what would be ostensibly the 2020-2021 season, but ended up being played mostly in 2021. Because of border laws, the Canadian teams are sequestered into their own, North division. Dylan Strome signs a two-year contract extension with Chicago right before the season starts -- one that will carry him until the end of the 2021-2022 season. 

If you’ve seen All or Nothing on Amazon Prime, it is this season that is covered. The Leafs tear through what is seen as a weaker North division, taking a comfortable first place spot. Connor McDavid cracks a hundred points in fifty-six games. Both Leafs and Oilers lose in the first round.

The Leafs do it perhaps most remarkably. They have drawn the Canadiens, a rather insubstantial team who are in their spot mostly because they have one of the best goaltenders in recent memory at their back.

I watched this game, live, before I was a serious Leafs fan. I can only imagine what it would be like if you were already invested at that point; I would not wish to live that horror on anyone. I tried to watch All or Nothing, later, but I stop here. 

Corey Perry and John Tavares are both on the ice, in the race for the puck. Tavares catches an edge, as you sometimes do, and falls, and Perry’s knee is in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, and it catches Tavares in the side of the head. He falls to the ice, his limbs splaying unnaturally. He won’t move. 

Medics come over, to try and raise him to his feet. He fights against them, blood streaming from a cut in his forehead, unable to tell if they are trying to hurt him or not. There is no one in the crowd, the stadium empty for the pandemic. The camera cuts to Kyle Dubas in the rafters, who has a phone in his hand and swiftly vanishes back into the halls of the arena. He is calling Tavares’ wife. We do not know what is going to happen. Everyone looks shaken -- the Habs have just watched a man nearly die, the Leafs have just lost their captain, perhaps forever. They lose, although the game feels like an afterthought. I do not want to watch hockey anymore.

They win the next three straight, though, even without him. Then they lose, twice, in overtime.

The Leafs, as they have done for the past four years up to this point, go to game seven.

Partway through the game, Mitch Marner panics in his defensive zone and puts the puck over the glass. This is a penalty, it is a penalty every time, and he knows that. He sits in the box, looking defeated already. He curls in on himself, and the camera flashes to the penalty box. He’s crying. He knows the game is lost.

The Leafs are eliminated again, and there is a target on his back now, not only for the puck going over the glass but for the tears. He’s soft, they say. As they have said since he was picked, because he doesn’t look like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t act like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t play hockey like a hockey player should. He makes too much and he disappears when it matters.

Thoughts on the Leafs’ playoff successes suddenly switch from the core is young, even if this is frustrating to they need to win before it’s too late. Already, in recent years, they have suffered historic game-seven chokes and drastic failures to launch. Whether they do it against teams like the President’s Trophy-winning Capitals or the barely-alive wild-card Canadiens is irrelevant. They cannot win a round, at all. The Leafs are already the team with the greatest Cup drought, and they are now gaining a long playoff round victory drought too. It should be time, at least, for them to look like they are a contender. 

This is how the Leafs find themself stuck; a particularly frustrating timeloop, even though hockey itself is nothing but. Sports are cyclical by nature. A team is bad, then okay, then good, then declining, then bad again, and this repeats anew. Some teams try to get themselves out of this cycle by being good forever; I can assure you that this only really happens to the New York Yankees, who employ a cadre of evil wizards to keep everything on that hell team going well for them. Most other teams who try end up stuck like the Canucks are, right now: bad enough to miss the playoffs, but not good enough to get key picks for a rebuild. I can see next season play out, clear as day: they struggle out of the gate, one of their stars gets hurt right when it seems like they’re at the very, very start of gathering momentum, they’re bottom-10 by January and the team says everyone but Pettersson are on the table, they trade picks and low-grade players, they get blazing hot post-deadline and finish twenty-first.

There is, unfortunately, also a perception that pure talent is not what makes players playoff performers -- instead, some so-called “clutch gene” that exists, or not. The reality is somewhere in between. Clutch exists. There are always players who can score when no one else can even dream of it, but a greater problem is luck. President’s Trophy winners are not often Cup winners (even if higher seeds are most likely to win), because the regular season is a much, much bigger sample size and the playoffs can change the course of all of it by a goalie having a hot streak at the right time. The 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning, third-best team in NHL history, got swept in the first round by Sergei Bobrovsky going crazy. The 2022-23 Bruins lost in seven in the first round in much the same manner.

And no matter what, the Leafs are always on the wrong end of the luck. Bounces hit the post. The refs take back goals for reasons they would have ignored at any other time of year. John Tavares slips, and his head makes contact with a knee.

Mitch ends up the whipping boy. He is the Leafs’ most valuable player, and this is a team with Auston Matthews on it, but I’m serious. He was the Leafs’ leading playoff scorer in 2023, he’s one of the best penalty-killers in the league, he’s adored by everyone who’s ever once talked to him. He only ever wanted to be a Leaf, and now that he is here he is the sacrificial lamb for the anger at a curse that is not his fault.

I do blame the media. I will always blame the media, those who turn on him at a moment’s notice because they know picking on the skinny pretty unmanly one will get more clicks than anything else. I beg of you -- know that, of anything that it could be, it is not Mitch’s fault.

Jack Eichel has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Neck Injury

It is 2021, and the Sabres aren’t going to make the playoffs. Jack Eichel has been captain for coming up on three years, and has been a Sabre for coming up on six, none of which have even slightly improved the team. He is widely disliked within the fanbase, and, rumouredly, within the locker room and organization. 

Jack is frustrated, dragging a mediocre team along through a slog of the past six years, and he has never been the kindest man on the planet. He is about to get worse. The Sabres are on a losing streak when they head to Long Island, and Jack is hit the wrong way and slips a disk in his neck. The Sabres insist he’ll only be out a week and a half. 

It is a great sin in hockey, to go against team. Anything that can be seen as selfish is demonized; shooting from a difficult angle when your teammate is wide open, not playing when you can muscle through the pain. Not trusting your coach or management is about as bad as you can get. If you’re a team guy, willing to sacrifice health and limb for the boys, you are held as saint, no matter how hurt you become in the end. This is a philosophy that has been drilled into these men since they were kids, as soon as they put their first skates on. You can stand any pain for the length of a hockey shift; you can play through anything for two minutes. It is a dangerous, dangerous school of thought, one of the most destructive parts of hockey culture. But it is, nonetheless, law.

Eichel is about to commit a sin so great they’ll kick him out of Heaven. I do think that, of the four of them, he is the only one with any semblance of genre awareness: when he was first scouted as a prospect and they were comparing him to McDavid, I think that he would be the only one to ignore the media’s spin on that as thoroughly as he did. He knows what he is, and he knows himself. Of course it comes off as bitchy and selfish, though -- that kind of pressure can’t be kind to anyone.

Before the week and a half is up, he visits a specialist doctor about his neck. This is where it all starts to go wrong.

The Sabres take issue with that for two reasons: one, that they hoped he’d be able to come back after the end of it. Keep in mind that he has herniated a disk in his neck, an injury typically so severe it’s impressive he’s walking -- slipping a cervical disk often causes nerve pain that radiates down through the entire spinal cord below that point, which is the whole body from how high up his is. Two, that the doctor he consults is an independent surgeon, one unaffiliated with the Sabres themselves. 

The thing about belonging to a hockey team is that you are, because of the way your employment is linked to your physical health, essentially their property. They make your medical decisions for you, they feed you, they tell you how to move. Going to someone else is a breach of contract, and the already-tense connection between Jack and the Sabres gets more tense. The Sabres keep losing. They lose eighteen games in a row.

Jack’s doctor recommended a surgery that no NHL player has ever had; cervical disk replacement. The Sabres did not want this -- the surgery carries risks, yes, but they also wanted to control the way that Jack’s injury was handled, and going through with this surgery was Jack’s wish, not theirs. The Sabres do their own evaluation, and ask for a different, more common surgery: spinal fusion. This surgery carries less immediate risk, but the bones in Eichel’s neck will also be fused, and he doesn’t want that. Because the team has final control over a player’s health, not the player, they decline his disk replacement. Having reached a stalemate, they rule him out for the rest of the season, trying to win a war of attrition.

September 2021 rolls around, and the Sabres, along with thirty-one other teams, take training camp. At the beginning of training camp, players do a physical exam. Jack, because his herniated disk has not improved, because he needs a surgery that has been denied from him, because he is stubbornly and bravely willing to wait out the Sabres, fails his physical. As a result, the Sabres, fed up with him, strip the captain’s C from his chest.

Jack makes one final request to the team: either let him get the surgery or trade him. In the end, they trade him to the Vegas Golden Knights, a team that did not exist when he was drafted. The Golden Knights approve him for the disk replacement surgery the day they acquire him.

The surgery is a success; his rehab goes better than anyone expects, and he starts tearing it up when he comes back. I would argue that, if the Golden Knights win the Cup this year, he should get the Conn Smythe -- he has been an invaluable member of the team, even without a letter on his chest.

It is less important for him to win his million awards than it is for him to come in and out of this surgery in the first place, still able to play. He fought with the team that was supposed to have upheld him as their star for months over his right to do what he wanted with his own health; in the end, the only way to go was for him to change that team. He was the first to have this surgery, but after him there have already been hockey players who have undergone it -- much like Tommy John, the baseball player who got his ulnar ligament reconstructed and the surgery to do so named after him. He fought for the chance to control his own body and won.

And for that, he was demonized.

The Sabres missed the playoffs every year they had him; they missed the playoffs every year after he left. Because he was the captain and he had the audacity to go against the organization’s wishes, he was hated. In Buffalo, he is still hated. If you ask, they’ll tell you he was a locker room cancer, that he was undevoted to winning. If you look at him in Vegas, neither of those things are true.

Jack Eichel is a rare man -- he does have that “clutch” gene, or rather doesn’t have the choke instinct. He has always been unbothered by the spiral around him. He operates well in the mire, and when the pressure rises it doesn’t affect him (or maybe, even better, he feeds on it.) He has the right kind of mentality -- that fuck-you, I’m here and you can’t change that, you tried to control me and I wouldn’t bend mentality. He has only made the playoffs once, this year. Like Dylan, actually, his only appearance has involved defeating Connor McDavid. Go back and watch his highlights from the Vegas-Edmonton series if you can: he has a couple of pretty goals and more than a couple great defensive takeaways, but he doesn’t lose his cool, not once. He has earned his right to be here, and he knows it more than anyone else. I’m rooting for the Stars, but I hope he wins some day.

153

How do you talk about the Edmonton Oilers? I mean, without either excusing or demonizing them, although I admit I have Hater Instinct and trend towards the latter. They have the best player in the world; that grown-up incarnation of the wide-eyed boy on the Erie rink. They have the best playoff performer in the world; Leon Draisaitl, who I have not avoided mentioning until now on purpose, but whom I cannot continue without bringing up. They have been terribly cap-managed since the day McDavid was drafted, and are an unstable roster with blazing-hot offense and very little defence or goaltending at all.

For a brief moment, let’s not talk about the Oilers. Let’s only talk about Connor himself.

McDavid has 850 points in 569 career games. Not even Sid had that many points through that few games. If he stays healthy, Connor’s well on track to become the second player ever to hit two thousand for his career -- after a certain other Oiler, who need not be mentioned. He has won just about every award you can win, with the exception of the Selke… and the Cup.

If it’s possible, he has proven himself better than all of the hype at the draft saying he would become a great. To watch him, you can see the way he has changed his team, how even though they have all learned from him that he is still the best.

There is something that many Oilers do. When next your team plays them, pay attention to it: they cut into the offensive zone with possession on the outside, using tight little crossovers to gain speed, after which they’ll usually try to rush the net (if there are no defenders in the way). This is a move that McDavid has patented; he’ll use it, just as many of the others will, but he’ll probably be the one that scores. The depth all skate like him, really, fast and in wide arcs, trying to generate a rush chance. 

Connor as a player is a tour de force, the best power-player in the world by a mile, no slouch at even strength, speedy enough to score even shorthanded. The boy’s got wheels. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which NHLers are fast and which are slow, but Connor’s just that tick above everyone else that you can see it without eye training at all.

Connor as a person is a bit less showy. He’s quiet by nature, shy and soft-voiced. Because he was hyped so much (franchise saviour, McJesus, Next One) he has been media trained into sterility, giving the same level answers as everyone else, hardly daring to express any opinion at all. His eyes are big, rounded, and one of them is lazy from a time when his brother tried to take it out as a child, and that combined with his heavy brow and stiff expression -- he’s never been a good smiler, smirks with one corner of his mouth and that’s mostly it -- give him a resting expression of something like concern, or maybe despair. When he laughs, he doesn’t really “laugh,” just kind of coughs, a one or two-syllable affair. He avoids eye contact with the camera, and often the reporters as well. There is no seething emotion under the surface, not like with Eichel, nor does he speak analytically like Dylan does. He moves through his life as if he is someone who does not want it to turn out quite like this.

I do not know if he wants to be in Edmonton. There are jokes about how he is desperate to leave, but I definitely don’t believe those; there’s a difference between not wanting to stay and wanting to go. I don’t think he hates it. He has been given a responsibility, the captain’s C -- and because, unlike Jack Eichel, he is a good Canadian boy who has been given a destiny, he accepts it. He loves his teammates, especially Draisaitl, whom he seems to derive all his confidence from.

I will also say that I don’t believe he’s stupid. Naive, perhaps; not stupid. There is no way out for him, even if he was sure he wanted to leave; he’s the best player in the world, far too expensive for any contender to afford in either trade or cap space, and if he asks for a trade he won’t let himself go to a team that isn’t already a contender. He will remain an Oiler at least until his contract is up, and I imagine that his staying afterwards depends on Draisaitl.

People talk about him leaving a lot, largely because of the team that has been assembled around him. The Oilers are not a well-created team, and I will say that plainly now and spend as little time technically deconstructing it as possible.

Beyond McDavid and Draisaitl, they have:

A rookie starting goaltender, whose success as we know it is based on a single-season sample size and a complete playoff collapse.

A five million dollar backup goaltender, who earned his contract by being carried by the Leafs, despite being utterly horrendous for a long enough stretch leading up to his free agency that anyone who looked beyond the win-loss numbers wouldn’t have signed him.

One genuine shutdown defender.

One young up-and-coming defender; by far one of the most promising Oiler (or otherwise) defensive prospects, beyond the usual suspects.

One netfront grinder who is great at playing wing to high-power setters, but cannot drive his own line.

One decent 2C.

Sarah Nurse’s cousin. Sarah’s better.

A supporting cast of bad defencemen and middling-at-best forwards.

