A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep. Placed on waivers for the purpose of embarrassing the person who hired me in the first place.
1. The year was 2016, and I remember the mood around the office well.
Rogers was only in the second of its 12-season rights deal to exclusively broadcast NHL games north of the border. And before April Fool’s Day hit, all seven Canadian teams — naturally, the ones driving audience engagement and thus advertising dollars — had been eliminated from the playoffs.
“It’s such a big part of our culture in Canada, and ever since I can remember growing up, gearing up for that first round of playoffs is huge,” then Calgary Flames defenceman Mark Giordano said at the time. “It’s disappointing that we’re not going to have a team from Canada represented.”
As disheartening as that spring was — for revenue and revelry and reputation — this one is shaping up to be equally encouraging.
We haven’t seen seven Canadian teams reach the playoffs since 1985-86, when the Winnipeg Jets were version 1.0 and the Quebec Nordiques were subbing in for the long-dormant, yet-to-be-reborn Ottawa Senators.
But a quick peek at today’s standings, on the 25th Hockey Day in Canada, shows every member of the Group of Seven within one point of a wild-card spot.
Half the league’s division leaders are based in Canada.
While it is a stretch to imagine all seven qualifying for the Round of 16 — the high drama in Vancouver threatens to end in tragedy, and it’ll be difficult to shoehorn both Ottawa and Montreal into the tournament — it has been decades since every one of Canada’s squads was playing meaningful games this deep into a season.
Who among them has the best shot at lifting the curse that has hovered over the 49th since 1993? Let’s rank.
7. Montreal Canadiens: Cole Caufield could rip 40 goals, Lane Hutson is taking a run at the Calder, and Jakub Dobes is a bright light shining out of nowhere. The house-money Habs don’t need to squeak in for the positive vibes roll into next fall.
6. Vancouver Canucks: The talent is there, no question. But injuries and internal conflict give us little hope that this edition can recreate the magic of 2024. Something is rotten in the core.
5. Calgary Flames: If the try-hard Flames punch their card to the dance, it’ll be difficult to leave Ryan Huska off your Jack Adams ballot and Dustin Wolf off the top of your Calder submission. Probably the easiest Canadian team to root for.
4. Ottawa Senators: That ailing Linus Ullmark is back on ice and that the bottom of the Eastern Conference is a mess of mediocrity should give hope that we see Brady Tkachuk swilling BodyArmor instead of Budweiser during playoff games.
3. Toronto Maple Leafs: They could win the Atlantic Division for the first time in franchise history, which would set them up for more favourable series matchups. Get well soon, Anthony Stolarz and John Tavares.
2. Winnipeg Jets: Connor Hellebuyck might just place a Hart next to his Vezinas. Kyle Connor continues his case as the most underappreciated star on a Canadian team. And their third line is legit. One of two Canadian teams we can actually envision hoisting the Cup.
1. Edmonton Oilers: After a sluggish start, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl’s crew are back on track and look every bit like the threat we saw come within two goals of glory.
2. One pending UFA who won’t be changing addresses is Matt Duchene, who celebrated his 34th birthday Thursday as the Dallas Stars’ points leader (41).
Would Duchene have liked more than a one-year, $3-million contract extension last summer from the team that scooped him off the buyout heap and rode with him to the Western Conference final? Sure.
Does he deserve more? Absolutely.
But Duchene realizes he is entering his Pavelski years. That means a willingness to take a little less term and AAV to win a Stanley Cup.
He loves his job, his team is a contender, and his family loves the schools and neighbourhood they have in Dallas.
Don’t mess with happy. Don’t mess with Texas.
The Stars eased the proud player’s tumultuous buyout by rival Nashville — a city where the country-music-lovin’ Duchenes have purchased a new lot and plan to build a home where they can live when the hockey is over. Not far from where the Getzlafs settled.
“You know, I think we got him at a good time,” coach Peter DeBoer says. “I think he was humbled a little bit, motivated a little bit, chip on his shoulder a little bit. So, we’ve gotten the best version of him. But I think he’s always been a really good player.”
So good, Team Canada plucked him for its 2014 Olympic and 2016 World Cup gold medal rosters.
Duchene wanted to keep his golden run going at the 4 Nations. He’s on the fill-in list.
“I was obviously disappointed, but at the same time I was proud that I was right there. And obviously you want to keep playing (well) just in case something were to happen. The thing about being a Canadian forward is, you could probably make three teams, and one of them could beat any of the other ones. I mean, it’s so equal,” says Duchene, who will still be gunning for the ’26 Olympics as a 35-year-old.
“There’s another chance next year. So, that’s kinda what I’m looking at. Playing for Team Canada has meant a lot to me and my career. Some of my best memories have been doing that. So, I would love another chance.”
