Strap in motherfuckers, the season is about to start whether anyone wants it to or not. The gang’s all here. Free as always, audio after the jump.
How does an expansion franchise follow up one of the most improbable runs in professional sports history after reaching the Stanley Cup final in their first year of existence? Well, in the case of the Vegas Golden Knights, they have zero self awareness regarding all of the good fortune that fell their way the year prior, and bitch relentless about a perceived screw job at the hands of the refs that apparently led to their ouster. Furthermore, their cap situation is already a complete nightmare going into their third season of existence thanks to Brain Genious and Lorne Molleken Puncher George McPhee, who got kicked upstairs in the middle of this summer. The entire on-ice product is a house of cards that could come down at any point, but they are basically guaranteed a playoff spot given the state of affairs in the Western Conference and specifically the Pacific Division. What a competitive league!
2018-2019
43-32-7 93PTS, 3rd in Pacific
3.00 GF/G (13th), 2.78 GA/G (10th), +19 GD
54.36% CF (3rd), 54.66% xGF (3rd)
16.7% PP (24th), 80.8% PK (14th)
Goaltending: We talk a lot of shit here at the FFUD Offices, and a topic of fixation two years ago was that after a spike in performance in his first year in Vegas sporting a .929 overall save percentage, Marc-Andre Fleury would come crashing back to reality with a .907 the following year. It wasn’t quite that precipitous a drop to the .913 he put up last year (.917 at evens), and with goaltending down league wide that number didn’t look as bad as it would have in years past. But it still was a major contributing factor in the Knights dropping to third in the division after winning it the year prior. Flower will turn 35 in November, and while the general rule is that goalies age a bit slower than skaters, keep in mind that he’s been in the league since he was 19, with multiple deep playoff runs. There are a ton of miles on him, and asking for the 61 starts he gave last year is asking for trouble. Subban The Younger, Malcolm, will resume his role as Fleury’s backup, and he was servicable if not scintillating in 21 starts and a .902 save percentage. Realistically he should be making at least 6 to 8 more starts this coming season, and if he can’t improve a little bit on his .912 at evens, they’ll have to work very hard in spotting him in favorable matchups. Assuming Fleury stays in one piece, which is always a question.
Defensemen: Once again the Vegas blue line managed to not get their skulls caved in while regularly trotting out and giving meaningful minutes to Derek Engelland, but as they have shown over two years, with forwards as fast as they’ve got, they can pretty much blindly fire the puck out of the zone and the wings will track it down. Colin McDonald and his Wisniewski-eque wind-up were cap casualties and sent to Buffalo for nothing, but Nick Schmidt and Shea Theodore remain. Theodore still has all the tools to be an actual #1, but hasn’t quite put it together yet at 24, but he’ll get the top assignments whether he’s ready or not. Blog favorite Nick Schmidt is one of the few Vegas defensemen that can skate himself out of trouble if he needs to, but his problem has been staying healthy, as he’s never put together a full 82 game season. Brayden McNabb is a poor man’s Radko Gudas, and Nick Holden couldn’t find his way in the defensive zone if he were led by sherpas, but having a forward corps as fast as the Knights do will continue to mask a multitude of defensive sins.
Forwards: Even though his goal scoring predictably fell off the table last year, William Karlsson still centered one of the most dynamic lines in hockey with Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchessault on his wings. The three of them together had a 54% share, and regularly drew top assignments, particularly on the road. Karlsson’s drop from 43 to 24 goals (and a commensurate drop from a 23.2 shooting percentage down to a more human 14.2) allowed the Knights to sidestep one of the bigger RFA deals they may have had to dole out, and were able to give Karlsson a relatively reasonable $5.9 mildo over the max 8 years. Of course, what they saved on that deal, they immediately pissed away in wildly overpaying in extending pre-deadline acquisition Mark Stone, who was promptly given $9.5 over 8 years. Now make no mistake, Mark Stone is a hell of a player. He drives possession and certainly has finish, and is a large boy at 6’4″ 220. But his two best marks in points per game are 1.06 and .94, which are the last two seasons, neither of which he played 82 games in, and he is also now 27. Even as salaries climb year after year, this is still a big overpayment for a guy who is being paid the same as Nikita Kucherov, who has 228 points in that same time frame. He’ll likely be joined on the second line by Paul Stastny and Max Pacioretty, which sounded a lot more fearsome back in 2012. Patches is looking to put together a rebound season after failing to hit the 30 goal mark for the second year in a row after doing so 6 times in the past. They’ll need to get more out of Alex Tuch than the 20 goals he put up for what they’re paying him, particularly if Pacioretty has indeed aged out of effectiveness. Cody Eakin and Tomas Nosek provide plenty of bottom six speed and nuisance, and Ryan Reaves is still here to bark and fart and get skated around.
