December can be a boring month in the NHL. Opening-night optimism is a faded memory, the deadline is still months away, the playoff picture is jumbled and not much is happening.
And then, every once in a while, we get a day like Friday.
We got one of the biggest midseason blockbusters in years, with the Quinn Hughes trade to the Minnesota Wild. We got the long-awaited Edmonton Oilers goalie trade, with Tristan Jarry coming over from the Pittsburgh Penguins. Oh, and before those two deals dropped, we also found out that the Sabres might be on the verge of a front-office shakeup.
Other than all that, pretty quiet day.
Let’s dig into those two big trades, with a few lingering thoughts…
Bonus five: Quick thoughts about a monster weekend
5. Midseason trades really are possible – And in the case of the Hughes deal, it even came together relatively quickly. Consider this just one more reminder that when your favorite team’s GM tries to tell you that trading during the season is too hard and/or takes months of work, he’s not telling the truth.
4. I wish the Oilers had swung bigger – OK, maybe the Igor Shesterkin thing was never going to happen. I’m just not convinced Jarry is enough of an upgrade over Stuart Skinner. Standing pat wasn’t an option, and we can assume the Oilers made as many calls as possible to see what else might shake loose. But we’ve been talking about the Oilers upgrading in goal for well over a year now, and it’s hard to imagine Jarry was the best option available at any point in that process.
One positive is that at least they made the move early enough that they still have time to readjust if it doesn’t work. Whether they’d have the resources and/or cap space is another question.
3. This is a great move for the Penguins … probably – Jarry was on waivers last season and went unclaimed thanks to a contract that was certifiably bad. Now the Penguins have not only escaped from the contract but added some assets in the process. That’s tidy work by Kyle Dubas.
The one caveat here is that the Penguins have been exceeding expectations so far this year, which means there’s an element of risk on making any big moves that shake up the locker room. If the Penguins come back to earth, will this trade be to blame? No. But will we blame it anyways? We might do that, sure.
2. The Hughes deal works for both teams – The Canucks did as well as they could have hoped, and maybe a bit better. You can certainly criticize all the steps and missteps that got them to a place where they felt they had to move Hughes, but once they arrived here, they played it reasonably well.
That doesn’t mean it’s an overpay by the Wild by any stretch, at least assuming that Hughes will give them a fair chance at extending him. And remember, if worst comes to worst and the Wild can’t get an extension done, they could always move Hughes at next year’s deadline.
1. Is Hughes the best young player to be traded in the cap era? – I think there’s a legitimate argument. Hughes just turned 26 and already has a Norris Trophy. He’s roughly the same age as Joe Thornton was when he went to the Sharks, and he’d had a 100-point season but didn’t become a truly elite star until he got to San Jose. P.K. Subban had a Norris when he went from Montreal to Nashville. Names like Matthew Tkachuk, Mikko Rantanen, Jack Eichel and Tyler Seguin are in the conversation.
Maybe the best comparison for Hughes is one that Wild fans might not love: Erik Karlsson, who was 28 and had two Norris wins when he went to San Jose in a trade that didn’t work out as well as Sharks fans would have hoped. But yeah, Hughes might be a bigger star right now than any of those guys.
On to the rankings…
Road to the Cup
The five teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.
I didn’t love the Jarry deal, but whoo boy did they look miles better than the Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada.
Against the Canadiens last night, not so much. But I wonder how much psychological impact this trade has on the Oilers, who can at least go a few days without hearing about trade rumors now.
5. Minnesota Wild (19-9-5, +10 true goals differential*) – Screw it, they’re in. This is almost certainly an overreaction to the trade, and we might look back in a few months and wonder why we thought a team with the same number of wins as the Anaheim Ducks in more games was somehow a Cup front-runner. But I love blockbuster trades, and when a team swings this big then I want to reward them, even if it’s only temporary. (And if it’s not, you heard it here first, must credit my scoop.)
Here’s Michael Russo with more on the trade, Joe Smith on the reaction in Minnesota, and Pierre Lebrun on how it all came together.
4. Tampa Bay Lightning (18-11-3, +22) – Victor Hedman is out long-term but should be back for the Olympics. Meanwhile, they get the Panthers tonight, and we know how those games have gone recently.
3. Carolina Hurricanes (21-9-2, +15) – They were apparently in on Hughes, as they seem to be with just about every big name. Even after missing out, they have to feel good about him not winding up in New Jersey. For now, it’s four straight wins and a bit of padding on top of the Metro.
2. Dallas Stars (21-7-5, +21) – They’ve lost two straight in regulation for the first time since October, and their lead over the Wild for home ice doesn’t feel as secure as it once did. The good news is that the rest of the December schedule features games they’ll be the favorite in. Oh, and they landed two players on this list.
