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Pacific Division Notes: Flames, Canucks, Oilers

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The Calgary Flames have struggled in the early stretches of this season, and some of their fans have found a scapegoat: “The Wideman Effect”.

The belief is that since January 2016, when Dennis Wideman ran linesman Don Henderson from behind, ending the latter’s career, the referees have been biased against the Flames. Despite the catchy name, it appears that the perception just isn’t true. Sportsnet’s Mark Spector broke down the penalties called in the 47 games before the incident and the 46 since. While the Flames did see a nearly 50 per cent increase in penalties last season after the attack, they still spent more time on the power-play. Moving to this season, the Flames are the second-most penalized team in the NHL after the Bruins. But they’ve also had the fifth-most power-play opportunities of any team.

Fans can look no further than the struggles of Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau, and Brian Elliott, and some questionable lineup choices on the blue line. Fresh off signing new contracts for $6.375MM and $6,75MM respectively, Monahan and Gaudreau have combined for just 11 points through 12 games. That’s eight less than last season at this time.

Elliott was traded for to stabilize the Flames wretched goaltending from last season, and so far has a sub-900 save percentage and a GAA over 3. Backup Chad Johnson has been better, but is still below league-average.

Finally, the Flames new coach Glen Gulutzan’s usage of Dougie Hamilton has been weird this season. Hamilton scored 43 points last season while playing just under 20-minutes per game, but has fallen below 19 minutes this season and has been playing third-pairing at even-strength with lesser players.

  • It has been an ugly stretch for the Canucks, who have lost seven games in a row after starting 4-0-0. They’ve fallen from first in the NHL to 26th. Even worse, the Canucks have scored just seven goals in that stretch and have been shutout in four of their last five games. The Blue Jackets outscored the Canucks’ entire losing streak in 38-minutes on Friday night, and they weren’t even done yet. Coach Willie Desjardins said he believes in their players and thinks they can turn it around, despite admitting this season’s losing has been tough on him. Desjardins is on the hot seat, considering GM Jim Benning believes the Canucks are a playoff team. However, Benning may not be entirely accurate in that belief: the Canucks are averaging just 1.45 goals-per-game, nearly a goal-and-a-half less than the league-average. Most prognosticators have the Canucks pegged as a real contender, not for the playoffs, but for the best draft lottery odds.
  • Meanwhile, the Edmonton Oilers are sitting in first in the Western Conference after a hot start. They’ve cooled down a little, going 0-2-1 in the last week. Spector echoed a common sentiment about the team: if they can get their hands on a legit point-threat for their floundering power-play, then watch out. The Oilers were linked to Kevin Shattenkirk, P.K. Subban and Tyson Barrie over the summer, and more recently pending-UFA Brent Burns. In his article, Spector suggests Jason Garrison might be available in Tampa Bay as a cap casualty, though he’s another lefty; when healthy, five of the Oilers top-six defenders are left-handed.

Lineup Updates: Backes, Carrier, Stone, Russell, Edler

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News and notes from around the NHL this morning:

  • The Boston Bruins announced that they expect David Backes back tonight in their tilt against the New York Rangers. Backes—the Bruins’ prized free agent signing this summer—has been out since October 24th with an elbow injury. The forward underwent surgery last week and sat out the past few games as he recovered. The Bruins did not want to rush Backes back, citing a need for complete recovery and to prevent infection. Surprisingly, the surgery was Backes’s first in his eleven-year career, reports CSN NE’s Joe Haggerty.
  • The Buffalo Sabres called up prospect William Carrier from the Rochester Americans early Friday morning, reports the Buffalo News’ John Vogl, in anticipation of tonight’s game against the Ottawa Senators. Carrier is having an excellent season in Rochester, scoring 3G and 1A in seven games.
  • Mark Stone returns to the lineup for the Ottawa Senators in the same game, says the team. Stone missed the Sens last game with a neck injury, but it was not severe enough to sideline him for more than a game. Stone has 1G and 4A in 9 games for the Senators after returning from a pre-season concussion.
  • The Edmonton Oilers will be without Kris Russell tonight as he sits with an undisclosed injury, reports Bob Stauffer of AM 630 CHED. Russell is still looking for his first goal of the season, but his defensive play has anchored the Oilers as they lead the Pacific Division. The new-look Edmonton defense featuring Adam Larsson and Russell allows the team to move the puck quickly to its highly-skilled forwards, something the team has lacked in years past.
  • The Vancouver Canucks announced that Alex Edler is day-to-day with an injury and will not suit up tonight against the Toronto Maple Leafs, reports Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friendman. Edler only has one goal on the season but is logging over 24 minutes a night. The Canucks have lost seven straight after winning their first four games to start the season.