Outlook: Once again, the Knights have enough forward depth and the Pacific is bad enough elsewhere that even if Fleury declines further or is hurt, there’s probably enough here to get one of the guaranteed spots in the Pacific. And undoubtedly there will be countless bouquets thrown at the Vegas brain trust for putting together this team if only because hockey journalists like visiting Vegas as much as opposing players do, completely ignoring the cap issues this team will have in perpetuity having now paid all of their inagural roster and losing some players (McDonald, regarded import Nikita Gusev) to do so. It’s probably not enough to come out of the West in June, because the first time took two months of Fleury heroics, but clearly stranger things have happened with this team already.
With some pre-season games in the books, Rose, Sam, Hess, Pullega, and I discuss whatever the hell it is we’ve been watching, or in Sam’s case, not watching. Always free, always after the jump.
Well there are a couple of quite familiar faces, aren’t they? The departed namesake and an instant hall of fame coach will try to bring a level of sustained competitive hockey to south Florida that they haven’t seen since…well…ever. As batshit as it sounds, Uncle Dale and Joel Quenneville never even spent a full season together here in Chicago, but they’re going to try to make this thing work in Sunrise even if it kills them both. And it just might, but at least now they’ll leave behind nice bronzed and pickled corpses.
2018-2019
36-32-14 86 Pts, 5th in the Atlantic
3.22 GF/G (9th), 3.33 GA/G (28th), -13 GD
49.42% CF (16th), 48.45% xGF (20th)
PP 26.8% (2nd), PK 81.3% (10th)
Goaltending: In a full 180 from a trick they had been pulling for the couple seasons previous wherein the Cats got solid netminding from an aging Roberto Luongo and James Reimer filling in whenever something fell off of him, last season the Panthers got absolutely no goaltending to help out what was a pretty spiky offense. Luongo started 40 games last year and arguably posted the worst numbers of his era-spanning career with an .899 overall and only a .906 at evens. Reimer was only a hair better at .900 and .909 respectively. Luongo decided that was enough to call it a career, and did so officially which hilariously dicked over the Canucks in having to eat the recapture penalty for the contraband contract they signed him to. Reimer took whatever he’s got left in the tank up the coast to Carolina, leaving Uncle Dale to have to revamp his entire goaltending infrastructure. Fortunately for him, there was an aging veteran in Sergei Bobrovsky who couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of Columbus and take the bags and bags of money everyone knew Dale was going to throw at him. Bob got a max seven-year term from the Panthers at $10 million per, which should take him until he’s 37. Even with the goaltending career curve being far more protracted than other positions, there’s always a risk of Bobrovsky’s crotch detaching given the high wire style he plays, and Joel Quenneville isn’t exactly known for his judicious management of goaltending workloads. Still, the Panthers were looking for an infusion of excitement both by landing a name and by potentially making some noise in the post-season. Bobrovsky certainly should get him there even if a) his overall save percentage numbers have been in decline for three years while staying healthy, and b) only last season did he have even a representative playoff run, having absolutely shat himself with the Jackets two trips previous. As of right now, 22-year-old Sam Montrembleaut will get first crack at the backup role, but it could be a rotating cast of thousands if Bob doesn’t play 70 games. Which he just might.
Defense: Once again Joel Quenneville will have an honsest-to-god #1 defenseman to work with, in this case it’s Aaron Eklbad, who somehow is still only 23-years-old. Q likes his top pairing guys to be able to do everything, and Ekblad is certainly capable. Over the past few seasons his overall possession rate isn’t necessarily one that’d be associated with a do-it-all blue liner, but when taking into consideration that he’s had the toughest starts out of necessity and has been paired with Keith Yandle for two years, the picture starts to get a little clearer. And the fact that Quenneville hasn’t personally drowned Yandle with his barehands in some secluded corner of the Everglades and then chopped up his body on a fanboat is truly an upset. Anton Stralman moved a little east from Tampa to Sunrise in the offseason, and while he’s always been a textbook 2nd pairing puck mover, last year he finally started to show some signs of wearing down. No one is quite sure what it is Mike Matheson does or who he is, but Dale is paying him a fairly hefty salary at $4.75 mildo to do it until the entire state is submerged. Mark Pysyk is a hold over from the Computer Boys era, so Quenneville will hate him and put him at forward. At the very least he’ll call him Mike Kostka if only out of spite.