Many charming characters, of course: Zach Hyman, the grinder, is a beloved ex-Leaf, and I’m personally a fan of Nugent-Hopkins, the 2C, but the vast majority of this is not the sort of thing a contending team is built upon. McDavid has missed the playoffs almost as often as he’s made them. The playoffs are a crapshoot, but in order to try your luck you have to at least be able to enter the lottery, and it takes a stunning amount of effort to be able to do that.

So, McDavid lingers, in this kind of limbo. It mirrors the Leafs, almost. (And yes. Because McDavid is an Ontario boy, and the Leafs are the Centre of the Universe, we have to mention them both in conversation. Not all stories revolve around the Leafs, but this one does.) One true contender, and one generational talent, both what we picture to be well overdue for their Cup run, but neither having yet done so. 

The thing about the stories of the class of 2015 is that they intertwine, that they mimic and mirror each other. These boys have not simply gotten drafted in the same handful of picks in the same year and gone on their merry ways -- they layer, they parallel, they weave around each other. Connor is the captain of a team that cannot win, Jack is a captain, Mitch cannot win. Jack fought for the right to control his body and was demonized for it; Mitch negotiated for a contract that he determined to be a fair price for Babcock, and was demonized for it. Whatever pure saviour they figure Connor to be, Jack is the twisted inverse of that, falling from grace.

Connor has one of the best seasons in NHL history, one of only seventeen player-seasons with over a hundred and fifty points (Nine of those seasons belong to Gretzky. Another four belong to Lemieux.) He loses, in six games in the second round, to the Vegas Golden Knights. At the time that he’s eliminated, he leads the playoffs in points. Leon Draisaitl is tied for second place. Counting from the date Mitch Marner played his first game in the NHL, the Oilers and Leafs have almost exactly the same number of playoff game wins, with the Oilers having one more.

There’s No Place Like Strome

Before we can look to the future, there is one person I have been neglecting. Dylan, poor Dylan. I think it would be only half an unfair assessment to call him a draft bust. He’s talented, for sure, but not nearly the same calibre that the draftees around him are. Hardly a Marner, an Eichel, or even a Rantanen or a Meier. 

His career has existed quietly in the shadows, so far from Connor McDavid that it only feels fair to mention them in the same conversation in this context. It has been eight years since they were best friends, Connor so close to Dylan he waited in the stadium in order to watch him get drafted. They didn’t look each other in the eye in the handshake line when Dylan won their series. Connor didn’t go to his wedding.

That being said: so far, he has found himself a knack for landing in the shadow of greatness. When he was an Erie Otter, it was Connor -- Dylan held the scoring title in their draft year, while Connor was out nursing his hand, but Connor was the chosen son and Dylan was the Coyotes’ consolation prize. When he was traded to the Blackhawks, he found himself centring Kane and Debrincat, but of course both of them were the offseason and trade deadline’s prizes, and not him.

And then he signed in Washington.

So now, we go back to Ovechkin. Alex Ovechkin is one of the greatest players of all time; his Capitals are on the decline now, but they contended for a long time while he was playing and may still contend as long as Ovi still skates. For a long time, the team relied on Ovechkin’s goalscoring, assisted mostly by his faithful centre, Nicklas Backstrom. They, too, are married; they have played a thousand games as teammates, been through a decade of heartbreak together before the Cup was theirs. During the 2021-2022 season, Backstrom took time off -- he needed hip surgery, something likely to end his career. Ovi was alone.

There is a fundamental difference, of course, between the expectations of wingers and centres. A winger, like Ovi, scores, or assists, at his own leisure, but it is the centre’s job to drive his line. Ovechkin is generational -- he will sink forty goals no matter what -- but he still needs someone to move him out of the defensive zone, someone to make his assist.

Enter Dylan -- a young centre, not especially fast on his feet but intelligent, and clearly experienced in the realm of managing high-calibre wingers (see: Debrincat, and the ghost of Patrick Kane.) He joins the Capitals on a one-year contract, desperate to prove himself. Chicago didn’t want him, and Arizona didn’t either. It takes barely until November before he is, once again, the necessary shadow of greatness. 

Ovechkin, the team’s captain and centrepoint, clearly likes what he sees, and the management does, as well. The Capitals offer Strome a five-year extension.

Maybe it’s because he’s less of a superstar then the other three members of his draft class, but Dylan has a life outside of hockey -- a wife and young daughter. After being thrown away by other teams, and with his new family, I can only imagine that it was… peaceful, if anything, to be offered this contract.

Chicago, after rapidly getting rid of him, Debrincat, and then Kane, would go on to tank spectacularly, and win themselves the first overall pick. They will use it to draft another generational talent. His name is also Connor.

The Blue Wedding

So, here we stand, at the end of it all. Dylan finally has a home, a mother hen of a Russian bear that it has become his job to assist in record-breaking, and soon to be two daughters. Jack has a team that loves him, freedom from pain, and an ongoing potential Cup run. Connor has a sterile mansion, a best friend, and an unsteady team. Mitch’s life is up in the air.

Right as I’m writing this, the general manager of the Leafs has been unceremoniously kicked out. His tenure will end the day before Mitch’s no-move contract kicks in, but it is not known if Mitch’s time as a Leaf will survive that long. He is well on track to become one of the greatest Leafs of all time, and his tenure might be cut short in the prime of his career. 

But let’s wrap up with this: Mitch will get married this summer. Because he’s Mitch, the darling of the league, everyone’s best friend, I imagine the wedding party to be extensive/ Packed to the brim of current and former Leafs, as well as people who have never been Leafs. I wonder if Dylan Strome will be there -- or even Connor McDavid, although McDavid never even attended Dylan’s wedding.

The stories, as they do, go on.

[torontoarenas]

2018-19 NHL Predictions, Revisited

It looks like I didn’t whiff as badly on my predictions this time around as in years past. At least, as far as the standings are concerned. My individual award predictions, on the other hand...

Five Teams I Most Overrated

Columbus. Whereas I had them winning their division, in reality they finished in fifth in the Metro, taking the second wildcard spot. I still don’t think I was terribly off-base to put them where I did. It turns out that Bobrovsky having a down year (going from a .921 SV% to .913) will hurt a team’s position in the standings. Probably not enough to make up the difference between my prediction and the reality, though, so that’s not entirely it. Who knows with these things?

Los Angeles. I figured they’d miss the playoffs, sure, but I didn’t foresee them being “30th place” bad. And to think this was the team Ilya Kovalchuk came out of NHL retirement to play for! He legitimately thought he stood a chance of winning the Cup with them! Shoulda just signed with Boston, pal.

Anaheim. Another team I thought would miss the playoffs, but badly underestimated by how much. The fact that they were in a playoff spot for as long as they were early on is a testament to John Gibson and John Gibson alone. If he hadn’t fallen apart about halfway through the season, he’d deserve a Hart nomination for his efforts. Hell, come up with a new award just to give to him. Call it “The John Gibson Memorial Trophy for Sisyphean Tasks.”

Florida and Philadelphia. Just kinda the opposite of Anaheim’s situation: they’re both OK teams who were undone by poor goaltending. Guess that sort of thing is liable to happen when your starting goalie’s either a million years old (Florida) or a horrifying rat king of eight dudes, only one of whom is approximately good (Philadelphia). Not enough separation between the two for me to be able to tell which I overrated more, so I’m taking the coward’s way out and including both of them in the same entry.

Minnesota. You have to be a really bad team to miss the playoffs in the West, and I suppose the Wild are one of them now. Good to know for future reference.

Oh yeah, and I also definitely overrated the Maple Leafs, but not to the extent that they’d be in my top five. I’ll just skip right past ’em, so I don’t have to reflect on that fact more than I already have.

Five Teams I Most Underrated

NY Islanders. Despite finishing second in the Metro, I still don’t think they’re good. They were 26th in 5v5 CF% (with a quite bad 47.8%) and were around 20th in 5v5 shots-for percentage and 16th in scoring chances. Better, but still not great. Some of their outperforming expectations can arguably be attributed to new coach Barry Trotz. But more importantly, wouldn’t you know it, they had the highest all-situations save percentage in the league. With a tandem of Robin Lehner and Thomas Greiss, two guys who are historically pretty good but not world-beaters by any means. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but “crummy shot metrics plus a high PDO” isn’t necessarily the most repeatable formula for winning hockey games. Don’t be shocked if they miss the 2020 playoffs, is all I’m saying. For this year, though, they’re easily the team I got the most wrong.

Arizona. Fuck me for not realizing that Darcy Kuemper would turn into a .933 goalie in 2019, I guess. Incredibly, they still managed to miss the playoffs. Although, now that I think about it, maybe it’s not that incredible. I mean, have you seen the rest of their roster???

Calgary. It was the easiest call in the world to predict they’d bounce back from their surprisingly poor 2017-18 campaign, but to imagine they’d finish second in the league? Wild stuff.

Colorado. Sure, I had them finishing last in the Central, which they managed to avoid doing, but also, they qualified for the playoffs despite finishing 17th in the league and having six more losses than wins. This is now the second season in a row in which they’ve made the playoffs with fewer points than the ninth-place team in the East. Folks, they’re not very good. I don’t know what to tell ya.

Carolina. I left them just on-the-outside-looking-in after they disappointed me by missing the playoffs last year when I predicted they’d make ’em. I’d have looked so smart if I had just stayed the course!! Dang it! Ah well. Can’t be too upset about it.

Awards Predictions

Hart: I said Alex Barkov. My choice was predicated upon Florida making the playoffs and the PHWA deciding again to give the award to the best player on a fringe playoff team. Barkov is one of the best centres in the sport, but in retrospect, this was a real Galaxy Brain prediction and I should’ve picked someone more obvious.

Art Ross: I said Connor McDavid. Not unreasonable, given that he won the last two. I just didn’t anticipate Nikita Kucherov going all the way off and setting the record for most points in the salary cap era.

Norris: I said Erik Karlsson. That’s not gonna happen, but hey, remember when he got off to that slow start and a bunch of people started saying shit like “maybe San Jose made a mistake in trading for him”? Those people are dumb and shouldn’t be listened to. Unfortunately, many of them also vote for these awards. Anyway, Mark Giordano’s probably going to win this thing, as well he should.

Rocket Richard: I said Connor McDavid, but Alex Ovechkin, the Absolute Boy, went and did it once again. I’ve really gotta stop talking myself out of the obvious choice. Even as I acknowledge this, I’m still not certain he can repeat. Stay tuned.

Vezina: I said Andrei Vasilevskiy, and I was probably right. So that’s one-for-eight. I’m batting a whopping .125 over here!!

Selke: I said Sean Couturier. I feel like I should’ve gone with Patrice Bergeron yet again, but we’ll see. I could also see Mark Stone winning it now that he’s been traded to a good team.

Calder: I said Andrei Svechnikov. Wrong. It’s definitely going to be Elias Pettersson.

Jack Adams: I said Bob Boughner, for the same reason I predicted Alex Barkov for the Hart. Which is hilarious to think about now. Maybe if Florida had made the playoffs, he’d have been in consideration, but that’s obviously not what happened.

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Sidney Crosby at 30: Ranking his 30 greatest hockey moments (so far)

Sidney Crosby hit the big 3-0 on Monday, as “Sid The Kid” officially became an ironic nickname.

The Pittsburgh Penguins captain has been playing hockey for more than half his life, as his first season with Dartmouth in the NSMHL came at age 14.

Sixteen years later, Crosby is the best player in the world (work on that defense, Connor) with three Stanley Cups, two Olympic golds, a IIHF gold, world junior goal, whatever they gave out for the World Cup of Hockey and so much more. He has 1,027 points in 782 games, with 383 goals. He’s pretty good.

With all that Crosby’s accomplished, it’s hard to narrow the list down to 30 moments in Crosby’s hockey life. But here they are, ranked for your enjoyment.

30. Youngest player to win a IIHF World Championship scoring title

When Sidney Crosby was 18 and the Penguins weren’t playing for the Stanley Cup in, like, every season, Crosby represented Canada at the 2006 IIHF World Championships. He scored 16 points in nine games – including a point in Canada’s first eight games – to win top forward honors and set a IIHF record for the youngest player to lead the tournament in points.

29. Gets Referenced in an SNL Joke

It’s not that Sidney Crosby was name-dropped in a joke on “Saturday Night Live” in 2012. It’s that someone in that writer’s room acknowledged that Andy Samberg is a Sid doppelgänger.

Did the joke bomb? Eh, we’ll blame it on Lindsay Lohan’s delivery.

28. Crosby’s 66 in 41

In 2010-11, Crosby had 66 points in 41 games to lead the Penguins in scoring (and lead the NHL with a 1.61 points-per-game average). He set an NHL record in the process: No other player led his team in scoring in so few games played in a non-lockout season.

27. Sidney On The Street

Notable mainly for one of the greatest hockey players to ever live just standing around while teen Jack Johnson tries to make time with some unimpressed ladies.

26. Penguins Rookie Record

The Penguins have had a few decent offense rookies through the years, but none better than Crosby when it comes to total points: His 102 points were two better than Mario Lemieux (100 in 1984-85). Sure, Mario got him in points-per-game, having played 73 games to Sid’s 81, but in Crosby’s defense he had to play against goalies that knew what they were doing and wore actual padding.

25. Homers At PNC Park

Proving he could have been the best hockey/baseball star since Tom Glavine, Sid went yard during batting practice at the Pirates’ stadium in what we imagine is Doc Emrick’s wet dream.

24. Crosby scores in OT vs. Lightning

Sid’s only playoff overtime goal won Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Final for the Penguins to knot their series with the Lightning, and it was a key point in the series.

23. Crosby Checks Boris Valabik’s Undercarriage

The moment we all realized how delightfully sneaky dirty Crosby was (with apologies to Mark Methot on the “delightfully” part). Sid speed-bagged Boris Valabik of the Atlanta Thrashers in a moment that would have made Ric Flair proud.

22. Rookie With 100 Points and 100 PIMs 

OK, maybe we should have seen the “dirty” part from miles away. Crosby had 102 points and 110 penalty minutes in 2005-06 – the first NHL rookie to record 100 points and 100 penalty minutes in a season. He had 55 minor penalties and no majors. So, still a Good Boy.

21. ESPYs, 2010

While no one will mistake the ESPY Awards with anything as prestigious as, say, the NHL Awards (although admittedly the stage banter is much better), Sidney Crosby has dominated ESPN’s exercise in largess since entering the League. We’ll put the spotlight on his 2010 win for Best NHL Player, which was his fourth straight win and fourth total one – one more than Lemieux had for his career.

Please note that the “selection committee” voting process for the ESPYs ended in 2004, and was replaced by an Internet fan vote. Crosby won from 2007-2010 and 2013-14 and 2016-17, forever dispelling the notion that he won’t be winning any popularity contests.

