Change of seasons reveals true colours
Some time before Wednesday, the 2016-17 NHL season will finally come to a close, likely with the Pittsburgh Penguins as the winners of the final game for the second straight year. Nashville, naturally, swears that’s a premature conclusion to reach, and indeed a twogame winning streak for the Predators is hardly impossible. So we’ll see.
The lasting imprint of the ’16-17 campaign, however, will extend beyond the winner of the clash between two clubs that nearly moved to Hamilton. It was hardly a tumultuous campaign, or a controversial one, aside from the silly video reviews of offside calls we apparently are going to be stuck with for the foreseeable future.
Once the Bettman administration digs its heels in on an issue, it is not easily moved.
There are four areas of noteworthy change, however, that are worth remembering, areas that will continue to influence the league for years to come:
This was the year the NHL season truly became unofficially split in two; you have the regular-season champion, and then the winner of the post-season tournament, the team that’s awarded the Stanley Cup.
Once upon a time, they were, if not one in the same, clearly linked. Several teams would establish themselves as the cream of the crop from October to April, and then one would emerge as the Cup winner. Now, after another spring in which top-rated regular-season teams, this time Washington and Chicago, went nowhere in the playoffs, it seems abundantly clear that winning the Presidents’ Trophy is one competition, and then the Cup playoffs are a separate competition. Last year, Pittsburgh was ordinary for most of the regular season, got hot in March and won the Cup. This year, Nashville was the 16th-best team to qualify for the playoffs and made the Cup final.
There’s precious little difference in the salary-cap era from the team with the best record to start the playoffs and the team with the worst. Upsets? Are there really any true upsets any more? It’s the parity Gary Bettman has always craved. Well, he’s got it. But it has changed the way we should look at the NHL for good.
The NHL officially decided to go to Las Vegas late last June, just before the 2016 entry draft, so for all intents and purposes we’ll say that was part of this season. This season has frequently been about the 31st franchise — its name, team colours, first signing, first GM, first coach — and the Golden Knights, as the first NHL franchise awarded in the era of social media, seem destined to be an organization unlike any of the previous NHL expansion outfits.
In embracing Sin City, both with the new team and as the frequent home of the NHL awards, the league has forever shrugged off the antigaming rhetoric that for years was cited as a major obstacle whenever the concept of a team in Nevada came up for discussion. The NHL is now right in the thick of the gaming industry in a very different type of city that’s ever been home to an NHL club, and we’ll see how that plays out.
That the NHL was the first major pro league to take the step and place a franchise in Las Vegas says something about the aggressive steps the league is willing to take to try and ensure future growth. Watching the Golden Knights take on the mighty NFL, with the Oakland Raiders moving there, is going to be a fascinating story to watch.
While accepting Vegas, the NHL rejected a franchise in Quebec City and an eighth team in Canada for reasons not entirely clear because they were never stated. If the NHL isn’t willing to go to Quebec now, with a spectacular new arena in place, willing ownership and a relatively healthy exchange rate, it’s never going to go there despite the fact Canadian franchises generate much more income and enthusiasm for the league than U.S. teams.
Indeed, the NHL’s wandering eye seems now to have firmly turned towards Seattle, and away from Quebec City for good. Former MLSE boss Tim Leiweke, very well known to NHL owners, is part of the Seattle arena effort now, and after 30 years of talk this may finally happen.
“It’s gonna be the NHL that comes first,” said Leiweke, who has put together an ownership group that includes movie mogul Jerry Bruckheimer.
Teams such as Calgary might try to use Quebec City for leverage to pry tax dollars loose for new arenas. But the NHL won’t be expanding there unless another desperate situation like the Atlanta death spiral were to ever occur again.
The NHL also became the first major pro league to tell the International Olympic Committee to take a hike, ending the league’s participation in the Olympic family after five Olympiads from 1998 to 2014. Theoretically, the NHL may try to get back in for 2022, but by then we could see another World Cup and the league may have found other ways to mine Asian markets that don’t include interrupting its season.
Not only did the NHL stare down the IOC and International Ice Hockey Federation on the issue, it defied the specific wishes of its union. The NHL Players’ Association goofed by not including guaranteed Olympic participation in the last collective agreement, and had no leverage to force the NHL’s hand, or at least wasn’t willing to bargain on the issue.
The union can opt out of the current contract in September, 2019, and this could be one of the key issues that leads to the next lockout.
If it does, remember the seeds were planted in the 2016-17 season. Damien Cox is the co-host of Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. He spent nearly 30 years covering sports for the Star. Follow him @DamoSpin.