Around the NHL, Off-Season Edition

[Brian39]

They had a rough season but I’d still include Vegas

Be tough without Lehner, but Thompson looked legit last season

I'd have put Vegas into that group with a healthy/recovered Lehner, but I can't do it right now with their projected goalie tandem. They aren't a real contender to me unless/until they acquire a legitimate starter or Logan Thompson looks like a starter over a 45-50 game workload.

Calgary is either there or very close to there for me. They lost the best line in hockey, but their 1st line should still be very good with Huberdeau/Lindholm and their middle 6 should be a lot better. Backlund-to-Kadri is a big, big upgrade for the 2nd line. Monahan-to-Backlund is a similarly big upgrade to the 3rd line. Lindholm-Kadri-Backlund is as complete of a top 9 center group as you can build without having a no-doubt top 10 franchise center on your roster. Lindholm is at worst a top 10 two-way center in the game and is absolutely a legit 1C. Throw last year out if you believe that the top line was so good because Tkachuk and Gaudreau were in contract years. In the 3 seasons before that, Lindholm played at a 30 goal and 71 point pace with very strong possession and expected numbers. Kadri has been a good 2C for years. Last year's 100 point pace will almost certainly be his career season by a healthy margin, but even major regression still leaves him as a 55-65 point guy who is damn good defensively. Backlund is one of the best middle 6 shut down centers around, but he doesn't have the offensive ability to be a good enough 2C. Pushing him down to a shut down 3rd line is the perfect utilization for him. There isn't a top 9 center group in the league that can defend as well as that trio and I think they provide enough offense to make their center group top 10 in the league. The D group is among the league's best, they have an elite winger, they have a couple other legit top 6 caliber wingers, they have a top 10 goalie and their coach is one of the best defensive coaches of the cap era. The wing depth is the only glaring hole for me and that is probably the easiest/cheapest thing to go rent mid-season. If they go into the playoffs with this roster (with no unexpected breakout season), I'll have them a tier below the legit contenders. But I fully expect them to add a winger around the deadline to add some scoring pop in the middle 6. If/when that happens, they are right there for me.

 

[stl76]

I'd have put Vegas into that group with a healthy/recovered Lehner, but I can't do it right now with their projected goalie tandem. They aren't a real contender to me unless/until they acquire a legitimate starter or Logan Thompson looks like a starter over a 45-50 game workload.

Calgary is either there or very close to there for me. They lost the best line in hockey, but their 1st line should still be very good with Huberdeau/Lindholm and their middle 6 should be a lot better. Backlund-to-Kadri is a big, big upgrade for the 2nd line. Monahan-to-Backlund is a similarly big upgrade to the 3rd line. Lindholm-Kadri-Backlund is as complete of a top 9 center group as you can build without having a no-doubt top 10 franchise center on your roster. Lindholm is at worst a top 10 two-way center in the game and is absolutely a legit 1C. Throw last year out if you believe that the top line was so good because Tkachuk and Gaudreau were in contract years. In the 3 seasons before that, Lindholm played at a 30 goal and 71 point pace with very strong possession and expected numbers. Kadri has been a good 2C for years. Last year's 100 point pace will almost certainly be his career season by a healthy margin, but even major regression still leaves him as a 55-65 point guy who is damn good defensively. Backlund is one of the best middle 6 shut down centers around, but he doesn't have the offensive ability to be a good enough 2C. Pushing him down to a shut down 3rd line is the perfect utilization for him. There isn't a top 9 center group in the league that can defend as well as that trio and I think they provide enough offense to make their center group top 10 in the league. The D group is among the league's best, they have an elite winger, they have a couple other legit top 6 caliber wingers, they have a top 10 goalie and their coach is one of the best defensive coaches of the cap era. The wing depth is the only glaring hole for me and that is probably the easiest/cheapest thing to go rent mid-season. If they go into the playoffs with this roster (with no unexpected breakout season), I'll have them a tier below the legit contenders. But I fully expect them to add a winger around the deadline to add some scoring pop in the middle 6. If/when that happens, they are right there for me.

What do you make of Markstrom’s playoff performance? Seemed like he really broke down in a way against the oilers that honestly shocked me and has me worried about him in the future.

 

[Brian39]

What do you make of Markstrom’s playoff performance? Seemed like he really broke down in a way against the oilers that honestly shocked me and has me worried about him in the future.

In terms of my long term view of him? I make very little of it.

