It seems like only yesterday we were watching the Colorado Avalanche dethrone the Tampa Bay Lightning to win their third Stanley Cup, and first since 2001.
But the National Hockey League is back soon, and newly-elected Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Al Morganti has run the rule over the entire league, from top to bottom, to give fans a look at how the NHL will break down in 2022-23. .
When you look at the Eastern Conference, you immediately have to start with one of the greatest stories in the history of the NHL, especially in the salary cap era. The Lighting have won three-straight Prince of Wales trophies as the conference champion, and were two wins away from a third-straight Stanley Cup title. Morganti thinks much like everyone, that this run has to stop at some point soon.
“I don’t know how they can continue to do it,” Morganti said in an interview for onlinecasino.ca. “It is amazing in the salary cap age that they have managed to do it. I mean, goaltending, Stamkos, the team leaders continue to push, and you have to give the coach, Jon Cooper, a lot of credit for just getting them onboard all the time. They have done it through the pandemic and coming out of it.
“I suspect that they will be one of the contenders at the end, but for the life of me, I can’t believe they will be able to do this again and get through the really tough waters in the East.”
So, which team is best positioned to come out of the East? Well, Morganti thinks you need to look no further than the squad that was so close to ending the Lightning’s reign last June: the New York Rangers. But the conference should be much more even after last season.
“It is,” said Morganti of the Eastern Conference. “I don’t think you are going to have what you did last year, with the haves and the have nots. A lot of the point totals were gathered because the bottom teams were just awful from the beginning of the year. I think that will be a difference in the East.
“Florida, it was going to catch up to them, to have to come back as much as they did. They scored a lot of goals, but that recipe doesn’t tend to work in the playoffs. I know they were a high-powered offense, and they could always get back into a game, but it’s so much more difficult when you have a playoff series against a team night after night. It is way different winning a couple games against a team in the regular season and a series, when they can adjust. I think the trade that they made (for Matthew Tkachuk), they knew they had to change their chemistry a little bit in terms of postseason. If you look at it, it is amazing that they changed the coach, and now to go get a guy like Tkachuk, who is not going to have the same numbers probably, but is certainly going to have the grit to get through any playoff series. .
“But I will (go with) the Rangers. I know it won’t be the popular pick anywhere, but I was thoroughly impressed with what they did last year, and I don’t think they are satisfied at all. And I think that their goaltending is better than some people think to be able to get through it. So I like the Rangers there.”
But as the Toronto Maple Leafs have shown for two decades, it is HARD to get through one playoff series, let alone three, just to get to the finals. So Morganti cautions against picking any winners this early in the year, with injuries, trades, and various other pitfalls likely to befell some contenders, and boost others.
“Yes, all you have to do is ask the Leafs,” Morganti said about how hard it is to win a playoff series in the NHL. “They have had terrific teams and have not been able to punch through. You look at one of the great stories of a generation, the New York Rangers winning a Stanley Cup. Well, they were one game away from not getting through the Devils. It is what can happen in a playoff series: the bad call that goes against you, an injury that happens. That is why in this sport, when you go in, you want to be loaded up with defenseman – seven, eight, nine deep, just in case something happens.
“And it has come to the point now where you wonder now you have to have the two good goaltenders, with the way the schedules go right now. You have to have guys willing to buy into the defensive end. That is why I mentioned that with Florida: you have to have guys that buy into the defense that will win a playoff series. If you look at Tampa, you look at all the big names they had, and you realize all the big names they had, a lot of times it’s the third liner, it’s those other guys – the depth guys – that played a big role in the end.
“Part of that is the leadership in the team that includes them in everything during the season. You can’t have a team that just has the stars – the top two line guys and the top defensemen – are sort of separate. You have to have everybody included in it to manage to go through. That is why the coaching job they did in Tampa was so terrific. And you have to have a general manager, and front office, that knows how to deal with the cap to get those people in.
“But god, in this sport, to try to predict anything this far in advance, I have to say good luck to you.”