Thanksgiving is the time when we typically get a sense of who the contenders are, which teams could find themselves as sellers, and what the trade market could start to look like. With that in mind, it’s a good time to open up the mailbag.
Last time, we had two columns worth of questions. The first talked about the CBA change that eliminated ‘paper transactions’, a prediction for an underperforming team, and if New Jersey could find a way to get the Hughes brothers all on the same team. Meanwhile, included in the second was what could be next for the Flyers, guessing the type of impact Jonathan Toews would have in Winnipeg, and if we could see a shift to more short-term contracts thanks to the projected bigger jumps in the salary cap.
You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter/X or by leaving a comment down below. The mailbag will run on the weekend.
at the 1/4 point, which NHL playoff teams from last year will not make it. The East in particular is so pinched together that it looks like 3 or 4 teams will be fighting for a spot on the last game of the season.
or
How likely are the Capitals to figure out their Powerplay. They are dominating 5×5 but anemic on the PP
Which Head Coach gets fired first (my pick is well known)? :)
Too bad the NHL All-Star break won’t feature the same format as last year. What a wild success, I can’t imagine anything coming as unique and competitive.
Are there any players you think will be traded before the deadline that people are sleeping on?
Do you think Jon Cooper should be a major contender for the Jack Adams Award this season. Why he hasn’t won it in the past is borderline asinine. He’s taken a Tampa team that surprisingly stumbled out of the gate in early October to start the season and was at the bottom of the Eastern Conference and then by late October changed gears. They go on a win streak and continued it through the majority of November going 11-3 and that is in spite of countless injuries to key players during it. Much more, Tampa’s depth has proven to be significant as this looks like the deepest they been in a few years. What do you think of Cooper’s chances?
Jack Adams is the kiss of death! Are you sure you want Coop to win it????
Oh wow…the whole “kiss of death” scenario isn’t something that crossed my mind until you mentioned it and made me think about it. As past winners haven’t turned out well later on. Hmmm you may be on to something here. Maybe Coop not winning has been a blessing in disguise.
Taking that into account you can probably get people from both sides hoping the Q wins it this year then.
What’s the next move for Danny Briere? Seems Martone, Nesbitt, Luchanko, Bump, Barkey, and Bjarnason are a few years away and with only their own #1 pick this year, how does Briere keep Flyers in playoff hunt? Seen this before with big crash and burn late in the second half of the season. Rick Tocchet for Coach of the Year if Flyers make playoffs?
Brian –
we’re already hearing lots of chatter on who might be on the move. What do you consider the worst contracts in the league right now?
If the Blues move on from Schenn or Faulk, what do you think a reasonable return for each would be? I’d prefer draft picks. Do they have to retain any money? Armstrong usually doesn’t like to do that.
NYR plans with the Fox injury? How would you play rank the following scenarios in terms of likeliness…
– Let Morrow take the PP1 and hope internal options will get by
– Drury gets aggressive and mortgages future to try and save another season stuck in the middle
– Long term focused move – maybe something like trading for Mintyukov. Could you see the Ducks being interested in Othmann plus a piece?
Also long term focused idea… could you see Drury trying to move Panarin early – either for someone more long term focused or for picks + see what Perreault can do?
Thanks in advance for getting to any / all of these questions!
Hawks right side defense looks pretty well set for the future with Arty, Rinzel and Crevier. Murphy seems to be the reason for the 11-7 line up Blashill insists on using. I think it’s cost them more than 1 victory (Seattle) where the Hawks were up 2-0 and folded in the 3rd because Burakovsky got hurt and they were playing 10-7 really. Wouldn’t moving Murphy NOW make more sense so the lines can be straightened out? I can’t see 11-7 working until the trade deadline. Thoughts? Thanks
Blash’s best buddy Cooper uses 11-7 most of the time. But not when all the D being injured, like now.
You’re not getting anything back for him and his ice time is pretty low. And the Hawks don’t even need the Cap savings so I don’t know why he’s still here really. His time with the Hawks is over and it’s time to move on. There are enough teams I would think that could use a RH D-man. If they’re waiting for a better offer that’s probably a losing battle.
Another Hawks question- Do you know when the KHL and SHL seasons end? Frondell will definitely be here after that and depending on whether the Hawks still have a shot at the Playoffs and could play more than 10 games and burn his 1st year of his ELC. Kantserov not eligible for an ELC but hopefully comes over here and could help also. I doubt the Hawks will let Frondell play more than 10 games if they’re out of it entirely. They could use his size either on the wing or even at C. What do you think? Thanks.
KHL regular ends March 20th. No idea, of course, when the playoffs will end.
Sweden ends on March 14th, followed by four rounds of playoffs; first round is best of three, the others are best of seven. Frondell’s team is in fifth place, and with the season nearly half over, would have to tank hard to miss the playoffs.
5 years from now do you think the Flyers are going to regret not bottoming out this year and some of the previous years? I don’t see how they thread the needle on the lack of a 1C or 1D on this team without top 5 picks.
