A Different Type of Season Preview
300 words or less on all 32 teams & my first season as a parent
August is over and training camps are here. The season usually sneaks up on me, as I spend most of the summer adding games to the All Three Zones Database & working on the McKeens Hockey yearbook. I’m still reviewing the previous season just as next year is about to start.
This off-season in particular flew by for me because I became a dad a couple weeks ago. Sara & I have a beautiful daughter named Alison & she’s been home with us since last Tuesday after spending eight days in the NICU that felt like 800. Time moves at a glacial pace when you know you’re leaving at the end of the day & unsure of when the constant trips to and from the hospital are going to end. One minute you’re holding your newborn daughter in your arms & the next you know, you’re doing your best to comfort her while she’s confined to a bed with eight doctors & nurses constantly rushing in & out of the room. There’s nothing you can say or do because you’re in the dark & just as scared as they are. You know everything will be fine, but you’re still thinking about what could have happened if we waited a day longer or got the wrong advice.
Alison made progress everyday. The sheer terror & discomfort on her face when she was first in the NICU is something I’ll probably never shake out of my head. Neither is how she looked wrapped up in an EEG & how we had to manuver our way around countless wires & cords just to hold her. Still, the strength she showed was incredible. They called her an “over-achiever” at the hospital and earned the reputation as a “chill baby” because almost nothing bothered her (except having her temperature taken). She looked better every visit, sprinting through milestones once she got through the first day. It’s going to make me think twice before using “baby” as an insult after seeing how resilient these guys are so early in life.
The amount of praise & love the NICU staff gets for their work is only a fraction of what they deserve & we can’t thank them enough for assuring us that our daughter was in good hands every night. Both Sara & I were almost as shell-shocked as Alison in our first trips down there & they made it feel like a caring enviornment instead of a house of horrors. Nothing was easy about our time there, but we had a strange sense of comfort with all the help we got from everybody on the staff. Whether it was keeping us updated, walking us through life as new parents or just reminding us that we’re doing great, it made the day-to-day less painful for us even if we didn’t have a set finish line.
Now Alison is home and we’re getting the full baby experience here.
She keeps us very busy even if she spends 15 hours a day sleeping. The mood can change from complete zen to total chaos at the drop of a dime, so we’re still adjusting to the “new normal” in the house. Sleep happens in shifts and life as a night owl is a little different than it was when I would just be up late working. Nights & mornings blend together because everything is on-call and you have good and bad moments rather than good & bad days. I’m slowly learning how to do things like working with one hand and typing while a small human is resting on me. It was just my luck that the NHL decided to have a game in Australia this pas weekend so Alison could “watch” her first hockey game while I was on night feeding duty.
I never expected to be a parent until a couple years ago & I’m figuring out there’s no “good” way to prepare for it. You’re always worrying about something and we were thrown into the deep end on that front. I have no idea if Alison will remember anything from her time in the NICU, but the strength she showed in her first couple of days on earth tells me she’s ready to kick life’s ass.
Now…Onto The Season Preview
I’m taking a different approach with this because this season is going to be a weird one for me. I’ve got in the habit of treating the All Three Zones project as work instead of a 24/7 task like when I first started, but the time I have to work is going to be more of small windows & pockets instead of a prolonged period. So I want to be more conscious of how I spend my time & not spin my wheels, which is how it feels even during the playoffs sometimes.
Whether that means shorter, quicker breakdowns & less deep-dives is something I’ll probably figure out as I go. I have trouble keeping things brief, as most readers to this Substack probably know, so that will be a new challenge for me. What is staying the same, though, is I’m still going to be watching/tracking a lot of hockey games. It’s what people pay for & the meat of the All Three Zones project, so not much is changing on that front. It’s made my pespective a little different for the upcoming season, though.
I’ve been doing this for so long that everything blends together & I fall into this rut of just “getting the games done” instead of focusing on what’s actually happening. There are a few teams where I know what to expect going in & nothing really changes much. They don’t have a lot of players who jump off the page in terms of microstats & play a “paint by numbers style” that gets them through the regular season. Most of these are the middling/bad teams, but even with good teams I know what to expect once I get to the 15-20 mark in my tracking & the rest of the season feels like eating oatmeal for breakfast for the 20th day in a row. I enjoy it because it’s still hockey, but you can only have so much enthusiasm about what you’re doing.
