2021 NHL regular season thread

[Cosmo]

Let's get this started. Season begins with five games on Jan. 13. All divisional. Lots of two-game sets against the same team. Fighting penalties will likely be up.

ESPN's Emily Kaplan's primer

My way-too-early playoff picks (in no particular order):
EAST: Washington, Islanders, Philly, Boston
CENTRAL: Tampa, Carolina, Nashville, Dallas
NORTH: Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton
WEST: Colorado, Vegas, St. Louis, Arizona

 

[The Big Ragu]

East: Boston, Pittsburgh, Philly, NY Rangers
Central: Tampa, Carolina, Dallas, Nashville
North: Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton
West: Colorado, Vegas, St. Louis, Minnesota

 

[Splendid Splinter]

Some goalies in the All-Canadian division will get nightmares from facing McDavid so many times in a short season.

 

[HanSenSE]

As if this season wasn't going to be long enough, Sharks open with an eight-game roadie after training in Arizona, in the hope Santa Clara County will lift restrictions on contact sports in time for a Feb. 1 home opener vs. Vegas. We talked about this a little bit in last season's thread before the shutdown, but would the league turn them into a road team?

 

[ChrisLong]

The Ducks and Kings play a five-game series April 20-May 1. Most likely, it won't be a playoff preview.

 

[MTM]

The Kings and Ducks don’t play until April 20 then play five times in 12 days. The games are consecutive for Anaheim while LA has two with Arizona after the first then four more with the Ducks in six days.

Although they will more likely be playing for lottery position than playoff position, those teams don’t like each other and it will get ugly.

EDIT: Chris just beat me to it.

 

[ChrisLong]

The Kings and Ducks don’t play until April 20 then play five times in 12 days. The games are consecutive for Anaheim while LA has two with Arizona after the first then four more with the Ducks in six days.

Although they will more likely be playing for lottery position than playoff position, those teams don’t like each other and it will get ugly.

EDIT: Chris just beat me to it.

Guilty of not looking at the Kings schedule to note they had some other games mixed in. Glad MTM has my back.
I am pretty damn ambivalent about hockey at this point. Can't go. Can't watch unless we change our whole TV setup again. I still haven't learned how to use the system we've had for about a year. The Ducks training facility is 5 minutes from where I live but nobody is allowed in. Can't even go for an order of poutine.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

Some of your predictions are wack, but mine wouldn't be any better

 

[Cosmo]

East: Boston, Pittsburgh, Philly, NY Rangers
Central: Tampa, Carolina, Dallas, Nashville
North: Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton
West: Colorado, Vegas, St. Louis, Minnesota

I know I'm a homer, but why do you think that the Caps will miss out?

 

[Sam Mills 51]

If the Whalercanes finish best in class behind Tampa, I think I'd be good with that.

As for the goaltenders North of the Border ... yeah, maybe they won't have nightmares of Connor McDavid. He'll flash by too fast to remember what they think they saw.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I know I'm a homer, but why do you think that the Caps will miss out?

It's not like I know anything. I was just pulling teams out of my sphincter. I think the east is tough. So it isn't that the Caps aren't good, it's that I see 7 teams from that division that could be on that list. I had a difficult time not putting Buffalo in there. And the Islanders are good, too. My main reason w/Washington is that they have a lot of name players still, but several in the core are getting old. Ovie, Backstrom, Oshie are not young. And I want to see if Samsonov is for real. They could still be good enough to win it all. ... or they could look old and tired.

 

[Cosmo]

Wow. This got real very quickly.

 

[Tighthead]

Some of your predictions are wack, but mine wouldn't be any better

I assume all RSN people are happy they never had to go up against a monkey with their predictions.

 

[Moderator1]

Chara to the Caps. My favorite team now has a dude my age!

 

[Splendid Splinter]

Good one-year deal. Like Chris Chelios, Chara is a gym rat and keeps in tremendous shape. And, there are no bad one-year deals.

 

[Cosmo]

This was such a weird thing to see on Twitter today. I'm off all week so less engaged online than usual, so the Chara thing was a smack to the face. I don't hate it. Fehervery is Slovak and looks up to Zdeno as an idol. Hell of a mentor to have in the room.

 

[The Big Ragu]

When signings started, the Rangers signed Jack Johnson, who sucks, to $1.15 million. Pittsburgh had waived him, but Jacques Martin the Rangers new asst. coach coached him there, and supposedly they added him for his penalty killing. He's 33, so doesn't fit with the youth movement. The Rangers are good on the right side of their defense with Trouba, Adam Fox and Tony DeAngelo. They are suspect on the left, unless they play one of their prospects and he shows something (K'Andre Miller please!), so Johnson will get some minutes probably.

Now I see that someone got Zdeno Chara for $785K. He is definitely a shadow of the player he was. ... but the guy still kills penalties. ... better than Jack Friggin Johnson can, which was the rationale for signing him. I don't want either of them on this team, but man they screwed the pooch on that signing when you see someone getting Chara for the league minimum.

 

[Sea Bass]

Ok, but free agency isn’t a draft. The guy you want has to also want to sign with you. If a guy that rich is playing for that little, he’s probably only interested in winning a Cup. Maybe Chara didn’t think the Rangers have a shot.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Ok, but free agency isn’t a draft. The guy you want has to also want to sign with you. If a guy that rich is playing for that little, he’s probably only interested in winning a Cup. Maybe Chara didn’t think the Rangers have a shot.

My guess is that it was never broached. The Rangers signed Johnson on the first day of free agency, for some reason. At that point, I am guessing that Boston still was investigating options and hadn't yet decided for sure on moving on from Chara. He wanted to resign with Boston, and the process went pretty late into the offseason before they told him they were moving on.

 

[MTM]

We’re all 15 minutes away

NHL planning two outdoor games at Lake Tahoe for 2021 season