Stretch Run Storylines: Tampa Bay Lightning
As things stand, the NHL is planning to have games resume at some point over the coming weeks. Assuming the regular season continues, there will be plenty of things to watch for over the stretch run. Over the coming weeks, PHR will examine the top stretch run storylines for each team. We look at the Atlantic Division with Tampa Bay.
It’s been a strange year for the Tampa Bay Lightning, who many felt would step into the 2019-20 season with vengeance in their minds after an embarrassing first-round exit in the playoffs last year when they were the most dominant team in hockey. Instead, the team started slowly and quickly found themselves sitting outside the playoffs. There was even some discussion that the team could let go head coach Jon Cooper, although general manager Julien BriseBois gave him a vote of confidence. Then everything changed around Christmas when the Lightning went on a 10-game winning streak and followed that up in late January with an 11-game winning streak that vaulted them into a solid second place standing in the Atlantic Division.
Stamkos Return?
The timing of his injury couldn’t have been worse back in early March when it was announced that Steven Stamkos would be out for six to eight weeks to have surgery to repair a core muscle injury. That would likely have required the top-line star to miss the first round of the playoffs in the best case scenario. The suspension of play is only going to be an advantage to injured players as it gives them time to heal and Stamkos could receive the biggest advantage as he now should have plenty of time to recover and be ready to hit the ice when play resumes. So far he’s close to reaching the half-way point of his recovery process and in a few weeks time could be ready for action again, which should be plenty of time.
Stamkos is second on the team in scoring with 29 goals and 66 points and while those numbers are down compared to previous seasons, likely due to his core muscle injury that has slowed him down, a healthy Stamkos could be a difference-maker in the playoffs.
Salary Cap Issues
The Lightning also have to start looking to the 2020-21 season when their salary cap could be significantly affected, especially if the cap flatlines. The team doesn’t have any significant contracts that are set to expire and those that are, like Kevin Shattenkirk or Pat Maroon, are players the Lightning are likely going to want to extend.
Throw in the fact that goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy‘s new contract will kick in as his AAV will go from $3.5MM to $9.5MM, and the fact that defenseman Mikhail Sergachev‘s entry-level deal expires, meaning a raise is in order for the fast-developing blueliner and Tampa Bay has some issues.
That likely will require BriseBois to make some trades to fix those cap concerns and even out their roster. He had some success at that last year when he was able to trade forward J.T. Miller to Vancouver for a conditional first-rounder that since has been traded away for more immediate help. The team may have to unload even more this offseason to balance the cap.
Potential Meeting With Maple Leafs
If the playoffs do hit, it almost seems inevitable that the Lightning will find themselves with the inconsistent, but potential playoff wrecker in the Maple Leafs. The team avoided their top-heavy Atlantic last season, clinching first place and a wild-card opponent. Unfortunately, that didn’t go well as they were swept by Columbus.
However, with Boston eight points ahead of the Lightning, it’s obvious that they will face off against Toronto. While the Maple Leafs have been erratic all season, that doesn’t mean the Lightning are looking forward to the combination of John Tavares, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, any of which can change the outcome of playoff games. It could be the most interesting of the first-round matchups, assuming the playoffs happen.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Stretch Run Storylines: Boston Bruins
As things stand, the NHL is planning to have games resume at some point over the coming weeks. Assuming the regular season continues, there will be plenty of things to watch for over the stretch run. Over the coming weeks, PHR will examine the top stretch run storylines for each team. We open up our look at the Atlantic Division with Boston.
Whereas many teams that fall just short of a Stanley Cup championship struggle maintaining their success the following season, that hasn’t been the case in Boston, where the Bruins have been dominant one of the most top-heavy divisions in the NHL. The Bruins have been clearly the best team in the NHL as they are the only team to have broken the 100-point mark before the NHL suspended their season. It’s clear that Boston’s only goal is return to the Stanley Cup Finals and this time win it.
Can Suspension Of Play Affect Bruins’ Succcess?
The Bruins have been rolling and looked like the top candidate to win a Stanley Cup. However, a break in play can’t be good for a team that was playing this well. The Bruins have won 16 of their last 20 games. A long break could definitely affect players in different ways — whether they are all staying to top shape, etc. as well as how they play with each other. It could take longer than usual for any team to regain their form.
With that the NHL could shorten or even cancel the remainder of the regular season in hopes of pushing the playoffs even closer, Boston, full of veteran players, could find themselves struggling to get out of the gate and an early playoff exit could be a real possibility.
Injured Players
The Boston Bruins accomplished all this despite struggling significantly with injuries on the back end. Over the season, the team has dealt with significant injuries to John Moore, Kevan Miller, Charlie McAvoy, Torey Krug and Connor Clifton, but has been able to put together a patch work of players to fill out their rosters while their players recover on injured reserve. The forward lines have also been hit hard with numerous injuries as well.
