Canadiens have the advantage in wide-open Eastern Conference
The best reason for optimism among the Canadian teams in the Eastern Conference is the fact they are in the East. While the deep West includes brutes that include Los Angeles, Chicago and San Jose, with skill and size to spare, only Boston is a consistent bully on the right half of the map. And the Bruins have proven vulnerable in the playoffs.
Talented teams such as Pittsburgh and Washington are starting with new coaches this year, while Tampa is still trying to figure out how much it will miss Martin St. Louis.
The Stanley Cup-finalist New York Rangers were a mid-pack playoff team that needed Game 7 wins in the first two rounds, while the upstart Columbus Blue Jackets are at a contract impasse with their best player.
Even once-mighty Detroit, transplanted from the West last season, decided to fit into its new surroundings by playing a lot worse.
So the path to the playoffs in the East is wide open. Just don’t expect too many Canadian teams to take it.
MONTREAL CANADIENS
The Canadiens are one of the league’s more confounding franchises. They won their division in 2012-13, made it to the Eastern Conference final last year, yet have been in the bottom third of the league in puck-possession statistics. From a results standpoint, they have managed to do what their rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, have not: defy the law of averages.
Perhaps the results can simply be chalked up to the presence of an all-world goaltender in Carey Price, an excellent top defence pair in P.K. Subban and Andrei Markov, and enough depth throughout the lineup to prevent the bad stretches that trip up other teams not particularly adept at possessing the puck. This is a team, after all, whose leading goal scorer in the playoffs last season, Rene Bourque, is currently projected to be on the third line.
Given the team’s recent success, there was a fair bit of roster churn in the off-season. Out are Thomas Vanek, Brian Gionta, Josh Gorges and Danny Briere, and in are P-A Parenteau, Tom Gilbert and Manny Malhotra. Montreal has chosen to address the loss of veteran leadership by anointing everyone a leader: Max Pacioretty, Tomas Plekanec, Subban and Markov will all share alternate captain duties, while Price will also sit in on those leader meetings, where presumably they will discuss things like grit and toughness.
As long as Price is stopping pucks, they should be fine.
OTTAWA SENATORS
It’s not an ideal situation when a team’s second line becomes its top line by default, but that’s pretty much what happened in Ottawa when centre Jason Spezza and winger Ales Hemsky relocated to Dallas, leaving Milan Michalek probably feeling like the kid who changed schools in the summer. The changes will likely have Kyle Turris centring Bobby Ryan and Clarke MacArthur, which is conveniently a pretty solid top line.
Michalek will be having getting-to-know-you conversations with Alex Chiasson, who came over in the Spezza trade, and Mika Zibanejad, who could be the No. 2 centre.
But having lost Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson in the past two off-seasons does not leave the Senators with a bounty of talent, and they will notice their absence particularly on the powerplay unit.
Conditions are also ripe for a goalie controversy, with Craig Anderson having an off year last season and Robin Lehner, 10 years his junior, the potential No. 1 goalie of the future. If the team has another start like last year, when it won only four out of its first 14 games, Anderson could find himself benched.
The Sens are already young everywhere else, so at least with this move they would be consistent.
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
A Leafs fan who is hell-bent on optimism can hold on to the fact this is a team that was one third-period collapse away from upsetting the excellent Boston Bruins in the first round of the 2013 playoffs.
Plus, they were cruising to a playoff spot last year before the starting goaltender got hurt and they swooned to a 12th-place finish.
Toronto’s moves in the off-season included bringing back forwards Leo Komarov and Matt Frattin, and adding Stephane Robidas and Roman Polak on the blue line — the kind of tinkering one might expect from a team that is, you know, good.
How bad could they be, right? Pretty bad, actually. Take away that improbable series against the Bruins, which came during a lockout-truncated season that ended before the Leafs could swoon, and this could very easily be a franchise still trying to make the playoffs for the first time since the 200405 lockout. Toronto’s moves in the off-season included bringing back forwards Leo Komarov and Matt Frattin, and adding Stephane Robidas and Roman Polak on the blue line — the kind of tinkering one might expect from a team that is, you know, good.
But the biggest move was bringing in Brendan Shanahan as the new head of hockey operations. In a few months, the Hall of Famer has at least shown he is open to a new way of doing things, bringing in a young, statistically inclined assistant GM, Kyle Dubas, to help remake a roster that was woeful in puck-possession terms.
That will take time, though. The Leafs still lack a top-end centre and they are still run by GM Dave Nonis and coach Randy Carlyle. A turnaround is unlikely in the short term.