20. World Junior Gold

 Crosby had nine points in six games as the Canadian “all-star team” rolled to 2005 World Junior gold. The only downer was that he had but one assist in their 6-1 rout of Russia in the final.

19. Crosby Exhibits Actual Personality In Commercial For Famed Canadian Doughnut Shop

Give the assist to Cole Harbour’s Nathan MacKinnon for being the John C. Reilly to Sid’s nascent Will Ferrell.

18. MVP, World Cup of Hockey

Crosby’s line with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand was one of the best things about the World Cup of Hockey, along with Team North America and Ralph Kruger. Canada could have won this tournament with its fifth string, but Sid’s 10 points in six games was good enough to MVP honors.

17. That Contract

In a league where each new superstar contract leads to a slew of new cap headaches for their teams, Crosby’s 12-year deal with an AAV of $8.7 million (thanks, numerophobia!) set up the Penguins to contend for Stanley Cups through its conclusion in 2025.

16. Hey, Look, Jay Leno

Not only did Sid get a chance to shoot pucks into a dryer on “The Tonight Show” but he got to meet ROB SCHNEIDER in the process, guys…

15. Winning the Richard Trophy in 2017

It wasn’t the best season for goal-scoring – Alex Ovechkin going MIA in the Richard race didn’t help – but Crosby’s 44 goals were good enough for his second Rocket trophy.

14. Winning the Art Ross in 2007

Sid’s 120 points were six better than Joe Thornton to lead the league and net him his first Art Ross trophy in a (spoiler) MVP season. He was the youngest player to win the Art Ross.

13. Sid The Kid Goes Back-To-Back 100s 

Crosby had 102 points as a rookie and 120 points as a sophomore, becoming the youngest player in NHL history to record two consecutive 100-point seasons. Would McDavid have broken that if he were healthy as a rookie? A great “what if?”

12. Winning Richard Trophy in 2010

Crosby broke 50 goals for the only time in his career to capture his first Richard Trophy – an award he shared with Steven Stamkos, one goal better than Ovechkin.

11. Winning the Stanley Cup in 2009

Crosby had 31 points in 24 games for the Penguins during their run to the 2009 Stanley Cup, including a playoff-best 15 goals. Alas, Evgeni Malkin’s 36 points in 24 games netted him the Conn Smythe. But Crosby would get the better of another Russian …

10. Game 7 vs. Washington

In one of the greatest playoff series of the modern era, Crosby dueled with Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals for seven games in 2009 – including Game 2 in which both players had hat tricks. But in Game 7, in Washington, Crosby had two goals and an assist in a 6-1 rout to eliminate the Capitals – including the game’s opening goal.

9. Winning the Hart Trophy in 2014

Crosby’s 104-point season made him a runaway winner of his second Hart, getting 128 first-place votes. Ryan Getzlaf was second with five. That said …

8. Winning the Hart Trophy in 2007

… Crosby’s 2007 Hart Trophy, at 19 years old, was a remarkable achievement. His 120-point season was 35 points better than Malkin, i.e. basically one Colby Armstrong’s worth of points.

7. That Breakaway Vs. Lundqvist in Sochi

From a production standpoint, Crosby didn’t have the best tournament in Sochi with three points in six games. But he saved the best for last, including this breakaway goal against Henrik Lundqvist in the gold medal game – Crosby’s first goal of the Olympics. That made it 2-0, and put a dagger in Sweden.

6. Winning the Conn Smythe in 2016

Crosby had 19 points in 24 games, including two assists in the Game 6 elimination of the San Jose Sharks. That was good enough to earn Phil Kessel’s Conn Smythe in winning Crosby’s second Stanley Cup.

5. Scoring In a Snow Globe

The first Winter Classic remains one of the most picturesque hockey games in NHL history, what with the snow falling and all. (The constant Zamboni delays are best left out of this memory.) Crosby scored the shootout game-winner against Ryan Miller on Jan. 1, 2008 to give the Penguins the win over the Buffalo Sabres in snowy Ralph Wilson Stadium. Remember those names…

4. Winning the Conn Smythe in 2017

Crosby’s 27 points didn’t lead the playoffs, but the sheer will of his performance drove the Penguins to their second straight Stanley Cup. That including a dominant three-assist effort in their Game 5 rout of the Nashville Predators. Crosby had 13 points in his final 11 playoff games, and with a second straight playoff MVP, entered a new echelon on greatness.

3. The Sidney Crosby Lottery

The NHL literally rewrote the rules because Sidney Crosby was available in the entry draft. After the 2005 lockout, the NHL decided to award the No. 1 overall pick through a revamped draft lottery, dubbed the “Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes.”

All 30 teams were entered into a lottery, with each team having as many as three or as few as one ball to be drawn based on playoff qualification or draft lottery wins over the previous three seasons. The Penguins, who lost the previous lottery that resulted in Alex Ovechkin going to the Capitals, had around a six-percent chance at Crosby. Yet they won, and the rest as they say is Brian Burke being infuriated by the process after settling for Bobby Ryan.

2. The Comeback

As we celebrate Sidney Crosby’s 30th birthday, and his incredible career, let’s pause for a moment to reflect on (a) how lucky we are that Crosby’s been reasonably healthy, by comparison, for the last few years and (b) how much it sucks that we didn’t get to see him at 100 percent (or at all) for much if this career.

That’s why we’re putting his return in Nov. 2011, after 11 months out of action that totaled 61 games, so high on the list. It was a moment the hockey world celebrated because, for a time, we were all a bit afraid that we’d never see that day arrive. (Best of health, Sid.)

1. The Golden Goal

With due respect to the other 29 accomplishments on this list, this is a Canadian hockey star, scoring in overtime in the Winter Olympic final, on Canadian soil, to win the gold medal over the United States. There’s no telling what Sidney Crosby will do in his years past his 30th birthday. But because of the unique conditions of this accomplishment, there’s no topping it.

—

Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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[junker-town]

In D.C.’s biggest sports moment in years, the Capitals delivered

The Capitals took a 2-1 lead in the Stanley Cup Final and gave their fans something new and amazing.

WASHINGTON — More than an hour before the puck dropped on Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final, and about four hours before the Capitals took their first series lead ever in this round, a 59-year-old who’d spent $2,250 for three seats in the highest row of Capital One Arena was thinking about what felt different this year.

“It’s weird to come to a game in shorts,” said Scott Zimmerman, who lives in Frederick, Md., and has been showing up at Capitals games since 1985. “I’ve never had to see hockey in June before.”

Saturday night was unlike anything D.C.’s sports teams have created in this era. The big thing wasn’t that the people were loud, though the 18,506 fans who attended were really loud. It wasn’t that they were more hopped up than most fanbases, even though I’ve never seen any sporting venue so full during pregame warmups as this one was on Saturday. And it wasn’t that Pat Sajak introduced the starting lineups. It was too loud to even hear him.

What happened in D.C. on Saturday was the most special of sports things: a night when everyone knew they were watching something for the first time.

Two teams play in the Cup Final every year, but what you don’t get every year is a team in the Cup Final that a) hasn’t been there in 20 years, b) has never won the Cup, c) has spent most of the last decade flaming out early in the playoffs despite having the world’s best goal-scorer and some amazing regular seasons, and d) plays in D.C., one of the most tortured sports towns in the world. The Capitals’ 3-1 domination of the first-year expansion Vegas Golden Knights didn’t lock up a Cup, but it was a breakthrough all the same.

The team’s first home Cup Final win ever was also D.C.’s first championship-round home win since the Bullets beat the Sonics in Game 1 of the 1979 NBA Finals. That discounts some neutral-site Super Bowls way back when, but an atmosphere like this one hadn’t happened. D.C. hadn’t gotten to celebrate one of its teams being in the driver’s seat quite like now.

“We’ve had a lot of moments,” coach Barry Trotz said a few minutes after the game ended. “Not as many good ones as we’d like. But at the same time, I think everybody recognizes that if you do the right things and you keep sort of pounding the rock, there’s a lot of pride in our dressing room. There’s a lot of pride in this D.C. area. And in the past failures, you would feel a lot of anxiety even before you started the playoffs. I think we’ve gotten past that as a group. We’ve gotten past that hopefully as a community. And hopefully we can continue on and hopefully bring something here. I think it’ll galvanize all the city and all the other sports franchises in this area, because there’s some good ones.”

In past years, even in past months, a sense of doom would’ve washed over the building when Braden Holtby misplayed a puck behind his net and handed Vegas a freebie goal that cut Washington’s lead to 2-1 in the third period. It didn’t seem to happen on Saturday. The crowd didn’t quiet down, and more importantly, the Capitals didn’t back down. They kept up pressure and gained that goal back with an insurance marker 10 minutes later.

There’s a sense of shared salvation here, between players and fans.

People who root for Washington teams have had it rough in this realm, but so have the people who play for this Washington team. The longest-standing members of the Capitals’ core, Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, have gone through spring disappointment after spring disappointment. It’s clear every time something goes right for the Capitals that this means as much to them as the people watching them.

.@ovi8 reactions are truly a GIFt. pic.twitter.com/ZKsGRjVcv0

— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) June 3, 2018

“These fans have been waiting a long time,” Backstrom said. “We players are nothing without these fans. It was nice to give us and the fans a first win here at home.”

Ovechkin sounds like a man trying not to get too caught up.

“The atmosphere was great. The city’s excited. The fans excited,” he said. “But again, it’s only two. We just have to move forward and don’t think about it too much.”

If the players have to be tempered, the fans don’t. D.C. is loving this.

There’s a point to which no local team could ever really take over the city. Washington is loaded with transplants, and most of the Capitals’ fanbase is located in surrounding Maryland and Northern Virginia. The team’s Chinatown arena blends into the city like a shopping mall, and the people here aren’t monolithic about the sports or teams they enjoy.

But something’s not the same now. Again, there’s some obvious stuff. It was fun that Sting and Shaggy drew a few thousand people to the steps of a Smithsonian for a pregame concert, but there’s nothing remarkable about a bunch of D.C. people going to a free concert. (Next we’ll learn that a bunch of them signed up for an intramural kickball league or decided to look at some cherry blossoms in May.) It wasn’t that they turned out in droves to drink, though a bartender told me around 12:30 a.m. that hockey fans “blitzkrieged us.”

Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

The wildest thing about this Capitals run isn’t that people are showing up and being excited. That’s what happens when teams make deep playoff runs. What’s so notable here is that the Capitals are teaching sports fans in their city to be excited and not live in dread.

Scott Zimmerman, the guy who paid $750 a pop for the seats in the highest row of the arena, brought his 81-year-old mom and his daughter, a 21-year-old named Kate who goes to college in Pennsylvania. In the weeks since the Capitals beat their longtime nemesis Penguins in the second round, Kate’s gotten to act differently than ever before.

“I would get taunted when we’d lose to Pittsburgh, and I’d have to sit there and take it,” she said while she waited for warmups to start. “This year, it was my year to finally give it back a little bit. And I’m very proud to be a Caps fan right now.”

And to get to show up to hockey games in shorts.

[thrashermaxey]

Weekend power rankings: The Lightning are the NHL’s best team and they probably won’t win the Cup

We’re​ just three weeks​ away​ from​ the​ start​ of​ the playoffs.​ It’s the very​ best time of​ year,​ with a ton of​​ action, intensity through the roof and the crushing suspense of finding out who’ll be left standing as the season’s best team.

Except that this year, there’s no suspense, because we already know the answer. The Tampa Bay Lightning are the best team of the 2018-19 season. There’s really no question about it. Even if they lose every game they play for the rest of the year, they’re still the season’s best and it’s not even close.

Now we just need to wait and see if they actually win the Stanley Cup. However, they probably won’t.

That feels like a weird thing to say. As hockey fans, we’re trained to believe that the Cup winner is the best team. Of course they are. They were the last team standing and they won a big trophy for it. Regular season success is nice, but as the league itself has told us, it’s all about the Cup. We can’t know who’s the best until we’ve seen who survives four rounds and emerges as champion.

Nonsense. This year, we already know. It’s the Lightning.

To be clear, I’m not trying to make a case that the Presidents’ Trophy is somehow the real prize of an NHL season. Most years, there’s so little difference between the top few teams that the difference between finishing first overall and third or fourth doesn’t really tell us anything about which team was actually best.

But not this season. The Lightning aren’t just clearly the best team in the league, they might be the best team of the last quarter-century. They’ve been dominant at pretty much every facet of the game. They’re loaded with stars, with many of them having career years. They’re well-coached, have the league’s best powerplay and penalty kill, are strong in goal and don’t feature any obvious holes anywhere on the roster. If you could wish the perfect cap-era team into existence, it would look a lot like this year’s Lightning.

But they still probably won’t win. And we might as well start getting our heads around that now.

Dom Luszczyszyn currently has the Lightning at about a 25 percent chance to win the Cup, even though he also thinks they may be the single best team of the cap era. That seems like a contradiction, but it’s not. In the NHL’s era of hyper-parity, 25 percent is pretty close to the best you can do.

To understand why, let’s do some math. Imagine a team that was a 70 percent favorite in a playoff series. That’s pretty good. It’s rare for any team to be a 70 percent favorite in a single game, even against the last place team or a tired one that’s starting its backup goalie. There’s more variance in a single game than a seven-game series, but still, 70 percent would be a heavy favorite. Now imagine our team is so strong that they’re a 70 percent favorite against each and every team they could possibly play in the playoffs.

That’s sounds good. And it is. But there’s a problem: If you’re a 70 percent favorite in every series, it’s more likely than not that you won’t even make it to the third round. Our 70 percent team has only a 49 percent chance of winning two straight rounds. And their odds of winning four in a row are only 24 percent.

The Lightning are probably a better than 70 percent favorite over whichever wildcard team they play. But they’re less than that against, say, the Bruins or whoever comes out of the West. Mix in a few injuries or a poorly timed slump and you can see how this might end.

Here’s what will probably happen: The Lightning will go into the playoffs being referred to as overwhelming favorites even though, compared to the rest of the league collectively, they’ll be big underdogs. And at some point, they’ll likely lose. Maybe some key players will get hurt. Maybe they’ll draw an especially tough matchup. Chances are, they’ll just run into a red-hot goalie who’ll steal the series even though Tampa plays better.

And when that happens, the narratives will kick in. Fans and media and maybe even the Lightning themselves will honor the age-old hockey tradition of refusing to accept that sometimes the best team doesn’t win and instead will start looking for reasons why Tampa wasn’t as good as we thought. Odds are we’ll settle on something around their character and leadership and heart. They didn’t want it bad enough. They were good, sure, at least during the season. But the problem is, we’ll tell ourselves, they weren’t the best after all.