While most of those players were back with the team before the season was suspended, the break could offer some positive points as well. It will offer a significant advantage to the team who has been ravaged by injuries this season. If all players have plenty of time to get over their injuries, they may have a full and complete roster to help them to their eventual goal.
Trade Deadline Acquisitions
The Boston Bruins picked up a couple of key forwards at the trade deadline when it acquired Ondrej Kase and Nick Ritchie from Anaheim in separate deals. The hope that Kase would provide the team a significant upgrade to the team’s top-six, while Ritchie could also add some key depth to Boston’s bottom six.
Kase, who was injured at the time of the trade, hasn’t accomplished that yet. He was activated a few days after the trade and immediately placed on the top line, but in seven games had registered only an assist. The team’s hope was that being surrounded with veteran talent would bring out Kase’s potential to score goals and turn him into the high-scoring player that many envisioned when he scored 20 goals in 2017-18. Ritchie had a goal and an assist in seven games, another player who the team felt had potential.
However, considering that it takes time to develop cohesiveness with new teammates on the ice, this break certainly won’t make it easier for either player to improve and adjust to a new team, especially if the regular season is cut short or cancelled.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Stretch Run Storylines: Chicago Blackhawks
As things stand, the NHL is planning to have games resume at some point over the coming weeks. Assuming the regular season continues, there will be plenty of things to watch for over the stretch run. Over the coming weeks, PHR will examine the top stretch run storylines for each team. We wrap up our look at the Central Division with Chicago.
It has been another disappointing season for the Blackhawks who sit at the bottom of the division with their only hope of a playoff spot being an expanded field. For the most part, their veterans have underachieved which has to be a bit concerning to a team that has several key veteran players on long-term deals. However, one of their few veterans not on a long-term pact is one of their top storylines for the stretch run.
Bridge Or Long-Term?
The Blackhawks have limited cap space to work with as they have more than $73MM in commitments already for next season. Despite that, center Dylan Strome and Dominik Kubalik are a pair of youngsters that will be vying for a long-term pact if the team can free up some extra funds over the offseason. How they fare down the stretch may ultimately help GM Stan Bowman which one to try to sign to something other than a bridge deal if the cap room is there.
Strome hasn’t been as productive as he was last season, his first with Chicago but that wasn’t entirely unexpected. After going from being a middling player in Arizona to nearly a point-per-game player, this season was going to fall somewhere in between that. The end result hasn’t been half bad as he has picked up a dozen goals and 26 assists in 58 games. He now has 116 games in a Blackhawks uniform but is that enough to get a long-term deal? If the regular season plays out in full, another 12 games could actually help sway things.
Kubalik has been one of the bigger pleasant surprises in the league this season, jumping in with 30 goals in his rookie campaign. Of course, he’s not as young as most rookies are as he’ll be 25 at the start of next season. That has him two years away from unrestricted free agency and arbitration-eligible already. A bridge deal walks him to UFA eligibility but with only 68 NHL games as a track record, that’s not much to go off of. Like Strome, playing out the final dozen games may wind up helping (or hurting) his chances of a long-term pact.
Crawford’s Future
When the Blackhawks signed Robin Lehner to a one-year deal in the summer, it felt like a potential sign that they had decided that Corey Crawford’s days as their full-time starter were over. But Crawford slightly outperformed Lehner in a virtual platoon situation and Lehner was eventually dealt to Vegas at the trade deadline. Does that mean that Crawford is again the goalie of the future?
That’s what he’s certainly hoping for but it’s far from a given that he has done enough to show it. He has had difficulty staying healthy in recent years and he’s 35. There aren’t a lot of legitimate starters at that age still out there.
But let’s look back at their cap situation. With Strome and Kubalik to re-sign on top of their current commitments, they can’t afford to be shopping at the top end of the market in free agency. They’ll need to go with a more affordable option which could very well be Crawford. Before the pandemic, it certainly seemed like a short-term contract extension was quite possible and a good finish to the year could help his chances of getting the strong side of the platoon next year.
Reverse Standings Watch
What do teams do when they’re out of contention? They keep looking at the standings but instead of looking up, they look down.
As things currently sit, Chicago is ahead of eight teams in the overall standings but half of the teams behind them are within five points. That margin is certainly erasable if the NHL plays out a full 82-game schedule and it’s notable that two of their remaining 12 contests are against teams in that group just behind them.
