Neutral-Zone Crap: Post-deadline, Bruins are the clear favourite
They were the cream of the NHL prior to the trade deadline, then got better. Let's not overthink this...Plus, the declining value of picks, Pat Hickey of The Montreal Gazette and Situational Scoring
It was late in the 2018-19 season and I found myself in Jon Cooper’s office at the Amalie Arena. The Tampa Bay Lightning were putting the finishing touches on a season that would see them finish with the third-highest point total and 10th-best points percentage in NHL history. The conversation came around to the Lightning’s chances of winning the Stanley Cup that spring when Cooper made an interesting observation.
“If you had a choice between picking us and the field,” Cooper said, “you’d probably take the field, wouldn’t you?”
When you view it from that perspective – particularly considering that Cooper was proved right after the Lightning flamed out in the first round – the Boston Bruins will not win the Stanley Cup this season. In fact, the website moneypuck.com gives the Bruins just a 9.5 percent chance of winning the Cup, behind the Carolina Hurricanes (17.1 percent), Edmonton Oilers (13.2 percent) and Toronto Maple Leafs (11.4 per cent).
(Note to self: Find out what the good people at moneypuck.com are smoking and take steps to acquire said substance. Because that s**t must be really, really good.)
With a record of 48-8-5, the Bruins are on pace to post the highest point total in NHL history and the third-best points percentage – and the highest points percentage for any team that has played more than a 50-game season. They were by far the best team in the NHL prior to the trade deadline. And when all the dust cleared at 3 p.m. Friday afternoon, they were still by far the best team in the NHL. In fact, you could actually argue that, with GM Don Sweeney’s moves, the gap between the Bruins and the rest of the league actually grew.
While other teams were making blockbuster deals to keep pace in the arms race that is the Eastern Conference, the Bruins managed to get a lot of business done themselves. First, they acquired Dmitry Orlov (Or Scorelov, amirite? Or Orrlov, amirite?) and general pain in the arse Garnet Hathaway from the Washington Capitals, then dealt with a division rival to get Tyler Bertuzzi from the Detroit Red Wings. While he was doing that, Sweeney found time to extend the contract of David Pastrnak – a 26-year-old on the verge of recording a 50-goal season – for eight years.
So let’s not overthink this. The Bruins are now the clear favorite to win the Stanley Cup in 2022-23. Leading up to the deadline, it was almost impossible to keep up with the number of impactful trades that were being made. A lot of those deals were made by teams trying to keep up with and find an answer for the Bruins. Some of those teams got significantly better. None of them got as good as the Bruins. A enormous amount can happen in the next three months and injuries will dictate a lot of how this will all play out. But the Bruins are a historically great team that got even better. Now all they have to do is take it over the finish line.
ARE WE BACK TO ‘DRAFT SCHMAFT’?
By my count, since the season began in October, a total of 71 draft picks have been used as currency in deals, including 14 first-round picks, 14 second-rounders and 12 third-rounders. This clearly marks a departure from a time in the league when draft picks and prospects were considered sacrosanct and it was seen as an irresponsible mortgaging of the future to deal them.
But then Julien BriseBois came along and turned that entire concept on its ear. The Lightning GM did it again this year when he traded a depth defenceman in Cal Foote and five (five!) draft picks to get Tanner Jeannot, who is in the midst of a sophomore slump of epic proportions this season. After BriseBois made the deal, he went on to explain that he’s more interested in making deals for known quantities, even if it means giving away unknowns. He did it last year when he acquired Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul and again this year with Jeannot.
Kyle Dubas of the Toronto Maple Leafs is a new-age GM if ever there were one. This June, he (presumably) will preside over his sixth draft as a head of the organization’s hockey department. He has so far dealt away five of his first-round picks, two of them to dump salaries. The only time Dubas had his own first-rounder and used it was in his first draft in 2018 when he took Rasmus Sandin…who was dealt to the Washington Capitals to get Erik Gustafsson and the Boston Bruins’ first-rounder, which they had dealt to Washington to get Orlov.