Canada: The New Championship Drought To Watch For

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The Chicago Cubs won the World Series on Wednesday night, their first since 1908, snapping a 108-year championship drought, the longest by any team in North American professional sports history. Back in June, the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Championship, snapping a 52-year drought for a city with three major pro sports teams. So what’s next on the drought-busting checklist?

Sure, there are a few teams and few cities still struggling. The NBA’s Sacramento Kings organization has not won a title in 65 years and never since their move to California. Wednesday night’s losers, the Cleveland Indians, haven’t taken home the hardware in 68 years. Ten NFL teams still have yet to win it all in the Super Bowl era. Yet, with the Cubs and Cleveland off the books, it seems like there’s a void in the championship drought department right now.

It’s time that attention turns not to any one team or city, but to the country of Canada. Canadian teams have combined to go 199 straight seasons without winning a major North American title. In 1993, the country was championship central, with both the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Blue Jays winning their respective leagues. Since? Nothing.

It’s been 23 years now for the Blue Jays since they were MLB champs. They have come close over the years, but have failed to even take home an American League pennant. Playing in a division that has been one of the strongest in baseball over the past decade plus, which has housed four New York Yankees championship teams and three Boston Red Sox championship teams since 1993,  it’s been an uphill battle for the Blue Jays. Meanwhile, the Montreal Expos, title-less since their inception in 1969, were forced to relocate to Washington, D.C. in 2004 (where the drought continues to this day).

The Toronto Raptors are still seeking that elusive NBA championship. It’s been 21 years since the Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies brought pro basketball to Canada in 1995, and neither team has been able to get it done. The Grizzlies moved to Memphis in 2000, where they too have yet to find glory. In a league that is unquestionably the most competitively unbalanced, a Raptors team with a lot of talent are still annual underdogs against the likes of the Cleveland Cavaliers and other Western Conference powerhouses.

Of course, the biggest drought-magnifier is the NHL. With seven teams competing in a 30-team league, Canada should have close to a 25% chance to win the Stanley Cup every season. Alas, no such feat has been accomplished in 23 seasons. The odds of that happening: less than 1%. The Toronto Maple Leafs are tied with the St. Louis Blues for the longest championship drought in the league at 48 years. The Vancouver Canucks, established in 1970, have never won the Cup. After Alberta went back-to-back in 1989 and 1990, the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers have not won since. The Ottawa Senators, the 1992 NHL expansion team, has also never gotten it done, and their first season, 1992-93, was the first and last time that they even saw a Canadian champ, with Montreal taking the crown. Both iterations of the Winnipeg Jets are also without a Stanley Cup and Quebec Nordiques fans sat and watched their team move to Denver and establish the Colorado Avalanche dynasty at the turn of the century.

To make matters worse, no Canadian team even qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs last year, and the Oilers have a league-high ten-year drought of even making the postseason. Canada’s NHL teams are in need of some puck luck, and the Blue Jays and Raptors will take some as well. With the two biggest drought story lines in sports now over, it’s time that North American sports fans turn to the northernmost of the two participating countries. Canada needs a championship, and they need one soon.

If there’s any consolation, the only more tortured fan base than the country of Canada is their closest neighbor to the south, Buffalo, New York. Misery loves company.