It’s a given that players like Kirby Dach, Adam Boqvist, and Nicolas Beaudin will get more playing time down the stretch and for Chicago fans, that will certainly be something to watch for. How they perform will go a long way towards determining whether the Blackhawks stay where they are or fall back a bit and improve their odds at the Draft Lottery (whenever it happens to be rescheduled for following its postponement earlier this week).
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
PHR Panel: Draft Prospect Impact
We’re now two weeks into an NHL postponement and there is still no clear timeline on when professional hockey will return. While fans of the sport have received small tidbits of news over that time, including college signings and contract extensions, the thirst for discussion has rarely been quenched.
With that in mind, we’re happy to introduce a new feature: The PHR Panel. Three times a week, our writing staff will give our individual takes on a question many hockey fans have been wondering about. If you’d ever like to submit a subject for us to discuss, be sure to put it in the comments. This series will run each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Earlier this week we gave our thoughts on potential playoff formats the league could use coming out of the pause. Today, we’ll talk about how draft prospects are impacted by the sudden conclusion of their junior and college seasons.
Q: Which kind of draft prospect is impacted the most by the shortened scouting season—high-, mid- or late-round?
Brian La Rose:
By now, teams have a pretty good idea of the players that are going to be at or near the top of their draft lists. There could be some movement up or down but most players ranked in the first round on a list at this point are still probably going to be ranked in the first round when final lists are set.
The stretch run and playoffs can certainly help a mid-ranked player move up (or down) but it shouldn’t affect their stock in terms of being drafted. It would take a significant injury or a dreadful late performance to knock a player from being ranked mid-round midseason to the do not draft list.
That can’t be said for the late-round prospects. Oftentimes, a big showing in the playoffs or the Under-18’s can make that lasting impression that gets them onto the late flier list. Conversely, the lower-ranked player that played well at the start of the season but struggles in such an event can fall off the list entirely. The movement in the rankings is much more drastic.
There is a considerable gap between first-rounders and those taken after. There is a small difference between second and third-rounders relative to those who go later. But once you hit the back end of the draft, the gap is minimal and it doesn’t take much to rise or fall in those rankings. That’s why they’re the most impacted by the early ends to their respective seasons.
Holger Stolzenberg:
For the most part, high-round picks have already been established. Teams and scouts are already well aware of the top-caliber players and where they will go in the first couple of rounds. While there is always some shuffling up and down those first few rounds, most of those players have been scouted quite a bit (perhaps minus a handful of Russian prospects, but isn’t that always the case?)
It’s the later picks that are likely to be affected the most. With no playoffs coming at the junior and collegiate levels as well as overseas, many of those often-missed prospects won’t get a chance to shine at the final level and show that they should be taken earlier. Plenty of prospects establish themselves near the end of the season as they develop in their own team’s systems or get to step up and prove themselves when injuries creep up. These late-season tournaments as well as the IIHF canceling the IIHF U18 World Championships will eliminate key scouting opportunities that will have a major effect on the mid to late rounds.
Zach Leach:
Unlike the other top pro sports leagues, the NHL is unique in that all rookie contracts are more or less created equal. The entry-level system creates a narrow salary window in which each draft pick is able to negotiate his contract, while also allowing time before signing to create leverage for a greater base salary or performance bonuses within that range, as opposed to negotiating based solely on draft position.
This is all to say that the most important thing for an NHL prospect is just getting drafted, not where you are drafted. For this reason, the “late-round” prospects are absolutely the group most impacted by the Coronavirus-shortened season, as they are not locked in to be selected at all. Top prospects who can safely assume that they will be picked in the first four or five rounds have that security because there is a consensus that they are a strong NHL prospect. That consensus can only be built by multiple viewings by multiple scouts over the course of the season. A shortened season still leaves most teams with more than enough information to make a decision on those top- and middle-tier prospects. Those late-round prospects often do not have the luxury of multiple viewings by scouts. High school, prep school, Junior-A and European junior league games do not offer the same value to scouts as attending CHL, USHL, or European pro games, where there are multiple draft prospects to watch. As such, postseason play and other spring tournaments offer the best opportunities for scouts and the best chance for a late-round prospect to be seen and make an impact on a team, improving his draft odds. Many of those players will not get that opportunity this year and some lower-caliber players from bigger leagues may get the nod based on teams’ number of viewings alone.
Once a player is passed over in their first year of eligibility, earning a selection only gets tougher. So it is those fringe, late-round prospects who may have lost their chance to impress the maximum number of teams possible who will be most affected by the shortened recruiting season.
Gavin Lee:
There’s no doubt that the players at the fringe of any ranking may end up missing a chance to impress an NHL team enough to earn a selection, but I would argue that it doesn’t really change their situation all that much by going undrafted. Every year teams decide not to hand out NHL contracts to their sixth- and seventh-round picks from prior drafts, letting them become free agents or bringing them in on minor league deals instead. The situation for a seventh-round pick isn’t all that fundamentally different from one that slips by—they’re still going to have to put in a lot of hard work to prove they are worthy of an NHL contract slot.
