When the Vancouver Canucks fired Travis Green, few of us were surprised. His grasp on the gig was tenuous to begin with, and the Canucks had three wins in 13 games.
When they replaced him with Bruce Boudreau … again, few of us were surprised. Boudreau is the NHL’s answer to The Wolf in “Pulp Fiction,” the guy you bring in to quickly clean up a gruesome mess and crack a few jokes in the process. If Canucks ownership felt there was a playoff berth somewhere in this team, there was only one man to call. That he knows his way around coaching highly skilled young players is a bonus.
So why weren’t either of these events surprising? It’s because NHL fans have this strange, Borg-like hive mind sometimes where we assume something will happen and then it inevitably does. Like Jack Eichel getting traded to the Vegas Golden Knights: This was the least interesting outcome, because we knew Vegas could ante up the most for him and because we knew owner Bill Foley still needed a No. 1 center for his Pokémon collection of NHL stars. We just knew.
There are other decisions and events that most hockey fans suppose will happen. So we’ve decided to investigate these widely held beliefs. Here is the NHL Assumptions Test, in which we either confirm your suspicions or provide needles for your balloons, based on the probability of the event. Which in itself is an assumption, come to think of it.
Assumption: Rick Tocchet will be the next coach of the Philadelphia Flyers
It’s strange to watch a Flyers team with no discernible personality, because this is a franchise whose very logo conjures visions to gap-tooth smiles and on-ice assaults. That’s undoubtedly the appeal of Tocchet, who spent 621 games and 1,815 penalty minutes with the Flyers in two different stints as a player. He’s a bit overrated as a head coach, in the sense that anyone who squeezes even a little success out of the Arizona Coyotes gets an achievement multiplier. (See also: Darcy Kuemper and Don Maloney). His teams there never generated enough offense to match their consistently decent defense.
Tocchet is currently a studio analyst with TNT, where he’s quite good as the sarcastic older brother to Paul Bissonnette.
Probability: 75%. The lure of “ex-Flyer returns to make Flyers good again” is probably too strong for the team to ignore. But keep in mind that (a) maybe Tocchet likes being on TV, (b) GM Chuck Fletcher’s unending admiration for interim coach Mike Yeo and (c) that there are other interesting candidates out there, including former Dallas Stars coach Jim Montgomery, who is not only a former Flyers player but coined “The Legion of Doom” nickname for the Eric Lindros line, no less.
OK and (d) the financial aspect of this. Alain Vigneault makes $5 million annually through 2023-24. Tocchet made $1.5 million as head coach of the Coyotes and is rather well-compensated as a TV analyst. That could be a lot of cheddar between the guy they hire to coach and the guy they’re paying to not coach…
Assumption: The Arizona Coyotes will finish in last place
We’ve praised the meticulous deconstruction of the Coyotes by GM Bill Armstrong, who had a stated desire to rebuild the team through the draft and now has the treasure trove of picks to do so. Through 25 games, the Coyotes are on the right wrong path: Their .240 points percentage is the lowest in the NHL, good for 32nd in the league and great for lottery odds.
Probability: 90%. Things got a little interesting for the Coyotes recently, as Scott Wedgewood and Karel Vejmelka gave them strong goaltending performances and earned points in the standings. But goalie Carter Hutton is on the way back to the lineup, which is good news for their continued residency in the basement. Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic projects Arizona to have a league-low 54 points and gives them a 98% chance of finishing last in the Central Division. But there’s always the chance that the Ottawa Senators find a way to be just a little worse.
Assumption: Marc-Andre Fleury will be traded to a contender
The Chicago Blackhawks acquired Fleury to solidify their goaltending in a mad dash to turn them back into a contender. Unfortunately, he started the season playing behind Jeremy Colliton‘s defensive system. Colliton is gone, and the Blackhawks have gone 8-5-0 after opening the season 1-9-2. But it’s probably too late: MoneyPuck gives Chicago a 5.1% chance of making the playoffs.
So the attention inevitably turns to Fleury, last season’s Vezina Trophy winner, and whether he’ll spend the rest of the final season of his contract on a new team. What contender wouldn’t love a three-time Stanley Cup champion to solidify their net? Colorado and Edmonton would, we imagine!
Probability: 25%. I think Fleury’s desire to play for a contender is surpassed by his desire not to have his family uprooted for a second time in a year. He’s reportedly happy in Chicago, and so is his family. Maybe an opportunity presents itself that would be amenable for Fleury to move. But with trade protection that extends beyond his 10-team list — Fleury’s going to have to want to play for whatever team attempts to trade for him — the Blackhawks might listen to offers, but that’s no guarantee he wants to be moved.
