Follow me on Twitter @ToddCordell
In this edition of the hotstove, we share our thoughts on which teams have had the worst off-seasons thus far.
Todd Cordell
The Vancouver Canucks have had a pretty poor run.
This is the last year they have Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes on entry-level contracts. You think they’d be doing anything and everything in their power to surround them with as much talent as possible and take advantage of them being significantly underpaid (a la Colorado with Gabriel Landeskog and Cale Makar, among others, due for raises next summer). It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.
They were unable to dump any of their bad contracts in trades and elected not to buy anybody out. That cost them Tyler Toffoli, a solid top-6 forward who signed a very reasonable contract in Montreal. It’s not just that they lost a quality player; they lost a quality player for nothing just months after trading Tyler Madden, one of the team’s better prospects, and a 2nd round pick for him. Awful asset management.
The Canucks were also unable to come to an agreement with Jacob Markstrom, the team’s MVP two years in a row. You can debate whether giving him as much term as he got in Calgary is a good idea but he has developed into a top-15 netminder and losing him will definitely sting; even more so because of how poor the Canucks are defensively (only Chicago gave up 5v5 chances at a higher rate last season).
Replacing Markstrom is a quickly declining Braden Holtby. He was once one of the game’s elite – I don’t think anybody will argue that – but his game is trending downwards in a hurry. Of 54 goaltenders to play 1,000+ minutes (at 5v5) last season, Holtby ranked 49th in save percentage and 50th in high-danger save percentage. He was legitimately one of the worst goaltenders in the league. Before anybody tries to pin his poor results on the team, I should point out Ilya Samsonov ranked 11th in SV% and 20th in HD SV% under the same conditions.
Even if Holtby bounces back a little bit, he will almost certainly be nothing more than average on a team that asks the world of their goaltenders.
I really liked the Nate Schmidt addition – hats off for taking advantage of a team in a poor cap situation – but I’m not sure he makes up for losing Toffoli and downgrading in goal, let alone actually makes the Canucks better.
I think they will be a fringe playoff team, which is pretty disappointing considering they have two of the best players in the league playing for pennies.
Honorable mention goes to Arizona. They have been a disaster on and off the ice.
Sean Maloughney
I think it’s the Arizona Coyotes and quite frankly its not even close. First of all Arizona wasn't able to do anything at the Draft, not having a pick until the fourth round (and we'll get to that). In addition to deals made, Arizona forfeited their second round pick this season and their first next season for cheating and pre scouting combine players.
Now the word is out that their first pick, fourth rounder Mitchell Miller viciously bullied a black and disabled teen while in school. I won't go into the details here but it was far worse than Mitchel being a dumb kid.
Then you had the whole OEL fiasco where the team was trying to move him to save cash but Ekman Larsson did not want to leave, used his NMC clause (as is his right) and gave the Coyotes a very limited time to try and move him to one of two teams.
Aside from that the Coyotes really did nothing. They let some players walk into free agency and their best signing this summer was Tyler Pitlick.
Expect a bottom dwelling year Arizona fan and sadly you won't even have a top end draft pick to look forward to next season.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com
Recent posts
Worst free agent signing to date?
Best free agent signing to date?
Thoughts on the Max Domi/Josh Anderson trade?
Thoughts on the Eric Staal trade?
Join the Discussion:
»