So with this preview I’m going to talk about some teams that are the opposite of that, specifically from the lens of tracking games for All Three Zones. I like watching teams that either give me something new to look for, play an exciting style of hockey (lots of rush chances both ways) or have exciting players that jump off the page in my tracking. It’s not always the stars, but I am always excited to watch as much of the MacKinnons, McDavids and Hughes as I can, so that plays a factor.
Keeping up with my recent obsession with compass memes, I sorted out every team based on how I feel about them going into this year. The teams further on the left are the ones who I expect to stay mostly the same as last year while the teams on the right I’m expecting more chaos from on a game-to-game basis. The y-axis is a rough estimate of how good I expect them to be, although with a slight curve because everyone past the top/bottom-five would be right on top of each other if I did this objectively.
Now, here’s some summaries on how I feel tracking each team heading into the year:
The “Must Watches”
Buffalo
Buffalo has the most going for them among teams that missed the playoffs last year. They played the most entertaining brand of hockey last year, have a lot of players who jump off the page in microstats (which should get better as Owen Power improves) and they’re placing a lot of faith in a rookie goaltender to help push them into a playoff spot. I should also mention that one of their big off-season signings was Connor Clifton, who earned a nickname as a third-pair defenseman because of his “all gas no breaks” playing style. Tage Thompson is also a true video game player, not the type who does a bunch of moves where you need to press six button combinations in a millisecond to work, but a guy who plays like most people do where their best move is teeing up a slapshot bomb from in between the cirlces & dekeing with the analog stick like you did on the old PS2 games. Who doesn’t love watching that?
All of this should lead to them being a must-watch team again, even if they don’t make the playoffs. They also have the most going for them with their division potentially opening up a couple playoff spots, although it’s going to be tough. Boston lost their center depth but they have a long fall to actually miss the playoffs, Florida was battling for a playoff spot all of last year, Tampa is getting older & Toronto’s done some roster reshuffling. If there was a year for the Sabres to break into that elusive “Good Team” tier, this would be it. They play a very entertaining style of hockey & it would be nice if the results followed for them like it did for other teams with this blueprint (Colorado, New Jersey, Florida circa 2021).
Colorado
Even with the talent drain the Avs have suffered, their stars are my favorite players in the league to watch. Even in bad games, they’re doing a lot of creative things in the offensive zone with trying to create space in confined areas & have the ability to turn a two-goal deficit into a lead at the drop of a hat. It’s how I wish every team in the league would play, but probably can’t because not everybody has a MacKinnon or Makar/Toews.
I am also interested in how the Avs roster reshuffling goes. Ryan Johansen kind of seems like an oil/water type of fit with the speed they play with and Jonathan Drouin is probably my biggest miss in terms of a prospect not becoming a star. He still brings something to the table as a puck-handler & zone entry guy even if the goal-totals have been non-existent over the past few years, so I wonder if the Avs can utilize him a little better to help jumpstart his career. The Avs depth also plays with a lot of pace & speed, so that makes things more fun to watch on my end while the lower lines are out there. They also have maybe the worst injury luck in the league, so there’s always a handful of new players to watch in Colorado every year. Jean-luc Foudy being one of my young, darkhorse players to watch.
New Jersey
I was happy to see Jersey finally get some results last year. They followed the Avs/Colorado mold of always looking to attack off the rush & that always makes for unpredictable games whether it’s a blowout or a track meet. It all centers around Jack Hughes, who might be the best zone entry guy in the league not named Connor McDavid, and have a very deep team. When Dawson Mercer is your 6th best forward, you’re doing something right. They also have some up-and-comers on the way with Holtz & The Third Hughes, so they have a fresh look to a team that’s already good. That and having a full season of Timo Meier.
