The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, and the MassMutual East Division opens this weekend with a couple of enticing matchups as the Boston Bruins face the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the New York Islanders.
It starts Saturday with a fun matchup between two veteran teams with opposite strengths, and Sunday we get to see if the Penguins are truly back. This is just the beginning so prepare your couch for heavy use as we watch it all play out over the next month and a half.
Here’s a look at the first round matchups for the MassMutual East Division:
New York Islanders (4) vs. Pittsburgh Penguins (1)
The Matchup – Two years ago these teams met in another first-round matchup that resulted in a sweep by the Islanders. The Penguins come into this series hot, winners of three in a row and eight of the past 10. It’s not the same for New York, which started the season strong but has trailed off down the stretch and limped into the playoffs.
Pittsburgh had a resurgent season of sorts and after two early postseason exits in a row will have some pressure to go further this time around. Offensively, Crosby has been what you’d expect him to be and will be the focus again. The Penguins overcame some injuries this season but got Malkin back in the fold near the end of the season and are firing on all cylinders while scoring the most goals in the division and second-most in the NHL.
New York held onto top spot in the division at one point, but it’s been a struggle for coach Barry Trotz and his troops. To try and add some offensive punch, the Islanders picked up Travis Zajac and Kyle Palmieri from New Jersey. The two longtime Devils have not provided said punch, however, and have combined for just three goals.
The Penguins have the league’s fourth-best power play, which sets up a strength-on-strength situation in this matchup as the Islanders are sixth on the kill. Conversely, the Islanders are near the bottom of the stack in power-play rankings while the Penguins have struggled to consistently kill off penalties.
Wild Cards
While the trade with the Devils didn’t pan out as the Islanders had hoped, they have been getting contributions from rookie Oliver Wahlstrom who potted 12 goals and 21 points in 44 games. He could end up being a factor providing some much-needed secondary scoring for the offensively challenged Islanders.
The Penguins added Jeff Carter at the deadline and the veteran has been hot, potting nine goals. He adds more options for the already stacked Penguins attack.
Both clubs have some options for the Seattle Kraken to track in preparation of July’s Expansion Draft. Pittsburgh will have choices to make between protecting quality depth forwards Teddy Blueger, Jared McCann, or Brandon Tanev. The Islanders have some cap issues that could expose guys like Leddy, Bailey, Michael Dal Colle, or potentially rookie Keiffer Bellows.
Who’s going to win this?
In one corner the Penguins have one of the top offensive attacks in the NHL, and they’ll be facing one of the stingiest teams in the Islanders. This will come down to who can impose their will more. Trotz will try to slow things down for the Islanders to hinder Crosby and company. In the end, the Penguins have too much firepower resulting in a Pittsburgh win in six games.
Washington ended the season tied with Pittsburgh but lost out on the division title because of a tiebreaker. Both are veteran-laden teams that still have pieces from their most recent Stanley Cup triumphs, so there won’t be an experience edge for anyone. Storylines abound in this series as Boston legend Zdeno Chara returns to face the Bruins as a Capital.
Boston’s top line of Pastrnak, Bergeron, and Marchand continue to be among the best in the league and the Capitals will need Chara and Brenden Dillon to stand tall on the back end. The Bruins rely on the big three for scoring – they scored 72 of Boston’s 168 goals this year – but that might not be enough. Players such as David Krejci and Craig Smith need to find a way to score. In goal, Rask is playing in what could be his last season in Boston and that will be motivation for one more kick at the can.
Washington has been consistent all season and appears to have overcome an injury scare to Ovechkin late in the season. The Russian star can still fire the puck, and while the Bruins have one of the best defenses in the NHL, nothing seems to stop Ovechkin. One of the top goal-scoring teams, the Capitals have depth scoring and outside of their top players, T.J. Oshie, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Tom Wilson can pick up the slack scoring wise.
Both teams are good on special teams, which should be a wash. But in any playoff matchup, discipline is key.
Wild Cards
Boston won the trade deadline’s biggest chip by landing Taylor Hall from Buffalo. Since joining the Bruins he’s been good with 14 points in 16 games. The Bruins struggled to score consistently prior to Hall arriving, and he could be the key to closing the gap with Washington. Vanecek has been a revelation for the Capitals this year, but he is unproven. The rookie has never played in a Stanley Cup Playoff game, and he’ll need to rise to the occasion to beat the Bruins in this matchup.
Kraken watch
Seattle could end up getting some key players at the Expansion Draft out of this playoff matchup. For Boston, they may end up exposing players such as Nick Ritchie up front or defenders Jeremy Lauzon or Connor Clifton. Washington is an interesting team to watch for the Kraken. Vanacek could be an option in goal but has played so well that Washington could end up protecting him and exposing Ilya Samsonov instead.
Who’s going to win this?
The Bruins are the defensively oriented team while the Capitals scored all the goals this season. It’s always a fun playoff matchup when strengths are at odds. Boston needs to find secondary scoring and could get it from Hall. Will he be enough to push the Bruins past the rookie Vanacek and into the second round? Yes, Boston in six.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs start this weekend in the NHL, and it will be the last time that the Seattle Kraken will be mere spectators for it. In the future it will be easy to choose what to root for in the playoffs. But what about this year?
Maybe it’s your last go-around with the NHL team that you have rooted for prior to the existence of the Kraken. Maybe you have a favorite player who’s making one final run in his career.
There is plenty to root for in the playoffs and we have chosen a few items to help point in you in a rooting direction. This is by no means a list of demands.
You’re free to root for whatever or whomever you want. We have somewhat open minds. This is a list for those not sure. Should you root for Vegas in these playoffs? No, no you shouldn’t, and we explain why in our list below.
What are you going to be rooting for during the Stanley Cup Playoffs?
Root for plastic rats in Florida
It was back in 1996 when Florida Panthers forward Scott Mellanby one-timed a rat that had snuck into the home locker room. The legend of Mellanby’s ‘rat trick’ – he went out and scored twice with the rat stick – grew and soon Florida fans would flood the ice with plastic rats whenever a Panther scored.
