WINNIPEG – “It was the Cup in six, wasn’t it?”
That was the opening line from Vegas Golden Knights owner, CEO and governor Bill Foley as he opened his media availability on Friday.
That his bold proclamation came to fruition in that sixth season is certainly impressive, but the crazy thing about professional sports is that the never-ending quest has quickly turned to repeat in seven? – now that the glorious parade down the Vegas strip has finished.
There’s a full summer of celebration to follow, but for Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon and his staff, it’s about finding the balance between keeping enough players around who are hungry to keep this title run going, while finding room for some up-and-comers, along with a veteran or two that is eager to get to the top of the mountain.
“You don’t have a long time to enjoy it in the short term. In the long term, it’s something that will stay with all of us forever,” McCrimmon told reporters in Las Vegas.
The good news for the Golden Knights is that they’ve got the majority of their core pieces under contract for at least one more season and most for multiple campaigns.
The list of pending unrestricted free agents includes forwards Ivan Barbashev, Phil Kessel, Teddy Blueger along with goaltenders Adin Hill, Laurent Brossoit and Jonathan Quick.
Barbashev was unequivocally the best deadline acquisition made by any NHL team this season and while it would take some salary cap gymnastics to keep him in the fold, you can be sure the Golden Knights would love to keep him around.
The biggest area of uncertainty is in goal, where Logan Thompson (who was in the NHL All-Star Game before he got hurt) is under contract for two more seasons on a contract close to the league minimum and Robin Lehner remains a big question mark after missing the entire season with an injury despite having two more seasons under contract at $5 million.
As for the pending UFAs for 2024, that list includes Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Marchessault, Chandler Stephenson, Michael Amadio and William Carrier up front, along with defencemen Alec Martinez and Ben Hutton.
The Golden Knights found the right mix in 2022-23 and you can expect they’ll use a similar recipe moving forward.
“We’ve talked about the construction of a team many times and our vision as to how it needs to look, the key people you have to have in the key positions and we had those,” said McCrimmon. “Past that, our depth was tremendous. You look at the ice time through four lines and through a group of six defencemen, you can see the importance that every player had. The thing that’s interesting is that a lot of times when that team wins a Stanley Cup and they cross the finish line, they pretty much collapse. Our guys were saying in jest, let’s go again, who is coming next? It was really a team effort.”
The other thing about the Golden Knights is that they could play a variety of styles in order to get the job done.
“I talked about the identity. Our team was big, it was strong, it certainly could play the hockey that you need to play at this time of year,” said McCrimmon. “But as well, great speed. When you look at our centres, we could really push people back. Really good performances from complementary players.”
Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy capped a whirlwind year by winning his first Stanley Cup roughly one year after being fired by the Boston Bruins.
One of the most impressive things about the Golden Knights is the way they were able to take control of each of the close-out games in each of the four rounds.
“All four clinching games, I thought we dominated and that’s the sign of a team that’s ready to do it,” Cassidy told reporters. “We missed an opportunity in Dallas, I understand that. That’s the imperfect part. There are times along the way where we tripped up a little bit. People asked me what I learned from that? You don’t have to be perfect to win the Stanley Cup. I learned that this year.
“There’s a lot of highs and lows. You’ve just got to find your game at the right time and we were able to do that.”
As for his personal journey, Cassidy couldn’t hide his joy for how going through one of the toughest experiences of his professional life turned into him getting his name engraved on the Stanley Cup.
“We’ve kind of been through that and I’m not trying to slough it off,” said Cassidy. “My time in Boston made me the coach I am today, more than any other stop along the way. At the end of the day, they decided someone else would be a better voice. That’s entirely their call and their decision. I would have loved to have been back there, I said that many times.
“This is the best thing to ever happen to me, to land in Vegas. You don’t know what is in front of you sometimes. Here we are talking about the Stanley Cup a year later. That’s about it.”
PRAISE FOR PANTHERS
Even with the clock striking midnight on the Panthers’ run in the Stanley Cup final, it’s time to give credit where credit is due.
The lowest-seeded team in the dance went out and knocked off the best regular season team in NHL history, then ousted the second and fourth seeds in the NHL before being eliminated in five games in the final.
Unlike several previous unexpected runs, the Panthers are pretty well positioned to give it another shot in 2023-24.
There are some big decisions looming on the horizon, no doubt about it but the current crop of unrestricted free agents on the roster includes defencemen Radko Gudas, Marc Staal, Lucas Carlsson and Casey Fitzgerald, forwards Eric Staal and Patric Hornqvist (who suffered a career-ending concussion and basically took on a mentorship role this season) and goalie Alex Lyon.
