22 key storylines entering 2022

Cam Lewis
Cam Lewis
22 key storylines entering 2022

Welcome to 2022!

Saying that 2021 was strange would certainly be an understatement and based on the way things went in December, it looks like we’re in for another wild one.

Let’s take a stroll through what 2022 might have in store…

1. Replacing the Olympics

2022 hadn’t started yet when we were informed of one of the year’s first letdowns. The NHL and the Players’ Association decided in December to not send NHL players to the Olympics in Beijing, due to China’s strict rules around isolating after a positive COVID-19 test.

Not going to the Olympics in 2018 and 2022 will essentially deny an entire generation of players of their chance to play in the Olympics. Think about Steven Stamkos, who was too young in 2010 and was injured in 2014. He’ll be 35 come 2026 when the Olympics are held in Italy.

So, what now? Can the NHL instead put on a best-on-best tournament in the summer? Does the World Cup of Hockey fill the void? Does anybody outside of North America care? Do the players?

It’s a fun idea, but playing in a makeshift World Cup probably doesn’t have the same sentimental value for players as being an Olympian does.

2. Will somebody go to the Olympics anyway?

The NHL has been fairly elastic during the ongoing pandemic, shifting the playoff format in 2020, moving divisions around in 2021 and adding a Taxi Squad midway through this season, but it wouldn’t budge when it came to helping the players go to Beijing.

The challenge for players is that they could wind up isolating in China for five weeks, which would result in not being paid for as long as they’re overseas. But if you’re an NHL player who’s already made a bunch of money, would you consider just going and losing the cash?

Alex Ovechkin said he would leave the Washington Capitals to go to Pyeongchang in 2018, but that didn’t end up happening.

3. A World Junior do-over

Speaking of players losing their chance to play in an international tournament, a handful of kids just had their shot at playing in the World Juniors taken away from them. This is especially unfortunate for the 19-year-old players who won’t be eligible to play next year.

Fortunately for them, putting together another U-20 tournament is much, much easier than postponing the Olympics. There’s no reason that the World Juniors can’t be played at some point in the spring or summer before the NHL Draft.

4. Be Bad For Bedard

During our few days of World Junior action, we got to witness the next hockey prodigy — Connor Bedard.

We shouldn’t put too much stock into a game against Austria, but a four-goal performance by a 16-year-old certainly isn’t something to scoff at.

The last time there was a prospect this good, we watched the Buffalo Sabres and Arizona Coyotes engage in a tank battle for the ages, though it was the Edmonton Oilers who wound up winning the services of Connor McDavid.

How many teams out there will be willing to purposely throw away the entire 2022-23 season for a 25.7 percent chance to draft Bedard?

5. The Habs Tank

This year’s draft doesn’t feature a prodigy such as Bedard, but Shane Wright of the Kingston Frontenacs is still a good player in his own right.

The Montreal Canadiens shockingly reached the Stanley Cup Final last summer and now they’re engaged in a tank battle with the Arizona Coyotes for top lottery odds. Montreal has lost nine of its last 10 games and its .273 points percentage is their second worst in 104 years in the NHL.

The Habs haven’t selected No. 1 overall since drafting Doug Wickenheiser in 1980.

6. The Houston Coyotes

The Coyotes don’t have a home for the 2022-23 season as the City of Glendale has opted out of the joint lease agreement for the Gila River Arena.

Word came out earlier this season that the Coyotes may be looking to sell with the intention of moving to Houston, which is a report that the organization unsurprisingly denied. But with their jockeying with the city of Glendale and quest to get a new arena built in Arizona seemingly having no end in sight, it almost seems inevitable that the Coyotes will be leaving the desert.

Houston has the United States’ largest population without an NHL team, there’s already a Central Division rivalry with the Dallas Stars, and the city has a stadium ready for professional hockey. This seems like the logical move.

7. What about Quebec?

Quebec City, as always, remains in the mix for an NHL club.

Back in November, Quebec’s Premier, François Legault, stated that the province’s government will meet with Gary Bettman in the coming months in regards to bringing a team back to Quebec.

Centre Vidéotron, which opened in 2015, meets NHL standards, but many of the obstacles (language barrier, lack of corporate sponsors) that resulted in the Nordiques moving to Colorado in 1995 still remain. Also, would the NHL accept another expansion franchise when the league has reached symmetry with 32 teams? It’s difficult to decline a $650 million check.

8. The Canadian Challenge

A major hurdle for Canadian teams, as we’ve seen in the past weeks, is the country’s restrictions on building capacities as the Omicron variant surges through the country.

All seven Canadian clubs have had home games postponed due to these restrictions and there’s no end in sight. If this keeps going for the next month, Canadian teams could wind up not playing at home for long periods of time with make-up dates all adding up later in the season.

Being a Canadian team might become a disadvantage in 2022.

9. Ending the Canadian drought

Let’s focus on the Canadian teams for a little bit here.

The last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup was in 1993 when the Montreal Canadiens defeated Wayne Gretzky and the Los Angeles Kings.

Since then, the Canucks (1994 and 2011), Flames (2004), Oilers (2006), Senators (2007), and Habs (2021) have reached the Cup Fina,l but have come up short. Could somebody do it this year?

10. The Leafs and their drought

The team that seems most likely to break Canada’s drought is the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Canadian team with the longest drought of their own, as well as the longest drought in league history.

The Leafs, as we all know, haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967 when there were only six teams in the league. They also haven’t won a playoff series since 2004 when there wasn’t a salary cap.

Toronto has a 20-8-2 record this season, the best among Canadian teams by a wide margin. Might this be the year they get over the hump? It won’t be easy, as there’s a good chance they’ll play either Florida or Tampa Bay in the first round.

