THN.com/podcast. THN On The 'A': Picking Our AHL Players of the Year Roope Hintz [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MTk3NDgyMjQ0MzUxMjA3MzIz/usatsi_20526056.jpg] Roope Hintz Welcome back to Screen Shots piece, a regular THN.com feature in which we break down a few different hockey topics and analyze them in short bursts. Let’s get straight to it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Dallas Stars got a much-needed victory in Game 4 of their first-round series against Minnesota Sunday, with the Stars beating the Wild 3-2 to even the series at two games apiece. A pair of Finns are doing much of the damage for Dallas – center Roope Hintz leads the Stars with four goals and eight points in four games, while blueliner Miro Heiskanen (who has five assists) leads all Dallas skaters in average ice time at 29:23 – about six minutes more than Ryan Suter's 23:13 per game. Heiskanen and Hintz are low-key personalities, but make no mistake – the Stars have made this series a best-of-three in no small part due to the duo’s contributions on and away from the puck. Even better, Dallas GM Jim Nill has Hintz and Heiskanen signed through at least the 2028-29 season at the same salary cap hit of $8.45 million, according to CapFriendly [https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/stars]. Heiskanen is only 23 years old, and Hintz is 26, meaning that their best days are ahead of them. Don’t get it twisted – the Stars still need veterans such as center Tyler Seguin (who has three goals in this series) and winger Jamie Benn (who has one goal and four points against the Wild) to chip in with some timely goals here or there. But Dallas’ foundation has now switched to Hintz, Heiskanen, star winger Jason Robertson and elite goalie Jake Oettinger. Most NHL teams need a difference-maker at all three main positions to be a true Stanley Cup threat, and in Heiskanen, Hintz, Robertson and Oettinger, the Stars have at least one needle-mover at each key spot. If the Wild are going to eliminate Dallas, they’ll need to shut down Hintz, Heiskanen and Robertson and get more traffic in and around Oettinger. That’s a tall order for any franchise, but it’s the only way Minnesota will move on to Round 2. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida Panthers now trail their first-round series against Boston 3-1. The Panthers have switched starting goalies, benching Alex Lyon in favor of veteran Sergei Bobrovsky. The Bruins lit up Bobrovsky for five goals on 30 shots in Sunday’s 6-2 Boston win, giving Bobrovsky a dismal .833 save percentage on the night and a .846 SP in two post-season appearances this spring. Yes, it’s accurate to say that many of the Bruins’ Game 4 goals were high-difficulty, high-skill markers. However, when you have a team-high $10-million cap hit as Bobrovsky has, the bar is set higher than it’s set for ordinary goalies on high-value contracts. It sure seems like Florida is going to be eliminated in the first round. Panthers GM Bill Zito has a clear choice to make with Bobrovsky this summer – bring him back and hope he raises his game, or buy him out, give the reins full-time to Lyon or Spencer Knight, and start to reset the system without Bobrovsky eating up nearly one-eighth of their payroll. The 34-year-old Bobrovsky has three years and $30 million left on his deal after this season. As per CapFriendly [https://www.capfriendly.com/depth-charts/panthers], the Panthers team will have just $9.5 million in cap space this summer and only 17 players signed. A buyout [https://www.capfriendly.com/buyout-calculator/sergei-bobrovsky] would still see them paying $6.67 million for the next three seasons, but that would shrink to $1.67 million per year for the final three seasons. The $3.33 million Florida would save in each of the next three years could go toward a depth piece elsewhere and re-signing Lyon, who will be a UFA this summer and has earned a major raise on the $750,000 he earned this year. In any case, it’s difficult to envision the Panthers leaning on Bobrovsky to any significant degree anymore. He lost his job to Lyon, and then, when the opportunity presented itself for him to re-establish himself as Florida’s No. 1 goalie, he squandered it. Zito can’t go back to Bobrovsky again, can he? We’ll find out very quickly after the Bruins eliminate Florida. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, although three NHL teams currently are without a coach, the league’s playoff teams don’t really have their bench boss on the hot seat – meaning that if their team is eliminated in Round 1, they’ll lose their jobs. You might expect Devils coach Lindy Ruff and Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe to need their team to win to keep their job safe, but both coaches have done enough good work in this regular season to keep their job safe, at least through the start of next year. That means the three current job openings – in Anaheim, Columbus and Washington – will be the only coaching openings we’re likely to see this summer. There are also three openings for NHL GM jobs – in Calgary, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – so we’re unlikely to see as much turnover on the management side or the coaching side. But it shouldn’t take long once next season starts to see coaches begin to feel the pressure to produce again. It’s a zero-sum game, and when you don’t produce enough wins, you wind up getting fewer and fewer opportunities to produce wins.