He was fantastic against Dallas in round 1 and he was very good in 2020. He was not at all good against Edmonton, but that sample is way too small for me to worry that it was anything more than a cold stretch with terrible timing (exacerbated by having to keep facing two of the world's best 5 forwards while they were on absolute heaters). He has a .925 across his other 21 playoff starts and those 5 games brought his career playoff SV% down to .911. I view it as an anomaly given the rest of his resume.

If Calgary is concerned about it, then they should manage his in-season workload better (they should do that no matter what). Playing him 63 games in a condensed schedule was stupid. Every goalie who played 60+ games last year was visibly tired, got injured down the stretch and/or had much more bad games than usual last year. Markstrom was the only one to avoid those things during the regular season, but then he looked awful in round 2. It definitely could have been him breaking down after getting one of the hardest workloads in the league (5th in games/minutes played and Calgary has one of the harder travel schedules in the league).

I've been banging the drum on not playing your goalie 60+ times for years and I'd want Calgary to start him less regardless of what happened in the playoffs. They are a good enough team in a bad enough division that they should be absolutely fine if they "only" play him in 50-55 games. That would still put him in the top half of starter workloads and Vladar is good enough to adequately bank points.

Edit: Vasilevski is the only goalie in the league who I consider a sure thing to give his team good enough goaltending to win a 7 game series. Like all goalies, he has rough nights, but he is the only goalie that I absolutely know is going to snap out of it in time to get you back in the series. Over a mulit-year sample, Tampa just doesn't ever have to win a series in spite of him and that isn't true of any other team/goalie. I think it will be true of Shesterkin, but he needs to prove it and those two guys are my top 2 goalies by a wide margin. The other 30 teams have to live with the reality that they have a guy who might have a slump that lasts for 3+ games and they might have to win a series in spite of poor goaltending. The Flames are one of those 30 teams, but I'd roll the dice with Markstrom over the large majority of goalies in the rest of the group.

 

[Frobbo]

Edmonton and Calgary arguably got better this off season. Colorado and Blues didn't. The West has tightened up considerably.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Edmonton and Calgary arguably got better this off season. Colorado and Blues didn't. The West has tightened up considerably.

Somebody (or 2 or 3 somebodies) in Pacific will put up 100+ points because they are there for the taking. None of those teams though really impress me.

 

[TK 421]

Edmonton and Calgary arguably got better this off season. Colorado and Blues didn't. The West has tightened up considerably.

Not disagreeing with your main point that the West tightened up a bit but disagree that the Blues didn't get better.

I would argue that just simply having Leddy added to the defense is huge and qualifies as better than last year. I get that some may not consider that a new add but seeing as how we never had Leddy, Krug and Scandella in the same PO game and went almost all of last season without Leddy, I consider it both new and better to a yet TBD degree. So at the very least, the defense is better.

We can wait and see how the bottom 6 forwards shake out after camp because that can certainly be debated as to whether it's better than last year or not. I just think based on the Leddy add alone this roster is better to some degree than last season. Btw I get if you're not really considering Leddy as new and that could seem like no improvement to you if you weren't counting him.

 

[izzy]

vegas cup champs confirmed

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

vegas cup champs confirmed

How many times will he be scratched because he refused to leave casino?

 

[ChicagoBlues]

How many times will he be scratched because he refused to leave casino?

Kessel = excess, so Vegas is perfect for him.

 

[izzy]

bad choice if he wants to get that ironman record, as vegas notoriously doesnt give a f*** about their players

 

[The Note]

Looking at the "best goaltenders" poll being run on the main boards right now, the state of goaltending is pretty dire leaguewide. There's probably ~5 guys I would feel comfortable betting on having strong seasons, and even that may be stretching it. Perhaps it's just recency bias coming off a season where everyone seemed to set career highs in goal scoring but this seems like the weakest goaltending has been in a long while. Wouldn't surprise me to see bunch of guys have strong offensive seasons again.

 

[Stealth JD]

Looking at the "best goaltenders" poll being run on the main boards right now, the state of goaltending is pretty dire leaguewide. There's probably ~5 guys I would feel comfortable betting on having strong seasons, and even that may be stretching it. Perhaps it's just recency bias coming off a season where everyone seemed to set career highs in goal scoring but this seems like the weakest goaltending has been in a long while. Wouldn't surprise me to see bunch of guys have strong offensive seasons again.

without looking at that poll....Shesterkin, Vasilevsky, Hellebuyck, Markstrom, Sorokin, Saros...those are the guys I'd consider upper-echelon...gets pretty thin from there. I don't know that there are any fewer good goalies than usual; every era has a few standouts and a large group of 'everything else'.

 

[Xerloris]

Would still take Binny over any of them.

