Boding bad: a Stanley Cup playoff preview full of vibes, hope, and some cement
Lord Stanley's Mug is worth much more than the sum of the Hockey-Industrial Complex's parts. So one has to care who wins, even if you give the NHL regular season a hard pass.
The big final exam of hockey-knowing 101 gets underway on Monday night. For a recovering sportswriter who ignores the NHL regular season like a promoted tweet from a ‘new source for unbiased commentary,’ this is just like one of those dreams.
The National Hockey League regular season is like stopping at a certain coffee chain. Overhyped and bland. It is there when you need it. Usually at that point when low serotonin levels induce bad decisions. It is an occupational hazard for a niche professional writer in so-called Canada.
There is little one can whinge about that ain’t been whung about the NHL’s bugs that get treated as features. My kink is streamlining sports-liking so that it might feel more transformative instead of transactional. Having to keep track of 32 teams with a hard salary cap — the first point of reference when you learn of a new player should not be what’s his cap hit? — is far to big an ask.
The 16 teams that are in playoff position by American Thanksgiving, at the end of November, usually end up being the bulk of the field for the Real Season. It just takes 4½ months to get to that stage. There is, by the way, nothing sadder and less slappy-ish than the At Least You Tried Energy when a team comes within a dozen points of the last berth. Goodness, create a hockey version of the EFL Championship so Buffalo Sabres fans can actually see their beloveds win something besides the draft lottery.
The NHL still has the second-best postseason of the four major sports. (The NFL postseason wins every time. It requires only 13 games, and people actually get together to watch the Super Bowl.) And while not every team in the playoffs is capable of winning, any team can lose.
Anyway, here is the vibe report on all 16 teams, pieced together from sugar packets and cherry-picking MoneyPuck and Natural Stat Trick. Any useful info here is probably a happy little accident.
Western Conference
Vegas Golden Knights-Winnipeg Jets
Vegas vibes
Feel that gurgle, Vegas? That is the strip club lobster and 11 shots of Sambuca coming up to take a bow. This space is a bit Canadian nationalist when it comes to hockey, so it needs to purport that the Great American Hope Jack Eichel will always be Jack Eichel. Bad vibes with that one.
Hearken to 2015, when the Eichel-led Boston Terriers made the Frozen Four in their home city — and could not close out Providence in the final. And yes, that was Eichel (No. 9) losing a faceoff in his D-zone, which led to Providence scoring the winning goal just two minutes after Boston U was jelly-legged by a goofy game-tying goal. Winners win that draw, Eichel. (Big talk from a former house league winger.)
Cue the gym class scene in Superbad: ‘That was eight years ago, asshole!’ … ‘People don’t forget.’
Also, Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy was in Boston for six seasons with the team that set the win and points records — and did not win the Cup. It is too soon for him to get nice things.
Winnipeg vibes
The Jets have the Last Dance vibe, which is très vibey. Money goalie extraordinaire Connor Hellebuyck is one of six key guys who could soon hit the open market as unrestricted free agents. Moving Mark Scheifele to wing, and having Josh Morrissey leading a back end that is long on scoring savvy could be a problem for Vegas.
In conclusion, nothing motivates top-end Jets players like the possibility of landing an eff-you retirement contract anywhere but in Winnipeg. I can already hear the opening verse of Born To Be Wild, and some College of Sports Media grad asking if that song is by The Guess Who.
Edmonton Oilers-Los Angeles Kings
Edmonton vibes
For the sake of Canadian federalism, the Oilers cannot go beyond Round 2. Canadian Texas has an election on May 29. Our fledging 155-year-old dominion needs Danielle Smith and her wingnut party to lose. An Oilers playoff run creates a distraction, and it is like Lenin said, you look for the one who benefits.
Connor McDavid needs to hit some posts, skip some passes over the stick of Leon Draisaitl, and shoot daggers at Darnell Nurse after another what-the-hell-was-that turnover. It will be that much more hilarious after the way the Oilers actually developed into a true team in the second half of the season.
Also: Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner is also a first-time playoff starter. He has shone of late, but The Simpsons reference is cued.
Los Angeles vibes
No need to go too deep into the granular forest. That Tall Teal Tree is plain as day.