11. What happens if Toronto loses early again?

The Leafs losing in the first round has become an annual tradition.

Since drafting Auston Matthews No. 1 overall in 2016, the Leafs have been dropped in the first round in back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back years. The first two were acceptable when they were a young team; however, the third featured a blown 3-2 series lead, the fourth was in the summer bubble play-in round and the fifth was an embarrassing blown 3-1 series lead to the Habs.

If the Leafs get dropped in the first round again this year, we’ll surely see some major changes.

12. Mitch Marner as the scapegoat

Since holding out to earn a massive $10.903 million annual salary, Mitch Marner has gone from local hero to public enemy in Toronto. A major part of that has to do with the fact he hasn’t scored a playoff goal since Game 1 against the Bruins in 2019.

The Leafs need to re-sign goaltender Jack Campbell and defenseman Rasmus Sandin this offseason. If he has another bad playoff performance, Marner might wind up being the odd-man-out in order to make it work.

13. The forgotten Flames

Canada’s next-best chance at a Stanley Cup would probably be the Calgary Flames, who sit third in the Pacific Division with a 16-7-6 record.

Calgary doesn’t get the same attention as the Leafs or their provincial rival in Edmonton, but the Flames look like a legit contender this year. The team has bought into Darryl Sutter’s system and Jacob Markstrom has been incredible in net.

Excellent team defense and elite goaltending — the Flames quietly have all the makings of a team who could go deep in the playoffs.

14. Where does Johnny go?

Johnny Gaudreau is set to become a free agent for the first time in his career and it’s difficult to say where he’s going to go.

A few months ago, the Flames looked like a mess and it seemed inevitable that Gaudreau would leave, likely out east to be closer to his home in New Jersey. But now that the Flames are doing well, that isn’t a guarantee.

The challenge for Calgary is that they need to sort out deals for restricted free agents Matt Tkachuk and Andrew Mangiapane this summer, so fitting in Gaudreau won’t be easy, assuming he wants to stay out west.

15. Two MVPs, no playoffs?

Sticking in Alberta, let’s take a look at the Oilers.

Edmonton has two Hart Trophy winners on its roster, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who sit first and second in the league in scoring. Despite that, they’re barely clinging to a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

The Oilers have won just two of their last 10 games and it won’t be easy for Ken Holland to address the team’s needs at the trade deadline. They need depth scoring and they need help on the blue line.

Holland mostly stood pat last trade deadline and might have wasted a prime opportunity for the Oilers to come out of a mediocre division. He’ll have to make a big move this year, because missing the playoffs in a prime McDavid year isn’t an option.

16. Ovechkin for Hart

If the Oilers do miss the playoffs, the Hart Trophy won’t be going to Edmonton.

As of right now, it looks like the next best option for the league’s Most Valuable Player would be ‘old man’ Alex Ovechkin, who sits third in the league with 50 points in 33 games.

Ovechkin’s 1.52 points per game has him on pace for 124 points over 82 games, which would be a career-high. He hasn’t won the Hart since 2013 and doing so again at the age of 36 would be incredible.

17. Veteran free agents

I already talked about Gaudreau, one of the biggest names on this off-season’s free agent market, but there are also quite a few veterans who could change teams this summer.

Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Claude Giroux and Patrice Bergeron are four names who have spent their whole careers with one team that currently don’t have contracts for the 2022-23 season. Seeing any of these guys in a different jersey would be weird, but it could happen.

18. Colorado’s window

The top player on the upcoming free agent market right now would have to be Nazem Kadri, who has 38 points over the course of 24 games. If this level of play continues, he’ll earn himself a massive raise on his $4.5 million cap hit.

The Avs also have Darcy Kuemper, Valeri Nichushkin and Andrei Burakovski in need of new deals this summer, while Nathan MacKinnon’s hilariously team-friendly deal expires at the end of the 2022-23 season.

The Avs are running out of time to win with their current group. If they don’t get it done this year, we could see some major changes.

19. A three-peat?

The NHL hasn’t seen a team win back-to-back-to-back Stanley Cups since the New York Islanders won four times in a row from 1980-83. In fact, there hasn’t been a major North American team to do so since the L.A. Lakers won three in a row from 2000-02.

The Tampa Bay Lightning have a chance to pull off a three-peat this year, which would be an amazing accomplishment, especially in the salary cap age of parity.

20. The Battle of Florida

For the first time ever, the Battle of Florida is a thing.

The Lightning have been good in the past, but you can’t say the same about the Panthers, who haven’t won a playoff series since they went to the Stanley Cup Final in 1996.

In just a few years, Bill Zito has turned the Panthers from a nothing team into a legitimate juggernaut. If anybody is going to get in the way of the Lightning winning three in a row, it’s their in-state rivals in the south.

21. Jack Eichel’s debut

The No. 2 overall pick from the 2015 NHL Draft was like a caged bird in Buffalo.

The Sabres came nowhere close to being competitive during Jack Eichel’s six seasons with the club and a dispute over neck surgery was ultimately the final straw.

Eichel was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights in November and he’s supposed to be ready to return to play at some point in February. Vegas is already very good; just imagine how it’ll look with a legitimate top-line center in the mix.

I have no idea how they’ll make it work with the cap, though.

22. General manager vacancies

The Habs and Canucks fired their general managers after slow starts and are currently searching for replacements.

Montreal brought Jeff Gorton on board to work in tandem with somebody who speaks French, while the Canucks hired Jim Rutherford and plan to bring on a rookie general manager to work with him.

One name that’s been mentioned for Vancouver’s vacancy is Harvard graduate and Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Botterill.

The NHL has been an Old Boys Club forever and it’s time to change that. Botterill would be an excellent candidate to break the barrier and become the first woman to serve as a general manager in the NHL.

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