No, I believe it is actually those first-round talents that could be affected the most, in both positive and negative manners.
Last year, just a few weeks before the draft, Peyton Krebs suffered a torn Achilles in an offseason workout. Krebs had been in line for a potential top-10 selection, ranked that high by several outlets including by TSN’s Bob McKenzie, who polls NHL scouts from around the league. Instead, after his injury, Krebs dropped to the Vegas Golden Knights at 17th. If you compare his entry-level deal to that of, say, Victor Soderstrom, who went 11th, you’ll notice that Krebs has a substantially lower number of available performance bonuses—some $750K over the three years.
For an example the other way, one can point at Mortiz Seider‘s performance for Germany at the IIHF World Championship in May of 2019 as a potential reason why he ended up being the sixth player off the board in June. NHL.com correspondent Aaron Vickers wrote exactly that last year when he spoke to players like Leon Draisaitl who was so impressed with the 18-year old’s play. Seider landed more than $2.5MM in potential performance bonuses for going so high, twice as much as Krebs and certainly more than he would have at his #16 ranking in the same TSN scouting poll.
PHR Panel: Optimal Playoff Format
We’re now two weeks into an NHL postponement and there is still no clear timeline on when professional hockey will return. While fans of the sport have received small tidbits of news over that time, including college signings and contract extensions, the thirst for discussion has rarely been quenched.
With that in mind, we’re happy to introduce a new feature: The PHR Panel. Three times a week, our writing staff will give our individual takes on a question many hockey fans have been wondering about. If you’d ever like to submit a subject for us to discuss, be sure to put it in the comments. This series will run each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Today, we’re tackling the thing most people want to know about–the playoffs.
Q: What is the optimal playoff format for when (if) play resumes?
Brian La Rose:
I know there is some growing optimism to expand the format to as many as 24 teams in an effort to try to artificially improve revenues by getting some larger market teams in. Sure, it’d create some extra short-term interest and create the opportunity for even more upsets than last year. But let’s face it, Chicago and Montreal have no business being in the playoff discussion and there are no guarantees fans will be allowed to attend anyway so the potential revenue boost may not wind up being as high as they’d like.
I’d rather see a 16-team format and an effort made to try to play out the balance of the regular season or as much of it as possible and have the bubble teams battle it out that way. Gary Bettman has talked about the importance of protecting the integrity of the Stanley Cup and the season as part of any discussion about what to do moving forward. That is achieved by doing this over opening the field up to as many as eight more teams and playing best-of-three series. It may not be the most optimal from a salary cap perspective for next year but that number can be negotiated over solely being fixed by HRR anyway.
Now, if they feel the need to change something, they can scrap the divisional format and go back to the older way where the top team played eighth place, second played seventh, and so on.
Holger Stolzenberg:
Generally, I often hear people complaining about the current playoff system as many wish it to return to the 1-16 format. However, I’m a big fan of the current seeding structure and would never want to change it.
However, this is a year in which we might want to make some changes to the playoffs, depending on whether the regular season is canceled or not. Obviously, if the league has time to finish out the regular season, then my vote would be to keep the playoffs the same. If the regular season is canceled, I would like to see the playoffs expanded as a one-time event. With some teams having played more games than other teams, it just doesn’t seem very fair to just take the top 16 (even if they base it on points percentage). A team like Columbus might slip out of the playoffs since they were already at 70 games. While they had won just three of their previous 10, I feel like with Seth Jones likely back on the ice for them the team could surprise someone again in the playoffs.
I would like to see some more teams get in, but the suggested 24-team playoff seems like way too many. In my estimation, 21 teams were close to challenging for a playoff spot (maybe 22 if you want to include Arizona). So, I think whether they are play-in games or something minimal, I would like to see all those teams get a chance to earn their way into the playoffs.
Zach Leach:
One format that could a) stress the importance of regular season success, especially maintaining the league’s emphasis on division battles, b) fairly include an expanded field if the regular season cannot be completed, and c) take place in a more limited amount of time would be to reward the top two teams in each division with first-round byes while implementing shorter series in the first round.
If the playoffs were to start with standings unchanged and seeding was to be based on points percentage, the first round would feature byes for Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas and Edmonton. Eight “wild card” teams in each conference would battle in three-game series. In the East, it would be Pittsburgh vs. Montreal, Carolina vs. the New York Rangers, the New York Islanders vs. Florida, and Columbus vs. Toronto. In the West, it would be Dallas vs. Chicago, Nashville vs. Arizona, Vancouver vs. Minnesota, and Calgary vs. Winnipeg.
