#Salary Cap Era

TORONTO - When the Tampa Bay Lightning lost to the Colorado Avalanche in last year's Stanley Cup final, it ended their bid for a third straight championship. But it didn't necessarily end their reign as a top team in the NHL - no matter what the various betting sites might suggest. According to Bet365, six teams currently have better odds of…

Thanksgiving is typically when we start gauging NHL postseason possibilities, given teams in late November playoff positions have wound up qualifying 77% of the time during the salary-cap era. Last season we effectively ruled out the Kraken's chances using that holiday measurement. Now the opposite is true. If the season ended today, the Kraken…

Their plaques are in the Hockey Hall of Fame even though their names aren't on the sport's most cherished trophy, which resides in the Great Hall. And that's OK. Roberto Luongo, Daniel Alfredsson, Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin are Hockey Hall of Famers through and through, their deservedness for induction Monday night absolutely without doubt in my…

The Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers entered the 2022-23 NHL season priced as two of the favorites in the Eastern Conference, but so far only one of those teams has truly lived up to that billing. While the Hurricanes are off and running with another strong start, the Panthers have been inconsistent as they adjust to a new head coach and a…

For this week's edition of Around the Stars universe (apparently it has become a weekly thing at this point) I've decided to cover two very different question marks regarding the Dallas Stars. The first one is seemingly more important, as it directly affects the on-ice performance of a single player. The second one is mostly fun. So let's get right…

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the New York Islanders last season. On the other hand, very little went awry for the Florida Panthers, who set a salary-cap era record with 340 goals scored and won the Presidents' Trophy with 122 points, which was 38 more than the Isles accrued. Considering how these teams fared last season, it's not…

The 2021-22 NHL Season was the chalkiest we've seen in the Salary Cap Era. Not only did the consensus preseason favorite win the Stanley Cup, but the chalk also won 64.8% of games in the regular season (per Action Labs), which is the highest win rate for NHL favorites since at least 2005-06. So what better way to dip our toes in the NHL waters than…

NHL Notebook: Insider links John Klingberg and Jonathan Toews to Edmonton Oilers, the latest on Jason Demers and more Photo credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports Lots going on around Edmonton these days. Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek put out some NHL previews on their 32 Thoughts podcast and a few interesting names were linked…

The 2021-22 NHL Season may have been the chalkiest in the league's history. Not only did the consensus preseason favorites - the Colorado Avalanche - win the Stanley Cup, but NHL favorites had their best regular season in the Salary Cap Era (2005-present) with a 849-462 record and a 64.8% win rate. According to Action Labs, if you bet $100 on every…

The pre-season is all about debating your takes, predictions and rankings heading into a new season. There aren't any meaningful games being played yet, which leaves tons of space for debating things both big and small, until we see how it actually plays out on the ice. So, with that, we canvassed 13 Sportsnet hockey insiders for their opinion on…

T he NHL off-season featured a steady stream of lucrative contracts for the league's young stars, most prominently the eight-year, $100.8 million extension that 27-year-old center Nathan MacKinnon signed with the Colorado Avalanche two weeks ago. But MacKinnon's deal doesn't kick in until next season, and the flood of money pouring in to other…

That was disappointing. The Pittsburgh Penguins built momentum near the end of the regular season to win the NHL's Eastern Conference and earn the No. 1 seed. They went up 2-1 on the New York Islanders in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And then, everything fell apart. The Penguins lost three straight games en route to a frustrating…

The race for the NHL Hart Trophy, the most valuable player in the league, will be THE race to watch heading into the upcoming season. The odds for this prestigious trophy have come out and there are superstars up and down the list, including three former winners of the award. The 2022-23 season is just under a month away and it's one of the most…

The Lightning came into the 2021-22 season with sky high expectations thanks to two straight Stanley Cups. There was some concern of a step back because they lost all three pieces of their coveted third line of Blake Coleman, Yanni Gourde, and Barclay Goodrow, but many still expected the Lightning to be competitive. And that they were in the…

Finishing last in the NHL in 2022-23 would guarantee the Blackhawks a top-three draft pick. Even if neither their 25.5% chance of winning the lottery for the first overall pick nor their 18.8% chance of gaining the second pick hit, they couldn't fall further than third. General manager Kyle Davidson likely won't outright declare that his goal for…

We all remember the dramatic farewell of a champion. The supposed farewell. "This team... knowing that it wasn't going to be together, this was the end of a special group for two years," said an emotional Jon Cooper, head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, after winning a second straight Stanley Cup last year. "That was a huge motivator for our…