Burnside’s Burns: NHL’s regular season doesn’t matter for some goalies

And so we come to March. Two months left before the start of the playoffs. Three weeks until the trade deadline.

Stuff is about to get real.

So, Burnside Burns returns. Now, where were we?

We wrote on the IIHF response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Good on the IIHF to stand alongside other sport federations like curling and soccer. Given some early missteps under new IIHF President Luc Tardif, it was a solid response to a global issue. Have to feel for many of the Russian players in the NHL or those with family in Russia or Ukraine realizing that every comment, no matter how benign, might be a catalyst to reprisals in Russia or beyond. It’s not nothing, and the NHL addressed concerns regarding player safety as part of its release severing ties at least temporarily with Russia.

Of course, it’s fair to ask players of all stripes about their feelings on the invasion and possible repercussions. It’s part of the job when it comes to covering the sport. But let’s understand that the context of those responses are different than when we ask about other non-hockey issues. To criticize because the response isn’t as cut and dried as we might like is to be ignorant of the broader life-and-death issues at play here.

Speaking of the Russian invasion, whoa, Dominik Hasek, might want to lay off the caffeine or whatever else you were imbibing before spouting off as you did the other day. Fair to call out Alex Ovechkin’s response to the invasion given Ovechkin’s longstanding connection to Russian president Vladimir Putin, although there has to be some credit given to Ovechkin, whose family remains well-entrenched in Russia, for at least suggesting, “Please, no more war.” But for Hasek to go on a profanity-laced tirade against Ovechkin and then to suggest the NHL should suspend the contracts of all Russian players? Dude. It’s an embarrassing take from a Hall of Fame player.

I went back to a profile I had written about Marty St. Louis in early 2004. A few months later, he would hoist the Stanley Cup and then pick up the Hart Trophy and Lester B. Pearson Award (now the Ted Lindsay Award as the players’ choice for most outstanding player). Lots of fun parts of that in retrospect, including the fact then-GM Rick Dudley had to convince senior management/ownership that paying St. Louis $250,000 a year for two years was a good idea – something Dudley and I shared a smile over in a text this week. The line that stands out for me, though, is St. Louis half-joking; “I don’t know when I’ll be big enough to play.” It was a nod to all the doubters that had dogged St. Louis throughout his Hall of Fame career. There may be some who still doubt St. Louis, who is closing in on his one-month anniversary as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens, but as the Habs collected their fifth straight win Saturday, those doubters are becoming fewer and fewer. In a year that has seen all kinds of barriers broken on various rungs of the hockey ladder, it’s refreshing that the new management team in Montreal colored outside the lines in giving one of the highest-pressure jobs in the game to a relative coaching neophyte.

A cynic would suggest there’s really no downside to hiring St. Louis given how far the Canadiens have sunk, but we disagree. The better question is: why not St. Louis? The results have been positive already and, assuming St. Louis wants the job beyond the end of the regular season, we’re guessing the ride back to relevance for the Habs may not be as long as some people believe. Bigger picture: it’s another reminder the game is changing and that the traditional ways of thinking – you must have coached here and here and here before you get a chance, or you must be this gender or this color or this sexual orientation to attain this position – are slowly but surely changing.

One of the topics on the Daily Faceoff Show, of which I was a part on Friday, examined the surging Columbus Blue Jackets. We debated whether we’d called the Eastern Conference playoff race too soon and if the Blue Jackets could get back in it. A couple of tough losses over the weekend make this already-longshot notion less probable, although Washington’s mid-season swoon keeps this door open at least a crack. But the discussion is a valid one, and it reminded us of a recent conversation we had with Adam Boqvist, 21, who came to Columbus from Chicago in the Seth Jones deal in the offseason. Boqvist was a treat to talk with, well-spoken and self-aware. He talked about finding out he’d been traded while at home in Sweden and how he first thought it was a joke. Then he talked about learning from the coaching staff led by first-year coach Brad Larsen, that his job wasn’t to replace Jones but to rather learn and play the game the way he was meant to play it.

“I think he’s been very good and honest with me about what I have to improve on and what I have to do,” Boqvist said. “He wants me to be the best hockey player I can be.”

It’s been a bit of a learning curve for the eighth-overall pick in the 2018 draft, but that is the reality for Boqvist and for the Blue Jackets, who have gone from knocking off the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2019 playoffs to having to trade disgruntled top prospect Pierre-Luc Dubois and cornerstone defenseman Jones because neither wanted or saw a future in Columbus. Usually, it’s draft and develop for rebuilding teams, but GM Jarmo Kekalainen has expanded that mindset to include trade and develop, as Boqvist and Cole Sillinger, who was the pick that came in the Jones deal, illustrate.

We’ve never understood the difficulty in establishing Columbus as a solid place where players would want to come to and stay. But kudos to Kekalainen and to Larsen for finding a way against long odds to keep this team in the hunt and to have quickly built a foundation that should see them back in the playoffs sooner rather than later.

“We all want to stick to the process. We believe in our plan,” Kekalainen said. “We’re going to be patient with it. We’re not going to alter or our path just because we get frustrated with an individual game or even individual players.

“Adam is in a small part the picture of our whole team as well. He’s very talented and he’s got a lot, a lot of upside,” Kekalainen added. “He just needs to get stronger. It’s all up to him to do the work to get stronger. We’re going to give him all the tools to get there, all the guidance, all the support.”

If that means being hard on him, via the coaching staff, so be it. “He’s not the only guy on our team like that,” Kekalainen said.