The winners of each wild card, three-game match-up would be re-seeded for the second round, which would essentially mirror the traditional first round and set up the standard playoff structure. The conference semifinals, finals, and Stanley Cup Final would proceed as they normally do. In total, a field of 24 teams would be able to take part in the postseason with no more than three extra games compared to the usual course and no chance of a top-four team in either conference being knocked off due to time-constrained, shortened series.
Gavin Lee:
Quite frankly, I’m not sure there is an optimal setup at this point. The idea that any more regular season games will actually be played this season seems more and more unlikely each passing day and without those, it is hard to maintain the integrity of the Stanley Cup playoffs, what has become known as one of the longest and most difficult grinds in all of professional sports.
Sure, including teams like Montreal and Chicago would be beneficial to hockey related revenues, but it would taint the whole process in my opinion. How would you draw the line? Do the Sabres and Devils both also make it, given they’re only three points behind Montreal with two games in hand?
If it were possible, I would actually be shrinking the field to try and maintain some integrity, instead of expanding it. Eliminating all four wild card teams and giving byes to each division leader would allow you to keep the tradition of seven-game series and reward the teams that were really the best performers of the first part of the regular season.
Now, of course, the NHL would never do something like that. Having teams sit idle is only letting money fly out the window, and they’ll want as much as possible if they want to keep next year’s projections anywhere near accurate (which they already won’t be). I imagine we’ll see some sort of a play-in tournament, but they won’t risk losing a division leader in a short series against a team that wasn’t even in the wild card spot when the season hit pause.
Stretch Run Storylines: Minnesota Wild
As things stand, the NHL is planning to have games resume at some point over the coming weeks. Assuming the regular season continues, there will be plenty of things to watch for over the stretch run. Over the coming weeks, PHR will examine the top stretch run storylines for each team. We continue our look at the Central Division with Minnesota.
It has been another disappointing season for the Wild who currently are on the outside looking in at a playoff spot. New GM Bill Guerin has been aggressive in recent months in terms of shaking things up, moving out Jason Zucker while making a change behind the bench as well. The effect of that coaching change is among their storylines to watch for down the stretch.
Evason’s Future
The decision to part with Bruce Boudreau last month came as a bit of a surprise even though Minnesota was struggling at the time. It seemed like the likelier time to make a move would have been the summer but Guerin opted not to wait and installed assistant Dean Evason as the new bench boss on an interim basis for the rest of the season.
The early returns have certainly been promising as the Wild are 8-4-0 since the change and as a result, they’ve crept back into the playoff race and sit only one point outside of the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference. Despite the strong start under his tenure, Guerin indicated earlier this month that he wasn’t willing to remove the interim tag at this time and will make a decision on Evason’s status at the end of the season.
That makes the stretch run (and possible playoff appearance depending on the format) extremely important for the first time NHL head coach. A good showing would certainly bolster his chances of getting the full-time gig but if they falter, Guerin could go elsewhere. There’s a lot riding on their final few games (assuming they actually occur).
Dubnyk’s Struggles
While Devan Dubnyk’s save percentage dipped a bit in 2018-19 while his goals against average went up a couple of points, he still seemed like a safe bet to be at least an average starter this season. That hasn’t exactly happened.
The 33-year-old has posted a save percentage of just .890 this season. That’s his lowest one since his rookie year and the last time he had one around that territory (2013-14 at .891), three different organizations were paying him to be a platoon goalie for Montreal’s AHL affiliate. His goals against average of 3.35 is his worst since that 2013-14 campaign. Those are not starting-caliber numbers; those aren’t even backup level.
That’s why Alex Stalock was given a chance to run as the starter and to his credit, he made the most of it in the weeks leading up to the break in the schedule. But he has been a backup (or third-stringer) for his entire career so asking him to keep up his level of play isn’t realistic.
Eventually, they will need Dubnyk to get back to his form from a year ago. This is where the break should do him some good as some time away certainly can’t hurt. If you look back at how he bounced back from his ugly 2013-14 season, he quickly rediscovered his form with Arizona which helped land him in Minnesota where he had fared well until now. They’ll certainly be counting on a similar bounce back down the stretch.
Galchenyuk’s Future
When the Canadiens signed Alex Galchenyuk to a three-year deal three offseasons ago, it set him up to potentially be one of the most sought after forwards in unrestricted free agency. Here was a top-three pick only a year removed from a 30-goal campaign and he’d be hitting the open market at 26 in the prime of his career.