1. Colorado Avalanche (23-2-7, +58) – I kind of love the idea of Hughes and Cale Makar being in the same division now. The Avs visit the Wild next weekend, by the way. There’s a decent chance they’ll do it on a four-game win streak, with the struggling Kraken and Jets up next.
*Goals differential without counting shootout decisions like the NHL does for some reason.
Not ranked: New Jersey Devils – The big trade we were all expecting them to make finally happened, and the Devils weren’t in it. OK, so now what?
It’s a much harder question to answer now than it would have been a month ago. For most of the season’s early weeks, the Devils felt like legitimate Cup contenders. We had them in the top five for several weeks, peaking in mid-November around the same time their record hit an impressive 13-4-1. If you went back in time and told a Devils fan that the Quinn Hughes deal was imminent, they’d have been thrilled. We all knew where he was headed, right? (Well, at least this guy sure did.)
One month later, the Devils are ice-cold, everyone is hurt or unavailable, and Hughes is in Minnesota. If the playoffs started today, the Devils wouldn’t be in them. Dom’s projections are a little bit kinder, but not by all that much – they have them at 58 percent to make the playoffs, but just 2 percent to win the East, and the dreaded “<1 percent” to win the Cup.
What the heck happened?
On the Hughes front, it’s simple enough. The Devils didn’t have the right pieces to tempt the Canucks, at least unless they were willing to talk about Nico Hischier, which they apparently were not. There was a reasonable chance all the talk about a Hughes brothers reunion would scare other teams away, for fear of overpaying for an extended 20-month rental, but that didn’t happen. So, no Quinn for you.
But blockbuster trades aside, the season is unraveling in New Jersey. A lot of that is those injuries (plus the absence of Timo Meier for personal reasons). Jack Hughes being out long-term, yet again, is an especially major piece of the story. So are the struggles of Jacob Markstrom, who’ll I’ll remind you is about to turn 36 and just signed a two-year extension.
But this was not a team that was ever supposed to be looking up at the Flyers or Penguins or Islanders. If anything, third place in a weak Metro was supposed to be the floor, a worst-case scenario that would still give the Devils room to get themselves sorted out by April. Two months into the season, that safety net isn’t there anymore. And losing on home ice to teams like the Canucks, as they did yesterday, sure won’t help. Is this good? It doesn’t seem good.
The team is struggling. The standings are getting precarious. And the one monster trump card they had up their sleeve just got slammed down on the table by somebody else. Now what, indeed.
The bottom five
The five teams headed towards dead last and the best lottery odds for the top pick in this year’s draft.
Did you catch it? For the first time this year, we dropped Gavin McKenna’s name from the italicized description that nobody actually reads. That’s because his status as presumptive number one pick is now very much in doubt, with Corey Pronman dropping him all the way down to fourth in his latest rankings.
5. Buffalo Sabres (14-14-4, -13) – Today could be the day. If you’re a Sabres fan, good luck. If you know a Sabres fan, give them their space.
4. Calgary Flames (13-16-4, -13) – If there’s any world where the Flames climb out of the bottom five, it looks an awful lot like this:
They won that game in OT, their fourth victory in their last five. With the Sharks and Kraken up next, there’s a path back to .500 starting to form.
3. Nashville Predators (12-15-4, -24) – The Blues have a better record, but when you beat a team 7-2, you get to move ahead of them in the standings. (But it has to be 7-2. These are the rules.)
2. St. Louis Blues (12-14-7, -32) – The injuries are piling up and they had a couple of ugly losses before a much-needed win over the Blackhawks. In related news, here’s how the Blues and the rest of the league’s sub-.500 teams can still make the playoffs.
1. Vancouver Canucks (12-17-3, -25) – The Hughes trade would seem to signal that management is giving up on the season and focusing on the future, which is of course the right call. Still, Zeev Buium looked pretty good in his debut.
Not ranked: Chicago Blackhawks – It’s getting ugly again in Chicago. After a strong start that saw them sitting at 10-5-4 in mid-November, they’ve lost 10 of 13 to fall all the way back down to fake .500. That stretch includes a pair of Norris Division losses over the weekend, as the Blues and Wings both picked up regulation wins.
And more importantly, Connor Bedard is hurt. It was a weird one, and at this point we don’t know how much time he could miss. That information should come today, so feel free to hold your breath if you’re a fan of the Hawks and/or Team Canada.
The good news, such as it is: Bedard’s absence means an opportunity for 2023 draft pick Nick Lardis. Scott has more on what to expect from the 20-year-old winger.
But yeah, it’s been five weeks since we bid a big dramatic goodbye to the Hawks in the bottom five. It looks like we may need to find room for them again soon. Prepare yourself accordingly, Chicago fans.
