The NHL left its short 56-game season on Tuesday, and one thing was clear: the next 115 nights, which will pile up in 863 games, will be doses. The opening night brought us a little bit of everything: a banner he raised without fans, a very dramatic disc drop, a fight, an overtime, a dizzying amount of announcements and 37 goals combined.
These are our main takeaways:
1. Montreal Canadiens should be players in the Northern Division
By bringing the Toronto Maple Leafs (the team everyone plans to flee with the division) to overtime, the Habs made a statement. Don’t count Montreal out. There are a lot of things you like about the low season of CEO Marc Bergevin. He added depth in every position, from goalkeeper (solid backup Jake Allen) to defense (Joel Edmundson, as well as the arrival of full potential Alexander Romanov, who looked fantastic playing 22:49 in his debut ) to the offensive (Tyler Toffoli was a great free agent, but Josh Anderson was the first to fall in love with the fan base with total effort, including two goals).
The timeline is clearly accelerating, especially with Jesperi Kotkaniemi, 20, and Nick Suzuki, 21, ready to contribute. A game like Wednesday’s shows that Canadians have a braggart.
“We were the best team,” Anderson said afterwards.
Message received
2. Things look different, but we will adapt
The NHL summer bubble taught us that empty hockey pitches translate well into a television product. The lack of fans was never distracted; the mesh covering the level 100 seats definitely helps, and the transmissions perfected mostly the ambient noise of the crowd. But it has also changed a lot since the summer. The NHL has calculated its losses by interrupting its normal schedule and Commissioner Gary Bettman said the league and its clubs will lose billions, not millions, even to host a 2021 season. leads generated directly and indirectly in games account for approximately 50% of league revenue and, as of now, only the Coyotes, Panthers and Stars expect to have fans, with limited capacity).
So the NHL is getting a little more aggressive when it comes to chasing revenue. For the first time, the league sold name rights to the names of its divisions. You won’t hear me call it MassMutual NHL East Division often, but you’ll hear it on your broadcasts. A lot. The league also allowed teams to place ads on the helmet for the first time; however, they are so unobtrusive that I didn’t notice them (nor did I care) much. Ads on the beach, though? Holy cow, it looked like an overload. The most visible were the advertisements surrounding the glass above the boards. In Tampa, they were small Adidas logos. In Edmonton, the words “Rogers 5G” were printed over and over around the glass. It was a lot. But perspective: it’s about keeping people busy and entertaining ourselves.
3. It will be a long season in Chicago
A game against defending champions might not be the best barometer, but Wednesday’s 5-1 by the Lightning felt as brutal as it was inevitable for the Blackhawks. Chicago went from franchise legend Corey Crawford (the only player in team history to win several Stanley Cups) to an unproven trio. Malcolm Subban, the starter of the first game, made some noteworthy savings, but if this is the best defensive effort, it can be taken away.
The blue line, leaking all last season, often left Subban tall and dry. It was hard for the Blackhawks to generate any predictions. No Crawford, Brandon Saad, Alex Nylander, Kirby Dach and Jonathan Toews (no inspirational substitutes) is a problem. The Blackhawks finally admitted what was made very clear with their transactions: they are in a rebuild.
“We don’t have enough players, from top to bottom, to compete with the best teams,” GM Stan Bowman told me in October. “We have a lot of good players, we started pretty well to make a good team, but we still have a long way to go and I accept that.”
Chicago uses this season as an opportunity to give young boys rehearsals. While it’s admirable to have a plan, you have to feel for Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith, who continue to give it their all at a high level, but don’t have the support cast around them to visualize another championship anytime soon.
4. It causes the foul
It has been a gradual trend in the NHL over the last five seasons, with an average of goals scored slowly (with a maximum of 3.02 goals per game / team last season) and a declining average goal-scoring percentage (.910 in 2019-20). The first three games of the Eastern Conference only brought us 24 goals (four goals on average per team). Some goalkeepers I spoke to during the offseason, especially on teams that hadn’t played since March, said the long stretch without game situations would be a challenge and might take a slight adjustment period. If you’re wondering how the lack of a proper training camp and preseason exhibits could manifest itself, expect some sloppy, open games, at least to start the campaign.
