On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Wrapping up the Cup final and Tampa and Colorado go now
- Cale Makar wins the Conn Smythe but is he the best in the world?
- Our thoughts on the HHOF class of 2022
- There's some intrigue at the top of the draft rankings
- Coaching roundup, Hockey Canada scandal and more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We look back at the first three games of the Stanley Cup final
- Jon Cooper wants to change the offside review rule
- The NHL awards show was decent, but more importantly, which voters are we mad at?
- Catching up on the coaching news, including some stunning news that breaks as we're recording
- The Hockey Canada scandal, and what comes next
- Nicklas Backstrom could be done for a while, and I have a suggestion for who the Caps should get to replace him
- Plus ketchup popsicles and other important topics...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
We’re three games into the Stanley Cup final, one that seemed on paper to be in the running for the best matchup of the cap era and maybe beyond. On one side, the two-time defending champs going for the NHL’s first threepeat in almost four decades. On the other, the league’s most talented team looking to finally slay the dragon and bring their best game when it matters most.
And through the first three games it’s been… fine.
Maybe better than that. Game 1 was a borderline classic. But Game 2 was a blowout of historic proportions, and Game 3 wasn’t much better. The series is 2-1 and feels like it still has plenty of runway left, but neutral fans have to be getting at least a little worried that this epic final could end up being a dud.
You know what, I don’t really want to think about it. So instead of looking ahead, let’s look back at the 14 series it took to get us here with a worst-to-best ranking. This will tougher than most years, because I’m on record as saying this year’s playoffs have been unusually good. There are going to be some decent series that don’t even make the top 10, which is kind of cool.
Let’s count them down from 14 to 1, then root for the Avalanche and Lightning to deliver four more classics so that this final can take a run at top spot.
This was supposed to be the exciting sequel to last year’s well-received debut, only with bigger stakes and (maybe) a new ending. Instead, it was a bust. The second Battle of Florida featured a Panthers team that had just won the Presidents’ Trophy and seemed ready to finally beat the Lightning, or at least put up more of a fight than they had in 2021. Nope. Tampa rolled in four straight, and the high-powered Panthers offense managed just three goals.
You could argue that this series at least had its moment, including Ross Colton’s buzzer beater in Game 2. But given the expectations, no series was as disappointing. It wasn’t even all that close.
I’m guessing this would be a lot of fans picks for last place, since the outcome was never in doubt once Juuse Saros went down and we all would have forgiven the Predators if they’d just tapped out after three games. But given the rock-bottom expectations, the Preds at least put up a bit of a fight, taking one game to overtime and holding a third-period lead in Game 4.
More importantly, it was at least kind of cool to see the Avs flex their muscles early on. It was like the opening scene of a big-budget TV show, where the main character gets to just destroy a few low-level opponents to make sure we understand what they can do. Sure, you figure there’s tougher challenges to come, but in the meantime it’s still fun to watch the hero straight-up wreck some dudes.
The great irony of the first round was that five of the eight series went seven games, but not the one that everyone assumed would go the distance. That would be the Wild and Blues, two equally matched teams that had spent most of the second half of the season battling for second in the Central and home ice in their inevitable first-round showdown. The matchup had just about everything you could want – lots of talent, some bad blood, and two legitimate Cup contenders with a sense of urgency to win now.
And then we got… well, not quite a dud, but nothing all that memorable. No overtime, no seventh game showdown, and all six games were decided by three goals or more. What was signature game or moment from the series? Maybe Vladimir Tarasenko’s hat trick in Game 5, or Kirill Kaprizov’s in Game 2? Sure, those were good games from star players, although both needed an empty-netter for the third goal. This series was fine. We just wanted more than that.
Probably the last interesting series on paper heading into round one, this one certainly got our attention early on, with the Capitals winning two of the first three. The Panthers levelled up after that, winning three straight to slam the door on any upset talk, but they had to battle to get there.
I’ll be honest, looking back on this series reminded me that it was at least a little bit better than I remembered, with Games 4 and 6 both going to overtime after tying goals late in regulation. Maybe this should have felt like a better David vs. Goliath story than it was. But a relatively recent Cup winner like Washington doesn’t really resonate as an underdog, and in hindsight we know that the outcome here didn’t matter all that much since the Panthers wouldn’t win another game.
Sorry, Florida, no top ten appearance for you. I pumped your tires before the playoffs started, maybe too much, but no team was a bigger letdown once the action started.
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So that was, uh, interesting.