Forwards: Sasha Barkov is probably the best kept secret in the league, and if Q and Bob have any kind of positive impact on this team, that probably won’t be the case for much longer. Barkov is probably the second best two-way player in the league behind Patrice Bergeron now that both Toews and Kopitar have aged out of that level of effectiveness. Barkov absolutely erupted for 96 points nobody saw last year when he finally had two competent full time linemates in a healthy Jonathan Huberdeau and the very shoosty Mike Hoffman, who had 92 and 70 points themselves respectively. Evgeni Dadonov was a nice surprise (albeit at 30) with 70 points of his own despite the fact that a hurt Vincent Trochek only played 55 games last year, and was hindered when he did play. If he bounces back to his formerly reliable 50+ point output, particularly with Brett Connolly here to now provide a bit more scoring depth, the Cats could have a little bit more bite (GET IT?) to an offense that was already top-10.
Outlook: Barring injuries, or Sasha Barkov turning to dust under the workload Quenneville is certain to give him, the Panthers have made enough improvements to interject themselves into the playoff picture in the east, more than likely as a wild card, as the top three spots in the Atlantic seem fairly secure in Tampa, Boston, and Toronto. There are enough “ifs” here to not make it a completely foregone conclusion, but if Bobrovsky is even slightly above league average as he declines, Quenneville’s system is one of the few in the league that produces actual, tangible results almost immediately, and the Panthers weren’t that far off the playoff pace last year. And January 21st at Club 1901 is sure to be a highly emotional reunion, count on that.
Previous Team Previews
Perhaps it was always too big of an a request to be rescued by the Bruins again, first in 2011 from a revolting Canucks team, no one from whom has gone on to have his name etched in silver, and this past summer from quite possibly the most underwhelming assemblage of players to ever end up having hoisted the Cup in the moldering St. Louis Blues. It was a true exhibition in monkey paw wish fulfillment, or at the very least a real life tale of punishing Irish Catholic irony worthy of Sean O’Casey, that Brad Marchand would finally be exposed as the absolute fraud of a player that he is only to give the Blues their first ever Cup. There are sins going on here both big and small that will never, ever be forgiven.
2018-2019
49-24-9 107 Points, 2nd in Atlantic
3.13 GF/G (11th), 2.59 GA/G (3rd), +44 GD
53.04 CF% (6th), 52.77% xGF (7th)
25.9% PP (3rd), 79.9% PK (17th)
Goalies: Last year was a bit of a resurgence for longtime B’s netminder Tuukka Rask, mostly due to the fact that the rest of the league seemed to drop down to the rate Tuukka had been playing at for the past couple of years, at least in the regular season. His .912 overall is about league average, but the underlying numbers suggest that at evens he was as solid as could be expected with a .925 against. The problems came during special teams, where Bruce Cassidy’s more uptempo, more loosely structured system came with its own risks and rewards. The Bruins had a top flight power play, but with only a single high defenseman, and that defenseman being either Tory Krug or Charlie McAvoy, that left Tuukka on an island, and the B’s allowed a league worst 15 shorties against. Similarly, their PK wasn’t as tightly structured behind the obvious top manned unit of Patrice Bergeron, and their kill was decidedly middle of the road, a serious dropoff from the Julien era. All of this is a longwinded way of saying that Tuukka may not be an absolute brick wall anymore, but he’s still in the upper echelon of goalies, as he proved by turning in a Smythe worthy performance with a .934 overall in the post season. He’ll once again be spelled by Jaro Halak, who always seems to fare better as a 1B or a backup, and was more than acceptable with a .922 overall and .934 at evens last year in 37 starts. He’s more than capable of providing Rask with a break to preserve him for the post-season or even stepping up in the event of injury. Overall, the Bruins have one of the better goaltending situations in both the conference and the league.