It was great.
The Panthers, in their third year of existence, made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final that year. Obviously, they were powered by the toy rats. The Panthers have their best team since then as they prepare to face Tampa Bay in the first round, and it’s time to bring the rats back.
Sure, in 1996 the NHL put a stop to it by threatening to enforce delay of game rules against the Panthers for the rats, but that was a long time ago. Surely, we can get a couple of games’ worth of rats before the NHL reacts. Bring them back!
Root for the Panthers-Lightning series to be contentious
For the first time ever, the two Florida-based teams are facing off in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and we are rooting for it to get intense. Hockey in Florida has never quite taken hold as the NHL hoped but the potential is there.
The Lightning have had more success as a franchise, but a hard-fought, nasty series here could help explode the sport. Playoffs help grow rivalries and a knock-down seven-game series in this matchup will help create some must-see Florida hatred. They played each other at the end of the regular season, and it was chippy so let’s root for that to continue into the playoffs.
Root for a Connor McDavid-Auston Matthews battle
If Toronto avoids a first-round meltdown – and what are the odds of that? – the Maple Leafs and Oilers are slotted to meet in the second round, and it would be glorious. It would lead to two of the best players in the world facing off for a shot to advance to the Conference Finals. The popcorn is being popped now.
A series like this won’t get the attention it deserves in the U.S. because, well, reasons, but it could bring Canada to a halt. McDavid turned in a season for the ages with 104 points in 55 games and Matthews’ bid for 50 goals came up just short at 41 – still amazing. This would be the Gretzky-Lemieux playoff series we never got to see, and we could get it in HD television.
Root for a Maple Leafs loss in Conference Finals
The Toronto Maple Leafs are Canada’s team. At least that’s what the Toronto media and fans would have you believe. We’ve all enjoyed their consistent first-round exits despite a roster full of star players. It’s been fun, but the script needs to be juiced up as the story is becoming stale.
Wouldn’t it be better if they made it all the way to the Conference Finals only to lose a horrible, gut-wrenching Game 7 debacle? We like the schadenfreude that the Maple Leafs provide, and it will be extra tasty if it comes one step away from the Cup Final. Queue the distraught Mitch Marner meme now.
Root for more thrill from Kirill
Minnesota rookie Kirill Kaprizov burst onto the scene this year and was so good that he made the Minnesota Wild interesting. They used to be a bore, but now you can root for the Wild as they suddenly play exciting hockey. At the center of it is Kaprizov, who will easily win the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year. More Kirill, which comes with a run of sorts, will make the playoffs that much more entertaining.
The Vegas Golden Knights were a great story when they shocked their way to the Stanley Cup Final in 2017, their first year. Since that early run, they’ve continued to be one of the top teams in the NHL and last year made a second appearance in a conference finals series. All that success has placed near-impossible pressure and expectations on the Kraken for their first season. Enough already. We get it, but now it’s time to root against Vegas in the playoffs. Let’s calm things down a beat.
Root for the Northwest to represent
As always, there are a number of players with Northwest connections in the playoffs. That makes it easy to root for their teams throughout all the playoff series. Some have better chances than others and while this list isn’t exhaustive, let’s all root for guys who are on contending teams like Washington’s T.J. Oshie (Mount Vernon native) and Brenden Dillon (Seattle Thunderbirds), Tampa’s Tyler Johnson (Spokane Chiefs), New York Islanders’ Mathew Barzal (Seattle Thunderbirds), Florida’s Radko Gudas (Everett Silvertips), and Vegas’ Shea Theodore (Seattle Thunderbirds) and Keegan Kolesar (Seattle Thunderbirds).
Root for the playoffs to end quickly
Normally, we want the Stanley Cup Playoffs to last forever, but this year let’s root for them to end quickly. The playoffs are what is standing between us and the Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft in July. No, shorter series won’t push up the Draft date but once the playoffs end, all attention will turn to Seattle. Turns out, we’re narcissists so let’s root for these playoffs to go by in a blink so we can continue to speculate on coaches and potential players that the Kraken will be adding.
While general manager Ron Francis tries hard to keep his coaching search under wraps, it’s very likely that his top choices to become the Seattle Kraken’s first head coach are still under contract somewhere else.
Back in November, Kraken ownership reportedly gave the front office permission to hire a coach whenever it felt ready. Last month Francis said he expects a decision by the end of the second quarter and is patiently waiting to see in “the next month or two” who will be available (coaches looking for work, on expiring contracts or “other situations that may be looking to make a change,” i.e., soon to be fired). Clearly, if Francis’ first choice had already been available, the Kraken would have hired him by now.
Another quality that’s not necessary, but will certainly help, is Francis’ close ties and familiarity with coaching candidates. After playing 23 seasons in the NHL and working another 13 years in NHL front offices, Francis has accumulated quite a lengthy list of connections.
Just look at some Kraken hockey operations personnel, for example. Assistant GM Ricky Olczyk and pro scout Mark Hunter worked for the Hurricanes when Francis held front office roles in Carolina. Assistant GM Jason Botterill worked alongside Francis on Hockey Canada’s management team for the 2019 World Ice Hockey Championship. Director of player personnel Robert Kron, director of amateur scouting Norm Maciver and pro scout Stu Barnes were NHL teammates with Francis. Pro scout Jon Goodwin was Francis’ junior hockey teammate on the OHL’s Soo Greyhounds.
It’s been said we’re all linked to everyone else by six degrees of separation. But if you want the plumb NHL job as the Seattle Kraken franchise’s first head coach, good luck if you’re more than one degree removed from Francis.
Unfortunately for the Kraken, these notable Francis connections won’t be available: Florida Panthers coach Joel Quenneville, Edmonton Oilers coach Dave Tippett, Washington Capitals coach Peter Laviolette, Philadelphia Flyers coach Alain Vigneault and Minnesota Wild coach Dean Evason.