3. Frenemies Joseph Woll and Jake Oettinger broke break Monday night ahead of their second head-to-head matchup in the NHL.
Who grabbed the bill?
“He wanted to, but I snatched it from him,” said Oettinger, the richer of the two.
That these longtime competitive pals are now both starting goalies for contending NHL teams isn’t lost on them.
They fired off a photo to Kevin Reiter, their goalie coach at the U.S. National Team Development Program, thanking him for his guidance.
Who’d have thought back then they’d both establish themselves at the ultimate level?
“If you told both us when we were 14, it would be pretty cool,” said Oettinger, who improved to 1-1 in the show versus his former teammate and former BU-BC rival. “Just really happy for him, and he deserves it. He’s one of the best goalies in the league, in my opinion, and just scratching the surface of how good he is and is going to be. He is one of my favourite goalies to watch.”
Oettinger believes the two netminders wield a similar style. In fact, he studies Woll and tries to mimic the Leafs goalie’s knack for remaining patient in the mayhem.
“He’s so athletic, but he’s not a foot outside the crease. He stays back and reads the play really well. And nowadays, with how skilled the league is, guys are turning down great looks to make an extra pass, so you got to be back a little bit just to read the play. When I started trying to do that more, I watched a lot of him because he does that really well.”
Oettinger is equally quick to rave about the off-ice Woll.
“He’s like the perfect human,” Oettinger marvels. “I really looked up to him a lot when I was at the Program. Hockey wasn’t as serious for me as it was for him, and just how he takes care of his body and all the little stuff that he does is stuff I learned a lot from him.”
Worth a free dinner in Toronto, no?
(Especially for an American spending those tax-free bucks in Canadian currency.)
4. As Oettinger held court in his visitors’ stall for more than 12 minutes Tuesday morning in Toronto, we had to ask: Why do you feel so comfortable talking to reporters before a start, when most of today’s goalies are off-limits on game day?
“I think if I played here, I probably wouldn’t want to do it every day. Since I’m only here once a year, I don’t mind,” he smiled.
Thing is, Oettinger will talk in Dallas on game days, too.
“Just doesn’t really bug me,” he shrugged. “I dunno. Game’s in, like, 10 hours. So, I got a lot of time to focus before then.”
I’ve always been skeptical that a few harmless media questions several hours before puck drop could have the power mess with a goaltender’s ability to stop the thing when bodies and zipping, sticks are flying, and fans are screaming.
5. Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak executed a masterclass in rift debunking and rumour squashing.
Mere hours after a Boston radio host reported a disconnect between the Bruins’ leaders and best players, a disbelieving Pastrnak laughed it off as a joke while Marchand went on the offensive.
Not only did the captain aggressively shut down the report in front of cameras at the first available opportunity, much to the delight of fans and peers, he hopped on Instagram and posted a five-photo buddy album showcasing his love for Pasta.
Marchand’s caption: “Wolves don’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep!”
Take notes, Vancouver Canucks.
The difference here is that Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller probably don’t have a bunch of piggyback and wedding pics in the stash to drag out as receipts.
That rift is real and has been longstanding. What most people close to the Canucks can’t figure out, though, is what suddenly made the situation untenable.
Is it simply the on-ice struggles? Or did something happen to elevate tension between the players?
6. Brayden Point is a two-time Stanley Cup champion. He was a lock for Team Canada, a roster selected, in part, by his NHL head coach Jon Cooper. And, at the time of Tuesday’s healthy scratch for missing a team meeting, tied for third overall in the goal-scoring race.
So what if Point is a superstar? So what if the Tampa Bay Lightning are battling for playoff position against a fierce division rival and could’ve used him in their 6-2 loss to the Bruins?
Rules are rules, and they apply to everyone in the culture the Lightning has installed.
“Listen. We’ve had a standard since I’ve been here — 12 years or whatever it’s been. It’s professional sports. We’ve got rules, and nobody’s above the law,” Cooper, a lawyer, told reporters following the self-inflicted shorthanded loss.
“It’s unfortunate because it’s a game we could’ve really needed him. The one that probably feels the worst about it is Pointer, because he’s such a great team guy. It’s unfortunate. He definitely won’t be the last player in the league to do something like that. I felt awful for him.”
But not so awful as to let the standard slip.
Don’t mistake this as a Point thing. This is also memo to everyone in the room who’s not an all-star.
7. Quote of the Week.
“I don’t think in either of those two games anybody needed to wear equipment.” —Florida coach Paul Maurice, following the Panthers’ light-hitting losses to Boston and Philadelphia
8. Jani Hakanpää has returned to full practice following his latest knee operation.
Understandably, the big man sounds weary discussing, again, his uncertain timeline for return. (Former coach Pete DeBoer summed up the general sentiment around the situation: “I thought that was a really good signing by them in the summer, if he’s healthy.”)