Defense: One of the big, and stupid misconceptions about the Cup final matchup was that both of these teams were huge, lumbering, rough and tumble heavyweight teams, based solely on reputation and the fact that Regis “Pierre” McGuire is a moronic pecker who never shuts up. The fact of the matter is that while Zdeno Chara is still lurching around Fangorn Forest at 42 years old (43 in March), this blue line is built to get up and go, and is somewhat undersized, Charlie McAvoy’s absolutely huge face notwithstanding. Chara played center field for McAvoy for the majority of the year, but they weren’t taking the toughest assignments or zone starts. McAvoy is still unsigned and was on pace for 40+ points at age 21-22, so it’s likely the B’s opt for longer term instead of a bridge deal because the offensive upside is clearly there, but he’s still a dervish in his own end. Brandon Carlo also remains unsigned, and was tasked with some of the tougher assignments in the post season, as he certainly has the 6’5″, 220lb frame to take that on. John Moore is here for another three years much to the delight of all the Devils fans who hate him, and Tory Krug still needs to be kept as far away from the offensive zone as possible. There’s not a lot in the Bruins’ system on the blue line that they’re waiting with baited breath for, so assuming that McAvoy and Carlo eventually get signed, as both are restricted and have no leverage, they’re basically running back the same unit as last year.
Forwards: This is well worn territory yet again, but it always bears repeating. The Bruins boast arguably the best line in the game with Patrice Bergeron centering David Pastrnak and the detestable Brad Marchand. Bergeron is an absolute legend, and is doing things at both ends of the still when his contemporaries in Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Toews have basically had to choose offense or defense at this point and just stick to one of them. Bergeron is a possession dynamo, one of the smartest players in the game, and will take an absolute pounding night in and night out, he is an instantaneous hall of famer. David Pastrnak is young, dynamic, and has an elite set of hands even if his skating stride isn’t necessarily the prettiest. He has a top flight release on his shot, but isn’t afraid of the corners. Brad Marchand is a slightly more talented Andrew Shaw who has failed miserably every time Patrice Bergeron has been injured or seriously limited by injuries on the ice, and has built his whole career on Bergeron’s back. He showed his ass in the above highlight by doing his best Roger Dorn OLE at the blue line, and still ended up going for a change as the Blues entered the zone. Mites are taught to never change on a back check, let alone after allowing free zone entry while flatfooted. He is an unrepentant dickhead who intends to injure opponents, and if the NHLPA were an actual union invested in the well being of its labor force instead of a loose conglomeration of millionaire 7th-grade-educated hillrods with CTE and coke hangovers, they’d railroad Marchand’s ass right out for endangering the rest of the union’s ability to earn. The day he inevitable wraps his sports car around a tree in Dorchester at 4AM (as is hockey player tradition) cannot come soon enough.
Elsewhere, David Backes getting double-owned by losing a Game 7 Cup final, and to his former team the Blues would be pretty hilarious, again, if it hadn’t been the Blues winning. Charlie Coyle came home in a curious trade and somehow turned into a playoff dynamo, but it remains to be seen if he can provide consistent second-tier scoring behind the top line for a full 82. David Krejci remains under appreciated, but at 33 his production has begun to slip. Danton Heinen, Jake DeBrusk, and Sean Kuraly will all be expected to take the next step in their respective developments, with DeBrusk’s ceiling being the highest. It’s not a bad group to try throw out there again, but the B’s are far from capped out and have always been top heavy with this group, so it’s curious why they haven’t tried to augment their scoring a little bit on the margins. But it’s doubtful any of the 29 other fanbases are going to be heartbroken if throwing this same group out there again just isn’t quite good enough to win in June.
Outlook: The Atlantic is a far tougher draw than whatever the Metro is right now, and that’s even with the Leafs still thumb-blasting themselves in the Mitch Marner situation and having a bad blue line. What happened to Tampa was a fluke, and they’re certainly not going anywhere and could have a sizeable chip on their shoulder. The Panthers may finally get it together, but that’s a big if, and the rest of the division is willfully shitty. It’s basically a given that the Bruins will have one of the three guaranteed spots, it’s just a matter of seeding, and in which round they inevitably beat the Leafs, and then in which subsequent round they implode.
Previous Team Previews
The Best Football Podcast In Town takes a stab at previewing the 2019 season for The Beloved. No subscription required, audio after the jump.
It was bound to happen sooner or later, but in the doldrums of hockey’s summer off season it was time for a White Sox roundtable featuring Fifth Feather, Hess, newcomer AJ, and myself as moderated by Sam. Download it (without a subscription) or we’ll move the podcast to Sarasota.
You were promised Slak, but he was unavoidably detained. So instead you’ll have to deal with the Fifth Feather John, Sam, and I shouting at one another. Enjoy. As always, no subscription is required.
Oh buddy, we’ve got things. It’s a five-way round robin this time with Hess, Rose, Pullega, Sam and myself discussing just what in the hell transpired at the onset of this summer’s free agency period. Like always, no subscription is required for the podcast.
Sam, John Pullega, and myself discuss the draft aftermath (draftermath?) and looming free agency. As always, no subscription is necessary.
