After pondering many of your trade queries for the February edition of our reader mailbag, March is back to the traditional “ask-me-anything” format. As usual, there were too many questions to deal with in a single edition, so this is part 1, mostly focused on NHL and big-picture questions. Part 2, later this week, will focus on more team-specific queries. Ready? Let’s go.
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(Note: Some questions have been lightly edited for style and clarity.)
Is it just me, or does the NHL season drag for everyone? Except for a wild-card slot or two, in these last 20 games, the good teams will try to stay healthy, and the lousy ones will try to lose, lose and then lose some more. Why the mandated week off around the All-Star break? That’s the time of year when people want to watch the game. My team just had three days off. That’s crazy. — Mark A.
The NHL re-introduced the bye weeks this season as part of getting the schedule back to its normal cadence, and most players love it — a chance to take a short vacation, often to a sunny destination, heal minor injuries and generally recharge the batteries for the stretch run. It isn’t going anywhere. But this is also a broader question about scheduling and the fact that many of us believe the NHL season starts too late, ends too late, and is far too long at 82 regular-season games. Now, there’s a difference between the practical answer — which is to expect the status quo to continue — and what should happen in a perfect world.
From 1949-50 until the last year of the Original Six, the NHL played a 70-game schedule. From there, it went to 74 games, then 76, then 78, and then settled in at 80 games for 18 years. It briefly rose to 84 games (to accommodate the ill-fated neutral-site games, and then has been at 82 games for most of the past quarter century, when the schedule hasn’t been impacted by a lockout or a pandemic.
To me, the ideal regular-season number is somewhere between 72 and 76 games. That would slice about three weeks off the regular season. If you started playing on Oct. 1 and completed the regular season by March 31, then you would also be guaranteed that the playoffs are over by the end of May. The last time that happened was back in 1991, the first of Pittsburgh’s two back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.
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I remember the second year of Pittsburgh’s run, when the Penguins played the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Final, the final game took place on June 1 — and that was a significant storyline, that the NHL schedule spilled into June. Nobody could believe it. Nowadays, no one thinks twice about it anymore. Hockey is a winter sport. It should be contained mostly to the fall, winter and spring months. And if they were wrapping up the regular season this week, instead of the vast majority of teams playing games that mean little, who wouldn’t be in favor of that (other than commissioner Gary Bettman of course)?
From the Archives – Mario Lemieux celebrates the @penguins 1992 Stanley Cup championship. pic.twitter.com/kzNgEpmx5O — Hockey Hall of Fame (@HockeyHallFame) January 27, 2016
Why is Gary Bettman and the NHL so averse to a one-to-eight seeding playoff format? Wouldn’t it create more excitement and better overall playoffs? — Bear B.
Because Gary Bettman is primarily a status quo kind of guy. Sometimes, that works for him, and other times, it creates blind spots. This is one of them. The impetus for the current system is mostly because it emphasizes rivalries — and rivalries tend to be good for sport.
But when rivalries bleed into repetitiveness, that’s not good for business. And that’s what’s happening now. Toronto will play Tampa Bay again in the first round, something we could see coming months ago. And when the Maple Leafs aren’t playing the Lightning, it’s because they’re playing the Boston Bruins.
Ask any NHL general manager privately about the long-and-winding road that carries you to a Stanley Cup victory and they will tell you that sometimes the most important part of the journey involves the matchup. Some teams just set up better against others. Conversely, some compare dreadfully against a club that might have roughly the same skill set and results, but plays a different style. If you were a Maple Leafs fan, you would probably feel a lot more confident playing against a team that’s also entering the postseason with its own goaltending questions.
A one-to-eight playoff system creates variety. Variety, they say, is the spice of life. Too bad the NHL refuses to sample something more unpredictable — that would create drama during these final weeks. Instead, it’s the same dull old meat and potatoes every year.
Why does the NHL not have a defensive defenseman award? — Michael B.
In 1977, the NHL introduced the Frank J. Selke Trophy, an annual award to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game. In 1981, the NHL amended the criteria of the Vezina Trophy, which prior to the 1981-82 season, simply went to the goaltenders of the team which allowed the fewest goals in the regular season. That year, the league added a second goalie trophy, the William M. Jennings Trophy, for best goals-against average and redefined the Vezina, so that it is now awarded to the goalkeeper “adjudged best at his position” in a vote of NHL general managers.