Maybe it’s natural, but it’s been fun to watch the new broadcast teams at ESPN and TNT tackle marquee NHL events like All Star, the Winter Classic and, on Saturday, the Stadium Series outdoor tilt between host Nashville and Tampa. Great game. Great visuals. Great support for visiting Tampa from its fans. And how much fun to see the victorious Lightning warning the folks on Nashville’s famous Broadway strip to watch out as the team headed out post-game for some Nashville-style celebrating? I know there’s lots of cynicism about the outdoor games, and there has been some outdoor game fatigue in the past, but in the wake of the pandemic (can we say that now?) these events are a pleasant reminder of what normal looks like and a great chance for markets like Nashville to shine. Throw in new broadcasters putting their own spins on the events, and it’s easy to see these games making a strong renaissance in the next couple of years.

Was watching the 1980s-style score-fest between Toronto and Detroit on Saturday night. Had to have been a bit nauseating for Leaf fans, as starting netminder Jack Campbell allowed five goals on 25 shots to continue his uneven second half for the Cup-hopeful Leafs while Petr Mrazek allowed two on eight to the Red Wings. Can this goaltending duo hope to defeat Tampa or Florida, the Leafs’ likely first-round playoff opponents? Sure. Well, maybe. Okay, probably not. But that’s going to be one of the great storylines in the first round of the playoffs. But Campbell – the netminder of record when the Leafs choked up their 3-1 series lead to Montreal in the first round last year – isn’t the only puck-stopper with much to prove come early May. Here’s our list of the top five goaltenders for whom the regular season really doesn’t matter and for whom the playoffs are everything.

1. Jack Campbell, Toronto: Campbell is in a contract year. He’s 30. This is his last, best chance to cash in as a No. 1 NHL starter. Yet as the season starts to run into the stretch drive, his play is more down than up, and there is much angst in angst-driven Toronto about the state of its goaltending. As there should be. At this level of play, it’s hard to imagine the Leafs beating any of their likely first-round opponents. That’s why you’re starting to see Marc-Andre Fleury discussion as a possible Plan B for the cap-strapped Leafs.

2. Tristan Jarry, Pittsburgh: Jarry went from local pariah after a miserable performance in the first round against the New York Islanders in the ’21 playoffs to all-star and Vezina Trophy candidate with a .921 save percentage and 26 wins as of Monday. But none of that will matter if Jarry can’t guide the Pens at least beyond the first round, which could mean having to outduel Vezina Trophy favorite Igor Shesterkin and the New York Rangers.

3. Frederik Andersen, Carolina: Hard to imagine Andersen doesn’t end up on the final Vezina Trophy ballot, but he still carries the playoff scars from his years in Toronto. This is the best team Carolina has ever put on the ice – its .750 winning percentage was tops in the Eastern Conference and second behind Colorado as of Tuesday – and Andersen has performed at a level that suggests he is the goalie to take the Canes the distance with a sparkling 29-7-2 record, 2.03 GAA and .930 save percentage. Now, well, you know the rest about having to prove it.

4. Darcy Kuemper, Colorado: All Kuemper has done is backstop the Avs to the best record in the NHL while piling up a 26-6-2 record with a .920 save percentage. And still the team is dogged by rumors that GM Joe Sakic is looking to upgrade. Fleury’s name continues to come up as a possible replacement for Kuemper but, if no trade happens, the pressure will be squarely on Kuemper’s shoulders to prove his worth. Nothing short of a trip to the final will or should be acceptable to this talented team.

5. Robin Lehner, Vegas: Doesn’t seem fair, perhaps, but no one knows better than Lehner, so open about his own personal mental-health journey, that life sometimes isn’t fair. The Golden Knights have hit an early second-half swoon, and Lehner’s durability puts a promising season that featured the acquisition of Jack Eichel in question. Does Kelly McCrimmon shore up the goaltending? If Lehner can’t go or is hit and miss vis a vis his availability, Laurent Brossoit is simply not, in our eyes, a guy who can carry you the distance, especially when the distance seems inevitably to go through Colorado. Too bad there’s not a former Cup-winning, Vezina Trophy winning goaltender on the marketplace. Oh, wait, there is.

6. Sergei Bobrovsky, Florida: Yes, I know, I said five goalies. Sue me. Bonus time for goalies under the gun. The two-time Vezina Trophy winner was yanked in the first round against Tampa last spring, and in fact the Panthers went to three different netminders in their entertaining six-game series loss to the eventual Cup champs (Chris Driedger and Spencer Knight). The Panthers are everyone’s darling, and who doesn’t want to see Bolts-Cats Part Deux? For the most part Bobrovsky, a new parent and seemingly settled into his role as mentor to Knight and carrier of the flag for the powerful Panthers, has performed as you’d want a guy you’re paying $10 million to. But as with all our netminders on this list, the proof will be in the playing come early May and beyond.

And finally, 12 years ago Monday, we sat in some of the best seats in the house in Vancouver as the greatest hockey tournament ever, the 2010 Olympics, came to an epic close with Sidney Crosby scoring the golden goal in overtime against a plucky American team. I’ve never been in a building that felt like Canada Hockey Place (the renamed home of the Canucks for the tournament). From the opening puck drop, there was a kind of hush as though those in attendance were afraid of breathing for fear of breaking the spell. And the outpouring of emotion from Crosby to his teammates and the coaching staff and an entire nation that poured onto streets from Vancouver to St. John’s, Newfoundland? That’s a keeper.

Have a great March.