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Sundays at the Rink: Approaching trade deadline season
Jesse’s Observations
All-Star Weekend rosters are set: We are just two weekends away from the NHL All-Star festivities that will be taking place in Sunrise, Florida.
Back in 2015 there NHL, after several different attempts to spice up the All-Star game, rolled out the 3-on-3 “tournament style” format that will be used again this year. The four teams were split up by division, and a $1,000,000 prize was awarded to the winning team. All things that were meant to create a little extra competition amongst the players, and hopefully lead to a more watchable product.
The first year was fun. The idea of 3-on-3 was still new and fresh, the NHL was making its first real stride towards being a speed and skill league, and it was a good way to showcase that new young skill.
The problems were apparent immediately though. The first one was that despite the cash prize, the players gave the same effort that they always had. So the hope that they were going to get the league’s best players skating at close to 100% with all of this open ice was dead.
The other major one was the fact that the rosters were just too small. Especially because the NHL has an internal rule that each team will be represented at the All-Star weekend. The teams are made up of nine skaters and two goalies, and there are eight teams per division. You immediately ended up with players having below-average seasons on bottom-feeder teams getting picked for the ASG over legitimate superstars having great seasons just because their team had to send a representative.
Having said that, for several years in a row now, the Avs had had 2-3 representatives at All-Star weekend. That’s not including Jared Bednar running the Central Division bench last season either.
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The NHL has tried several different ideas when it comes to selecting the rosters, including really embracing online fan voting. Which has yielded… varying results.
Look, I think the All-Star system is broken across pretty much all of the major 4 pro sports. I’m actually super interested in what the NFL is doing this year, but we’ll have to see how it goes. Conversation for another time.
I think the NHL needs to do a full, top to bottom overhaul of the All-Star format. It’s supposed to showcase the game to new audiences, right? That’s essentially the point of these things, to show off the best that the sport has to offer all in one place.
So, embrace that! Ditch the game altogether in my opinion. At least in the traditional sense.
I think the weekend should become a huge celebration of the sport. The best the NHL has to offer, as always, but don’t stop there. Get the best AHLers, Women’s pro, Women’s International, major junior, college, whichever leagues the NHL has affiliations with and do three days of skills.
Split the players up into teams, give all of the skills companions a scoring system (like they do now) and award a winner at the end of the weekend that way.
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There are some unbelievably talented hockey players out there that aren’t in the NHL. That’s not to say that AHLers and Major Junior players could hang in a full-blown game with the NHL’s best, but I guarantee there are plenty of fast-skating, hard-shooting, slick-handed players outside of the NHL that could help put on an awesome two or three-day event.
Being named an All-Star means something to the players, but I think the title outweighs the desire to participate in the actual event. Let’s make a change that speaks to players and fans alike, eh?
Nathan MacKinnon: So the All-Star conversation is what made me want to talk about the season that Nathan MacKinnon is having, and the player he is in general.
On the DNVR Avalanche Podcast over the last few weeks, we talked about who we thought from the Avalanche roster had the best chance of being tapped as an All-Star this year. Originally we floated the idea that got could possibly be just Mikko Rantanen. He’s been among the league’s best payers this year, and I think deserves to be in the MVP conversation.
Then we discussed the possibility that Cale Makar could get the nod to go, purely based on his status as a player. He is a hot name in the NHL right now, given what he has accomplished in the last 12 months.
The one name we never even considered was Nathan MacKinnon. That wasn’t meant as an indictment of his play, but he missed a significant amount of time last month due to injury. Typically you just don’t see players get in when they’ve missed as many games as MacKinnon has.
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It should be noted he was voted in by the fans, but still… I thought there was something interesting about his ASG selection.
I mentioned a second ago that Makar is reaching that tier of superstar where he will just always be considered for stuff like this, regardless of what his current-season numbers look like because everybody just understands how good he is. I maybe didn’t realize that Nathan MacKinnon just might be that tier of player as well.
Despite missing a double-digit amount of games, MacKinnon is on pace to have the best offensive season of his career. Currently on pace for just 28 goals, but 110 points. It would be his first hundred-point season.
It took him a game or two after returning from injury to look like he was back into form, but he just makes it look effortless out there every single night, and he finds a way to contribute on a very consistent basis. Even when things weren’t going well for the team.
He was an absolute force en route to a Stanley Cup Championship, showing up in the most spectacular ways at the biggest moments.
Everybody has known that he is the first or second-best player on a top team in the league, but I think that Cup run showed hockey fans everywhere that this is a bonafide top-4 player in the world (top-3 in my opinion, but it really depends on how you compare him to Matthews).