Coming off a thrilling Game 1 battle that felt like a borderline classic, the Lightning and Avalanche served up a plot twist in Game 2, with Colorado caving in the defending champs to the tune of 7-0. It was a stunning spectacle, as a Tampa team that’s seemed almost invincible over the years got lit up like they were an undermanned beer league squad.
So now what?
It goes without saying that nobody is counting the Lightning out. They just came back from a 2-0 series deficit against New York in the last round, and they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt. After the way the last three seasons have played out, plenty of us won’t be ready to close the door on Tampa until the final buzzer sounds on their fourth loss. Maybe not even then.
But still… Game 2 wasn’t just another loss. It was an all-time butt-kicking, one of the most lopsided results in Stanley Cup final history. And that had me wondering: Can we learn anything from similar games, and how the rest of the series played out after a major blowout?
Let’s find out. Before Saturday night, there had been 14 games in Stanley Cup final history in which one teams scored at least seven goals while winning by at least five. Four of those were from the olden days, and we probably can’t learn much from them. That leaves us with a nice even ten games from the post-expansion era to look at.
Maybe we’ll find a pattern. Or maybe we’ll just remember some blowouts.
The series: The 1973 final was a rematch of the deeply weird 1971 edition, which had seen the Habs win the Cup in seven games and then immediately fire their coach for it. This time, Montreal came in as overwhelming favorites, having posted 120 points in just 70 games during the season. The Hawks were good, having won the West division, but they had their work cut out for them.
The game: This one actually looked like it was going to be a blowout in the other direction, as the Hawks scored twice in the game’s first minute to take a 2-0 lead. It was all Montreal after that, though, with two goals from Jacques Lemaire and multi-point games from names like Guy Lafleur, Frank Mahovlich and Yvon Cournoyer chasing Tony Esposito from the Chicago net.
The rest of the way: Things settled down in Game 2, with Montreal winning 4-1. The Hawks got some revenge with a 7-4 win in Game 3, lost Game 4, and then won a truly wacky 8-7 classic at the Forum to stay alive in Game 5 before Montreal finished the series in six.
The lesson: I’m not sure there is one, as this series had plenty of twists and turns still waiting in the wings. If you’re a Tampa fan, that’s probably what you want to hear.
The series: The 1980 final was a good one, and the Flyers were the favorites. This was the year that they’d had that ridiculous 35-game undefeated streak, helping them to first-place overall in the standings. The Islanders had finished well back, and were laboring under the reputation of a regular-season powerhouse that could never win the big one.
The game: Game 1 was a 4-3 overtime classic – wait, that sounds familiar – that the Islanders won on a Denis Potvin goal. Needing a strong performance to even the series, the Flyers got four points from Bobby Clarke and a hat trick from Paul Holmgren, and probably also some stuff from guys who didn’t go on to become their GM.
The rest of the way: The Islanders essentially shrugged off the loss, heading home to win both Games 3 and 4 by comfortable margins. The Flyers extended the series in Game 5, but the Islanders captured their first Cup on Bob Nystrom’s overtime game winner in Game 6.
(And since Flyers fans will set my house on fire if I don’t mention it – yes, Game 6 is also the Leon Stickle game.)
At the time, it felt like an upset. In hindsight, not so much, as this was the start of the Islanders dynasty that featured four straight Cup wins.
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On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The final matchup is set, and it's legitimately great
- Thoughts on the Avs and Lightning, plus our picks
- Is Tampa already the best team of the cap era?
- Ryan has crunched the numbers and will tell us how many Cups this season is worth
- We say goodbye to the Rangers, wonder what's next, and debate the Kakko scratch
- The Knights get Bruce Cassidy, the Flyers get John Tortorella (we think), but where's Barry Trotz?
- Trade talk around Alex DeBrincat and John Gibson
- The weird new MLS TV contract and what the NHL could learn from it, Ryan's Jurrasic World review, and more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
The Edmonton Oilers were eliminated from the NHL playoffs on Monday, ensuring that one of the strangest streaks in pro sports will continue for another year. No Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since 1993. For almost three decades, the oldest trophy in North American professional sports, one that predates the NHL itself by a quarter-century, has resided in the United States. It’s all but the trophy’s permanent home these days.
Canadians are, to put it mildly, not thrilled about this.
Oh, many of them are fine with the Oilers losing, just like they’re fine with whichever rival has the lonest run every year ultimately falling short. This isn’t about the whole “Canada’s Team” debate, which was conclusively settled here. Many Canadian fans would never sell out for the Oilers, Habs, Leafs or any other team other than their own.
But still… 28 seasons? Somebody can’t step up and win one championship in all that time, if only so we don’t have to hear about it anymore?
