I'll start today with a bit of shameless self-promotion — of what I think is a very cool feel-good story.
On Wednesday, SC Bern of Switzerland's top men's hockey league announced that it has hired former Swiss national team goaltender Florence Schelling as its new general manager.
We tend to think of women's hockey as being dominated solely by Canadian and U.S. players, but Schelling was a star in her own right. She was named MVP at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, where she backstopped the Swiss to a bronze medal.
If you read the article, you'll see that Schelling has a phenomenal C.V. In her younger days, she played on both men's and women's teams. After playing and obtaining her undergraduate degree from Northeastern, she went on to play in the Swedish women's league while earning her MBA at Linkoping University. She ended her playing career after the 2018 Olympics, then moved to coaching and broadcasting — and now is taking this job at the age of just 31.
SC Bern is big-time, too. The club has held the European attendance record for 18 years running, averaging more than 16,000 fans a game, and won the NLA championship for three of the last four seasons before missing the playoffs this year, which led to the management shuffle.
This is a high-profile gig for a high-profile Swiss national. I hope it opens the door for more women in high-level management positions in both Europe and North America.
Now — a slightly gloomier subject...
Did you feel the void on Wednesday, which should have been the first day of the playoffs? I sure did.
I watched the NHL's 'reunion' with the defending champion St. Louis Blues on YouTube last evening, but I think that might have made it worse. It got me thinking about how, whether the Canucks made the cut or not, the next two weeks would be loaded up with games all day long, lasting until god-knows-when if multiple overtimes were involved. And if there's one thing we learned last year, it's that we'd probably be talking about some crazy upsets today, right out of the box.
Whether the Canucks were in the playoffs or not, we'd also be talking about the draft lottery, which was originally scheduled for Thursday.
NHL Central Scouting released its final draft rankings on Wednesday — a little earlier than usual, since the cancelled World U18 Tournament would have taken place in Michigan starting next week, from April 16-26.
Not surprisingly, the top three North American skaters remain the same from the mid-term rankings — in order, Alexis Lafreniere, Quinton Byfield and Jamie Drysdale. But U.S.NTDP defenseman Jake Sanderson — son of former two-time Canuck Geoff Sanderson — took a big jump up from No. 11 to No. 4.
In the ranks of the European skaters, German forward Tim Stuetzle holds firm at No. 1, but Sweden's Lucas Raymond has dropped from No. 2 to No. 4, allowing his countryman Alexander Holtz to move up into the second spot. There's also a big move by big Swedish defenseman Helge Grans, who moved from No. 21 all the way up to No. 6.
The top ranked-goalies both reached the final of the 2020 World Junior Championship — but neither ended up playing in the gold-medal game. Nico Daws of Canada, who was passed over in his first year of eligibility in 2019, remains the top-ranked North American goalie despite eventually ceding the net to Joel Hofer at World Juniors, while Iaroslav Askarov of Russia remains the top-ranked European netminder even though the Russians turned to Amir Miftakhov after pulling Askarov in the third period of the semifinal.
At some point, the NHL will need to decide when it'll hold the 2020 draft, but that can't happen until they make a final decision on whether they'll be able to squeeze out any more regular-season games, and how they'll determine the final order for the standings and, hence, the draft lottery.
At this point, it's not even safe to assume whether or not the Canucks would or wouldn't be in the lottery. On this week's
Ray and Dregs Hockey Podcast, Ray Ferraro threw out an idea that I hadn't heard before — three rounds of playoffs, starting with just eight teams, to expedite the process. Like everything else, it's just speculation at this point but if that happened, I wonder if they'd expand the lottery to include all 23 non-playoff clubs?
Closer to home, the Canucks held a Zoom chat on Wednesday with Tanner Pearson, who's now back at his home base in Kitchener, Ontario with his wife and young son, Tucker.
Ben Kuzma has a good summary of the chat — including Pearson's close ties to Bauer's efforts to make masks to help protect health-care workers from COVID-19. The company was originally founded in Kitchener and Pearson's dad works for them, as strategic program manager.
Finally — on the TV front...
If you haven't seen "NHL Brothers" yet, featuring Quinn and Jack Hughes, you can catch it on social or watch it on Sportsnet on Friday at 3:30 p.m. PT. It's fun to get a glimpse of life at the Hughes household, but I'd have to say the Tkachuk brothers and their parents really brought the entertainment value — and the Staals were pretty good, too.
On Saturday, another classic game. At 7 p.m. on Sportsnet Pacific, you can relive the Stanchion goal that capped off Game 5 of the 2011 Western Conference Final between the Canucks and the San Jose Sharks.
Finally...I'm curious — What are you planning for Easter?
I guess for a lot of people, the holiday will be different because it won't involve gathering or visiting with extended family, or any out-of-town travel. If you have young kids, will you still be making the Easter Bunny magic happen? Will you still be preparing a special meal for your household?
Whatever you choose, I hope you enjoy. It seems positive that we're inching toward flattening the curve here in B.C., and I'm heartened that things are starting to re-open in China, but I feel like we still have a long way to go.
Wash your hands, stay safe, and have a great weekend!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»