And we’ll be wrong. The Lightning are the best team in the league, even if they get swept in the first round. They may not be Stanley Cup champions and we all agreed long ago that that’s what matters most. If and when they get eliminated, they’ll be devastated and their season will feel like a failure. That’s natural and it’s how it should be. The Cup is what counts.

Just don’t fall for the narratives. Instead, accept the reality of today’s NHL: The Lightning are the best, but the best team usually doesn’t win.

On to this week’s power rankings. Hey, I bet you can’t guess who’s going to be ranked No. 1 …

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.

One downside of focusing on the top five and bottom five every week is that it doesn’t leave us with much room to talk about the wildcard races in the middle. That might be good news for Canadiens fans, who watched their team stumble through a rough week punctuated by Saturday’s loss to Corey Crawford. Montreal sits three points back of the Blue Jackets and four back of the Hurricanes with just ten games left and the Habs don’t look like they’ll hold the ROW tie-breaker on either. They’re still in it, but their odds look a lot worse than they did when we were breaking them down just one week ago.

In the West, it’s the Wild and the Avalanche chasing the Coyotes and Stars and maybe the Blues. The Avs got a big win yesterday, but didn’t gain all that much ground because the loser point fairy decided to show up and work its magic on pretty much everyone else. Sorry, Colorado, just because you win and all the teams you’re chasing lose doesn’t mean you should gain two points on anyone and that makes sense because (mumble, mumble) closer playoff races (mumble, mumble) and hey look over there it’s the power rankings.

5. Washington Capitals (42-23-7, +20 true goals differential*) – Two goals to 50 for Alexander Ovechkin, who has yet another Rocket Richard Trophy all but wrapped up. And as Sportsnet reminds us, Wayne Gretzky’s unbreakable record remains within his sights.

4. Boston Bruins (43-20-9, +32) – Three straight regulation losses during the week put an end to their points streak and allowed the struggling Leafs to stay in range. More importantly for our purposes, it took some of the pressure off of trying to figure out how to get them higher in the rankings.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free seven-day trial.)

from All About Sports http://www.downgoesbrown.com/2019/03/weekend-power-rankings-lightning-are.html

[wheelhousehockey-blog1]

The League's most entertaining players

FAN SUBMISSION

By Joseph Yanarella

The NHL had seemingly been run by Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin for the better part of almost a decade until Connor McDavid entered the league in 2015 and played his way into – and has since taken over – the discussion of the league’s best player. With Crosby and Ovechkin heading into the back-nine of their illustrious careers, and some others entering their primes, several new names have entered the discussion, like Auston Matthews and Nathan MacKinnon. We can debate their accolades until the cows come home, and people will. Everyone (including the fine folks here at Wheel House Hockey) breaks down who they see as the top players. That’s not what this list is meant to accomplish, not the question I’m asking.  Envision this: You’re taking a friend to their first hockey game. They may have seen some highlights or followed their team’s place in the standings, but their hockey knowledge is largely lacking. Who would you be excited to show them? Who do you expect to make a play, steal their attention, make them grab your arm and ask “who’s that?!”  Please note, again, this is not a list based on point production or CORSI or anything like that. It’s simply a list of players who make you say “wow” every time you watch, tentatively ranked.  1. Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals  Ovi scores goals. Lots of goals. Goals are the objective of the game, and loud horns and music play after they’re scored. That’s all exciting, so who’s more exciting than the guy who always scores? Nobody, but the goals aren’t all that makes him so much fun to watch. Part of that is what he does after he scores, how hard he celebrates. He doesn’t do the flappy bird, lasso cattle, or go for a swim, but the genuine smile and intensity with which he pumps his fist show he hasn’t lost the child-like love for the game that helped make the 8 so great. When he’s not disregarding goaltenders, he’s throwing his body around, making sweet passes, and being just pesky enough to get under the other team’s skin. Watching Ovechkin grab the Stanley Cup was a moment that encapsulated his warrior-like desire to be the best at the game he loves so much. The goals are great, but his affection for the game and how he displays it are what puts him atop this list.  2. Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers  To be fair, even your hockey-illiterate friend probably knows who Connor McDavid is, and already knows he’s special. But to truly appreciate him, the slick pass and great goal highlights don’t do him proper justice. One of his most valuable assets, his skating, is literally jaw-dropping to see in person. He could take five strides and be at the other end of the rink. Add this to the fact that the puck sticks to him like glue even at mach-5 speeds, and his cerebral vision, and you have an offensive force unlike any other. McDavid demands the attention of the fans and the other team the second his blades hit the ice; he can do something special no matter where he’s at. Plenty of guys can skate fast, dangle, or score. Not many can give you the whole package and make it seem so effortless like McDavid does.  3. Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins Okay, yes, your friend probably knows who Sidney Crosby is as well, and chances are they don’t like him very much. But they can’t deny how much fun he is to watch. While McDavid is Lemeuix-like in that he’s always dangerous, Crosby is Gretzky-like in that he makes everyone around him more dangerous. His vision and hockey sense are what makes him so special, part of what makes him so fun to watch. He’ll find his winger across the crease with a backhand pass that looks like it went through four bodies. He’ll win a battle down low, turn, and find a streaking defenseman right on the tape. He’ll draw up a faceoff play for his teammates that will end up scoring the overtime winner. He’ll do all this while possessing the game’s best back-handed shot and elite defensive acumen. He creates plays out of nothing better than anybody. He may not be your favorite player, but you can’t deny watching him do things like this is wildly exciting.  4. Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks  In a mold similar to Connor McDavid, Kane is a small, fast, electrifying forward. He does it all with incredible ease, and is a rare talent who can score from anywhere. He’ll venture to the blue paint for a tip-in or let loose a nasty wrister, it’s all the same to him because he just knows how to score. Recently, he’s developed a great knack for making plays and his assists and highlight-reel passes have increased with his sense and vision. Like a lot of others on this list, Kane’s skating is part of what makes him fun to watch. It’s not necessarily speed, but the fluidity with which he moves while dangling the puck with surgeon-like precision that makes you say wow. Watching him trade goals, and celebrations, with another one of the league’s top talents (and another member of this list) is always great fun as well.  5. Artemi Panarin, Columbus Blue Jackets  Pretty much everything in the description for Kane fits Panarin as well. Fluid skater? Absolutely. Nasty dangles? You betcha. Scoring machine? You know it. I’ve had the pleasure - or displeasure, when it’s been my team on a few occasions - of watching him weave his way through an entire defense, let loose a wrister and basically take control of a game by himself. He’s almost his own entity out there, but he can make great plays from anywhere on the ice and so it just works. He’s always been visible even though he’s played in systems in Chicago and Columbus that don’t necessarily put his skills in the limelight. Add in arguably the league’s best nickname, and inarguably the league’s best backstory and you’ve got the total package.  6. Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins  Malkin is a bit of a physical unicorn, a stalky, 6’3” forward who gallops down the ice and skate as fluidly as anybody. He’s got some great handles and a premier one-timer to go with his God-given gifts as well. Geno plays an entertaining game with a huge edge. He’s not afraid to show his frustration. That alone doesn’t make him special, but how he plays when he’s mad does: he seemingly has another gear when a call doesn’t go his way or a gaffe of his costs his team. The best way to describe this? I took a friend - no, he’s not hockey illiterate like your hypothetical friend - to a game a couple years back, and the Pens were trailing 3-0 in the first with nothing going their way. Malkin didn’t get a call on an obvious trip, and he was visibly heated. I turned to my friend and said “Watch out, Geno’s pissed”, eliciting a scoff in response. He ended up with three points, his goal coming on a play where he undressed the entire opposition and my friend turned to me and asked “how did he just do that?” I just told him he’s been doing it for a while now.  7. Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche  One of the few people in the world who can challenge McDavid’s speed, MacKinnon is immense fun to watch for that alone, but he’s got other reasons. He’s sort of a combination of the things that makes McDavid and Crosby fun: his speed and ability to slow a play down with his cerebral vision. Like a lot of others on this list, MacKinnon sees plays happening before they’re happening, and makes a lot of special passes because of it. He’s tremendous at entering the zone and allowing the play to develop, cradling the puck while he acts as a quarterback of sorts for arguably the league’s best line. It’s not always the goals or highlight reel passes that make him so special, but the ease with which he does it. He’s always been a great player, but the authority with which he assumed the number-one role in Colorado has everyone taking notice, and rightfully so.  8. Brent Burns, San Jose Sharks Burns is the only defenseman on the list, and he used to play forward. This may not be fair, but offense is what’s been driving the new era of the league and he brings plenty. I’ll concede that his defense lacks at times, but he’s wildly entertaining to watch when he’s attacking. On the power play, he’s cannoning one-timers to the net, often scoring or setting off skirmishes. He’s never scared to pinch, and often looks like a fourth forward doing so, swopping behind the net to take over the zone and make a play. He picks up a lot of his points on rebounds, but his passing shouldn’t be underrated, nor should his convincing fakes that open opportunities. He’s not the fastest skater, but he has the agility and handles to make “wow” plays. Defense be damned, Burns is fun to watch.  9. Auston Matthews, Toronto Maple Leafs  As I said earlier, goals are fun and by association, so are the players who score lots. Matthews fits this mold. His release is incredible, Sakic-like on the forehand and Crosby-like on the backhand. He only needs the puck for a second to put himself in a position to beat the goalie, and he does it from everywhere. He’s almost like an elite wide receiver in the sense that he has such great body control and can not only score from anywhere on the ice, but from less-than-optimal positions. A great skater and playmaker, and even better shooter, Matthews demands everyone’s attention when he’s out there. He started his career with one of the best efforts the league has ever seen from a rookie, and hasn’t slowed down since.  10. Matthew Tkachuk, Calgary Flames  If you’ve learned anything from this list, it’s that offense often drives entertainment value, and Tkachuk knows how to put points on the board. He also loves to throw his big body around and make his presence known that way. You can also pencil me in as someone who loves instigators, and there may be none better than Tkachuk. Since day one, he’s been making use of the Tkachuk-gene that makes his family far better than average at being a pest on the ice. It’s not always a big hit, sometimes a snarky chirp and a smirk is enough to let him under your skin. If instigating were enough to get spots on this list, guys like Ryan Kesler, Ryan Reaves, and Patric Hornqvist could be here as well. But Tkachuk brings that edge and all the skill necessary to back it up, putting him in a league of his own, at least among instigators and entertainers.  Honorable Mentions:  Kris Letang, Pittsburgh Penguins; David Pastrňák, Boston Bruins; Johnny Gaudreau, Calgary Flames; Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning; Alexander Barkov, Florida Panthers

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One Thing the NHL Award Voters Didn’t Screw Up Was Taylor Hall as MVP

The 2018 NHL Awards show may have felt like it lasted five hours but it only ran [checks watch] two hours and 15 minutes? Holy shit, that can’t be right, can it? I’ve seen Greg Maddux pitch quicker baseball games than that. How did giving out a handful of sports trophies become such a bloated event?

Watch how quickly I can whittle this show down to 90 minutes:

CUT OUT THE LADY BYNG AWARD — Nobody cares and voting (more below) shows voters don’t really care, either. Give it away before the show the way the Academy Awards give out the best foreign language animated documentary editing awards weeks earlier in the basement of a Dave & Busters.

NO MORE MAGIC SHOWS — Did we really watch a seven-minute “is this your card” trick? Is this because the show is in Vegas? Let those oiled up dancing guys present an award if you want some Vegas flavor. Stopping the show for a rejected set piece from the Now You See Me 3 script isn’t something anyone wants.

NO MORE VIDEO GAME COVER REVEALS — This is very much me being old and shaking my fist at a cloud, but sell your video game during commercial breaks, assholes.

NO MORE JACOB TREMBLAY INTERVIEWS — A trained child actor can’t make uncomfortable hockey players fun. Just let the kid host next year.

Listen to the latest episode of Biscuits, VICE Sports’ hockey podcast

NO MORE SAP STAT THINGIES — Nothing says excitement and pageantry and fun like some dorky-ass facts and figures about some dude’s stats. Again: SELL YOUR PRODUCT DURING COMMERCIAL BREAKS.

I think if you give me enough time I can trim this show to an action-packed hour but we need to move on to the awards and discuss who won, who should have won, and which voters made us laugh the hardest.

NORRIS TROPHY

Winner: Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay Lightning Runners-up: PK Subban, Nashville Predators; Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings

Did they get it right? Yes. Hedman, however, is lucky the PHWA gave Doughty his lifetime achievement Norris Trophy a few years ago because his numbers were good enough this season to warrant the sympathy trophy.

What was the funniest vote? There are a lot of worthy choices (Jaccob Slavin was fifth on a ballot!) but this space is dedicated to the PHWA voter who thought Dougie Hamilton was the second-best defenseman in the NHL this season. Hamilton was named on just three of 164 ballots—he was voted fifth on the two others—so either one renegade voter saw something no one else did or a local Calgary media member got too close to the situation.

CALDER TROPHY

Winner: Mat Barzal, New York Islanders Runners-up: Brock Boeser, Vancouver Canucks; Clayton Keller, Arizona Coyotes

Did they get it right? Yes. And by “they” I mean the PHWA voters and not Lou Lamoriello, whose archaic hair rules left Barzal with a much shorter haircut than what he could have had on a special night.

What was the funniest vote? There was nothing too egregious but I’d like to say hi to the Boston voter who felt Jake DeBrusk was the fifth-best rookie in the NHL.

LADY BYNG TROPHY

Winner: William Karlsson, Vegas Golden Knights Runners-up: Ryan O’Reilly, Buffalo Sabres; Aleksander Barkov, Florida Panthers

Did they get it right? Sure. Who knows? Karlsson seems nice. I’m sure he says “sir” and “madam” and knows which one is the salad fork at the royal castle. I have no idea why this award exists.

What was the funniest vote? This award is dumb but the criteria is very clear — be gentlemanly. So most voters just look for guys with a lot of points and few penalty minutes. The problem with that is it leaves a blind spot that leads to Auston Matthews finishing eighth in voting (with six first-place votes) and Connor McDavid finishing 10th (with two first-place votes). Why is this funny?

McDavid was hit with an abuse of officials penalty in January and Matthews mocked a referee a few days earlier by pointing at the net after scoring a goal because an earlier goal was disallowed. Were those two things fantastic? You bet. Would I like to see more of this? Oh yeah.

But it should disqualify them from getting any votes for “gentlemanly” play during that season. You may as well have a Tallest Player Award and give it to Mats Zuccarello.

