Showing posts with label wright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wright. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Puck Soup: The Canucks turn into a pumpkin

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- It's really bad in Vancouver, and we talk about it for a long time
- JT Miller in a pumpkin patch, Mike Yeo in the wings, and whether its too early for changes
- Phil Kessel is the NHL's new ironman and we love him
- The Sabres are good but it might not be real
- The Flames, Knights and Bruins are good and it probably is real
- Plus Shane Wright barely playing and lots more...

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Monday, July 11, 2022

Rating the biggest NHL draft moments from draft weekend on the Surprise Scale

For the first time in three years, the NHL held its annual entry draft in person. While the league did what it had to do in Zoom era, it’s probably fair to say that those drafts won’t stand out as being especially memorable. This one will, and as always with a good draft week, it’s at least partly because of how it surprised us.

That seems like a good excuse to break out the Surprise Scale for the first time since those distant days of 2019. This is the gimmick where we look at the draft through the lens of how much it was able to deliver on the unexpected. Whether it’s a surprising pick, a big trade, or just something weird, it’s always great when an event that gets previewed and mocked and hyper-analyzed as much as the draft can still surprise us.

As always, surprises are rated on a scale of 0 to 100 based on a scientific model of me just making it up as I go along. We’ll start in the hours leading up to the draft, when the Blackhawks decided to throw a wrench into everyone’s afternoon off…

The Alex DeBrincat Trade

We knew the deal was coming, because the Hawks kept telling us it was even though it didn’t make all that much sense. Chicago is rebuilding, but that feels like all the more reason to hold onto a 24-year-old who scores 40 goals. The one argument in favor of a deal was that DeBrincat was easily the team’s top trade chip, so maybe somebody would step up with an offer that was just too good to say no to.

Then the deal went down with the Senators and… well, it’s fair to say the return wasn’t overwhelming. Two draft picks, including the seventh overall and an early second-rounder, and that was it. No prospects, no picks in future drafts to file away, just two picks in a decent draft in exchange for your best player.

As far as surprises go, this deal shouldn’t have ranked all that high, if only because we knew it was coming. But given how uninspiring the return was for Chicago and what a potential steal this looks like for Ottawa, we can bump it up a few points.

Surprise scale: 60/100. Seriously, the Hawks know that Ottawa has like a dozen solid prospects, right?

With no other major moves breaking in the leadup to the big night, let’s move on to the draft itself…

The Crowd in Montreal

They were amazing. An absolute A+. Being in the building on Thursday night was one of the highlights of my life as a hockey writer. I can’t pump their tires enough.

For the first few decades of the amateur and entry draft, the event was always held in Montreal. Honestly, at this point I think I’m willing to support going back to that. You rock, Montreal fans.

Surprise scale: 90/100. Look, I know Montreal fans are great, and my expectations were high. You blew them away.

And of course, we can’t talk about the crowd without a mention of…

Gary Bettman gets booed

It was brutal. We’re talking a 1995 Devils fans level of heat. And as always, Bettman seemed completely thrown off. He came with the same condescending jokes he always tries, and even worked in a new angle by speaking some truly awful French (although we’ll give him credit at least memorizing it this time, instead of reading it off a gum wrapper). But within a few seconds it was clear that this was going to be ugly.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Monday, May 9, 2022

Chaos, comedy and conspiracies in the draft lottery power rankings

The draft lottery goes tomorrow night, meaning all you fans of the bad teams will have something to pay attention to for an hour before going back to hate-watching the playoffs. It’s a bit of a weird year, with some new rules kicking in and a consensus top pick in Shane Wright who’s considered blue chip but maybe not quite a generational can’t-miss. (That’s next year.)

You can find the real odds for each team here, but we’re not all that worried about those. Instead, we want to have some fun with what could happen, before reality shows up and makes a few of you very happy and the rest of you very angry.

The “Maximum Chaos” Ranking

The largest and most dedicated fan base in the league is Team Chaos and it’s not all that close. Here’s what we’re rooting for.

Not ranked: Detroit Red Wings A high pick would be just what Steve Yzerman’s 25-year rebuild plan needed.

5. Chicago Blackhawks – Aside from launching roughly a million conspiracy theories – more on that in a bit – the Hawks are the only team in this year’s lottery that could make a genuinely good case that winning a top pick would be a bad thing. Plus getting Shane Wright would probably convince Jonathan Toews and friends that they were Cup contenders again.

4. Montreal Canadiens – The Habs are always chaotic, and finishing off the only 32nd-place finish in the history of the NHL with their first number one pick in 42 years would be very on-brand.

3. New Jersey Devils – They’ve already won the lottery for the first overall pick twice in the last few years, and that was part of the inspiration for last year’s announcement that the league would finally implement a limit on how many times the same team could win. But here’s the catch: The rule didn’t kick in until this year’s lottery, which means not only does it not prevent the Devils from winning Tuesday night, it wouldn’t even stop them from winning again in 2023. Yes, the team that helped us get a “You can’t win too often” rule could still land Shane Wright and Conon Bedard. I feel like a lot of fans don’t realize that, so consider this step one in a two-part process.

2. Columbus Blue Jackets – Sitting with the 12th best odds, the Blue Jackets are the first team that can’t move up all the way to number one, because teams can now only move up ten spots. Here’s my question: What happens if we draw them first, which would give them the second pick? Is the next drawing now for the first pick? Third? Can the second team bump the Blue Jackets down to third? Has anyone actually thought any of this through? You’d think they must have, but this is the NHL, so…

1. Vegas Golden Knights – The Knights are going to show up on a few of these lists, and for good reason. They can’t move up all the way thanks to the new rules, but could still jump ten spots, and if they do then they keep the pick they traded to the Sabres for Jack Eichel. If you haven’t noticed, other fan bases seem to have developed a sincere hatred for Vegas, and rejoiced in watching them miss the playoffs. A lottery win here would make everybody furious, and fury is its own type of chaos.

The “Who Needs it Most?” Rankings

Everyone needs a lottery win that would hand-deliver a stud prospect, but some teams need it more than others.

Not ranked: Anaheim DucksYou have Trevor Zegras, don’t get greedy.

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