If Johnny Gaudreau spurns the Flames’ offer to keep the explosive, electric impending free-agent winger in Calgary, it will become Lou Lamoriello’s duty to bring the south Jersey native to Long Island.
Because running it back again with only a change behind the bench from Barry Trotz to Lane Lambert won’t do for the Islanders or their general manager, whose playing personnel is also in need of a jolt.
There is surely a shot that the winger will remain in Calgary following his 40-goal, 115-point season for the contending Flames, with whom he has played the entirety of his eight-year career. Calgary is the only team that can offer him an eight-year deal.
But there may be a gravitational pull back east for the winger, who will turn 29 before the season commences. The Flyers will be in on Gaudreau. The Devils will be in on Gaudreau.
But does Gaudreau want to go through the John Tortorella Experience with a team that finished 39 points out of the playoffs and for an organization that is willfully blind to its deficiencies?
And does Gaudreau want to start again in New Jersey with a team that finished 37 points out of the playoffs, and whose ownership, management structure and head coach are impediments to progress?
Gaudreau won’t make an impact on an aging curve that is tilting dangerously to the other side of midnight, but he surely would make an impact on Mat Barzal, and he surely would make an impact on a team whose baseline playoff style simply takes too much of a toll through an 82-game season.
Everyone appreciates what the Identity Line has meant to the Islanders. At different junctures over the past few seasons I have recommended that the Rangers look into acquiring Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck. But it is time for an identity change. Of course, the fundamental precepts should and must remain in place.
But the Islanders need to become faster. They need to become more creative. They need to pose more of a threat in open ice. (They need to become a little bit more like the Rangers even though the Rangers still need to become more than a little bit like the Islanders, and how’s that for a thought?)
And the Islanders need to give the 25-year-old Barzal — who did not have a 2021-22 that met his standards — a reason to stay instead of opting for unrestricted free agency in 2024. Gaudreau, who has averaged more than a point per game through his career (210-399-609 in 602 contests) would be a pretty good start on that.
It will cost major bucks and cap space, but Lamoriello should have room to maneuver by shedding a combination of Semyon Varlamov ($5 million cap hit), Josh Bailey ($5M) and Anthony Beauvillier ($4.15M).
We are told the Blackhawks are willing to take on bad contracts accompanied by assets and that Anaheim as well seems amenable to doing the same on a shorter-term basis.
The perpetual ne’er-do-well Coyotes are always open for that type of business.
Jim Pappin, who passed away last week at age 82, was a darn good hockey player, whose name evokes the likes of Kenny Wharram, Eric Nesterenko and Doug Mohns.
But what I most vividly remember about the winger, who was on the last Maple Leafs team to win a Cup in 1967 before he was traded to Chicago, is the denial on a rebound at the left porch by Ken Dryden in Game 7 of the 1971 Final on what was perhaps the greatest save in NHL history.
Challenge: Name 10 men who played for the Cleveland Barons, and I’ll even spot you one — Pappin.
Ryan McDonagh was not the force this time around that he was in Tampa Bay’s two Stanley Cup runs, and specifically in the 2021 repeat where he should have been among the contenders for the Conn Smythe.
But No. 27 played a significant role in the conference final against the Rangers and remains an imposing physical presence who embodies every quality of a champion.
But if, as seems likely, he is traded, the question is will Tampa Bay get more for McDonagh at age 33 than the Rangers got for him at age 28?
Too soon?
And safe to say the Lightning separated themselves from all the cap teams that have preceded them, but let’s not make the mistake of equating two straight Cups and 11 straight series victories with the Islanders’ four straight Cups and 19 straight series victories.
“But the cap” is not an equalizer.
Do you realize that if a coach is suspended by USA Hockey and the U.S. Center for SafeSport, other youth hockey associations in this country are not bound by that suspension, even if that coach has been indicted for endangering the welfare of a child following an on-ice incident?
Finally, Alexander Mogilny did not fail to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee failed Alexander Mogilny.
