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The Metro Adds Express Trains

June 18, 2019, 9:01 AM ET [5 Comments]
Jay Greenberg
Blogger •NHL Hall of Fame writer • RSSArchiveCONTACT
No dice for the Avalanche, even for all of Joe Sakic’s best laid plan to fleece the suckers in Ottawa of Jack Hughes. Colorado had an 18.5 per cent chance of getting the first pick and 50.6 per cent of at least landing in the top three and wound up fourth, which is luck even worse than Wojtek Wolski suspected he would have if he ever risked going into a corner.

The Avs will get a good player Friday night but not a potentially generational one like Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko. Instead Riverboat Ray Shero and Jeff (Snake Eyes) Gorton received two of the most fateful rolls since Punch Imlach spun gold with Gilbert Perreault and Vancouver’s Bud Poile settled for Dale Tallon.

Sing no more sad songs for Shero, who lost 2017-18 MVP Taylor Hall during a train wreck of a 2018-19 season. This is the second time in three years Shero has landed the No 1 overall pick and off odds of 8.5 per cent (Nico Hischier) and 11.5 per cent (presumably Hughes). The Rangers chances of being in position to take Kakko with the second selection were 7.8 per cent. And that’s not even the luckiest a Metropolitan Division franchise has become in the last three drafts.

Forgive Ron Hextall, stunningly dumped by the Flyers for reasons having nothing to do with player development, for not feeling too fortunate these days. But he had a 2.4 per cent chance of getting the second pick and Nolan Patrick in 2017. A year later, the Hurricanes had 3.3 per cent opportunity to move up to second to select Andrei Svechnikov, whose 20 goals as an 18-year-old helped the Bunchofjerks to the playoffs for the first time since the heyday of Dwight Helminen.

That’s five of the top six picks over three drafts landing in the Metro–two of them in New Jersey, one to New York, one to Philadelphia and one outsourced to North Carolina, although for the purposes of tying things together geographically in this column, the Hurricanes still play in Hartford.

You gotta be dense not to see the lottery gods recently favoring teams from places of population density. From up on the grassy knoll, where the fix is always in and there is hardcore evidence–you can look it up in certain places on the internet–that effete Easterners control everything but the Electoral College, five picks out of six in a 31-team league looks more dubious than Michael Del Colle’s chances to make it big with the Islanders.

There is no reason to suspect the appropriately-named Bettman is dealing from the bottom of any deck, however. So we’re not touching any allegations any more than we would the Prince of Wales Trophy, even if we won it. But so good do things look for the Devils, Rangers, Flyers and Canes that you can already start the complaints about the playoff format in anticipation of one of these teams necessarily being out of the playoffs after round one in 2022.

Of course one never knows how things will work out, even if the Twitter know-it-alls in Philly already have confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the streaky Patrick has reached full physical and mental maturity at age 20 and therefore is a worse pick than even Claude Boivin ever was. Despite the fact that for long stretches it’s hard to tell Patrick from Boyd Gordon, the kid is going to be a well above average player. And it would appear that the Devils, Rangers and Flyers are set up for good runs over the next five years that will re-ignite some of the best rivalries in the game.

The Rangers have gone two years without a playoff appearance, the Devils and Flyers each seven seasons without a series win. The three territories of fandom bump harder than Jordan Weal and Jacob Josefson ever did in the defensive zone during recent years. So it’s been hard to stoke the old fires as did Mess and Dan-O or hate anybody as much in Philly since the time that dirty, no-good, Patrik Elias sneaked up behind Dan McGillis and lifted his stick, along with it the 2000 Eastern Conference crown.

But the Flyers, whose top talent has suffered too long for lack of support, appear to have a goalie finally, and a stash of big and mobile young defensemen to remind you of how the Blues just won. The clock is running on prime Claude Giroux years, sure, but the strong consensus in the hockey community is that, sophomore slump by Carter Hart, notwithstanding, this team is ready to make a jump as early as this season

The Devils are adding the presumed next great star to Hall and the developing Hischier. Now they just need an anchor defenseman to make them a Cup threat.

After trading away every first-rounder between 2013 and 2016 to fuel years of deep contention in front of Henrik Lundqvist, the Rangers were being awakened by the persistent knock of The Grim Reaper. So the franchise that traditionally has had the patience of a New York cabbie answered by starting its rebuild a year early rather than a year too late. The Rangers got back a gaggle of assets in the Ryan McDonagh deal, have used the second first-rounder this year they received for renting out Kevin Hayes to trade for the prime time Jacob Trouba and now cackle all the way to the bank with Kakko.

So now that Jaromir Jagr has rotated to every team in the Metro, a new cycle can begin. Evolution is inevitable but not usually this quickly, proving that planning is essential and good fortune works even better.

The hourglass appears about to be turned over in the Metro. With the Penguins window starting to come down on Sid Crosby’s neck, Jim Rutherford’s 70-year-old arms are trying to hold it up with Nick Bjugstad, Jared McCann, and by turning Phil Kessel into something younger, plus more workable within a team concept. On Saturday the Penguins will have only their second No 1 pick in six years, and need it of course to be a good one, but at No. 21, odds are not in their favor that it will turn out to a great one. The Rangers had to tear it up to get back into this promising position so quickly. Is there stomach to do the same in Pittsburgh?

The same question hangs over Washington—and Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, not getting nay younger than is Giroux. For that one glorious spring, the Caps didn’t sell their soul to the degree of the Rangers did for so long, but, that said, the No.1 traded away for Kevin Shattenkirk surely would start to come in handy soon. Andrei Burakovsky, Tom Wilson and Jacob Vrana don’t leave the shelves bare of players in their prime but the Caps’ best prospect is goalie Ilya Samsonov and there does not appear to be a gamebreaker on the way.

Columbus is going to have difficulty replacing Sergei Bobrovsky and an even harder time subbing for a magician like Artemi Panarin. This is true even if the Jackets are able to re-sign Matt Duchene, which seems problematic in light of everything else the Jackets are likely to lose on July 1. They still have Seth Jones anchoring a good young defense and will compete for a playoff spot, but having taken this shot, the size of the market demands Jarmo Kekalainen soon be trading to get some picks back.

Despite losing John Tavares to a conference rival, the Islanders surprised and confounded with a 102-point season. Suddenly forced to be all-for-one and one-for all, teams losing marquee players can survive the short run, but more top-end talent has to be coming for the long one. The Isles don’t have the star power their hated neighbors now do.

This is how the Blackhawks (Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews) Penguins (Crosby and Evgeni Malkin); Caps (Ovechkin); Kings (Drew Doughty) and the presumed next cycle of contenders like the Leafs (Auston Matthews) Jets (Patrick Laine) Avalanche (Nathan MacKinnon) and yes, just wait and see, even the Oilers (Connor McDavid) have been granted chances to win. With few exceptions, championship teams originate near the top of the draft.
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