The Tkachuks are St. Louis hockey royalty, having grown up there while their father Keith was scoring 427 points in 543 games with the Blues. There was a hot “Matthew Tkachuk for Vladimir Tarasenko” rumor in the offseason that never came to pass. Matthew, 23, and Brady, 22, are two young, American standouts that could be the scrunchy faces of the Blues franchise for years to come.
Probability: 40%. Matthew is in his last season before restricted free agency. He says he’s happy in Calgary and will talk contract after the season. Brady is apparently really happy in Ottawa: He’s in the first year of a seven-year contract extension with the Senators that runs through 2027-28, with a full no-move clause kicking in starting in 2025-26.
But the desire to bring the boys back to St. Louis is palpable in the Gateway City. “Brady attended the Blues’ Stanley Cup parade. The fit, for both brothers, always has been painfully obvious. But now one might really be within reach, offering a set of skills the Blues lack,” wrote Ben Frederickson in the Post-Dispatch.
Matthew’s a possibility in the near term. Brady might take a little longer. But this could happen. Eventually.
Assumption: The Sedins will be co-general managers of the Vancouver Canucks
Oh, so they refuse to be on the same Hall of Fame plaque but would share general manager duties with the Canucks?
There’s plenty of precedent for a two-headed monster as general NHL manager, both unofficially and that one time in Dallas when they hired Les Jackson and Brett “Ambassador of Fun” Hull to run the team. That worked out well until they signed Sean Avery, and then it did not.
Daniel and Henrik Sedin were hired as special advisors to the general manager last summer. Despite that inexperience, there’s already speculation about the twins running the Canucks after the team fired Jim Benning, the general manager they were advising specially.
Probability: 20%. We should specify that this is the probability for the current job opening. There’s no doubt the Sedins will continue to learn the managerial ropes with their eyes on eventually running this franchise one day. But there’s a much higher probability of them serving as the understudies to someone like former Penguins boss Jim Rutherford, who would be interested in a president of hockey operations job but less so a long run as general manager.
The twins aren’t ready yet, but they will be one day. Which is going to be amazing: If one of them makes a trade, does the other one feel the cap impact?
Assumption: The NHL will listen to players like Connor McDavid and better protect its stars
This would theoretically include more diligent rules enforcement during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, where players like McDavid can go an entire series without drawing a penalty.
Probability: 0%. Sorry, are you new here? There’s a slightly higher probability that Tom Wilson wins the Lady Byng.
Assumption: The Islanders will rally for a playoff spot
It was almost unfathomable before the season to think that the New York Islanders would spend their first few games at UBS Arena residing in the Metro Division basement, 12 points out of a playoff spot. Luckily for Islanders fans, the arena has 17 bars.
They’re 18th in goals-against average (2.95) and 31st in goals per game (2.05), with a lineup that has been beset by injuries and enough COVID-19 absences to cause postponements of games.
Probability: 36.2%. As of Wednesday, that was the playoff probability given to the Islanders via the number crunchers at MoneyPuck. Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic is a little less forgiving of their early-season stumble, as his model projects the Islanders to finish with 86 points and gives them an 87% chance of missing the postseason.
The Islanders’ front-loaded road schedule means they have 35 of their remaining 61 games at home. Now they just have to, you know, actually win there.
Tuukka Rask is rehabbing from his offseason hip surgery and is currently an unrestricted free agent. He’s practicing in Boston, most recently as an emergency fill-in during Bruins practice after Linus Ullmark was placed in the COVID-19 protocol. He’s working with Boston goalie coach Bob Essensa, including time before practice.
All of this is probably a little awkward for Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, the two goalies who took over for Rask.
Probability 99.9%. Bruins GM Don Sweeney has said “we have not hidden from that fact that if he indeed is healthy and wants to play, that he’s likely to be part of our group.” Adding Rask would be like getting the jolt the team gets from a midseason trade, and they’re a team that can use the jolt.
As we all know, there are no certainties in the NHL. But this one comes close.
Three things about that Zegras assist
HOCKEY ALLEY-OOP 🤯#SCtop10 pic.twitter.com/8xO7lmMAxS
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 8, 2021
1. I’ve been asked a few dozen times whether this Trevor Zegras-to-Sonny Milano goal has hurdled to the top of the goal of the year rankings over that instant classic from Connor McDavid, in which he shredded the Rangers’ defense like it was a head of lettuce.