Inasmuch as it would be refreshing to hire a new face instead of the usual suspects who end up being recycled around the league, Seattle will need a seasoned coach who can command respect and get results from a veteran-laden lineup. Comments by Francis back this up, and it would take an incredible audition and interview for a coach without NHL head coaching experience to blow away the Kraken.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Saturday, and it would be nice to get the new coach involved on player assessments well ahead of the July 21 Expansion Draft. So here’s a rundown of the Kraken’s coaching candidates, divided into three groups: Francis connections, backup plans and longshots. NHL head coaching records are in parentheses.
Friends of Francis
Rod Brind’Amour (120-66-20 in three seasons with Carolina)
Brind’Amour coached the Hurricanes to the Eastern Conference finals in 2019, the conference semifinals in 2020 and first place in the Central Division this year. Carolina’s 80 points are tied with Vegas for most in the NHL through Tuesday night. He is the first Hurricanes coach to make three consecutive playoffs and is a front-runner for the Jack Adams Trophy as coach of the year. Yet, Carolina has bewilderingly dragged out negotiations on a contract extension and might lose him after this season.
Recent reports have the two sides getting closer to an agreement, and Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman has said Brind’Amour won’t re-sign unless his coaching and training staff also get new deals. But the longer these negotiations take, the chances increase for the Kraken to swoop in and land the best man for their job.
Brind’Amour was Francis’ teammate on the Hurricanes from 2000-01 to 2003-04 and succeeded Francis as Carolina’s captain. He was also an assistant coach for Carolina when Francis held various front office roles, including GM and director of hockey operations.
John Stevens (171-148-43 in seven seasons with Philadelphia and Los Angeles)
In his second season as head coach, Stevens took the Flyers to the 2008 Eastern Conference finals but hasn’t won a playoff round since.
As an assistant coach in L.A., Stevens helped the Kings win two Cups and became a highly sought-after head coaching candidate. After the Kings fired him from his head coaching duties early in the 2018-19 season, Stevens has been an assistant coach with the Dallas Stars for the past two seasons.
Stevens helped the Stars reach the Cup Finals last season, but they missed the playoffs this year. He’s been in charge of the forwards and the team’s 5-on-5 offense, which ranks 21st in the NHL with 101 goals.
Stevens was a member of the 1990-91 Hartford Whalers along with Francis.
Todd Nelson (17-25-9 in one season with Edmonton)
Nelson played only three NHL games, but one of them was alongside Francis on the 1991-92 Penguins.
After playing many years in the minor leagues, Nelson paid his dues coaching in the American Hockey League and United Hockey League. Nelson served as a head coach for eight seasons in the AHL, winning the Calder Cup championship in 2017 with the Grand Rapids Griffins.
His only NHL head coaching job was on an interim basis for the Oilers after Dallas Eakins was fired 31 games into the 2014-15 season.
Nelson just completed his third season as an assistant coach for the Dallas Stars where he works on the power play with fellow assistant Derek Laxdal. The Stars’ power play ranks fifth in the NHL (23.6 percent) this season.
Rick Tocchet (178-200-60 in six seasons with Tampa Bay and Arizona)
Tocchet was a formidable power forward in his playing days but hasn’t had close to the same success behind the bench. His only playoff appearance came during last year’s pandemic bubble where the Coyotes lost in five games to the Colorado Avalanche in the first round (though they beat the Nashville Predators in the play-in round).
Arizona dumped Tocchet on Sunday after four seasons. His reputation for what Friedman describes as “one of the best around at handling players that are not easy to reach” could get the attention of his former teammate on the 1992 Stanley Cup champions. Francis and Tocchet played together on the Pittsburgh Penguins from 1991-92 to 1993-94 and in juniors with The Soo.
Paul Maurice (761-670-125 – and 99 ties – in 23 seasons with Hartford/Carolina, Toronto and Winnipeg)
Winnipeg was cruising nicely through most of this season, but a recent slump that had the Jets losing nine out of their past 11 games raises questions about Maurice’s job security. A quick playoff exit against the potent Edmonton Oilers just might bring an end to Maurice’s eight-season run in Winnipeg.
Among active NHL coaches, only Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper has been in his current job longer than Maurice. Fair or not, the shelf life of hockey coaches doesn’t last very long.
Maurice is well-respected around the league, has his players’ backs, and won’t have to wait long for a new job if he hits the market. He coached Carolina when Francis returned to play for the Hurricanes/Whalers organization from 1998-99 to 2003-04.
Francis and Vellucci were teammates on Hartford in 1987-88, and Vellucci served as assistant GM and director of player development in Francis’ front office with the Hurricanes from 2014 to 2017.
Plan B coaching options
Gerard Gallant (270-216-51 – and four ties – in nine seasons with Columbus, Florida and Vegas)
Gallant is high atop most everyone’s Kraken coaching list after he took the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final in their first season.
Knowing how to squeeze the most out of a first-year expansion team is invaluable. But he’s been unemployed for a little more than a year. If the Kraken really valued and wanted Gallant, they could have landed him by now. Being perceived by some as unwelcoming toward analytics doesn’t help his case with the progressive-minded Kraken either.
Mike Babcock (700-418-164 – and 19 ties – in 17 seasons with Anaheim, Detroit and Toronto)
Winning a Stanley Cup with the Red Wings and two Olympic gold medals with Canada speak for themselves. But Babcock’s history of mind games and questionable treatment of some players can’t be brushed aside. That and the $5.875 million per year he’s being paid to not coach the Maple Leafs through 2022-23 will likely be tough obstacles to overcome.
Travis Green (123-130-31 in four seasons with Vancouver)
Green’s Canucks improved every season until a sudden regression had them miss the playoffs this year. Vancouver’s surprising run to the 2020 Western Conference semifinals was probably more indicative of Green’s abilities than this year’s COVID-19 train wreck. Green’s contract ends after this season, and the Canucks’ baffling indecisiveness in re-signing him could end up sending a rising coaching star to Seattle.
