NHL stock watch: March

With one month to go in the regular schedule, it’s time for another portfolio check as we take a look around the league to see which stocks are rising and which are falling.

We’ve been doing this every month since the season started, and it’s helped us identify some trends along the way. Some of those have stuck around, like the league-wide youth movement and the rise of Canadian teams. Others faded quickly, like when it seemed like a safe year to be an NHL coach. The markets are volatile; invest at your own risk.

Here’s who things are looking as we head down the home stretch.

Stock falling: The Western Conference playoff race

So, uh, about all that parity...

You remember that, right? This time last month, we were living in a world where 28 out of 30 NHL teams had at least some shot at a playoff spot. There were even some worries that all that parity would torpedo the trade deadline, since nobody other than Avalanche and Coyotes would be selling. Everyone else was still right in the thick of it.

And that wasn't all hyperbole – as late as the second week of February, everyone outside of Arizona and Colorado was no more than eight points out of a playoff spot, with enough time left to make up some distance with a hot streak or two.

Fast forward to today, though, and the season of parity turned into the season of reality real quick. Heading into action tonight, only two teams in the East are within five points of that last spot. And that's a traffic jam compared to the West, where only two teams are fighting over the final spot, and that fight may already be over.

Those two are the Blues and Kings, a pair of teams that both came into the season as Stanley Cup hopefuls. So there will be some drama watching them duke it out for one spot, knowing that missing the playoffs will spell disaster for the loser. But after last night's Blues win in Los Angeles, the Kings are five points back and in big trouble.

Unless somebody like the Flyers or Panthers can make a late push, we're left with 19 teams still in the mix with a month to go. And in both conferences, plenty of teams don't have anything to worry about beyond matchups.

Luckily, some of those matchups might be pretty good...

Stock rising: Rivalry matchups

It's too early to think about first-round matchups. Every year, we get excited about two teams that seem to be on a collision course, only to have it all fall apart on the final weekend.

So we won't go too far down this particular path when there's still a month to go. (Check back in a few weeks for a full roundup.) That said, there are some potential matchups in play that we haven't seen in a long time, and it's hard not to get at least a little bit excited about the possibilities.

Take the Atlantic, where the Senators, Canadiens and Bruins are holding down the top three spots. That means two of those teams would face each other, giving us a good shot at something like a classic Montreal/Boston matchup or a more recent rivalry like Montreal/Ottawa. We could also get the Sens and Bruins, which has never happened before and would give us our first look at Zdeno Chara facing his old team in the post-season.

But as interesting as those matchups could be, things get a lot more fun if the Maple Leafs can make up some ground and crash the party. The Leafs and Bruins have some recent playoff history, as you may have heard. But we haven't had a Battle of Ontario matchup since 2004, the last of four meetings in five years. And while the Leafs and Habs have met 13 times over their history, we somehow haven't seen them pair off since 1979.

There's a similar – and maybe even better – situation shaping up out west. The Flames' recent win steak moved them out of the wild-card bubble and into second spot in the Pacific. That means they could end up facing the Oilers, reigniting a Battle of Alberta that's been dormant for 26 years, at least as far as the post-season is concerned. The Flames and Oilers faced each other five times in nine years beginning in 1983, with the winner going to the Cup final in four of those. But after 1991, nothing. This could be the year that changes, and don't think fans in Alberta haven't already noticed.

Mix in a shot at some classic old-school rivalries like Blues/Blackhawks and Islanders/Capitals along with some relatively recent ones like Ducks/Sharks, and this year's playoffs could be shaping up as a rivalry showcase. Let's enjoy that possibility now, before some random Predators or Lightning game on the final weekend ruins everything.

>> Read the full post at Sportnet

Weekend report: Welcome to the offseason

The 2015-16 season is over. The final buzzer has sounded, the Stanley Cup has been presented, the parade route has been cleaned up, and the two voters who inexplicably left Phil Kessel completely off of their Conn Smythe ballots have been found, tried, and thrown into a dungeon, never to be seen again. It's offseason time.

