Hot Ice: NHL Thread

[BallochSonsFan]

Lots of people in and around Ottawa hate them

Doesnt help that the owner is a complete tool.

Sens could be a lot better than they are. I've developed an interest in them primarily because of Tim Stutzle.

[Snake Plissken]

Expansion draft lists are out. The big one for me is the Canadiens gambling on Seattle not taking Carey Price. They would have to fork out $11m as a signing bonus but... you would, wouldn't you?

[ursus arctos]

I'm not sure that you would in a flat salary cap world where you are more likely not to qualify for the playoffs for several seasons.

There are a much of intriguing guys. If someone had told you two years ago that Price, Landeskog, Tarasenko and Duchene would all be available, you would have thought they had suffered one concussion too many.

[Snake Plissken]

Apparently Price's family is from Washington... They've got no cap problems and he's one of the best around. Of the four you mention, he's the one most likely to do a job (Landeskog will surely get resigned in Colorado and there are big question marks over Tarasenko and Duchene.)

It would be interesting to see if they can call Bergevin's bluff.

Not sure on missing the playoffs - their division is a bag of spanners next season. (They're in with Anaheim, LA, San Jose, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Vegas.)

[ursus arctos]

He was born in Vancouver and grew up in Central British Columbia (where his mom was chief of their tribe), but he did play junior in the Washington Tri Cities, which obviously isn't far from BC.

He also the guy one would pick from those four as the face of one's franchise. He's a very decent human being.

And you have the example of what Fleury has done in Vegas. It is very intriguing.

[Hot Pepsi]

The latest is that Price is somewhat injured so Montreal seems to be confident he won't be picked. But they did what they did because they really want to keep both of their goalies.

Price had to waive his no move clause to be included in the unprotected list. I have a hard time believing he'd do that if he didn't have some assurance of what the outcome of it all would be.

The consensus seems to be that Seattle will end up drafting like five goalies and then flipping some of them later.



An interesting wrinkle is that teams can make side deals with Seattle to stop them from taking the players they don't want them to take, but apparently Seattle is asking a lot for that promise.

Toronto pulled an interesting way around that. Last week they traded a late draft pick and a prospect - Hallander - to Pittsburgh for Jared McCann who is similar to Alex Kerfoot. They expect Seattle will take one or the other and have left both exposed. It seems dumb at first to trade for a guy and then let him maybe leave for nothing, but it was actually clever.

They wanted to steer Seattle away from Kerfoot. But Seattle was asking for some high picks to promise that. So they've found a way to engineer a way to essentially the same thing for cheaper in terms of picks or prospects.

Worst case, Seattle takes Kerfoot and the Leafs keep McCann, who is roughly similar but cheaper.

Not sure what Pittsburgh's trying to do with that trade.

https://www.tsn.ca/toronto-maple-lea...raft-1.1669259

[ursus arctos]

There are of course people who believe that Price's injury is fictitious and another example of Bergevin's mind games (Old school Anglo hockey men being convinced that deception is intrinsic to Québécois character)

[Hot Pepsi]

Yes.
Every player in the Stanley Cup Finals is probably "injured" by normal peoples' definition of injured.

I imagine Seattle will take one or two overpriced veterans. It will be interesting to see who they pick. Maybe PK Subban.

[Snake Plissken]

They're not taking Subban at $9m per year. His back has gone for a start.

[Hot Pepsi]

The hypothesis floated is that they might want to take him or somebody else in his general category to be the "face of the team." But if he can't really play, then that would be too much to pay, even for just one year. It's probably too much anyway.

Seattle is really going to roll out the red carpet (bluish green carpet?) for this expansion draft, including bringing some of the guys they're selecting to Seattle to put on the sweater.

I'm not too familiar with Seattle, but from everything I've read it appears likely that the Kraken will be an enormous success with the city if they can be remotely competitive. In fact, it's sort of remarkable that it's taken this long for them to get an NHL franchise.

[Amor de Cosmos]

It is, there's a natural rivalry between Van and Seattle which has been waiting for this moment.

[ursus arctos]

There seemed to be a belief that Seattle could only support one top tier winter sport franchise. I have heard a host of reasons offered for this: a relatively shallow corporate base, the populace's love of outdoor activities, an unfavourable political climate for team and stadium subsidies, etc.

The NBA got there first, and even after the SuperSonics were "stolen" by Oklahoma City, the city's focus was on getting them (or a Cleveland Browns like equivalent) back. That focus had to fade before there could be serious support for a NHL club.

[Hot Pepsi]

There seemed to be a belief that Seattle could only support one top tier winter sport franchise. I have heard a host of reasons offered for this: a relatively shallow corporate base, the populace's love of outdoor activities, an unfavourable political climate for team and stadium subsidies, etc.

The NBA got there first, and even after the SuperSonics were "stolen" by Oklahoma City, the city's focus was on getting them (or a Cleveland Browns like equivalent) back. That focus had to fade before there could be serious support for a NHL club.

There is only so much fan and sponsorship money to go around, but it certainly makes more economic sense for the arena to lock up 164 dates a year than 82, if it can.
Seattle is the 15th largest metro area and 13th largest media market. Bigger than, to take two relevant examples, Oklahoma City or Las Vegas.

I don't see how Seattle's corporate base could be considered shallow. Not in the last 20 years, at least. Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco. That seems like a pretty good start. But clearly, there were issues getting the arena money together otherwise the Sonics wouldn't have left.