Bruce Boudreau (567-302-115 in 14 seasons with Washington, Anaheim and Minnesota)
In his favor, the longtime coach has never had a losing season in the NHL and worked with Kraken director of hockey strategy and research Alex Mandrycky in Minnesota. Boudreau hasn’t won a playoff round since 2015, however.
We’ll have to see if the Kraken want Boudreau.
Claude Julien (667-445-152 – and 10 ties – in 19 seasons with Montreal, New Jersey and Boston)
Julien won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011 and took them to the Cup Final again in 2013. But he hasn’t won a playoff round since 2014 and an emergency heart procedure caused Julien, 61, to miss part of the Canadiens’ 2020 postseason. Montreal fired him 18 games into this season after he couldn’t pull the team out of an early slump.
Rikard Gronborg
If the Kraken really like to do things differently, then hiring Gronborg would fit that model perfectly. The former national team coach for Sweden just completed his two-year deal with the ZSC Lions of the Swiss National League and reportedly has designs on landing an NHL job. New Jersey pursued him last year before hiring Lindy Ruff, and we can expect Gronborg’s name to be linked to more NHL coaching rumors.
Gronborg, who was an assistant coach for the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs in 2004-05, has won two World Championships and 16 medals for Sweden. It’s only a matter of time before he becomes the third European to coach in the NHL.
David Quinn (96-87-25 in three seasons with the New York Rangers)
Fresh off being fired Wednesday by the Rangers, Quinn should land a second chance somewhere after MSG chairman James Dolan got impatient with the team’s rebuild. Quinn’s background in college hockey (Boston University) sets him up better to work with younger players.
Longshots to be Kraken coach
John Tortorella (673-541-132 – and 37 ties – in 20 seasons with Tampa Bay, New York Rangers, Vancouver and Columbus)
Tortorella won a Stanley Cup with the Lightning and has had impressive results nearly everywhere he’s coached. But his old-school style and abrasiveness wouldn’t be a good fit in a new market. The Kraken coach needs to be on board for selling hockey to new fans, and Torts’ frequent condescending or curt responses to questions from the media won’t help.
Kirk Muller (80-80-27 in three seasons with Carolina)
In one of his first moves as Hurricanes GM in 2014, Francis fired Muller after he missed the playoffs for a third consecutive season. Have assistant and associate coaching gigs with St. Louis and Montreal since then made Muller better suited to lead an NHL team?
Dave Hakstol (134-101-42 in four seasons with Philadelphia)
Since he was fired by the Flyers, Hakstol has spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach with Toronto. He oversees penalty killing, which ranks 26th (79.9 percent) in the NHL. He never got out of the first round in two playoff appearances with the Flyers, but the former University of North Dakota coach could get another shot at a head coaching job in the NHL.
Hakstol and Francis worked together on Team Canada when Hakstol was an assistant for Alain Vigneault’s coaching staff at the 2019 World Championships.
Samuelsson first left the Kraken to become head coach of Leksands IF of the Swedish Hockey League in 2019-20. He previously coached MODO in Sweden for two seasons and was 39-29-8 as head coach of the Charlotte Checkers, Carolina’s AHL farm team, in 2016-17 when Francis was Hurricanes GM.
Francis has obviously aided Samuelsson’s coaching aspirations, but can the Kraken GM objectively determine if Samuelsson is ready to be an NHL head coach?
Jim Wilkie is a longtime Northwest journalist, former NHL editor and NHL Insider writer for ESPN.com, onetime GSHL All-Star, and SJHA hockey dad. Follow him on Twitter @jimwilkie.
It’s easy and probably overly simplistic to suggest that the Seattle Kraken go all out in signing unrestricted free agents (UFA) at July’s Expansion Draft. If Seattle were to agree to terms with one of those players in the team’s 48-hour exclusive negotiating window, that guy would become its pick from the Expansion Draft list.
But should the Kraken explore this route? Are there players available that would be worth it?
The only sensible answer is maybe.
While there are big-named UFA’s out there, like Alex Ovechkin and Taylor Hall, the chances of them being signed by Seattle are pretty slim. In fact, signing any UFA’s at the Expansion Draft is far from a given for the Kraken. Looking back at Vegas’ Expansion Draft, the Golden Knights signed one UFA, Deryk Engelland, at the Draft.
It’s a different NHL world this time around, however. The flat salary cap has teams dealing with tighter budgets and Seattle may be able to offer more lucrative deals.
The most likely scenarios for this to happen come from teams who don’t have attractive unprotected players for the Kraken to simply pick with their Expansion selection. It’s also possible that from these clubs, Seattle chooses to pick a player who is set to become a free agent and simply allows them to walk – something that Vegas did with three players.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t options that warrant kicking the tires on. We have a list of some interesting UFA players that are worth exploring. Will they sign all of them? No, but these players would be quality additions for Ron Francis and his crew to consider.
Potential Seattle Kraken UFA targets at the Expansion Draft
Tyson Barrie, D, Edmonton Oilers
The Oilers brought Barrie in during the offseason, signing him to a one-year, $3.75 million deal, and have reaped the benefits. Barrie possibly could have found more money elsewhere, but the gamble has paid off for both player and team.
Barrie, who has always been a scoring defenseman, is having one of his best seasons in the NHL with Edmonton. His 39 points through Edmonton’s first 46 games match his point totals in 70 games with Toronto the previous year. Barrie has thrice topped the 50-point mark and is on that kind of pace this year.
connor mcdavid gets his league leading 50th point of the year with this filthy feed to tyson barrie, who puts the oilers up 2-1! –@zjlaingpic.twitter.com/fKcgGsXqAo
— Oilersnation.com, Oily Since ‘07 (@OilersNation) March 13, 2021
So why should Seattle consider Barrie as an Expansion Draft UFA?
