What is Going On in the NHL?
Recent offseason decisions suggest the NHL is not a professional sports league
What is going on in the NHL?
Some executives seem to be operating on another planet when it comes to player transactions, while the others take advantage of their separation from reality.
More alarmingly, a movement led by young, smart, and talented people aimed at reforming the toxic and exclusive culture of the sport is constantly being stepped on by current long-time executives.
Several moves have occurred in the last few weeks reflecting the depressive state of the league. Heck, we only need to review a 48-hour period to see the NHL is becoming a Micky Mouse league.
Let’s begin a few weeks back with the Duncan Keith trade. If you’re tuned out of the NHL offseason, I can assure you, no typo, a team in fact wanted what is left of Duncan Keith at $5.5 million. It may be less surprising to you it’s the Edmonton Oilers. They even traded a young defenceman with potential and a pick to do it.
Keith, with all due respect to his tremendous three-cup career, struggles to defend opponents because his age and injury history have significantly hindered his skating ability. A downgrade on defence as it is, but now he’s in line to replace the reliable Adam Larsson, who is off to Seattle on a cap hit less than Keith’s.
What an opportunity for Chicago, right? Well, fast forward a few weeks to July 23rd, the Blackhawks acquired Seth Jones, a second-round pick, and a sixth-round pick from Columbus for Adam Boqvist, the 12th overall pick in this year’s draft (Cole Sillinger), a 2022 first-round pick, and a second-round pick. Chicago and Jones agreed to an 8-year extension with an average annual value of $9.5 million in the process.
“Acquiring Seth Jones has been on our wish list for years, it has seemed. It never was a possibility until somewhat recently,” Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman said. If Bowman made up his mind a few years ago and stopped watching Jones, this makes sense. He would not be doing his job if so, but even if true, did he not question why Jones all of a sudden became available?
Seth Jones has not been a good defender the last few seasons. His backwards skating is a weakness and he gives room to opponents in his own end. Given his previous success, however, it’s worth gambling on him improving in a new environment, but a gamble of multiple high picks and a 20-year old defenceman (Boqvist)? Bowman didn’t look at his on-ice results of late and think maybe I shouldn’t invest $9.5 million into this?
Meanwhile, the Carolina Hurricanes are hurting their chances of success by not spending money. They traded Alex Nedeljkovic, after his superb rookie season, to Detroit for a third-round pick and Jonathan Bernier. Alex was their goalie of the future but, apparently, three million was too much to ask so he had to be traded for assets of much lesser value.
The Rangers joined the action of weakening their team by shipping Pavel Buchnevich to the Blues for Sammy Blais and two picks. Buchnevich had a breakout year, finally combining his strong offensive and defensive impacts with efficient finishing. Perhaps the Rangers want to save money for a bigger move, but their recent six-year, $3.6 million commitment to Barclay Goodrow, a bottom-six forward, suggests otherwise.
We still haven’t covered the worst trade so far. The Philadelphia Flyers thought they needed Rasmus Ristolainen so bad, analytics and eye-test be damned, they traded the 13th overall pick in this year’s draft, two (!) second-round picks, and Robert Hagg. Maybe they think he could succeed against lesser competition, but you wouldn’t pay the cost of a first-line centre for a bottom-pair defenseman. By the way, the Sabres would trade top-six centre, Sam Reinhart, for a 1st-round pick and goalie prospect Devon Levi the same night - arguably less than what they received for Ristolainen.
We could not have successive nonsense like this without Jim Benning getting involved. It’s the biggest trade of the bunch, here it is in full:
Loui Eriksson, Antoine Roussel, and Jay Beagle combine for about $12 million against the cap for one more season. I can only imagine Jim Benning making this move and thinking, “Haha, I did it, I freed up the cap people said I couldn't and added good players.” But did you really, Jim? If Oliver Ekman-Larsson were to perform as he has since the 15-16 season - and I suspect he will because the Canucks defence is, arguably, even worse than the Coyotes - then the Canucks will be paying dead cap for another six seasons, rather than one.
After the Canucks sign Conor Garland, they will have already re-allocated the $12-million, but only to one good player - and Garland is no Auston Matthews. So after all, another example of poor asset management.
This nonsense is funny to some (me, at least), but fans of the teams in question aren’t going to be having fun for a while. It can be understood desperation to succeed leads to a bad trade here and there, but the sequence of bad decisions is worth being concerned about. The consistency of bad moves and the recycling of the executives in the league who make these moves is diminishing entertainment value.
Alright, we’ve covered the embarrassing displays of player evaluation in the NHL, now onto something much worse, and more serious.
Draft eligible prospect Logan Mailloux found himself on many NHL teams’ ‘do not draft’ lists after he was fined last December for distributing a photo of a woman performing a sexual act without her consent. In a report by The Athletic, the woman states she has not forgiven Mailloux because she doesn’t believe he has been remorseful.
From The Athletic: “The woman said she asked that Mailloux send her a sincere apology in written form because she did not want to meet with him in person. She said she received “a text that was no longer than three sentences.”
An hour after the report (probably not a coincidence), Mailloux asked not to be selected in the draft, recognizing he hasn’t earned the privilege of being selected.
Marc Bergevin and the Montreal Canadiens took him anyway.
The Habs released a statement with the pick, but it only added to the embarrassment. It starts, “(T)he Montreal Canadiens organization not only selected a promising hockey player, but also a young man who recently admitted to making a serious mistake.” We already knew the priority was on the ice because they took him, now it’s clarified.
It continues, “His recent public statement is a genuine acknowledgement of his poor behaviour and the first step on his personal journey.” So now we know Logan’s statement was valued more than the victim’s.
The team statement concludes, “We are also committed to raising awareness among our players about the repercussions of their actions on the lives of others.” This is poorly worded - I am not sure if they are stating concern about victims or how such actions affect the perpetrator - but anyway, do you want to talk about repercussions? Bob McKenzie puts it perfectly:
The NHL is in a position where they cannot be liberal with second chances, but the Habs didn’t even make Mailloux earn one, even when he was willing.
Speaking of chances, Marc Bergevin has exhausted all of his. Bergevin was the director of pro personnel for the Blackhawks during the time of the current allegations and as the Habs general manager hired domestic abuser Sean Burke, pursued domestic abuser Slava Voynov, was reportedly interested in signing Tony DeAngelo, and now has carelessly selected Mailloux.
We can have fun with the sequence of poor trades, but the operations of this league cannot continue to alienate women, BIPOC, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. They must start proving hockey is for everyone.
Player cards courtesy of JFresh Hockey.
The Athletic report was written by Katie Strang and Corey Pronman.