Remembering five of the NHL's most important "changing of the guard" seasons

 Part of what’s made the first moth of this NHL season so much fun has been the youth movement, with young stars like Macklin Celebrini, Connor Bedard and Leo Carlsson all putting up gaudy offensive numbers that place them near the top of the scoring race.

It’s only been a month, so we don’t want to get too far out over our skis here. But it sure seems like we’re witnessing a shift in the league, with a new generation of forwards staking their claim to superstar status. That doesn’t mean the old guard is disappearing – as just one example, that grizzled old Nathan MacKinnon guy stills seems to be doing OK. But the next generation appears to have emphatically arrived, and that makes for an exciting time to be a hockey fan.

While we wait to see whether this is a more temporary blip or a truly seismic shift, I figured it could be a good time to look back at other seasons NHL history that saw the next generation kick down the door to the league’s top tier. Here are five times we saw what seemed to be a changing of the guard among the sport’s elite players, and whether it stuck.

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Five season storylines that we were all wrong about (except, were we really?)

One of the most important things a sportswriter can do is admit when they’re wrong. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told. For me, personally, it never really comes up.

OK, that’s not quite true. I suppose it’s possible that I’ve been wrong once or twice, in between my normal bouts of absolutely nailing pretty much every prediction I make. And in those rare cases where it happens, I should probably try out this whole self-reflection thing I can keep hearing about.

But there’s a problem: That nagging doubt that maybe I’m not so wrong after all.

You might experience the same thing. So today, let’s take a look at a few things we all thought we knew about the 2024-25 NHL season that are trending solidly towards the “oops” category, and see if we really need to concede defeat quite yet. After all, it’s important to admit when you’re wrong… but were we really?

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Connor McDavid’s win, Nikita Kucherov’s no-show and more from the revamped Skills Competition

The NHL fixed the skills competition, and all it took was the right reward.

Specifically, it took $1,000,000, which was the prize offered to the winner of tonight’s 12-man showdown. There was also an additional $100,000 available to the top goalie. And that, along with the various format changes, seem to have made the difference. The players seemed engaged. They actually tried. Well, almost all of them, but we'll get to that.

The bottom line is that apparently, these guys respond to the promise of the right reward. OK then, I’m in. Let’s hand out a few more.

Since today’s generation of player wants to be bribed rewarded for their hard work, let’s keep the good vibes going. I can’t offer another million because I spent it all on buying one souvenir hat for my kids, but I can get creative. Let’s give out 15 awards for the best and worst of all-star weekend so far, based on some of the event's previous memorable moments.

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Draft lottery power rankings: Chaos, comedy and conspiracies for Connor

The biggest draft lottery in almost a decade has arrived, and tonight’s the night we find out who’s going to get to take Connor Bedard with the first overall pick. It’s a top-heavy draft, meaning the early order is even more important than most years. And with so many team having tanked accidentally been terrible all at the same time, those ping pong ball bounces will be a make-or-break moment for several franchises.

You can find the actual odds here, but we like to go a little deeper. It’s time for the annual draft lottery power rankings, in which we figure out which results would lead to chaos, conspiracies and comedy. The first-ever edition of these rankings came in 2015, when a different Connor was the big prize. Let’s just say that one was very funny right up until it wasn’t. How will this year turn out? We’ll find out in a few hours, but for now, let’s get to the rankings.

The "Maximum Chaos" Ranking

If there’s one team every true fan cheers for, it’s (checks notes) whoever’s playing the Leafs. But if there are two, then the other one is Team Chaos.

Not ranked: Columbus Blue Jackets – After years of hype, Bedard goes to a team that barely anyone even hates? Lame.

5. Ottawa Senators – The Coyotes own their pick from the Jakob Chychrun trade. It would be fun if Ottawa moved all the way up to the second spot and we all got to momentarily think Arizona had pulled off a heist, before remembering that the pick is top-five protected.

4. Detroit Red Wings – Detroit winning a draft lottery? Their fans would be so confused.

3. Montreal Canadiens – Their fan reactions were absolutely phenomenal at last year’s draft. Granted, that was in Montreal. Would the whole fan base show up in Nashville? For Connor Bedard, maybe they would.

2. The 1001st number – Aaron Portzline dug into the complicated process behind the lottery, which doesn’t work the way most fans think it does. There are no ping pong balls with team logos on it, but rather 14 numbers that add up to 1,001 possible combinations, of which 1,000 are assigned to teams. What happens if that one unused number wins? Nothing, really; they’d just redo it. But it would still be fun to imagine a room full of team reps frantically searching their lists until they realized that none of them had it.

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Who tanked best? Ranking the NHL’s 11 worst teams in the race for Connor Bedard

The great Connor Bedard tank-off of 2022-23 finally ends tonight. Who did it best?

On one level, the answer is obvious: Anaheim, who clinched 32nd place with their loss last night. Easy.

On another level, the answer is that we don’t know yet. After all, the lottery isn’t until May 8. Anaheim may have 32nd place, but we don’t know if that will be the magic spot that means they get Bedard. The season tells us who gets the best odds, but the lottery tells us who actually wins. Until then, the question doesn’t have an answer.

I think there’s a third option, and that’s that we can’t get too caught up in the results. In sports, and especially the NHL, randomness rules. Just like the best team doesn’t always win the Stanley Cup, the best tanker doesn’t always win the top pick. We can still try to figure out who did the best job of tanking, even if it didn’t pay off at the end. Bust the process, so to speak.

So today, let’s go through the 11 teams with the worst records in the league, and see if we can come up with an objective way to rank them based on how blatantly and effectively they managed to tank. We’ll do that using five categories:

Offseason moves: The key to any truly great tank is starting early. How much of the deck did the team clear before the season even began?

