America. We are 240 years old now and still the No. 1 hockey power in the world, as we have now owned the Stanley Cup for 23 consecutive years. And now, we have PK Subban and Taylor Hall for the foreseeable future, making us even greater. We also have the NHL Mailbag that reinforces America’s greatness.
1. Montreal Sadness
https://twitter.com/Zarleyz/status/750000846151282688
This is an excellent question. Given the moves made by Marc Bergevin in the recent past, would Harambe, the murdered gorilla, have done a better job if he were the general manager of the Montreal Canadiens? This is a silly question, as Harambe was but a gorilla, noble and proud, and lacks the intelligence to broker contracts and make trades the way the sharp-dressed Bergevin can.
But maybe…
Harambe was assassinated in the Cincinnati Zoo on Saturday, May 28. Since that date, Bergevin has made five major transactions:
1. Signing goaltender Al Montoya
2. Trading center Lars Eller for draft picks
3. Acquiring right wing Andrew Shaw for draft picks and signing him to a six-year, $23.4 million contract
4. Signing forward Alexander Radulov
5. Trading PK Subban for Shea Weber
Having the corpse of Harambe in the GM’s chair instead of Bergevin would have the Habs in a better spot on July 5. Think about it.
Harambe would not have done the Eller and Shaw transactions, so based on their production and contracts, that’s a small gain for the Habs. Radulov could go either way, but a rotting Harambe would not have fallen for the all the talk of Radulov being a reformed family man and passed on him. Montoya has a career .909 save percentage so the rest of the front office placing Harambe’s carcass in the crease 20 times next season would have been a better move.
And, of course, dead Harambe isn’t doing the Subban-Weber trade.
So, in conclusion, a dead gorilla would have done a better job this summer than Bergevin.
2. If there was a hockey team of nothing but players that were 45 or older, how would it do? It would have the best available 45 and over players in the world. I think it would do it OK because hockey is better for old people (Jagr, Selanne) than other sports.
Geoff
This is the rare #pleaselikemysport because of how it helps old people play it. Buddy, you’re out of your mind if you think the world’s best 45-and-over players would be anything but destroyed in the NHL. The same goes for any professional sport. My man, if you are over-40, I apologize, but this feels like a question from an old dude who dominates his pickup games and had an idea.
So here’s how 45-plus teams would do in the three major sports (and hockey):
NFL: 0-16
It would be a massacre. If an Old Team™ got more than one first down in a game, I’d be stunned. What 46-year-old dude would be able to stay with a 22-year-old wide receiver? Every handoff would be Super Tecmo Bowl come to life with running backs zig-zagging down the field for 80-yard touchdowns.
Baseball: 6-156
I bet you could find six amazing starts from your old-time knuckleball guy (actually, the whole team would be knuckleballers) and you’d get a batter to run into a fastball to give you enough offense to win six times. Otherwise, your outfielders would turn singles into doubles and doubles into triples all season and you’d get your old asses handed to you.
Basketball: 0-82
This one you probably disagree with most because we’ve all seen Dad Strength on the basketball court down at the Y, but this would be an annihilation on par with football and maybe even worse. Richard Jefferson is 36 years old. Remember him in the NBA Finals? Now imagine him 10 years older and the team is all Richard Jeffersons. They’d lose every game by 30.
Hockey: 0-82
Again, bloodbath. The best goaltender over the age of 45 would never steal a game. It would be too much. If you tossed Braden Holtby on that team, maybe it wins five games.
If you want to bump it down to 40 and over, I’d be willing to go: 0-16, 12-150, 0-82 and 3-79.
As I and everyone get older, we love to rationalize our inevitable deaths by living vicariously through Jaromir Jagr or Julio Franco or Tim Wakefield to kid ourselves into believing we are not another day closer to being eaten by worms. Alas, young people are stronger and faster than us so we must always be careful to not offend them or play them in sports, for they can destroy us with their Youth Strength at any moment, much like robots.