I hear a lot about prospect development wrt how bad the team I root for (the Rangers) is at it. I had heard that Tanner Glass and Jed Ortmeyer, two plugs, were in charge of “player development,” but saw some folks talking about how that just meant they were in charge of making sure prospects had proper housing and resources to financial management and things like that, and that they weren’t really coaches. I always hear the refrain that the “NHL isn’t a development league” in the sense that coaches aren’t expected to coddle young players (unless they’re in a full rebuild). My question is: if a team has “bad player development,” is that more on the Department of Player Development, the scouts, the AHL coaches? Maybe even the skills coach? Let’s say, for instance, the Rangers wanted to get better at “player development” overall. Would that be an overhaul of the scouting department to look for different baseline skills in players? Or something else? I’m thinking of how Laf, Kakko, Kravtsov, Andersson, etc etc all panned out–is that just horrible scouting, terrible luck, or the mysterious player development?
Does Jordan Binnington eventually get moved to the Oilers (with all the rumors surrounding a potential trade) or barring a huge turnaround he doesn’t get moved?
Assuming he were to be traded, would the return be S.Skinner and picks to St.Louis?
I guess the better question is… With Binner’s numbers, why would Edmonton want to make that trade?
Let’s do a mini Atlantic lightning round:
1. Buffalo floundering at the bottom of the east again, and bafflingly looking at offloading another top pick. How short of a leash does Kevyn Adams and the rest of the front office have at this point?
2. Toronto sans Marner has been a clown show. How much of this is thanks to Stolarz regressing, and how much is due to broader roster management?
3. Who’s on the rise and who’s declining in Montreal?
4. Does Ottawa find the next gear and lock in a playoff spot?
5. What’s the timeline on Barkov and Tkachuk returning in Florida? And if they recover in time, do we see another Cup Final run despite the below-average season thus far?
6. Anyone else surprised at how Tampa continues to be competitive so consistently?
7. When does Boston “blow up the team”?
8. Detroit has fallen off a cliff in recent weeks–do they recover and push for a playoff spot, or extend the drought?
Re: #2 — or, y’know, in a perennial elite scorer walking in return for a bottom sixer playing like a bottom sixer.
I’m still nostalgic for the Sundin/Berezin/Potvin era.
Also: There is a scenario where Toronto drops Nylander but keeps Marner… Whoever in that office didn’t project this scenario needs some coffee.
Well … look, we’ve seen it here. How many commenters on this forum whined for YEARS about how “We can’t win the Cup with this core” and “They need to get rid of Marner/Nylander/Tavares/Matthews/Whomever in order to win!” They sure got their wish.
(Hey, I’m a Bruins fan. I LIKE seeing divisional rivals shoot themselves in the foot!)
Yeah… And they dropped the second-best of those. 😂 Marner and Matthews should have been the no-touchy, off-limits talent. Nylander is good, but he was so obviously the odd man out. Tavares too, but his age and contract were a barrier. Could have flipped–as an example–Nylander for Powers. Buffalo gets the offensive punch it needs, Toronto gets the star defender it needs and kicks the cap crunch down the road a couple years.
But that would have been smart, and we can’t have that in Toronto.
Couldn’t do anything with Tavares, what with the age and NMC, I agree. But were I rooting for Toronto, I wouldn’t want to do so, either. I’ve never been a huge fan of his, but he’s still producing at a high level, and for this season at least, his current cap hit may have him as the most team-friendly non-ELC in the league. Can’t do anything with Nylander either now, of course, but scoring nearly a point and a half per game, it’s hard to argue that he’s the problem here.
The Kraken appear to be positioned well to be a deadline seller. Assuming they sputter out and become sellers, which of their pending UFAs do you think will be dealt and who will be kept and extended?
The ending between Tampa/Pittsburgh was absolutely ridiculous and the worst thing to happen in games. It was practically highway robbery by league interference. Tampa ties the game and suddenly out of the blue Toronto’s Situation Room or whatever the hell they call it, calls in to the refs with barely a minute left claiming it was a “hand pass” by Brandon Hagel which clearly, based on the various replays, wasn’t a “hand pass” at all. One can easily see it hit his chest prior to hitting the glass. The announcers were even stunned that Toronto called this in especially near the very end of the game which they even said so rarely happens, if ever. They took the tying goal away off an absurd call and literally screwed Tampa badly. This whole matter feels way to coincidental, like it was truly rigged especially since it’s being called in from Toronto who ironically, that city’s team are playing in the same division as the Bolts who just happen to be on top of the division. This all happens just as the Leafs are currently on a win streak now and this horrid call happens to Tampa. It feels rather fishy like this was actually done to keep Tampa from gaining points to give Toronto a chance to climb in the standings more. I think (many I’ve heard from) that the Situation Room needs to be taken out of Toronto as this isn’t the first this type of crap has happened. What are your thoughts?
Just to add Jon Cooper actually called the whole thing out in his press conference and went into great detail. The league needs to look into this whole situation as it’s bad.
Why wasn’t Jonas Siegenthaler fined? After it was discovered, That he didn’t have a tie down device during a fight on Tuesday against Columbus? He was ejected for it.
Who do you have finishing bottom two in each conference?
As of this asking the bottom five in the West are WPG, STL, NAS, CGY, VAN. In the East it is DET, OTT, TOR, FLA, BUF.