I don't get the "outdoor activities" one. I could see how that might have been bad for the Mariners in the Kingdome era, but are a lot of Seattleans out mountain biking and kayaking at night in the winter? Outdoor activities are popular in Denver, St. Petersburg and Minneapolis too and that hasn't prevented their teams from drawing.

Now that the arena has been upgraded, the chances of the Sonics returning in some form does seem more likely, so the Kraken will want to establish itself in the community before that happens.


It seems to me that baseball is the hardest of the big sports to make work. So many dates to fill and the stadium isn't good for much else.

[ursus arctos]

Let me take those one by one:

1) the idea that one needs two pro franchises to make a major indoor arena work was gospel for decades, but is increasingly being challenged, particularly in larger, younger and/or more diverse cities. The Nets arena in Brooklyn and the Islanders new arena at Belmont have each decided to go with single sport concepts because they believe that having more dates available for concerts and other events, as well as avoiding scheduling conflicts (and to a lesser extent design conflicts) between two "anchor tenants" was a more attractive business model.

2) expansion decisions take a very long time. There was a reason why the NBA team was named the SuperSonics. Microsoft would have been a player from the late 80s, but the other firms you mention would not have been on the radar of any league looking to expand even after the Sonics left (and even then Starbucks' focus was very much on getting a basketball team).

3) the argument that I've heard about outdoor activities is that a) they absorb discretionary spending that would otherwise go on tickets and concessions, 2) that they take people out of town on weekends (normally the most lucrative time for franchises) and 3) that people don't feel like going to games either the night before or after a full day of hiking, boating, skiing, etc. The last two may be particularly relevant in Seattle given the number of second homes among the people a club is targeting and the disaster that is Seattle traffic.

All of these are of course surmountable, which is why the Kraken exist. But your question was why it took so long, which is the question I was attempting to answer.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, all of those make sense.

I was thinking more in the time frame of the last 20 years. It seems to mostly be about politics.

Arenas certainly don’t need two teams to survive, but it helps justify the cost.

[ursus arctos]

Politics are very important. Especially when your city doesn't hand out billions to sports franchises and/or you are competing against places that do.

There are also a host of external forces that can have a serious impact on expansion/relocation timetables: CBA terms (especially if a stoppage is expected), television contracts, municipal elections, tax changes, economic cycles, etc.

I also think that the Kraken are going to be very successful, assuming that they aren't absolutely terrible. And the league seems pretty committed to doing what it can to make that not the case.

[jefe]

I forget whether he was protected or not, but TJ Oshie is from WA, and there was speculation he'd want to go home and be the face of the team, but he shot that down pretty quickly.

[ursus arctos]

He's been protected by the Caps

[Hot Pepsi]

Here’s a good overview of Seakrak’s options for goalie.

The Hockey Guy’s content is very informative.

https://youtu.be/tYfRDGlbg_c

[Hot Pepsi]

Politics are very important. Especially when your city doesn't hand out billions to sports franchises and/or you are competing against places that do.

There are also a host of external forces that can have a serious impact on expansion/relocation timetables: CBA terms (especially if a stoppage is expected), television contracts, municipal elections, tax changes, economic cycles, etc.

I also think that the Kraken are going to be very successful, assuming that they aren't absolutely terrible. And the league seems pretty committed to doing what it can to make that not the case.

Seattle was the most likely move location for a few teams during those bad days 15-25 years ago when so many teams were threatening to move or actually moving.

IIRC, both the Oilers and the Blues kicked the tires on Seattle at one time or another.

Now, I suppose, the most likely move destinations would be Houston and Quebec. Kansas City no longer seems to be in play. Quebec is The People’s Favorite, of course.

[ursus arctos]

Yes, and paradoxically that actually makes the league less likely to award the city an expansion club

[Hot Pepsi]

I don’t think there will be any more expansion for a while.

There are still plenty of options for places teams can threaten to move, but obviously, the list gets weaker as the league gets bigger.

Portland, Hamilton/Waterloo/Kitchener/London, Quebec, San Diego, Houston, Atlanta, Milwaukee, SLC, and umm, Saskatoon? Probably not.

I could also imagine a series of events that could cause intraregional moves. Like Carolina could move to Charlotte or the Sharks could move to San Francisco. Maybe the Jackets could move to Cincinnati or Cleveland if one of those offers better terms.

I don’t see any of those happening soon, of course.

I don’t see how the Hartford Whalers are ever coming back. If the Islanders and/or the Devils had left, they may have had a chance. But they stayed.

[Hot Pepsi]

Preds’ prospect has come out. Good for him. Good for hockey.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Lo...Q5&dl_branch=1

[BallochSonsFan]

I'd love to see Price leave Montreal. He's just not consistent enough these days for Montreal. As the face of a new franchise in Seattle? Different proposition completely. He's a big name player who could perhaps justify the salary hit for a team looking to establish itself. I don't know that Landeskog will end up in Seattle, but I can see Colorado struggling to keep him. They've got Cale Makar the need to tie down and that may well mean losing Gabe for cap reasons. Grubaur far from certain to stay in Denver either.

[Hot Pepsi]

I'm going to try to watch more games next year and see if I can really understand the analytics. I sort of understand the baseball ones, but the hockey ones are still perplexing to me. Like, I don't understand why goals above replacement is often expressed as a percentage.