Month: February 2020

The Sharks entered the season with high hopes of contending for the Stanley Cup. Instead, they’ve lost their two best forwards to injury and appear set to sell at the deadline.

It’s only fitting that the San Jose Sharks would lose their second-best forward to a season-ending knee injury on a completely innocuous play, a little more than three weeks after they lost their best forward to a long-term ankle injury on another seemingly innocuous play. It’s been that kind of season for the Sharks. That sound you hear from northern California is the Sharks’ Stanley Cup window officially being slammed shut.

The loss of Tomas Hertl to a knee injury isn’t devastating to the Sharks only because they’re already one of the league’s worst offensive teams and can ill afford to lose a player who can create at least a modicum of offense. Or because he’s a great guy to have around, always smiling and optimistic, two features that were on full display during all-star weekend, where he scored five goals to help the Pacific Division win the tournament. (Also where he should have been named MVP. Had that happened, he at least would have had a new car to drive around during his rehab.)

Actually, what makes this injury so devastating is that, with Couture out of the lineup for likely another three-to-four weeks, there are now no illusions that the Sharks will go on any kind of a run that will bring them anywhere near the playoffs. That much has already been apparent for some time, particularly with the goaltending the Sharks have been receiving of late, but any notion the Sharks might rally has to be quashed. And the problem with that is they’ll likely fall further in the standings, which would normally be a good thing, but is disastrous for the Sharks since the Ottawa Senators own their first-round pick.

When Senators GM Pierre Dorion orchestrated the Erik Karlsson trade in September 2018, not much was thought of the clause that transferred the first-round pick from 2019 to 2020 if the Sharks made the playoffs last season. Most people thought that with Karlsson in the lineup, the Sharks would be contenders both years. But the decision to move that pick to 2020 is looking like a great one for the Senators. The Sharks were also without their first-round pick in 2019. They traded away their first-rounder from 2017, Josh Norris, in the Karlsson trade, which means defenseman Ryan Merkley is the only first-round pick in San Jose’s possession from the past four drafts. By the time Sharks GM Doug Wilson made the Karlsson deal, he knew full well he would be without a first-rounder in 2019 and 2020.

Wilson mortgaged the future in a big way in order to win a Stanley Cup. You can’t blame him. After getting to the final in 2017, the Sharks dealt for both Evander Kane and Karlsson and signed them to long-term contracts. Nobody ever thought the Senators would win the Karlsson deal this soon and nobody saw the decline of the Sharks coming this quickly. As a result, the Sharks have few prospects, few picks and are entering a bit of salary-cap hell, the same way the Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings and Chicago Blackhawks did, but without the banners, of course. But it was not for a lack of trying. However, Wilson is now facing the reality of his free-trading cowboy ways.

So now what happens as the Sharks approach the deadline? Well, the players on their roster are either too needed, untradeable or not likely to fetch much in return. There is defenseman Brenden Dillon, who is facing unrestricted free agency this summer and could get the Sharks perhaps a second-round pick and middle-tier prospect. Melker Karlsson is also a potential UFA, but he’s having a miserable year offensively, so he won’t be worth much.

The Sharks really have nobody else to move at the deadline other than Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton. The latter has a full no-move clause in his contract. There have been rumors that the Boston Bruins might be interested in a Thornton reunion tour. The Bruins are already incredibly deep at center and Thornton might not be interested in being a bit player on a Stanley Cup contending team. Clearly, acquiring Thornton just to give him a chance to win a Cup is not a good enough reason because these things rarely work. The Bruins did that with Jaromir Jagr in 2013 and while they did get to the Stanley Cup final that year, Jagr was nothing more than a spare part and scored no goals in 22 playoff games.

Marleau might be a little more intriguing in that he still has the foot speed to keep up with the pace in the playoffs and might be able to play on a team’s fourth line. And he exactly fits the profile of a player who might do nothing more in the playoffs than win you a series with an overtime goal in a deciding game. That might be worth a fourth- or fifth-round pick. Marleau does not have a no-move or no-trade, but in reality he doesn’t really need one. If he were traded and didn’t want to go, he could simply retire.

Without their two best forwards, the Sharks will undoubtedly be sellers at the trade deadline, but there’s not a lot that other teams will want. The Sharks being in this situation is not a total shock, but it is surprising that it happened this quickly.

More From The Hockey News
* Steven Ellis: Why the Chicago Blackhawks Could Be the Trade Deadline’s Most Interesting Team
* Jared Clinton: Quinn Hughes Has Made the Calder Trophy Race Far Closer Than Mid-Season Voting Suggests

Want more in-depth features, analysis and an All-Access pass to the latest content? Subscribe to The Hockey News magazine.