Several of the aforementioned players played important supporting roles and Lyon helped salvage the Panthers season by taking over the starting job down the stretch but the team has just over $10 million in projected cap space going into the offseason.
That should allow Panthers general manager Bill Zito the flexibility to make a few upgrades for another run – though those will likely come in the shorter-term deal category.
The trickier ground for Zito to navigate is the following summer, when stud defencemen Brandon Montour and Gustav Forsling could become free agents, along with forwards Sam Reinhart, Anthony Duclair, Nick Cousins and Ryan Lomberg.
The Panthers are likely going to try to get some of those extensions taken care of over the course of the summer.
While they’ve been mentioned as a possible landing spot for defenceman Erik Karlsson (who is expected to win his third Norris Trophy later this month), that has become increasingly more difficult because of the raises that will be due for Montour and Forsling, coupled with the four years left on Karlsson’s deal – which carries an AAV of $11.5 million.
Even with some level of retention by the San Jose Sharks, it’s hard to imagine the puzzle pieces coming together here with those two clubs.
The Panthers also appear to be set in goal, with Sergei Bobrovsky having three more seasons left on his contract after rounding back into form during these Stanley Cup playoffs.
Goalie of the future Spencer Knight is in the NHLPA player assistance program and has three more seasons at $4.5 million before he becomes a restricted free agent.
Defenceman Aaron Ekblad has two years left, as do Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe up front, before they can become UFAs.
So with other core pieces like captain Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk locked up through the 2029-30 campaign, the Panthers should be back in the post-season
CONN SMYTHE CHATTER
Let me start out by saying that Marchessault is a deserving winner of the Conn Smythe trophy for playoff MVP.
Nobody scored more goals than him during the Stanley Cup playoffs (13, tied for top spot with Edmonton Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl) and nobody on the Golden Knights scored more important goals than Marchessault either (his three game-winners were tied with Chandler Stephenson).
As an aside, the two players with more GWGs this spring were Dallas Stars forward Joe Pavelski and Tkachuk, who had four.
Marchessault is also a great choice for what he represents, an undrafted free agent who blossomed into a productive NHL player and also happens to be one of the six remaining original misfits on the Golden Knights roster.
That he ended up haunting the franchise that gave him up in the NHL Expansion Draft happens to be a bonus when it comes to the storyline.
Perhaps the most impressive part of Marchessault’s post-season production, which included 25 points in 22 games, is that he didn’t score a goal in the first seven games and managed only two assists during that stretch.
He got hot when the games got more important (highlighted by a 10-game point streak to conclude the postseason) and that’s why he finished first on 13 of the 18 ballots submitted.
We talk a lot about recency bias in hockey and there’s a chance it could have been on display in the popular vote.
Golden Knights centre Jack Eichel received the other five first-place votes and finished second in the voting (Vegas goalie Adin Hill was third).
The fact of the matter was that the Golden Knights had numerous candidates who were deserving of Playoff MVP status and that’s a big part of what made them successful.
Four Golden Knights (Marchessault, captain Mark Stone, Stephenson and William Karlsson) all hit double digits in goals and four Vegas players also hit or eclipsed 20 points (Eichel, Marchessault, Stone and Stephenson).
That is the epitome of a balanced offensive attack.
To reiterate, I’ve got no issue whatsoever with Marchessault being chosen but my personal vote – if I’d had one – would have had Eichel at the top, followed by Marchessault and Stone.
For the record, this has nothing to do with Eichel finishing one point ahead of Marchessault in the playoff scoring derby.
Although Eichel didn’t score a goal in his final seven playoff games during this run, it wasn’t a reflection on his play dropping off.
Eichel was a two-way force throughout what was his first taste of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
That his two-way play has grown this much is a testament to the commitment Eichel made to improving dramatically in that area and the standard Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy set for him.
What Stone was able to do coming off his second back surgery in less than a calendar year is the stuff legends are made of.
At less than full health, the Golden Knights emotional leader played at a high level and came through for his team on numerous occasions.
As for what Hill was able to accomplish, it was simply remarkable but not playing in the opening round meant he would have been fourth – despite his outstanding level of play after taking over for the injured Laurent Brossoit.
Golden Knights defenceman Alex Pietrangelo also factors into the discussion along with Stephenson, while honourable mentions to Tkachuk and Bobrovsky for what they were able to do.
One final thought, how impressive was it that Draisaitl still tied for top spot in playoff goals despite being eliminated in the second round and playing only 12 games?
COACHING CAROUSEL LESSONS
With word from colleague Elliotte Friedman that the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to discuss a contract extension with Sheldon Keefe, it looks like the offseason coaching carousel has stopped, at least for the time being.
