NHL Playoff Preview: Give Chiarelli a Lifetime Contract Edition

Sorry to be a day late, but I do have a receipt in case you think I was cheating. Before we get to the picks, since I’m part of one of the Western Conference fanbases that hasn’t had any good news in three months — it’s amazing that the Flames were only the second-worst second-half collapse of the year — I should note that the NHL’s answer to Ryan Grigson has somehow kept his job for another year. I mean, how can you not keep a guy who parlayed the third year of Connor McDavid’s rookie contract into 78 points? (Indeed, the comparison is unfair to Grigson; Luck is very good but not even the best player in his draft class, while McDavid has been the most gifted player to enter the league since Crosby, and Hall-for-Larsson makes trading a 1st rounder for Trent Richardson look like a stroke of genius in comparison.) He does have a real comic gift, though:

Nicholson says that Chiarelli has a great relationship with other GMs and that allows him to make trades. I bet it does.

— Scott Cullen (@tsnscottcullen) April 12, 2018

“Other GMs LOVE trading with me! They’ll drop anything when they see me on the caller ID!” Indeed. Anyway, we’ll return to the subject when Hall gets nominated for the Hart — TL;DR Hall winning would be like Larry Wildmon going over a cliff…in my new Maserati, as on one hand McDavid is obviously the MVP but on the other hand it would be glorious to watch the hacks who seamlessly transitioned from ridiculous defenses of the Hall trade as a hockey deal to smearing Hall’s character rather than admitting they were wrong eat shit.

To the McDavid-less playoffs:

NASHVILLE over Colorado in 5 You know the Preds — peerless defense corps, plenty of weapons, good goaltending, good coaching, and speaking of bad trades we can safely say not missing Shea Weber’s Veteran Leadership (TM). They’re favorites by acclimation to come out of the West and deserve to be. The Avalanche were buried a bit by Las Vegas but were an impressive turnaround story; they’re not as good as their record but given that they were one of the worst teams of the cap era just last year even “mediocre” is a major improvement. I wouldn’t say their making the playoffs makes the Stars and Flames look any better for blowing it, but good to see the hidden superstar Nathan MacKinnon get some playoff exposure.

WINNIPEG over Minnesota in 5 The Jets are the hopeful story for bitter Dallas and Calgary fans; mysterious underacheivers with a very talented core, they finally really put it together this year. They’re an elite possession team brimming with skill and depth, and a Preds/Jets series would be amazing — if you haven’t seen much of Patrick Laine you’re in for a treat, as he’s a worthy centerpiece for a team named after Bobby Hull. The Wild have a lot of crafty veterans and a good coach, but they’re overmatched here.

LAS VEGAS over Los Angeles in 7 I saw the Flames season face the firing squad at T-Mobile arena in March — “would you rather have had a different birthday present?”, my Mom texted me during the second period — but I don’t regret it. The people saying that it’s a great atmosphere ain’t lyin’ — it was by far the liveliest regular season NHL crowd I’ve ever been in, and while there were a lot of red jerseys it was a partisan Vegas crowd that knew what they were watching, not all Canadian tourists and comps who missed out on Elton John tickets. And why not, it’s an incredible story. They’re the best expansion team in the history of major American/Canadian pro sports by record, and despite what you might suspect it’s not a fluke — their score and venue-adjusted possession numbers are above-average, better than any Western Conference playoff team except the cream of Nashville and Winnipeg. Nor do they win with weak talent by playing a tedious defensive system — they’re very up-tempo. They just did a very, very good job putting this team together. McPhee, a veteran talent evaluator who embraces analytics, had one stroke after another — liberating Marchessault and Smith (and Gallant) from the Panthers, taking advantage of Anaheim’s bizarre decision to keep the decomposing corpse of Kevin Bieksa rather than Shea Theodore, nabbing Colin Miller (who I’m guessing Kings fans would much rather have than Milan Lucic right now), getting an anchor goaltender and finding an acceptable backup when he got hurt. They’re legit. The Kings superficially look all the way back with Stevens easing the reins and Kopitar and Doughty having big offensive years. Only that comes with a price — Sutter’s system suppresses offensive counting stats but it’s effective as hell, and the Kings were a notably worse possession team than usual this year. They’re still good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m betting the miracle gets to round 2.

