Panthers' coaching change, Carolina and Dougie Hamilton (Puck Daddy Countdown)

(In which Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

9. The Vancouver Canucks

They’re already one of the worst teams in the league. Now they lose the other of their two serviceable defenders for an extended period as well.

Alex Edler is out at least a month after breaking his finger against the Avs, and that’s really bad news for a defense that really only had Chris Tanev (out since early November) in the lineup besides. The Canucks are quickly learning that Erik Gudbranson isn’t the difference-maker they wanted him to be, and while Ben Hutton appears to be a pretty good player in his own right, the idea of giving him first-pairing minutes is concerning to say the least.

Troy Stecher? Does some stuff well but he’s a rookie. Luca Sbisa? No thanks. I feel like I’m forgetting someone. Oh right it’s Philip Larsen. Hmm, well, point taken.

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Of course, if you’re one of those people who thinks the Canucks should be steering straight for the nearest tree with this season — and you are obviously right about that — this is actually good news. But since this team actually believed it could be competitive, this is objectively bad news.

(With that having been said, I’ve started to formulate a conspiracy theory about the Canucks, and specifically Jim Benning, that ownership is inexplicably pushing for competitiveness. Meanwhile, the hockey people know this team is bad and just want the picks, but have to create the appearance of trying to compete by giving out bad contracts left right and center.

On the other hand, as with the people who think Donald Trump tweets wacky stuff because he’s a propaganda genius trying to distract the masses from his many scandals, rather than his simply having the attention span of a toddler, all other evidence suggests Benning isn’t good enough at his job to secretly tank the past two seasons. Occam’s razor, etc.)

8. Vegas Golden Knights

How great is it that after all the hemming and hawing about “We can’t be the Black Knights” and then taking six months to release a middle-of-the-road name any competent person could have cooked up in an afternoon, now the Army is like “Golden Knights, huh? Sounds familiar.”

And it’s really great because Bill Foley, an Army guy himself, knew about the name and went ahead anyway. Imagine if this goes to court. Hoo boy, that’d be funny.

7. A referendum on Computer Boys

So the Panthers fired their coach on Sunday, for reasons that baffled the hockey media.

Sure the team was underpeforming after adding a good amount of talent this summer. Sure the coach openly complained about the roster makeup to the media. Sure they’re fourth in the division and 10th in the conference.

But you can’t fire the coach!!!!!! He’s a hockey guy! A capital H, capital G Hockey Guy!

And now the nerd-run Panthers are firing Hockey Guys? The great news is that the usual gang of idiots who complain about this stuff will now use every single Panthers loss as proof positive that stats don’t work and you gotta have fighters in the lineup.

It’s an argument that showed itself out the door marked “We’re done here” years ago, but people don’t like to accept that the sport has passed them by.

If the Panthers miss the playoffs — which they should have last year if not for a sky-high PDO —

6. Everyone on the Edmonton Oilers who is not Connor McDavid

Sure, we all kinda thought the Oilers were a one-line team punching above its weight thanks to how good Connor McDavid is. But now that we get a look at the numbers a quarter of the way through the season, I don’t think we really considered how “one-line” they really are.

Like, good lord. By the end of the year if everyone stays healthy, there’s going to be something like a 40-point gap between McDavid and the next-closest guy on the team. That’s gonna make Hart Trophy voting awful tough between McDavid and Carey Price.

5. The Panthers in general

Actually y’know what, here’s more on the Panthers: They’re a mediocre team right now. People are shocked by that because they finished over 100 points last year, but they’re mediocre. A big part of it is James Reimer has been awful as a backup, while Roberto Luongo continues his brilliance. Reimer has probably already cost this team about a point and a half in the standings and that’s a number that will continue to drop as he gets more reps.

They need more production from Jaromir Jagr (just half a point a game). They need more from Aleksander Barkov (only two goals). They need Aaron Ekblad to prove he’s more than a product of Brian Campbell’s brilliance. They need Jonathan Huberdeau back healthy.

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This is, however, a team with a higher ceiling than it’s shown and hopefully with a new coach the systemic deficiencies will be corrected and they’ll play better. Getting a more talented defenseman with Ekblad should be Job No. 1.

4. The Carolina Hurricanes maybe?

We must give a massive shoutout to Carolina here, as they won six out of eight games after a disastrous 3-6-4 to start the year. As with last year, this is an impressive young club that doesn’t seem to always get the bounces to go their way.

Last year, though, they were sunk by bad goaltending and a paucity of shooting talent that led to a second-from-the-bottom PDO. Should it have been a little higher? Sure, but not that much, given the talent level.

This year, the margins for their “process” are even better but the same issue plagues them: They’re at 54 percent for expected goals, but only 46 percent in actual goals. Their shooting percentage is once again near the bottom of the league, and their save percentage is even nearer to it. Predictable problems, I guess, and at least you see them trending in the right direction in all other aspects of the game.

But now that Jordan Staal might be out for a while, things get a lot tougher to figure out. Do they even have someone who can fill his role? I’m dubious. And if not, those goal margins might start to look even worse for them.

It’s too bad. This team really looked like it turned a corner after deserving to do so for a while. Now they might be back where they started.

3. Treating Dougie right

The Calgary Flames recently completed a 3-2-1 road trip, which isn’t great. But when you’re also pretty bad — and the Flames are pretty pretty pretty pretty bad — you take what you can get. They were 6-11-1 going into the trip, so y’know.

And not for nothin’, but I think a big portion of their play comes because they started putting Dougie Hamilton alongside Mark Giordano, who can actually play hockey at an NHL level. This is a new and exciting turn of events for Hamilton, whose most common partner this season prior to the switch was Jyrki Jokipakka.

In fact, for the whole road trip, Hamilton carried adjusted 5v5 numbers in CF%/SCF%/xGF% of 55.4/50.6/51.3. Before that he was 52.2/44.5/48.1.

He can be a great defensemen if you don’t tie an anchor to his waist. And him being a great defenseman also, y’know, makes the whole team better. Crazy!

2. Changing coaches

Okay here’s one last thing on this.

Gallant got fired because the team wasn’t playing that well. And it’s not like last year, when they weren’t playing that well but winning anyway. They were playing below-average hockey and getting below-average results. So then when the coach starts giving Shawn Thornton minutes when the management would prefer that not happen, that’s just not listening to your bosses, full stop. And if you don’t listen to your bosses, you get fired.

But what I think is really unfair is the idea that Tom Rowe, who’s moving from the general manager’s chair to the coaching position for the rest of the season, is getting lumped in with the Computer Boys like he doesn’t know the game from behind the bench.

Let’s pull up Rowe’s Elite Prospects page. Ah yes, dating back to 2001-02, assistant coach in the AHL for three years. Head coach in the AHL for four. Assistant coach in the NHL for two years. NHL scout for one year. Head coach in the KHL for a year-plus. Head coach in the AHL for two and a half years, then takes the Florida AGM job.

All this, by the way, after a career of 500-plus pro games, including 357 in the NHL.

It’s not like he doesn’t know his ass from his elbow back there. Seems like he’s pretty good, and if this were any other situation, the headline would be “Hockey Lifer Gets First NHL Coaching Shot At 60.”

People in the hockey media wonder why fans think they’re clueless. That’s a big reason why.

1. Phil Kessel

My wonderful kind boy is at it again.

(Not ranked this week: The Crosby Dislikers.

It would be hilarious is Sidney Crosby broke 50 goals this year. I don’t know why, but it really would be.)

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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