Cale Makar is still the Calder Trophy frontrunner, but Quinn Hughes is continuing to make his case for the rookie honor and his all-around performance should help narrow the gap between the two blueliners.

Cale Makar is the Calder Trophy frontrunner. There’s no questioning that, not even for a second. He’s been the lead dog of the freshman class since early in the campaign, the result of his bursting out of the gate with 22 points through his first 20 regular season NHL contests. Thus, when The Hockey News compiled its mid-season awards, it was no surprise to see Makar at the top of the list. Likewise, when the Professional Hockey Writers Association named its mid-season award winners entering the all-star break, few batted an eye at Makar’s first-place finish in Calder voting.

Notable about Makar’s mid-season victories, be it around these parts or in PHWA voting, is how sweeping they were. In our office, Makar captured every first-place nod. He received all nine votes as the NHL’s top rookie. And while it wasn’t unanimous, the PHWA voting was as decisive. As PHWA president Frank Seravalli noted after the winners were revealed, Makar was a “landslide” victor, earning 101 first-place votes.

The reasons for Makar’s clear-cut victory are obvious enough. He’s stepped in to become a top-pairing blueliner overnight, is producing at a rate we haven’t seen from a rookie rearguard since Brian Leetch and Larry Murphy dazzled with their first-year performances in the 1980s and the Avalanche blueliner one of the driving offensive forces on a Colorado club that’s fighting for top spot in the Central Division. The feathers in his cap are plentiful.

But is the gap between Makar and the next-best rookie really that large?

To be clear, when we say next-best rookie, we’re not talking about the Buffalo Sabres’ Victor Olofsson or Chicago Blackhawks’ Dominik Kubalik. Despite how eye-opening his performance has been, we’re not referring to Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman John Marino, either. No, if Makar has one challenger – and barring any unforeseen circumstances, he does have one and one alone – it’s Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes, who received 11 first-place Calder votes and finished second in the PHWA’s mid-season polling.

Offensively, the spread between Makar and Hughes is nowhere near as large as it was across those first 20 games when eight points separated the two blueliners. In fact, following Hughes’ two-point night in the Canucks’ Wednesday win, the once-chasm has been narrowed to a single point, Makar leading all freshmen with 37 points and Hughes right on his heels with 36 points of his own. By measure of per-game production, however, the two aren’t all that close. Makar, who missed time and has played nine fewer games, is producing at 0.9 points per game. Hughes is nearly one-fifth of a point per game behind at .72. Makar (22) is also outpacing Hughes (18) in even-strength points, though Hughes (18) has made up some ground on Makar (15) by way of power-play production.

What the raw offensive numbers fail to take into account, though, is the impact either player has actually had on tilting the ice in the favor of their respective clubs, and that might be where Hughes makes up the most ground on Makar and has potential to start to swing some voters in the back half of the campaign.

At five-a-side, Makar is no slouch. He’s a positive possession player, the Avalanche have excellent scoring chance and high-danger chance percentages and an expected goals percentage of 53.2 percent with the rookie blueliner on the ice. But Hughes’ numbers are arguably better, particularly when taking into account Vancouver’s mediocre overall underlying numbers in comparison to the above-average Colorado boasts, and his 53.7 expected goals percentage is significant when considering the Canucks’ team total at 5-on-5 is a mere 48 percent.

Though not a measure without its flaws, Hughes’ numbers relative to his teammates are worth noting, as well. He has a relative Corsi percentage of 6.5 percent, shots percentages of 5.9 percent and expected goals for percentage of 9.1. By comparison, Makar has percentages of minus-0.2, 2.4 and 2.9 in the respective categories. Hughes’ relative goals for percentage is also a healthy 5.2 percent, much better than Makar’s minus-1.9 percent. Again, relative statistics aren’t without their flaws and should be taken with a grain of salt, but they do further illustrate what the eye test has seemingly told us about Hughes all season long: he’s every bit the top-pairing blueliner that Makar has been.

Hughes has certainly skated the minutes to support his status as a No. 1 blueliner, too. At an average of 21:33 per game, nearly a full minute higher than Makar’s 20:37 average, Hughes ranks third in ice time among Canucks rearguards and he’s only taken on greater responsibility as the season has worn on. Since Dec. 1, Hughes is nine seconds shy of a 23-minute average, the highest of any Vancouver defender, and is leading all Canucks blueliners in even strength and power play ice time. He also ranks 34th in average ice time among all NHL defensemen since Dec. 1 and 44th in average even-strength ice time. By comparison, Makar ranks 65th and 79th in the respective categories, though he’s played nine games fewer. Any way you slice it, though, Hughes has been tasked with bigger minutes than Makar, and the underlying numbers suggest the former has done more to drive play for his team than the latter.