On the surface, the odds are hard to fathom. There are seven Canadian franchises, nearly a full quarter of the NHL’s 32 teams. Those numbers have changed over the years, but the ratio has been roughly consistent, meaning you’d expect a Canadian team to win a Cup every four or five years. Instead, nothing.
Various attempts have been made over the years to calculate just how unlikely all this would be. We asked our own Dom Luszczyszyn to crunch the numbers, factoring in the quality of each season’s Canadian entries. Here’s what he came up with, using odds data from SportsOddsHistory.com:
You’re reading that correctly. Since 1993, the numbers tell us that it would have been more likely for Canada to win 10 or more Stanley Cups than to win zero. And yet, here we are.
What’s going on?
That’s what we’re going to try to figure out today. I’ve put together a list of eight of the more common theories about what’s behind all of this. Some are more convincing than others, but we’ll give them each a chance to make their case. Let’s see if we can crack the code on Canada’s national Cup drought.
We’ll start here, because it might be the most common theory. And often, somewhat oddly, it comes from Canadian fans themselves.
It goes something like this: Canadian fans prefer to see their teams win, but they’ll support them even if they don’t. The sport is so ingrained in our national culture that the idea of tuning out a losing team is foreign to us. We’ll complain, we’ll boo, we’ll rant on twitter or the local call-in show, but we won’t cancel our season tickets or make other plans for a Saturday night.
Meanwhile, the American teams are dealing with more fickle fan bases that have no problem looking elsewhere for their entertainment. Canadian teams want to win, but American teams need to. So they do.
Why it makes sense: As with a lot of these, we can point to the Maple Leafs as a prime example. The Leafs have a league-record Stanley Cup drought of 55 years and counting; they haven’t even been to a final in all those years, and haven’t won a playoff round since 2004. But their building is full every night, even with some of the highest ticket prices in the league, and they consistently draw monster ratings on television. The franchise makes lots of money, even when they’re losing. So why invest in winning?
It makes a certain kind of intuitive sense in Toronto, as well as in other larger Canadian markets like Montreal and Vancouver.
Why it doesn’t: The theory kind of falls apart when you think about it.
For one, the Maple Leafs spend a ton of money – not just on players, where the team is always up against the salary cap, but on facilities, the front office, coaches (and ex-coaches), you name it. So do most other Canadian teams. If the idea is to rack up profit by being cheap, they’re doing it all wrong.
Beyond that, this theory seems to be stuck in the 1980s, when cartoonishly evil Toronto owner Harold Ballard could ice a legitimately awful team and still sell out Maple Leaf Gardens. Back then, gameday revenue made up almost all of the bottom line. Today, teams have more revenue streams than ever, and many of those have nothing to do with selling tickets. The Leafs make money even when they miss the playoffs, but they’d make so much more if they ever won a Stanley Cup. Think of the difference between the profitable Yankees of the 80s and early 90s, and the juggernaut they’ve been since the Jeter-era championships. The Leafs could be the NHL’s version of that, if they ever actually won anything.
There simply isn’t a viable business model that sees any Canadian team making more profit as losers than as champions. If it’s all about the bottom line and responding to financial incentives, the country’s teams should be winning all the time.
They’re not, meaning we need something else. So let’s flip our first theory around…
Does this theory directly contract the first one? Yes. Do some fans and media use both interchangeably? Somehow, also yes.
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On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Jesse and I tee up Game 5 in New York
- The Lightning look scary again
- Rangers fans say their team is disrespected. Do they have a point?
- The Athletic's game-picking competition has two familiar names at the top of the leaderboard
- An epic listener voicemail in which a Detroit fan chooses violence
- This Week in History gives me another chance to tell The Wheel story
- 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)
On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We pour one out for the Oilers, the year's most entertaining team
- What's next for Edmonton, and is this an outlier?
- Can anyone beat the Avs? Yes. Will they? To be determined.
- How we see the Rangers/Lightning series
- The Bruins fire Bruce Cassidy, and might trade David Pastrnak
- We're confused by the odds for each coaching vacancy
- And more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
We’re into the third round of what’s so far been one of the best postseasons ever, and even cranky old sportswriters are writing glowing puff pieces about how great everything has been.
You know what that means: It’s time to spend an entire post being negative about the players who’ve disappointed us.
Yes, it’s the annual all-disappointment team, where we build a 21-man roster out of all the so-called stars who let us down this spring. These aren’t the worst players from the 2022 playoffs, because that would just be a list of fourth-liners who barely played. No, we’re going to focus on players who are notable because our expectations were high. Too high, in some cases? Sure, probably, but that’s half the fun. Your team would have won if you’d just scored a dozen more goals or so, you fraud.