Jersey is another team where the stars are aligning for them to go on a run even in a tough conference. They’re in a position where they can still add & have high-end prospects from their bad years still ready to replace some of the pieces they lost via free agency. They also won with a lot of volatility at goaltender last year, so their games should be a must-watch for all hockey fans.
Dallas
I have talked at lengths about how much I love watching Dallas’ top line and Miro Heiskanen. It’s complementary hockey at its finest, except from star players (pun not intended) and shows the different ways you can take over a game. I’m always so focused on where the puck is when I’m working or watching games & seeing Pavelski/Robertson work away from the puck to get themselves open or make the most out of limited touches gives me something different to look for. I’m always looking for gaps in the All Three Zones project & how Robertson/Pavelski play helps bridge that a little because they each do something different while Roope Hintz does most of the work with the puck.
The Stars also saw a resurgence from Jamie Benn last year & while I don’t think that’s sustainable, adding Matt Duchene while keeping Evgenii Dadonov will make their 2nd-3rd lines very fun to watch. The one caveat I have with Dallas is I hate their defense aside from Heiskanen. It’s him and four guys who can’t make any plays out of their zone to save their lines. The one exception being Thomas Harley, who showed well during the playoffs & was probably good enough to be in the NHL all of last year. It’s still a good team, but Harley & Lundkvist becoming full-time contributors is what will put them as one of my “must watch” teams.
The other reason I try to stay on top of Stars games is because David Castillo is one of my top supporters & you all should support his Stars Stack blog even if you don’t care about Dallas.
Edmonton
I was tempted to put them in the “Know What I’m Getting” category, but it’s still Connor McDavid and a team with a nuclear power play. Guys who break the scale like this don’t come around that often and I try not to take it for granted. That and I also love watching Draisaitl and his unorthodox style of dominating the game. You could show me random clips of him & convince me he is terrible, but he is just insanely good at things that are difficult for normal players while looking (and moving) like a grizzly bear on skates.
I also like the Connor Brown signing. He always struck me as the type of player who can fit into whatever role you need & went all-out on the penalty kill when he was in Ottawa. I don’t know if that’s going to carry over with the Oilers because he’s going to have to surrender a lot of puck touches with McDavid, but I always enjoy watching quick worker bee forwards. He also had a major outlier season at creating high-danger passing plays in his last year with the Sens, so I’m interested how that translates with the Oilers if he gets the McDavid bump.
Having an enjoyable broadcast goes a long way too & the Oilers have one of the best in Jack Michaels. Nobody else calls games like him & I love how he can work in completely absurd tangets into his cadence without missing a beat in calling the action.
Seattle
The shine of Seattle hasn’t worn off on me just yet. They play more of a controlled possession style rather than going full run-and-gun, which can go either way in terms of how entertaining their games are. They got all of the negatives & none of the positves in their inaugural season while last year was the exact opposite. They put some beautiful passing plays together to score most of their goals & had a lot of high-scoring games on both ends. The arrival of Matty Beniers went a long way to making this happen, but using more offensive specialists like Daniel Sprong & Ryan Donato on the lower lines also helped. Not many teams do this now because it’s hard to keep players engaged if they’re only out for the power play & not taking regular shifts, but they got a 20-goal season out of Sprong by doing this.
This year is going to be all about getting Shane Wright comfortable in the NHL and seeing what Beniers’ next level is at. There aren’t a lot of 19/20 year olds who took his type of workload with the puck, especially with starting plays out of the defensive zone. He’s very advanced for his age & his rookie numbers aren’t too different from Dylan Larkin’s in 2015. The super optimistic view of him is that he goes the route of Jack Eichel (without the injuries), so tracking his progress is going to be very fun to watch this year.
Seattle also has one of the more interactive fanbases with using the All Three Zones data & I appreciate that because it makes me feel less like I’m talking to a brick wall.
Pittsburgh
If I were doing this in July, Pittsburgh would be on the far left. Then they added Erik Karlsson to the fold and that completely changes the dynamic. I’m always excited to watch Karlsson and it’s not everyday a player gets traded after winning the Norris. San Jose was a fun team to watch last year mostly because of him & he’s coming to Pittsburgh at almost the perfect time as Kris Letang enters his “still very good but getting old” stage of his career.