But Hakanpää’s mood perks when talking about taking his young daughter skating on a High Park pond during Christmas break.
Or when you bring up his inclusion on Finland’s 4 Nations roster.
“Oh, it’s a massive honour,” beams Hakanpää, who cherishes his 2019 gold medal from the IIHF world championships.
“We were big-time underdogs. Some people in Finland told us we were the worst team to ever be in the world championships for Finland before the tournament. We just grew together, and winning was unreal.”
Not just the on-ice culmination, but the weeklong party afterwards.
“We got home the next day, and we had, like, a stage in the middle of Helsinki. It was probably 70,000 people. [Reported attendance was 50,000, but that’s still a crap ton. —ed.] We got on the stage. Everybody was going bananas,” Hakanpää says.
“It went on the whole week. Then we went to another city and another city. We really soaked it in. We decided, ‘Hey, we might not ever get this chance again, so just soak it in.’ It was a great week. Great week, for sure.”
That feeling is what the stay-at-home defenceman is trying to chase in these next few weeks training in Toronto. Of course, he wants to contribute to the team that took a flyer on him in free agency. But the idea of representing his country next month in Montreal is a driver, too.
“It’s a really nice thing to work toward. You have that little special thing there, you try to work your way to,” Hakanpää says.
“It gives that little extra boost every day knowing that’s just around the corner. Hopefully, I can get there in time and help Team Finland create some good memories again.”
9. What do Tristan Jarry, Jack Campbell, Cal Petersen, and Ville Husso have in common?
They were all given juicy contracts of at least three years at a minimum $4.75-million AAV before winning a single playoff series.
And they were all waived and dismissed to the minors.
We’re certainly not defending Kyle Dubas’s indefensible track record of overpaying.
But, outside of sure things such Connor Hellebuyck and Igor Shesterkin, we will say that hockey executives have yet to get a firm grasp on the sport’s most important position.
There are a ton of hope contracts being doled out to unproven men in masks.
Joey Daccord and Mackenzie Blackwood hit paydirt in-season. Neither has appeared in a single post-season game.
Pending UFA Logan Thompson is having a splendid run and will likely get super rich because of it.
We’re rooting for these guys. They’re great stories.
But make no mistake: GMs are so worried about being left off the goalie carousel, they’ve gotten carried away betting term and dollars on netminders who haven’t proven much in the grand scheme of things.
10. Head coach Olli Jokinen’s four-minute-plus, 30-plus-expletive-laced first-intermission address to his Timra IK squad is something to behold.
Not sure if I want to run through a wall or run under the covers, though.
The best line regarding his team’s uninspired 20 minutes?
“It’s like sitting in a (bleeping) hot tub and drinking (bleeping) red wine and (bleeping) cigar in the mouth.”
11. We look back at the Flyers’ investment in Carter Hart as the franchise’s ultimate undoing this decade.
Philadelphia has trotted out three not-ready-for-prime-time goalies this season — Samuel Ersson, Aleksei Kolosov, and Ivan Fedotov — and none of those youngsters have managed a save percentage as high as .889.
For all the positive strides made by the next wave of skaters, for all the structure and work ethic, Philly won’t go anywhere with a league-worst .872 save percentage.
“Obviously goaltending, each day I wake up and I’m not sure where it’s at, the way it’s gone so far. But that’s something we’re trying to iron out,” coach John Tortorella said.
“When Carter left, that threw this into turmoil. It is what it is. We’ve lived with it, we continue to live with it, and we do the best we can. No one foresaw it. A lot of people run it down a little bit: ‘What are they doing?’ No one foresaw this was going to happen as you develop your team and develop probably your most important position.
“We just keep banging away.”
And banging their collective head against a wall.
12. Another week, another record tumbles at the yellow laces of Alex Ovechkin.
When the soon-to-be goal-scoring GOAT beat Ottawa’s Leevi Merilainen in overtime Thursday, he set a new NHL mark for most goalies scored on.
Merilainen was the 179th; netminder to be victimized by Ovechkin. That bests the 178 Jaromir Jagr solved. Moreover, Ovechkin extended his own record for most OT goals (27).
As the 39-year-old has already potted a head-shaking 21 goals in 29 games, but his country was not invited to the 4 Nations Face-Off for a reason, the commissioner was asked on Real Kyper & Bourne about celebrating the accomplishments of an overt Putin supporter.
“He plays for the Washington Capitals as far we’re concerned. He’s not playing for Russia,” Gary Bettman replied. “We’re excited for the Gr8 ChaseTM.”