(By the way, Connor McDavid was on last year’s team. Is that the sole reason that he’s dominating this year? I’m not saying that, but I’m not denying it either.)
We’ll go with three goalies, six defensemen and 12 forwards, with at least one representative from each of the eliminated teams but nobody getting more than two, because I like to make things more complicated than they need to be. And to really add an element of risk, I’m also going to include one player from each of the four teams that are still alive. I’m sure that won’t come back to bite me at all.
As always, when you’re celebrating failure, you build from the net out. We’ll go with three goalies, since the way this year has gone we’ll probably need them.
Jacob Markstrom, Flames
We don’t often get our starting goalie from a team that won a round, let alone a seven-game goaltending battle that saw him post a .943 save percentage. But Markstrom isn’t here because of what he did against Dallas. Instead, it’s all about the Battle of Alberta, in which the “sea of red” referred to the lights behind Markstrom’s back.
Facing the team he shunned in free agency two years ago, Markstrom got shelled to tune of an .852 save percentage and 24 goals allowed. While we applaud him for getting into the whole 1980s spirit of the rivalry, his ill-timed cold streak wiped out any chance the Flames had of keeping up with the Oilers’ offence.
Marc-Andre Fleury, Wild
Fleury wasn’t exactly bad for Minnesota. He couldn’t do much in Game 1 when his team was shut out, and he gave up just three goals over the next two to get them back into the series lead. It’s not even that Games 4 or 5 were on him. He was fine.
But fine isn’t what you’re looking for when you make a guy your big deadline acquisition. Fleury was meant to be the last piece that would get the Wild over the hump, or at least into the conversation as a legitimate threat to the Avalanche. Instead, Fleury was on the bench by the end of the series, watching Cam Talbot start Game 6. If anything, you could make the case that the trade ended up hurting the Wild, because now Fleury is a pending UFA and Talbot is unhappy with how everything was handled. No guts no glory, but we have the benefit of hindsight on this team.
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On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Oilers and Avalanche deliver an amazing opener
- Ryan gets all defensive when I criticize Jordan Binnington
- What's next fo the Blues, Hurricanes and Flames?
- Previewing Rangers/Lightning
- Are we allowed to say that the Rangers have only faced backup goalies?
- Martin St. Louis gets an extension
- Jason Spezza retires and launches a conspiracy theory
- The Messier Award, GM of the Year picks, and more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
With four teams left, we’re firmly into the time of year when everyone will start telling you that the NHL is a copycat league. That’s become an annual late-playoff tradition, right up there with conspiracy theories about the refs and getting weird about whether players touch a trophy.
It’s mostly true. This does seem to be a league where many teams’ strategy seems to involve waiting to see who does well, then pointing at them and saying “let’s do that”. Does it work? Not often, no, but it might be an easier sell to an owner or a fan base than trying to lead the way on something unique.
As fans, this is our chance to try to push the narrative in the right direction. Far too often, the copycat lessons are boring ones: More defense, fewer trades, be dull and conservative and risk averse for years at a time. Those might be the right lessons, but they’re not what fans want to see. We want action, and intrigue, and big bold moves. We want fun.
So let’s get ahead of the copycat trend, with my annual attempt to find some fun lessons we can learn from the final four teams. For each of them, we’ll come up with three lessons that we can hope that other teams will learn and try to emulate. And then we’ll find one that we hope they don’t, and try to stamp it out before it takes hold.
Again, we’re not necessarily looking for the right lessons – we want the fun ones. So here’s what we hope the other 28 teams learn from this year’s final four.
Fun lesson 1: Swing huge in free agency.
At a total of $81.5 million and an AAV north of $11.6 million, Artemi Panarin’s 2019 deal is the biggest UFA contract of the cap era. And it’s worked out beautifully, with Panarin scoring at well over a 110-point pace in New York when he’s in the lineup and finishing as a Hart finalist in year one. With four years left on the deal, it’s on track to deliver excellent value for the Rangers, even in an unexpected flat cap world.
The Rangers swung big, and they crushed it into the upper deck. Other teams should do the same, and get involved in the sort of frenzied bidding wars for top stars that make other leagues’ free agency period so fascinating. Don’t worry about John Tavares or Sergei Bobrovsky, other GMs – just look at Panarin’s numbers, imagine them on your first line, and start throwing money around.
Fun lesson 2: Rip off other teams in lopsided trades.
