This blog is going to start off with some Avs/CHL thoughts but that's just me getting the easy stuff out of the way before delving into last night's matchup between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Winnipeg Jets. There's a lot to talk about. I know it's early yet in the season, but the Lightning look good and the Jets really do not. The Lightning have matured into a solid team, perhaps one of the better teams in the NHL's Eastern Conference (certainly now, with Boston falling off a bit in the early going), while the Jets, whether they've been in the west or the east, have failed to make the playoffs every year since 2007 and appear, most unfortunately, poised to do so again. So what happened to these two teams who were so bad at the same time for so many years? Why do the Lightning look like Stanley Cup contenders and the Jets, at best, like an upper-tier AHL team at times? I'm going to spend a good chunk of this blog answering that painful question, but before I dive into that nest of snakes:
-There was a heavyweight tilt of sorts tonight in the OHL between two of the best teams in junior hockey. The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, or the Soo Greyhounds as they are often known, went toe-to-toe with Connor McDavid's Erie Otters. While the Greyhounds held McDavid to just one goal (and few enough teams can say that) they lost the battle of the titans 6-4, with Dylan Strome picking up 2 goals. Say, now there's a player who would look pretty good in a Jets uniform! The Jets likely won't be bad enough to finish last in the league this year (Have you seen Buffalo this season? Yikes!) but they could finish in the range to draft Strome at this rate.
No! Bad Rob! Other stuff now, dump on Jets later!
-Colorado won another game tonight (holy, another one?) bringing their win total on the season up to two. While the total number of wins for the Avs so far is hardly inspiring, the fashion in which they won this game is cause for a sigh of relief. The Avs walloped the Vancouver Canucks by a score of 7-3, and got contributions from all the big guns. Jarome Iginla got his first two goals as an Av, Tyson Barrie put up three points, Matt Duchene looked deadly every time he was on the ice, and Gabriel Landeskog showed off that blistering slap shot of his. The only fly in the ointment (or flies): Nathan MacKinnon played well, but had no goals to show for it. Ryan O'Reilly hasn't played especially well either. Once those two guys get going, the wins will pile up in Denver.
-Former Jet Zach Redmond made his Avalanche debut, and to the surprise of not a single Jets fan he played extremely well. He moved the puck with confidence, had surprisingly little in the way of jitters in spite of it being his first game of the year, and rushed the puck up ice a couple of times. What I really liked was that he rushed the puck well but never once got caught out of position. When he rushed the puck he never overstayed his welcome in the offensive zone, but got right back to his position after leaving the puck for one of his teammates. Remind me again why the Avs had Nate Guenin playing instead of this guy. Or, if you're a Jets fan, remind me again why the Jets could afford to keep Adam Pardy and Paul Postma, but were reluctant to keep Redmond It wasn't like he signed for big money in Colorado, and a player with the kind of calm, slick puck moving ability Redmond displayed for the Avs would have been welcome in the Jets lineup.
Which brings me to tonight.
-Remember the 2011-2012 season? The year before the lockout? Well, I sure do. It was the first year the Jets were back in town, and in spite of how bad the Thrashers had been there was a sense of optimism in the air. Anything was possible, even the playoffs. In fact it took the Jets until game 79 to be officially eliminated, so while there would be no playoffs that year, the hard drive for them at the end had left everyone in Winnipeg feeling pretty good. The last game of the year, which I attended, was between the Jets and Lightning, and it was the game Lightning sniper extraordinaire Steven Stamkos potted his 60th goal of the season. The Jets lost the game in overtime, a hard-fought affair in which current Edmonton Oiler Teddy Purcell scored the winner, his second of the night.
Which, again, brings me to tonight.
I remember this game because it would be easily forgotten, in light of tonight's loss, just how close in terms of development these two teams were at the time. Separated by just one point, the Jets ended up with the 9th overall pick in that year's entry draft and Tampa Bay with the tenth. The two teams looked like they were neck and neck. Now, in the 2014-15 season, Tampa Bay has shot out so far ahead of the Jets we can scarcely see their taillights. What happened?
In Winnipeg's case it might be more appropriate to ask what didn't happen.
First and foremost, I know that Tampa Bay has had several very high draft picks which have turned into the league's best sniper, one of the league's best defensemen and the league's most promising rookie respectively. This is not an excuse to my mind. Even factoring in the fact that Stamkos missed most of last year, even noting that Victor Hedman only broke out last season and looked merely average before that, even pointing out that Jonathan Drouin didn't even play last year, you still haven't hit on the big difference between the two teams. You still haven't given Tampa Bay their due credit or exposed just how badly Winnipeg has missed an opportunity.
Tonight's game was a sterling example of the difference goaltending makes. Ben Bishop stopped 40 shots, while Ondrej Pavelec couldn't even stop half that many, yet still allowed twice as many goals. Ben Bishop was available at one point for trade. Two points, in fact. He was traded to Ottawa for a pittance, and again to Tampa Bay in what turned out to be one of the most lopsided trades of the modern era. Switch the goaltenders tonight, and you switch the result, as has too often been in the case in Winnipeg.
But it doesn't end there, and to put this game solely on Ondrej Pavelec would be doing Tampa Bay's budding offensive stars a disservice.
Look at the Lightning lineup for a moment. It's formidable, no doubt about it. Even leaving Stamkos out of the equation, which for much of last year they did, Tampa boasts a solid team. Look at where those players came from. They weren't all top three draft picks. Look at Namestnikov and Kucherov, who were added 27th and 54th overall. Look at Brendan Morrow, a free agent signing added on the cheap. Look at Radko Gudas, that constant thorn in the side of everyone he plays against, selected 66th overall. Look at almost the entire defensive corps, a mix of trade acquisitions and free agent signees. Look at that lineup.
The Lightning have found gems in the later rounds of the draft better than most teams in the league. They have made shrewd trades and made appropriate free agent signings to supplement those draft picks. They have taken a collection of good players and surrounded them with a decent supporting cast.
Kevin Cheveldayoff has done none of those things.
That's what separates the Lightning from the Jets. No matter how many Stamkoses or Drouins you draft, you need players around them, and a goaltender to back them up. Even if the Jets do get Connor McDavid this year, he won't solve all their problems by himself.
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