Having a puck-moving defenseman who can contribute offensively and man the power play is essential in today’s NHL. Barrie is that guy and if signed by the Kraken would most likely move to the top of their defensive pairings when you consider the other defensemen who may be available.
He does have some flaws – most notably the play in his own end. Barrie has been a minus player for the majority of his career, but as we know, the plus-minus number can be deceiving. Digging further, he’s coming off two seasons where he topped the 50-percent Corsi-for number. This year he’s a hair under 50 and is on the ice for more scoring chances against than he is for which could be a concern.
With Toronto, a team that has been challenged defensively, the numbers were better and he was a positive player in terms of scoring chances.
Coming off a strong offensive season probably means a pay bump and term for Barrie, but at 29 years old he’ll be relatively affordable with productive years still to come. Edmonton could look to re-sign Barrie but doing so would require them to protect him and risk exposing a young defenseman like Ethan Bear.
Other Oilers options
Barrie may be the top option from Edmonton. Oscar Klefbom is a player who has been hurt all year, and if the Oilers can’t get an injury waiver for him, they may gamble that Seattle would balk at an injured player. If healthy, he’s a better option than Barrie but also likely protected. Otherwise, Seattle is looking at younger, less proven guys like Caleb Jones on defense or former first-round pick Tyler Benson.
Chris Driedger, G, Florida Panthers
The 26-year-old Driedger has been a pleasant surprise for the Panthers this year and a big reason they’re in a race for the Discover Central top spot. Coming into the season he had 12 NHL games under his belt but caught fire and is out-playing Sergei Bobrovsky, whom Florida is paying $10 million a year through the end of time.
Driedger’s save percentage of .923 tops Bobrovsky’s .905 and his $850K-per-year pay check makes him a bargain. Driedger will be in for a raise, but who can pay him more than Ron Francis and the Seattle Kraken?
Florida has a logjam in the net and with Bobrovsky taking up such a huge cap hit, the team won’t be able to pay Driedger. After Driedger, the Panthers have the heralded Spencer Knight waiting in the wings to be the next goalie, making Driedger expendable.
There will be goalies available elsewhere in the Expansion Draft that the Kraken could look at. They need three and based on this season, Driedger would be among the top guys they could rope in.
The biggest question surrounding Driedger is if he can be trusted. He has not played a lot of NHL hockey and spent most of his pro career bouncing around the minors from the AHL and ECHL. Goalies are a different breed and take longer to develop. Driedger is still relatively young and if the Kraken feel that this season is proof of the player he’s going to be, he’d be a UFA worth going after at the Draft.
Other Panthers options
The Panthers aren’t going to offer too many attractive players for Seattle at the Expansion Draft. They acquired Sam Bennett at the trade deadline, and while he was a target on Calgary’s roster, he most likely will be protected by Florida. Otherwise, Seattle is looking at guys like Radko Gudas and Markus Nutivaara which makes Driedger a more desirable option.
Linus Ullmark, G, Buffalo Sabres
Another option at goalie, Ullmark is a year older than Driedger and has a longer NHL resume to consider. He’s in the final year of a $2.6 million contract and may want to escape the mess of Buffalo for greener pastures with the expansion Kraken.
Ullmark has appeared in 117 games with the Sabres and his save percentage has increased the last three seasons as his playing time has risen. While he’s not an elite goaltender, he’s been good and has been stuck on a bad team for the entirety of his tenure.
He also has a Kraken connection as he worked with Kraken pro scout Andrew Allen when Allen served as Buffalo’s goaltending coach. Can Seattle cash in on that to lure him away?
Buffalo most likely would want to sign Ullmark and could do so prior to the Expansion Draft. They have cap room and no other strong goaltending options. If the Kraken is interested, they would have to bank on Ullmark wanting a new home in order to make it happen.
Other Sabres options
The Sabres added Anders Bjork in the Taylor Hall deal at the deadline but most likely will protect him now. That doesn’t leave too many exciting options from Buffalo. Guys like Kyle Okposo, Will Borgen, or Cody Eakin are other options but don’t move the needle much.
Ryan Murray, D, New Jersey Devils
It feels like a lifetime ago when Murray was selected second overall in the NHL Entry Draft from the Everett Silvertips. That was in 2012 and while he’s been a solid, two-way defenseman, he’s been plagued by injuries. In his eight NHL seasons he’s played more than 60 games only three times.
He was traded from Columbus to New Jersey this offseason and has stayed healthy, playing in 41 games so far. Murray has 12 points but scoring isn’t really his main strength. He’ll never light up the scoresheet but he’s good in his own end and has been that with the Devils this season.
Murray’s underlying stats are even for the most part, and he would provide the Kraken with an experienced blueliner.
At 27 years old, he still has good hockey in him, and while he’s coming off a $4.6 million contract, it’s possible that the Kraken could get him at the Expansion Draft on a similar, if not cheaper, UFA deal. The Devils could look to re-sign Murray, but they already have a good deal of cap space tied up in defensemen P.K. Subban and Damon Severson.
Other Devils options
The Devils could dangle Subban and his $9 million a year contract in front of the Kraken. While he’s a big name, Subban’s production has waned the past couple of seasons. It would be a splash for Seattle to select Subban but perhaps may not be the best on-ice move. Murray is three years younger, cheaper, and just as productive.
Zach Hyman, LW, Toronto Maple Leafs
The Maple Leafs don’t have cap space. That’s the result of having three players – Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Mitch Marner – each making over $10 million a year, and that means they are going to lose some free agents.
Hyman has twice topped the 20-goal mark, is 28 years old, and too pricey for the Maple Leafs to reasonably re-sign.
He would be a solid addition for the Kraken to swing for via the UFA window at the Expansion Draft. Hyman has the skill to score and his underlying numbers are great. He drives play.
Hyman’s Corsi-for this season is 52 percent, his expected goal percentage is an impressive 67 percent, and while he’s on the ice the Maple Leafs enjoy a 63-percent advantage in terms of high-danger scoring chances. That all adds up to a quality player that Seattle would benefit from.
