Canadian fans thankful for better hockey teams
Kevin Cheveldayoff didn’t want to say the M-word, because it was silly.
A must-win game is a situation where the season is on the line. It’s facing elimination after losing three times in a best-of-seven series or needing a win to stay mathematically in a playoff race.
It’s typically a Game 82 scenario, not Game 22.
And yet, as the Winnipeg Jets travelled to Minnesota on a Wednesday night in the third week of November, the team’s general manager had the feeling more than just two points were on the line. Had the Jets won, they would have leaped past the Wild and into a wild-card playoff spot. Instead, the 3-1 loss put them one point out of the playoffs at one of the most critical times of the season: U.S. Thanksgiving.
“I think it is a measuring stick that a lot of people do tend to look at,” Cheveldayoff said “Generally speaking, at this time, most teams are at the 20-game mark or close to it and that’s a quarter of the season behind you.”
Despite the loss, the Jets can be thankful they are just one point out of a playoff spot with 60 more games to play. A lot can change between now and the end of the season.
At the same time, the odds are not particularly good.
Only three teams that were out of the playoff picture at U.S. Thanksgiving a year ago — Anaheim, Florida and Philadelphia — qualified for the playoffs. According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, since the league expanded to 30 teams in 2000, 78 per cent of teams in a playoff position at this time of the year finished the season that way.
In other words, where a team is situated today is a good indicator of where they will be at the end of the season.
For Canadian teams, that means there is plenty to celebrate this year after a disappointing season in which all seven teams failed to make the playoffs: Montreal (1st in the Atlantic Division), Edmonton (1st in the Pacific) and Ottawa (3rd in the Atlantic heading into Thursday’s game against Boston) are holding down playoff spots, with Winnipeg (10th in the Western Conference), Calgary (11th in the West) and Toronto (T-12th in the East before Thursday’s games) not far behind.
“In my time in Boston, we always looked at it,” Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli said. “It’s just a nice measuring stick for this part of the year and hopefully we’ll still be in that position at the end of the year.”
The key word was “hopefully.” At this time last year, Montreal had a league-best 17-4-2 record and Ottawa was where it is today as the third-best team in the Atlantic Division. But due to injuries, bad luck and a bad finish, both finished well out of the playoffs.
Chances are a few top teams will once again flounder and two or three on the outside will suddenly get hot, which means no one — not even Vancouver (T-12th in the West) — is out of it just yet.
“At the end of the day, if you’re not above the (playoff ) line, you still feel like you’ve got time to work with,” Flames GM Brad Treliving said. “What it does do is you have a bigger body of work of knowing what you are and who you are.”
So what have we learned about Canada’s teams? Well, a healthy Carey Price, combined with a Norris Trophy-type season from Shea Weber, has put Montreal back atop the standings. The same goes for a healthy Connor McDavid in Edmonton, which has also benefited from having a No. 1 defenceman in Adam Larsson.
“We’re breaking the puck out more cleanly and getting the puck in the hands of the forwards more efficiently and not chasing in the D zone as much,” Chiarelli said of the Taylor Hall-for-Larsson trade. “Even when we’re losing, we’re outshooting opponents and losing better, if that makes sense.”
In Ottawa, a new coach has improved the team’s penalty kill, which has jumped to fifth from 29th, and overall team game.
Key injuries and absences to Tyler Myers, Bryan Little and Jacob Trouba have led to an uneven start for Winnipeg, which has lost its last four games, while Calgary has been plagued by poor starts from top-line centre Sean Monahan and goaltender Brian Elliott.
“If you look at Sean, his point production isn’t normally where it would be at, but it’s not a first-year player,” Treliving said. “You know it’s going to come. Same with Brian. There are some nights that I’m sure he’d like to have back, but he’s going to give us some real good hockey when all is said and done.”
The same level of optimism might not exist in Vancouver. After beginning the season with four straight wins and losing the next nine, the Canucks probably should be rebuilding.
The Leafs, who are also three points out, are on a different path.
With Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander ranked among the top-4 in rookie scoring, Toronto should be getting better as the season goes on.
“If you’re out she’s a long climb,” Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said.
“And I’m not talking about one point or something like that, but if you’ve buried yourself it’s a hard way to come back ... so it’s going to be a battle and we understand that.”
That’s another way of saying: check back after another 20 games.