The past weekend in the NHL spelled doom for four teams that had grand aspirations of a long run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. In spite of San Jose’s seventh place seeding, many thought they were a good bet to best the relatively inexperienced Blues in Round 1, but St. Louis survived the injury of starter Jaroslav Halak with solid relief from Brian Elliott and dispatched the Sharks in five games.
The Red Wings are still a quality organization with star players like Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen and Henrik Zetterberg , but they cannot ignore their feet of clay, as key players Nicklas Lidstrom and Tomas Holmstrom enter the last chapter of their careers and Jimmy Howard continues to provide evidence that he is not a difference maker come playoff time.
Vancouver and Pittsburgh were thought by many to be the favorites to come out of their respective conferences, but both ran into goaltending issues. With the Canucks, their issue was that they could not beat LA’s Jonathan Quick, who outdueled both Roberto Luongo and Corey Schnieder in dispatching the President’s Trophy winners in five games, while the Penguins had the advantage of all of their key players (including Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang) back in the lineup, but lost to Philadelphia mostly because Marc-Andre Fleury won the battle of worst playoff goaltending performance, barely besting the “universely” bad Ilya Bryzgalov.
With all four of these teams, this early exit could provide the impetus to make broad sweeping changes.
San Jose made significant moves last summer, adding Brent Burns and Martin Havlat and dispatching Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi, but they did not touch the core group of Dan Boyle, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture and Ryane Clowe. The Sharks could fire either GM Doug Wilson or Coach Todd McLellan, but that is likely not going to spur any great change of fortune on the ice, as this collection of players has been underachieving since the days of Ron Wilson, Thornton and Marleau have no trade clauses that make moving them a near impossibility, but Pavelski with two years remaining and Clowe in the last year of his contract who could be moved.
Detroit has nearly $20 Million in available cap room and will use up some of that to re-sign free agents like Jiri Hudler, Brad Stuart, Justin Abdelkader and Darren Helm, but will likely lose Holmstrom to retirement and will await the decision of whether Lidstrom wants to return for his 21st season. If Lidstrom does hang up his skates, you can expect GM Ken Holland to spare no expense in his pursuit of UFA Ryan Suter and possibly Zach Parise.
Vancouver undoubtedly will have to resolve their goaltending dilemma, as Luongo was supplanted by Schnieder after two playoff losses and will be in line for a pay raise as a pending restricted free agent, but after a power outage against Los Angeles, GM Mike Gillis may have to do something to address their inconsistent scoring, as Ryan Kesler, Mason Raymond and David Booth struggled late in the season. Rumors also persist that coach Alain Vigneault may have interest in the vacant Montreal Canadiens head coaching position.
Pittsburgh will likely write off their loss to Philadelphia as a product of bad goaltending and subpar defense, but Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Rob Rossi said in a recent interview that he would not be surprised if significant roster moves are made this summer. Rossi mentioned that since winning the Cup as underdogs in 2009, the current core group of Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Orpik, Letang and Fleury has not enjoyed postseason success as favorites, losing to Montreal in 2010, to Tampa Bay last season after being up 3-1 and to the Flyers this season.
The new collective bargaining agreement and lack of impact free agents will be factors in how some teams approach the upcoming offseason, but based on the copycat nature of the NHL, many teams are likely to follow the blueprint of Philadelphia GM Paul Holmgren, as he swapped core players Mike Richards and Jeff Carter for a group of young players like Brayden Schenn, Jakob Voracek, Wayne Simmonds and Sean Couturier, while also adding players like Maxime Talbot, Jaromir Jagr, Matt Read and Bryzgalov.
If highly ranked Boston or New York also lose in the first round, the number of teams open to making significant deals this summer will only go up, which will be music to the ears of GM’s like Brian Burke.
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The Toronto Marlies face the Rochester Americans in Game Three of their best-of-five AHL Eastern Conference Quarterfinals at the Blue Cross Arena tonight at 7PM. Forward Joe Colborne suffered a finger injury in Saturday’s 4-3 victory at the Ricoh Coliseum, but is not expected to miss the game. Carter Ashton will miss tonight’s game, as he suffered a concussion after being hit by Amerks defenseman Alex Biega. Marcel Mueller is expected to replace Ashton in the lineup.
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