Seattle won’t get him for the bargain of $2.25 million a year as Toronto has enjoyed. Looking at some comparables, he’s in line for a pay raise. It helps that the Kraken have all the cap space in the world at the moment.
Other Maple Leafs options
Looking at the Toronto projected protected list, the most intriguing player available may be defenseman Justin Holl. While he’s having a good season, he is not as productive as Hyman and would be a downgrade.
When the puck drops for the Seattle Kraken’s inaugural season this fall, ESPN will return to broadcasting NHL games for the first time since 2004. Perhaps it’s a fitting coincidence of timing for two sports businesses that had their share of detractors when they were trying to get started.
Overcoming rejections and the cynical naysayers requires a determined attitude and special leadership to make these innovative visions, which were underestimated by others, a reality. For Seattle hockey fans, they’ve had Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke to plan and deliver the renovation of Climate Pledge Arena and Kraken majority owner David Bonderman and president and CEO Tod Leiweke to recognize the region’s untapped interest in hockey.
In ESPN’s case, founder Bill Rasmussen took an idea for a 24-hour sports network and turned it into a reality in 1979 despite multiple prospective investors turning down his proposals and many broadcasters and businesspeople telling him it would fail.
“He’s got more optimism than anyone I think I’ve ever met,” said Mike Soltys, who Rasmussen hired as ESPN’s first intern in 1980 and is now vice president, corporate communications at the network. “He’s always just looking at things from the positive side and how to make them happen. And when things don’t go right he has the ability to just move on from them. He doesn’t dwell on it.”
Now 88 and living in Lake Forest Park just north of Seattle, Rasmussen radiates the positivity and optimism that served him well in the network’s formative days and beyond. In a Zoom interview last month, he recalled how he persevered to achieve his goal to create ESPN.
“It’s hard to believe that in the 1970s before ESPN came along there really weren’t, comparatively speaking, very many live sports on television,” Rasmussen said. “The three big networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) only did about 1,300 hours combined in the course of a year. … Saturday afternoon football or a baseball game and Sunday ‘Wide World of Sports’ or something. We were saying we’re going to do 8,760 hours of sports around the clock all year.
“And you know, of course everybody says that’s not gonna work; nobody’s gonna watch it. Where are you going to find all the sports, etc.? And by comparison, of course, we did get to 8,760 hours, we went 24 hours a day. Not right at the beginning but shortly thereafter.”
For some perspective, he pointed out, ESPN in 2019 presented 83,340 total live hours of studio and event programming – TV and digital combined. Safe to say, millions of sports fans are thankful Rasmussen persisted and eventually landed crucial investment money from Getty Oil to turn his idea into the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.
Getting fired by the WHA’s New England Whalers in 1978 helped lead Bill Rasmussen to create ESPN and what would become one of the biggest brands in sports business. (Joe Faraoni/ESPN Images)
Rasmussen forges ahead while confronting Parkinson’s disease
Even in retirement, Rasmussen has been resilient while forging ahead through personal setbacks such as Parkinson’s disease. He doesn’t like to describe himself as “suffering” from the disease because he can do everything he enjoys. Rasmussen has had to make some adjustments, although “I don’t think I could field groundballs anymore at third base like I used to,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, he’s tackling Parkinson’s with the same spirit he tapped into for overcoming obstacles and achieving his business success.
“Everybody kids me, how can I be so optimistic? Well, that’s the way I’ve been. I’ve been around for (nearly) 90 years … and I’ve just been positive,” he said. “I think we can do anything that we set our minds to do. Someday there’ll be a cure for Parkinson’s.”
To stay active and sharp, Rasmussen has been writing a book that is due to be released in the fall. It looks at the evolution of sports and sports radio, TV and streaming from the 1930s to the 2020s along with major historic U.S. and world events during his lifetime.
“I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease many years ago. And so a neurologist said, ‘You have to keep busy; do something. Write a page a day; write a book. Do something.’ So I said, ‘Well, why not write the book?’ It has been very helpful and it’s fun to go through and recall all of the things that I witnessed and go and learn (about) the things before.”
Rasmussen has been witness to significant changes in sports and broadcasting. Born in Chicago, he served in the Air Force and earned an economics degree and an MBA before starting an advertising services business. Then in the early 1960s his love of sports led to a career pivot, and he became a versatile TV and radio broadcaster who worked on news and multiple sports.
He said he had been eager to become a baseball play-by-play announcer and finally got his chance. After working games for a Double-A team in Pittsfield, Mass., he discovered the hard truth that all hockey fans can understand.
“About the 10th game in I decided this is a really boring job,” Rasmussen said with a laugh. “Hockey was much better because (it’s) in motion all the time.”
Hockey, it turns out, had a big assist in creating ESPN. In 1974, Rasmussen joined the World Hockey Association’s New England Whalers as their communications director. But in 1978, Whalers owner Howard Baldwin fired Rasmussen along with the rest of the front office.
If Baldwin – the movie producer who later brought action stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Russell Crowe to the ice in “Sudden Death” and “Mystery, Alaska,” respectively – hadn’t fired Rasmussen, he wouldn’t have had the urgency to start a new business. ESPN would not exist – or at least be what it is today – without the head start it got from Rasmussen and his son Scott.
Quest to find a cure
Since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014, Bill Rasmussen has tried to use his influence and connections to help others, improve research, and raise money to find a cure for the disease.
“The biggest single thing with Parkinson’s is people don’t want to even go find out whether or not they have it,” Rasmussen said. “They might notice a little tremor; they might notice a little hesitation in their step. I say, ‘Well, you know, that’ll be OK,’ those are the early indications of Parkinson’s. But people don’t want to hear those words, so you can’t really attack living with it until you admit that you have it.”
The ESPN founder is on the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s patient council and is actively involved in the American Parkinson Disease Association to help raise awareness. He said it’s important for more people of all ages with the disease commit their time to participate in research studies.
