This could be a big week in determining whether or not the NHL's Return to Play plan will come to fruition. Something to keep an eye on, but we also have two actual hockey events on the calendar this week. For now, let's pay attention to those.
First — the names of the 2020 inductees to the Hockey Hall of Fame will be announced Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., broadcast live on TSN.
Normally, the 18 members of the Hall of Fame selection committee meet in person to debate the merits of the nominees. This year, like with most everything else, the group will be meeting remotely and will cast ballots electronically for the first time.
The committee will anoint a maximum of four male players, two female players, and two builders — or a builder and an official. In recent years, induction classes have topped out at six people.
In his first year of eligibility, Jarome Iginla is virtually guaranteed a spot. The rest of the ballot seems to be pretty wide open.
You can
click here for the Hall's list of inductees from previous years and see if you can suss out a pattern.
One ex-Canuck whose name often gets tossed around is Alexander Mogilny, who's now in his 12th year of eligibility. He's one of those guys who did not weather the 2004-05 lockout well. When he came back to the New Jersey Devils as a 36-year-old, he managed just 34 more NHL games.
I was enraptured by Mogilny during his 107-point season with the Canucks in 1995-96, and thought he deserved Hart Trophy consideration. He did get one fourth and one fifth-place vote that year, as well as being named to the NHL's second All-Star team. Some guy named Mario Lemieux — who I also loved — walked away with the Hart and the Lester B. Pearson Award after winning the Art Ross with 69 goals and 161 points in just 70 games. Can you imagine??
But back to Mogilny. His time in Vancouver was only a small part of his legacy. He's a Triple Gold Club member, and had his Olympic Gold (1988) and World Championship Gold (1989) before he defected to the NHL — a groundbreaking move in itself that changed the face of hockey.
In the NHL, he tied Teemu Selanne for the most goals when he was with Buffalo in the 1992-93 season, with 76. He added his second 50-goal, 100-point season with the Canucks, then completed his Triple Gold Club dance card when he won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2000, three months after the rebuilding Canucks dealt him away in exchange for Brendan Morrison and Denis Pederson. A win-win deal if there ever was one?
At some point, I think Mogilny should get his turn. Last year, the Hall honoured Sergei Zubov, who retired in 2010, Guy Carbonneau, who retired in 2000 and 76-year-old Vaclav Nedomansky, whose last season in the NHL was 1982-83 — so, delayed recognition definitely does happen.
The NHL has now also released details of its Draft Lottery broadcast, which will go on Friday at 5 p.m. PT on Sportsnet.
Remember — as things stand right now, the Canucks theoretically have a chance to win the Stanley Cup this year, or to win a top-three draft pick. But they can't have both.
The 15-team draft lottery field will be made up of the eight teams that lose in the qualifying round and the seven teams that aren't included in the Qualifying Round — six, really, since Ottawa holds San Jose's pick as well as their own.
That gives the Senators the best overall odds of snagging the No. 1 pick, at a solid 25 percent. Cellar-dwellers Detroit are second at 18.5 percent, followed by L.A., Anaheim, New Jersey and Buffalo.
But the total odds of some team from the play-in round grabbing that first pick are nearly as good as Ottawa's odds — 23.5 percent, in total. They'll get a similar crack at picks two and three, as well.
For now, the league is calling those eight "placeholder" clubs Team A through Team H. If any of those clubs grabs one or more of the lottery spots, a second draw will be held at some point after the qualifying round, to determine which of the eight teams that lose in the qualifying round will get that pick.
So — teams going into the qualifying round *will* know whether a high draft pick is available to a losing club. But they won't know which team — or which team from which matchup — will actually get that pick, or picks.
I think this is a fascinating wrinkle — and it's not like we don't see teams move way up in the lottery on a pretty regular basis. That's part of what kept knocking the Canucks back in the order over these past few years.
Happily, the
Tankathon website has factored all of this into their simulation this year. In addition to virtually drawing the ping-pong balls, it has also set the odds for teams to win their qualifying-round series.
I just did a few spins. For the most part, the seven "true" lottery teams tend to dominate the top of the rankings, but I just did one where Minnesota got the first pick — because they'd lost to the Canucks in the qualifier, according to the simulation.
Of course, the Canucks will only hold onto their pick if they lose the qualifying round. If they win, it goes to New Jersey as the return for the J.T. Miller trade.
It's almost unfathomable that the actual draft would have been this weekend, if we were still living in normal times. Instead, it will take place at some unknown time in the future — October, perhaps?
But one tradition remains. Bob McKenzie of TSN released his annual draft rankings on Monday — which includes a move up to second spot for German forward Tim Stutzle.
And to wrap up today — congratulations to Adam Gaudette and his new wife Micaela. They had originally planned to tie the knot this summer but it sounds like the re-plan came together quickly — hopefully to free Gaudette up for a long playoff run this summer!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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