All of this is to say that there are myriad factors that should come into play when it comes to deciding which of the defensemen is most worthy of earning the Calder, but the reality is that voting will likely come down to simple offensive output. And despite the fact both Makar and Hughes are on pace to become the 10th and 11th rookie rearguards in NHL history and quite possibly two of only eight to score 61 or more points, that means Hughes’ best and possibly only chance at closing the gap and truly swaying voters to consider him Makar’s equal is to start piling up the points.

(All advanced statistics via NaturalStatTrick)

More From The Hockey News
* Steven Ellis: Why the Chicago Blackhawks Could Be the Trade Deadline’s Most Interesting Team 
* Ken Campbell: With Tomas Hertl Injury, the Sharks Can Now Officially Start the Rebuild

Want more in-depth features, analysis and an All-Access pass to the latest content? Subscribe to The Hockey News magazine.

The Bella Twins appeared on the latest episode of Nickelodeon’s “The Substitute,” and Nikki was transformed into three unrecognizable characters.

The dress rehearsal for the Super Bowl is incredibly elaborate, and the NFL needed some football players to help ensure everything on Sunday will go according to plan.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — The dress rehearsal for the Super Bowl is incredibly elaborate, and the NFL needed some football players to help ensure everything on Sunday will go according to plan.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, welcome to the Super Bowl.

About 50 players from the high school in Parkland, Florida — the place where 17 students, teachers and staff were killed in a massacre on Feb. 14, 2018 — got to take the field at Hard Rock Stadium on Friday afternoon for a few hours, pretending to be members of the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

They ran some plays to help television crews work on their camera angles, went through a walkthrough of the pregame coin toss with referee Bill Vinovich, even lined up just as the Chiefs and 49ers will for “The Star-Spangled Banner” — and some of them even got a quick meet-and-greet with anthem singer Demi Lovato afterward.

“They basically split us up, one side was the Chiefs and the other side was the 49ers,” Stoneman Douglas coach Quentin Short said. “The smiles I saw on these kids’ faces, the excitement of running out of the tunnels just like the teams will, they were having a blast, man. To be on the actual field the Super Bowl is going to be played on, it was awesome.”

The NFL has used high school players as stand-ins at the Super Bowl rehearsals for some time. And when it came time to extend a team an invitation this year, organizers apparently knew which school to ask. The Miami Dolphins said Fox, which is airing the game, made the final call.

“The Dolphins and the NFL and Fox reached out to us,” Short told The Associated Press. “They asked us if we’d be interested and obviously I said, ‘Heck, yeah.’ There was no way we were turning down this opportunity.”

Stoneman Douglas has received plenty of support from the South Florida sports community since the shootings two years ago. The Miami Heat sent players and coaches to meet with students and other NBA teams have made similar gestures, the Miami Marlins invited the school’s baseball team to play at Marlins Park, the Dolphins have given money and hosted clinics for players and the Florida Panthers brought the school’s hockey team onto the ice to meet a surprise guest — the Stanley Cup.

Stoneman Douglas quarterback Matthew O’Dowd said he understood the significance of getting the chance to be part of the show on the field where 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes will meet on Sunday.

“It’s a great experience for the people who get to go and do it,” O’Dowd said. “It was amazing, it was fun and it was a great team-bonding thing. We got to go, meet people, hang out with our coaches … I can’t really describe it. It was just great.”

Nothing will make up for what happened on Feb. 14, 2018, when the 17, including assistant football coach Aaron Feis, were killed. But experiences like getting an up-close-and-personal look at the Super Bowl certainly help with the healing, if only for a few hours at a time.

“The best part about it was going out on the field and practicing some plays so they could make sure their cameras worked,” O’Dowd said.

Short is entering his second season as the head coach at Stoneman Douglas. He replaced Willis May, who stayed with the Eagles for a year after the shooting before taking another job — saying it was simply too hard on him to remain at the school.

The three-story classroom building where the shooting took place is still standing, though it has been permanently closed. There have been several movements suggesting it should be demolished, and likely one day will be, but it remains intact simply because it is evidence and needs to be preserved until the trial of the confessed shooter is complete. Prosecutors have said they want jurors, whenever the trial begins, to be able to walk through the building and envision what occurred.

The building can be seen from the football field. The reminders of that day’s horror are constant.

“It depends on the person and what your experience was that day and where you are in the recovery process,” Short said. “Everybody has gone through so much emotion, so much stuff, trying to handle all of it. Those 17 are always on our mind, and I don’t want to say it’s normal now because it’s not normal. We go back to that scene every single day. That building is still there. The memories are always going to be there.”