Things haven’t gone quite as planned, however. Galchenyuk was eventually moved to Arizona where his numbers declined. He started this season in Pittsburgh and didn’t do much there and saw his value plummet to the point where he was effectively a salary matching throw-in as part of the Zucker trade.
Prior to the pause, Galchenyuk was actually showing some signs of improvement. He had seven points in 14 games, a pace that was comparable to his output from a year before despite averaging a little less than 15 minutes a night. If he is able to return and sustain that pace, he’ll at least position himself to have interest from a few teams on the open market, including potentially Minnesota. But if he struggles down the stretch (or even if play doesn’t resume), he could go from possibly being one of the more intriguing free agents to one that will have to wait a while in the offseason to find his next team.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
PHR Originals: 3/16/20 – 3/22/20
Here’s a rundown of the original content at PHR over the past seven days.
Our tour around the Central Division’s storylines to watch for continued with a look at four more teams:
Colorado: The Avalanche will be welcoming back several key players which is a huge boost for them as they try to catch St. Louis for the top spot in the Western Conference. However, their most interesting storyline may be their goaltending situation. I looked at the numbers for the now-healthy Philipp Grubauer and backup Pavel Francouz and there isn’t really a true contender for the job. Teams rarely platoon in the playoffs but this is a team where that could change.
Dallas: The Stars have basically been at the top end of the playoff bubble teams for most of the season. I broke down just how bad their offense has been but on the optimistic side, a return to form for their top veteran forwards could really give them a boost. The future of Rick Bowness behind the bench will likely be dependent on how they fare down the stretch and in the postseason so there’s a lot riding on whatever may be left of 2019-20.
Nashville: It has been a bumpy season for the Predators who have been one of the bigger underachievers relative to early expectations. As Holger noted, their top scorers haven’t got the job done while they also have had to deal with inconsistent goaltending from Juuse Saros and Pekka Rinne. Will the break rejuvenate Rinne to help take some of the pressure off of Saros and resolidify that position? That could very well make or break their postseason hopes.
Winnipeg: Their situation largely breaks down to inside their blue line. I assessed the composition of their defense corps which is certainly a weak link relative to their competitors for a playoff spot. Connor Hellebuyck has also been relied on a lot this year and with the possibility of a lot of back-to-backs if the NHL tries to make it through the regular season, he’s going to be heavily tested down the stretch.
Flipping the script, if the season doesn’t resume, the NHL awards will become more of a talking point. One of the more intriguing battles would be for the Calder Trophy with Colorado’s Cale Makar and Vancouver’s Quinn Hughes being the presumptive top two contenders. Who would win if the vote was today? Make your choice here.
Even if the NHL does resume, it’s likely that games will be played in empty arenas for a while. As the NHL is a gate-driven league, that will wreak some havoc on their revenues for the season which could result in a lower salary cap. That will put many teams in even more cap trouble than they were this year. Zach proposed a potential solution to that issue or at least something to help by suggesting the league bring back a compliance buyout. These were sometimes referred to as amnesty buyouts in the past as teams were allowed to buy someone out without any salary cap ramifications. With a probable drop in revenues, it’s something that the NHL and the NHLPA should be giving serious consideration to between now and the offseason.
Stretch Run Storylines: Nashville Predators
As things stand, the NHL is planning to have games resume at some point over the coming weeks. Assuming the regular season continues, there will be plenty of things to watch for over the stretch run. Over the coming weeks, PHR will examine the top stretch run storylines for each team. We continue our look at the Central Division with Nashville.
It’s been an inconsistent season for the Nashville Predators, who many felt could challenge for the Central Division title this season. Instead, the team struggled out of the gate, which included a six-game losing streak in November and by early January, general manager David Poile made a decision to let go of long-time coach Peter Laviolette and associate coach Kevin McCarthy after the team had a 19-15-7 record. The team replaced him with recently fired coach John Hynes, who took over and saw the team fight its way back into the final wild card spot, but with continued inconsistent play and several teams breathing down their necks, the team will have to fight to remain in the playoffs.
Questionable Offense
When looking at the team’s top four point producers so far this year, the Nashville Predators have two defenseman in their top four, including defenseman Roman Josi, who leads the team in scoring by far with 65 points this season. That is fine when the team runs its offense through its defense. However, the team’s first line players, however, aren’t having great seasons, which has only made things more challenging.
While there is still plenty of time left, assuming the regular season resumes, Filip Forsberg looks to be heading for a career-low in goals. After never posting lower than 26 goals in his tenure with Nashville, the 25-year-old has just 21 goals and 48 points and still hasn’t been able to take his impressive game to that next level and develop into the star that many people had envisioned.