SELKE TROPHY

Winner: Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings Runners-up: Sean Couturier, Philadelphia Flyers; Patrice Bergeron, Boston Bruins

https://sports.vice.com/en_ca/embed/article/gyk8z3/washington-capitals-alex-ovechkin-destroyed-his-critics-with-stanley-cup-win-over-vegas-golden-knights?utm_source=stylizedembed_sports.vice.com&utm_campaign=evk93a&site=sports

Did they get it right? No. I mean, I guess not. I don’t know. Why is there a best defensive forward award but not a best offensive defenseman award? More sports need extremely narrow awards for specific positions. Baseball can adopt a best infielder base runner. Football can honor the best tight end route runners. But apparently Kopitar wasn’t as good this year as he has been in the past. They should just give it to Bergeron every year until he decides it’s time to give it to Brad Marchand.

What was the funniest vote? Nobody voted for a defenseman or goaltender so this vote is devoid of humor.

JACK ADAMS AWARD

Winner: Gerard Gallant, Vegas Golden Knights Runners-up: Jared Bednar, Colorado Avalanche; Bruce Cassidy, Boston Bruins

Did they get it right? Yes. In any other season, Bednar runs away with this and there’s a case to be made he deserved it more than Gallant, but guiding an expansion team to a 100-point season made this automatic. They survived two months during the first half without Marc-Andre Fleury and still cruised to a playoff spot.

What was the funniest vote? I’d like to meet the two people who felt Randy Carlyle of the Anaheim Ducks was the second-best coach, which means they felt Carlyle did a better job than either Gallant or Bednar. I’m putting my money on one of those votes coming from Steve Simmons.

VEZINA TROPHY

Winner: Pekka Rinne, Nashville Predators Runners-up: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay Lightning; Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg Jets

https://sports.vice.com/en_ca/embed/article/nek53q/the-ottawa-senators-need-to-relocate-if-eugene-melnyk-doesnt-sell-the-team?utm_source=stylizedembed_sports.vice.com&utm_campaign=evk93a&site=sports

Did they get it right? Yeah, but who did John Gibson piss off among the general managers who voted for this award? Somehow he finished sixth behind Frederik Andersen, who somehow finished fourth with a first-place vote despite a pedestrian .918 save percentage. Apparently the Hockey Men can be just as bad at voting as people who Never Played The Game.

What was the funniest vote? Easily, it’s the guy who felt Andersen was the best goaltender in the NHL this season. We likely will never figure out which GM cast this vote, but my guess is Marc Bergevin. Why? Because Andersen went 3-0 with a .950 save percentage against the Canadiens this season, and that’s the sort of dumbass shit Bergevin would do. If this ever gets confirmed, please tweet a screenshot of this paragraph with the link to the story, because clicks are always nice.

GENERAL MANAGER OF THE YEAR

Winner: George McPhee, Vegas Golden Knights Runners-up: Kevin Cheveldayoff, Winnipeg Jets; Steve Yzerman, Tampa Bay Lightning

Did they get it right? No! Here’s the thing—we give the Jack Adams to the coach of the team we all thought would be crap before the season that turned out to be awesome. The reason we think a team is crap is how the GM builds it. So how can Gallant be the best coach if he’s simply coaching the team assembled by the best GM? You can’t have both! This is also a flawed award because Cheveldayoff (he should have won!) slowly built the team over many years. McPhee did some nice things in the expansion draft but tricking Dale Tallon into giving you two studs for nothing isn’t a big deal when Tallon probably still falls for the “got your nose” trick.

What was the funniest vote? This award is chosen by a swath of front-office and media types, so please let me meet the person who decided Ron Hextall was GM of the Year so I can take an Amtrak down to Philadelphia and have a Yuengling with this local.

HART TROPHY

Winner: Taylor Hall, New Jersey Devils Runners-up: Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche; Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings

Did they get it right? Yes! Surprisingly! And the vote was close—Hall edged MacKinnon by 70 points and held a 72-60 advantage in first-place votes. Hall had a slightly better MVP case and he won by a margin that presented that case. I went through all the ballots, looked very closely, and it turns out nobody casted a Hart vote for Adam Larsson.

What was the funniest vote? There wasn’t anything all that “what an idiot” funny but a very “huh, that’s funny” vote was Sidney Crosby getting just one fifth-place vote and nothing else. He had 89 points in 82 games, finished 10th in scoring but found himself tied in voting with Eric Staal and behind Artemi Panarin. It feels a little like the end of an era but also a little like taking Crosby for granted. Maybe it’s both.

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports CA.

One Thing the NHL Award Voters Didn’t Screw Up Was Taylor Hall as MVP syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com

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BRANDON, Fla | Lightning eye bounce-back performance against Capitals

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BRANDON, Fla | Lightning eye bounce-back performance against Capitals

BRANDON, Fla. (AP) — Jon Cooper is confident the Tampa Bay Lightning will be fine. Experience tells the coach and his players they shouldn’t be overly concerned about losing the opening game of the Eastern Conference finals at home.

The way the Washington Capitals are playing, though, it could be more difficult to rebound from a shabby performance this time. Game 2 is Sunday night, and Cooper expects the Atlantic Division winners to be at their best.

“It’s unfortunate how we played a couple of these Game 1s in the last couple of rounds, (and) dug ourselves a small hole this series,” the coach said after a workout Saturday at the team’s suburban practice facility.

“I guess the positive side is we’ve been here before, so we’ve seen this. But we can’t keep playing with fire and dropping these Game 1s,

which we’ve done. All of a sudden you’ve thrown home ice advantage back at them. Now you’ve put pressure on yourself. You got to go win games on the road, which you have to do anyway in the playoffs, but your margin for error gets smaller and smaller. We’re really going to need a good effort (Sunday).”

The Capitals won the opener 4-2, ending an eight-game playoff losing skid to Tampa Bay dating to the 2003 postseason.

Alex Ovechkin, T.J. Oshie, Jay Beagle and Lars Eller scored for Washington, while rejuvenated goaltender Braden Holtby stopped 19 shots to help the Caps improve to 6-1 on the road this postseason.

The Lightning didn’t take solace in breaking through for a pair of third-period goals.

“We dissected the game a little bit,” Cooper said. “There were so many good things we’ve done in two rounds of hockey that I think if you bottled up all the bad things in those first 10 games it would be about half of what we did in that one game last night.

“You fueled the fire of a good team, and that’s what Washington is. I thought a lot of their opportunities we just handed to them, and a lot of our opportunities were stomped out just by our not sticking to our plan of what’s worked.”

The Capitals, in the conference finals for the first time in the Ovechkin era, said they can’t afford a drop-off in performance.

Beating two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh gave them momentum heading into the series.

Coach Barry Trotz, mindful that Tampa Bay lost Game 1 of its second-round series 6-2 to Boston only to strom back and win four straight games, reiterated it won’t be easy to build off the Caps’ success in the opener.

“You get a little bit of confidence, obviously,” Trotz said at the team hotel Saturday. “At the same time we’ve got to realize Tampa Bay is going to have some desperation in their game. And, we better have some desperation in our game.”

Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay’s All-Star goaltender, yielded four goals on 25 shots in two periods after entering the series with an 8-2 record, 2.20 goals-against average and .927 save percentage through two rounds.

The Lightning are confident they’ll play better in front of him in Game 2. The Caps expect the goaltender to bounce back, too.

“One thing you got to remember, this is not the NCAA basketball tournament, it’s not one and done,” Cooper said. “It’s the best of seven, so you get a chance to make some adjustments to improve your game and really get a look at the other team. … It’s hard to play flawless hockey all the way through.”

The Caps don’t expect the Lightning to panic, either.

“Obviously, it doesn’t matter what we did in Game 1 when it comes to Game 2,” Beagle said.

“I would imagine there will be a really good push back from a really good hockey team. We’re going to have to stay focused, not get ahead of ourselves,” Oshie concluded. “I can’t imagine we’re going to see the same Tampa team we saw in the first period the rest of this series.”

By  FRED GOODALL by Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (U.S)

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Can Alex Ovechkin top Wayne Gretzky's record of 894 goals?

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Can Alex Ovechkin top Wayne Gretzky's record of 894 goals?

Alex Ovechkin scored goal No. 600 against the Jets, and now sets his sights on Jari Kurri (601), Dino Ciccarelli (608) and Bobby Hull (610) on the all-time list. But there’s a name a bit higher on the list that piques our interest a bit more: Wayne Gretzky, who holds the career goal-scoring record, with 894 tallies.

Will Ovechkin top the Great One before he hangs up his skates? Our experts weigh in:

Greg Wyshynski, senior writer: When I was a younger hockey fan, Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894 goals always felt like a record that was formidable but not unbreakable.

Which teams have the best shot at locking up a playoff spot? Who’s earning a better shot at the No. 1 overall pick? Here are the latest projections for both, along with critical matchups to watch today and much more.

Alex Ovechkin has reached 600 career goals, but how well do you know the details of the Washington Capitals star’s scoring dominance? Test your knowledge here!

Stay with us on this one: If you project ahead to age 40, writes John Buccigross, a healthy and driven Alex Ovechkin could surpass Wayne Gretzky’s incredible record of 894 career goals.

2 Related

This was mainly because I figured the NHL would find a way to overcorrect for improved defensive systems with, like, soccer-sized nets that would create more asterisks in the record book than the shift key. But it was also because I had seen players who would have legitimately threatened Gretzky’s mark were it not for external forces: Mario Lemieux‘s tragically truncated career and Jaromir Jagr losing games to both labor stoppages and his KHL sabbatical.

Alex Ovechkin is one such player. And if those external forces don’t screw it up, he’s going to break Wayne Gretzky’s record.

If he scores 50 goals this season, he’ll be at 608. Let’s assume he plays the last three seasons of his current contract and then five more NHL seasons after that on a new one. Let’s also assume an average of 36 goals per season in that span; this would put him at 896. This isn’t that outlandish at all when you consider he has been below 36 goals in a season only twice in his NHL career during a full season. Meanwhile, he has popped 50 goals in three of the past four seasons — and probably will again this season.

Scoring more than 30 goals into your twilight years isn’t unheard of, at least for durable players. Martin St. Louis (39) and Teemu Selanne (40) did it. Selanne, Jagr (43), Daniel Alfredsson (39), Shane Doan (39) and Brendan Shanahan (38) all had 27 goals or better later in their careers.

But again, we come back to those external forces. Ovechkin has shown a startling durability during his career, to the point where it almost has become a meme: “Russian Machine Never Break!” Will that machine be as fine-tuned when he’s 37? And as Lemieux will tell you, there’s no accounting for unforeseen health calamities.

The other external forces are the ones Jagr faced. The NHL and the NHL Players’ Association seem to be headed to something less than collective bargaining Armageddon in a few years, but there never has been a CBA negotiation in the past 30 years without a work stoppage. Then there’s the KHL question: There has been speculation for years, mostly from the KHL side, that Ovechkin would like to finish his playing days in Russia. Would he leave before the pursuit of Gretzky’s record is complete?

Barring those external forces, Ovechkin can break Gretzky’s record. But don’t take it from me.

“If he can sustain his pace, there’s no question in my mind that he has the ability and the talent and the work ethic to be able to do it. And if he does it, I’ll be the first guy there to shake his hand. If there is one guy out there that can do it, there’s no question it’s him,” Wayne Gretzky told NHL.com in 2016.

It won’t be easy. “The first 500 are the easy ones,” Gretzky said. “It’s the next 500, when you’re getting a little bit older and your body is a little bit worn down — the travel and physical part of the game catches up to you.”

Emily Kaplan, national reporter: If you had asked me this summer, I likely would have said no way. Ovechkin’s 33 goals in 2016-17 were his fewest in a non-lockout season since 2010-11, and his ice time was shaved to a career-low average of 18:22 to preserve him for the playoffs. By the end of the Pittsburgh series, Barry Trotz had moved Ovechkin to the third line, and the winger finished the playoffs with five goals and three assists in 13 games as he battled knee and hamstring injuries. “I think [Ovechkin is] going to have to think of ways he can evolve into a player that still has a major impact on the game,” GM Brian MacLellan told reporters in May, publicly challenging his star. It felt like all signs pointed to regression. Ovechkin’s dominance in the NHL felt tenuous at best.

This season? Ovechkin is the one laughing now. At 32, he’s proving that not only does he still have it, but also we should probably stop preparing for his imminent demise. Another 50-goal season is well within reach. He is the leader for (yet another) Maurice Richard trophy. The only question here is durability. Ovechkin doesn’t have the benefit of playing in the wild-scoring ’80s — for a four-season stretch between 1981 and 1985, Gretzky averaged more than 80 goals per season. That allowed Gretzky to reach his gaudy goal total in 20 seasons, even with a few dud seasons toward the end. Say Ovechkin ends up with 50 goals this season. That puts him at 608, just 286 shy of Gretzky. If Ovechkin is still averaging about 47 goals per season, he’d need to play six more seasons to reach Gretzky. We need to assume Ovechkin might tail off a bit in his late 30s, just as Gretzky did, so it could take eight or nine seasons for him to reach that total.

In training camp, I asked Ovechkin how long he’d like to keep playing. He told me, “I still have lots of time to set up my legacy and how I want to be remembered. I still have time to make history. I’m 32 only. [For] a couple more years, I am going to be at a high level. You never know when your career is going to be done or what’s going to happen in the future. But I need to win a Stanley Cup.” That’s the thing; the goal for Ovechkin is always the elusive team hardware. If the Capitals can’t get over the playoff hump, Ovechkin’s legacy will be cemented by individual achievement. And that probably means surpassing Gretzky’s goal total — and, well, I’m done with the business of counting Ovi out.

Chris Peters, hockey prospects writer: This is a tough one, but the fact that this isn’t a crazy question to ask at this point is incredible in itself. There are so many factors to consider, and as Emily noted, durability is one of them. We know that Ovechkin typically plays a full season, rarely missing a game. Then come the playoffs, and then the World Championship. He has put a lot of miles on his body, but he just keeps coming back and looking at least close to the same player we know. These next two to three years should tell us a lot about the level he is able to maintain.

Missed an episode of the ESPN On Ice podcast with Greg Wyshynski and Emily Kaplan? Find all the episodes from the show’s catalogue here. Listen »

The biggest thing I’m going to be watching the next few years is Ovechkin’s ability to maintain his shot volume. With a shot such as his, as long as he keeps getting himself in position to get it on net as much as he does, the goals are going to keep coming. Last season was the lowest shot total of his career, and now he’s trending back up this season. It’s so simple, but shooting a bunch obviously helps. There is not yet a noticeable trend in the way his shot volume fluctuates to expect a massive drop-off anytime soon.