Connor McDavid’s Next Contract

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He may be eight months away from being able to sign it, and 20 months before it takes effect, but Connor McDavid’s second contract is already a topic of conversation in the hockey world.

Despite being only 19-years-old and 55 games into his NHL career, McDavid is already a top-five player in the NHL. Of course, he’s scored 60 points in those 55 games, and is currently sitting tied for second in NHL scoring. He’s also the youngest captain in NHL history and the unquestioned face of the Oilers franchise.

McDavid is currently in the second year of his three-year entry-level contract. Including bonuses, McDavid can make $3.775MM per season. He’s eligible to negotiate and sign a contract extension on July 1, 2017. The longest term possible is eight years, something that’s a given for the Oilers but perhaps a point of worry for the McDavid camp. On Tuesday night’s Insider Trading, TSN and ESPN insider Pierre Lebrun floated the idea that the potential lockout in 2020 or 2022 could affect the player agent’s willingness to sign through that. He followed that up on Wednesday morning on TSN radio in Vancouver, pointing to the past CBA’s effects on player contracts. In 2005, there was a 24% salary rollback to all players; in 2013 they added cap recapture penalties to so-called “cheat deals” like Shea Weber’s. While Lebrun isn’t saying McDavid doesn’t want to sign an eight-year extension in Edmonton, he does point out the possibility of a four-year deal because “there’s some concern that when the CBA ends, maybe they need to protect themselves because the rules may change on existing contracts.”

Numbers-wise, McDavid is a very likely candidate to become the highest-paid player in the NHL. Chris Johnston discussed McDavid on Tuesday night’s Sportsnet Hockey Central, opining that he “doesn’t see any” situation where McDavid doesn’t become the highest-paid player in the NHL. Currently, Blackhawks forwards Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane’s $10.5MM cap hits are the highest in the NHL. Kings captain Anze Kopitar is the only other player making $10MM or more.

Of course, the Oilers could luck out if McDavid is as superstitious as the previous “next one” Sidney Crosby. Following his standard entry-level contract, Crosby has signed two separate contracts with an AAV of $8.7MM, which of course is the same as his number. Getting McDavid signed at under $10MM per season would be a major win for the Oilers and allow them to build a stronger team around him. Both sides can look no further than the Blackhawks struggles to keep their team together with Toews and Kane accounting for a combined $21MM against the cap.

Including LTIR-relief from former captain Andrew Ference (career-ending hip surgery), the Oilers are around $5MM below the cap. Things will change in the summer, when Leon Draisaitl is an RFA. Look for depth defenseman Mark Fayne to bought out or traded with salary retained to clear most of his $3.625MM cap hit, and perhaps a trade involving a bigger salaried player. McDavid and Darnell Nurse finish their entry-level contracts in 2018, and then Jesse Puljujärvi in 2019 (presuming he stays in the NHL this year and doesn’t slide.

While negotiations cannot begin until July, Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli and his management team are already having internal discussions about the contract, and so are McDavid’s agents, Jeff Jackson and Bobby Orr. Expect a similar timeline to fellow exceptional status recipient and first-overall pick Aaron Ekblad signing his extension with Florida; the two sides agreed in principle to a new deal early in the morning of July 1st.

Johnston was dead-on when he called extending McDavid the “biggest decision the Oilers are going to have for the next decade.”

Anderson Triumphant In Courageous Return To Net

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Everyone knew this was coming.

Craig Anderson pitched a 37-save shutout in his return to the crease after his wife Nicholle was diagnosed with cancer. Anderson had taken a personal leave of absence last week, but returned to the team at the behest of his wife after backup Andrew Hammond went down with injury. It was Anderson’s second shutout in a row, with a week in between them.

It wasn’t an easy return to action for Anderson, as the Senators were in Edmonton to face the top team in the Western Conference. Oilers coach Todd McLellan knew what was coming; he was the coach of San Jose when Dominic Moore left the team during the 2012 playoffs to tend to his wife Katie, who had been diagnosed with liver cancer. The Senators were heavily outshot, but the game never seemed in question with Anderson in net.