And that means that things are about to get busy, because the NHL offseason is a bit of a weird beast. We've got an entire summer to work with before anyone steps on the ice again, but almost all the action will be squished into the next week or two, at which point everyone will disappear to a cottage and nothing will happen for two months. Here are a few of the key dates to keep in mind:

Right now: The window for buyouts is already open, and teams have until June 30 to burn their worst contracts (and eat a long-term cap hit in return). We already know two victims, Philadelphia's R.J. Umberger and Toronto's Jared Cowen, and there will be more to come. Remember that players need to pass through waivers before they can be bought out, which is why your Twitter feed will light up every day at 12:01 with updates about who's on and who cleared.

Some day soon(?): The NHL still hasn't formally set the salary cap limit for next season, in part because it needs the NHLPA to decide if its going to use its 5 percent escalator. That would, uh, be good information for teams to have.

Wednesday: The NHL Awards show, live from Las Vegas. Hey, remember a few months ago when we all wanted to fight each other over whether Drew Doughty was better than Erik Karlsson? We're two days from finding out which side won. And it will probably be overshadowed, because this is also the day we're all expecting the league to finally announce that its adding an expansion team in Vegas for the 2017-18 season.

Friday and Saturday: Buffalo hosts the NHL entry draft. The first round goes on Friday night, with everything else getting squeezed into roughly six minutes on Saturday morning because everyone has a flight to catch.

Saturday: The opening of the week-long window for teams to begin talking to unrestricted free agents. No deals can be signed until July 1 (and in theory, firm offers aren't even allowed), but teams and players can use the days before to figure out the market. Any teams that want to talk to specific players before the window opens will need to trade for their rights, and we usually see a handful of deals like that. We've already had one this year, with the Coyotes targeting Alex Goligoski.

July 1: Free agency officially begins. Expect a flood of deals to be signed on the first day; with the salary cap looking tight, most players don't want to wait around and risk being shut out. But don't be shocked if the bigger names, like Lightning star Steven Stamkos, take their time.

This is also the first day that teams can try to poach restricted free agents with offer sheets. If it's anything like most years, nobody will.

July 20: First day that salary arbitration hearings can begin. Like most years, expect plenty of cases to be filed, but very few to actually make it to a hearing.

August 15: The day that drafted but unsigned NCAA players become unrestricted free agents. Harvard's Jimmy Vesey will likely be the biggest name available, unless his rights have already been traded to his preferred destination by then.

September 17: Start of the World Cup of Hockey preliminary rounds, with camps opening shortly before. NHL rookie tournaments will be taking place around this time, with full training camps shortly after. We all wonder where the summer went.

Top Five

Celebrating those who've had the best week.

5. Carolina Hurricanes (front office edition)—The Hurricanes were a sneaky-decent team last year, staying on the fringe of the playoff race for most of the season despite being written off as Auston Matthews contenders by most of the experts. And they did it while trading veterans like Eric Staal and stockpiling picks and prospects, sticking to the rebuild plan even as the results on the ice probably tempted them towards fast-tracking.

Last week, they cashed in a few of those future chips in a strange deal with the Blackhawks that saw them acquire Teuvo Teravainen and Bryan Bickell for second- and third-round picks. In other words, they agreed to pay $4.5 million and eat Bickell's cap hit in exchange for getting a very talented young player at a steep discount. That's some flat out smart asset management for a team that's below the cap floor and was going to have to spend that money somewhere.

Granted, that Cam Ward extension looks iffy, and looks more like a loyalty move than a defensible hockey decision. But at least it sounds like the team may not make the same mistake with Staal. So on balance, the Hurricanes still had a good week. And they're slowly but surely developing a reputation for being one of the more underrated front offices out there.

(Bonus points to the team's marketing department, which tortured Oilers fans by doing this all last night.)