Here’s where things get tricky, though. The Stanley Cup and an Olympic gold medal are two major driving forces for Ovechkin, there’s no doubt. The Caps always seem so close and yet so far from Cup contention, but if they manage to win it, how much longer does Ovechkin stick around after that happens? Especially if there’s still an opportunity for him to win gold with Russia and the NHL decides not to go to the 2022 Olympics in Beijing? There are a ton of what-ifs in there, but I think the Olympics discussion is one worth having, considering that his contract runs out after the 2020-21 season. It could, at the very least, interrupt his path to setting the new standard.

Selfishly, I hope Ovechkin plays in the NHL deep into his 40s like Jaromir Jagr, even if there ends up being a KHL/Olympics interruption in there. There is no one like him, and there never will be again. I have just enough doubt, however, to say he’ll fall just shy of the Great One’s record, but I’ll be watching as intently as anyone else wondering if he can do it.

Sean Allen, fantasy analyst: Yes. As much as I hate to see the Great One’s record fall, I believe Ovechkin is going to do it.

Let’s extrapolate with a comparable player from a comparable era. Teemu Selanne played the bulk of his career in an era with similar NHL scoring as Ovechkin. In fact, if anything, Selanne got a couple of years of an advantage prior to the dead puck era for his total, but I’m focused here on Selanne’s totals from 2003-04 forward.

Ovechkin and Selanne have a similar offensive skill set based on their sniping ability. I won’t go so far as to suggest that Ovechkin has the skating ability of Selanne or that Selanne has the physical presence of Ovechkin. This isn’t apples to apples. But it’s not hard to envision either player in the offensive circle blasting a one-timer into the back of the net. Assuming Ovechkin finishes this season with 50 goals, he would have 608 goals through his age-32 season. If he matches Selanne’s career goal-for-goal following Selanne’s age-32 campaign, Ovechkin would retire at the age of 43 with 856 goals.

Oh, just shy of the record, right? What if I told you that Selanne had only 16 total goals in his age-33 and age-34 seasons combined? He tallied 16 goals during his failed tenure with the Colorado Avalanche and then lost the following season to the lockout.

Now, 33 and 34 aren’t prime ages by any means, but 16 goals total for the next two seasons sounds crazy low for Ovechkin, no? Let’s say he gets only a combined 55 total goals in 2018-19 and 2019-20 (which, again, is a lowball estimate); if he does that and then matches Selanne’s twilight from age 35 to 43, all of a sudden that puts him on pace for 895.

Selanne was a special player, but Ovechkin is no less special himself. Boil it down to this: Do I believe Ovechkin can score 38 more goals than Selanne did between the ages of 33 and 43? Maybe. Do I believe he can do it with the knowledge that Selanne played only 72 percent of his potential total games in that span? I do.

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May want to NBA's star-resting phenomenon reach the NHL?

Believe the Chicago Blackhawks resting Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and Duncan Keith suddenly at the same night time. Or the Pittsburgh Penguins doing the equal with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Phil Kessel.

                                               NBA’s Star

NHL Standings

If the NBA’s current troubling phenomenon of resting stars reaches the NHL, it would simply take place.

“By no means. Never,” said Toronto Maple Leafs center Nazem Kadri whilst asked approximately the issue earlier than adding a mild caveat. “Maybe if you had first locked into the area through a mile and it turned into the final recreation of the year on the street or something — Maybe you sit down a guy out. However In no way for more than one video games … If a healthful participant is wholesome he is playing.”

Now not so inside the NBA, wherein head coaches are more and more resting their stars as they carefully control the grind of an eighty-two game season that many feels are just too long and cumbersome. Throughout a current Saturday night assembly among the league’s pinnacle groups, the Golden Country Warriors, and San Antonio Spurs, every famous person-calibre participant sat — along with Warriors two-time MVP Steph Curry and previous NBA finals MVP Kawhi Leonard.

That first region ordinary in the Western Conference became on the line failed to count number, nor did the truth that the game changed into nationally televised.

One week later, At some point of any other countrywide broadcast, the Cleveland Cavaliers sat LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love for a showdown with the Los Angeles Clippers.

So alarmed is the NBA that commissioner Adam Silver dispatched a memo this week to the league’s board of governors describing the difficulty as “extraordinarily giant” with choices to relaxation players “damage(ing) the perception of our recreation.”

The NHL has seen not anything like that up to now, even though deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in an electronic mail that “of the route, it’d be a situation” if it commenced taking place as often as inside the NBA.

“You realize basketball’s an intricate one because they depend so much on an individual,” Montreal Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty stated. “LeBron can play the complete game from time to time and he is taking an early final-region group to a championship team, so I mean it is a totally unique game in that feel where his rest is a lot more treasured than in every other game.”

“I just assume hockey’s a special sort of animal wherein I do not assume men would need to do it,” Pacioretty brought. “guys are stubborn sufficient to probably combat it in the event that they had been asked and that is how I would see that taking place.”

Pacioretty stated he would try to refuse if the Canadiens ever asked him to choose out for relaxation. A few in the NBA concur, together with Houston Rockets MVP candidate James Harden who stated this week: “I simply need to hoop. I’ll rest when I’m accomplished.”

NBA coaches, including Steve Kerr of the soldiers, have aggressively defended the exercise as an extended-time period play on a taxing schedule.

Torts says no

Unexplained True Events

Columbus Blue Jackets train John Tortorella, meanwhile, wouldn’t entertain discussing the concept.

“do not even get me involved in that stuff,” he stated Wednesday.Extra parity within the NHL Could save you the concept from taking hold.

Even golf equipment on the pinnacle, like Pittsburgh or Chicago, are unlikely to cut down their odds at factors by resting a top player, even though it manner supporting that megastar over the long haul. each point has such importance on playoff matchups and seeding, not like the NBA in which such stuff topics little for elite contenders just like the Warriors, Spurs, and Cavs.

Sitting Crosby, for example, and decreasing their possibilities at a win, would possibly imply a more difficult opponent for the Penguins and likelier first spherical go out.

“It is so even that you need each benefit you could have,” Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen said. “In basketball, on occasion, you can take out your quality participant and still possibly beat them.”

“I suppose the NHL’s more physical too, just in phrases of bump-and-grind,” introduced Kadri, a huge NBA fan. “But you Never understand the ones men (inside the NBA) and their knees and their ankles, shoulders, regardless of the case may be.”

A few NHL groups have added sports activities science divisions in recent years, consisting of the Penguins and Leafs, the latter hiring Jeremy Bettle, previously of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and United states of America Basketball software. players in Toronto, beneath his watch, now game wearable generation at practice, which facilitates the club song their physical circumstance at the same time as guarding against injury.

It is caused gamers nursing accidents a little at the same time as longer than their teach may like and sitting out the peculiar practice or skate.

would possibly that translate sooner or later into games, especially as the era and availability of information improve?

If there ever was 12 months to try it was this one in the NHL, with the world Cup of Hockey and newly-applied bye week further compressing an already hard time table.

NBA Standing

The NBA has yet to provide you with an answer to stopping the practice and even Popovich said his technique, despite Silver’s observe of warning, would remain the same. it’s well worth noting that the NHL suspended gamers, consisting of Toews and Alex Ovechkin, who opted to skip past all-big name festivities for what was largely perceived as relaxation.

“I By no means thought approximately it,” Pacioretty stated. “But it’d be thrilling to peer if groups do it and how humans would react if it occurs.”

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Trending Topics: In praise of Braden Holtby

Braden Holtby deserves some of the Alex Ovechkin shine. (Getty)

For perfectly understandable reasons, a lot of the Capitals’ run to this Cup Final has been through the prism of “What does this mean for Alex Ovechkin?”

Look, Ovechkin has been there since 2005-06 and tasted naught but playoff defeat. Every Washington postseason flameout was, in fact, viewed in too many corners as an Ovechkin flameout, and so for the Capitals to overcome their demons — in large part through Ovechkin’s 22 points in 19 playoff games — feels as much like a personal victory as a collective one.

Moreover, that the Caps lost so much talent this past summer and, despite being worse in most facets of the game in terms of “process,” but have still far surpassed previous achievements is kind of funny, but ultimately doesn’t matter much. It’s not the journey, in this case. It’s the destination.

But lost in the deserved praise for Ovechkin and, to a lesser extent, Nick Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov is the fact that few have acknowledged Braden Holtby being a huge reason the Caps got to where they got to after starting the postseason opening and closing the door for defensemen coming off the ice. Holtby is up to .924 in these playoffs across 18 appearances, 17 of them starts, and the Caps have won all but five of his starts. Were it not for Marc-Andre Fleury stonewalling the entire Western Conference, Holtby would have a very legitimate case for the Conn Smythe, especially given how this season went.

You’ll recall that Holtby started on the bench because, by all appearances in the regular season, he deserved to be there. Just .907 in 54 games, which are both inexplicable numbers. The former is the worst of his career in an 82-game season by a whopping 13 points, and that he got into 54 games anyway speaks to the fact that, well, he’s a career .920 goalie and you gotta let a guy work through his issues. He’s only 28, after all.

And the thing is, Holtby has pretty much always elevated his game in the postseason. His career .919 in the regular season is one of the best of the cap era, but his .930 in the playoffs is an incredible feat. The fact that the Capitals lost in the second round when he cleared .940 — NINE FORTY! — two postseasons in a row speaks to how dismal the Capitals’ offensive performances were in the past. This is a guy who entered this postseason with a career playoff record below .500, despite being .931 in 59 appearances. Just incredible.

So now, in the midst of another perfectly great postseason run, Holtby’s team is very much in the Cup Final because he has been, well, Holtby again. The number of scoring chances he’s faced per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 time? It’s up from the previous two playoffs? The number of high-danger chances is the third-highest in his playoff career. And yet the number of goals he’s allowing — both on those chances and in general — are at some of the lowest levels ever seen in his career. He’s not doing Fleury numbers, because apparently only 2017-18 Marc-Andre Fleury is even capable of that, but he’s not far off, either.

You can make an argument that last year, when Holtby was .909 in the playoffs, he was certainly a contributing factor in their loss. He really only had two good games against the Penguins in seven tries, and that’s not gonna get it done at all. But also those last two Penguins teams were destroyers of worlds, and then they ran into this Caps Team Of Destiny, which, what can ya do? You can only beat the same team in the playoffs so many times in a row before they beat you. Holtby, for the record, was .921 in the Pittsburgh series, this after going .932 against Columbus and winning all four games he started.

The reason the Capitals lost in previous playoff runs were almost never down to Holtby, though: shooting percentages of 7.6, 5.4, 6.0, and 7.3 very much were. To overcome that kind of shooting inefficiency, even going .940 isn’t always going to get it done. Which is an incredible thing to have to say, but it’s absolutely true.

In his entire career, Holtby really hasn’t had too many fallow stretches, and frankly it’s odd that the worst of them happened to come along in last year’s playoffs and this year’s regular season. Much like Fleury’s run, it also doesn’t matter much at this point what you expect his future performance looks like. We’re now talking about just seven games that will potentially define Holtby’s legacy as one of the best goalies of his era.

Holtby is eighth in save percentage among goalies with at least 300 appearances since 2010-11, behind a list of All-Stars and future Hall of Famers. Few have been this consistently good, and even being eighth, that’s just two points of save percentage behind Roberto Luongo’s league-leading .921. It’s a pretty tightly packed cluster, but they’re pretty much all great, and again, Holtby is the only goalie — in that group or overall — to go .930-plus in the postseason during that stretch.

I think everyone knows Holtby is great, and he had that easy Vezina win a couple years ago to back up his bonafides. But as much as the hockey world focuses on playoff failures in Washington, it has mostly ignored his incredible playoff success. This year, two years ago, five years ago.

It’s nice not to be The Guy, because without Ovechkin maybe Holtby shoulders a little more of the blame (however unfairly). But whatever success Washington has had in this postseason has largely come because Holtby has been his usual phenomenal self. Which isn’t bad considering he started the playoffs on the bench.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.

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The 5 tastiest NHL storylines entering 2018

Alex Ovechkin is taking aim at a seventh Rocket Richard Trophy. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

From Vegas to Edmonton and Ottawa, there’s been no shortage of drama through the first 30-plus games of the NHL season.

The Golden Knights are on pace to make history, the Senators are in turmoil with owner Eugene Melnyk and superstar Erik Karlsson front and centre, and the Oilers are, well, back to being the Oilers. Elsewhere, rookies are soaring, veterans are roaring and a couple Russians are sniping at a torrid pace.

Here are the five most intriguing NHL storylines heading into 2018:

Can the Vegas Golden Knights make history?

Barring a monumental collapse, the Vegas Golden Knights are already the best expansion club in NHL history. (AP Photo/John Locher)

The Vegas Golden Knights have not only been the surprise of this NHL season, they’ve had the greatest start of any expansion team in North American professional sports in the last 25 years. The patchwork club, which was pieced together with castoffs from the league’s other 30 teams, shockingly won eight of its first nine games and haven’t looked back since.

With another two points banked at home on New Year’s Eve versus the Maple Leafs, Vegas opened up a three-point lead in the Pacific Division and sit two points up on the Winnipeg Jets for the best record in the Western Conference. Only the relentless Tampa Bay Lightning have more wins and points league-wide than Vegas — which is well on its way to becoming the first team in the post-expansion era to make the playoffs in its inaugural season.

Will the Oilers make the playoffs?

McDavid and the Oilers dug themselves quite a hole, but the postseason isn’t totally out of reach. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)

After a 10-year hiatus, the Edmonton Oilers returned to the playoffs last season for the first of what figured to be many upcoming consecutive postseason appearances. The momentum from the team’s breakthrough season was halted immediately as the 2017-18 campaign began, however, as the Oilers dropped eight of their first 11 games and had everyone in hockey circles questioning what on earth was wrong with a team which was pegged as a Stanley Cup favourite entering this year.

The Oilers have lost some momentum over the holidays after taking six wins from eight games through the heart of December. They’ve dug themselves a giant hole after a less-than-ideal start to the campaign, but the postseason is not out of reach. Edmonton sits seven points back in the Pacific Division and the Wild Card race on the first day of 2018, and has more than half a season to make up that ground.

Rookie of the year race

This is the tightest Calder race in years, with several forwards and Bruins rookie blueliner Charlie McAvoy leading the way. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

This is one of the deeper rookie classes the NHL has seen in quite some time, and it will be intriguing to watch the Calder Trophy race play out over the second half of the season. There are 12 first-year players with at least 20 points through the first chunk of the season, with Vancouver Canucks forward Brock Boeser (21 goals, 17 assists) and the Islanders’ Mathew Barzal (13 goals, 23 assists) leading all rookies so far.

