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HFNHL Radio Presents: Stretch Drive Update
Ted: Welcome everybody, and thank you for joining us on HFNHL Radio. I’m Ted Thomson, and with me as always is Hal “Heater” Hopkins, as we break down the HFNHL playoff race.
Heater: It sure was a heck of a night for all those fans keeping their fingers crossed for a taste of the postseason. Let’s get started!
Ted: First off today, the Eastern Conference, where the leaner, meaner Bruins are making a serious charge for the last playoff spot.
Heater: That’s right, Ted. The Bs looked like sellers at the deadline, unloading veteran salaries in Ed Jovanovski and Andrew Brunette, but the changes seem to have lit a fire under the team, as they’ve gone 8-1-1 in their past 10, including a win last night against the free-falling Devils.
Ted: Whatever happened to the Devils this season? They had some elite players, but just couldn’t seem to put it together.
Heater: I know I’m not supposed to say this as an analyst, Teddy, but honestly: your guess is as good as mine. There was a lot of talent on that team, but maybe they you’d think they were migratory birds or something, the way they all went south at the same time!
Ted: Boston’s sitting just one point back of Winnipeg for the 8th spot, but because of the unusual schedule for the Jets’ home stand, Boston’s got four games in hand.
Heater: The Jets have managed a couple of wins recently, Teddy, but they’re going to have a hell of a time holding off the charging Bruins. Toronto’s right there with Boston putting pressure on Winnipeg, and they have games in hand as well.
Ted: Pittsburgh meanwhile has seen a slide since their deadline sell-off, and while the playoffs are still a possibility, it looks like they’ll be on the outside looking in.
Heater: Their GM made the first steps to get out of some hot financial water. The playoffs would be a nice boost, but I think they’re more concerned with making sure the team doesn’t go belly-up, so they said bye-bye to Richards, Spezza, Orpik, Volchenkov... I tell ya, it’s a far cry from the days of Lemieux and Jagr for the fans in Pittsburgh.
Ted: At the top of the East, we see a dead sprint between three teams for the Conference title.
Heater: And what a race it is! The Sens and Panthers were both expected to be contenders out of the gate – although the Sens’ books are still a mess, and an early playoff exit could force them and their new GM into bankruptcy. Bit the real surprise has been how the Hurricanes have been able to climb to the top and stay in the mix this whole season.
Ted: Florida and Ottawa have managed to catch up, and in each case, briefly pass the Hurricanes, but thanks to last night’s win over the Rangers, the ‘Canes are back in top spot with a game in hand on the Sens. The Panthers meanwhile have a game in hand themselves, and are just a point off the pace.
Heater: This one’s going to go down to the wire, Teddy – any one of these teams can make a legitimate claim to being the best in the East, but I don’t think we’ll know the answer until game 82 is played.
Ted: There’s no such question in the Western Conference, though. The Anaheim Ducks have been the class of the league for most of the year, and have opened up a shocking 10-point lead on their nearest rivals.
Heater: The President’s Trophy is in the bag for Gledhill and his boys, Teddy. I hear they're considering putting the “Mighty” back in their name! They will want to be careful of injuries in these last few weeks, though – get their key guys some rest so they can enter the post-season fresh and ready to go. They don’t want a repeat of what happened to the last team to hoist the President’s Trophy!
Ted: I’m sure fans of the St. Louis Blues don’t need the reminder, Hal, after so many years of dominating the regular season only to lose early in the playoffs. But those fans finally have something to cheer about this season, as the Blues have managed to claw their way back into a playoff spot after playing terribly through the first 50 games.
Heater: There’s just too much talent and experience on that roster to keep them down for long, Teddy. With guys like Alfredsson, Thornton, Pronger and Chara, the surprise isn’t that they’ve managed to get back into the post-season conversation, it’s that they were ever out of it in the first place. Head Coach Alain Vigneault may just have saved his job if he can manage to hang on to 8th, after multiple calls earlier in the season to send him packing.
Ted: He’s not going to have an easy time of it, though, with three clubs tied at just a point behind the Blues, all of them with a game in hand. The Coyotes and Red Wings each made additions to try and bolster their playoff runs – with Phoenix grabbing Martin Erat and the Wings picking up Pavel Kubina and Derek Stepan, but the Stars are the surprise here.
Heater: They’d stripped their roster down mid-season to ids and AHL guys, but don’t forget: they have what may be the league’s best player in Jonathan Toews, and they did add some veterans in Olli Jokinen and Tom Gilbert. They’re 7-2-1 in their past 10, and freshman bench boss Mike Yeo has them working well as a team in front of young Bobrovsky.
Ted: I was shocked to see them move Kiprusoff, weren’t you?
Heater: Not really, Teddy. The writing was on the wall there, they had decided to blow it up and it didn’t really make sense to hold onto an expensive veteran like Kiprusoff when there were some talented young goalies to try and build around. And they got a good package from the Blackhawks to help them continue their rebuild. But while some fans will be excited about the fact that they’re still in the playoff hunt, others will be disappointed that their good play is costing them a chance at a franchise talent like Nail Yakupov this summer.
Ted: The old “Fail for Nail” gambit. Tanking has certainly worked in some teams’ favour over the years. One team we weren’t expecting to see it from, though, is the Calgary Flames.