That and Pittsburgh needed some jolt. Their games were unpredictable last year but in a bad way, because you always expect them to put it together at some point & it never happened. They were at 2013-14 levels with how much Crosby & Malkin had to carry their offense with the rest of the lineup not doing much to help. They were caught in between being a rush team & one that tries to grind out games. The forward depth is still a concern (Matt Nieto is listed in their top-six at Capfriendly?!), but maybe adding Karlsson gives them some more direction in how they want to play. He certainly did that for the Sharks last year & it was the first time he was actually healthy since 2015. When you’re this late in the window, swinging for the fences is the way to go.
They also have a new broadcast team this year & I’m always interested to hear some new voices in the league.
Vegas
The thing with Vegas is they operate like they know they’re going to make the playoffs every year. They know what they need to do to get in & have a lot of games where they’re on cruise control. Sometimes this is the case during the games too. They have a 5-7 period where they erupt for 3-4 goals & put it in neutral for the rest of the game because they don’t need to do anything else. During those 5-7 minutes, though? They’re must-watch hockey.
Vegas also does everything I want to see from a team-building standpoint. Their defense pairs complement eachother well with the forwards helping them do most of the puck-moving. They can elevate guys from the AHL & get them up to speed relatively easily. A guy like Paul Cotter might not be the best player in the world, but Vegas can get a few goals off the rush out of him because they have good play-drivers on every line. They’re not married to one style of play & will push the pace or sit back when they need to. That said, I am interested how they replace Reilly Smith. The Misfit Line wasn’t a thing in the playoffs with Marchessault flanking Eichel, but that’s still 26 goals to replace. I guess this is what they had in mind when re-signing Barbashev, though.
They also get points for their broadcast crew. Shane Hnidy is my favorite game analyst not named Ray Ferraro or Mike Johnson. Probably the best at pointing out what happens away from the puck & breaking down defensemen.
Tampa Bay
I was tempted to put the Lightning further to the left because they grinds out a lot of games & I usually know what I’m getting with them. That said, they’re still one of the few teams that isn’t totally robotic with how they play in the offensive zone and I don’t think that’s going to change as long as Kucherov & Point are still there. The east-west passes & constant motion up high is always fun to watch.
The reason why they’re so close to the borderline is I think their depth is going to play more of a grinding, conservative style and they’re a team that usually has their playoff spot locked by Christmas. You can only be so exciting when your team is playing out the string even if you have great players. That said, their top guy are still a blast to watch & I like the group of wingers they brought in this year. They also usually have a player or two who emerges out of nowhere.
The Borderline
Chicago
The highlights of Bedard already have me pumped to watch this team. Then I remember aside from Taylor Hall & Seth Jones, this is looking like the most barren roster a top pick has walked into since…well Hall did with the Oilers in 2010. Still, they got some help on the way with Lukas Reichel getting a full-time role and a lot of open roster spots on their blue line for rookies to fill. Sometimes those are the most exciting teams to watch even if it’s a trainwreck.
Minnesota
The Wild are only on the borderline because of Kaprizov & Zuccarello. I know they’re probably going to make the playoffs & it’s not going to be much of a challenge for them either. Even with Parise & Suter’s buyouts taking up so much of the cap, the floor for this team is always too high to bottom out & there’s enough teams in the Central that can’t get their shit together, so Minnesota always walks into a playoff spot with relative ease. There’s enough about this team that I like. The Kaprizov line is one of the best in the league & I enjoy guessing who their center is going to be, Marcus Foligno is a car crash to watch on the forecheck & Marco Rossi is also there as an x-factor. My thoughts on them are similar to what I said about Tampa where they spend so much of the season playing out the string & I’m just like “oh, it’s the Wild again” when they show up on the schedule. The difference is Kaprizov gives me some cool plays to gif & numbers to look at after the game.