The 2016 Mika Zibanejad trade was weird. He was 22 years old, just five years removed from being the sixth overall pick, and coming off career highs in goals and points. Then the Senators traded him to the Rangers for Derick Brassard, who was six years older with a more expensive cap hit and similar numbers. And the Sens also kicked in a second-round pick.
As always with Ottawa, there were financial considerations, with Zibanejad needing a new deal in 2017 and Brassard having a cheaper salary than cap hit. Still, the trade was an odd one at the time, and has since escalated into one of the worst of the cap era.
That’s bad for Ottawa, but good for the rest of us, because lopsided trades are fun. So let this be a reminder to GMs: Stop trying to find a win-win deal that works for both sides, and start trying to rip each other off. If it’s good enough for my fantasy football league, it’s good enough for you too.
Fun lesson 3: Let your crazy owner fire the GM and coach because he’s mad about something.
Is that what actually happened last year? Not really, as the notion that James Dolan went full Knicks Mode on his hockey team after the whole Tom Wilson mess got out the door before anyone could really question it. But that’s OK, because when it comes to a copycat league, the narrative matters more than reality. And from an entertainment standpoint, nobody’s more fun than an owner making rash decisions.
(Uh, unless it’s your guy. Then it’s the absolute worst.)
And one lesson to avoid: Just get a superstar goalie and the rest of it will work itself out.
You may have heard that the 2021-22 Rangers were a so-so team that survived on elite goaltending and strong special teams. That was reasonably true in the first half of the season, less so down the stretch, and has shown up at times in the playoffs. As with most teams, the consensus has some validity but doesn’t tell the whole story.
Still, you can’t talk about this team without focusing on Igor Shesterkin. He’s the likely Vezina winner, and this series feels like his title shot for Andrei Vasilevskiy’s “best in the word” belt. He’s clearly the Rangers’ most important player.
That’s great, and well-earned. We just don’t want the lesson from the Rangers’ run to be that goaltending is everything. We already had to hear that with last years’ Habs, so another season of best-goalie-wins hand waving is bad news. It’s a reason for teams with elite goaltending to relax. Worse, it’s an excuse for the ones without it to shrug and tell us they can’t be expected to win (never mind that they also don’t have a Panarin, or a Zibanejad, or an Adam Fox or Chris Kreider). Goaltending is the most important position in the sport, but it’s more fun when you pretend otherwise.
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The NHL is good right now, and I’m confused and frightened.
This is mostly new ground for me. As long-time readers know, I’m never shy about aiming criticism at the NHL, and pointing out the product’s flaws when they become apparent. Critics would say that I complain aboutt the NHL basically all the time. I’d respond that I only criticize when it’s actually deserved, which is to say basically all the time.
But not now, because the 2022 playoffs have been good.
Like, really good. So, so good. And I find this deeply unsettling.
The first round delivered seven very good series out of eight, with five of those going the full seven games, which is almost unheard of. We had one team come all the way back from down 3-1 in the series, and two more come from down 3-2. We were teased with what could have been an epic upset in the Washington/Florida series. The Leafs and Lightning was great theater and delivered the result that most of you seemed to be rooting for. And even the one sweep served a purpose, with the Avalanche taking out the Predators with the sort of dominant trouncing that established a clear favorite for the rounds to come.
The round ended with a wild weekend, one that served up three Game 7s on a Saturday night (one short of the record), then two more on Sunday that both went to overtime. That was the first time in 25 years that we’ve had two Game 7 overtimes on the same day, and these two both ended with a team’s biggest offensive star scoring the winning goal.
Oh, and that entire round unfolded with a perfectly constructed schedule, one that saw each and every series playing out on alternating days with no gaps or back-to-backs. The league even seemed to realize that they could stagger start times, meaning there was pretty much always playoff hockey on whenever you wanted it.
It would have been impossible for the second round to match the first, but then… well, it almost did, right? We had another sweep, but while the Lightning and Panthers rematch was a bit of a dud, it was still a fascinating storyline to see the little brother spend the year bulking up just to get sand kicked in his face yet again. The Blues gave the Avalanche everything they could handle, including a Game 5 win that may have been the most dramatic of the playoffs so far. The Rangers and Hurricanes are going to a Game 7 tonight, and the series is already close to a classic, with Carolina’s home/road splits hitting never-before-seen territory.
And of course, the big one: After 31 years, we finally got a Battle of Alberta. Then the action somehow lived up to the hype, if not more. That opening game will live in infamy, and for once it’s going to be the good kind.