The right-to-spec storyline is that Kings coach Todd McLellan was the first coach of the McDavid era in Edmonton. Prior to that, he coached the San Jose Sharks through six seasons of underachievement. That the Sharks finally made the final immediately after McLellan moved on is a great convenience sample for the haters.
Also: the Kings may be counting on Joonas Koorpisalo to backstop four winning efforts against the Oilers and their all-time lethal power play. Bonne chance avec ça.
Colorado Avalanche-Seattle Kraken
Colorado vibes
They could run it back again for back-to-back Cup wins, thus spawning further Lincoln-Johnson comparisons between Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby. Same hometown in Nova Scotia! Same agent! One gets it already.
It seems like reason enough to brace for the Avalanche falling short of a repeat, like every other Salary Cap Era champion aside from the Crosby-fronted 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins. The hockey Fates love to quash a narrative. Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog is also out. The fitness of No. 1 d-man Cale Makar will also be touch-and-go after he spent much of February recovering from blows to the head.
Seattle vibes
Would it really be fair for the Kraken to oust the Avalanche after the way the football Seahawks pawned off Zombie Russell Wilson on the Denver Broncos? Hell no. Pay no attention to the fact that Seattle scored the most 5-on-5 goals in the league!
Dallas Stars-Minnesota Wild
Dallas vibes
The governor of Texas is making noises about pardoning a racist murderer. Such cheap political pandering is bound to elicit nods of agreement or gentle condoning within the fanbase and the Stars’ dressing room, and there is no getting by that.
Please recall that Max Domi, who has played for six teams in as many seasons, wore Trump socks the day after the 2016 U.S. election. Also, Minnesota should be the Minnesota North Stars, and Dallas should have had to pick some dumb 1990s singular nickname.
So yeah, naught but bad things for all Dallas hockey people who are not Jason Robertson, or had a hand in the Stars drafting the Filipino Flash No. 39 overall in 2017. It made little sense why Robertson lasted until the second round after he sniped 42 goals without much offensive support for the Kingston Frontenacs as a summer-birthday 17-year-old six years ago. Robertson is now the fourth-highest scorer among that NHL draft cohort. It is almost like stats in the Ontario league somewhat predict the future!
Minnesota vibes
It has been three years since a waggish Wild fan said Minnesota coach Dean Evason is a dead ringer for Creed Bratton, of The Office. It seeped into the mainstream. However, speaking as someone who has literally watched thousands of hours of the greatest workplace comedy set in the northeastern Pennsylvania branch of a midsize paper company, do they really look alike?
No one only slightly resembles Creed Bratton and gets away with it. I am not seeing it. Nor am I seeing the Wild going too far with two-way wing Joel Eriksson Ek out of the lineup with an injury.
Eastern Conference
New Jersey Devils-New York Rangers
New Jersey vibes
Even some Devils fans must wonder if they have spent enough time in playoff purgatory for their sins against watchable hockey during the Dead Puck Era (1993-2004). The Devils should be in there for at least two more decades.
They will still get off more lightly than the Philadelphia Flyers have for the Broad Street Bullies’ two Cups almost 50 years ago. Nothing can be done about that; I just make the rules here as I go along.
This is supposed to be Not Your Cranky Uncle’s Devils. Jack Hughes leading the way for a franchise that got to draft No. 7 overall or higher six times between 2015 and ’22. Hell to the nope with that. No one should be rewarded for tanking.
NYR vibes
This is the Go Meteor!!! matchup of the first round. Commissioner Gary Bettman would love nothing more than for the Rangers to be in the final against another big U.S. market such as Dallas, L.A., or Vegas. The Rangers were also one of the teams that chickened out of wearing a Pride warmup jersey. Jeers to that.
One still has to hold space to feel all the feels about Rangers defenceman Jacob Trouba funding a law school scholarship for Sandy Hook mass shooting survivor Isaiah Márquez-Greene. The Rangers have that going for them, which is nice.
Carolina Hurricanes-New York Islanders
Carolina vibes
The worse the pun, the greater the fun. Carolina has good vibes since a team that has Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teräväinen at the top of the lineup does not actually finish scoring chances too well. Carolina tops MoneyPuck’s power ranking while having the second-lowest shooting percentage in the league. It is like they get so bored they try to play Hit The Logo with the opposing goalie.
