After a summer of free-agent signings and speculation the NHL is back for another run at the Cup.
When fans last saw the league the Chicago Blackhawks were lifting the Stanley Cup after a battle with Philadelphia. But the offseason saw that team split due to salary cap restrictions and who is the heir apparent remains one of the season’s top storylines.
Columnist Jim Kelley examines the ‘Hawks and a few more stories to keep an eye on.
1: How high is the bar in Washington?
What’s harder: winning the Stanley Cup or defending it? If you’re a member of the Washington Capitals you can cut that question in half, but double the pressure point. Unlike the Chicago Blackhawks who must defend the Cup with seemingly half its roster pushed aside because of salary cap issues, there is only one goal for the Caps: Win the prize most everyone thinks should have been won in Washington by now.
The Caps are an offensively gifted team and have to win with the growing weight of expectations from fans, media, ownership, its hockey operations department and the players. Most of that will fall on the shoulders of coach Bruce Boudreau who has had the Caps functioning as (or near being) the best team in hockey in the regular season, but can’t find either the system or the necessary single-mindedness to win the tough, close games in the playoffs. Montreal coach Jacques Martin and his then relatively unknown goalie, Jaroslav Halak exposed Boudreau -and to some degree, scoring star Alex Ovechkin-as incapable of making those adjustments last spring. If they fail to do it this time around, someone other than a core player is going to be held accountable.
2: How low can the Blackhawks go and still be a Cup contender?
As stated above, it is difficult to defend a championship in today’s NHL (it hasn’t been done since the Detroit Red Wings in ’97 & ’98). Of course it’s nice that Blackhawks coach Joel Quennville has the aforementioned Bowman in the Chicago front office to help out again this season, but even the greatest coach that ever lived can’t easily overcome the loss of six substantial role players and the Cup winning goalie. The loss of secondary scorer Kris Versteeg, tough-guy forward Dustin Byfgulien, penalty killer Brent Sopel and goalie Antti Niemi isn’t the end of Chicago’s hockey world, not with players like Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, and Patrick Sharp still up front and Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Brian Campbell still on the back end. Still, depth matters and there are issues with both the chemistry and the quality of Chicago’s depth. They also have to go into the season not with a goalie who has won it all, but with having to take a flier on veteran goalie Marty Turco, who is on the downside of his career and has been dogged by questions (sometimes unfairly) regarding big-game performances. Teams measure themselves against a Cup winner and the Blackhawks won it last season with talent, depth, poise and good to sometimes goaltending when needed, but to say they are the same team now as they were then, well the Dead still tours, but without Jerry Garcia, no one is particularly grateful for it.
3: Does great goaltending really matter?
All last spring hockey pundits and even a few hockey general managers told us that putting real money in the pockets of elite goaltenders was “old school” thinking and that in the new salary-capped world, up- front talent and a swift skating and mobile defense was the way to go.
Really!
Didn’t the above mentioned Niemi nail down the Cup versus Philadelphia by choking off a Game 6 rally in Philly and didn’t he virtually single-handedly defeat the potent San Jose Sharks in four straight in one of the most memorable goalie performances in playoff history? Do you think the Caps would have been upset by the Montreal Canadiens if Jaroslav Halak hadn’t gone all-world? We would argue that aging goalie greats who play too many regular-season games can struggle in the postseason (are you reading this Martin Brodeur?) and that goalies who play a majority of their games behind an offensively challenged team and carry a squad to the final game of the Olympics in the same season are not beyond being upset in the first round of the postseason (hello, Ryan Miller), but we would argue you can’t win without excellent goaltending and, in the case of many teams, you can’t even get to the post-season without it.
4: Is Steve Yzerman the answer in Tampa Bay, Rick Dudley the solution for Atlanta and who is Greg Sherman and how is he doing what he’s done in Colorado?
It wasn’t all that long ago that the GM position was an up-from-the-ranks position. You were either an ex-player or a long-time coach or front office person and you tracked your way to the top job by being a part of the structure and politics of a corporation. It was a lot like getting to the top at General Motors, pay your dues, respect the organization and, for the most part, prove to ownership that, first and foremost, you were a behind-the-scenes type of guy.
