A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep.
1. Matt Duchene had said it with a straight face at Ottawa’s training camp. He meant it.
And still a couple reporters reflexively chuckled at the prediction.
“I think Ryan Dzingel can score 30 goals in this league,” Duchene, an optimist, proclaimed back in October.
Before getting healthy scratched and propped atop the trading block, Dzingel had 22 through his first 57 games — on pace for 31.
He’s that good, but not as good as Duchene or Mark Stone, so naturally he’s been the third man mentioned in the whirl of trade rumours hovering over the worst team in hockey.
With Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen justly placing a super-high price tag on Artemi Panarin, Buffalo likely to keep Jeff Skinner, and the Sens still grasping at an extension for Stone, Dzingel could be the best goal-getter to switch sweaters.
The 26-year-old might end up being the steal of the deadline. Dzingel’s cap hit, $1.8 million, should make him especially attractive to cap-tight contenders like Washington, Pittsburgh and San Jose. (Earmuffs, Leafs fans: The Bruins would be a fantastic fit.)
Dorion can’t justify letting Dzingel walking for nothing, whereas Kekalainen or Buffalo’s Jason Botterill could sell their fan bases on being in it for this season.
He’s Dzingel and ready to mingle. Secondary scoring is of utmost importance come April. Dzingel could be a significant add.
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2. The Toronto Maple Leafs will pay their players $49.99 million in signing bonuses on July 1. The Senators are set to pay theirs less than $10 million on that day.
Cash flow, like state tax breaks, can help win free agents, and there are multiple reports that Ottawa’s big stumbling block with a Stone extension has to do with structure. Understandably, the winger wants more dollars up front.
Advantage: rich teams. We wonder, will signing bonuses become a point of contention from the small-market clubs when outlining the next CBA?
“He’s very much appreciated by us,” coach Guy Boucher says of Stone. “He’s doing it all.”
The extraction of leading scorer Stone would have ramifications off the ice in Ottawa, too. Coach Guy Boucher says rookie Brady Tkachuk “basically treats him like a big brother,” and Stone is the consummate actions-speak-louder type. Could’ve been the next captain.
“Stoney’s a quiet guy,” Duchene said, before leaving himself. “He’s a good guy for this room obviously in terms of leadership. But guys you might not think get [our social gatherings] going, like [Dylan] DeMelo and [Jean-Gabriel] Pageau that are little more outgoing. Stoney’s a big part of that, but he’s more a quiet guy. He’s more a lead-by-example type guy.”
3. It’s a little tricky to start considering any story lines that matter beyond 3 p.m. ET on Monday, but I’m giddy about taking in the Maple Leafs’ back-to-back next week.
On Wednesday, Toronto hosts local boy Connor McDavid’s first game back since the superstar got slapped with a two-game suspension. One he and his club are furious about.
“We are highly disappointed in the NHL’s decision to suspend Connor McDavid for two games, CEO Bob Nicholson said. “We strongly disagree with the decision, and it is difficult to accept for our team and most important our fans at this critical point in our season. We will unequivocally support Connor as he explores his options.”
The league just ticked off its young ambassador. McDavid should come back flying.
On Thursday, John Tavares makes his return to Long Island in a tension-wrenched game that, thankfully, will be waged at Nassau Coliseum. Right, J.T.?
“It’s great. The identity of the Islanders has always been connected to the Coliseum and being on Long Island,” Tavares says. “Brooklyn is what it is or was what it was. While I was there, you try to make the best of the situation.”
Tavares isn’t making any predictions on the type of fan support he’ll receive at the homecoming, but because we have access to Twitter.com, we will: It’ll be vicious.
“Whatever the reception is, I’ll just focus on playing and try to play well,” Tavares says. “It’ll be nice to see a lot familiar faces and be back in a place that meant a lot – still does mean a lot – to me and my career. As best I can I’ll try to treat it like any other game. It probably won’t be like that.