That’s a solid month’s worth of hockey, and just about all of it was fantastic. We had lots of goals, continuing a trend from the regular season. There were some epic comebacks, enough that we got used to feeling like a two or even three-goal lead wasn’t some insurmountable deficit. There was enough bad blood to keep everything spicy, but nothing that went so far overboard that it hung over a series. For once, it just felt like everything that can be fun about the NHL clicked into place.
Look at all of that. I’m pretty sure that’s the most words I’ve ever strung together in a row about the NHL without ranting about how much I hated something. What’s happening to me? Have I mellowed in my old age? Did I secretly get hired on as the league’s PR guy? There’s got to be something I can grumble about.
Uh… those CGI ads on the ice are kind of weird, I guess.
Yeah, I can’t do it. Or rather, I can do it, but I don’t want to, because it wouldn’t be deserved. It would feel forced. I’d be playing a character, waving my cane at the world beyond my porch just because that’s my comfort zone. It would feel cheap.
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On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Oilers survive a hilarious Mike Smith blooper and take a 3-1 lead
- The Lightning look unstoppable
- What comes next for the humbled Panthers?
- The Avs look to put away the Blues
- The Rangers and Hurricanes in the only tied series
- More coaching changes, and we're still waiting on Barry Trotz
- Jack Adams finalists, Giordano's discount and lots more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We look at what comes next for all eight teams that lost
- Oh cool, the Leafs are one of those teams, can't wait
- Thoughts on the four second-round series
- Boudreau stays, DeBoer fired, Lambert hired. No, the other one.
- Award finalist thoughts, featuring a weird Masterton rant
- The Coyotes get put on their best behavior, and more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
It’s the spring, the weather’s getting nice, the lawn needs some work, and the birds are chirping. It must be time for a “the Leafs just lost in the first round” mailbag.
I will say this – compared to last year’s edition, there was far less angst this time around. Many of you are disappointed, or even ticked off, but the doom-and-gloom of last year’s mailbag was nowhere to be found. Everyone who wrote in sounded, dare I say it, reasonable.
I’m not sure if that’s a good sign, or it means we’ve all given up. Either way, let’s get into it.
My question is How can you run the same core out year after year only to watch them fail? Matthews, Marner, Tavares, Nylandar and Rielly are arguably the most talented core in the league, but they have failed so many times in a row. How can you not look at all of the success that they’ve had in the regular season and see no correlation in the playoffs without changing a couple of them out?
My life would be so much easier if I cheered for Buffalo. – Adam K.
OK, maybe they weren’t all reasonable. Cheer for Buffalo? Dude, back away from the cliff.
But other than that, Adam does a good job of representing the “change it up” side. Maybe not blow it up entirely, but what I described in Monday’s debate column as change for the sake of the change. It’s not an unreasonable take, even if you think the current team is good, because you’d think there can only be so many times that you fail before you have to mix it up somehow.
As I argued in that piece, everything should at least be on the table. We all know that in the cap-era NHL, especially when the cap has been flat for years, it’s hard to pull off major overhauls. We can hot stove a bunch of blockbusters, but we know they probably won’t happen. The most likely scenario is that the core is back, and we all settle in to watch the same movie again. Part seven will have a different ending, right?
Same as it ever was. But with one key difference – compared to the last few years, there was one name that came up way more often in fan frustration, so let’s get to that next…
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So the Leafs lost. Again.
Another winner-take-all game, another season over. It’s both old hat, because this is what the Leafs do, and brand new, because no team in any sport has ever done this before. We all saw it coming, but we still hoped it wouldn’t. It’s weird to feel stunned by something you knew was inevitable, but that the conflict of being a Leaf fan.
I’m conflicted too, especially when it comes to the most important question: What now? What comes next for a team that’s failed so often but seems so close so success? Do you run it back? Blow it all up? Somewhere in between?
My head says you run it back. My rational side agrees with James and Jonas, who both made convincing cases that now isn’t the time to take a sledgehammer to the organization. Change will come, because this is the NHL and it always does, but firing a GM or a coach or a president who just helped deliver a 115-point team would be an overreaction. Sometimes two very good teams meet in the first round and one has to lose, and that’s it. Be smart, be logical, and keep as much of this crew together as you can.
My heart isn’t convinced. Actually, my heart is kind of sick of these guys. Sick of the excuses. Sick of the promises that next time will be different, always immediately followed by a promise that next time will also be the same because nothing will change. My heart has loved this team since I was a little kid, but can be pretty vindictive about the individual parts. My heart has run out of patience.
So which side is right? I honestly don’t know. So today I’m going to let the two sides fight it out, with a good old-fashioned stream-of-consciousness debate. This might help us get to the right answer. It also might just end up being a therapy session for a long-suffering fan. Either way, I hope you’ll indulge me.