Florida
This is a tough one because the Panthers alternate between “unhinged” and “snoozefest” depending on the situation. They were a firewagon team in the regular season & a slogfest in the post-season, albeit with a lot of late game dramatics. They also have some major turnover with their defense corps with four new players coming in & two of their mainstays starting the year on LTIR. This has all the makings for some high-shot volume/high-scoring games until everyone gets settled in. Chaos has been so normal for the Panthers that I’m numb to it, but I’m sure this will be an entertaining team to watch. Unless they decide the best way to win with their patchwork defense is to play Red Rover hockey & never try to do anything with the puck if they get a 1-0 lead. Hey, it worked in the playoffs.
Arizona
Even with my tracking obligations, I probably watched Arizona the least last season so there’s a lot of “unknown” for them. They also have the rookie factor working for them with Cooley & Guenther coming in along with a decent amount of roster turnover. I don’t really like tracking their home games because of how the arena camera is setup, but I always enjoy watching Clayton Keller do his thing.
Oatmeal For Breakfast
Carolina
Without sounding like I’m bored or jaded with the Hurricanes playoff streak, I can tell you how this season will turn out. They’ll be one of the best teams in the East again and their playoff success will hinge on whether or not they’ll score enough goals. They addressed these needs by….upgrading their defense to the point where it’s like they’re going into the elite four with two Cloysters, a Slowbro, a Steelix, a Forretress and a Bastiodon. Can you win with that? Sure, you can win with any strategy and some luck. The route to get there is just going to be more painful and a lot more work than it needed to be.
The first month of the season is always a fun watch for me, though. The added element of not having an AHL team & potentially three NHL goalies on the roster could also be interesting from a roster manipulation standpoint. They also have an army of players coming in on PTOs this preseason, so I’m expecting to Remember Some Guys in the score updates.
Los Angeles
Another team that I probably have burnout bias against. They might have been my favorite to watch during their run to the playoffs a couple years ago, but last year felt very “same old same old” when it came to tracking their games. Part of that is the defensive system they play, especially against good teams, and most of the games blended together. I really enjoy watching most of the players on the roster, though.
The only thing I’m really interested to watch this year is how good Pierre-luc Dubois is. I feel like the shine wore off on him for the most part, but there’s still a segment of fans that talk about him like he’s a unicorn power forward (and I think most of them work for hockey teams). He is an intriguing player, though. Loves to reset & reload with the puck in the neutral zone & play he keep-away game. It fits how the Kings like to play, but I’m not sold on him ever having that huge offensive season.
The Kings also did some shuffling on their defense & maybe opening up a spot for Jordan Spence, who I still think is one of the best players not in the NHL.
Boston
On one hand, Boston has a long way to fall after setting league records last year. I’ve also seen their potential lines on twitter enough times & doomsaying from their fanbase to be a little concerned. I also know the usual Bruins trope is for them to limp their way through the first half of the season & win 20 of their next 23 games once everyone starts questioning if they’ll make the playoffs. Last year was the outlier with them dominating the regular season. I’m expecting this season to follow their usual patter, but I’m also expecting to get bored of it quick. I like Jim Montgomery enough & he got them playing a good, creative style of hockey last year. Whether he can keep that up with their current center depth to be more of a challenge, but he’s got a lot of insulation on the wings & the blue line.
Toronto
I enjoy tracking Leafs games & they’re a lot like Tampa with how they give me something different to look for with all the motion they use in the offensive zone. This little play from Nylander was one of my favorites from last year. They just have a lot of factors working against them, the biggest being overexposure. They have a lot of bloggers doing this work for them already & what I want to say has already been discussed to death by the time I get to their game. The other is common refrain of how nothing matters until they do something in the playoffs, so you might as well not say anything good about them because you’re just talking to a brick wall.
They did change the window dressing a bit this year, though. Bertuzzi & Domi adds some more scoring on the wings, they might be moving Nylander to center & John Klingberg was the most turnover-prone defenseman in the league last year (on the league’s worst team), so I’m going to have no shortage of things to look for when I work on their games. I also love listening to the Gord Miller/Mike Johnson tandem on TSN.
