Thank God hockey is back!
Actually it's been back, but we are still quite a ways away from the quarter-point of this new NHL season, so it's still very early. And I know everyone is dying to hear my thoughts about it, so here are a few.
Geno
It never gets old talking about how underappreciated and underrated Evgeni Malkin is, even with almost everybody who follows hockey being fully aware that he is one of the most elite, most clutch players of the last few generations.
Entering last night, his 20 points (7, 13) in the season's first 12 games had him scoring at a torrid clip of 1.67 points per game, just a whisker behind Mikko Rantanen's league-leading 1.71. However, the 32-year-old Malkin rang up his numbers while averaging nearly two and a half minutes less ice time per game than the 22-year-old Rantanen, and he did it while out-Corsi'ing him 52.0 to 46.6 and committing fewer penalties.
And by the way, his shooting percentage is better than Alexander Ovechkin's, Sidney Crosby's, Connor McDavid's, Nikita Kucherov's, Steven Stamkos's, Filip Forsberg's, Patrick Kane's, Nathan McKinnon's, Artemi Panarin's, Johnny Gaudreau's... you get the picture.
Yet he always gets mentioned after his teammate Crosby. Which is understandable because Crosby is Crosby and the media is the media, but it's still a shame.
This is Malkin's 13th season in the NHL and he shows no signs of slowing down. Enjoy watching him while he is still in his prime. When the time comes, it would be an outrage if he doesn't get into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Because if he doesn't, the only explanation would be that playing on the same team as Crosby, at the same position, meant he didn't get as much publicity and was listed as the "second line" centerman.
Vancouver
I wish I had gotten around to writing this before the season started, because -- honest to God, cross my heart and hope to die -- I was planning on making the Canucks my sleeper pick to surprise everybody by getting to the post-season. But now, with them sitting in second place in the Pacific Division, picking them to make the playoffs no longer sounds batshit crazy.
Here's the thing about the Canucks: Even though they had a bad record last year, every time I watched them play they looked better than all the hockey pundits said.
Despite those same pundits all saying that the organization had no plan for the future, it seemed obvious to me that they had some very promising young talent to build around, what with Brock Boesser being a bona fide offensive star from the get-go, and Bo Horvat continuing to be dependable in the middle. When it became known that Elias Pettersson would join the team this year, it just felt like they might spring from the weeds and surprise everybody.
Don't get me wrong. The Canucks have serious flaws and are certainly no Cup contender, but I do believe they can contend for a playoff spot, especially if they continue to play responsible team hockey. I expect to see them in meaningful games come the trade deadline, and it would not surprise me one bit to see them in the first round of the playoffs come spring.
My Lightning Indulgence
10-3-1 with the second best record in the league. Winning in all kinds of ways, with three different players averaging 1+ points per game. Brayden Point performing like a contender for the Hart and/or Lindsey, while Andrei Vasilevskiy is performing like a Vezina contender with his .935 save percentage and 1.98 goals-against average.
In short, I have nothing to complain about!
But I do have a big question to worry about; namely, how are we going to re-sign Point and half of our defense corps in the coming offseason, what with Yanni Gourde's new deal leaving us with just a little over $7 million remaining under the salary cap for next year?
But Gourde's new deal was a good one and he absolutely deserved it, and I'm happy he got it. Since the team's cap crunch won't hit until the offseason, I'll wait until then to worry about it, and I'll just enjoy this season's ride. After all, having "too many outstanding players to pay" is a good problem to have and it's one that all contenders have.
Ziegler
My Lightning Indulgence
10-3-1 with the second best record in the league. Winning in all kinds of ways, with three different players averaging 1+ points per game. Brayden Point performing like a contender for the Hart and/or Lindsey, while Andrei Vasilevskiy is performing like a Vezina contender with his .935 save percentage and 1.98 goals-against average.
In short, I have nothing to complain about!
But I do have a big question to worry about; namely, how are we going to re-sign Point and half of our defense corps in the coming offseason, what with Yanni Gourde's new deal leaving us with just a little over $7 million remaining under the salary cap for next year?
But Gourde's new deal was a good one and he absolutely deserved it, and I'm happy he got it. Since the team's cap crunch won't hit until the offseason, I'll wait until then to worry about it, and I'll just enjoy this season's ride. After all, having "too many outstanding players to pay" is a good problem to have and it's one that all contenders have.