The ’Canes just wore down everyone on the way to finishing first in their division. But what happens when teams get more and more familiar with them over a long series, and soft spring ice and playoff wear and tear become the great equalizers? Let’s find out.
NYI vibes
The Islanders could be vibey if they embraced Dead Franchise Icon Energy. A deep cut ahead, but think back two decades to another sport, when another second-fiddle suburban team came out of its shell.
In 2002, the Anaheim Angels won their only World Series title. The baseball team had the “Win One For The Cowboy” battle cry in memory of original team governor Gene Autry. Whenever the Angels got rolling, the FOX Sports cameras would often pan across a big black-and-white portrait in the stadium of Autry in his Hollywood drag. Some said it was corny. Others said it was cloying. Others said it was creepy. But it worked, damn it.
No 2023 playoff team could pull this off better than the Islanders. Put a big black-and-white portrait of Mike Bossy and get the cameras to pan there when the Islanders score.
It will never happen. Individual genius does not fit with Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello and his rules.
Boston Bruins-Florida Panthers
Boston vibes
Come on, it would be tragic if Boston had to go a full half-decade without one major sports championship. It has been that long since their baseball and football teams won. Plus Patrice Bergeron is considered one of the true gentlemen of the game, and this might be it for the 37-year-old centre.
The Bruins have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are they so potent? Ullmark to you if you took that question as rhetorical and still thought-bubbled, “Because they have seven guys with 50 points — no, eight!”
Florida vibes
The year is 2050. The lower third of Florida is completely submerged due to the melting of the polar ice caps. But Gary Bettman says the Panthers will not move to Québec.
In the here and now, cue the YA BLEW IT gif. The Panthers’ window was widest last season, and they were swept in the second round by Tampa Bay.
Tampa Bay Lightning-Toronto Maple Leafs
Tampa Bay vibes
The Lightning, and featured stars Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy, have not won the Cup since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. Facts are facts.
That is deep enough to assign bad vibes to Tampa Bay. No need to drag their two Russian stars. Or even drag Corey Perry into it.
It is just a little much to expect Kucherov and Vasilevskiy, as late 20-something members of the jock set, to have much to say. It might even be new depths of naivety — since this did not happen in February 2022 — to even expect that these affluent athletes would hire a team of crisis PR specialists to buff and fluff some basic smoke-break humanism. Putin does not mess around, and zipping it is the best way for Russian players to protect their flanks, backs, and extended families.
’Tis a pity. The simple PR statement that 14 people would have worked hours to craft would have qualified as literature by Florida standards. You can hear the brainstorming sesh: “vaguely against war IN CONCEPT, but not explicitly pro-peace in the present or on a go-forward basis. Oh, and Go Bolts.” Oh, it would have checked all the boxes.
Toronto vibes
You can keep the Masters. Leaf Nation has a tradition unlike any other that also involves stale golf jokes.
The Leafs might well be a team of destiny — destined to get junk-punted in Game 7 again, again by Boston, but in the second round for a change.
However, their attitude seems right. All these years of Not Built For The Playoffs narratives have given way to counting on goalie Ilya Samsonov and shoring up their defence, to the count of allowed the second-fewest goals from high-danger 5-on-5 chances in the entire league. They look like a good bet to go the final — not the actual one, but the unofficial one where they probably lose in Game 7 in Boston.
Stanley Cup prediction
No one will believe you if you got it right
Boston over Colorado? Yeah, that will stick.
What else
Alek Manoah: how much keyboard kinesiology do you want?
Alek Manoah ain’t right. The quality of his slider, as pointed out by Chris Black of Sportsnet, is far from its elite level of 2021 and ’22. Gripping a baseball to throw a nasty wipeout pitch takes 99th-percentile exertion, and Toronto Blue Jays fans such as me only have to wonder if there is some injury.
This is not the place for spouting surface stats, especially when the Blue Jays are only 16 games through the 162-game schedule. It seems fair to point out that Major League Baseball invented a 10-day injured list for cases such as Manoah. It creates plausible deniability when there are legitimate questions about what is on the blink with a pitcher who is struggling after near-instant success.