 

[Brian39]

Looking at the "best goaltenders" poll being run on the main boards right now, the state of goaltending is pretty dire leaguewide. There's probably ~5 guys I would feel comfortable betting on having strong seasons, and even that may be stretching it. Perhaps it's just recency bias coming off a season where everyone seemed to set career highs in goal scoring but this seems like the weakest goaltending has been in a long while. Wouldn't surprise me to see bunch of guys have strong offensive seasons again.

I'd be comfortable putting money on all of Vasilevski, Shesterkin, Saros, Sorokin, Markstrom, Demko, Andersen, Hellebuyck, Jarry and Oettinger to have strong seasons. I'm sure a couple will dud, but that has been the nature of predicting the top 10 goalies for as long as I can remember. I'd have Bob and Kuemper pretty close to that list, but Bob has been unpredictable in the recent past and I always have reservations about goalies going to new teams. I'm not sure who starts game 1 of the playoffs for them, but I think Boston has a tandem to feel comfortable with in Swayman/Ullmark. Definitely not as many studs as we had when Hank, Price, Luongo, Bishop, Bob, Rask, Rinn, Quick, etc were all in their overlapping primes, but I'd say there are still a good chunk of 'good' goalies.

To me, it is the middle/bottom of the league's goalies that seems to be less predictable/comfortable. Binner can be very good, but hasn't put it together over a full season. Husso and Ned both have been very good in small samples, but we'll see how the two of them put it together over a full season together. Quick/Pedersen have both been good and bad recently, so what happens there? Is Campbell a 55+ game quality starter in Edmonton or is he more of a tandem guy? Is Grubauer a legit starter or was he a tandem-type talent who looked great in Colorado's system? Can the Ducks figure out how to prevent Gibson from breaking down mid-season? How much does Fleury have left in the tank? Who is Talbot going to be behind a worse Ottawa D? What is Matt Murray going to do in his last chance at NHL relevance? Was last year a one-off for Elvis who was dealing with a personal tragedy or did NHL shooters figure him out? Are Hart and Blackwood the future of Team Canada like so many people thought 1-2 years ago or will they be guys who never live up to the hype? Do the tandems in San Jose, Vegas, Buffalo, Arizona, or Chicago have even 1 guy that is still NHL caliber?

The state of the goaltending talent league-wide is certainly not as strong as it was a few years ago, but I think the uptick in scoring is more about the crackdown on stick infractions on the hands as well as forwards doing a better job improving their shots with skills coaches. 5 years ago there were only a handful of guys who could get off a strong and accurate shot after pulling the puck towards their skates to mask the release. That is becoming a routine play in the NHL. 5 years ago you didn't have many guys trying to put the puck post-and-in at 14-20 inches off the ice. That has become a favorite shot because it is a harder stop for a butterfly goalie (every goalie in the league) to stop than the pucks that miss the exact corner but are 2+ feet off the ice. I think the increase in shots that can credibly beat a goalie every night has inched a lot of the middle/bottom of goaltending talent below what we used to consider 'good enough' and it will be interesting to see what that means for the next 5 years.

 

[The Note]

I'd be comfortable putting money on all of Vasilevski, Shesterkin, Saros, Sorokin, Markstrom, Demko, Andersen, Hellebuyck, Jarry and Oettinger to have strong seasons. I'm sure a couple will dud, but that has been the nature of predicting the top 10 goalies for as long as I can remember. I'd have Bob and Kuemper pretty close to that list, but Bob has been unpredictable in the recent past and I always have reservations about goalies going to new teams. I'm not sure who starts game 1 of the playoffs for them, but I think Boston has a tandem to feel comfortable with in Swayman/Ullmark. Definitely not as many studs as we had when Hank, Price, Luongo, Bishop, Bob, Rask, Rinn, Quick, etc were all in their overlapping primes, but I'd say there are still a good chunk of 'good' goalies.

To me, it is the middle/bottom of the league's goalies that seems to be less predictable/comfortable. Binner can be very good, but hasn't put it together over a full season. Husso and Ned both have been very good in small samples, but we'll see how the two of them put it together over a full season together. Quick/Pedersen have both been good and bad recently, so what happens there? Is Campbell a 55+ game quality starter in Edmonton or is he more of a tandem guy? Is Grubauer a legit starter or was he a tandem-type talent who looked great in Colorado's system? Can the Ducks figure out how to prevent Gibson from breaking down mid-season? How much does Fleury have left in the tank? Who is Talbot going to be behind a worse Ottawa D? What is Matt Murray going to do in his last chance at NHL relevance? Was last year a one-off for Elvis who was dealing with a personal tragedy or did NHL shooters figure him out? Are Hart and Blackwood the future of Team Canada like so many people thought 1-2 years ago or will they be guys who never live up to the hype? Do the tandems in San Jose, Vegas, Buffalo, Arizona, or Chicago have even 1 guy that is still NHL caliber?

