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Thoughts & Plots: All-Star kudos; Wick in HHOF; & intriguing Kings & Pens |
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Some thoughts and plots as we head into the second half of the NHL season:
– You have to give the league credit for boosting its star power at the 2017 edition of the all-star game. Landing A-list entertainers Jon Hamm and John Legend to participate in the weekend’s festivities in Los Angeles is a coup, and one some of us have argued should’ve happened long ago. Mad Men’s Hamm has been a devout fan of the sport for most of his life, but Legend, a first-rate singer and rising political activist, is someone who appeals to markets not normally associated with the NHL.
Their inclusion in all-star weekend could help draw people into the product who might not otherwise have had any inclination to do so, and while situating the game in L.A. certainly makes it easier on a practical level to bring in top talent, the league deserves kudos for delivering it.
– It was the end of an era for women’s hockey and the game in general on Jan. 13, when icon Hayley Wickenheiser announced her retirement as a player. The 38-year-old Canadian star forward was as talented and driven as any competitor I’ve covered, and the fact that her off-ice accomplishments – including countless charity events and efforts to grow the women’s game – were at least as important as her athletic achievements (including four Olympic gold medals and seven IIHF world championships) says everything about the magnificent human being she is.
There’s no doubt Wickenheiser will be welcomed into the Hockey Hall of Fame. But, although the HHOF changed their rules to prevent the type of early inductions that ushered in Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, among others, before the standard three-year waiting period, rules are made to have exceptions. And Wickenheiser is someone who deserves just such an exception. She should be in the HHOF right now, as you read this. Her impact on hockey is that immense, her footprint that indelible. She took her passion for competition and used it to improve herself, her teammates and her communities.
The sport won’t find a better example of what it means to be a leader, a patriot and an ambassador than Hayley Wickenheiser, and the HHOF would bwwwe well-advised not to wait until 2020 to acknowledge what she has given to the game.
– One of the teams to keep a close eye on in the next few weeks: the Los Angeles Kings. Sure, they’re the current occupiers of the final wild card playoff spot in the Western Conference, but they’ve also got four teams (Vancouver, Nashville, Dallas and Winnipeg) within two or fewer points of them. More troublingly, the Kings have a road record of 8-11-3, and 13 of their next 18 games (including nine of their next 10) are away from home.
By the time L.A. gets to early February, they could be nearer to the bottom of the Western standings than the teams ahead of them in their division.
If that’s the case, it will be intriguing to say the least to see what GM Dean Lombardi does with a roster that has a number of all-but-unmovable contracts and a prospect pool that is hardly the league’s deepest. Standing pat isn’t normally in Lombardi’s nature, but depending on the outcome of the next stretch of the Kings’ schedule, he may have little choice but to do so.
– The Eastern Conference equivalent of the Kings, at least, for me, are the Penguins. I noted in a recent column that, come playoff time, St. Louis could be haunted by their drastic difference in home and road performance. (The Blues are 16-6-4 at home, and 7-11-1 on the road.) But the Eastern Conference team that shares that trait is Pittsburgh, who’ve lost just twice in regulation time (19-2-2) at home, but are only 9-9-3 on the road.
The Pens currently are in a dogfight with Columbus and white-hot Washington for the top two spots in the Metropolitan Division, and, much like the Blues, if they begin the post-season without home-ice advantage, that could prove to be the difference between an early exit from the Stanley Cup tournament and a more prolonged attempt to defend their championship.
Jim Rutherford has earned his reputation as a GM who prefers to make moves well in advance of the trade deadline, and though the Penguins are capped out, they’ve got seven soon-to-be unrestricted free agents and enough depth in goal to be a mover-and-shaker on the trade front.
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