From the Tampa Bay Lightning slumping in the east to the San Jose Sharks tanking in the west, Adam Proteau breaks down four storylines to follow in the NHL.
With the passing of the NHL’s trade deadline Friday, we’re taking a look at four key storylines to keep your eyes on the rest of the regular season and Stanley Cup playoffs.
1. How Much Worse Can the Sharks Get?
It’s difficult to imagine, but San Jose will likely be even worse than they’ve been through 63 games this year. After trading away star winger Timo Meier and veteran forward Nick Bonino, the Sharks are bound to be, at least, equally terrible. And maybe it’s because the tanking Chicago Blackhawks and Arizona Coyotes have gotten the lion’s share of attention at the bottom of the Western Conference, but San Jose’s true awfulness hasn’t been fully recognized.
To wit: not only are they the league’s third-worst team (with an 18-33-12 record), the Sharks have the game’s worst home record, and not by a small amount. San Jose is just 6-18-8 in their own arena this season – and the NHL’s next-worst home record belongs to the Anaheim Ducks, who have five more home wins than San Jose.
The Sharks will probably sink even lower in the standings, considering only three of their 18 remaining games are against teams they have a decent chance of beating.
By and large, they’re going to get thumped, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If it means they wind up with the worst record in the game and secure the best odds at drafting phenom Connor Bedard, the pain will absolutely be worth it. Sharks GM Mike Grier will undoubtedly keep making roster changes this summer, but with Bedard or another top prospect on board, the future in San Jose is about to improve in a major way.
2. Tampa Bay’s Dip in Performance
Don’t look now, Lightning fans, but your favorite team is going through a notable period of struggle.
In their past dozen games, the Bolts are 4-5-3, and they’ve been unable to take advantage of a recently-wobbly Maple Leafs team and overtake Toronto in the Atlantic Division standings. Tampa’s defense has been the main source of the team’s woes, with the Lightning being outscored 39-20 in their past eight defeats.
As you might expect, Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper has not been pleased with what he’s seen from his charges, benching star forwards Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov for the entire third period of the Lightning’s 5-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres Saturday. But that didn’t do anything positive in the Bolts’ next game, as they had their doors blown off by Carolina in a 6-0 Hurricanes win.
We’ve said it before – it’s never a wise thing to give up on a veteran, accomplished team like Tampa, but if they’re not better in the next five weeks or so, the Lightning will have real problems trying to flip a switch come playoff time. They still have the talent to be dominant, but at the moment, they don’t have the synchronicity of effort, and teams are taking advantage of them.
3. The Panthers Continue to Underwhelm
Florida dug itself a huge hole early this season, and though they’ve been marginally better in their past 14 games – going 8-6-0 in that span – the Panthers just can’t put together a winning streak.
They haven’t won two or more games in a row since their modest three-game win streak in early February, which is the chief reason why four teams remain above them in the race to earn a wild-card playoff berth in the Eastern Conference.
The Panthers do have a few soft touches in their remaining 18 regular-season games – they play Chicago, Columbus, and Montreal twice – but for the most part, Florida will face a worthy opponent every time they take the ice.
We’ve made it clear earlier this season we believed the Panthers were in real danger of missing the playoffs altogether, and their recent performance underscored that belief. Nothing short of a lengthy winning streak will propel Florida into a wild-card spot, and people are right to be skeptical they’ve got that in them. They haven’t shown the ability to string together many wins in a row, and continuing that pattern will spell doom for them – and, quite possibly, lead to significant changes this off-season.
4. Calgary and Edmonton Continue to be Inconsistent
Speaking of teams that can’t pile up more than a couple of consecutive wins, both Alberta NHL franchises are mired in a competitive malaise. The Flames are just 3-6-4 since the all-star break, and the Oilers are 6-4-4. Small wonder, then, that Edmonton has slid out of a top-three position in the Pacific Division and that Calgary has fallen to the 10th spot in the Western Conference, seven points behind the eighth-place Winnipeg Jets.
The Oilers and Flames have relatively easy goes of it for the rest of the regular season. Calgary has nine of its final 19 games against poor teams – three games against Anaheim, two games against Vancouver, two games against San Jose and one game apiece against Arizona and Chicago.
Edmonton has seven of its remaining 18 games against teams they should beat (three games against the Sharks, two games against the Coyotes and two games against Anaheim).
In sum, there should be no excuses for either Calgary or Edmonton not to finish the year strongly. It may not be enough to get one or both of them into the playoffs at this point in the year, but they can’t argue they were hurt by the schedule-maker.