Ziegler
John A. Ziegler, Jr., former president of the NHL, passed away on October 25th at the age of 84. His presidency ended 26 years ago, but his impact on the league remains and his death is worth more than a passing notice.
A native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Ziegler was the first non-Canadian to serve as NHL president, a fact that caused some consternation among Canadian fans when he got the job. But it was under his watch that the league became more Canadian and also began to extend its reach into the Sun Belt, where people once assumed the game of hockey would never be popular.
He served as president from June 1977 to June 1992. When he began his tenure, more than 90 percent of the league's players were Canadians yet there were only three teams in Canada. Despite the dominance of players from north of the border and despite the long shadow cast by the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs, the NHL basically functioned as a Northern U.S. regional league that had no vision for growing the game of hockey, either in virgin territory or in the game's homeland.
Then Ziegler arranged for the league to bring four franchises from the rival World Hockey Association into its fold in 1979, and three of those franchises -- the Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets, and Edmonton Oilers -- were Canadian organizations. Ziegler did that over the strenuous objections of the NHL's existing Canadian teams, who did not want to share their north-of-the-border pie with anyone else; in so doing, he doubled the number of Canadian teams playing in the NHL and simultaneously put the rival league out of business. Then, in 1980 he signed off on the relocation of the Flames from Atlanta to Calgary, and in 1990 announced that Ottawa was getting an expansion team (which began play two years later as the Senators 2.0).
But perhaps the biggest thing he did on the growth and expansion front was announce that Tampa was getting an expansion team. That announcement was made the same day as the Ottawa announcement -- December 6, 1990 -- and it would be an understatement to say that almost nobody thought hockey in Florida would work. Nonetheless it did, and today my Tampa Bay Lightning (actually, Jeff Vinick's Tampa Bay Lightning) are considered one of the top professional sports franchises on the planet.
Because Ziegler bought into the vision of Lightning founder Phil Esposito and was willing to take a risk, we now see NHL hockey being played not only in Florida but also in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada; and we now see NHL players who grew up in Pembroke Pines, FL, Huntsville, AL, and Scottsdale, AZ.
Ziegler was not perfect, but he played an enormous role in growing the game. Without him taking the steps he did, Gary Bettman would not have been able to take the league, and thus the game, to the level it's at today. We owe him our thanks.
A native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Ziegler was the first non-Canadian to serve as NHL president, a fact that caused some consternation among Canadian fans when he got the job. But it was under his watch that the league became more Canadian and also began to extend its reach into the Sun Belt, where people once assumed the game of hockey would never be popular.
He served as president from June 1977 to June 1992. When he began his tenure, more than 90 percent of the league's players were Canadians yet there were only three teams in Canada. Despite the dominance of players from north of the border and despite the long shadow cast by the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs, the NHL basically functioned as a Northern U.S. regional league that had no vision for growing the game of hockey, either in virgin territory or in the game's homeland.
Then Ziegler arranged for the league to bring four franchises from the rival World Hockey Association into its fold in 1979, and three of those franchises -- the Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets, and Edmonton Oilers -- were Canadian organizations. Ziegler did that over the strenuous objections of the NHL's existing Canadian teams, who did not want to share their north-of-the-border pie with anyone else; in so doing, he doubled the number of Canadian teams playing in the NHL and simultaneously put the rival league out of business. Then, in 1980 he signed off on the relocation of the Flames from Atlanta to Calgary, and in 1990 announced that Ottawa was getting an expansion team (which began play two years later as the Senators 2.0).
But perhaps the biggest thing he did on the growth and expansion front was announce that Tampa was getting an expansion team. That announcement was made the same day as the Ottawa announcement -- December 6, 1990 -- and it would be an understatement to say that almost nobody thought hockey in Florida would work. Nonetheless it did, and today my Tampa Bay Lightning (actually, Jeff Vinick's Tampa Bay Lightning) are considered one of the top professional sports franchises on the planet.
Because Ziegler bought into the vision of Lightning founder Phil Esposito and was willing to take a risk, we now see NHL hockey being played not only in Florida but also in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada; and we now see NHL players who grew up in Pembroke Pines, FL, Huntsville, AL, and Scottsdale, AZ.
Ziegler was not perfect, but he played an enormous role in growing the game. Without him taking the steps he did, Gary Bettman would not have been able to take the league, and thus the game, to the level it's at today. We owe him our thanks.
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