Not anymore.
Ever since Brian Burke took command of the Toronto Maple Leafs in what may have been the most scrutinized hiring in the history of hockey, the role of GM has been elevated to a very public position and having a very public profile seems to matter. So does an ability to move in a hurry.
Yzerman, who was a GM in training in Detroit after a spectacular playing career there, parlayed his very public persona into a GM’s job in Tampa Bay for an owner, Jeff Vinek, who likely didn’t know him from Stevie Nicks before he bought the Bolts. He’s an old and successful ex-player and has a reputation as a winner regarding the World Championships and the Olympics, but as an NHL GM he’s new and as raw as clams in a shack, but in Tampa and elsewhere around the NHL he’s viewed as the can’t miss (middle aged) kid who will lead a once respectable franchise back from the joke that previous ownership created.
It’s a far cry from the path Rick Dudley, a hockey lifer with numerous coaching and managing stops in both the minors and the NHL, has walked. Dudley coached in the ACHL, the IHL and the NHL before moving into management full time. He’s also been a GM in Ottawa and Tampa Bay and had management roles in Chicago and with former Atlanta GM Don Waddell before taking over for Waddell there. You could say he’s done everything but sell popcorn and drive the bus, but he’s done both when he was in the IHL and the AHL.
Yzerman is new school and hired a coach, Guy Boucher, who has never coached at the NHL level, but is considered both radical and an innovator and is being portrayed as someone who will shake up the NHL in ways never seen before. Dudley is almost the exact opposite and hired a former teammate from the 1970’s era Buffalo Sabres, Craig Ramsay, to lead a team that he’s been assembling from off-the-shelf parts from Chicago and elsewhere all offseason.
The jury will be watching closely as to who (if either) will be the more successful this upcoming season, yet it’s fair to say that either one would be happy if he could match the success of Sherman who’s Wikipedia page is shorter than Gil Stein’s tenure as Commissioner of the NHL, but who restructured the Avs into a playoff team in just one season and with more young players than Justin Bieber’s backup band. And, for the record, some damn fine goaltending
It will also be worth watching to see if Dale Talon, the architect of Chicago’s success last season, can work the same kind of magic with the seemingly hapless Florida Panthers or if Joe Nieuwendyk can re-float the mistake boat still being deconstructed after Brett Hull’s short tenure as co-leader in Dallas or whether or not Doug Armstrong can keep the St. Louis blues moving forward or if Pierre Gauthier is really the answer for what Bob Gainey left behind in Montreal.
5: Is there another Colorado Avalanche or Phoenix Coyotes team out there?
The Avs last season were picked for last in the Western Conference by pretty much everyone who hasn’t penciled the Phoenix Coyotes for that “honour” and made the playoffs with a 100-plus point season. Much of the credit went to a youth movement started by Sherman and directed by his equally unknown coach, Joe Sacco, but we can’t help but credit the stunningly successful goaltending of Craig Anderson who last season set a franchise record for most games and most minutes played in a season for the Avs while posting 38 wins, a .917 goals-against average and 2.64 goals against average behind a defense made up of names virtually no one can remember.
Surely the Avs, like the Phoenix Coyotes, also took advantage of low expectations and relatively lackluster division rivals, but the pattern was similar. The Yotes had some talent and some up-and-coming young players, but the essence of their success was wrapped up in goalie Ilya Bryzgalov (42 wins, eight by shutout, a .920 save percentage, a 2.29 GAA and a knack for making the game-saving save when called upon). Lest we forget, they also had a veteran coach in Dave Tippett who just happened to win coach of the year honors.
Tampa could be that team this season, but we’ll have an eye on Atlanta which has a supremely underrated defence, a goalie who might move the needle in Chris Mason and a teaching coach, Craig Ramsay, who’s made every team he ever worked with better, including the 2004 Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. Another club worth tracking is the Nashville Predators who have a stunningly good defence, a rock solid coaching staff, at least the promise of an improved offence and a goaltender, Pekka Rinne, who ‘s quietly posted a had a 2.46 GAA over the last two last season and appears ready for a breakout season.
