The skills competitions have come and gone, as has the three-on-three U.S.-Canada women's game.
So too has the three-on-three tourney of the NHL's divisional bests, which is the supposed reason for All-Star Weekend.
So too has the three-on-three tourney of the NHL's divisional bests, which is the supposed reason for All-Star Weekend.
Having already commented on some things about the first "half" of this NHL season here, here, and here, 'tis now time for yours truly to offer up a few more thoughts and observations before the season resumes tomorrow, so here ya go:
Angst on the prairie
The Winnipeg Jets are in contention for a playoff spot, but would be out of the money if the post-season started today. And that's a feeling people in Manitoba have grown unaccustomed to the last couple years.
Because it was a foregone conclusion Jacob Trouba would eventually leave town, it came as no surprise that the Jets traded him to the Rangers during the offseason... but when fellow defensemen Tyler Myers and Ben Chiarot signed elsewhere in free agency, the drain of talent from the team's blue line became a dangerous flood... and then came the unexpected loss of Dustin Byfuglien on the brink of training camp, which transformed that flood into a disaster.
Winnipeg fans understood what this meant, but remained optimistic that the Jets' wealth of offensive firepower and high-character leadership would keep them in the upper tier of the NHL -- especially if they got five-alarm goaltending from Connor Hellebyuck, who, after all, finished second in the Vezina balloting just a year and a half ago.
For a while their finger-crossed hopes for 2019-20 seemed to be coming true as the offense hummed along, Hellebyuck performed better than he ever has, and Patrik Laine took his game to the next level with radically improved passing and newfound defensive acumen. Plus, defenseman Neal Pionk (who the Jets received in exchange for Trouba) exceeded expectations.
But team D remains supremely important in sports, and those massive losses on the blue line are starting to take their toll with Winnipeg's back end resembling a sieve. Hellebyuck, kinda like poor John Gibson down in Anaheim, is only a human being and doesn't have enough fingers to keep plugging holes in the dike without relief.
The Jets entered the All-Star Break having lost four straight games, during which they gave up a seemingly endless number of odd-man rushes and negative own-zone time. In those games their defense was so poor that the Jets were fortunate to have "only" given up an average of five goals per outing. A perfect example came in their 7-1 shellacking at the hands of Tampa Bay on January 17th, when their D was so leaky that the Lightning's most prominent "keep your eyes on 'em" stars, Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov, had a two-on-zero rush that of course ended with the puck in Winnipeg's net.
With their recent years' run of success, and the likes of Laine, Hellebyuck, Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, and Nikolaj Ehlers on their roster, it is hard to imagine the Winnipeg Jets sitting at home when the post-season begins. But right now there are two teams between them and the final wild card spot. Gulp.
My Lightning Indulgence
I take exception to any and all suggestions that the Tampa Bay Lightning are playoff chokers, because they have had lots of playoff success over the past half-decade. That includes three deep runs to the conference finals and one to the Stanley Cup Final, in which they soundly outplayed Chicago but had the misfortune of running into a goaltending brick wall named Corey Crawford.
During this half-decade the Lightning also became the only team in history to defeat the NY Rangers in a Game Seven in Madison Square Garden, and the only team to ever beat Henrik Lundqvist anywhere in a Game Seven. In 2018, they took four straight games from the seemingly invincible Boston Bruins to eliminate them in the second round; and in 2016, Victor Hedman dominated John Tavares and rendered him a non-factor when Tampa Bay eliminated the Islanders in the second round.
In other words: Criticize my team for its first-round collapse in April 2019 -- God knows I did -- but do not criticize its overall body of post-season work.
Which brings me in a roundabout way to the current regular season. Before it commenced, I said repeatedly that I hoped the Bolts would struggle and go through character-building slumps. I opined that they had it too easy with their record-breaking regular season in 2018-19, and that the lack of major difficulty made them soft and blinded them to the consequences of not paying enough attention to the little things.
So I longed for them to struggle. And I longed for them to lose games they deserved to lose, rather than continue pulling off the Houdini escapes that tend to breed the kinds of bad habits that ultimately undo you.