Senators captain Erik Karlsson told Sportsnet’s Mark Spector afterwards that despite the rivalries, the NHL is a tight league, “I feel like we have a lot of respect for each other… We do a lot of stupid things, but at the end of the day, we all have a life outside of the rink. When things like this happen, you have a lot of human respect for that.”

Anderson was named first star of the game, and the Oilers fans gave the teary-eyed goaltender a loud ovation when he came out to wave to the crowd. Oilers goalie Cam Talbot remained on the bench to clap and show support for his peer.

TSN’s Ray Ferraro and Ryan Rishaug both noted the quiet nature of the Senators locker room after the game (Ferraro on the Senators broadcast, Rishaug on Edmonton radio Monday morning). The visitor’s locker room was empty when the media entered the room; the Senators communications staff brought out select players one-by-one for interviews. Anderson did not speak to the media after the game.

Atlantic Division Snapshots: Anderson, Deslauriers, Conacher, Vanek

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As noted earlier this week, Ottawa Senators goaltender Craig Anderson is going through a tough stretch in his personal life with the recent news of his wife’s cancer diagnosis. At his wife’s insistence, Anderson has returned from a brief leave of absence and will be pressed right back into service tonight between the pipes for the Senators, who are in Edmonton to play the red hot Oilers. Bruce Garrioch confirmed via Twitter that Anderson will get the start tonight as Ottawa attempts to snap the Oilers five-game winning streak.

Anderson has won four of his five starts this season despite a GAA approaching three and a S% just above 90%. Now in his 14th NHL season, Anderson has won 217 career games and has twice finished fourth in Vezina voting. During the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, Anderson led the league in GAA (1.69) and S% (94.1%).

With Andrew Hammond now on IR the Senators desperately need Anderson, though it would be understandable if the veteran netminder’s focus is somewhat divided. It’s likely most everyone outside of Edmonton is going to be an Ottawa Senators and Craig Anderson fan tonight.

More from the NHL’s Atlantic Division:

  • Physical winger Nicolas Deslauriers of the Buffalo Sabres left Saturday’s win over Florida after a collision along the boards in the game’s final minute, writes Amy Moritz of The Buffalo News. Later, Mike Harrington, also of the Buffalo News, revealed on Twitter that Deslauriers has a knee injury and will be out of the lineup for “weeks.” To replace the four-year veteran in the lineup, at least for the time being, the Sabres have recalled winger Nicholas Baptiste from Rochester of the AHL, once again courtesy of Harrington. Baptiste has already appeared in two games this season for Buffalo – the first NHL action of his career – and scored his first career NHL goal on October 20th.
  • Cory Conacher, who was recalled on Friday to take the place of the injured Nikita Kucherov, has been returned to Syracuse of the AHL, according to Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times. Conacher played 13:26 last night for the Lightning but didn’t register a point and recorded a -1 plus-minus rating. Smith suggests the reassignment of Conacher could mean that Kucherov or perhaps even Ryan Callahan is ready to return to the lineup for tonight’s contest against the New York Rangers. As Smith also notes, it would be fitting for Callahan, who has yet to play this season following hip surgery this summer, to make his 2016-17 debut against his former team. It’s also possible head coach Jon Cooper will simply dress seven defensemen; a tactic he utilized on many occasions last season.
  •  Originally listed as day-to-day due to a lower-body-injury, it now appears as if Detroit forward Thomas Vanek has been downgraded to week-to-week and is expected to miss the next few games, according to Ansar Khan of MLive.com. Vanek is off to a good start in his first year in Detroit, scoring four goals and eight points in his first seven contests. Detroit was considered a fringe playoff team at best coming into the season but the Austrian winger has helped the Wings to a 6 – 3- 0 start and a second place standing in the Atlantic. His extended absence is certainly bad news for a Wings club that has overachieved to this point.

