In his quest to return to the playoffs next season, Vancouver Canucks general manager Jim Benning has suggested that it will help Vancouver to be back in the friendly old confines of the Pacific Division.
We're waiting on the schedule for next season, as the NHL is still leaving the door open for possible participation in the Olympics if all the details can be hammered out. During Monday's broadcast of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final on Sportsnet, Gary Bettman said that they're already well past the drop-dead date they'd set to get these matters addressed.
So we'll see what happens. Either way, the schedule for next season is expected to be released before draft weekend on July 23-24. It could include some of those baseball-style multi-game series, but we should see the return of cross-border travel, games against all teams, and the regular divisions and conferences.
With the Pacific Division, of course, there's one big change — the addition of the Seattle Kraken, with the Arizona Coyotes moving over to the Central.
The Canucks had it tougher than most with travel last season, with those long road trips out to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. It'll never be easy, being on the West Coast, but their travel burden will be improved somewhat by the addition of the Kraken, a mere 140 miles away.
As for the competition, here's a look at how the rest of the Pacific teams fared last season, from first to worst based on regular-season outcomes. We can talk about Seattle once we see how their inaugural roster shakes out.
Vegas Golden Knights
Finished tied with Colorado for top spot in the league, with 82 points, and had the best goal differential in the league at +67. Marc-Andre Fleury and Robin Lehner shared the Jennings Trophy as the tandem with the lowest goals-against average in the league (2.18). Salary-cap limitations forced the team to play with a short bench on numerous occasions through the regular season.
CapFriendly shows them with $6 million in cap space for next season with just 18 players signed. Alec Martinez is their most notable unrestricted free agent. Vegas is exempt from the expansion draft.
The Golden Knights feasted on the California teams in the regular season, going a combined 21-3-0 against Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose. They were eliminated by Montreal in six games in Round 3 of the playoffs.
Edmonton Oilers
Finished second in the North Division with 72 points, but were swept by Winnipeg in the first round of the playoffs. Connor McDavid was the league's runaway scoring leader with 105 points, earning him the Hart and the Pearson Trophies, and Leon Draisaitl was second with 84.
The Oilers went a combined 12-8 against their Pacific Division foes in the North last season, putting up 6-4 records against both Calgary and Vancouver. CapFriendly shows them with $16 million in cap space, and 19 players signed for next season. Their biggest free agents are goaltender Mike Smith and defensemen Adam Larsson and Tyson Barrie. It's rumoured that they're very interested in acquiring Duncan Keith from Chicago.
Edmonton currently has just five picks in this year's draft; no second or third-rounder.
Calgary Flames
Finished fifth in the North Division with 55 points despite a major offseason overhaul that saw them poach Jacob Markstrom and Chris Tanev from the Canucks. Geoff Ward was 11-11-2 when he was fired mid-season; Darryl Sutter went 15-15-0 after he took over. Add in an 0-1-1 performance from Ryan Huska as interim bench boss, and Calgary's .491 points percentage was the team's lowest since Bob Hartley's last year in 2015-16.
CapFriendly is showing the Flames with $14 million in cap space for next season, but just 13 players signed — and only 24 under contract. All the big names are under contract, but there has been lots of talk that a big-name forward could be traded. Captain Mark Giordano, with one year remaining at $6.75 million, has had his name come up often as a possible expansion draft target.
The Flames went a combined 11-9 against Pacific Division foes last season — 4-6 against Edmonton and 7-3 against Vancouver. They only had a winning record against one other North Division team, going 6-3 for the year against Montreal.
Vancouver Canucks
Finished seventh in North Division with 50 points (yes, one point behind Ottawa in the end). Their .446 points percentage was the lowest since Travis Green's first season in 2017-18 (.445).
CapFriendly shows the Canucks with just under $16 million in cap space, 15 players signed, and 27 total contracts. Of course, the notable restricted free agents are Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes, along with Olli Juolevi and Jayce Hawryluk. UFAs include Alex Edler, Travis Hamonic and Brandon Sutter.
The Canucks were a combined 7-11-2 against their Pacific Division foes last season — 3-5-2 against Calgary and 4-6-0 against Edmonton. They currently have eight picks in the 2021 draft.
Los Angeles Kings
Finished sixth in the West Division with 49 points, one behind the Canucks. They've now been under .500 for three straight seasons, but showed some positive signs this season, most notably a six-game winning streak in late February. That's when there had been some whispers that they might make the playoffs, but they ended up finishing 14 points behind fourth-place St. Louis in the Central.