Heater: The Flames were another of those teams everyone expected to contend this season, but things went wrong early and often, and they dug themselves too deep a hole. They’d won 4 of 5 heading into last night’s action, and still hadn’t managed to a single spot in the standings.
Ted: Currently sitting 13th, and their GM was facing the same kind of financial crunch that the Penguins and Sens are. And that, say team officials, is why the team just sent down productive NHLers Patrik Berglund and Artem Anisimov, along with a number of other players: they say they just couldn’t afford their full salaries the rest of the way.
Heater: It’s just an embarrassment for the team and the league, Teddy. They had to have been hoping their wins would have brought some increased gates and held off their creditors, but no dice: this is a team on the brink of receivership, so they’ll do anything they can to stay afloat. The fans and media in Calgary have been going out of their minds this season, and this is just the latest outrage. But you have to remember that the team gambled heavily earlier in the year, bringing in some high-priced talent in an effort to turn the team’s fortunes around. When that failed, they pretty much had to blow it up. They got a head start on the deadline and were able to move a bunch of salary out, but they couldn’t seal the deal on some of their biggest cap hits in Dion Phaneuf and Niklas Backstrom.
Ted: Not to mention Pavel Datsyuk, who signed a multi-year extension for big dollars just a couple of months earlier.
Heater: That’s right. I mean, who would ever have guessed that signing a player like Datsyuk would so quickly become a mistake? At least nobody can accuse the team of “tanking”, since they don’t hold their own first rounder. No picks before the third round this year, and their first Calgary pick is the 4th. That’s gotta be salt in the wound for their fans.
Ted: That’s a big bonus for the Pens, who hold their pick, along with their own and Washington’s. That’s two picks possibly in the top 5, and another possible top 10 pick.
Heater: That’ll go a long way towards kick-starting Pittsburgh’s rebuild, just like having a bunch of high picks set up their cross-state rivals in Philly.
Ted: The rest of the Western Conference playoff picture is a complete toss-up. The six teams in spots 2 through 7 have just six points between them.
Heater: The West has been crazy competitive all season, Teddy. Nobody’s going to catch the Ducks, but every single one of these teams has a real chance at home ice in the first round.
Ted: The Central Division continues to be strong. We’ve already talked about the Blues and Wings, but the action this season has been between the Predators, the Blackhawks and the Blue Jackets, who reclaimed the 2nd spot in the conference with a win last night over Colorado.
Heater: The Central has been a dogfight all year. Columbus and Nashville I think we figured would be in the mix for the playoffs from the start, but Chicago has really come on and established themselves a legitimate force in the West. They had a few bright spots on the roster including an incredible top pairing on D, but there were real depth concerns. But the players have really bought into Head Coach Dave Tippet’s system and have been winning close games all year.
Ted: So much so that at the deadline management swung a bunch of deals to shore up that depth with some real talent.
Heater: They were right up there with Carolina as the major player at the deadline, Teddy – just look at this list of names they’ve added this season: Brad Richards. Miikka Kiprusoff. Scott Gomez, Hal Gill, Owen Nolan. That’s some major artillery they added in order to shore up their chances.
Ted: Compare that with the Hurricanes adding Marian Gaborik, Thomas Vanek, Andrew Brunette and Cory Sarich.
Heater: People have been calling this season “the arms race”, and that gives you a good idea why. We’ve never seen contending teams load up this much heading into the stretch drive. It’s creating a ton of excitement in those cities, and should make for a fantastic playoffs.
Ted: What about teams like Anaheim, Vancouver, Colorado and Montreal, teams that have been in the mix all year but weren’t as involved in deadline activity?
Heater: Well, you could argue those were four of the more complete teams to start the season, and they’d all performed well, so there wasn’t really the big pressure to make a deadline move. With the exception of Vancouver, though, each of them made one or two very targetted moves at the deadline, though – Montreal swapping out Bogosian for Bergeron, Anaheim adding Saku Koivu for a pick to be their second line centre, and Colorado getting Volchenkov back from the Pens, after they’d moved him to bring in Orpik earlier in the year. Each of those moves was very carefully done to try and bolster a weakness on the roster without disrupting the balance and chemistry that had already made those teams successful.
Ted: In Colorado’s case, it hasn’t yet provided the boost they may have been hoping for.
Heater: This is a team with two of the best players in the game in Sidney Crosby and Nicklas Backstrom, but while they’ve continued to play well, they haven’t really dominated the way many expected they would.
Ted: Losers again last night to the Columbus Blue Jackets, second loss in a week to them, outshot 39/27… this has to be causing some worry in the Avs’ dressing room, because as the standings sit now, these two teams would face each other in the first round of the playoffs.
Heater: They play each other one more time, in their second-last game of the regular season. The Jackets have owned the season series, going 3-for-3 against what on paper looks like a superior team. The Avs just don’t seem to be able to match up well against Columbus, so it will be interesting to see if they can figure them out before the playoffs. But there’s so much skill on that club, I wouldn’t ever count them out.
Ted: Columbus got 7 of 8 points from their season series with the Ducks, too, so it may just be a matter of them playing up to the level of their competition.
Heater: Could also be a bit of revenge, after the Avs knocked Columbus out of the playoffs last season. One thing’s for sure: I think we’re going to have a lot of fans on the edge of their seats all the way until someone hoists the Stanley Cup over their head.
Ted: And that’s your Stretch Drive Update. For Hal Hopkins, I’m Ted Thomson. Join us next time on HFNHL Radio!
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