5. It’s not easy being the favorite
I remember talking to Nathan MacKinnon before last season and he said it was the first time in his career at Colorado Avalanche that he felt his team could win. The stakes were increased this year, thanks to MacKinnon playing continuously as an MVP and GM Joe Sakic has continuously formed cunning moves to make this team stronger. Colorado opened as a Stanley Cup favorite in Las Vegas this season. But it was a slow start for the Avs in their opening act. They were too careless with the drive, which you can’t afford against the big, hard St. Louis Blues. He was eager to see the line of Gabriel Landeskog, Nazem Kadri and Brandon Saad, but they didn’t look good together, and it wasn’t long before coach Jared Bednar started mixing his lines. Colorado’s typically high-running offense struggled to generate much pressure. Credit to St. Louis for a strong team game. And yes, it’s just Game 1. But Beak Eyes is now in Colorado and they’ll get the best out of every team every night.
On Wednesday, Patrick adjusted to his first NHL game in 652 days. (And you thought 2020 was long!) Then he scored in the first period, in the power play (Philadelphia’s Achilles heel in the summer bubble). Election No. 2 of the 2019 draft lost all last season with a weakened migraine disorder. It was a lingering story for Philly all season; GM Chuck Fletcher said last January that Patrick was progressing and the Flyers were optimistic he could join a playoff. Philly provided deep centers on last year’s trade deadline to make up for it, but they are now in much better shape, with Patrick playing the third-line role behind Sean Couturier and Kevin Hayes.
Meanwhile, Lindblom played for the first time since her cancer diagnosis in December 2019. Lindblom, who was having a breakup season at the time of her diagnosis, finished her final chemotherapy treatment in July.
“He’s a guy when you see him in the locker room, you want to go into battle with him,” Hayes said. “He’s a warrior. He didn’t look out of place.”
Even sweeter: the Flyers ’fifth goal, originally credited to Travis Konecny, was awarded to Lindblom hours after the match.
The Flyers ’offense exploded for six goals, including three in a row to close out the third, to defeat rivals Pittsburgh Penguins in their first goal, showing why many hockey people expect the Flyers to fight this year. This game really softened the depth of Philly. I’m buying the Cup hype on this team.
7. A few young players to watch the rest of the season
Nucks Hoglander, the star of the Canucks training camp, will be the last Swedish obsession in Vancouver. Without much competition behind for the right wing, Hoglander could stay in the top six for a while. A goal in Hoglander’s first game means his hype will increase at the warp speed of the Canadian media. It’s the same for Alexander Romanov, who, as mentioned above, will have a big role in Montreal, only after Shea Weber on ice time on Wednesday. The defender played with a lot of confidence, and have you seen this stretch pass ??
That boasted system of prospects that the Flyers have accumulated? It is now fully realized, with the first round of 2018 Joel Farabee shining with a goal and three assists. Young Farabee, 20, looks set to take a big step forward. And it will be nice to see how the Oilers ’Kailer Yamamoto gets a full season after scoring 11 goals in 27 games last season (and one in the game against the Canucks on Wednesday). The looks at Leon Draisaitl’s first power play and wing will only enhance Yamamoto’s actions.
Jordan Kyrou was boiling at the opening of the Blues and could be a reliable depth scoring option. He said he gained ten pounds this summer, but does not appear to have compromised his speed.
And I’m not sure how much rookie defender Cal Foote will play with Tampa Bay, but consider me intrigued. Coach Jon Cooper backed up Foote’s minutes in his NHL debut against Chicago (he recorded just 10:47) as he definitely showed some discomfort in the first game, but Foote has promises. We’ll see if he gets back on the taxi roster once the lightning escapes his pay hell.
The 23-year-old American skater had a chance to be the first player in NHL history to score in the first five games of a season. The first four occurred in Matthews ’first four NHL seasons. It didn’t happen to him on Wednesday against the Habs, although he touched a crossbar on the third. I keep predicting that Matthews will chase Alex Ovechkin for the scoring crown this season; it will only have more updating to do.