In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast:
- The NHL find an exciting new way to screw up the expansion draft and show its contempt for its customers
- Seriously, they hate you.
- This league, man.
- Also, Dave tries to make Sean mad about Valtteri Filppula snubbing the Leafs
- The Olli Jokinen retirement thing was weird, right?
- Lots of exasperated sighing.
- And more...
>> Stream it now on Vice Sports
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The NHL did something this week, so it goes without saying that they found a way to make their fans angry.
In this case, the “something” was the annual GM’s meetings. This is the time of year when all of the league’s general managers, fresh off of not doing all that much at the trade deadline, get together to talk about the state of the game. The meetings started off as usual – with lots of interesting ideas being offered as to how things could be improved. Then they ended off as usual – with the decision to change virtually nothing.
But it was something that happened in between that got the most attention, at least among fans who still pay attention to this stuff. And you get the feeling that the league didn’t intend for it to be that big of a deal. On Wednesday, word got out that during a discussion on expansion, the league had asked the GMs whether each team’s protected list should be made public. No, the GMs replied, they’d “prefer” to keep everything secret.
That’s right. For the first time since 2000, the league will be holding an expansion draft. And the league’s GMs want you to know as little as possible about the whole thing.
This would be, to put it mildly, idiotic.
They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. “They,” of course, are hockey players who have a chance to knock their old teams out of the playoffs.
Or maybe not. I didn’t really research the origin of that quote. But with just over a month left in the regular season and the playoff picture getting clearer, we can start thinking ahead to some revenge scenarios that could be in play.
After all, while helping your own team into the playoffs is always the top goal, doing it at the expense of somebody who gave up on you can make it even sweeter. Here are five situations where that could be exactly what happens.
We may as well start with what's probably the most obvious case: the struggling St. Louis Blues vs. the goaltender they jettisoned in the off-season for a draft pick. At the time, the Flames thought they were getting an undisputed starter and the Blues figured they were in good hands with Jake Allen. It hasn't exactly worked out that way for either team.
Up until a week or two ago, it looked like the last playoff spot in the West could come down to the Flames and Blues directly. That seems less likely now, thanks to Calgary's recent hot streak. Elliott has been a big part of that, shaking off his early-season struggles to post a strong February that's continued into March.
Elliott's play has helped the Flames earn some breathing room, and today they're closer to challenging the Ducks and Oilers for home ice than falling out of a post-season spot altogether.
Meanwhile, the Blues can't seem to figure out what they are, following up a six-game win streak with five straight losses before two more wins. That losing streak overlapped with a trade deadline that saw Doug Armstrong seem to fold his hand, shipping out Kevin Shattenkirk without bringing in any reinforcements. But despite all of that, the Blues are still holding down the West's final spot, three points up on a Kings team that can't seem to get going.
However Elliot and the Flames finish, they'll have an impact on the Blues' chances. With a strong final push, they'll guarantee that the Pacific grabs one of the wild-card spots for the first time since the new format came into play, leaving one less spot available for St. Louis. And if they slump, they may end up having to battle the Blues for a spot directly.
Either way, Elliott will have a chance to earn some payback on the team that dumped him in favor of a younger model. And yes, the two teams face each other once more this season, on March 25 in Calgary.
So the trade deadline has come and gone, and it was a relatively quiet one. There were plenty of deals, but not much you'd try to call a blockbuster. Several of the bigger names on the block didn't go anywhere, and most teams decided to tinker, at most.
So while chances are your favorite team did something – well, assuming you're not an Islanders fan – you might have been left wishing they'd done more. But then you probably reminded yourself that plenty of teams have had quiet deadlines and then gone on to successful playoff runs, or even Stanley Cup wins. Teams like the 2007 Ducks and 2008 Red Wings didn't do much at the deadline, and they won it all. Your team could, too.
And that's all true. But there's another side to that coin: Sometimes, teams follow up a quiet deadline with the sort of playoff run that leaves them wishing they'd been more aggressive. Maybe it's an early exit, or maybe they come agonizingly close to a Stanley Cup. Either way, they're left wondering: What if we'd done just a little more?
Here are five teams form the salary cap era who may wish they could have a deadline do-over.
At the deadline: On the morning of February 28, the Canucks woke up in first place overall and sitting with a 14-point lead in their division. They led the league in goals scored, and only two teams had given up fewer. It seemed like a classic case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" that called for nothing more than minor tinkering.
What they did: They added a little bit of depth up front, bringing in Maxim Lapierre and Christopher Higgins in exchange for picks. At the time, most of us figured that was just fine.
