NHL mailbag: Breakout stars, dark horse award picks and a mascot Royal Rumble
Just like last week, it’s all about year-long projections. The questions this time around once again indicate that people want to know, on Sept. 26, how the season is going to shape up in mid-April.
Which, I mean, that’s not fair to me because as much as you can do prep work and make reasonable guesses about how everything is gonna shake out, this is the league where the expansion team made the Cup Final. So like, go a little easy on me if only about 80 percent of these takes end up being correct. That’s still a good rate to hit on. You’re all ingrates!
Let’s go on this journey together:
Sam asks: “Assuming the Habs land a top-10 pick this year and all three of their top center prospects play next year, is a successful rebuild while keeping both Shea Weber and Carey Price really that far-fetched?”
Yeah.
Because while you gotta keep Weber and Price, you’re basically saying that as of next year, Kotkaniemi, Suzuki, and — I dunno if this is who you mean as their other top center prospect but — Ryan Poehling all have to be NHL centers and that another draftee would be a year or two away.
Nice to get that depth down the middle for sure, if they can all play, but have you looked at Montreal’s roster lately? It’s not good dude. And more to the point, it’s not exactly young. And more to more to the point, it would have to go approximately a mile straight up to even get back into the playoff conversation in that division, let alone being able to legitimately compete for the Cup, right?
So the question I guess is what you consider successful. If your goal with a strip-it-down-as-much-as-you-can rebuild (given the acknowledgement that you can’t trade Price or Weber) is to just be playoff-competitive why even bother? There are just so many hurdles here for this team, not the least of which is clueless management, that I’m not sure you’re getting out of the rebuild in a year or two. Insane to me to even bring it up.
Sasha asks: “Do you think Rattie can survive on the top line for Edmonton?”
Honestly if you just want to throw McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins together with just about anyone who’s relatively fast and can score a bit in the AHL, you’re probably gonna find someone who scores at least half a point a game.
The fact that we’re even having this discussion, though, is the real problem. This is a team less than $2 million from the cap ceiling and Ty Rattie, who played 50-plus AHL games last season, is a legitimate option to line up next to the best player on earth. Like, in what universe does this make the slightest bit of sense? And if it weren’t for playing Nugent-Hopkins (and Draisaitl before him) on that line, instead of an actual left wing, it would be McDavid with, like, Rattie and Tobias Rieder.
God, why on earth hasn’t McDavid demanded a trade? The man is a saint!
Deej asks: “Does Henrik Lundqvist finish the year in New York?”
Of course he does. You know that.
He’s 36 and has three seasons left at $8.5 million. Even if the Rangers retain half his salary, that’s still a lot of money and term to commit to a goalie who honestly might be past it at this point. Who makes that gamble, and gives up what you’d assume would be something of value for the bet?
You don’t want to say this kind of thing because he’s one of the best goaltenders of all time, but since the start of his age-35 season, Lundqvist has been a league-average goaltender (.913). That’s good for 32nd in the league over the last two seasons. Robin Lehner, who’s much younger, just signed for dirt cheap on Long Island, despite having a .915 save percentage behind a much worse team over the last two seasons.
The sad fact is that better, cheaper goalies will probably be available this season and wouldn’t cost you what Rangers Legend Henrik Lundqvist probably would. No one’s touching that.
AD asks: “Is there an under-the-radar guy you foresee going off this year? Someone that was kind of passed over a bit but then surprises the league a la Bill Karlsson or Yanni Gourde did this past season.”
Speaking of Bill Karlsson and Vegas, I can see Alex Tuch going way off this year.
He’s gonna be going from playing most of his time with Cody Eakin and Brendan Leipsic to riding shotgun with Max Pacioretty and Paul Stastny. Tuch had 15 goals and 37 points in his first full NHL season and that ain’t bad at all, but man, he could hit 60 this year no problem playing with those two. Probably get past that. Just so many assists.
And speaking of that team…
Telfo asks: “Did Vegas improve enough to overcome the inevitable regression they will face (Fleury, goalscoring) and still be one of the top teams in the West?”
I mean I don’t see them being a 107-point team and winning that division again, because hey look what San Jose just did, but they’re comfortably in the 100-point conversation again, which is obviously surprising given how much of their success was luck-driven last year.
Like you said, Fleury’s probably not going .927 again next season and even if the offense improves to the point it covers for the diminished shooting luck, the margins just get thinned out enough to cost them, y’know, 20 goals or whatever of goal difference.
But again, that division stinks and the top two lines look real scary, so the only concern I’d have is how the defense holds up without Nate Schmidt. Maybe it’ll be fine, but I’d bet they’re not winning the Pacific. Probably not coming close.
Josh asks: “Dark horse candidates for each of the major year end awards?”
Real quick, just spitballing here:
Patrik Laine for Hart (if he hits 50 and Winnipeg wins the Presidents’ Trophy).
Evgeni Malkin for Rocket Richard (why not, right?).
Brad Marchand for Art Ross (if he plays the full 82).
Jesperi Kotkaniemi for Calder (they’re gonna give him a real chance to succeed).
Morgan Rielly for Norris (not out of the question that he gets 50-plus points behind that offense, and he’ll be the No. 1 on the first truly great Toronto team in ages).
Devan Dubnyk for Vezina (could totally drag Minnesota to a playoff spot).
Tyler Bozak for Selke (if he’s the shutdown guy in St. Louis and they get back to the playoffs).
Mike Babcock for Jack Adams (finally).
I think that’s all of them.
Brandon asks: “Who is the worst player who will be an NHL regular this year? No guys who will shuffle between AHL/NHL. Who ya got?”
Andrew MacDonald.
Henry asks: “In a Royal Rumble of all mascots, why would Gritty win?”
Hank, great question bud.
I don’t think he’s one of those “go out under the bottom rope and hang out near the announcer tables” guys. Gritty is, if nothing else, a gamer and a brawler. He’d be in the thick of it for the full hour-plus if that’s what it took.
Something that few talk about, however — and I verified this with real wrestling-industry sources — is that the Royal Rumble is no-DQ. And who better than Gritty to just come in and just absolutely clean house with a barbwire bat? Maybe a handgun. You certainly wouldn’t put it past him.
One thing’s for sure: Someone’s getting color and Gritty’s going over.
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Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports hockey columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.
All stats via Corsica unless noted otherwise. Some questions in the mailbag are edited for clarity or to remove swear words, which are illegal to use.
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