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And in 1999, it added the Maurice Richard Trophy to honor the league’s goal-scoring winner. Also over the past 30 or so years, the league has added awards for citizenship and leadership.
But defensemen? Largely overlooked.
They have the James Norris Memorial Trophy and nothing else. You can assess a player’s value to his team in any number of ways, but if time on ice is a criterion, the top 36 players in the league in TOI are defensemen. Then it’s Connor McDavid, then it’s more defensemen.
So yes, there should be an award for the best defensive defensemen to honor the kind of season that Hampus Lindholm is having in Boston, for example. Some believe this should be the “Rod Langway Award” named after the former Washington Capitals defenseman and the last “defensive” defenseman to win the Norris. If I were in charge, the best defensive defenseman award would be named after Montreal great Serge Savard.
Someone suggested this years ago, but basically, to stop tanking, as teams are eliminated from the playoffs (this year San Jose was first), you start accumulating points the same as now but starting from the day you are eliminated. The highest point total gets the first pick, second highest gets the second pick and so on. It encourages winning games. — Neil H.
It’s a creative solution, so right off the bat, you can forget about the NHL ever adopting it. But let’s backtrack a little. There is so much talk of tanking for Connor Bedard this year, but I would argue, and have argued, that tanking is easier said than done. Just look at how hard Arizona is playing, even after management traded away three of their better players at the deadline. Or Chicago, in the post-Patrick Kane era. Realistically, most NHL players and most NHL coaches don’t have it in their DNA to just go through the motions, even with so little at stake.
The problem with your suggestion is, if you really believed that teams genuinely tank, then your suggestion would incentivize them to tank earlier in a season that seems to be slipping away. Then, when you’re in a position to start competing for No. 1, shift the focus at that point to winning. In theory, if you were eliminated at or close to the trade deadline, a team could even become a buyer at that point to strengthen itself for the stretch run and the system you are proposing to determine the first pick. And what I would say in summary on the tanking question is, it’s generally most pronounced in a year when the prize is a Connor Bedard. There wasn’t nearly the same focus last season when the debate was Shane Wright vs. Juraj Slafkovsky.
The Sharks and Blackhawks entered Tuesday with the two worst records in the Western Conference. (Darren Yamashita / USA Today)
Do you think the league will ever come to its senses and decide every loss is worth zero points, regardless of the game’s state? The loser point is ridiculous, making 20 percent of games worth three points and the rest worth two. There are reasons that comics make fun of hockey, and this is one of them. — Bending C.
@Bending C. The loser point is fine, if you go to the 3-2-1-0 method to accumulate points. Three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime/shootout win, one point for an overtime/shootout loss, and zero points for a regulation loss. — Joseph B.
So, Joseph B. has essentially answered the question for Bending C. But I would agree with the starting place in his argument: The loser point is ridiculous. The fact that not all NHL games are weighted equally in the standings is a systemic flaw. Bettman has long resisted the lure of the 3-2-1-0 method, even though it’s used at the international hockey level and for sports with far more reach than the NHL (English Premier League soccer, for example). When Bettman is quizzed about this, as he was at the recent GM meetings, he says the 3-2-1-0 system wouldn’t fundamentally alter the standings — and that teams like the system as it stands. Well, why wouldn’t they like it? In a 32-team league, there are currently 23 teams with a points percentage above .500. It looks as if they’re all having decent seasons, when they really aren’t.
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But let’s be clear, this isn’t just Bettman’s view either. The 32 NHL GMs are essentially the gatekeepers of the game. They set the agenda when it comes to rule changes and tweaks. They also have the same shared selfish interest as Bettman does in appearing to have successful seasons, even if the reality is different and skewed by the way the league hands out bonus points for overtime losses. Most reasonable people understand this. What I can predict is that under the current leadership, nothing is going to change. Whichever direction the NHL goes once Bettman steps aside, and if it happens to be a little more progressive, then maybe a 3-2-1-0 points standings will be considered.