Head vs. heart, with the future of the Maple Leafs on the line. Gentlemen, make your opening statements.
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On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Ryan and I have to record at night while the games are on
- Here us pronounce the Rangers dead when the Penguins make it 2-0
- Thoughts on Barry Trotz and Pierre McGuire
- We go through each of the eight first-round series
- The Habs and Devils win the draft lottery
- Award finalists are trickling in
- Patrick Marleau retires, and more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
It’s time for our annual celebration of the OGWACs.
The OGWAC is, of course, the Old Guy Without A Cup. He’s a cherished hockey narrative at this time of year, a figure of both admiration and pity. He’s been in the league for a while, maybe even forever, but he’s never won it all. This could be his last chance. He wants it so bad. But there’s probably another OGWAC story on the team he’s up against, which means somebody is getting their heart broken. At the end of it, if we’re lucky, somebody will finally get their moment to hold the Cup, tears running down their grizzled face.
The greatest OGWAC arc of all time ended with Ray Bourque lifting the Cup in 2001, and that one may never be topped. Lanny McDonald in 1989 and Teemu Selanne in 2007 are also on the Mount Rushmore. Kimmo Timonen and Jay Bouwmeester were solid OGWACs, and Dominik Hasek was the rare goalie story in 2002.
The last few years have been rough on OGWAC fans, as the Lightning only really had Braydon Coburn in 2020 and nobody at all for their repeat in 2021. Let’s hope the hockey gods serve up something better this year. And if they need a nudge in that direction, let’s provide one with our annual OGWAC ranking.
If you’re new to this, we define an “old guy” as being 33 or older (which isn’t especially old in real life but definitely is in today’s NHL) with the added requirement of at least ten years of NHL experience. We’re also looking for guys who are healthy and contributing to their team, or have a reasonable chance to be by the final, because nothing’s sadder than an OGWAC watching the clinching game from the press box.
Beyond that, we prefer guys who’ve had a near-miss or two before; the more agonizingly close, the better. Overcoming some other adversity is also good. The player doesn’t need to be a superstar, at least not any more, but name value matters. And of course, the older the OG, the better.
One last thing: Everyone whose team is still alive in the playoffs is eligible, but we’re weighting the higher rankings towards guys with a more realistic shot at actually winning.
By my count, there are 30 players who qualify for OGWAC status this year; we’ll go with the traditional top 20 here, but mention as many as we can.
#20. Riley Nash, Lightning
You might assume Tampa won’t have any OGWACs, especially after going without last year. But they’ve actually got a few candidates. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare has actually only played eight seasons, but at 37 I feel like he deserves at least a mention. Brian Elliott is also an option, although he may not see the ice all postseason. That leaves Nash, who’s been an honest player for 11 years and helpfully turned 33 this week.
#19. Erik Johnson, Avalanche
The Avs are a surprisingly deep OGWAC team, which maybe shouldn’t shock us since that was their GM handing the Cup to Bourque. Johnson is only 34 but already in his 14th season, and has never been out of the second round.
#18. Mikael Backlund, Flames
For me, Backlund is a classic guy where you could tell me he was anywhere from like 25 to 37 and I’d believe you. He’s actually 33, and this is his 14th season. Bonus points for spending his entire career with the Flames, for whom he’s now the only OGWAC.
#17. Nick Foligno, Bruins
He’s the only Bruins OGWAC because Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand were around for the 2011 Cup, Craig Smith isn’t quite old enough, and Taylor Hall is somehow only 30 years old despite being in his 35th season. Did I rank both Foligno and Nash lower than they deserve because they were on last year’s Leafs playoff roster? No further questions.
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On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We go through each of the eight series to see what we know after one game
- The Leafs look amazing, the Oilers cough it up, the Pens and Rangers work overtime
- Are the Wild or Panthers in trouble
- No, the NHL is not biased against its largest US market
- A roundup of the coaches who got fired and, maybe more surprisingly, who didn't (yet)
- Why we're not sure yet which category Bruce Boudreau is in
- And more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
The playoffs are here, and the pressure is intense. That’s true for everyone. You’re a rookie in your very first postseason? Pressure. A veteran chasing that elusive ring? Pressure. A coach, GM, a referee or the guy who has to run out and fix the broken glass? Pressure. A sportswriter? Let’s not get crazy, but sure, feeling hungry and kind of hungover is its own kind of pressure.
