Damien Cox: Leafs, Canadiens tempering expectations,
MONTREAL— The NHL is giving the Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens centre stage all to themselves Tuesday night, a chance to open the season for the entire league with the sights and sounds of their majestic rivalry, unencumbered by any other game, broadcast or Twitter feed.
Well, for an hour, anyway.
After that, Washington and the defending champs from Chicago will drop the puck, and two hours later the Jets and Oilers will follow in Edmonton.
So the spotlight on the Leafs and Canadiens will be brief, although perhaps magnified if, as the rumour mill was suggesting Monday night, Toronto winger Phil Kessel skates out as the new owner of what would be the richest contract in franchise history.
Eight years, perhaps more than $64 million. An 11th-hour deal? Sounds like it was at least possible.
Of course, if it were up to the hockey bosses in both cities, Marc Bergevin in Montreal and Dave Nonis at the home of the 2016 NBA All-Star Game, their teams wouldn’t be getting much attention at all as they open the season against each other for the 15th time.
Bergevin and Nonis know they can’t achieve radio silence, of course, but they’ve certainly taken great care not to get the locals too excited about their respective teams as September turns into October and an 82-game sprint/grind/toffee pull begins.
Managing expectations is important in places like these. Well, more important, certainly, than in Sunrise or Uniondale or Anaheim. Having seen what heightened expectations did to this year’s Blue Jays, Nonis in particular knows just how important it is to avoid putting sugary ideas of championships in the heads of diehard partisans.
Suggest trouble is always lurking just around the corner, then surprise ’em, in other words.
Both Montreal and Toronto made the playoffs last season — folks forget, but Montreal actually won the division — but exited in the first round in forgettable fashion. The Habs lost their minds after a hit by Ottawa’s Eric Gryba on Lars Eller, and were quickly eliminated in five games. The Leafs, of course, committed a Game 7 collapse of historic proportions against Boston. Since then, both teams have added players, including some expensive ones, but they remain incomplete squads. The Habs have managed to add size in slugger George Parros, defenceman Douglas Murray and rookie blue-liner Jarred Tinordi, although Murray is gone for at least a month with an upper-body injury. It’s not hard to believe this effort to muscle up was, at least in part, a response to the testosterone injection the Leafs received last season. The Leafs believe they are grittier and a bit deeper, and we’ll see about that. Dave Bolland has a rep as a player who will look like your best against tougher teams and your worst against weaker opponents. The fact David Clarkson has a huge contract won’t make him a modernday Frank Mahovlich when it comes to scoring goals. Goalie Jonathan Bernier, meanwhile, may play half or fewer of the games, so his possible contributions will be limited as long as James Reimer has something to say about it. Both teams will be relying on the steady, gradual development of their younger players to even maintain where they finished last season, let alone improve. The Canadiens need Carey Price, still only 26, to play so well between the pipes he’ll be the country’s unanimous choice for Olympic goalie. P.K. Subban needs to play as well as he did a year ago, Alex Galchenyuk needs to progress as an attacker, and it would be nice if Alexei Emelin was back well before Christmas and 36-year-old Daniel Briere panned out better than Erik Cole did. The Leafs? They’re going to have to successfully deal with contract stories swirling around captain Dion Phaneuf all season, plus ongoing assessments as to whether Clarkson and Tyler Bozak were worth the big contracts they signed.
The Reimer/Bernier combo has to fare at least as well as Reimer did on his own. Given that the Leafs were outshot in 81 per cent of Toronto’s wins last season, getting even better goaltending is a big ask.
Jake Gardiner has to demonstrate he can be an impact player for more than five playoff games, Joffrey Lupul has to avoid carrying heavy objects, going outside during lightning storms or forgetting his lucky rabbit’s foot at home, and it would be nice if Nazem Kadri could again reside among the league’s top 25 scorers.
Two veteran coaches, Montreal’s Michel Therrien and Toronto’s Randy Carlyle, seem to have plenty of goodwill to work with, and neither is likely to be found on the firing line if the season goes sour.
Here in La Belle Province, then, is the starting line, the place from where it begins, for both the 2013-14 NHL season and for this edition of Les Canadiens and these Maple Leafs.
For an hour. By themselves. The hockey world will be watching.