But then they did struggle, and did lose games they deserved to lose, and I hated every minute of it and cursed out loud whenever they lost. Across the first quarter-plus of this 2019-20 campaign the Bolts struggled to put much distance between themselves and the .500 mark, and they kept seeming to take a step forward only to follow it up with a step backward.
However, it looks like the early difficulties may have served the purpose I wanted, for the Bolts have turned things around and battled their way back into the Cup chase. They entered the All-Star Break having won 12 of their last 14, and having climbed into second place in the Atlantic Division after being out of the playoff field earlier in the campaign. And after seeming average at best in net early on, Andrei Vasilevskiy has regained his Vezina form by winning his last ten starts with a sizzling .946 save percentage.
There is more going on than just a "rough first quarter, strong second quarter" change in results, however. Only five of their first fifteen games were played on home ice, and during that stretch they had a significant amount of down time due to the Sweden trip. Also, the Lightning entered the season focused on changing their instincts, by trying not to get too cute with the puck and by playing more thorough team-wide defense; and that instinct-changing seems to have taken hold, as pretty much from the outset they have been putting more shots on net than their opponents -- which is in marked contrast to the previous couple seasons, which featured Tampa Bay getting outshot most nights yet managing to dodge defeat.
The Lightning no longer have a skater or two flashing insanely gaudy numbers and being in the running for the league's top individual accolades... but they do have four guys with 18 or more goals; six with 20 or more assists; eight with shooting percentages north of 12%, including five who are north of 15%; and, last but far, far from least, the Lightning have three players exceeding 55% at face-offs.
From opening night until now, a pair of middle-six forwards -- namely Alex Killorn and Anthony Cirelli -- have been Tampa Bay's most consistent forwards at producing top-six impact. Killorn, 30, scored between 14 and 19 goals in every previous season of his career, yet this time around he's already bagged 20 and there are still 34 games left to play; meanwhile Cirelli's 33 points (12 goals and 21 assists) seem to have always come at key moments, and his defensive prowess is so good that it ought to be generating Selke chatter.
And if you are thinking the above paragraph implies that the stars aren't carrying their usual weight, think again... for Stamkos and Kucherov are scoring at a greater than point-per-game clip, and Brayden Point (42 points in 45 games) is just a hair under that pace despite spending the entire off-season on the shelf recovering from hip surgery.
Oh, and Victor Hedman is cruising along with 41 points in 46 games as a defenseman... while still attending to his defensive responsibilities with such aplomb that he just got tabbed as a mid-season finalist for the not-yet-official Rod Langway Award.
Oh, and Mikhail Sergachev is performing like an upper-crust defenseman by eating big minutes and playing well on both sides of the puck while chipping in a significant 25 points (7, 18).
Of course none of the above means the Tampa Bay Lightning will win the Stanley Cup, nor does it mean they are the favorites to do so... but it does mean I like their chances this season more than I did last season. Go Bolts!
For a while their finger-crossed hopes for 2019-20 seemed to be coming true as the offense hummed along, Hellebyuck performed better than he ever has, and Patrik Laine took his game to the next level with radically improved passing and newfound defensive acumen. Plus, defenseman Neal Pionk (who the Jets received in exchange for Trouba) exceeded expectations.
But team D remains supremely important in sports, and those massive losses on the blue line are starting to take their toll with Winnipeg's back end resembling a sieve. Hellebyuck, kinda like poor John Gibson down in Anaheim, is only a human being and doesn't have enough fingers to keep plugging holes in the dike without relief.
The Jets entered the All-Star Break having lost four straight games, during which they gave up a seemingly endless number of odd-man rushes and negative own-zone time. In those games their defense was so poor that the Jets were fortunate to have "only" given up an average of five goals per outing. A perfect example came in their 7-1 shellacking at the hands of Tampa Bay on January 17th, when their D was so leaky that the Lightning's most prominent "keep your eyes on 'em" stars, Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov, had a two-on-zero rush that of course ended with the puck in Winnipeg's net.
With their recent years' run of success, and the likes of Laine, Hellebyuck, Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, and Nikolaj Ehlers on their roster, it is hard to imagine the Winnipeg Jets sitting at home when the post-season begins. But right now there are two teams between them and the final wild card spot. Gulp.