So what have we learned from the most recent searches?
As usual, this was not a one-size-fits-all scenario.
The Anaheim Ducks went with a first-time NHL head coach in Greg Cronin, who spent the past five seasons with the Colorado Eagles of the American Hockey League but has vast experience previously as an NHL assistant with the New York Islanders and Maple Leafs and has run his own bench at the NCAA level as well.
Incoming Calgary Flames GM Craig Conroy chose an internal candidate in Ryan Huska to replace Darryl Sutter, increasing the first-time NHL bench bosses to two.
The Columbus Blue Jackets are set to hire Mike Babcock when his contract with the Maple Leafs expires at the end of this month, while the New York Rangers are bringing in Peter Laviolette to continue his tour of the Metropolitan Division as the replacement for Gerard Gallant.
Andrew Brunette is technically a first-time NHL bench boss with the Nashville Predators, though he held the interim head coach tag while guiding the Florida Panthers to the 2021-22 Presidents’ Trophy after taking over from Joel Quenneville.
Spencer Carberry rounds out the list and is replacing Laviolette with the Washington Capitals in what will be his first NHL head coaching experience.
This recent rash of hires looks like a victory for the “new blood” category, though that’s not to suggest that experience isn’t being valued.
Each of these newcomers has run the bench either at the junior, college or minor league levels and some of them in multiple different leagues.
Many had been interviewed for NHL head coaching gigs before and been passed over, so it’s been a logical progression for most of them.
The Rangers are in win-now mode, so it’s not a surprise that GM Chris Drury elected to go with Laviolette, who has won a Stanley Cup previously with the Carolina Hurricanes and has 1,430 regular season games on his resume to go along with a 78-76 record in the postseason.
The expected hiring of Babcock by the Blue Jackets seems to signal that the organization is going to be active in free agency once again after adding Johnny Gaudreau last summer.
RAPID FIRE
Count me in the group of people who are happy to see the sale of the Ottawa Senators being one step closer to conclusion with the agreement in principle with Toronto businessman Michael Andlauer.
The sale process provided plenty of content and drama over the past few weeks and months and the celebrity element, with Ryan Reynolds and Snoop Dogg highlighting that category, was certainly something to behold.
I didn’t have any personal interactions with Andlauer when he was the owner of the Hamilton Bulldogs in the AHL, but he was well-respected by his peers and clearly has a passion for the sport and those are important qualities for a franchise that is looking to get a new arena built and appears to be a team on the rise.
As for some of the suggestions of a missed opportunity with the reported purchase price not reaching a billion (yes that’s billion with a B) dollars, let’s try to keep things in perspective here. The late Eugene Melnyk purchased the Senators and the arena for $92 million back in 2003 when the franchise was facing bankruptcy. Certainly, one billion would have made for a nice round number, but the reported $950 million price tag did nothing but raise the value of franchises around the league – even if those values are still lagging behind some of the other major sports.
The Vancouver Canucks became the first team to exercise a buyout when they made Oliver Ekman-Larsson an unrestricted free agent on Friday.
Will other teams follow suit in an effort to create some short-term pain but some long-term cap relief gain? One would certainly think so. And with Ekman-Larsson set to be paid $19.3 million over the next eight seasons to not play, where are some of the logical landing spots for the soon-to-be 32-year-old D-man?
What about somewhere like the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings or Anaheim Ducks? As a former captain of the Arizona Coyotes, perhaps Ekman-Larsson could be used in a mentorship role. The decline in play and production has been noticeable, but it would not be a surprise to see Ekman-Larsson end up in a situation where he would be asked to play third-pairing minutes on a value contract. He’s played 902 NHL regular season games and you can be sure he’d love to reach the century mark.
Through five games of the Calder Cup final, it’s been a homer series. After dropping the first two games on the road, the Hershey Bears have roared back to take a 3-2 series lead over the Coachella Valley Firebirds, with Game 6 set for Monday night back in California. Game 5 was a thriller as Garrett Pilon scored the lone marker of the contest at 10:01 of the first overtime to secure a 1-0 victory for the Bears, who got a 21-save shutout from Hunter Shepard (who posted his third goose egg of the postseason to improve his record to 13-5, while lowering his goals-against average to 2.14 and raising his save percentage to .916). The Bears began to turn the tide in the series with a 5-4 overtime win in Game 3 on a goal by Riley Sutter before evening things with a 3-2 victory in Game 4. A crowd of 10,869 at Giant Center on Saturday night made it five consecutive sellouts in this championship series.