But then… : We all know how this one ended. The Canucks drew a first round matchup with their long-time rivals, the Blackhawks, and nearly blew a 3-0 series lead before Alex Burrows' Game 7 OT winner salvaged the series. Wins over the Predators and Sharks sent them to the Cup final, where they took a 3-2 series lead over the Bruins before collapsing in the last two games, coming up one win shy of their first ever championship.
Would a more aggressive deadline have paid off? We'll never know for sure, and it's worth pointing out that many of the bigger names moved at the 2011 deadline didn't exactly pan out – think Dustin Penner and Bryan McCabe. But it's also true that the Bruins were the far more aggressive team leading up to the deadline, making five trades and adding names like Rich Peverley, Chris Kelly and Tomas Kaberle. Did that make the difference? It might have.
At the deadline: The Sharks went into deadline day tied with the Bruins for first place overall, and sitting a ridiculous 25 points ahead of the Ducks for first place in the Pacific. They were gunning for their fourth division title in seven years and were on pace to finish well over the 100-point mark for the third straight season. The Sharks had been aggressive at the last two deadlines, trading first round picks for Bill Guerin in 2007 and Bryan Campbell in 2008. But with a growing reputation as playoff disappointments, some wondered if this was the year Doug Wilson went all-in.
What they did: They ended up making just one deal, adding veterans Kent Huskins and Travis Moen from Anaheim for a pick and two prospects, including a young Nick Bonino. (A second deal that sent Kyle McLaren to Philadelphia was later reversed when McLaren failed his physical.)
But then… : After finishing with a league-leading 117 points to win their first Presidents' Trophy, the Sharks imploded in the first round, losing in six games in what stands as one of the bigger upsets in recent NHL history. To make matters worse, that loss came against the same Ducks team that had served as the sellers in their only deadline deal.
“Goaltending is 75 per cent of your hockey team, unless you don’t have it. Then it’s 100 per cent.”
Like most great hockey quotes, that old classic came from former coach and broadcast legend Harry Neale. And as we’ve already seen this season, it still holds true for the modern game. A lack of goaltending cost Ken Hitchcock his job in St. Louis, torpedoed a Stanley Cup contender in Dallas, and is threatening to derail promising young teams in Calgary, Philadelphia and Winnipeg. Even a few bad games from a backup can leave a coach ranting and raving, as we found out a few days ago.
Goaltending is critical. It can also be frustratingly hard to find, let alone to lock up for the long term. If you’ve got a good one, you’d better find a way to hold onto him, because stability at the position can make or break a franchise’s Stanley Cup dreams.
So today, let’s go through all 30 NHL teams and ask a simple question: From worst to best, how good should everyone feel about their goaltending situation, not just right now but for the next five years?
The Hurricanes have had the worst goaltending in the league this year apart from Dallas, and their coach just finished throwing Eddie Lack under the bus and backing it over him a few times. When Cam Ward, who hasn't had a season north of .910 in five years, is your bright spot, you've got goaltending problems.
There is a decent prospect in the system in 2014 second-rounder Alex Nedeljkovic; in a perfect world, maybe he's ready to take over after Ward and Lack's deals both expire in 2018. But this looks like an area where GM Ron Francis is going to need to roll up his sleeves and get to work.
Goaltending situations don't come with many more question marks than the Flames'. They have a solid prospect coming in Jon Gillies, although he's battled injury and inconsistency. But both of their goalies are scheduled to hit the UFA market this summer, and it's quite possible that neither is re-signed before then.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, given how inconsistent play at the position has haunted the team all season. Chad Johnson was excellent at the start of the year and Brian Elliott has been better lately, but the Flames were rumoured to be in the market for names like Ben Bishop and Marc-Andre Fleury at the deadline, so a fresh start here seems likely.
Most teams on the low end of this list are here because they don't have a starting goaltender locked up for the long term. The Avalanche are here because they do.
Like just about everything related to this year's team, the Avalanche goaltending has been a disaster. Semyon Varlamov struggled and then got hurt, and was eventually shut down for the year. It marked the third straight year of declining play for the one-time Vezina runner-up, but he's locked up through 2019 on a big-ticket deal so the Avalanche might be stuck with him.
Maybe the expansion draft bails them out here, and Colorado can start fresh with Calvin Pickard or someone else. If not, they'd better hope Varlamov can get healthy and back to his 2014 form, because a $5.9-million backup would be one more problem for a team that already has plenty.
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