San Jose over ANAHEIM in 7 With multiple talented young teams that should be rising in the West sputtering because of various combinations of bad luck and managerial incompetence, we get this aging California teams one more once. You know these teams well if you care enough to read this far: they’re old, and still pretty good but not what they were 5 years ago. In a coin flip I’ll take San Jose despite the lack of home ice advantage because 1)they seem a little healthier, 2)Not-Freddie de Boer vs. Carlyle, and 3)fuck Anaheim and thank you Peter Chiarelli for being so bad at your job that there’s no chance I’ll have to cheer for them as a Stalin-over-Hitler choice this year.

My picks in the East are Columbus, Tampa Bay, Boston, and Pittsburgh (I’m sick of them too, but I’m warning you: they had worse puck luck than the Flames, who missed the playoffs despite being a top-5 possession team, and *still* got a divisional seed. Hmmm, I’m beginning to think they were right not to trade Malkin for a one-dimensional second-pairing defenseman so it would be SIDNEY’S TEAM and not to trust the character evaluations of organization-friendly Canadian sportswriters.)

And now, as per annual tradition live from beautiful Nebraska I present longtime friend of LGM and Emeritus Grand Poobah of American Literatchoor Michael Berube to discuss the Eastern Conference:

Well, it’s playoff time again, though Scott and I are on the outside looking in. For my Rangers, this year was excruciating; the only game I saw in person was the one following the long-overdue ceremony retiring Jean Ratelle’s jersey, and by then– late February– the team had already announced to all and sundry, especially its season ticket holders, that management had decided not even to try to make the playoffs. So this year, I will revert to my annoying strategy of simply declaring who I am rooting for in round one, instead of doing the subject-supposed-to-know thing of trying to predict outcomes. Which is so predictable, really.

Additional commentary provided by a mood-appropriate 20th-century writer.

Tampa Bay Lightning (Altantic 1) v. New Jersey Devils (Wild Card 2): The rock got faster and faster, shorter and shorter, the iridescence was gone, the cry in the mew was gone, soon his body would be quiet. Most things under the moon got slower and slower and then stopped, a rock got faster and faster and then stopped. Soon his body would be quiet, soon he would be free. Seriously, if Stamkos is fully healthy, this could be a very short series, and I wouldn’t mind seeing a Bolts-Pens conference final, which would be full of former Rangers who are, who knew, very talented hockey players, but what I want right now is LIGHTNING IN SIX.

Washington Capitals (Metropolitan 1) v. Columbus Blue Jackets (Wild Card 1): This time, then once more I think, then perhaps a last time, then I think it’ll be over, with that world too. Premonition of the last but one but one. All grows dim. A little more and you’ll go blind. It’s in the head. It doesn’t work any more, it says, I don’t work anymore. This one is kind of painful, because I really wouldn’t mind seeing Columbus make it to the second round for the first time in their eighteen years of existence. Indeed, this is only their fourth playoff appearance. But the Capitals’ history of postseason underachievement weighs on them like a bunch of stones in their pockets, so I’m hoping for CAPITALS IN SEVEN.

Boston Bruins (Atlantic 2) v. Toronto Maple Leafs (Atlantic 3): I will not weigh upon the balance any more, one way or the other. I shall be neutral and inert. No difficulty there. Throes are the only trouble, I must be on my guard against throes. But I am less given to them now, since coming here. Of course I still have my little fits of impatience, from time to time, I must be on my guard against them, for the next fortnight or three weeks. And it is nice to see professional hockey return to Toronto after so many years, and that is why I am rooting for the Maple Leafs to come back from a three-goal deficit with 15 minutes left in the third period in game seven, and win in overtime. It sounds absurd, but it could happen. MAPLE LEAFS IN SEVEN.

Pittsburgh Penguins (Metropolitan 2) v. Philadelphia Flyers (Metropolitan 3): you must go on, I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. And I am hoping for four games beginning with a 7-0 rout, say, yes, a 7-0 rout would be good, and then getting worse from there, convincing the Flyers that they can’t go on, they won’t go on, they will try again, fail again, fail worse. The Penguins look very likely to threepeat, just like Sammy “Boom Boom” Beckett did in 1955-58 with Molloy-Malone Dies-The Unnamable. PENGUINS IN FOUR HUMILIATING GAMES.

Enjoy the playoffs if you’re into that kind of thing!