Snapshots: Trouba, Ducks, Goaltending

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In the latest edition of Insider Trading on TSN, the panel of Bob McKenzie, Darren Dreger and Pierre LeBrun discussed a number of subjects. One of them was Jacob Trouba, and the potential of a trade in his future. While Trouba has insisted all along that it isn’t about money in his contract dispute, the Jets are rumored to be willing to go to six-years, $33MM to get the defenceman under contract.

Even though it seems like most teams would want Trouba, Dreger reports that it doesn’t look like there is a fit anywhere in Canada. The Maple Leafs, Oilers and Canadiens have all been rumored to be interested in the 22-year old in the past.

  • On Hampus Lindholm and a possible deal of Cam Fowler, LeBrun reports that it might not be as guaranteed as one would think.  While it still seems likely that one of the Ducks young defenceman will have to be shipped out, the fact that Simon Despres has hit the LTIR and has no timetable on his return the team has a little more wiggle room under the salary cap.
  • In Carolina, Dreger suggests that Ryan Murphy may be on the block, since he’ll likely be exposed at next year’s expansion draft. The 23-year old former first round pick split last season between the NHL and AHL levels.
  • On the goaltending front, Los Angeles sounds like they’re putting all their eggs in the Peter Budaj basket for now. They’re waiting for Mike Condon to hit waivers from the Pittsburgh Penguins, but that may not happen for a while as Pittsburgh wants to try and keep or get an asset for the young goaltender.

Snapshots: Maple Leafs Blue Line, Vancouver, McIlrath

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There has been much written about this past summer’s blockbuster trade which sent LW Taylor Hall from Edmonton to New Jersey in exchange or D Adam Larsson; most of it critical of the Oilers side of the transaction. But Kevin McGran of TheStar.com opines that not only has the trade benefited both teams so far, it actually represents the sort of trade the Toronto Maple Leafs may have to explore in the future.

Hall already has five goals in six games for the Devils while Larsson has fit in well on Edmonton’s blue line, helping the Oilers to a 6 – 1 – 0 record. Even if Hall is considered the superior player, it still appears as if the deal has worked out in both team’s favor.

McGran argues that the Leafs, much like Edmonton, have a lot of highly-skilled forwards but a lingering deficiency on the blue line. Toronto has some interesting players on defense – Nikita Zaitsev, Jake Gardiner and Morgan Rielly, for example – but with Matt Hunwick and Roman Polak seeing regular playing time and with few prospects of particular note in the system, it’s clear the Leafs could use more young talent on the back end. While it’s possible the youngsters already on Toronto’s roster develop into a decent group of blue liners, it’s more likely the Leafs may eventually have to instead consider dealing from a position of strength – scoring wing – to address a weakness – defense. And just as the Oilers had to do, the Leafs might have to sacrifice a talented and popular player – and perhaps even a better player than the one they acquire – in order to fix the issues on the blue line.

The scribe does note that the Leafs likely won’t have to make that decision right away; that they likely have a year or two to see how things shake out.

More from around the NHL:

  • Goal-scoring is up around the league with a per-game-average of 5.91 markers to date. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case in Vancouver where the Canucks have averaged just two goals per game, the lowest rate in the NHL. Writing for The Province, Jason Botchford highlights some disturbing trends suggesting the Canucks offensive issues are likely to linger throughout the season. Botchford notes that the team is dead last in even-strength, score-adjusted shot-attempt differential and suggests that trend will place additional pressure on Vancouver’s special teams. But through seven games, the Canucks have converted on just 12.5% of their man-advantage chances. Two players the Canucks expected and needed to step up this season have yet to do so. Defenseman Ben Hutton has recorded just a single goal while winger Sven Baertschi has failed to find the back of the net. As Botchford writes, the Canucks have talent but perhaps not enough depth at this point.
  • Earlier today we learned the Rangers waived Dylan McIlrath. The former first-round pick had appeared in just one game and was the eighth defenseman on the team’s depth chart. As Larry Brooks of the New York Post noted via Twitter, the Rangers simply weren’t going to keep eight defensemen on the roster all season. Brooks also believes the chances of McIlrath getting claimed is “50-50.”