You’re the GM of a team in a rebuild, either early-rebuild like the Ducks or midway-rebuild like the Red Wings. You can make as many consecutive selections from the 2023 draft class as you like starting with pick No. 1, but for each selection you make, you forfeit two years of draft picks. An example is selecting one player would forfeit all your team’s picks from the 2023 and 2024 draft classes. Two players would forfeit all picks through 2026. How many selections from the 2023 class would you make? — Matteo L.
Interesting question. I would say the answer is one: In order to draft Connor Bedard, I would sacrifice a total of 13 draft choices, which is what you’re proposing — the other six I would have at my disposal in 2023, plus all seven in 2024. Bedard’s potential makes that worthwhile. All the other players in what is considered a deep draft have star potential, but not to the extent that I would strip myself of several draft choices in order to select, say, an Adam Fantilli as well.
Now, if I were convinced that Fantilli will be to 2023 draft what Evgeni Malkin was to the 2004 draft (Malkin was second after Alex Ovechkin), I might think differently. Alternatively, if you had enough faith in your scouts to think there was a Cale Makar lurking at No. 4 that would, in five years’ time, be considered the best defenseman in the league, then he would be another player that I’d sacrifice two years’ worth of draft choices for.
But all you have to do is pick over the last handful of drafts to see how many players chosen, even in the top five, become something less than their draft pedigree suggests. Would you give up 13 picks to draft Patrik Laine (No. 2 in 2016)? How about 13 picks for Nico Hischier or Nolan Patrick (one-two in 2017 respectively)? Jack Eichel went No. 2 in 2015 after McDavid — and Vegas gave up a lot to get him, but not the equivalent of 13 picks. Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett went second and fourth in 2014. Good players, sure, but not players you’d strip away your chances of having the kind of draft that Dallas had in 2017 when they got Miro Heiskanen at No. 3, Jake Oettinger at No. 26 and Jason Robertson at No. 39.
The NHL lottery — also known as the Bedard Bonanza — finally has a date. The ping pong balls will roll May 8 to reveal who wins the rights to draft hockey’s next superstar. More: https://t.co/5XZCYlpt2X — The Athletic NHL (@TheAthleticNHL) March 15, 2023
To what extent would expanding the number of NHL teams water down the talent on each team, making for mediocre hockey? Or has the sport of hockey expanded enough globally that the potential pool of quality players has multiplied, and teams would have no trouble fielding enough NHLers to be competitive? Obviously, the more teams, the lower the odds of potentially winning the Cup. — David J.
I would say there is enough talent coming through the global pipeline to fill in the rosters of at least two more teams. The one thing that doesn’t ever change is that hockey, like other major sports, has a pyramidal construction. There are only ever going to be a handful of players at the top of the heap — the McDavids, MacKinnons, Kucherovs, Draisaitls etc. What’s happened, though, is that the next tier of players and then the tier below them — are deeper than they have ever been. It’s partly a function of how the game has evolved — less hooking and holding, more opportunities for skilled players to make plays. A generation of smaller players that are stars in the league today might not have even gotten a second look in the NHL of the 1980s and 1990s.
Scoring is up again. There could be as many as 50 players who score 75 points or more this season. Compare that to as recently as the 2014-15 season when Jamie Benn led the league with 87 points and a total of nine players managed to get to 75 points. It’s a night-and-day difference, in terms of playing style.
But the second point you raise is valid and sometimes flies under the radar — the more teams you have, the lower the odds of winning the Stanley Cup. If the only thing that matters in the NHL is winning the Stanley Cup — and really, that does seem to be true — the fact is, every time you expand, you statistically reduce every team’s chance. Before the 1967 expansion, it was one-in-six. Now it’s one-in-32. So roughly, on average, about three championship seasons per century per team. Expanding the league to 34 teams makes it even harder to win and ultimately creates more unhappy fan bases, who put limited stock in regular-season success.
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If only championships matter, that’s the real threat attached to every round of expansion. At some point, do fans start to lose interest and abandon their teams because the hope of winning the big prize is getting to be so remote that it isn’t worth investing their time and money in supporting them? That’s the better argument against expansion, not the dilution of the player pool.
(Photo: Claus Andersen/Getty Images)