A trio of defenceman including Tampa Bay’s Mikhail Sergachev, the Devils’ Will Butcher and Boston’s Charlie McAvoy have made impacts far greater than freshman blueliners typically put forth, with the just-turned-20-year-old McAvoy in particular stepping up and taking the reigns as Boston’s No. 1 D-man. A group of eight or so skaters, including Boeser, Barzal, Sergachev, Butcher, Clayton Keller, Alex DeBrincat, Kyle Connor and 2017 No. 1 overall pick Nico Hischier all have legitimate shots at contending for the Calder trophy at season’s end.

Will Erik Karlsson find a new home?

The Ottawa Senators parting ways with Erik Karlsson would have seemed unfathomable just months ago, but here we are. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)

Erik Karlsson is the best defenseman to ever suit up for the Ottawa Senators, and probably the most talented player the franchise has ever seen. There’s an actual possibility, however, that Karlsson may not spend the prime of his career in the Nation’s Capital.

After coming out and stating he would not take less than his market value to stay in Ottawa when he becomes an unrestricted free agent in 2019, Karlsson was asked to submit (for the first time) his 10-team no-trade list to management. With an owner clearly unwilling to spend to the cap and a team sitting in the basement of the Eastern Conference, the club, if not convinced they can re-sign him, could opt to flip Karlsson at the deadline or on draft day with a year of control left on his contract in order to maximize the return they’d yield for arguably the NHL’s best blue liner.

Duelling Russian snipers

Nikita Kucherov has arrived, and he’s going after the king. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)

Though several players remain in the mix, the race for the NHL’s goal scoring crown this season is likely going to come down to a pair of mightily-skilled Russians in Nikita Kucherov and Alex Ovechkin – who enter 2018 with with 25 and 24 tallies, respectively. A couple Islanders’ first-liners in Anders Lee (24) and John Tavares (21), along with the rookie Boeser (21) will also be in the mix.

Kucherov and Ovechkin may just be the two best pure shooters in the world right now, and both are in different, yet equally-productive points in their careers. The 24-year-old Kucherov is in his fourth full NHL season, and broke through with a career-high 40 tallies last season. Ovechkin, the wily veteran sniper, has captured a mind-blowing six Rocket Richard trophies as the NHL’s leading goal-scorer and has buried 50 tallies in a season seven times, including 65 in 2007-08.

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Puck Daddy Bag of Mail: Bad decisions, PDO and the best place for Karlsson

The Carolina Hurricanes, forever doomed by a low PDO. (Adam Lacy/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Does it strike anyone else as weird that so many teams in the league seem to be winning like five of their last seven games, or six straight, and things like that? Seems to be a lot of that going around this year for no readily apparent reason, and a lot of the time, it’s teams where you look at their underlying numbers and you say, “Well, they’re not this good.”

On some level it’s the same Flames/Avs/Panthers/Blue Jackets disease that makes itself all too pervasive at this time of year; teams get to the 30-game mark and start to ignore the PDO. I’ve had a bunch of Golden Knights fans say to me, “Well clearly we’re one of the best teams in the league. Look at the record against other current playoff teams.” That whole thing. Kings fans are saying the same stuff. Very familiar to those of us who’ve been around the block with a high PDO and middling-or-worse underlyings.

Anyway, because I’ve been thinking about that kinda stuff lately, I chose a lot of questions this week about percentages, classic hockey wisdom, making bad decisions, and the like. It’s been on my mind, folks!

Here we go:

Dixon asks: “Why do the Flyers insist on playing old bad vets over young talent?”

The Flyers are in a weird spot, as I’ve said over the past few weeks. Their roster has very few good players in their mid-20s, and most of the talent is either entering or departing those players’ respective primes. Tough way to win.

But what you have to understand about coaching in this sport — and someone sent in a question about why some coaches insist on playing defense-first hockey, but this was in the same vein — is that they are risk-averse. That’s why when you talk about guys like Subban or Karlsson, you often hear that they take “too many” risks, when in fact there’s basically no such thing.

Those old, bad veterans on the Flyers roster, particularly on the blue line, get a pass because they don’t visibly screw up constantly, but are just low-level players who present as “steady.” But if Shayne Gostisbehere, with his high skill level, tries to make something happen and it doesn’t work, well, that’s a bad turnover that probably leads to a high-quality scoring chance, and high-quality scoring chances have a really high conversion rate. Then you get to say, “Well, this is why he needs to be demoted to the third pairing/benched for a period/healthy-scratched” while Andrew MacDonald has a 28 percent CF% in a game but blocks a few of those shot attempts against and gets kudos.

Basically, the answer to your question is, “This is a dumb sport for idiots.” It’s not a Dave Hakstol thing. It’s an everybody thing.

Mike asks: “When is Dustin Byfuglien going to get around to scoring a goal?”

Well, now that’s he’s out until after Christmas, it’s probably going to be a while, but the larger point is that he has no goals on 69 shots in 28 games. And while the obvious answer to your question is that a guy with a seven percent career shooting percentage is going to score a goal eventually — he’s scored at least 12 in every full season of his career — you also have to be concerned with the declining shot rate.

But this is kind of a thing with elite defensemen this year, isn’t it? Brent Burns went a good long while with only one goal despite the fact that he still shoots the puck a ton (he’s up to four now, but that’s still only four on 122 shots), and Erik Karlsson only has one on 66 shots.

So hey, it happens, especially when you shoot from as far as out as defensemen typically do.

Sasha asks: “Where should Karlsson go?”

It won’t happen for fairly obvious reasons, but I would freaking cry with joy if he got traded to Toronto for a raft of futures. The Leafs probably couldn’t keep him long-term, but they’re a good defenseman away from being legitimately dangerous. If they get, say, the best defenseman alive to address that problem, well, they’re gonna start scoring a lot of goals all of a sudden, and their problems with allowing a million shots a night won’t matter as much.

Cameron asks: “Are the Red Wings bad enough to get a top draft pick? What do you expect from this organization?”

Sure they are. They’re not 31st-in-the-league bad, but they’re absolutely capable of being 26th-in-the-league bad, and that’s pretty much all you need to assure yourself a pretty good crack at a top-three pick these days.

There’s a lot of struggle ahead for the Red Wings. They’re gonna try to rebuild on the fly, but the cap- and talent-based realities dictate that they will not be able to. The Wings love to sell themselves as drafting geniuses, but the recent history tells a very different story.

Of course, it’s pretty hard to screw up a top-three pick these days, and most end up working out just fine. But the Wings’ overall strategy should be a lot less focused on nailing a top-three pick, and compiling enough first-round picks to have more than one or two difference-makers.

Danny asks: “What in the world is going on with James Reimer? Is it a product of bad defense/bad moves that include getting rid of Demers for no reason?”

When I saw this question it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen James Reimer’s save percentage in a while, but I knew it wasn’t good or anything. Then I checked and, well, it was about what I thought: .894.

Certainly the quality of the team in front of him having been eroded so badly over the summer isn’t going to help his numbers at all, but then how do you explain Roberto Luongo having a bounce-back year and posting a .928 in 15 appearances? (The fact that Luongo has more losses than wins despite a .928 save percentage is, of course, indicative of Florida’s problem.)

Honestly, I’m willing to chalk a lot of this up to, “It’s just one of those things.” Goalies, shooters, they all go through fallow periods where they’re off their game, or they can’t catch a break. Reimer was a career .915 goalie coming into the season, and he’s only 29, so he didn’t turn into an awful goalie all of a sudden. Maybe he’s not 100 percent, and again the fact that the defense is giving up 10 high-quality shots per appearance (on average) isn’t helping.

I say give him a minute. Let’s not freak out about 18 games.

Andy asks: “At what point do certain stats like PDO stop becoming indicative of luck and start becoming indicative of an underlying trend? I’m a ‘Canes fan and at this point I think it’s safe to say our consistently low PDO isn’t an accident.”

On a team level, it’s very rare anyone can sustain a PDO of more than 101 for more than a season. If you have high-end talent, especially in net, that’s different. The Bruins and Rangers had PDOs north of 100 forever, because Tim Thomas, Tuukka Rask and Henrik Lundqvist are always going to have high save percentages, and that’s a big part of the battle.

But teams that shoot 9.5 or 10 percent for any decent stretch? That’s unsustainable. Even if you have elite talent like Stamkos, Ovechkin, Crosby, Getzlaf, etc., it’s hard to score goals, team-wide, at that kind of rate.

As far as the Hurricanes go, their low PDO was, for a long time, weighed down by both horrible goaltending and low shooting percentages. Scott Darling was supposed to be the fix to the former issue, and an influx of highly regarded talent the fix for the latter. Neither have been to this point (currently .899 from Darling, and the team is still shooting less than eight percent).

Everything else has improved in Raleigh, but the percentages are still quite bad. I’m with you in that I’m not sure this is a luck thing anymore, but I don’t know how to explain it either.

Zack asks: “What is a big enough sample size that you’re comfortable with to judge shooting percentage? Thinking of Brayden Point and his 98-game career.”

Point has a career shooting percentage of 16.1, but he’s only on 192 shots in 98 games. That’s fewer than two shots per game, which isn’t a lot at all.

For that reason, it’s not a “games” thing, it’s a “shots on goal” thing. Much like we probably don’t know a goalie’s “true talent” level until he’s faced a few thousand shots at the NHL level, I wouldn’t be comfortable saying this is Point’s reliable shooting level for until he hit maybe 600, 700 shots.

The other thing to consider, though, is that Point’s shot total might be so low because he’s in the Alex Tanguay mold: Tanguay is a guy who didn’t shoot much either — 1.4 per game, which is fewer than Point, actually — but has one of the highest career shooting percentages in NHL history despite playing through two Dead Puck Eras.

Why? Because Tanguay pretty much only shot the puck when he had a really good chance of putting it into the net. If that’s Point’s “thing” too, we’ll probably find out in a year or three.

—

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

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Six Players Fulfilling Their Fantasy Hockey Potential

  Over the course of the past few seasons we’ve seen the transition into a new era as far as player personnel and style of play across the league. A normal process in time with Crosby turning 30, the arrival of Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, and Connor McDavid and the New Jersey Devils contending for the Metropolitan Division lead, it would seem times have certainly changed. For any team the future is reliant upon young individuals within the organization blossoming into go-to guys in order for them to have success. Let’s look at a few players that appear to be integral pieces of their respective franchises future.

.

Anthony Mantha

  Standing six feet five inches and weighing 225 pounds Monster Mantha should have taken up American football for a profession. After a quarter century plus of playoff contention the Detroit Red Wings missed the postseason in 2016-17. With Pavel Datsyuk leaving for Russia and Henrik Zetterberg getting further and further into his thirties the Wings are in dire need of their youth to grab hold of the reins and lead forth from here. Mantha has been a celebrated prospect since his days in Val d’Or where he was a goal scoring dynamo. The fact that he went 20th overall in his draft year still baffles me. His goal scoring translated in the AHL and is once again doing so now in the NHL with him on pace for a 30-plus goal season.

  This year Mantha has seen his average ice time jump a minute and a half from the prior season as the team looks to him more and more for offense. Sporting a PDO of 1012 which is line with last season, a 50.3 CF%, and starting 56% of his shifts in the offensive zone Mantha is poised to continue producing. Though his shooting percentage is a tad high for his career so far at 16.4% it is not entirely unsustainable with his wicked wrister and affinity for driving towards the net. Regardless it is wise to expect at least a bit of regression but as stated earlier he looks poised to eclipse the 30-goal marker for the first time in his career this season. Not to be rude but for a team devoid of offensive talent beyond the top-six he is seemingly not in danger of losing his prime scoring role anytime soon. Look for the 23-year-old to be a go-to guy for many years.

  Mikko Rantanen

  When you post 20 goals in 75 games played in your rookie campaign at the age of 20 everyone should be turning their heads and paying attention. Especially when you do that on the absolute dumpster fire of a team that was the Colorado Avalanche in the campaign prior. Now a starkly improved squad thus far it should be no surprise that Rantanen is now producing at a more profound clip in 2017-18. Currently featured consistently on the top line alongside Nathan Mackinnon and on the top powerplay unit, Rantanen has become a must own asset at the tender age of 21. Though he put himself in the spotlight as a goal scorer in his rookie campaign, Rantanen has long been known to be of the playmaking style and this season sees him leaning more towards such with 13 assists on top of seven goals. Seeing as he is currently outproducing the second guy chosen overall in his 2015 draft class, people should really be taking more notice of this kid.

  Rantanen is receiving an eye-popping average four-plus minutes of power play time per game this season and it shows in his 11 man-advantage points out of 20 total. Six of his seven goals have come a man up as well so although a reliance upon the power play is not ideal it certainly is nice to see a guy produce when deployed in said scenario. Rantanen will certainly eclipse his 133 total shots from 2016-17 and his shooting percentage is in line with last year, in fact it’s slightly lower. Fact of the matter is this kid has no sophomore slump effects at this point in time and will be an integral part of the Avalanche’s young core going forward.

  Scott Darling

  Coming from the arguably dynastic Chicago Blackhawks to the young upstart Carolina Hurricanes one has to expect regression statistically for any goaltender. Brought from Chicago to begin the phase out of Cam Ward, it’s been an up and down ride so far for Darling in the city of Raleigh. Nonetheless if we focus in on the month of November solely and exclude his recent start against the Rangers and another one against the Islanders early on, Darling has been rather solid throughout. Like any player it can take time to adjust to a new team, system, city, etc. and that just may be the case with Darling. Now with the offense clicking behind a seemingly ascending Teuvo Teravainen one has to hope for the wins to start coming his way. Though we can look to his statistical past for trends one would have to take them with a grain of salt as his scenario has altered completely.

  As he approaches age 29 it is basically now or never for Darling to seize this crease and establish himself as a consistent starter in the NHL. Though his current save percentage sits at .905 only twice so far this season has his percentage been below .850 by the end of a game. Should the Hurricanes young defense continue to improve with age and improve in the shot suppression department Darling could really be become a force in net. For the time being one must temper their expectations of him but he’s the most capable netminder this franchise has had since Ward’s prime.

  Jonathan Drouin

  It was all but guaranteed Drouin would be shipped out of Tampa Bay after the drama he brought forth during his tenure. Hailing from Quebec province himself his move to the Montreal Canadiens I’m sure pleased him and Habs fans alike. Slick handed and tantalizing with skill reminiscent of Alexei Kovalev, Drouin is the offensive injection Montreal needed direly. With five goals and 12 assists through 25 games played, Drouin’s scoring is in line with his production from the prior campaign. This is both good and bad. Good in the fact he is matching output on a team that lacks the offensive depth he had around him in Tampa Bay and bad in the fact that he needs to step up a tier in his output to save Montreal.