The Kings got a good year out of 26-year-old goaltender Cal Petersen, who carried the majority of the load with 32 starts. But despite a .911 save percentage compared to Jonathan Quick's .898, Quick had the better GAA (2.86 vs. 2.89) and the winning record (11-9-2, compared to 9-18-5 for Petersen).
After acquiring Viktor Arvidsson from Nashville last week, the Kings are believed to be a team that's ready to move back toward respectability after a few years of rebuilding. They're nicely positioned, roster-wise, with 20 players signed, $15 million in cap space, and no pressing business beyond new contracts for RFAs Andreas Athanasiou and Trevor Moore. And, even after giving up two draft picks for Arvidsson, the still have seven in this year's draft, including four in the first three rounds.
Even as they get the attention as the California team that's ready to take a step forward, they didn't exactly dominate against their Pacific Division foes last season. Overall, they were 8-14-2, with a horrific 2-5-1 record against San Jose to go along with 2-6-0 versus Vegas and a somewhat better 4-3-1 against Anaheim.
San Jose Sharks
I barely heard a word about the Sharks this season, except about their home-ice woes when they weren't allowed to start the season at SAP Center due to Covid restrictions — and Patrick Marleau setting the all-time games-played record. The Sharks finished seventh in the Pacific Division, but were actually tied with the Kings with an identical 21-28-7 record. The Kings got the higher spot in the standings (and the lower draft pick) due to four more regulation wins.
When Peter DeBoer was fired midway through the 2019-20 season, the Sharks were one game below .500 at 15-16-2. Since then, Bob Boughner has coached them to a 35-48-10 record over a season and a half. It's the first time since the late 90s that the team has missed the playoffs in back-to-back years.
Despite the offseason addition of Devan Dubnyk — who was eventually dealt to Colorado at the trade deadline — Martin Jones continued to carry the load in net. And despite his middling 3.28 GAA and .896 save percentage, he was also able to finish with a winning record, like Quick, at 15-13-4. Dubnyk's numbers were similar, but he left San Jose with a 3-9-2 record as a Shark.
Evander Kane had a pretty good year, leading the Sharks in scoring with 49 points and beating his total from last season. But I'm not sure that's a $7 million performance. Or that Logan Couture's 31 points are worth $8 million a year for another six seasons.
And it's even worse on defense. Erik Karlsson's on the books for $11.5 million for six more years. He stayed healthy, appearing in 52 games, but finished with eight goals, 22 points, and tied for a team-worst minus-18. Brent Burns (29 points) has four years left at $8 million. But at least they're still playing big minutes. Marc-Edouard Vlasic averaged just 17:31 over 51 games this season and finished with six points and a minus-8. He has five years remaining at $7 million.
Add all that up, and you've got a Sharks team with 15 players signed for next season but 41 contracts on the books, and $10 million in cap space to finish their offseason work. I'm sure they'd love to offload one of those big contracts to Seattle. Only Karlsson and Vlasic have no-movement clauses.
Against their Pacific Division foes last season, San Jose was relatively respectable — except when they were playing DeBoer's Golden Knights. They were 0-6-2 against Vegas, 4-3-1 against Anaheim and 6-2-0 versus L.A., for an overall record of 10-11-3.
I was impressed by young Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro on Team Canada at the World Championship. He was a second-round pick in 2017 and is now going into the last year of his entry-level contract. Beyond that, there don't appear to be many sure things on the horizon. Their shiniest prospect of the last five years appears to be Josh Norris — picked in the first round in 2017, then sent to Ottawa as part of the Karlsson deal.
Anaheim Ducks
The Ducks finished eighth in the Pacific Division with 43 points and their .384 points percentage was a franchise low, beating out their .385 record in their second season in 1994-95. They've now missed the playoffs for three years in a row. And after buying out the last two years of Corey Perry's contract, it's gotta hurt to see what a big-game player he has continued to be — and the Ducks still have a $2 million cap hit on their books for Perry for each of the next two seasons.
They have pretty much stripped their organization down to the bone, with $22 million in cap space for next season and only 13 players signed. Ryan Getzlaf and David Backes are off the books as big-money UFAs, although I wouldn't be surprised to see Getzlaf return on a reasonable-money old-guy deal. They're reasonably well set on the blue line, with five defensemen signed, and with John Gibson in goal, but they have a bunch of young RFA forwards to bring under contract.
Like the Kings, the Ducks have been vigorously stocking their prospect pool over the past few years, and they've got some blue-chippers like Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale coming. Both got a good look at the NHL level this season; Zegras put up 13 points in 24 games and Drysdale had eight. Max Comtois is a beast, too — a late second-rounder selected 50th overall in 2017, who has 51 points in 94 NHL games so far.
Despite their 30th-place finish last season, the Ducks also might not be so far away from turning things around.
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