Thanks for the question and I’ll see you in hell.
3. What were the best and worst contracts of free agency?
Laura
If we are only counting July 1 UFA deals, which is what I assume we’re discussing here, that means I can’t call the Casey Cizikas contract by far the worst of the offseason. The Islanders are paying him about $3.3 million per season to be a fourth-line center and penalty killer for five years. It’s ludicrous. Matt Martin is getting about $500,000 too much per year and everyone is losing their minds when his old linemate is probably getting about double what he should.
And Cizikas was RFA + UFA years. As far as UFA deals, Cam Ward is a horrendous deal. Unless James Reimer told the Hurricanes he’d never play there, two more years of Ward at $3.3 million instead of five years of Reimer at $3.5 million is a war crime.
The best pre-July 1 deal was… Steven Stamkos? It’s been a rough summer.
But as for July 1…
Worst: David Backes. Giving a guy with that mileage five years and $30 million to play right wing when the Bruins could have had a younger, better Loui Eriksson for the same cap hit over one more year makes you wonder if Don Sweeney is actively sabotaging the team.
Best: Frans Nielsen. I’m probably in the minority here, because $5.25 million when he’s 37 and 38 may look terrible, but I think he’s going to be great in Detroit. He’s going to be compared to Pavel Datsyuk at all times but I think he’s going to work out well there.
There were a lot of bad contracts given out, which is why people love to tout the smaller ones. “Viktor Stalberg! What a steal!” But guys like that aren’t making an impact one way or the other. Is Milan Lucic’s contract insane? Of course, but he will put up decent numbers to somewhat justify it. I can’t imagine Backes doing the same.
Jason Demers has a great contract but the rest of Florida’s signings this summer makes you wonder if the new front office has ever negotiated a contract. Can they all work out? Sure, but at best, the Panthers are going to get fair returns on all of them. There’s no bargains to be had.
4. America
https://twitter.com/hockeypanda/status/750042232548392960
1. Phil Kessel
2. Phil Kessel
3. Phil Kessel
5. Beer
what is your least favorite type of beer? Style or name is an acceptable answer. #pucksoup
— Betsy (@Nealeyhawk) July 4, 2016
If the beer is designed to have an orange in it, I can’t drink it. Anything in that Blue Moon genre is an atrocity against beer. But I like ciders. Ever see that commercial where the guy goes from bar to bar showing bartenders how they should put an orange in Blue Moon? If your beer requires an orange slice to make it drinkable, go back and brew a new beer because you messed up along the way.
6. A Real Question
if the OJ Simpson case was recreated with NHL players, which players would represent who?
— JDS (@__jds__jds) July 4, 2016
It’s not too often someone asks, “Who in the NHL do you think would commit a double murder?” but the mailbag welcomes all ideas and I maintain the ability to ignore them.
7. East vs. West
With an Eastern Conf team finally winning the Cup in less than 7 games, is conference power shifting? Or was this an anomaly?
— Jason Mitchell (@TheRealMitch37) July 4, 2016
The West has gotten the better of the East in the regular-season matchups since the full-season lockout. Last season, that finally changed.
East: 227-177-44 (498 points)
West: 221-181-46 (488 points)
By the slimmest of margins, the East won the head-to-head matchup and the Stanley Cup. Is this the beginning of the end of West dominance? It feels that way, based on the decline of the Blackhawks and Penguins and rise of the Penguins and Lightning. You could ask execs about the West killing the East for a decade and they’d all tell you, “It’s just cyclical.” That’s because GMs are almost all boring and never want to say anything to upset anyone else.
The East would need to expand on this 10-point gap next season for us to say the East is finally the superior conference. This would be like an anime porn movie winning the Oscar for Best Picture and writing a thinkpiece, “Is Anime Porn the superior movie style now?” Let’s wait and see if this is a fluke or if anime porn can do it two years in a row.