Islanders
The Islanders play the most “predictable” style going by my stats. They take more point shots than the Hurricanes & dump the puck in more than them too, which seems almost impossible. They’re one of those teams that is more fun to watch live than track their games because they gave up & scored a lot of “response goals” last year & had some wild comebacks too. Working on their games after the fact is a different story because I already konw what’s going to happen & have a general picture of how things will go up until that 2-3 minute stretch where all hell breaks loose.
Mat Barzal is always going to be one of my favorite players to watch & breakdown. The definition of an “All Three Zone Star” along with Nikolaj Ehlers, he grades out a player who should be the best in the league but is always just a tier below going by points or player impact stats. I’m always waiting for him to have that 90-100 point season that he showed he was capable of in his rookie year & you see that in some games, but not all the time. This was chalked up to Barry Trotz’ system for years, but there were some bad habits that he kept doing last year (always passing to the point & not attacking directly off the rush) with some of that being out of his control, namely his linemates. He’s going to post gaudy numbers because the puck always has to go through him when he’s on the ice, so I think the results will follow unless Lane Lambert tells him he’s not allowed to carry the puck anymore now that he’s on the wing. I’ll always have my eye on the Isles to keep tabs on him.
The Isles are another team that also gains points for having an excellent broadcast crew.
I Just Think They’re Neat
Nashville
Hear me out on this one, but I loved watching this team after the trade deadline. They had a ton of injuries and a lot of players from Milwaukee kind of tore it up for them down the stretch. Hockey sickos already know about Tommy Novak & the run he went on, but some of the under-the-radar guys like Luke Evangelista performed well too. I also enjoyed seeing Cody Glass get his career back on track after looking lost once he left Vegas. They treated him like a prospect after acquiring him, rebuilding his game in the AHL & finding a niche as a strong goal vulture with the Preds last year. Nashville is still kind of frisky because even though I love watching Josi & the young players are exciting, it’s easy to see them doing something like playing Colton Sissons in a top-six role & every game being a race to three goals. That style of play can win you more games in the regular season than going run-and-gun, especially if when your big off-season addition was Ryan O’Reilly.
Ottawa
Nobody told the teams in the Atlantic that only five of them can make the playoffs. I’m not as optimistic about the Sens this year with how many teams they still have to leapfrog, but I’m always interested to watch them. Their fanbase is among the most interactive in the A3Z community (even if I’m bad about keeping up with their games) and they usually play at a fast pace. They also have an intriguing roster of players who are at opposite ends of the Microstat Player Compass quadrants I wrote about a couple weeks ago. You have Stutzle as the neutral zone/rush offense star, Brady Tkachuk as the one who dominates the offensive zone & Josh Norris, who makes the most out of limited puck touches. It’s similar to what I talked about with the Stars, except they all play on different lines and the team success hasn’t followed for them just yet.
Getting Vladimir Tarasenko as their off-season acquisition also helps, because I loved watching his return to form with the Blues a couple years ago. You had a formerly elite player that hadn’t completely lost his fastball & showed what he could do when put with the right linemates in a system that put emphasis on getting guys open through east-west passing. I’m not sure if Ottawa has enough puck-carriers to pull this off, but I’m interested to watch him regardless. Still one of the best at creating a launching pad with the puck when he gets the space.
St. Louis
I have loved the Blues shift in identity to a rush team that can’t play defense even if they’re probably worse off for it. Doubling down on it by adding Jakub Vrana and Kasperi Kapanen just makes me want to watch them even more. The only reason I don’t is because the NHL blacks me out of their games even though I live closer to Minneapolis than St. Louis.
Either way, I’m always down to watch Jordan Kyrou, a guy who showed signs of being an elite rush threat early & turned into Ehlers South once he got more ice time. I guess the real question with the Blues is whether or not they can center a contending team around him & Robert Thomas now that Ryan O’Reilly’s not there to soak up the tougher minutes. They’ve proven they can produce & score at a high level but they came onto the team at the time when ROR was either the main guy or a secondary guy playing the tough minutes. Now they’re the main guys with Brayden Schenn as the remaining vet forward from the previous core. Their whole forward corps consists of guys who can score & can’t play defense, so this has the potential to be one of the most extreme firewagon teams in the All Three Zones era.