To make matters worse, Poile went out of his way to upgrade his defense by trading away P.K. Subban in the offseason and using that new-found money to sign center Matt Duchene to give the team a second dominant center. Duchene was expected to play the role of a major point producer after posting a 31-goal, 70-point season last year between Ottawa and Columbus. However, that hasn’t translated in his first year in Nashville as he has just 13 goals and 42 points through 66 games.
If Nashville wants to ensure a trip to the playoffs and maybe even surviving a round or two, the Predators must get more consistent play from their forwards. Even Viktor Arvidsson, who has averaged 30 goals for the three previous years has just 15 goals this season.
Goaltending Issues
A year ago, there were plenty of people that would have referred to the Predators’ goaltending tandem of Pekka Rinne and Juuse Saros as one of the best in the league. However, that hasn’t been the case so far this year.
The 36-year-old Rinne started a new two-year, $10MM deal this season, but few expected a major drop-off after he posted a 2.42 GAA and a .918 save percentage in 56 appearances last year. Unfortunately for the Predators, those numbers took a nosedive. In 36 games this season, Rinne has a 3.17 GAA and a .895 save percentage, which has allowed Saros to take an even bigger role, while also leaving questions on how wise it was to give Rinne two more years.
After a slow start, Saros has been much more successful and has taken on the starting role, having appeared in 16 games since February. The 27-year-old netminder has a pedestrian 2.70 GAA in 40 appearances (a career high), but also has a .914 save percentage, winning 10 of those appearances.
The team needs Saros to continue his conversion into the team’s everyday starter, but also needs to hope that the break rejuvenates Rinne, who the team needs to bounce back and take some of the responsibility off Saros.
Coaching Transition
Often when teams fire their coaches at midseason, like the Predators did with Laviolette in January, the team hopes the change will inspire the team to take their game up a notch and show they are as talented as management had assumed at the start of the season. So far Hynes has the team at 16-11-1, only a slight improvement, yet while the team has been inconsistent since Hynes has taken over, Nashville has three three-game and three two-game winning streaks this year.
One would have to imagine that the layoff could benefit Hynes more than anything as he has more time to study tape and adjust his coaching techniques and lines to improve the team when they get back on the ice.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Stretch Run Storylines: Winnipeg Jets
As things stand, the NHL is planning to have games resume at some point over the coming weeks. Assuming the regular season continues, there will be plenty of things to watch for over the stretch run. Over the coming weeks, PHR will examine the top stretch run storylines for each team. We continue our look at the Central Division with Winnipeg.
It has been a tough year for the Jets. They lost several key members of their back end over the summer and have been hit hard by the injury bug throughout the season. Despite that, a hot stretch of games just before the suspension of play got them back into the playoff picture. Will their back end be able to hold up the rest of the way? That’s one of Winnipeg’s key storylines down the stretch.
Defensive Questions
Losing Jacob Trouba to trade, Tyler Myers and Ben Chiarot as free agents, and Dustin Byfuglien from the calamitous mess that is his situation is tough for anyone. There’s no improving your back end when you lose that many key players at once, even with landing Neal Pionk in the Trouba trade.
Pionk and Josh Morrissey lead Winnipeg’s defense corps that could best be described as patchwork. Of the ten rearguards on their roster before the roster freeze kicked in, two are waiver claims and another was a non-tendered RFA last summer. Two others are just beginning their NHL careers and another was a waiver claim in another organization last year and is best served as a seventh or eighth defender. Dylan DeMelo was a shrewd addition by GM Kevin Cheveldayoff a little before the trade deadline but in a perfect world, he’s on the third pairing, not averaging over 21 minutes a night.
Is it a terrible group? No. But when compared to the other teams that they’re battling with for a playoff spot, it’s a definite downgrade. This patchwork back end has held up quite well given the circumstances. But as the pressure mounts, can they hold up or will the cracks start to become more evident?
And if we’re throwing out questions, how about some with Byfuglien. While he was ruled out for the season before the trade deadline, could he be medically cleared to return if the break is long enough? Would he even want to return to Winnipeg? It’s a longshot but he’d certainly give them a boost if he came back.
Hellebuyck Holding Up
Quick trivia question – who leads the league in shots faced this season? The answer is Connor Hellebuyck who also is tied for the NHL lead in games played with Montreal’s Carey Price. A year ago, Laurent Brossoit was one of the top backups in the league and was pushing for more playoff time. This season, he has been well below average, even for second stringers. As a result, Hellebuyck has had to carry a huge workload.
This is where the shutdown could help the Jets. With the extended break, he should be fresh for the stretch run. However, it’s also quite possible (if not probable) that there will be a lot of back-to-backs if the regular season resumes to get as many games in as they can before the playoffs. They may need Hellebuyck to play both ends of those given Brossoit’s struggles this season as with being a bubble team, they can’t afford to risk it.