“I know a lot of people there, a lot of the guys that I’m still very close with, have great friendships with. It’s great to see they’re doing well, but my focus obviously is on helping the Maple Leafs and controlling what I can control.”
4. Jaromir Jagr just won’t quit.
Days after celebrating his 47th birthday — presumably with seven hours of skating solo in gym shorts in a quiet arena somewhere — Jagr suited up with HC Kladno for his 30th professional hockey season.
The legend that won’t surrender now has two assists in two games, working the wing alongside former Montreal Canadian Tomas Plekanec.
We found highlights!
“Above all, I’m happy that I was finally able to play,” Jagr said, according to the Associated Press. “It’s not easy in my age just to train.”
The goal now for Jagr and Kladno, currently a second-tier franchise in Czech, is to qualify for the post-season and then gain promotion to the country’s top-tier Czech Extraliga.
Král Jaromír se vrací do zápasového tempa! #Kladynko pic.twitter.com/MRvBY24YqO
— Rytíři Kladno (@RytiriKladno) February 18, 2019
5. Before we hand the Hart Trophy to Nikita Kucherov, only the fastest player to 100 points in 22 years, consider the extraordinary work of Patrick Timothy Kane II, currently enjoying a point streak of 20 games and running.
Kane has nine more goals than Kucherov. He plays nearly three minutes more per night than Kucherov. He has more game-winners than Kucherov (6-5) and more OT winners (3-0). He’s taken half as many penalties as Kucherov. Kane has four more points at even strength.
Kane is a plus-2 skater on a minus-22 team; Kucherov is a plus-16 skater on a plus-81 team.
If Kane drags Chicago into the post-season, he’s likely to get my vote.
Oh, and he joined some pretty elite company Friday:
6. The silver lining that comes with the Los Angeles Kings being so awful so early and not making some sort of out-of-nowhere rally back into the playoff picture (see: Chicago, St. Louis) is that at least they know what they are. (Ditto New Jersey in the East.)
With just two days before the gong sounds on the trade deadline, expect at least a couple of the bubble teams — Buffalo, Carolina, Philadelphia, Colorado, Vancouver, Anaheim, St. Louis — to fall victim by that dangerous no man’s land, where they’re too afraid to add and make a playoff push but too hesitant to reap the future rewards that could be earned by selling nice rental pieces.
Yes, Kings GM Rob Blake should’ve absolutely begun the rebuild when ownership cleared house in April 2017 and he got the gig. Or even in the summer of 2018, when he instead signed Ilya Kovalchuk.
But he’s in denial no longer. Blake got decent returns for Jake Muzzin and Carl Hagelin. If he can shed Jeff Carter ($5.3 million cap hit through 2022) by Monday, fantastic.
This is the type of painful teardown required in Anaheim, too.
L.A. has now gathered 10 draft picks in 2019 (an extra first, third and fourth) and eight in 2020. A plan is afoot.
7. Duck!…
…Or nah.
8. Sam Gagner scored his first goal in Oilers orange since 2014 Thursday, and, boy, did he look amped.
The veteran’s trade back to Edmonton ended a bizarre winter that saw the Toronto Marlies act as Gagner’s billet family despite his belonging to the Canucks organization.
Marlies coach Sheldon Keefe — whose job is develop future Leafs — treated Gagner as one of his own. He met with Gagner shortly after the trade was announced as the Marlies were enjoying a pre-game meal in Providence before heading to Springfield.
Gagner was excited, and Keefe was happy to send one of his most productive shooters packing.
“He came down and was nothing but a true pro here. He worked every day,” Keefe says.
“We were able to help him with a few things in his game. If he can go back and reestablish himself as an NHL player, we’ll be thrilled for him. He’s ready for that. He was just waiting for an opportunity, and what better one than to go back to Edmonton.”
What most impressed the AHL bench boss was Gagner’s enthusiasm for using his demotion productively, his willingness to accept farm-system coaching despite having nearly 800 games on NHL experience.