Chiarelli Cautiously Optimistic About Oilers Start

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Edmonton Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli is cautiously optimistic about his team’s 5-1-0 start to the 2016-17 NHL season. In an appearance on Sportsnet 590 The Fan, Chiarelli told Bob McCown that he “wouldn’t call it that dramatic yet. Let’s wait 20 or 25 games. We’ve had a good start.”

The Oilers find themselves leading the NHL’s Western Conference with 10 points, which is good for second in the NHL behind the Montreal Canadiens. One of the big reasons for the Oilers early turnaround is a bolstered defense, improving their ability to break out the puck and defend, a change that Chiarelli called “basically 180 degrees.”

“We’ve added Larsson; we’ve added Russell, and effectively we added Klefbom.”

Adam Larsson was added at a great cost, while Kris Russell was signed to a one-year contract in early October. Oscar Klefbom was a breakout player in the end of 2014-15 and beginning of 2015-16, but broke his finger in early December and a subsequent staph infection kept him out of the remainder of the season.

Add those three to Andrej Sekera and the Oilers have a decent top-four defense for the first time since 2008-09 when they had Sheldon Souray, Tom Gilbert, Denis Grebeshkov, and Lubomir Visnovsky all post more than 30 points. The Oilers had 85 points that season, and they haven’t topped 74 since.

Besides the defense, Connor McDavid and Cam Talbot have been very solid so far this season, with both being named the NHL’s first star of the week in the first two weeks of the season. McDavid has 4 goals and 5 assists for 9 points in 6 games, while Talbot is 5-1-0 with a 0.919 SV% and one shutout.

The Oilers will face a stiff test on Wednesday night when they host Alex Ovechkin and the reigning President’s Trophy winners, the Washington Capitals. Washington is sitting third in the Metropolitan with a 3-1-1 record.

Snapshots: Backes, Condon, Ducks, Hall

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Boston Bruins forward David Backes has been listed as day-to-day for the last few days, and now we know why. Bruins GM Don Sweeney said Backes had a procedure to remove an olecranon bursa in his elbow on Monday (via Dan Rosen).

While Sweeney said there would be a further update after this weekend, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons lists recovery time as somewhere between 10 days and a month, depending on severity.

Backes has had a decent start to his Bruins career, with 2-2-4 in 5 games. The former St. Louis Blues captain has been a consistent performer, hitting 20-plus goals six times while being a solid possession player and being a bruising hitter.

  • In this week’s 30 Thoughts, Elliotte Friedman suggested Matt Murray’s return to the lineup likely means Mike Condon could find himself on waivers soon. Friedman suggested the Bruins as a possible new home for the Massachusetts native, with both Tuukka Rask and Anton Khudobin dealing with injuries.
  • Also in 30 Thoughts, Friedman quoted an unnamed GM as saying he’d “bet [him] anything” that Anaheim GM Bob Murray finds a way to protect Jakob Silfverberg in June’s expansion draft. Currently, the Ducks have four players that must be protected (no-move clauses) in Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Ryan Kesler, and Kevin Bieksa. At the very least, the Ducks would want to protect newly-signed Rickard Rakell, Andrew Cogliano, and Silfverberg on forward, and Hampus Lindholm, Cam Fowler, and Sami Vatanen on defense. Even that leaves some really good defensemen exposed, like Josh Manson and Simon Depres, so expect some movement before the expansion draft. Bieksa could also be convinced to waive his no-move clause to allow the Ducks to protect someone else; his $4MM salary is likely enough to prevent Las Vegas from taking him.
  • New Jersey Devils reporter Chris Ryan tweeted out a rather hard-to-believe stat about Taylor Hall. This season, the Devils’ 3-2-1 start is the first time since Hall has been on a .500 team since the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season when the Oilers started 4-3-1. Edmonton, of course, has started this season 5-1-0.

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