Pressure is everywhere. But it’s not spread out evenly, and some teams are facing more than others. So as the eight first-round series get under way and the narratives start to form, lets take our annual look at which teams are under the most pressure, and which ones are carrying a more manageable load.
As in previous years, we’ll use the following categories to make this seem scientific.
Expectations factor: You can’t be under all that much pressure to win if nobody think you actually can.
Drought factor: It’s just not the same if you have a recent banner or two already hanging in your rink. But if the guy who captained your last Cup winner has already gone grey, that’s bad. Somehow, the Washington Capitals fit into both categories. We’re working on that.
Ticking clock factor: Is the window slamming shut, either due to age, pending free agents or a cap crunch, or is the future looking bright?
Special circumstances: The part where I put my thumb on the scale to make sure the numbers add up to the ranking I’d already decided on.
Spoiler alert – You’re not going to be all that surprised by the top of the list, but I’ll do my best to keep you entertained along the way. See? Pressure!
Expectations factor: 2/10. The whims of the weird playoff format and Mike Smith’s weird puck-handling instincts have served up a winnable matchup in round one, but nobody thinks the Kings are winning the Cup this year.
Drought factor: 3/10. It’s been eight years since their last Cup, but that’s hardly a drought.
Ticking clock factor: 4/10. This one’s a bit tough. On the one hand, they’re a young team just coming out of a rebuild, and there look to be plenty of bright days ahead. On the other, this may be one of the last shots for the veteran core from the previous Cups, with Dustin Brown already announcing his retirement and Jonathan Quick somehow having just one year left on that forever-contract he signed in the heyday.
Special circumstances: +1. Beating the Oilers would lead to another round of Connor McDavid trade rumors, and you know those “generational superstar gets traded out of Edmonton” stories usually turn out for the Kings.
Pressure score: 10/30. You want to see Brown go out on a high note, but really, the rebuilding Kings are already playing with house money.
Expectations factor: 0/10. Without Jusse Saros at full health, just about nobody on the planet thinks they can beat the Avalanche.
Drought factor: 5/10. They’ve never won the Cup, and David Poile is about to head into decade five of his quest for a ring as GM.
Ticking clock factor: 5/10. Filip Forsberg is about to hit free agency, and Roman Josi and Matt Duchene both just had career years at 31. It’s also hard to see the Predators being significantly better than this in the next few years, which means the path back to the playoffs is shaky if Vegas and/or Winnipeg get back on track.
Special circumstances: +1. The Predators upsetting the Avalanche might cause an overreaction bordering on an existential crisis in Colorado, and more importantly would also be very funny.
Pressure score: 11/30. If they’d held on in Arizona and were playing the Flames, I’d have them a notch or two higher. But since everyone is already writing them off, there’s nowhere to go but up.
Expectations factor: 3/10. At some point, a consensus seemed to form that the Capitals were the weakest of the eight Eastern playoff teams, and that was before Alexander Ovechkin got banged up in the final week. All that said, they’re still a 100-point team.
Drought factor: 2/10. It’s been four years, which is probably long enough for everyone to sober up but that’s about it.
Ticking clock factor: 8/10. Ovechkin is a once-in-a-lifetime franchise player, and while he should be around for a few more years, the window to win a second Cup is starting to close. With the rest of the core also over 30, maybe it already is.
Special circumstances: +1. The fact that they spent all year long talking about the goaltending and then didn’t upgrade it at the deadline means that Brian MacLellan will be hearing some tough questions if they get lit up. Hey, they’re not playing an especially good offensive team, are they?
Pressure score: 14/30. Oh, also every neutral fan on the planet will be cheering for the Panthers.
Expectations factor: 4/10. They’ve got a winnable first-round matchup and maybe the scariest goalie in the league, but I don’t see many picking them to go all that deep.
Drought factor: 9/10. That 1994 Cup win is getting pretty musty; at the time, it snapped what felt like an impossibly long 54-year drought, and they’re already more than halfway to getting back to that number. One lonely Cup in 82 years is kind of amazing.
Ticking clock factor: 2/10. Other than Chris Kreider, all the key guys are young enough that they’re either holding steady or getting better. Still, Igor Shesterkin may have just had a career year, and you don’t want to let that go to waste.
Special circumstances: 0. They just missed out on a matchup with the Capitals, which would have ratcheted up the pressure based on how last year and offseason played out. They certainly don’t like the Penguins, but it won’t be quite as embarrassing to lose to them.
Pressure score: 15/30. It’s New York, so the pressure will crank up in the years to come. Just not quite yet.
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The Athletic Hockey Show runs four days a week during the season, and will feature me with Other Sean Gentille on Wednesdays.
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