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He’s unique, nobody plays like MacKinnon. The speed, the power, and the skill are a truly remarkable combination, in my proposed All-Star format, a guy like MacKinnon should be there every year. So I have no problem with him getting in despite missing a bulk of time.
If you’re an All-Star, you should be named an All-Star.
Jonathan Toews: Let’s talk some trade deadline, huh?
I went on the CHGO Blackhawks Podcast a week or two ago (what even is “time” anymore?) and we talked about potential trade deadline pieces that could make sense for the Avs should they decide to go all in at the deadline again.
After tossing a few names back and forth, we stopped to chat about what a potential fit might look like for longtime Blackhawk captain Jonathan Toews.
I had said on that show that I assumed it would probably take a 1st round pick to pull him out of there. After chatting with some folks, and taking in what some of hockey’s most plugged-in insiders are saying, Toews may actually be a bit more affordable than I previously thought.
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I’ve said all season that if I had to put money on it, my guess is the deal ends up being Toews + Jack Johnson coming to Colorado at the deadline (more on Johnson in a second).
Now as we inch closer and closer to the deadline, the better and better I feel about that prediction.
There are going to be other players available on the trade who can play center, so Toews isn’t going to be a rare commodity. Toews has full control of where he goes (like Claude Giroux did last year). This means that if he hypothetically decides he wants to come play for the Avalanche and no one else, that drives the cost down for Chris MacFarland and Co.
On top of all that, I think Toews could fill several different roles for this Avalanche team. That’s got to be appealing to Jared Bednar.
If you decide you want him at 2C, you could put him with Mikko Rantanen Lehkonen. Or if you wanted to create a true shutdown line, you saddle him with Nichushkin and Landeskog.
Let’s say Bednar is still really liking Evan Rodrigues in that top-six though. Well, then you simply slot Toews down on that third line with Compher and Newhook. Talk about a third line nobody wants to go head-to-head with.
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Rantanen’s emergence away from MacKinnon this season would allow you to keep those two split up if you wanted to, and now you’re running a MacKinnon line, a Rantanen line, and Jonathan Toews line.
That’s how you recreate that depth from last year.
For what he’ll cost, this officially has my vote for being the move the Avalanche should make come the deadline.
Andreas Englund and the Avs’ 7th defenseman: Ok, I mentioned Jack Johnson a second ago and here’s why. The Avs are going to need an extra d-man come the postseason. Jack Johnson played that role last year and ended up playing a pretty big role once Sam Girard went down early in Round 2.
It has been the expectation all season that one of the fringe moves Colorado would make once we got closer to the postseason would be to bring in a veteran seventh defenseman.
As I said just moments ago, I would still bet that they do that. I’ll be honest though, Andreas Englund’s play at the NHL level this year has made that less of a priority.
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To me, Englund has done everything and then some that you would want out of a seventh defenseman. The only thing that I could see you saying you’d like more of is… playoff experience. There’s nothing Englund can do about that.
To me, if you can get a veteran d-man like Johnson thrown in on a larger package for a late-round pick or something, I say do it. If it’s going to cost you anything legitimate, I say just roll with the big man who has done everything you’ve asked of him.
Meghan’s Observations
Ben Meyers is on the brink: For Meyers, this season has been turbulent. He hung on during camp and made the opening night roster. After three games, including the Minnesota Wild game wherein he scored his only goal/point of the season, he was reassigned to the Colorado Eagles.
His time with the Eagles was hyperfocused on preparing him for a future role with the Avs. He was instructed to worry less about his offensive contributions and concentrate on his defensive game. It’s been a continuing directive that he’s brought with him in his time back up with the Avalanche. On December 7th, Meyers was recalled and has appeared in 25 total games this season.
Despite the lack of production, Jared Bednar has tracked Meyers’ improvement from game to game.
“He’s been as responsible as any forward we’ve had over the last few games since he’s been up,” Bednar said after evaluating his first six games back. “I like his game a lot. He sees way quicker now, he’s lighter than he was in training camp, more of a playing weight where he came in at the end of last year where we really liked him. He’s done a nice job on both sides of the puck since he’s been back.”
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Through this season, his Corsi for percentage has remained above 50% at 50.35% and he has one of the best faceoff wins percentages on the team at 50.6%. Though his offense has been stifled, it is not for a lack of trying. Including a golden opportunity in yesterday’s Seattle game, Meyers has been on the brink of scoring.
He’s not frustrated. As a matter of fact, Meyers has a very pragmatic, mature approach.
“It’s just part of the game,” he said. “I’ve never gone through a stretch like this before, but I wouldn’t say I’m frustrated. Obviously, I want to do more and find a way to get on the scoresheet too.”
Meyers talked about continuing to create chances as a means to break through. He’s in a difficult position, resigned to the sheltered, fourth line, but he’s managing to stay visible even when his ice time doesn’t break the ten-minute mark. He has his work cut out for him, but he’s fighting through it.