Specifically on offence, the Marlies staff showed Gagner ways to get off the walls and into middle ice, where he could be more deadly.
“Defensively, it was just keeping on him about paying attention to some [positioning] details so he would not get beat or put his line in bad spots,” Keefe says.
“Any time I spoke with him about some of those things, he was able to make an adjustment very quickly. That was a very good sign. One, he was willing to be coached at our level. And two, that he cared enough to make those adjustments. Any time that happens, you’ve got a player that has more to give.”
9. Loved the raw candour Adam Lowry showed after Wednesday’s embarrassing 7-1 loss at home to the middling Avalanche.
“I guess we’re fat and comfortable where we’re at because the effort wasn’t there, top to bottom,” Lowry told reporters.
“We just gotta look at ourselves and know that nothing’s given in this league. We’re not that f—–‘ good.”
This one, on the heels of two recent losses to 31st-place Ottawa, had the feel of rock bottom.
You wonder if this uncharacteristic swoon had GM Kevin Cheveldayoff second-guessing his level of aggression as a serious deadline buyer.
Then Patrik Laine snaps his 15-game goal drought and Winnipeg wins a biggie against the Golden Knights Friday night.
Will the Jets look back on Feb. 20 as the final straw? The game where they quit quitting and began playing to their potential?
10. Here’s Matt Duchene’s take on NHLers finding a line between flexing their personality but not at the expense of The Game, a leftover from the last time I spoke to him as a member of the Ottawa Senators.
“We need to respect our culture in the NHL. If we start going toward basketball and football, we’re going the wrong direction. I think that’s what’s so endearing about our sport, how aw-shucks everybody is,” Duchene said.
“You can still show your personality outside of that and show who you are. You don’t have to be a robot who just answers questions with all clichés, but I think there’s a happy medium there. I think guys are doing a good job of that around the league.”
Senators p.r. guy, joking/not joking: “Robots and clichés would be great for me.”
Duchene: “We’re playing a friggin’ game for a living. It’s supposed to be fun. You don’t want everyone walking around friggin’ morbid.”
11. No enemy rolls into town and dominates Toronto’s barn like Alex Ovechkin.
The Great 8 has 39 career goals against the Maple Leafs, the most against a team the Capitals haven’t shared a division with since 2005-06.
He’s been particularly deadly at Scotiabank Arena, where he’s now scored 22 times in 24 games. How come?
“The atmosphere,” Ovie said Thursday. “I think I just want to play where people love hockey.”
Ovechkin has more goals per game in Toronto (0.92) than anyone who’s played a minimum of 20 games in the city in the shootout era. Sidney Crosby (0.62) sits a distant second.
“You look where he scored from tonight,” Tavares said post-game. “I mean, that’s not that close to the net, and his ability to get pucks off with very little room and being as accurate as he is, there’s no bigger threat over the last probably 10, 20 years on the power play.”
12. So much to love about actor Patrick Warburton going full-blown David Puddy for the Devils’ ’90s Night this week.
Puddy down! pic.twitter.com/tAuFH30tad
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) February 20, 2019
But the best part was Warburton’s appearance wasn’t all fun and games. He had an idea to make the laughter pay.
He arrived with a custom Devils spin on the classic Puddy 8-ball jacket, which will be signed by Martin Brodeur and auctioned off to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, a leading childhood cancer treatment facility.
“Whatever I can help with to eradicate childhood cancer,” Warburton told NHL.com. “St. Jude has been our charity for 10 years now and this is the ninth year of our annual event that we hold Palm Springs [California]. As of three years ago we became the No. 1 event in the nation for the hospital, which is great. There’s a lot of generous people who work very hard for us in that area.
“My wife is an artist and she painted the jacket, and we just thought it would be a fun idea. It was Puddy’s eight-ball jacket with a Devils’ look, so it’s a one of a kind and I’m going to have Marty sign it, so it’s a win-win-win.”
Gotta support the team.