Honestly, the argument reminds me of those Oscar years in which a masterpiece of the art form wins Best Picture over another film with more significant culture cachet. For example, there’s no question “12 Years a Slave” is an instant classic. There’s also no question that “The Wolf of Wall Street” ended up being a more salient part of our popular culture discourse. See also: “Spotlight” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Which is to say that McDavid’s goal is one of the most remarkable ones I’ve seen, but it isn’t the one that led Scott Van Pelt’s “SportsCenter” and earned a shoutout from Michael B. Jordan in the same night. It’s the difference between “Connor doing Connor things” and “Wait, they can do that in hockey?”
2. Shoutout to Sonny Milano. How many times has an all-timer highlight pass been sabotaged by a shooter botching the finish? “That would have been a tough one to be a ‘no goal,'” Zegras said in an understatement. But more than that, Milano was actually calling for the pass from in front of the net. “He was yelling ‘Michigan!'” Zegras said, in reference to the “lacrosse play” he pulled in back of the Sabres’ goal before the pass, “so I ended up just flipping it over the net. He’s got great hand/eye. He did the rest.”
From ‘EHT Rocker’ in the @PuckSoupPodcast Discord, Pavel Datsyuk does ‘The Zegras.’ (He must have been a time traveler!) https://t.co/YPb6QgFbn0
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) December 8, 2021
3. Zegras said he’s never seen this play successfully completed before. The closest we’ve come to seeing it in the NHL was when Pavel Datsyuk attempted the behind-the-net aerial pass to Dan Cleary, who would have had an open net if he’d connected with it. Alas, the attempt failed. But then we wouldn’t have gotten the visceral thrill of “The Flying Z” working this week, would we?
Winners and losers of the week
Winner: Bruce Boudreau
The guy arrives in Vancouver, the Canucks win two games in a row, the fans are chanting “Bruce, There It Is” and owner Francesco Aquilini is tweeting things like “Gotta love it!” Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Boudreau, that is.
Loser: Timing
Transformative as this moment might be for the 2021-22 Canucks, they’re still a team with 22 points in 27 games and a 14.1% chance of making the playoffs. Aquilini said he might have waited too long to fire everyone. That might end up being prophetic.
Winner: Alain Vigneault
Small sample size, but it must be quite a feeling to have over $10 million owed to you by a team that’s doing everything it can to prove that you weren’t the problem.
Loser: New voices
Bruce Boudreau and Mike Yeo are back behind the bench. Rumored names in Vancouver for the GM job include Jim Rutherford, who’s been around since the Hartford Whalers; Marc Bergevin, who was Montreal’s general manager two weeks ago; and Mike Gillis, who is the apex of NHL recycling in that he may rejoin the team that fired him. As Akim Aliu said, a bit more caustically: “One dinosaur out, another dinosaur in and we wonder why hockey culture isn’t changing.”
Winner: Robin Lehner
I don’t always agree with Lehner, but I respect the heck out of him for the boldness of his convictions. He put his mental health first, opted out of the 2022 Olympics and potentially cost him the chance to be Sweden’s starting goalie in a post-Henrik Lundqvist world. There are other NHL players that share his concerns about the COVID-19 restrictions — and potential pitfalls — in Beijing. None have yet put those concerns ahead of the chance to represent their countries on the ice. Lehner, as usual, was unflinching in his actions, and may have paved the way for others who share his apprehensions.
Loser: The prelims
The IIHF announced that China’s men’s national team will take part in the 2022 Winter Olympic hockey tournament, placed in the same group as Canada, the United States and Germany. The puck-line wagering on their games might resemble the point spread when Alabama has that early-season football game against Mercer University.
Winner: Hockey-related revenue
According to Forbes, the NHL’s hockey-related revenue should increase “from a projected $4.8 billion this season to $5.4 billion in 2022-23” and then all the way up to $6 billion in 2025-26, which is 22% more than in the 2019-20 season. No word on whether the owners plan on fitting Gary Bettman with robot parts in order to make him commissioner for the next 30 years.
Loser: Arizona Coyotes
Quite a week for the Coyotes, who went from brushing off rumors that the team is for sale and could relocate to Houston to explaining that they won’t be locked out of their arena in Glendale for delinquent payments. “The initial indications are that it appears to be the result of an unfortunate human error,” the team said. To err is human; to hastily repay delinquent tax bills and unpaid arena charges in order to not be forced to play NHL games at a local figure skating rink is divine.
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