The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
GMS excited for all-canadian division
Ken Holland is 65 years old, has been around professional hockey for more than 40 years and giggles with the glee of a child when asked about the NHL’S all-canadian division, which is about to begin play Wednesday night.
“It’s going to be spectacular,” said the four-time Stanley Cup champion and general manager of the Edmonton Oilers.
“I think it’s going to capture the attention of hockey fans across Canada like never before. Every night, you have Canada playing Canada. Every night, you have this marquee player playing against that marquee player, superstar vs. superstar, and everybody believing they’re a playoff team. This is going to be high-octane hockey, and I can’t wait.
“What are you going to see from this? You’re going to see rivalries, you’re going to see animosity, you’re going to see emotion. We all believe if everything goes right, we’re all going to be in the playoffs. One of us is going to be in the Final Four. I’ve been there a few times and I can tell you, it’s pretty darn special to do that.”
Holland knows special: He has Connor Mcdavid and Leon Draisaitl as his lead-off hitters in Edmonton. Both have won Hart Trophies and scoring titles in their young careers. The Oilers may not be at the top of anyone’s list of teams of Stanley Cup contenders, but the high-end talent is second to none.
“Every night is going to feel like Saturday night, Hockey Night In Canada , coast to coast,” said Brad Treliving, general manager of the Calgary Flames. “It may only be one season, but I think it’s going to be awesome.”
In fact, a view of the North Division through the eyes of the participating general managers has but one consensus view: The talent across the country, with teams not used to playing each other much, has never been of a higher quality.
“Look what you see when you go coast to coast,” said Ottawa general manager Pierre Dorion. “You’ve got (Elias) Pettersson and (Bo) Horvat and (Quinn) Hughes in Vancouver. You’ve got Mcdavid and Draisaitl in Edmonton. You’ve got (Sean) Monahan and (Elias) Lindholm and (Mark) Giordano and the new goalie, (Jacob) Markstrom in Calgary. You have all those forwards in Winnipeg and Toronto. And those kids in Montreal. And we’re on the rise.
The 56-game season, shortened by the coronavirus, will test NHL teams in ways in which they have never been tested before. How healthy will teams be? How much will home ice matter without fans? How important will injuries be? “And how teams handle the pandemic will matter a lot,” said Winnipeg GM Kevin Chevaldayoff. “There are so many factors we’ve never faced before.
“I’m trying to keep an open mind on everything. We’re going to have to be nimble. We’re going to have to be flexible. You might have to have something cancelled. You just don’t know. There’s a lot of unknowns here.
“We’re playing each other a lot, in some cases back to back games, in some cases three times in a row. That’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? You know how you usually have the dog days of the schedule? Well, there won’t be any dogs days of winter this season. Every game is a four-pointer, every point matters, every game is going to matter.”
Like most of the GMS, Kyle Dubas is more concerned with his own team than with who the opposition might be on any given night. What worries him is that in each of the past three seasons, the Maple Leafs have had a mid-season lull of some kind, that didn’t cost them a playoff spot but cost them favourable playoff positioning.
“Now you look at all these teams, that are this close to each other, and you won’t be able to succeed if you go off the track much in your season,” said Dubas. “Look at the standings from last year. I think there’s basically two percentage points between the top team and the fifth team in our division. That’s basically one win, one loss, either way over an entire season. That’s how close this is going to be.
“And that’s not counting the Canadiens, who were further back and came on in the playoffs in the bubble or the Senators, who have really improved as a team.”
What Dubas does look forward to — as much as any hockey lover — is gauging his best against the best of the Canadian Division opponents. He can see this season getting personal in a way that hasn’t happened before.
He can see Auston Matthews inspired to play against Mcdavid or Mark Scheifele or Pettersson, or whoever is lighting up the NHL, and the same in reverse. The stars all know each other, he said. They all communicate with each other. That’s relatively new in today’s NHL.
“What excites me is that every one of these (star) players have not yet reached their peak,” said Dubas. “None of these players are on the downswing and none of these teams are going that way as well.
It could inspire, it could embarrass, it could reveal. That’s just part of the fascination and interpretation of this season.
There’s so much we don’t know in all of this.
And the quality of coaching across the country is rather high, probably starting with Vancouver’s Travis Green at the top of the list, makes the back-to-back games all the more intriguing. We know Paul Maurice and Claude Julien and Dave Tippett, who have been around forever. They have a history. We’ve seen one season of D.J. Smith and came away impressed. And we really don’t know a lot yet about Sheldon Keefe or Geoff Ward, both in their first full seasons.
Coaching, stars, goaltending, health, and luck — and those darn extra shootout and overtime points — will factor largely in a condensed season. Hellebuyck won the Vezina Trophy last year in Winnipeg. Price, in Montreal, has won it before. Markstrom, the free agent Calgary signed, got votes for both the Vezina and Hart Trophies last season. Andersen is in a contract year in Toronto. Matt Murray, a two-time Stanley Cup champion with Pittsburgh, is now in Ottawa. And according to 15 unnamed general managers polled in The Athletic, the Canadian division has four of the top 10 goaltenders in the NHL — Hellebuyck, Price, Markstrom and Andersen.
The Jets were the only Canadian team in the top half of the league in goals-against last season. Calgary was 18th, Vancouver 19th, Edmonton 20th, Montreal 23rd, the Leafs 25th and Ottawa at 30th. That, too, should make the hockey fun to watch.