Bruce Boudreau’s farewell: Perhaps one of the most difficult topics to capture is the end of Bruce Boudreau’s tenure in Vancouver. Last week, Elliotte Friedman speculated his time as head coach for the struggling Vancouver Canucks was near an end.
On yesterday’s Hockey Night in Canada/32 Thoughts, Jeff Marek said that former Arizona Coyotes head coach, Rick Tocchet, would be named the Canucks head coach on Monday. It was also suggested that Sergei Gonchar and former Avalanche defenseman, Adam Foote could become assistants.
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Vancouver has had a difficult season. They’ve lost eight of their last ten games and have a paltry 39 points. After their loss to Colorado on Friday, Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers said that the outside noise impacted their performance. He said he hadn’t experienced anything like this before in his career.
The news also meant that Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers was Boudreau’s last game behind the bench.
He was a class act until the very end. Brendan Batchelor reported that a barrage of players came by to personally wish him goodbye – all in tears. There aren’t words to properly capture the cruel severance of Boudreau’s time in Vancouver. He was owed better. To have the severance paraded in front of the public eye without a conscience to let Boudreau be the first to know with some semblance of discretion is a horror.
Cole Caufield’s season-ending injury: Another sad piece of news came out of Montreal. The Canadiens were already bound to a season intended to favor them in the draft lottery of a deep 2023 draft. One bright spot for the organization has been the promise of 22-year-old right wing Cole Caufield. The young winger was on pace to have an impressive 46-goal season – that number may be ambitious, but his career-high 26 goals in 46 games remained a stat line to get excited about.
Yesterday the organization announced that he would undergo season-ending surgery to address an injury to his right shoulder. The team reported that this was an existing injury he had been playing through. Eric Engels honed in on this story from an interesting perspective. Pat Brisson, Caufield’s agent, talked about when the injury first cropped up.
“It’s been a progressive injury the past few weeks,” said Brisson, “and every time he steps on the ice, there’s a chance it could get worse, and then it could get more complicated in surgery.”
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Engels described the risk the decision posed after Caufield appeared in five games and multiple practices since the injury was detected on January 11th. With a star player ingrained in Montreal’s future plans, is that a risk worth taking during a rebuilding year?
Two of the best: Thursday’s contest between the Edmonton Oilers and the Tampa Bay Lightning gave the hockey diehards some terrific highlight reel fodder. One of the league’s best goaltenders, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and the league’s best goal scorer, Connor McDavid, provided an entertaining match-up. Edmonton defeated Tampa Bay 5-3 – an empty net goal near the end sealed Tampa’s fate. It was an otherwise close game.
This moment between McDavid and Vasilevskiy was a personal favorite. Vasilevskiy poke-checked McDavid in a rare one-on-one moment. After the save, it appeared Vasilevskiy even said something to McDavid to add some flourish.
McDavid would exact his revenge exactly how he does best. With a burst of speed in transition, McDavid crashed the crease and slipped the puck between Vasilevskiy’s legs to score the game-winning goal.
Vasilevskiy made 29 of 33 saves, and 14 were on high-to-medium danger chances. He faced 12 high-danger chances and four of those came from McDavid.
A family affair: In a hilarious and unlikely occurrence, siblings Pierre-Olivier and Mathieu Joseph both went to the box for simultaneously high-sticking each other in Friday’s game. Their parents can be seen in the crowd laughing in disbelief after the call.
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Pierre-Olivier Joseph’s stick hits himself in the face, so Mathieu Joseph should not have gone to the box. The Pittsburgh Penguins handily defeated the Ottawa Senators 4-1 in the end, but if I was Mathieu, I would not let this one slide so easily. Interestingly, the pair was supposed to play one another in front of family during Wednesday’s contest in Ottawa, but Mathieu Joseph was a healthy scratch. It would have been their first NHL game against one another.
The situation was very tight-lipped. Fortunately, Mathieu Joseph was given the nod to play in Friday’s road game in Pittsburgh even if he faced a bit of injustice on that high-sticking call.
AJ’s Observations
Meghan has you covered on all of the serious stuff above from Bruce Boudreau’s tough week in Vancouver, but I couldn’t help but be amused by his reaction to a too-many-men penalty in the Canucks-Avs game this past week.
Vancouver had already given the Avs one 5-on-3 opportunity earlier in the game, which Colorado scored on. While already on the penalty kill, Vancouver would do it again. Boudreau’s reaction says it all.
Anyone who has ever been on a live broadcast before can tell you that sometimes you have to just make it up as you go and that can lead to some interesting conversations. I was struck by this particular sidebar during the Seattle Kraken broadcast on Saturday night.
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