Columbus
Speaking of firewagon teams, Columbus had this going for them last year in their trainwreck of a season. I expect things to calm down a little, but the talent they brought in on defense has the recipe for more 6+ goal games, both for & against. Damon Severson is a great puck-mover & one of the most turnover-prong defensemen in the league, Ivan Provorov is of a similar mold & Zach Werenski is a pure rover. They’re all veterans, so it should be more calm than last year where they auditioned almost every defender in their system, but they’re high-risk players by nature so we could see some wild games in Columbus now that they let Mike Babcock go.
The young talent on this team could also be fun to watch. I’ve been hyping up Kent Johnson all off-season & want to see how year 2 goes for him, same with Adam Fantilli in his rookie season. Columbus’ roster is in a awkward spot right now, caught in between trying to compete in a tough division with some top picks coming in for reinforcements. I don’t see them being a good team next year, but I could see them having a 2021-22 Sabres type of uptick with the forwards breaking out behind Johnny Gaudreau as the centerpiece.
Montreal
There is always a bad team that I get intrguied with for no real reason. Last year it was Montreal. I like the style Martin St. Louis has them playing with & their roster is a trip down memory lane with all the former first round picks. The tape on Nick Suzuki is also fun to breakdown as he’s become a workhorse in all three zones. They were the type of bad team that seem to be practicing good habits & looking to make plays, but didn’t have the talent to pull it off consistently. They threw their defensemen to the wolves & some under-the-radar guys like Jonathan Kovacevic emerged as legit NHLers. Cole Caufield got his game back on track & Raphael Harvey-Pinard looked like someone kidnapped Jonathan Marchessault & put him in a Habs jersey. In a rebulding year, this is all your can ask for.
The only thing I wonder about Montreal is when the patience for this is going to run out, but the improbable 2021 Cup run might have bought them some time to get this roster right before they start trying to win.
They Exist (ugh, this team again)
Rangers
To be brutally honest, I have watched at least 200 Rangers games between work & the playoffs & I’ve had my fill. They look like they’re on rocket skates for parts of the game and play hot potato in their own zone for 55 minutes. Discussing them is even worse because their fanbase is like Toronto with 100 times more troll accounts who reply to everything with the same Henry Hill that every unfunny person on the internet seems to have on standby.
They could be different this year with Peter Lavioette coming in, but the Rangers MO has always been to win games 5-2 while getting outshot 44-26 regardless of who the coach is. Lafreniere becoming a “must watch” player is their biggest x-factor for me. He rebounded well last year, but I’m not sure what type of star player he is supposed to be because he’s had a secondary role or off-puck role on his line for pretty much his entire career. He’s adapted in some aspects but not to the level where I’m like “oh, I need to watch this guy every night.” Chytil eventually worked his way out of the muck the Rangers bottom-six was stuck in, so maybe Laf can do the same.
Detroit
Detroit is more of a team I don’t think about much rather than I team I dislike watching. There’s a lot of games on at 6 here & the Wings have been stuck in the middle of the standings for awhile. Lalonde also had them playing a conservative brand of hockey last year, dumping the puck in a lot and being very selective with their shots.
The pendulum could swing for them this year because of the amount of roster turnover & they brought in some good scoring talent that should help their patient, methodical approach on offense. They could end up where I have Ottawa six months from now but could also be down with Anaheim depending on how these new players fit in.
Calgary
The Flames have a few things beyond their control working against them, namely the boards at their arena make working their games feel I’m trying to keep stats of somebody playing pinball. it’s a little easier now that they don’t wear the classic jerseys with the big white numbers, but keeping up with their home feed puts a major strain on my eyes.
As for the quality of hockey, it wasn’t great last year but could get better with the new coach in town. It’ll probably depend on how much of a rebound season Jonathan Huberdeau has & if he’s going to be a dominant player or someone that just acculmates points. I also want to see how Yegor Sharangovich does in a top-six role because I loved watching him when he broke into the league with the Devils. I’m expecting Calgary to get back to the playoffs because it’s a good roster but there’s a general malaise around the team that makes me not really enthusiastic to see how it plays out.
