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What in the world is going on with the Devils? They allow Jack Hughes to be targeted in open-ice by Islanders defenseman Alexander Romanov, and in the same week they stand by and do nothing when Jesper Bratt is obliterated behind the net by Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak?
Players should not be obligated to fight after delivering clean hits, which both Romanov and Cernak did, and I believe that. But teams sure have the obligation to protect their skilled players from harm, and that is something I believe implicitly.
The Devils failed to do that twice within three games this week. Indeed, the other game in Detroit ended with Hughes flat on his back with Michael Rasmussen going all Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston in Lewiston, Maine, in 1965, after No. 86 bounced off the Red Wings forward while unsuccessfully trying to defend an empty net.
The three-ring circus could have come with sound effects from the old Batman TV series: SPLAT! CRASH! WHAM! POW!
If there is open season on Hughes, the Devils not only have no chance, but they would also deserve what they get. If they allow their skilled guys to get bullied, they have no chance. You would think that would be self-evident in the room and in the coach’s quarters, when Sheldon Keefe should have learned long ago during his tenure in Toronto that skill alone does not win championships (or even multiple playoff rounds).
It is early, the Devils are just coagulating. But it is never too early to protect Jack Hughes. Because one of these times it is going to be too late.
If the Senators had offered Shane Pinto-plus to the Rangers in exchange for Alexis Lafreniere over the summer of 2023 before the gambling-site issue arose, I’m not so sure that would have been an automatic no on the Rangers side.
I’m not sure if baseball is better when the Yankees are winning the World Series — caller Steve from Queens surely would not agree — but I do believe that the NHL is better when Montreal is a perennial contender. Or maybe I am dating myself just like the Habs.
The Canadiens are going on 32 years without lifting the Cup. I guess that’s good in comparison if your standard is either the Maple Leafs, on Year 58, or the Flyers, tracking toward 50 years since the last parade down Broad Street.
But the franchise that set the historical standard in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s — the one that produced Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau, Doug Harvey, Larry Robinson, Guy Lafleur and Ken Dryden; the one that won 15 Cups in a 24-year span from 1956-79 — is kind of like the Yankees of Bobby Murcer, Mel Stottlemyre, Jerry Kenney and Horace Clarke coming after the M&M Boys and Whitey Ford.
The hierarchy featuring executive VP of Hockey Jeff Gorton, GM Kent Hughes and head coach Marty St. Louis have set the franchise on the proper course after the bottom fell out a few seasons ago. But the club is in no-man’s-land, a conglomeration of exciting young talents both established (Cole Caufield) and trying to gain traction (Juraj Slafkovsky, Lane Hutson) but without a strong middle class to offer meaningful support.
If the steps taken by Gorton somewhat mirrors the steps he took as Rangers GM following the Letter, the problem is that there is neither an Artemi Panarin nor Igor Shesterkin equivalent. But pressure is going to mount the same way it did when the Rangers stalled.
Other than the startling run to the Cup Final in 2021 following the 56-game COVID-impacted season, the Canadiens have won nine playoff rounds since they last won the Cup in 1993 — with, by the way, perhaps the weakest roster in modern history to raise the chalice.
The Senators are ahead in their rebuild, the same for the Sabres and the same for the Red Wings. None of these teams have made the playoffs for at least seven years. This does not reflect particularly well on the Habs’ trajectory.
League-wide save percentage is down to .899, the first time it has dipped below .900 since 1995-96, when the aggregate number came in at .896.
The infusion of skill and youth plus the impact of teams needing entry-level and low-cost contracts to counterbalance the top of the food chain have produced an environment in which the save percentage has steadily declined on an annual basis since 2014-15 and 2015-16, when netminders posted a combined .915.
That, however, is not a good enough explanation for the Devils having surrendered 23 goals over this four-game (0-2-2) losing streak.
John Tortorella kind of set it up, didn’t the Flyers head coach, forecasting how he was so worried about the team’s goaltending before the season even started. Don’t blame anyone for 1-5-1! Back to you, Jonesy.
There is an explanation for the Penguins honoring the legacy of the Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin-Kris Letang triumvirate the way the Yankees honored the legacy of the Core Four.
But the decision to honor the legacy of Tristan Jarry with the 2023 five-year extension didn’t seem to have the same historical grounding, now did it?
Finally, I see that Chris Pronger leaped to Jacob Trouba’s defense on No. 8’s latest (not really) controversial hit when talking to the estimable Pierre LeBrun. But I’m not sure it’s a winning strategy to call one of the NHL’s most notorious and unapologetic headhunters to the stand as a character witness.
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