“No one knows when it starts. They can’t just say, OK we’ve discovered you at this stage, we know that you probably contracted this a year ago or 10 years ago, we can’t do that because we haven’t got enough research,” Rasmussen said.
A person is diagnosed with Parkinson’s about once every nine minutes in the United States, according to the APDA.
“So you can imagine that’s lot of people, and we don’t even know how many people who just don’t want to admit it,” Rasmussen said.
One of the main messages he makes through his volunteer roles and outreach is to remind people to not give up. Describing himself as being on the “intentionally optimistic side rather than ‘Oh, woe is me’ side” in response to being diagnosed, Rasmussen also is excited by the advances being made to cure the disease.
“I’m a confident guy. I think they can solve it,” Rasmussen said. “I don’t know if it’s while I’m still here, but I’ll just have to live longer that’s all. I figure 100, 105 maybe. By that time I’ll be slowing down.”
“I’ve been asked that a few times, and it probably wouldn’t have (been created),” Rasmussen said of ESPN. “I would have kept on doing hockey till I either got fired or got bored, one or the other, and it turned out I got fired first.”
While stuck in freeway traffic in Connecticut, Rasmussen and his son were killing time by brainstorming “what if” and “what about” ideas when it led to thoughts of creating a 24-hour sports channel.
This perfect example of one door closing and another one opening combined with some serendipity in acquiring satellite access and making your own luck through ingenuity and hard work created a path to success. Rasmussen eventually used $9,000 from a credit card advance to create ESPN, and the world’s first 24-hour television network was launched in 1979.
Whalers connections from ESPN to the Kraken
Another parallel between ESPN and the Kraken is the team’s links to the Whalers. The WHA’s New England Whalers joined the NHL and became the Hartford Whalers a year after Baldwin fired Rasmussen. Seattle general manager Ron Francis was drafted fourth overall in 1981 and played 10 seasons in Hartford. Former NHL Seattle advisor Dave Tippett, who’s now coaching the Edmonton Oilers, played seven seasons in Hartford.
After witnessing the wild days of the WHA, Rasmussen could probably write an entertaining book about the ups and downs of the New England Whalers. As was common for the upstart league that tried to compete with the NHL in the brawling 1970s, the Whalers had their share of notable characters, such as colorful coach Harry Neale, combative goalie Al “The Bear” Smith, hard-hitting Jack “Killer” Carlson, “Slap Shot” Hanson brother Steve Carlson, and feisty pest Johnny “Pie” McKenzie.
McKenzie, who had helped the Boston Bruins win two Stanley Cups before bouncing around the WHA, was a gritty, 5-9 grinder who liked getting under the opponent’s skin. Rasmussen recalled McKenzie “around a gaggle of players” and doing his instigating best during a 1978 game after the Hartford Civic Center’s roof had collapsed in a snowstorm.
Gordie Howe getting suited up at age 50. You can literally feel the old man strength. pic.twitter.com/lw4utTUjKS
“We were playing up in Springfield, and it’s an image I can see right now talking to you,” Rasmussen said. “He was agitating, you know, elbows and the stick and all this. Somebody turned around, and I don’t know if they were swinging at him but they missed him and hit somebody else. He just went over and he jumped up and sat on the boards while there’s a big fight going out on the ice. He’s the guy who started it all, and he’s sitting over on the boards. He looked like a little kid with his legs hanging down, and he was laughing. He was a character.”
Another “big-time instigator” Rasmussen admired and has fond memories of is Gordie Howe, one of the WHA’s marquee players and the biggest star of the New England Whalers. After moving from the Houston Aeros to the Whalers in 1977-78 with his sons Mark and Marty, the Detroit Red Wings legend led New England in scoring with 96 points in 76 games. Even as he was turning 50 in 1978, Howe’s fitness was superior to most of his teammates, and Rasmussen said he could still run rings around the rookies.
“I remember (Neale) saying this one year you had to have the players run, I don’t know a six-minute mile or some such thing as part of their conditioning in the fall. And Gordie won it every time! He was ahead of them, so he finally said, ‘You can’t do this, Gordie. You’re embarrassing them,’” Rasmussen said with a laugh.
“Can you imagine the young, what 18-, 20-year-old who thinks he’s in great shape and here’s this graybeard saying, ‘Come on, kid, catch up.’”
Old-time hockey, like Eddie Shore
Rasmussen’s old-time hockey connections run even deeper than the WHA. While he was working radio and TV jobs in Springfield, Mass., Rasmussen did play-by-play for the American Hockey League’s Springfield Indians/Kings. Team owner and Boston Bruins legend Eddie Shore decided he needed to give Rasmussen some one-on-one lessons on the finer points about hockey.
“I remember Johnny Wilson was the coach and he had me down (on the ice for practice). And if they were missing somebody I would skate the right wing or left wing or center, whatever the deal was,” Rasmussen said. “I was just filling a position, nobody did anything to me. But you’d have to wear shin guards because those guys they just can’t help but tap somebody in the shins with a stick.
“But Eddie Shore came out one day, and he used to come out and blow the whistle when the Zamboni was coming out after the morning skate. And I’d go off like everybody else, and he said – I can still hear him – he said, ‘Mister come over here. Mister you, over here. He says, if you’re gonna do this you oughta learn how to skate.”
Rasmussen wasn’t exactly a novice. He said he’d skated for 40 years and was a referee for junior hockey in Massachusetts.
“And then he said, ‘Do you know how to hold a hockey stick?’ I mean he’s really giving it to me. So come over here, he dropped a bunch of pucks and he started backhanding them up against the boards. … And he’s just standing and he’s firing pucks backhand and he says, ‘OK you do that.’ I couldn’t do a backhand. I couldn’t lift the puck off the ice backhanded if I was doing it from then till now. It would never happen. But he said, ‘We’re going to teach you,’ and he frequently would come over as we were going off and he’d say, ‘Let’s try this today.’”