It's not exactly the “draft schmaft” once uttered by former Maple Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher, but it’s close. The perceived value of later first-round picks is clearly being redefined and teams seem more willing to part with them than they ever have before. And in a trade environment that is often crippled by the salary cap, that’s a good thing.
PAT HICKEY, LEGEND
Today isn’t only Trade Deadline Day, it’s also Pat Hickey’s last day as a hockey writer for The Montreal Gazette. After 58 years in this business, Hickey has put a -30- on his career in journalism. And what a career it was, beginning in 1965 with The Montreal Star, then transitioning to Toronto before going back to Montreal. Even though Pat will turn 79 in April, he didn’t exactly leave on his own terms. There were two things that helped his decision. The first, and most important, was that the round of devastating cuts at Postmedia (which also claimed a good friend in Michael Traikos). Pat could have stayed on with The Gazette, but knew that if he left, someone else would be able to keep a job. Which is about as noble as it gets.
“The day after the cuts, we had a meeting on Zoom or Microsoft Teams or whatever the f**k it’s called,” Pat said. “And there was a young woman on there. She was 26-years-old and she had just bought a house in Montreal. She was crying. I just saw all these younger people…”
The second was the general direction in which the industry is headed. As part of its austerity measures, there has been a chain-wide ban on travel at Postmedia. Pat found out that even included the two-hour car trip (without the need for a hotel) to Montreal for a regular-season game recently.
Last Saturday, myself and colleagues Kevin McGran of The Toronto Star and Mike Zeisberger of nhl.com hopped into Zize’s truck and made the trek to Montreal for the Canadiens’ game against the Ottawa Senators at the Bell Centre, which was Pat’s last game. We joined the Montreal media contingent in toasting Pat with a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey before the game, then went to a hockey writers’ hangout called Hurley’s Irish Pub post-game and drank way, way too much. We all told Pat what a legend he is. And he’s even more legendary for volunteering to step away to save someone else’s job. Pat is an amateur stand-up comedian who has toured around Montreal with Derek Seguin to help save a bunch of Legion branches that are in peril of closing and he intends to write some books, including a memoir. That should be a great one.
FUN WITH NUMBERS - SITUATIONAL SCORING
In hockey, there’s an old saying that suggests they don’t ask how, they ask how many. Well around here, we don’t simply ask how many. We want to know how many mattered.
So here’s the weekly update to Hockey Unfiltered’s Situational Scoring Race. And, as the name suggests, it measures situational scoring, specifically which players produce offence at the most crucial times in the game.
As always, there are a couple of things to note, the most important being that goals are weighted more heavily than assists, with goals worth one point and assists worth half a point. In this system, goals can be worth more than one point and assists worth more than a half a point. For example, the first goal of a game is automatically worth two points, one for being the first goal of the game and one for putting that player’s team ahead in a game. An overtime goal is worth three, one for putting the team ahead, one for being the game-winner and one for the overtime goal. If that is the only goal in a 1-0 game, it’s worth four.
It can all be a little confusing, so here’s a glossary:
FIRST: When a player scores the first goal of the game.
AHEAD: Any goal that puts a team ahead at any point in the game, including overtime.
TIED: Any goal that pulls a team into a tie at any point in the game.
COMEBACK: A goal that is scored when a team is trailing by two goals or more and is part of a series of goals that eventually ties the game, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the game.
WINNER: A game-winning goal, but not by the NHL’s definition. The game-winner in this category is the goal that puts a team ahead in a game to stay. So in other words, you could have a 7-6 game and maybe the first goal of the game was the game-winner.
OT: Overtime goal.
SO: Only shootout game-winning goals are counted in this category.
NHL: Where the player stands in the actual NHL scoring race.
Great post, as usual. Thanks for highlighting Pat Hickey
Great stuff on Pat Hickey.