4. Anaheim Ducks—Scratch one big name restricted free agent off the list. The Ducks locked up Sami Vatanen on Saturday, signing the blueliner to a four-year deal that will carry a cap hit just under $5 million. That's solid value for a player of Vatanen's age and ability.

The Ducks still have a challenging offseason ahead of them, with plenty of big decisions left to be made. But Saturday's signing has them off to a good start.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Other NHL coach problems

"I started telling Kassian we'd traded
him to Vancouver, and he ran me
over on his way to the nearest exit."

It’s been a tough few weeks for NHL coaches.

Ron Wilson, of course, lost his job after failing to pull the Maple Leafs out of their recent tailspin. Wilson brought the season’s total for coaching casualties to eight, which would be bad enough. But lately it seems like any coach who isn’t being sent to the unemployment line is winding up the injured reserve instead.

San Jose coach Todd McLellan missed several games with a concussion after being hit in the head with a stick. He finally returned to the Shark’s bench on Tuesday for a matchup against Edmonton Oilers coach Tom Renney, who is coming off his own recent concussion thanks to an errant puck. And let’s not forget Sabres’ coach Lindy Ruff, who suffered broken ribs in a collision during practice.

It would be tempting to say that any coach who’s managed to avoid getting injured or fired must be doing pretty well. But apparently not, since according to my sources plenty of other coaches are also having a rough time of it. Here’s a sampling of some other recent coaching complaints.

Mike Yeo, Minnesota – Now realizes that when he spent all that time teaching the forwards how to properly slide along the ice in an attempt to block a shot, he apparently should have also told Devin Setoguchi that he didn’t need to do it on his own shootout attempts.

Randy Cunneyworth, Montreal – Hasn’t had time to make much progress on learning French lately, which is too bad because it would have really come in handy next year when he’s coaching in Belgium.

Peter DeBoer, New Jersey – Feels like his first season with the Devils has gone pretty well all things considered, so not really sure why his desk calendar for the first week of April says “help new coach move in to office”.

Mike Babcock, Detroit – Now that he won’t be matched up against Wilson for next year’s HBO 24/7 series, will probably need to scrap his idea of answering every question by saying “Hey, refresh my memory, how did Ron do in the 2010 Olympics?”

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Getting to know the NHL's new coaches

"Coach, if you took every puck Craig Anderson
will stop this season and stacked them on top
of each other, how high would that pile be?"

The 2011-12 season has seen six teams introduce new coaches. And instead of going back to the various familiar faces who were available, this year teams chose to go with relative newcomers. Not one of the new coaches has ever won a playoff game, and five have never been a head coach in the NHL at all.

All of which is to say that hockey fans could be forgiven if they aren't familiar with the league's newest bench bosses. So here's a handy guide to the half dozen men who are making their debut behind a bench this year.

Glen Gulutzan, Dallas Stars

Previous experience: Won the John Brophy Award for his work as coach of the Las Vegas Wranglers in 2006, so presumably rocks a mean fedora.
Early-season adjustment: Was recently able to get the media to finally start questioning him about strategy and roster decisions, instead of spending every press conference repeatedly asking "No, but seriously, who are you?"
Possible cause for concern: Reports of a possible sale of the team to a businessman from Vancouver could lead to the team's budget being slashed, or at least pretending to be slashed in an attempt to draw a penalty.

Kevin Dineen, Florida Panthers

Previous experience: His 20-year NHL playing career included a stint as Flyers captain that was interrupted when he was traded, which is really odd because that never happens says Mike Richards sarcastically.
Early-season adjustment: Has repeatedly had to politely ask Brian Campbell to stop coming back to the bench and saying "Hey, I just made more money on that shift than guys like you did during the entire 1980s!"
Possible cause for concern: Told reporters during training camp that he was looking forward to coaching emerging star David Booth, or the package of excellent young players the team would inevitably get in return if they ever traded him.

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