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.

The wrong end of a loaded cannon

 Brad Marchand had a bad reputation as a junior player. He was difficult to deal with both for opponents and in some cases with his own teammates. This wasn't some sort of tough guy on ice persona. He'd always been an angry kid, and to his credit has been meeting therapists for much of his life. 

Over the long arc of his lifetime, it's been beneficial, undoubtedly, otherwise he would have stopped using that resource, but in the crucial development times of junior hockey, Marchand saw himself traded twice, ending up with his hometown Halifax by the time he was ready to turn professional. 

Halifax reached the Finals of the QMJHL playoff in his final year in juniors, and after being a bit too much for the coach, he was a healthy scratch in Game 4, the clinching game, which really must have irked the already angry kid from Halifax who had proven to be an important scorer in his time with not only Halifax, but with Moncton and Val d'Or as well.

And then, to add insult to injury, after the playoffs were over, the Bruins, the team in the NHL that owned his rights, told him to go ahead and spend the winter in Halifax, and come show up for camp in the fall. Marchand came to the Bruins pissed off. Well, even more pissed off than usual, and that irritation and aggression has been slowly leaching off of him for years with verbal and physical jobs, scraps and bring a general nuisance to opponents. Which is good. The Bruins weren't bothered him, and against all odds, he was in the Boston system for 15+ years.

Now that we have Marchand's background, and know that whatever problems he has had have been with him for his entire life, and he is constantly working on himself. That said, I can't tell you what Toronto ever did to him

The Panthers have this figured out. Where have you guys been?

 It's easy to seem like a Panthers fan blog when they keep doing things well. Of course, if game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final went differently, this is an entirely different piece. But the Panthers didn't become the modern day chokers of professional sports in our time. Surely, that good fortune has contributed to the other positive headlines the team has enjoyed this summer. 

Most recently, The Athletic has given the Panthers an A for their offseason work. The big thing was resigning Sam Reinhart, but also, they added depth both to the checking lines, but the blue line as well. It's hard to maintain a squad year over year in the NHL, and now, after a second consecutive trip to the Staly Cup Final, this one being a winner, the Panthers may still be getting better. 

There are going to be concerns about fatigue for a roster that has been playing the last two summers, but surely, a team that has finessed  the salary cap like they have can overcome something like "exhaustion" They made some big roster moves a couple of years ago, and finally came together in the postseason. This year, they were good all year. Now would be the time you might expect a step back.

The Panthers have been bad so long, and now suddenly, they are perhaps the toast of the hockey world. They aren't stopping either. With the momentum thy have now, Florida will be relevant for a while. The must be an appeal to walking along Fort Lauderdale Beach in mid July. The Panthers are a candidate to win it all again next year, so a parade might just happen again.

Nobody is happier than Gary Bettman who has continued to bet heavily on the Sun Belt, Losing the Coyotes to Utah was rough, and having bad teams elsewhere in the South has always stung. The Panthers were the last of those southern teams to have a renaissance, of the teams that stayed where they are at, and like those teams, this doesn't look like a flash in the pan. Heck, unlike Miami's sports success stories, this team may stay together for a while. 

The Florida Panthers. Huh

End of the season rooting interests

 There is a wide Gulf between the best teams in the NHL and the next tier. There is a long standing observation over how difficult it is to sustain the success of a season in which you won the President's Trophy, and carrying that through to success n the Playoff. At this point, since the team with the most points doesn't ever win the Cup, I think we can be happy if a team from this upper echelon wins it. 

There are 11 teams with more than 88 points, and 0 teams with between 83 and 88 points. There is also a gap between 89 to 93 points, and there are 8 teams with 93 points or more. Let's hope, then, that one of these 8 teams can win the Cup, and render the entire, long winded regular season valid. If you are a fan of one of the other 24 franchises, this is probably going to be difficult. To help, I have come up with 1 reason to root for every one of the top 8 squads.

1: Bruins - Do you like consistency? Well, these Bruins, like Brad Marchand or David Pastrnak or Charlie McAvoy have all been a part of the Bruins organization since 1976

2: Panthers - Last year, I picked the Panthers to win the Stanley Cup, feeling their all in attitude was laudable. Now a year later, I would still feel pretty good about myself if they won it all, and don't you want me to feel good about myself?

3: Rangers - Henrik Lundqvist still has close ties with the Rangers. Maybe you could get his number if he knows you are cheering for them? Or maybe you are just a fan of bad nicknames, then you can cheer for the Breadman, Artemi Panarin.

4: Hurricanes - Brent Burns  is still around and generally kicking but. He's been growing a playoff beard since he was 19, and it would be great to see if he would shave upon winning it all.

5: Avalanche - This is purely an "I like Denver" play, because Denver is lovely. The Avs won it two seasons ago, and the town got a little high on themselves, but still, a lovely town.

6: Stars - This is a tough sell for a fan from Minnesota, given the history, and the fact that the Wild aren't going to be in the postseason either, but here goes. Jake Oettinger and I have some common acquaintances, so that's pretty neat. 

7: Jets - This is the team for nearly every Canadian outside of Vancouver.

8: Canucks - This is the team for fans inside of Vancouver, or people who remember their last trip to the Final and the chaos that ensued in the city. Be safe, Vancouver.

So there you go, maybe you can use that handy guide to find the right choice for you. Or you can be a traditional Flyers fan and root against everyone. 

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. 

At last, it is hockey season

We made it, everyone. We made it through two pandemic battered seasons, an offseason that saw the demise of the beloved Barry Melrose Rocks brand and headline after headline that exposed the gross underbelly of youth hockey, and even before the season began for everyone, headlines that exposed the grossness of current players. We made it through all that, and this week we will have the most normal seeming season we have had in multiple years. 

It's important to note that we have only made it through the headlines. The reckoning and soul searching will take time, and forgiveness and healing will take longer. Canada seems to be better at coming to grips with it's sordid history of late, and I can only hope that this means an earnest effort to hockey writ large to follow a more generous future for all who encounter the game. 

But along side this area of reformation, we get to enjoy hockey unencumbered by nearly as many world issues. Just think, two years ago, American teams couldn't even play in Canada, let alone in Prague. After the last couple of years with significant structural question marks, we can now ask questions about how the Flames are going to mesh this year, instead of how many Kings can even play the Oilers this weekend. 

I suspect that among the returns to normalcy will be a return to the difficulty in repeating as Cup champions. I would not be surprised to see the Avalanche fall flat this season, not because of a lack of talent but simply because of exhaustion. Similarly the Lightning, who have been diving deep into the postseason with regularity the last several years.

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.

Out West, there simply isn't the high end depth that there is in East. If the Avs are down, as I project, there aren't obvious candidates to take them. The Blues and Wild will be good (though I worry about the Wild and their reliance on youth to surround Kirill Kaprizov) but I don't believe anyone expects deep Cup runs from either. In the Pacific, the class of the conference is in Alberta, with a mish mash of disappointment expected at varying levels elsewhere.

I'm moderately sure that most professional sports are prearranged to encourage better story lines, and if the Panthers are coming from the East, that surely means the Flames will be their opponent. And wouldn't that be something, given the loss of Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk? Panthers in 6.

We have a lot more certainty this season. It is going to happen and be familiar. I will probably be wrong, but only because hockey is hard to predict, Enjoy the games tonight (and through the rest of the season).