CONTENDERS OR PRETENDERS?
Is there an NHL team in Canada with a shot to end our Cup drought?
Consider that the state of hockey in 2013-14, at least NHL hockey, was California. And that the Vancouver Canucks — for years, the best of Canada’s Western entries — have fallen to the bottom third of the league in many pre-season forecasts.
If the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers and Winnipeg Jets rank south of that, you might wonder why we don’t all just temporarily secede from the union and play a little intramural schedule here in Western Canada this winter.
The only one that even seems to have a conspicuous upside is Edmonton, and we’ve heard that song before.
In a series of terrific interviews with the GMs, TSN’s Bob McKenzie asked each what would constitute a successful season. Edmonton’s Craig MacTavish, burned before by an excess of optimism, said “progress.” Calgary’s Brad Treliving said “a step forward.” Winnipeg’s Kevin Cheveldayoff said “Give us a few years and I like our chances.”
Compared to which, Vancouver GM Jim Benning’s “make the playoffs and then see where we go” sounds positively cocky.
So we start there …
VANCOUVER CANUCKS
With the former Boston Bruins assistant GM and new coach Willie Desjardins joining president Trevor Linden to make it a troika of westerners in charge, the Canucks are hoping for the post-Tortorella, post-Kesler, post-Luongo-fiasco bounce.
They’ll probably have at least six new players in the lineup: 34-year-old goalie Ryan Miller, former Anaheim Ducks forward Nick Bonino and defenceman Luca Sbisa (obtained in the long-awaited Ryan Kesler deal), grinder Derek Dorsett, Los Angeles Kings scorer-in-waiting Linden Vey, and forward Radim Vrbata.
With Vrbata on their wing and Desjardins promising to use their strengths better than John Tortorella did a year ago, the revitalization of Henrik and Daniel Sedin is the key to whatever hopes the Canucks may have of returning to the playoffs.
Bonino could be a spark plug on the second line, Vey could break out on the third and Miller … well, he was nothing special in St. Louis last spring, but the culture shock going from the Buffalo Sabres to Ken Hitchcock’s stingy squad must have been considerable.
The likelihood of any of the Canucks’ prospects making a big dent is slender. All in all, a season of maybes lies ahead in Vancouver.
CALGARY FLAMES
The idea is that the Flames, with Brian Burke hiring like-minded Treliving from Phoenix to be Calgary’s GM, are now committed to moving forward as a heavier, harder team.
After proving to be a stout, diligent crew under Bob Hartley a year ago — though it didn’t translate into a sniff of the playoffs — the Flames are the other half of the Alberta Slump. They don’t appear to have added much in the way of improved talent — Mike Cammalleri and T.J. Galiardi out, Mason Raymond and Devin Setoguchi in, with defenceman Deryk Engelland and forward Brandon Bollig bringing some beef. Jonas Hiller should be an upgrade in goal.
So it will be up to some of their young prospects — Sven Baertschi, Markus Granlund, Max Reinhart, perhaps Hobey Baker winner Johnny Gaudreau — to try to bolster a lineup that had a big breakout year from Sean Monahan last season, and needs him to be even better now on what could be a goal-starved squad.
EDMONTON OILERS
That word “potential” has killed a lot of coaches, and Dallas Eakins did well to survive the failure of the Oilers’ corps of much-hyped kids to live up to theirs in 2013-14.
Taylor Hall has become a big-time player, but it’s been a struggle for consistency from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle and Justin Schultz, and a debacle for Nail Yakupov.
Second-year GM MacTavish seems to have stabilized the goaltending with last season’s additions of Ben Scrivens and Viktor Fasth, but the cast of skaters surrounding the bigname offensive talent remains iffy.
Teddy Purcell is a serviceable right-winger, picked up from Tampa in the Sam Gagner trade, while free-agent forward Benoit Pouliot (from the Rangers) and defenceman Mark Fayne (New Jersey) are big favourites of the analytics crowd, from which the club surprisingly plucked lawyer, blogger and Corsi proponent Tyler Dellow to help them evaluate performance through advanced stats.
If that makes them smarter, their hopes still ride on the personnel, and much will depend on whether they decide to develop or play big centre Leon Draisaitl, their top draft pick, and whether they see enough improvement from young blue-liners Darnell Nurse, Oscar Klefbom and Martin Marincin to give them bigger roles alongside Schultz, Andrew Ference and Jeff Petry.
MacTavish says they don’t want to rush players into the NHL, but the bright future — after eight years out of the playoffs — had better not be very far away.
WINNIPEG JETS
Everybody’s favourite pinata, Winnipeg has been batted back and forth from West to East and back again — and right now, the Jets must be wishing they’d stayed in the Southeast.
GM Cheveldayoff’s team has been the very definition of ordinary since Winnipeg’s return to the NHL in 2011: Barely over .500, never in the playoffs, though they did enjoy a flush of success after Paul Maurice replaced Claude Noel as coach in January.
So when the GM says the Jets “need to take a step in a lot of different areas,” he means up front, on defence and in goal. The thirdyoungest team in the NHL a year ago, Winnipeg has three kids with significant talent in forwards Evander Kane and Mark Scheifele and defenceman Jacob Trouba, who was sensational last year until getting hurt.
Their veteran core, including captain Andrew Ladd, Bryan Little, Blake Wheeler and the versatile Dustin Byfuglien, is solid. Signing centre Mathieu Perreault from Anaheim should help down the middle, but Ondrej Pavelec needs to be much better than his .901 save percentage of 2013-14.
But in a division with Chicago, St. Louis, Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota, it appears there is just no place to go.