It’s fair to wonder how we got here, but there is simply no arguing the fact: the best week of the hockey season is upon us — in late June.
There may be no games, but at least your favourite team will be of consequence again. For Canadians, it’s been a while since we could say that.
This week is Cowboy Christmas for hockey fans. In rodeo parlance, Cowboy Christmas is that summer period when there are as many as a 10 rodeos within driving distance on at the same time, and there are broncos to be to ridden and bucks to be made.
For hockey fans, this week could be your team’s most newsy of the season — a time when rosters are shaped. And of course, the reward for having all seven Canadian teams miss the playoffs comes on Friday night, when all seven Canadian teams pick in the top 12, with six of the top nine picks currently owned by Canadian teams.
The regular-season schedule began trickling out this morning, with teams announcing their home openers. By end of day Tuesday all 30 clubs will have their full schedule out, just at the moment scouting staffs and front offices settle into Buffalo for pre-draft meetings and prospect interviews.
The NHL Awards show goes at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, but as of now the hardware isn’t close to being at the top of the bill in Vegas. Expansion to the Nevada gambling capital will be announced this week, which is a far bigger story than whether Connor McDavid, Artemi Panarin or Shayne Gostisbehere gets the Calder Trophy (although we are admittedly quite intrigued at the answer to that question).
With the addition of the NHL’s 31st team will come the official announcement of the parameters of the expansion draft in the summer of 2017. That has already placed a greater importance on players harvested from the 2016 draft — as they will not have to be protected even if they jump right into the NHL — and immediately will begin to shape general managers’ plans.
A team like Calgary will likely find a better goaltender for cheaper within a week of the expansion draft coming out, while the many teams seeking defencemen might find more willing trade partners with those few who have one or two to spare.
Meanwhile, with St. Louis GM Doug Armstrong stating this week to Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that it’s likely all his unrestricted free agents will be allowed to test the market, suddenly July 1 just became a little more interesting.
What of Steven Stamkos? In the next two weeks we will likely know whether Leafs fans have been dreaming through their usual blue-and-white template, or if this time the biggest fish in the free agent landscape — who grew up a Leafs fan — will come home.
Of course, Stamkos might be waiting for Friday night. Though it’s pretty obvious whose name Brendan Shanahan will call at the podium with the No. 1 pick, isn’t it?
And Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff at No. 2?
Personally, we think it’s a pipe dream that Columbus would take anyone other than Jesse Puljujarvi at No. 3, which really means the fun starts with the No. 4 pick and Edmonton. We believe a top-four pick is too valuable to part with, though it’s feasible that Edmonton trades down and takes a defenceman — or perhaps simply identifies a future No. 1 blue-liner and selects him fourth overall.
But with draft picks and salary cap concerns being at the centre of almost every major deal now, it is in the lead-up to the draft that we could see a Taylor Hall or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins deal. Meanwhile, what is Toronto going to do with a dozen draft picks? Surely not draft a dozen players, right?
It’s in Buffalo where teams like Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Columbus can assuage their salary issues, and clubs like Toronto, Arizona, Buffalo, and Calgary can offer them draft picks in return. We saw the beginning of this with the Chicago-Carolina deal where the Blackhawks moved a contract in Bryan Bickell that they’ve been shopping for months and months, with Teuvo Teravainen attached.
There are more of these deals with the cap essentially staying flat, and plenty of clubs with the cap space to help make them happen. That dynamic will also bring down the free agent market, with far less dollars in the marketplace for players like Troy Brouwer to hit home runs at nearly 31 years of age.
Buckle up folks. The fun is about to start.