So far this season, Hellebuyck has only played both ends of a back-to-back just once and only made one start in that situation in 2018-19 (and didn’t make it through the game). Suffice it to say, he’s going to be in some uncharted waters if the regular season resumes.
Scoring Race
There will likely be a new scoring champion in Winnipeg after Blake Wheeler had led the Jets in each of the past two seasons. But who that will be is something to watch for.
Winger Kyle Connor has already established new career highs in goals (38), assists (35), and points (73), eclipsing the point per game mark for the first time in his young career. Meanwhile, center Mark Scheifele was on pace for new career bests in assists and points before the shutdown and he’s also at 73. (Wheeler is still technically in the mix at 65 but would need quite the productive stretch run to contend for his third straight scoring title.)
Connor’s surge makes Winnipeg’s decision to sign him to a seven-year, $50MM contract partway through training camp look a lot better. With only two full seasons under his belt before this one, that type of commitment certainly carried some risk. Meanwhile, Scheifele continues to be one of the top value deals in the league with a $6.125MM AAV through the 2023-24 campaign.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Could Coronavirus Lead To The Return Of Compliance Buyouts?
Just two weeks after the NHL announced a projected 2020-21 salary cap range that would have represented a major boost in teams’ spending power, things could not have gone in a worse direction in terms of meeting that estimation. The Coronavirus outbreak has shut the league down and there is no way to know when or if games will return this season. The league hopes to resume play and even maintains that they would like to avoid missing any games, but with each passing day that reality grows less and less likely. COVID-19 fears seem almost certain to cost games if not the entirety of the remaining regular season schedule and, in the worst-case scenario, possibly the playoffs as well. Missed games are missed revenue opportunities and the board of governors would be highly unlikely to approve a cap increase, especially of the magnitude initially projected, if they continue to suffer losses.
The last time that the NHL was forced to cancel games was in the 2012-13 lockout-shortened season. As the league and players’ association battled over collective bargaining terms, the NHL missed the first half of their season. A 48-game schedule began on January 19th, which for all involved was better than nothing but was certainly a hit to owners’ bottom lines. The 2012-13 campaign was expected to carry a $70.2MM cap hit, but that instead was a pro-rated number that in reality was just $60MM. The following season, given the lost revenue, the cap only meagerly returned to just $64.3MM, the same upper limit as in 2011-12.
Due to the unexpected stagnation of the salary cap for those two years, many teams were left under immense pressure to fit their rosters under the ceiling. In response, the NHL offered a solution: the “compliance buyout”. The compliance buyout follows the same rules as a standard buyout, allowing teams to cut ties with a player at the cost of two-thirds of the remaining value of their contract (one-third if under 26) over the course of double the length of the remaining term on the contract. The one defining difference is that compliance buyouts do not count against the salary cap. The NHL made this option available in the 2013 and 2014 off-seasons, with a limit of two per team over the two summers, and 18 teams took advantage. In fact, a number of teams are still paying off those buyouts – with a ways to go – with standouts including Christian Ehrhoff, Brad Richards, Ilya Bryzgalov, Vincent Lecavalier, and of course Rick DiPietro.
Could the compliance buyout make a return appearance should the Coronavirus outbreak continue to prevent NHL action from returning? If NHL teams end up losing revenue due to missed games, the 2020-21 salary cap limit will at best be the low end of the league’s projection, which is $84MM. And that would still be a $2.5MM increase. More likely in the case of canceled games would be the salary cap remaining at $81.5MM or only increasing marginally. Such a shift in the expected course of action would leave many teams in trouble. A report earlier today named the Chicago Blackhawks as one team that would have to make difficult roster decisions in the event of a stagnant cap, but they are far from alone. 13 teams already have $70MM+ in salary committed to 2020-21, while many of the 12 more teams in the $60-70MM range either have key free agents to re-sign or are working with a small number of signed players. The Arizona Coyotes, who lead the pack with $79.99MM committed to just 18 players, were already hard-pressed to deal with an $84MM salary cap, nevertheless a continuation of the current $81.5MM. They would be left in a nearly impossible situation, unless offered a way out.
As such, it seems like a strong possibility that the compliance buyout could make its triumphant return. While the league does not want to address the “what if” of missed games at this point in time, should it reach the point where that result is inevitable, compliance buyouts will certainly become a hot topic. Whether the league would go about the process in a similar manner as they did last time around remains to be seen. They might instead offer a one-time shot this summer in light of NHL Expansion in 2021 that should get the salary cap back on track. It’s too early to tell, but as we all wait out the Coronavirus, it’s worth wondering whether the league could bring back an old device to mitigate the lasting effect of the pandemic.