Opening night expectations: If everyone thinks you’re going to be good in October, you’re probably not tanking.

Goaltending situation: When it comes to tanking, goaltending is always the most important position. You want it to be bad, and then you want to make sure you don’t do anything to make it better.

Coach factor: Coaches don’t tank, but let’s just say you don’t want Scotty Bowman back there when you’re trying to finish last.

Deadline selloff: If you’ve done it right, your season should be spiralling the drain by February. That’s when it’s time to finish the job with an aggressive deadline clearance sale.

We’ll mark each of those out of 10, mix in a few bonus points where needed, and come up with a final score. We’re counting down from tenth to first, and unlike the 82 games your team just played, you actually want to win.

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11. Philadelphia Flyers

Wait, if you finish last on this list, does that mean you tanked at tanking?

Offseason moves: 4/10. Quiet, apart from what they thought was an upgrade in Tony DeAngelo.

Opening night expectations: 8/10. Most of us figured they’d be bad, although not necessarily bad enough to compete for top lottery odds. (Checks standings.) Nailed it.

Goaltending situation: 3/10. With Carter Hart coming off a solid rebound season, the Flyers seemed as set as any team on this list.

Coach factor: 2/10. They went out and hired John Tortorella, a coach who specialized in squeezing the most out of a roster (included loser points). Purely in terms of a tanking opportunity, that didn’t seem ideal.

Deadline selloff: 0/10. Help me out here, when your GM does next to nothing at the deadline and then gets fired a few days later, is that bad?

Bonus points: +2 for new management which may finally see the writing on the wall, although it really came too late for this season.

Total score: 19/50. The Flyers are a bad team that should have been even worse, making them the current poster child for a franchise spinning its wheels.

10. St. Louis Blues

I considered not even including the Blues, but their record says they should be here.

Offseason moves: 5/10. They moved Ville Husso and lost David Perron, but that felt more like roster/cap management than an attempt at getting worse.

Opening night expectations: 2/10. Coming off a 109-point season, we thought they were at least a playoff team.

Goaltending situation: 3/10. Jordan Binnington wasn’t great, but with his contract and Cup ring it’s not like they were ever going to make a change.

Coach factor: 3/10. Craig Berube’s seat is probably getting warm but you never figured he was in any immediate danger.

Deadline selloff: 9/10. Here’s where we can finally find some points, as they moved Vladimir Tarasenko and Ryan O’Reilly (and got both deals done a few weeks early).

Bonus points: -1 for going a combined 11-1-0 against the Ducks, Blue Jackets, Blackhawks and Sharks. Just no sense of the moment, you know?

Total score: 21/50. This wasn’t a tank, it was a season where everything went wrong.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Rev up the tanks

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Connor Bedard is unstoppable, and soon the tank wars will be too
- Could the Canucks join the race?
- I remember a once-common type of trade that today's GM are too scared to try
- Leetch vs. Chelios, who do you want at their peak?
- I get to tell my Craig Berube jersey story again
- Plus WJC, outdoor games, NHL99 and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)

Which bad team is best positioned to fail hard for Bedard? Introducing the Tank Index

It’s mid-November, and it goes without saying that every NHL team is focused on the big prize.

Which prize? That part depends on the team.

For most teams, it’s the Stanley Cup. You’ve probably heard of it. Big silver thing, apparently pretty heavy, hangs out in the Hall of Fame in Toronto for most of the year and then heads down to America in the spring. But that’s not every team’s focus, and that’s especially true this year.

We can be honest, right? We don’t have to do the Gary Bettman thing, where he pretends that NHL teams never tank and it’s only the mean old media making stuff up. That kind of thing is insulting to your intelligence as a fan, because you know teams tank, because you have eyes and a brain. Sure, you might prefer to call it something else, especially when your team is doing it. But you know a tank when you see it.

And we’ll be seeing a few of them this year, because the top of the draft class of 2023 is absolutely stacked. There could be three legitimate franchise players, including Connor Bedard, who might be the next Crosby or McDavid or maybe even more. Remember, the league nerfed their lottery system a few years ago, so whichever team finishes dead last this year is guaranteed to get one of those top three picks. The incentive to bad is obvious. Sorry Gary, fire up the tank and let’s roll.

But which teams will do it? And when? And most importantly of all, who’s in the best position to make it work? Welcome to the Tank Index, where we try to find out. This is a gimmick I typically pull out later in the season. But this year isn’t typical, and with so much prospect gold waiting at the end of the tanking rainbow, it might be worth it to check in a few times as the season goes on.

We’ll be looking at a few factors:

Season so far: You can’t win the top pick in October, but you can go a long way to losing it. Even a few extra points picked up in the first month can be devastating to a team’s tank, so how bad has a team looked in the early going?

Seller potential: The best way to tank is to trade useful players for picks and prospects, because you get to collect future assets while also getting worse in the short term. Of course, you need some useful players first, especially ones on expiring contracts.

Goaltending problems: Even in today’s NHL, it remains true that teams go as far as their goaltending takes them. If you want to tank, you’d better make sure your goalie stinks, because there’s nothing worse than watching some guy stand on his head and cost you precious lottery odds.

Motivation: A tricky one, but maybe the most important factor of all. This one starts with the GM, who needs job security to go all-in on being bad. Will ownership understand and accept the plan? What about the market, and local media? It’s not easy to tank when one or more stakeholders aren’t on board.

We’ll give each team a score in all four categories, and see where that leaves them. For this first 2022-23 tank index, I’m going to focus on the eight worst teams by points percentage heading into Tuesday night, then add four more that I think are worth including based on preseason expectations. That brings us to an even dozen, and we’ll count them down as we work our way to this year’s early tank favorite.

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