The more things change...

Hockey seems like the kind of sport where truly anything can happen. The game is in constant motion, it's played on ice and uses a curved stick with a round pick in an oval rink. At the professional level, it's rare to find one uniting language that every member of a line speaks. Of all games, it seems like one at which "luck" should play an outsized role. 

If not luck, then the extended grind of the season and playoffs should ensure a bit of change from year to year. The salary cap, too, prevents the teams at the top for keeping all of the best players forever. The salary cap are there for parity, and definitely not an excuse for owners to save a few bucks.

It's hard to repeat, and the game is simply more vulnerable to chance than other sports played in North America, especially at an elite level where the top talent to the bottom isn't so dissimilar. Half the league makes the post season every year, which further brings about the potential for chaos. A long season helps sort teams out a little bit, but that often gets thrown out the window in a short series.

With all that chaos and room for drama cooked into every season, every Stanley Cup Playoff, you might reasonably expect to be surprised all the time. Despite these headwinds against predictability, however, both the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers have returned to their respective conference finals. Heck, the Oilers are even playing the Stars again, just like last year's WCF.

It's a testament to the depth and talent in Edmonton, Florida and Dallas, surely. It's hard to reach this level consistently, which is why -- Hold on, I'm being told that this is actually Florida's third trip to the ECF in a row? And before that the Lightning made the Stanley Cup Final three year in a row? And before that, in '16 and '17 the Penguins won the Cup in back to back years? And before that, the Cup was just handed back and forth between the Kings and the Blackhawks? 

So there is actually quite a lot of precedent for a team to be strong enough to return to the Finals every year, despite all we hear about luck and the challenge of sustaining relevance. And further, there are teams like the Maple Leafs, who have consistently been unable to win the Stanley Cup in nearly 60 years, or the Wild who have busted out of the first round in the playoffs 8 times in the past 10 years. How do you explain that level of consistency from the other end? Why are the Hurricanes going to lose in the Eastern Conference Finals again?! 

For all the luck, all the team turnover and all the variance we expect from teams playing throughout the year, the NHL is stratified. I'm sorry, this just means that the Maple Leafs are never winning the Cup again.

Won't anyone think of Chuck Fletcher?

 For many NHL roles, the best way to get a new job is to have held that job in the past. Look at the front office executives and head coaches that are recycled after previous stints with other teams ended in disaster. 

There seems to be a little bit of new blood every once in a while, and when it happens, it's noteworthy. When general manager Chuck Fletcher was let go by the Flyers, he was replaced by Danny Briere. I remember Briere as a player, which means he is young, or I am getting old. I assume the former. 

Don't worry about Chuck, though. He's through his second NHL GM gig, after some stops as an assistant along the way. He's practically guaranteed himself another opportunity, perhaps with the next role that opens up this summer. Chuck Fletcher will be fine.

One of the jobs that opened up was in Pittsburgh, where Fletcher served as an assistant GM before he moved on to Minnesota. Kyle Dubas, president of the Penguins decided to take on the mantle of General Manager as well. He did that n Toronto, so even though it wasn't a traditional path, at least Chuck Fletcher, and his FletchFans (tm) can rest easy knowing that the job was kept in the "former GM" family. 

That left Edmonton, who is always good for a retread. No matter the situation, the Oilers are going to hire someone who had middling success somewhere else. It's hard to get people to move to Edmonton in the winter, so one might generously think that getting Ken Holland to town, now as the team president, was a coup. Former Wild and Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher seemed right in the Oilers' hiring wheelhouse.

Well, the Oilers hired Jeff Jackson, former agent for Connor McDavid to be their new GM. We're living in a new era, readers. You can't just assume that you will hop to another job when you are dismissed from your previous upper management role. You might just have to take on the role as part of expanded responsibilities, or *gasp* you might just be new blood. 

Sorry, Chuck. The world is changing. It can't last, though. Enjoy running the local arena in New Jersey this winter and come back ready for 2024. The Sabres are probably going to need you before too much longer. 

