With the NHL season underway, we decided to take a look at some of the biggest questions surrounding the league.
Will Elias Pettersson re-sign with the Vancouver Canucks?
One thing I can tell you from a media perspective is that sometimes you have access to information from people in the league, but you can’t reveal ALL of that information because of the trust factor.
So when Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported this week on his 32 Thoughts podcast about contract negotiations between Pettersson and the Canucks and that the organization might have reservations about signing Pettersson to a long-term deal, it raises eyebrows.
“Since Pettersson said, ‘I’m not sure yet,’ I think the Canucks have also indicated ‘you know what, we’re not sure either.’ Because if there’s any doubt about Pettersson’s willingness to commit, I’m not convinced they want to commit. So this will be a fascinating development,” Friedman said.
In my opinion, the Canucks are in a bind no matter what. If the team plays well enough to give Pettersson hope for the team’s future, you know the Swede will play a big role in that, so you better back the Brinks truck. If the Canucks flounder, Pettersson’s future as a Canuck will be murky, to say the least.
Will Connor Bédard live up to the hype?
Given the hype surrounding Bédard, you’d think he’d score 50 goals and 70 assists in his rookie season.
This will not be the case. Bédard is a generational talent, but he will quickly learn what he can and cannot do at the NHL level. As a player once told me, the biggest advantage of going from junior to professional is that in the NHL, every player you compete against is a man. There’s a huge gap between a 17-year-old manning Medicine Hat’s blue line in the WHL and a third-down defenseman in the NHL.
That being said, I still take over on Vegas prop bets when it comes to Bedard. 33 goals and 70 points are easily within this kid’s reach.
Is this the year a Canadian team finally wins the Stanely Cup?
If you believe the oddsmakers, at least two Canadian teams have a chance.
The Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers are both 11-1, beaten only by the New Jersey Devils (10-1), Carolina Hurricanes (9-1) and the favored – l Colorado Avalanche (8 ½ -1). .
Edmonton and Toronto have questions that need to be answered if they want to become the first Canadian team to win hockey’s ultimate prize since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
Is Ilya Samsonov the answer in goal for the Leafs? Can the Core Four reach championship level when it matters most in the playoffs? And is the arrival of Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi and Ryan Reaves and the courage they bring enough to take Toronto to another level?
On the Oilers side, it’s pretty much the same thing. Will they have championship-caliber goaltending and will their depth players do enough to help the dynamic duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl?
Is history repeating itself in Boston?
In the 2010 playoffs, the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead to the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference semifinals. We all know what happened the next year and many of the Bruins who won in 2011 pointed to the previous year’s playoff disappointment as a valuable lesson that was learned.
So do the Bruins, whose season-high 135 points went up in smoke against the Florida Panthers in the playoffs, bounce back with a deep run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and replicate the success of 2011? This is going to be interesting as they lose two key leaders in Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci.
There’s a ton of depth on the blue line, but do they have enough in the middle? There will be a lot of pressure on Charlie Coyle and Pavel Zacha to produce in the middle and make up for the loss of Bergeron and Krejci, who totaled 114 points between them. Together, Coyle and Zacha have 102 points in 2022-23, but they won’t be able to feast on the opposing team’s bottom six forwards or their second or third defenseman this season.
The Bruins will not repeat last season’s success in the regular season, but should continue their run in the playoffs.
Who will be this year’s surprise team?
The Buffalo Sabers haven’t made the playoffs in twelve years, but this could be the year the drought ends.
Tage Thompson is an exceptional talent, as are Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power – both former No. 1 overall NHL draft picks.
And while everyone is going crazy for Bedard in Chicago and handing him the Calder Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year, Zach Benson might have something to say about that before all is said and done. The 13th overall pick in the 2023 draft, Benson was very good in the preseason, scoring four goals in seven games to make the team.
By the books, the Langley, British Columbia native is crazy to win the Calder at 55-1, but I’d bet $20 on that bet.
As for the Sabres, they too have question marks when it comes to goaltending and someone like Eric Comrie, Devon Levi or Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen needs to step up.
Veteran BC sports personality Bob “the Moj” Marjanovich writes twice a week for Black Press Media. And check out his weekly podcast every Monday on Today in BC or your local Black Press Media website.