Winnipeg
As much as I love Nik Ehlers, I can not think of anything interesting to say about the Jets this year. Every off-season you hear about how they’re going to shake things up and the most they do is trade a player who they were expecting to get rid of. Scheifele, Connor, Ehlers & the main core always stay put & that’s going to keep the team’s floor relatively high even if they’ve been spinning their wheels in that second tier of the Western Conference.
They brought in some new blood this year, but it’s not enough to get me excited about watching their games yet. Their home games looking they’re broadcasted in 720p doesn’t help either.
Vancouver
I’m kind of over the Canucks even if Quinn Hughes & Elias Pettersson are a thrill ride. Their season always starts in the gutter & they go on a run in the second half where they build some hype for next season despite missing the playoffs. I’m just over it until I see something different. I am interested in how their restructuring on defense goes, though.
Carson Soucy has been one of those defensemen with decent puck skills that has crushed it in borderline top-four minutes, but hasn’t been tested in a big role yet. He showed some of that dynamic, puck-moving ability in previous years but played more of a simple game last year focusing more on starting the exit & preventing damage rather than pushing the play himself. How he does in the top-four on a completely different team will be an interesting case study for which stats translate over.
Washington
The Capitals have a couple things going for them. Ovechkin chasing Gretzky & the new coach bump. Aside from that, this team is an aged vanilla scone with a side of water for dipping. I’m usually off-base when I predict them to fall off because their floor is too high, but last year looked like the beginning stages of that. Washington’s been able to keep the ball rolling every year because their depth is better than most of the bad teams.
Nic Dowd is their 4th line center & he would play higher in the lineup on a true bottom-feeder and Kuznetsov is the type of player who can play the worst game of his career & still score a big goal for you in the final minute. This off-sets some of the disappointing & injured players at the top of the roster & has kept Washington in the mix during their backhalf. They also usually have a guy or two from Hershey make the jump & become a solid contributor on an ELC. That gravy train has dried up recently, but I am a little higher on Connor McMichael than their old coaching staff seemed to be, so they have some hopefuls.
I was tempted to put them dead center of the chart because that’s where they belong.
The Dreck
Anaheim
The Ducks are the ugly side of banking on the rookie factor, because the 40 minutes where they aren’t on the ice can be rough. They’re an extreme example last year because the veterans they brought in all had horrible seasons and they were trying to play a slow, possession based system with a roster that could not do it. I don’t know if Greg Cronin will improve it at all, but it can’t get much worse.
They could move further to the right on this scale if Leo Carlsson lives up to the hype, but this team was truly abominable last year & they have a huge hole to climb out of.
San Jose
I am intrigued by the forward corps, but this defense is incapable of moving the puck & that’s going to make a lot of their games a slog. It’s also an oil & water situation because the Sharks created most of their offense off the forecheck last year & their new forwards all specialist in rush offense (Duclair, Zadina, Hoffman, Zetterlund). It also looks like they’re keeping William Eklund & the other prospects away from the main roster because almost everyone is a placeholder or a one-year flier. As someone who grew up watching the Sharks, the current state of the team is upsetting, but it’s still early in the rebuild period.
Philadelphia
I have watched more Flyers games than any other team aside from the Hurricanes & everything since 2018 has felt like one continuous season with a rotating cast of players. I have more subscribers from them than any other team on All Three Zones even through their bad years & I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I appreciate that their fans want to know more about their team, but I also can’t think of a single reason to watch this year’s squad. The most interesting thing going on for them last year was Owen Tippet’s emergence & Noah Cates becoming a nerd Selke candidate out of nowhere. Their top prospect isn’t going to be on the team for a couple more years, so I guess this season is all about getting the Tyson Foersters up to speed & seeing how Sean Couturier looks after almost two years of being on the shelf. It reminds me a lot of the Hurricanes rebuilding seasons. The losses sucked, but they cycled through almost every prospect in the system during those years & it was interesting to see which ones emerged. At least among the fanbase.
Enjoy the season everyone!