Let's pretend I know what I was talking about

 Back in October, I had some thoughts:

The league seems to be very Eastern Conference heavy going into the year, and picking a winner there will be tricky. I'm going to lean into the Florida Panthers, who made a leap last year, and then spent the entire summer firming up their roster. They are going to be good again in 2022, and if my hunch that the Lightning are going to be flat is correct, they should have an inside track on the Atlantic. I don't trust the 'Canes, Rangers or Maple Leafs, so I guess the Panthers are where it's at for me.

 Pretty good, right? I mean, I did say the Panthers were going to win it all in 6, which they can't do, now down 3-1. That's clearly the biggest flaw in this post. 

Well, even in this paragraph, I don't mention the Bruins at all in a post about Eastern Conference contenders. That's not great. They had a pretty decent year. I did pick playoff teams for all the rest though, so I'll take points there! 

Oh, and I didn't include comments about the Western Conference. I highlighted, let's see, the Wild and the Blues. Wow. But I did say the Oilers were going to be good! Of course, I did also suggest that the champion from the Western Conference would be the Calgary Flames.

Not my finest hour. It's fine, I've only been doing this for like 10 years. 

The Oilers and just being there.

 

We have reached the end of the 2021-22 season, an teams are getting ready for the offseason, while many fans are already projecting what their teams' actions during the summer may be. Most of those fans are not brimming with optimism. 

This is year is the exception to the recent rule, in which two of the best teams in the league actually battled through the postseason and ended up in the Stanley Cup Final. In most recent years, getting a spot at the table is enough. Teams and especially goalies can get hot over a 4-7 game stretch and knock out teams with home ice. It happens often. 

Part of this, perhaps, is the truncated nature of the previous two seasons. Better players remained on the ice throughout the season, and throughout the playoffs. That might explain why Tampa Bay was healthy enough to win the Cup the last two seasons, and then get play the Avalanche in an attempt to win it a third time. Next year will be a return to the meat grinder that is life in the NHL. Having enough talent to win in the regular season should be the goal of every franchise, because the postseason is a land of mystery. 

One team in particular that never seems to embrace optimism, but should probably have a bit of it is the Edmonton Oilers. Yes, the first real post on this site is about the one team that is not actually south of Edmonton, because it is Edmonton. The Oilers made a good run this year before being upended by the Avalanche in the Western Conference Finals, but they, like 30 of their rivals, were left wanting more. 

The two best teams in the West this season were the two that they met in the last two rounds the Oilers competed in, and will be significantly impacted by this summer. The Flames stand to lose Johnny Gaudreau to someone else via free agency if they aren't careful. The Avalanche are going to have a Cup hangover. Elsewhere, the Wild are in cap hell and the Blues are simply a different team than won the Cup before the pandemic.

The Oilers can run it back with the best scorers in the game on offense. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisatl are staying in Edmonton for at least three more seasons, and they are under no threat of losing many of their other options in their scoring lines. Jesse Puljujarvi, Kailer Yamamoto and Ryan McLeod are restricted free agents, but it doesn't seem like they are going anywhere. Evander Kane is the biggest unrestricted free agent this summer, and while he was good in Edmonton, he might not be worth the ongoing headache.

The blue line will likely be beefed up this offseason, if anywhere stands to see changes. The Oilers are poised to lose Brett Kilak and Kris Russell, while Duncan Keith is still getting almost 20 minutes a night. That can't keep up. Yet still, there is only one player in the prognosticated lineup that started fewer than 60 games at D for the Oilers last year. There is stability for a team that made it to the conference finals. 

What happens in the offseason is an open question, of course, and there will surely be a team on the rise. Vegas will be back, the Ducks have one of the more exciting rookies coming back as a veteran, but none of those machinations will likely keep the Oilers out of the 2023 playoffs. 

After that, anything can happen.