The playoffs are a month away and there are, at best, two playoff spots up for grabs. It’s a lull in the season but it’s not like people are so bored they will ask AHL questions, right? It’s time for your NHL … and AHL? … Mailbag!
1. What are your thoughts on the year Joe Frank Vatrano is having in the AHL, What should Boston do to get him in their lineup next year?
Zac
I have never cared less about anything. I don’t watch the AHL and don’t care what happens there. Joe Frank Vatrano could score 70 goals in Providence, star in a reboot of the TV show Providence and coach Providence to an NCAA basketball championship and I still wouldn’t care. Well, maybe I’d care about the last one. That could hurt my bracket.
My son could be crushing the AHL and all I’d think is, “Who cares? It’s the minors. Do some stuff in the big leagues and I’ll care.” I’m a terrible hypothetical father.
Hockey is so unlike any other sport in that so many people that enjoy the NHL are into junior/college/minors/overseas to degrees I can’t comprehend.
The NFL has college football but no one in the NCAA is NFL property, so those who partake in both don’t so with an eye on how someone there can help their NFL team. No one who loves the NFL is watching European football wondering if London’s right tackle could help protect their quarterback.
The NBA has a D-league but the next D-league tweet I see in my timeline will be the first. It’s like the NHL in that the best college basketball guys get attention the way the best junior/college hockey guys get it, but that’s it. You hear about Ben Simmons at LSU the way you hear about Connor McDavid/Jack Eichel.
MLB is the closest thing to hockey where fans keep tabs on prospects as young as 18 but again, it seems like a passing interest. Sure, people scout over minor leaguers in hopes their team has the next Mike Trout, but few are offering daily updates on the best undrafted college baseball player the way people do for Auston Matthews.
http://gty.im/460890288
I’ve long wondered if that hurts the NHL, all the diverted attention to all the other hockey. I mean, here I am with a mailbag where you can ask me literally anything and this gentleman chose to ask about a guy playing in the AHL while that guy’s NHL team is fighting for a division title. That fascinates me. It seems like a product of the “I love hockey but don’t love the NHL” mindset you hear sometimes.
Me? I flip on a college or junior game and it’s unwatchable. It makes you really appreciate the skating ability in the NHL. Yes, the NHL has become this coin flip league that only gets worse in the playoffs, where the once exciting idea of “Anyone can win the Cup when the playoffs start!” has become this boring, “Ugh, anyone can win the Cup win the Cup when the playoffs start” but it’s still light years better than anything out there because everyone there is the best at what they do.
So when I hear about a 18-year-old dominating a league with 16-year-olds or a 22-year-old guy dominating a league that’s comprised almost entirely of guys not good enough to be in the NHL, man, do I not care. That’s someone else’s thing. I’ll get to know him when he’s in the NHL.
Anyway, I’ve never watched Joe Frank Vatrano play a minor-league game in my life. I wish him all the best in being a Boston Bruins next season.
2. Draft order
https://twitter.com/matszabqc/status/709106727048892416
At first, I wasn’t going to ask this question. “Choosing the draft at random? How dumb is that? What is this guy? Some sort of dummy? What a dummy!”
But would that really be dumber than letting ping pong balls decide the fate of million-dollar franchises in a billion-dollar (allegedly) league? And if the one team that always gets that No. 1 pick is going to do nothing with it, would drawing 30 team names out of a hat hurt them? In terms of labor laws, is it any more unfairly restrictive than the current draft?
The answers, in order, are no, no and no.
http://gty.im/102419725
I get the argument against having a draft, as it forces 18-year-olds to play for organizations they are not choosing. But if the answer is letting the best draft-eligible players sign wherever they want, that just favors Canadian teams too greatly. It’s not ideal, but if you don’t want to play in a professional sports league, then don’t.
I hate the draft lottery. Hate it. If you finish last, you should pick first. It’s as simple as that. If you get there on honest ineptitude or willful tanking, that first pick should be yours. So why not drop 30 team logos in a black sack and let Bob Barker pull them out one at a time? No weighted lottery; just utter chaos.
There’s probably a reason I don’t run sports leagues. Or my fantasy leagues. Let’s move on.
3. Is the Capitals number of wins by a single goal a cause for concern? Or will they finally stop being the rock-paper-scissors of hockey (Caps always beat Lightning, Lightning always beats Rangers, Rangers always beat Caps)?
Juan
People get concerned when a team has a ridiculously great record in one-goal games but that’s not what I’d worry about with the Capitals. They are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender like never before. The concern at this point is psychological.
http://gty.im/504402326
The Caps are not unlike all those Sharks teams that never got past the conference finals. If the Caps don’t get through two rounds this year, it’s all psychological. And while, yes, I watch a lot of SVU and have studied BD Wong’s methods closely, I don’t know what to do if they lose to the Rangers again. There’s no reason the Rangers should beat the Caps this year the same way there was no reason the Sharks should have blown a 3-0 series lead in 2014 but they lost their minds as it slipped away.
At some point in the first two rounds, the Caps will face some sort of adversity. If they don’t overcome it, then they become Sharks East for the foreseeable future. There’d be no shame to losing to Tampa in the conference finals but if the Penguins or Rangers or Islanders bounce them early, it won’t have anything to do with success in one-goal games in the regular season not translating to the playoffs. It would be mental, and not in that Wayne’s World way.
4. So the Pacific Division race for first seems to be getting interesting. Or should we just expect the Ducks to win the division and then the Sharks lose to the Kings in round 1?
Nolan
There’s something so broken about the playoff system where being the team that finishes second in the Pacific is the second-best spot behind finishing first in the conference. The top seed in the West will draw Colorado/Minnesota while the two-spot in the Pacific (probably) gets the Sharks, who I personally would rather face than the fourth-best team in the Central, probably Nashville.
http://gty.im/460795744
I was pretty pumped for this new alignment a few years ago before I understood how earth-shatteringly dumb the wild card is. Did anyone hate the 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5 setup? Yeah, we all hated reseeding because it prevented us from doing brackets, but it was one of those things the NHL decided to change despite no one asking.
Anyway, I expect the Sharks to lose in the first round to either the Ducks or Kings.
5. Rough week
I’d like to say everything they did was embarrassing, but that would be unfounded.