My Lightning Indulgence
I take exception to any and all suggestions that the Tampa Bay Lightning are playoff chokers, because they have had lots of playoff success over the past half-decade. That includes three deep runs to the conference finals and one to the Stanley Cup Final, in which they soundly outplayed Chicago but had the misfortune of running into a goaltending brick wall named Corey Crawford.
During this half-decade the Lightning also became the only team in history to defeat the NY Rangers in a Game Seven in Madison Square Garden, and the only team to ever beat Henrik Lundqvist anywhere in a Game Seven. In 2018, they took four straight games from the seemingly invincible Boston Bruins to eliminate them in the second round; and in 2016, Victor Hedman dominated John Tavares and rendered him a non-factor when Tampa Bay eliminated the Islanders in the second round.
In other words: Criticize my team for its first-round collapse in April 2019 -- God knows I did -- but do not criticize its overall body of post-season work.
Which brings me in a roundabout way to the current regular season. Before it commenced, I said repeatedly that I hoped the Bolts would struggle and go through character-building slumps. I opined that they had it too easy with their record-breaking regular season in 2018-19, and that the lack of major difficulty made them soft and blinded them to the consequences of not paying enough attention to the little things.
So I longed for them to struggle. And I longed for them to lose games they deserved to lose, rather than continue pulling off the Houdini escapes that tend to breed the kinds of bad habits that ultimately undo you.
But then they did struggle, and did lose games they deserved to lose, and I hated every minute of it and cursed out loud whenever they lost. Across the first quarter-plus of this 2019-20 campaign the Bolts struggled to put much distance between themselves and the .500 mark, and they kept seeming to take a step forward only to follow it up with a step backward.
However, it looks like the early difficulties may have served the purpose I wanted, for the Bolts have turned things around and battled their way back into the Cup chase. They entered the All-Star Break having won 12 of their last 14, and having climbed into second place in the Atlantic Division after being out of the playoff field earlier in the campaign. And after seeming average at best in net early on, Andrei Vasilevskiy has regained his Vezina form by winning his last ten starts with a sizzling .946 save percentage.
There is more going on than just a "rough first quarter, strong second quarter" change in results, however. Only five of their first fifteen games were played on home ice, and during that stretch they had a significant amount of down time due to the Sweden trip. Also, the Lightning entered the season focused on changing their instincts, by trying not to get too cute with the puck and by playing more thorough team-wide defense; and that instinct-changing seems to have taken hold, as pretty much from the outset they have been putting more shots on net than their opponents -- which is in marked contrast to the previous couple seasons, which featured Tampa Bay getting outshot most nights yet managing to dodge defeat.
The Lightning no longer have a skater or two flashing insanely gaudy numbers and being in the running for the league's top individual accolades... but they do have four guys with 18 or more goals; six with 20 or more assists; eight with shooting percentages north of 12%, including five who are north of 15%; and, last but far, far from least, the Lightning have three players exceeding 55% at face-offs.
From opening night until now, a pair of middle-six forwards -- namely Alex Killorn and Anthony Cirelli -- have been Tampa Bay's most consistent forwards at producing top-six impact. Killorn, 30, scored between 14 and 19 goals in every previous season of his career, yet this time around he's already bagged 20 and there are still 34 games left to play; meanwhile Cirelli's 33 points (12 goals and 21 assists) seem to have always come at key moments, and his defensive prowess is so good that it ought to be generating Selke chatter.
And if you are thinking the above paragraph implies that the stars aren't carrying their usual weight, think again... for Stamkos and Kucherov are scoring at a greater than point-per-game clip, and Brayden Point (42 points in 45 games) is just a hair under that pace despite spending the entire off-season on the shelf recovering from hip surgery.
Oh, and Victor Hedman is cruising along with 41 points in 46 games as a defenseman... while still attending to his defensive responsibilities with such aplomb that he just got tabbed as a mid-season finalist for the not-yet-official Rod Langway Award.
Oh, and Mikhail Sergachev is performing like an upper-crust defenseman by eating big minutes and playing well on both sides of the puck while chipping in a significant 25 points (7, 18).
Of course none of the above means the Tampa Bay Lightning will win the Stanley Cup, nor does it mean they are the favorites to do so... but it does mean I like their chances this season more than I did last season. Go Bolts!
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