  With the current structure of the Canadiens, a team devoid of offensive firepower beyond the top six, Drouin must become at least a 65-70 -point player year in and year out. Receiving the highest offensive zone starting percentage and power play time of his career so far owners should be encouraged by his deployment for continued success. Drouin’s shooting percentage sits at 7.8% currently compared to 11.5% last season so expect some regression towards the mean in the goal department soon. Not to harp on the Canadiens but the team collectively needs to up their game offensively. Although it is great to see Brendan Gallagher pumping in goals, the fact he’s outproducing Max Pacioretty in this department is all too telling of the offensive woes. All in all, Drouin will continue to be relied on offensively and it’s great to see him at least matching his production from last season in the pressure cooker that is Montreal. Hope for better with time and improved play from his supporting cast.

  Andrei Vasilevskiy

  Bishop who??? With his departure to the Dallas Stars all eyes were on Vasilevskiy n 2017-18 to carry the squad in goal and boy has he delivered. No doubt at least somewhat a product of the scenario he finds himself in Vasilevskiy has delivered 16 wins coupled with only three regulation losses so far. He’s seemingly overcome his inconsistent struggles of season’s past as he is yet to post a start where he finished with a save percentage below .850. Much credit is due to him for taking his game to a new level, he is playing on a stacked squad that features the terrible-twosome of Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.

  Since 2015-16 from a statistical standpoint you can see Vasilevskiy’s gradual improvement with time. 2015-16 was the first time he eclipsed the 20-game mark posting a meager GAA of 2.76 and a save percentage (SV%) of .910. Entering 2016-17 where Bishop was eventually dealt to the Los Angeles Kings, Vasilevskiy’s workload more than doubled starting fifty games and posting a GAA of 2.61 and a SV% of .917. Not anything special but certainly an improvement with a bigger workload, surely a good sign. Now in 2017-18 through the first quarter mark he is boasting a 2.25 GAA, a significant improvement on the season prior and his SV% is currently .932, good for third overall in the league. He’s currently on pace to start around seventy games this season and if the winning ratios remain in line with the first quarter he will easily eclipse forty wins. All in all, this team looks destined for Stanley Cup contention barring no epic meltdowns and there are no questions in goal at this point in time. With a healthy Stamkos still in his prime, Kucherov not yet even 25 and Vasilevskiy well established in net, this team looks like a contender for years to come.

  Andre Burakovsky

  And to finish off this article we look to the District of Columbia’s  franchise that sorely needs it’s youth to step up to the plate as the current stars continue aging into their thirties. For the first time in what seems like a decade the Washington Capitals are showing cracks in their seams. A defense far thinner than the prior season with the departures of Karl Alzner and Kevin Shattenkirk and missing Marcus Johansson far more than they thought they would, this team is actually having troubles offensively beyond the top six. Ovechkin is 32, Backstrom and Oshie are 30. It’s all downhill from here as they age and this squad needs a young player beyond Evgeny Kuznetsov to step into the limelight. Not that he’s the only young player being counted on to break out (Jakub Vrana) but Burakovsky is now in year four so it’s time to put up or shut up. Though he is out with an unfortunate injury currently they will really need him to produce offensively immediately upon return.

  Prior to injury Burakovsky was receiving the highest average minutes per game ever in his career so far, an almost full three-minute increase. In the nine games played prior to injury he managed to post a goal and three assists but two of those points came in one game. Plain and simple this will not be good enough to help this team overcome the hurdle that is the Metropolitan Division, the toughest one in the game. His shooting percentage was low though at 6.7% so that is reassuring. It’s guaranteed Burakovsky will slot right back into the top six upon return as we currently see the likes of Tom Wilson and Devante Smith-Pelley in scoring roles which is not ideal. I cannot stress enough how devastating the loss of Marcus Johansson was for this team. At times he was a Nicklas Backstrom clone on the ice and the most dominant forward in several games. Replacing him is taking a committee these days for the Capitals. Should Burakovsky produce upon return there is hope for this team in the wild card race, but should he return and not put it together it is time to start capping expectations for him as he may never become a star player.

from All About Sports http://www.dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/frozen-pool-forensics/six-players-fulfilling-their-fantasy-hockey-potential/

[junker-town]

How Sidney Crosby's genius defines the Penguins

Crosby has been better before. But in some ways, he's as great as ever.

The goal that delivered the Pittsburgh Penguins to this Stanley Cup Final is the same goal they’ve scored a zillion times since 2005. Sidney Crosby went after the puck in the corner. He came away with it cleanly. A fortunate teammate moved to a prime shooting position. Crosby put the puck on a platter, and soon, it was in the net.

We want the Cup. http://pic.twitter.com/TBmwo3SZ90

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) May 26, 2017

It was similar to the first point Crosby ever scored in the NHL: an assist on a Mark Recchi goal in the third period of the rookie’s first game in October 2005. “Go get the puck. Find a window. Put the puck through it.” Wash, rinse, and repeat. Crosby is the greatest player of this generation, and he has many gifts, but none has wowed me more often in the last 12 years than his puck retrieval.

Whether he’s corralling bouncing rubber on the half wall on a power play, outmuscling someone for it beneath the goal line, or making a ricochetting reception and then turning on his edge to set up the game-winning goal in double overtime of Game 7 in a conference final, he’s making it look so easy. Here are two great examples, from 2010 and the first round of this year’s playoffs.

The numbers bare out Crosby’s ceaseless brilliance as a possessor of the puck. In his career, the Penguins have gotten 54 percent of the game’s shot attempts when he’s been on the ice at even strength — 4 percent better than the rest of his team. He’s also good at turning possession into goals. His 44 during the regular season won him a second Rocket Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal scorer. He has seven goals in these playoffs, out of 20 points in 18 games. Overall, he’s second in the league scoring race behind teammate Evgeni Malkin.

Crosby turns 30 this summer. He has captained Pittsburgh to two Cups. His quest for a third continues with Game 1 of the Final on Monday against Nashville (8 p.m. ET, NBC). It’ll be his fourth Final appearance in the last 10 years.

Crosby’s been better before, but he’s at the height of his genius right now.

There are people who will tell you that Crosby has never been better than he is right now. That is not true. Crosby’s peak was the first half of the 2010-11 season, when he averaged a preposterous 1.61 points and 0.78 goals per game at 23 years old. (The NHL’s career leader in goals per game, Mike Bossy, averaged 0.76 in an era that was far more high-scoring.) Crosby was filling the net at a historic pace for 41 games before a concussion robbed him of his season and a big chunk of the next one. We’ll never see a more dominant stretch.

Statistically, Crosby hasn’t improved a ton since he was an 18-year-old rookie. He’s settled between 84 and 89 points each of the last three regular seasons. When he was healthy earlier in his career, a Crosby 100-point year was as sure a thing as the sun rising in the east. The average NHL game featured 3.08 goals in Crosby’s rookie year. This year, the number was 2.77, and even that marks the highest total since the 2010-11 season that Crosby had been running away with. His totals have fallen off, too.

But he is still a mainstay at the top of the league scoring race. The next time Crosby plays more than 53 games in a season and doesn’t finish in the top six in points will be the first in his career. (He has done so during three presidential administrations and under four head coaches, with linemates ranging from Phil Kessel to Andy Hilbert.) He was second this year, beaten by the guy who’s going to succeed him as the player of the generation: Edmonton’s Connor McDavid. Other than McDavid, Crosby still trounces every young player in hockey.

He’s achieved longevity through his preternatural talent, but also by endlessly renovating his game. For years, Crosby seemed to take at least one huge leap every season. One year it’d be faceoffs, and another it’d be his shot — his forehand, because Crosby emerged from the womb with the best backhander in history.

Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

But by now, Crosby has nearly run out of things to get way better at. (Faceoffs, where he just had his worst season ever, are about it.) He is now in the business of continual refinement. His shot has gotten markedly better, for one example. Crosby added a thunderous slapper to his repertoire a few years ago, and he had his best shooting percentage since 2010-11. There’s luck in that stat, but Crosby is undoubtedly a sharper goal scorer than he used to be. He’s not quite the same chaos-creating setup man he was when he was in his early 20s, but he’s now the best finisher in the sport.

Crosby played the fewest minutes this year of any healthy season in his career. The Penguins have also worked harder than ever to deploy him in favorable situations. He started 61 percent of his shifts in the opponent’s defensive end, by far the most of his career. If you look hard enough, you can see that Crosby is past his prime. He’s just so good that “past his prime” only means he’s a top-three player on the planet. Crosby has beaten back time’s advance with a longer spell of greatness than almost anyone.

Crosby’s graceful aging raises a point: The Penguins are the luckiest team in the world.

In 2003-04, they were the NHL’s worst team. They totaled a laughable 58 points in the standings, played in front of fans dressed like orange seats at the decaying Mellon Arena, and finished dead last in the league. That netted them the best odds in the 2004 draft lottery, where the prize was a firecracker of a Russian winger named Alexander Ovechkin. He’d be the guy to save us, we had hoped.

That didn’t happen. Washington won the lottery, and the Capitals jumped the Penguins to pick Ovechkin first overall. This 10-year-old was devastated beyond measure. I shouldn’t have been. Missing on Ovechkin helped to save hockey in Pittsburgh altogether.

It’s not that Ovechkin hasn’t had a great career. He has. But the lockout-induced cancellation of the 2004-05 season created a perverse circumstance. The Penguins had been the league’s worst team, but for the 2005 draft, the league didn’t just award them the top lottery odds again. That wouldn’t have been quite fair, letting the same team have the most ping-pong balls in two straight lotteries.

To set its lottery odds, the NHL used a weighted system. There were 48 balls in a machine. The teams that got the best odds were those that missed the playoffs each year from 2002 to 2004 and didn’t pick first overall in any of those years’ drafts. By virtue of missing out on Ovechkin, the Penguins were one of those teams. They got three of those ping-pong balls. And then they got lucky.

While celebrating the Summer of Stanley, let's flash back to 11 years ago when the #Pens won a different prize.https://t.co/xR8gbNOURZ

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) July 22, 2016

Crosby was as surefire a first overall pick there has ever been. He was hailed as the greatest prospect the sport had seen since Wayne Gretzky. He’s lived up to it. And because the Penguins lost the Ovechkin sweeps, they had a 6.3 percent chance to get Crosby instead of 4.2 percent.

If the Penguins win the Cup this year, that’ll mark three times in three Cups that Crosby has beaten Ovechkin to get there. He’s had tons of help every time from Malkin, the center drafted one pick after Ovechkin in 2004. The Pens got a two-for-one.

The player picked one slot after Crosby in ‘05 by Anaheim, current Senators winger Bobby Ryan, was standing at the side of the net as Chris Kunitz finished Crosby’s feed to end the conference final on Thursday.

The Penguins wouldn’t be here — maybe literally — without Crosby.

Mellon Arena, formerly the Civic Arena, had housed the team since it joined the league in 1967 and was open for a few years before that.

Mario Lemieux, the team’s greatest player ever, bought it in 1999. He exchanged his salary for his stake, saving the franchise from bankruptcy. The Penguins had what they viewed as an unfavorable revenue-sharing deal and tried for years to get out of the dome-shaped Igloo. They didn’t wind up doing so until 2010.

The Penguins demanded a publicly funded new arena and used other cities — especially Kansas City, which was opening a new venue in 2007 — as leverage. They made explicit threats about bolting. There were fits and starts that suggested the Penguins might get what they needed to stick around, including a proposed revenue partnership with a casino and a near sale to the guy who made the Blackberry.

State and local government eventually came around, as politicians who don’t want to be blamed for losing sports teams usually do. Lemieux said after the fact there “wasn’t a possibility” the team would leave, which is almost definitely untrue. The Penguins gave taxpayers a bath to make the new building happen, but they got what they wanted. They got what I wanted, too. Lemieux’s announcement to an Igloo crowd in 2007 that the Penguins wouldn’t leave town was an all-time sports moment for me.

Where Crosby comes in: fan interest. The Penguins were last in the league in attendance in 2003-04, putting less than 12,000 people in the seats per game. That number went up to about 16,000 the year after the lockout, when No. 87 was a rookie. It kept going up steadily from there. The team is now approaching 500 consecutive sellouts and hasn’t missed the playoffs since 2006. Crosby has been the central figure in the team’s renaissance, although it’s not fair to ignore the also stupendous Malkin.

Kids in Pittsburgh in the ‘90s had Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr to look to as sports heroes, the sort of players who’d convince a 5-year-old to play hockey. (Jagr, still my favorite athlete ever, did that for me.). Lemieux’s medically fueled decline, a salary dump of a Jagr trade, and the Penguins’ general incompetence from 2001 to 2004 created an enthusiasm vacuum. Crosby filled it, as a marketable superstar who also happened to create lots of goals. He made hockey boom in Pittsburgh again. The team’s success behind him, Malkin, and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury has made it a behemoth. Hockeytahn, USA.

Lemieux has said that Crosby saved the franchise, and on that, he is probably right. The Penguins had been so miserable for the previous four seasons, and their future was in such disarray, that Crosby was a needed salve. The Penguins would’ve marched south without him, or they wouldn’t have been this good in Pittsburgh. They would not be four wins from the franchise’s fifth Stanley Cup in 50 years of existence.

There’s no overstating how fortunate the Penguins have been in their timetables for being good and bad in the last 35 years. They iced one of the worst teams in NHL history in 1983-84, and it netted them Lemieux with the first pick in the ensuing draft. Getting Jagr fifth overall in 1990 was a coup of epic proportions. The team’s last dry spell, right after the turn of the millennium, yielded kingmakers: Crosby and Malkin. A win over Nashville will cement theirs as the best era in Penguins history.

Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Crosby and Lemieux celebrating last spring’s Stanley Cup win against San Jose.

The end will come eventually. It’s not coming right now.

Crosby now occupies a space similar to LeBron James’ in the NBA. He isn’t what he once was, but he’s still better than everyone on the ice. His numbers aren’t what they once were, but they’re still consistently at the top of the game. Someone else can win MVP, but he has limited company in any “best player in the world” conversations.

Father Time is, indeed, undefeated. A day will come when Crosby isn’t Crosby. He had the worst spell of his career at the start of last season, before Mike Sullivan arrived as the Penguins’ coach, and that was worrisome. His history of concussions, the most recent coming in the second round this year, is mortifying. It’s looked at points like Crosby’s steep decline had arrived. Someday, it will.

But it’s not here yet. Crosby is different than he used to be, and he’s been better at points in the past. He’s now an old master and not a young one. But he’s still uniquely great.