Six thoughts heading into a crazy part of the hockey calendar

28/06/2024

The NHL’s insane late-June/early-July calendar leaves us in the midst of several notable dates. The Stanley Cup was just handed out, the awards show was last night, the draft is tonight, and free agency starts Monday.

Instead of picking out a single topic, I thought I’d use today’s column to weigh in on a bit of everything. Let’s get to it.

The Stanley Cup in Florida

The Panthers are deserving champions, and credit to the market in the sunshine state for changing the narrative around their team over the years. It was a punchline for a long time, with black tarps covering swaths of seats, and players doing their level best to avoid playing there.

These days, players can’t get there fast enough. They’ll only waive no-trade clauses to play specifically there. They packed the building for multiple deep playoff runs, and the team has been good enough, long enough, to show themselves as worthy Cup champions.

But.

With that out of the way, man it’s been a tough scene as a Canadian watching the clips of them parading the Cup about Florida. The scenes are all the wonderful things you’d expect about being on the ocean — the Cup went for a swim in the Atlantic, they’re on the dock with it, it’s all shirtless party time. But in every scene, the Cup might as well be a labradoodle, just another object that’s with the group as they do their vacation-style things. People see it while passing by, and drop an “Oh, that’s cute.”

There are real fans in Florida, just as real as the ones in Canada. But the volume of them is so comparably low — particularly on a per capita basis — that it’s sad not seeing the Cup get the Taylor Swift treatment it would north of the border (or in about a dozen US markets). Maybe next year?

six thoughts heading into a crazy part of the hockey calendar

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Real Kyper and Bourne

Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne talk all things NHL, all season long. Watch live every weekday on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ — or listen live on Sportsnet 590 The Fan — from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET.

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NHL off-ice drama about to heat up

The NBA has, over the past 5-10 years, distanced itself from the NHL in terms of off-ice drama. I should specify: positive off-ice drama, of which I classify the stuff fans love – pick swaps and trades and big signings and super teams.

The NHL has been wildly hamstrung by the flat cap, to a degree I don’t think most fans realize. Every trade has required Rube Goldberg machinations involving salary retention and picks and future considerations and waivers. Some GMs have barely bothered to try.

Well, the cap finally shot up a bit and relieved some pressure, which it’s going to keep doing every year for many years. Because of COVID/escrow complications the upper limit doesn’t reflect league revenues. As it shoots up, teams are going to be able to keep their good players, trade for other good players, and not be forced into trimming off every bit of excess fat from their rosters.

This summer feels like it could be the first taste of that fun.

Haves and have-nots may be coming

The low cap and revenue sharing has meant that teams farther down the league in terms of revenue and spending have been able to spend almost as much as everyone else, and stay competitive. Money almost hasn’t been a factor around the league. It’s been 32 teams and everyone has a chance. How quaint.

But as the salary cap goes up, I don’t think every owner is going to want to spend to it (even though I don’t think you should own a team without being willing to spend to the cap). If the cap is $100-plus million in a few years, will some teams who spend to the top finally see an advantage over some smaller market teams, particularly those a good distance from contending? I think it’ll happen.

My UFA theory

Shopping at July 1 is a little like bringing your kid to the store with their birthday money. Maybe they’ve got $20 to spend in the toy store. They can either get A) A single item worth $20, or B) a bunch of cheap little trinkets worth $20. (They will spend the full $20, of course.)

You want to push them towards a single good thing that will last, as much as they’ll chase quantity.

When teams have cap space, they’re far better off to target one guy they really want, pay the man, and then wait for better value to come up on subsequent days. When the Leafs went out and got TJ Brodie for four years at $5 million per season, it was a great purchase. He struggled the second half of the final year of that deal (which you accept when you buy an older UFA for four years), but he was a value for them for the rest of the deal. But when you go outbid other teams for depth players like, say, Ryan Reaves, you’re unlikely to get value.

It’s OK to overpay a bit for a player you badly need. But over-spending by $0.5 million on three or four “meh” contributors ends up hurting.

Jon Cooper and Team Canada

It’s a unique job, preparing to coach a group of players who’ve never played together, for just a few games. But if any coach in the league can handle it, it’s Cooper.

At the Four Nations Faceoff, Team Canada will be loaded up front, but get progressively weaker as they move back towards their own net, which can give you two options: Commit to strong positional play and team defence, and wait for your skill to break through in close games, or go for broke on offence and try to outscore everyone.

My thought is that in a tournament like this, nobody is going to be perfect defensively, they just don’t have the time to gel and know where each other are going to be. It won’t be like a playoff series.

And so, Canada may be at its best leaning into its strengths, and just go, go, go, knowing there will be mistakes from the other team. They say you can’t win 7-6 all the way through playoffs, but you might be able to in a short tournament.

And finally,

No more talk about “at the draft”

You hear insiders say it all the time around the trade deadline: “They may hold on to the player to see if they can get way more for him at the draft, when all 32 teams are involved.” Generally, I see that phrasing as cover for a GM who either can’t find a deal or put themselves in a bad spot with a player.

And so, let’s see! The draft has arrived, the Cup Final is over, the cap is going up, and some insiders are saying this could be a bonkers time of year. NBA teams are out here trading four unprotected first-rounders for single players, which sounds insane. But surely some GMs in our more conservative sport can muster up the chutzpah to take a risk or two as well, wouldn’t you think?

Should be a fun weekend. Real Kyper and Bourne has three more shows next week, including a three-hour free agency show on Monday. Hopefully there’s plenty to discuss then!