So, not to play armchair general manager when there is too much of that already, but a 10-day IL visit means Manoah could skip a road start against a ready-to-pounce Yankees team and come back against the Seattle Mariners (it was 8-1!) at the next homestand.
Pierre Poilievre has no security clearance. Should that be a medium-big deal?
Pass the aspirin for merely imagining how his non-evil twin would sound as he rattled off yes/no questions demanding to know what he is trying to hide.
The Very Serious Leader of the Government in Waiting is detestable for being proof that being incurious and a prick earns you rewards. That is not a behavioral or intellectual template that has any place in 2023. And then you can get to his insurrection-supporting; know-nothing populism; rage farming; open misogyny; and cynical profiteering from pandering to hatred and intolerance. Oh, and he is a complete policy strawweight.
The right-wing noise machine demands 100 per cent accountability from Designated Targets — to the point of invasiveness and placing politicians and their families in physical jeopardy. Of course, they offer no accountability in return. Scream “Scandal!” until something sticks with low-info voters.
So I had to laugh like hell last Friday. Katie Telford shared last Friday that none of the CPC, including the guy who wants to be prime minister, have a national security clearance. Do they even want to govern, or be in Opposition while provincial governments undermine the Liberal-NDP leadership and count on Canadians’ weak understanding of basic civics to provide cover?1
There are already questions about the familial history of the Very Serious Leader’s spouse, who appears to be the privileged daughter of a Venezuelan crime family. Move along, nothing to see here. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau probably ordered the wrong donuts or something.
Seeking an NWSL team
There is a team of footballing women out there for me. One should walk their talk when it comes to support of female pro leagues, even if it is a challenge when one is uncorded and not exactly overburdened with disposable income.
There are two candidates: the Kansas City Current and Racing Louisville FC. Briefly, the surface-level points for each side.
Kansas City has a Canadian and Swedish presence accentuated by the former, the veteran defender Desiree Scott, being a U Sports alumna (Manitoba Bisons, 2005-09). Forward Mimmi Larson is one of two Swedes on the roster. The KC team, come next season, will also have North America’s first purpose-built stadium for the women’s pro game.
Louisville came into this season with players from six continents, and their primary color is purple. So there is that, and coach Kim Björkegren is a Swede who has steered teams to league championships in Cyprus and Sweden. So he is only one away from matching Sven-Göran Eriksson for winning titles in three nations — #Facts.
This is what I think about when I should be looking for work. Avoidance is a helluva drug.
If there is any point to this scribbling, it is a love of New New Things. The Big Four (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, et al.) are so wired into limbic capitalism and so over-commodified that they are all lumbering dinosaurs. Let there be love for leagues that are aspirational and attainable.
Major League Baseball is so vain, it thinks Jackie Robinson Day is about them.
Greater minds with bigger platforms have often pointed out that Jackie Robinson, even while he was alive, was well-aware of how his story was being co-opted.
As Dave Zirin wrote at this time in 2022, it was reduced to “a bootstrap tale that sold a myth of a color-blind America where anyone Black or white could make it in this country if only they were only willing to work as hard and be as exceptional as Jackie Robinson.” It barely qualifies as original thought in my lonely space to point out that all the celebration of No. 42 elides his activism outside the realm of baseball, or that there was a leftist coalition behind the protest movement that convinced the Brooklyn Dodgers and Branch Rickey to hire the right African-American player.
The only reason for that side of rehash was to point out some extraordinary historical illiteracy from MLB’s Pravda. It is actually a cool story: the families of Jackie and Rachel Robinson, and the pop singer Carly Simon, formed a bond over the common cause of fighting racism in real estate. That said, feminism did exist well before the 1970s.
Just as Jackie Robinson was a central figure of the Civil Rights movement, Carly Simon was an important figure in the feminist-birthing 1970s, recording classics like “You’re So Vain” and “Anticipation.” (MLB.com, 15 April)
Ah, you kids with your music. At least that sheds a light on why a lot of realtors in these parts donated to the Ottawa Occupation in 2022.
That is more than enough for today. Please be kind, and stay safe.
The punchline to a joke about what Canada’s entry would be in an international scholarly essay competition: “The Elephant: Federal or Provincial Jurisdiction?”
Will you be giving us more NHL / Hockey postings over the playoffs?