Weekend wrap: It's over

A look back at the biggest games and emerging story lines of the NHL weekend.

Theme of the Week: Here Come the Playoffs (and the Layoffs)

Saturday marked the end of the regular season, meaning we now know what the playoff bracket looks like. And no, your eyes aren’t deceiving you — both last year’s Presidents’ Trophy winner and Stanley Cup champion aren’t on it. The Bruins and Kings missed the playoffs, meaning a good percentage of this year’s preseason picks are already trashed before the playoffs have even started. We’ve got a preliminary look at the matchups down in the next section, and we’ll have a full preview rolling out over the next two days.

Of course, the start of the playoffs for 16 teams also means the start of the offseason for the other 14. That usually kicks off with a bunch of people losing their jobs, and the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t waste any time on that front. Yesterday, the Leafs announced that general manager Dave Nonis and interim coach Peter Horachek had both been fired, along with most of the coaching staff and several scouts. Those were obvious moves (although the future of Nonis had somehow become the subject of debate in Toronto), and the Leafs deserve minimal credit for getting the easy ones right. The bigger test comes over the next few weeks and months, but at least Toronto fans get a chance to have been first at something. The Sabres were the second team across the finish line, just like they were in most of their games this year, firing coach Ted Nolan early Sunday evening.

Now we get to see who goes next. Edmonton fans are desperate for a housecleaning and have been for years, although a slight improvement in the season’s second half means they might not get get one. The Sharks will almost certainly fire one or both of Doug Wilson and Todd McLellan after missing the playoffs. Craig Berube could go in Philadelphia, Lindy Ruff might be in trouble in Dallas, and there have been season-long rumors that Dave Tippett could be on the way out of Arizona. And, of course, the Devils will need to figure out what to do with the two-headed coaching creature Lou Lamoriello put in place in December.

And then we circle back to the Bruins and Kings. It doesn’t sound like any major changes will be coming in Los Angeles, despite reports of a major rift between the players and coach Darryl Sutter (which the team basically confirmed). Boston could be a different story; team CEO Charlie Jacobs had previously made it clear missing the playoffs would be considered unacceptable, meaning neither GM Peter Chiarelli nor coach Claude Julien should feel safe.

That should cover us for the next week or so. Once the first round ends, we can play the same game all over again with some combination of Mike Babcock, Ken Hitchcock, Bruce Boudreau, and pretty much everyone who works for the Penguins.

Long story short: If you’re an NHL coach or GM, try not to answer your phone over the next few days. Just to be safe.

Cup Watch: The League’s Five Best

The five teams that seem most likely to earn the league’s top prize: the Stanley Cup.

5. Montreal Canadiens (50-22-10, +30 goals differential) Studies have shown that momentum heading into the playoffs really doesn’t matter as much as we assume it does. Keep repeating that to yourself, Habs fans.

4. St. Louis Blues (51-24-7, +42) The good: They came on strong to win the division and avoid playing the Blackhawks or the Predators. The bad: They get the Wild instead. The Centralis brutal.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Weekend wrap: What should the Maple Leafs do now?

A look back at the biggest games and emerging story lines of the NHL weekend.

Theme of the Week: Decision Day Looming for Maple Leafs

We saw our fourth coaching casualty of the year last week, and it was the one everyone had been expecting for seven months. The Maple Leafs finally fired Randy Carlyle, replacing him on an interim basis with Peter Horachek.

It was a move everyone assumed was coming last offseason, when newly appointed Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan made the surprising decision to extend the beleaguered Carlyle instead. The move was widely panned at the time, and in the months since, I’d yet to find a single person in the hockey world who thought Carlyle would last past this season.

So yes, you can criticize the timing here. But Carlyle’s firing had become inevitable, and doing it now was a far better option than waiting until the offseason. That’s because Shanahan’s most important task over the next 40 games — more important than finding a new coach, more important even than making the playoffs — is to thoroughly evaluate the core of his roster. Can these players, properly supplemented with future acquisitions, form the foundation of a championship contender?

It’s a question that needs to be answered with clear eyes and none of the silly wishful thinking that’s pervaded the organization over the years. And it’s one that simply couldn’t be answered with Carlyle behind the bench, because there’s plenty of evidence the coach was a big part of the problem. In Carlyle’s nearly three years in Toronto, the phenomenon repeated itself over and over: players would arrive in Toronto and their performance would drop; they’d leave and their performance would improve. Maybe that was Carlyle’s fault, or maybe there’s some other factor at play. But Shanahan couldn’t move forward without knowing, and now he has half a season to find out.¹

Over the next three months, the Maple Leafs might discover that their core, led by Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf, really can grow into a winner — there have been encouraging sign over the first few games under Horachek, during which the team’s well-documented defensive woes haven’t been nearly as apparent. That would be good news for Toronto, considering that there’s little in the way of reinforcements coming from the team’s meager farm system and most of the roster’s top players (and a few beyond that) are locked into long-term contracts that have the Leafs straining the upper limits of the salary cap.

Of course, we’ve seen plenty of evidence over the years that the answer may be no; maybe it turns out that the core this franchise has spent several years and millions of dollars assembling just isn’t good enough and never will be. If that’s the case, then Shanahan has no choice but to tear it all down and start over. He’s preached patience since arriving in Toronto, and in some sense that’s been an admirable approach, but you can’t be patient with a wrecking ball. While it’s long been argued that Toronto fans would never accept a full-scale rebuild, Shanahan may have the résumé and the charisma to sell one. After a full decade without a playoff series win, he may not have much choice.

In either case, the good news is that this organization has finally given itself the chance to find out what it’s working with. The bad news is that it may not like the answer or what will have to come next.

Cup Watch: The League’s Five Best

The five teams that seem most likely to earn the league’s top prize: the Stanley Cup.

5. Anaheim Ducks (27-10-6, plus-3 goals differential): For weeks we’ve been saying “The Ducks’ numbers aren’t all that great,” while always having to add “but they’re still all alone in first place overall.” Now they’re merely tied for first place, so screw ’em.

4. Tampa Bay Lightning (27-12-4, plus-29): They return to our list after a three-week absence, thanks to winning seven of eight and moving into first in the East.

>> Read the full post on Grantland