The state of the goaltending talent league-wide is certainly not as strong as it was a few years ago, but I think the uptick in scoring is more about the crackdown on stick infractions on the hands as well as forwards doing a better job improving their shots with skills coaches. 5 years ago there were only a handful of guys who could get off a strong and accurate shot after pulling the puck towards their skates to mask the release. That is becoming a routine play in the NHL. 5 years ago you didn't have many guys trying to put the puck post-and-in at 14-20 inches off the ice. That has become a favorite shot because it is a harder stop for a butterfly goalie (every goalie in the league) to stop than the pucks that miss the exact corner but are 2+ feet off the ice. I think the increase in shots that can credibly beat a goalie every night has inched a lot of the middle/bottom of goaltending talent below what we used to consider 'good enough' and it will be interesting to see what that means for the next 5 years.

Re-reading my post it does seem like I was putting the uptick in scoring solely on the state of goaltending which wasn't really my intention. I agree that there is a lot that's gone into the uptick in goals, including what you laid out, but also due to pre-scouting, offensive systems, generally more talent up and down lineups, etc. All of that is likely combining to exacerbate the drop off after the top 5-10 goalies in the league for sure.

 

[Reality Czech]

without looking at that poll....Shesterkin, Vasilevsky, Hellebuyck, Markstrom, Sorokin, Saros...those are the guys I'd consider upper-echelon...gets pretty thin from there. I don't know that there are any fewer good goalies than usual; every era has a few standouts and a large group of 'everything else'.

I remember Cam Janssen saying on a podcast a while back that goalies are so hard to rank and predict. He said there are a handful of elite guys and then there isn't much separation between let's say the 8th best and 30th best. I believe the context was Binnington's struggles and how important the mental part of the game is for goalies. They're all athletic, they all know the fundamentals but it's hard to maintain that consistency when you have to start 60 games a year.

I thought it was good insight and makes a lot of sense. There are probably a bunch of guys who have the potential to put up good numbers but there is a reason the guys you mentioned are considered elite.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Vegas offered Stastny more money than Carolina to come back but he chose Carolina.

 

[greybush314]

The way Binnington plays when he's going good is very unique. No other goalie handles the puck the way he does and when he's on he's a brick wall as well. We would have won the cup imo if Binny wasn't hurt.

 

[Reality Czech]

Vegas offered Stastny more money than Carolina to come back but he chose Carolina.

Vegas is a team for mercenaries like Petro and Eichel, not nice guys like Stastny

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Vegas offered Stastny more money than Carolina to come back but he chose Carolina.

We have enough real world data to know what Vegas is like behind the glitz and big contracts.

They are mercenary, like most NHL teams, but even the mercenaries there are watching their backs. Not a great place to be if you don't have a no movement clause. Petro was smart. He got his bucks and he got a way to avoid always looking behind at what may be coming. He can just play hockey and watch his bank account. I don't know if there is much team commeraderie there given the high turn over. But something tells me that Petro never cared much for that stuff. His reputed cheapness at buying dinners when the team went out tells us much.

 

[joe galiba]

We have enough real world data to know what Vegas is like behind the glitz and big contracts.

They are mercenary, like most NHL teams, but even the mercenaries there are watching their backs. Not a great place to be if you don't have a no movement clause. Petro was smart. He got his bucks and he got a way to avoid always looking behind at what may be coming. He can just play hockey and watch his bank account. I don't know if there is much team commeraderie there given the high turn over. But something tells me that Petro never cared much for that stuff. His reputed cheapness at buying dinners when the team went out tells us much.

well, his last name ends in a vowel, so I am sure he will spend money on rings, watches, cars and the good salsiccia
and need a crowbar to get it out of his cold dead hands for anything else

not that I, umm, would personally know anyone like that

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

Avs just extended MacKinnon. 8x$12.6 mil.

 

[izzy]

That contract is wild

Apparently it’s a discount (highest paid player in the league).

 

[PocketNines]

ROR was +1 against that guy in the playoffs while putting up PPG, whereas the player who gets the big $$ stood still as MacKinnon flew by

 

[Frenzy31]

It's a fair contact. He is one of the top 5 players in the world and deserves to be paid like this. Just means they will be having to face things a bit sooner.