Shore’s legacy as a rugged Hockey Hall of Fame player and two-time Stanley Cup winner for the Bruins is nearly matched by his notoriety as a cheapskate owner. Rasmussen recalled a famous 1966 players strike over poor wages that led to Shore recruiting replacement players from the Eastern Hockey League, which “was known mostly for drop the puck and let’s fight. Those were tough days.”
“It was comedy on ice for about two or three games before they finally reached some sort of an accommodation, and the real guys came back and played,” Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen, left, and Bristol, Conn., Mayor Michael Werner dig into the groundbreaking ceremony for ESPN studios in 1980. (ESPN Images)
The standards for running a pro sports franchise have thankfully progressed since the 1960s. Shore resisted broadcasting Indians games on the radio until the mid-1960s because he thought it would hurt ticket sales, although Rasmussen said they “always sold out 5,934 people every game.”
Shore’s management style for pinching pennies involved members of his family helping the Indians cut costs. Rasmussen recalled dropping in on the Eastern States Coliseum in West Springfield in the offseason during a horse show and running into Shore’s son Ted.
“I said, ‘Teddy, what are you doing here? There’s no hockey today.’ He says, ‘Oh, I’m making popcorn,’” Rasmussen said.
“I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m making popcorn.’
“This is like August or early September, so he took me back and showed me they had these big, they looked like 55-gallon drums, and they’re made out of fiberboard. He’s back there filling those and making popcorn for the season. So you know the popcorn that you’re eating in November and December was probably made in August and September.”
Fortunately venue management and sports franchise ownership have evolved considerably since then, and Rasmussen and his fellow Seattle hockey fans can expect much fresher fare when Climate Pledge Arena opens. And whenever the Kraken make their national TV debut, Seattle fans should give some thanks to their innovative neighbor in Lake Forest Park with the unwavering optimism for not giving up on his vision to create ESPN.
“I think I’m a great advocate of getting up in the morning and having a happy thought right away,” Rasmussen said. “I remember Jimmy Durante used to sing this song about you’ve got to ‘Start Off Each Day With a Song,’ and that’s a happy song.”
(Top photo of Bill Rasmussen on the “SportsCenter” set: Rich Arden/ESPN Images)
Jim Wilkie is a longtime Northwest journalist, former NHL editor and NHL Insider writer for ESPN.com, onetime GSHL All-Star, and SJHA hockey dad. Follow him on Twitter @jimwilkie.
Earlier this week Greg Wyshynski published an interesting piece on ESPN+ on fighting in the NHL during this pandemic-impacted season. He talked to Nicolas Deslauriers of the Anaheim Ducks about the mentality of engaging in pugilistic activities with no fans in the building during this unorthodox campaign. It is a great piece, so check it out if you can.
The article referenced how fighting is up this season. It triggered me to look into how this aspect of hockey has changed in the NHL over the last 20 years for this week’s Data Dump Saturday.
NHL fighting trends
Over the last 20 years or so, fighting has been going down across the league as traditional “enforcers” have been replaced by younger, more skilled players.
The reasons for the decline of fighting are beyond the scope of this post, but it comes down to a combination of stricter penalties for fighting, awareness on long-term impacts of repeated concussions, and data supporting that skill on the fourth line is more valuable than enforcers.
The increase we have seen in 2020-21 could come from the heightened tensions associated with the all intra-division format in this unique regular season. Teams are playing their divisional rivals more frequently versus the traditional cross-league schedule in which they would face certain opponents less frequently.
Impact of fighting on team performance
Here is how fighting breaks down by team and division in 2020-21.
On one side of the coin you have two of the worst teams in the league this year in Anaheim and Ottawa leading their respective divisions in percentage of games with fights. On the other side, the Buffalo Sabres, a comparable bad team, have close to the fewest games with fights.
Additionally, Tampa Bay and Florida are two of the better teams in the Discover Central Division and are also the top two teams in the division in percentage of games with fights. The summary is that fighting does not correlate to winning or losing records in the NHL.
Fighting in the NHL by player
The next question I wanted to answer is which individual players are still fighting in the NHL. Let’s first look at how many players are fighting in the NHL by season.
Looking at the drop in the number of players participating in fights in 2020-21 is a bit misleading. The season is not complete, and even when it wraps up in May, it will be shorter than previous campaigns. The net result is that this gives less opportunity for players to get in a fight.
I then wanted to look at the percentage of players that are getting into fights and how many of them are getting into multiple fights.
Again, the drop in the 2020-21 numbers of players participating in multiple fights could be misleading for reasons stated above, but the consistent drop over time can be attributed to the fact that there are no longer players that are in the league exclusively for fighting.
Here is a look at the fight leaders in the NHL this season.
It’s interesting to see a player like Brady Tkachuk leading the league in fights this season because he also is tied for the lead in points on the Senators with 30 as of April 24. Tkachuk is a good example of the shift away from the dedicated enforcer role. Austin Watson and Deslauriers may not have the offensive skill that Tkachuk has, but they still contribute with .29 and .22 points per game, respectively.
To help understand how the makeup of players fighting in the NHL has changed, let us now compare the top 10 fighters from the 2000-01 NHL season.
The number of fights these guys had in that single season is the first thing that stands out. Even if you doubled Tkachuk’s six fights and extrapolated that to a full season, it is still less than half of Andrei Nazarov’s 27 fights in 2000-01. Nazarov had only six points in 79 games that year. Of the list of top 10 fighters, only Matthew Barnaby and Tie Domi contributed beyond the fighting and intimidation role the others played in their careers. This validates the theory that we are seeing fewer and fewer one-dimensional enforcers in the league now.
Summary
Although fighting is indeed up this season compared to last, supporting Wyshynski’s comments, there are still indicators that fighting in the NHL has fundamentally changed. Even a small increase in games with fights this year is probably not a strong indicator of any changes to the trend we have seen over the last 20 seasons.
