No matter how much I rehash this from all sides, there isn’t a good team in the NHL that doesn’t have at least one superstar.
We can clearly see that the Canadian is progressing. But I don’t see who this famous one will be stud medium term. The one (or those) who can change the course of matches quite often.
A guy who would be in the top 20 scorers in the NHL, for example.
It happened once in the last 16 years for CH and it was Alexei Kovalev.
If we do the math, a bit simple, I agree, to say that a team has a 33% chance of having a scorer among the top 20 each year, the chances of having just one in 16 years are 1 in 20 million.
No team in the NHL has had so few good scorers in all these years.
Even since 1986, the Nordiques have more scorers in the top 10 of the NHL than the CH, which has 0. (Sorry, it was too easy).
In his career, Martin St-Louis has managed to reach the top 20 seven times.
This is the kind of superstar I’m talking about. It’s fun to have him as a coach, but I would also take one on the ice.
I’m asking a lot, Santa, but if at some point, CH could finally have a player like that, I think I would be more convinced that the team could really aspire to go all the way in the next few years. We see it night after night, victory or defeat. It’s always complicated. The Canadian is the only team not to have won a single game by three or more goals this year in the league.
From 2005 to 2015, if we take the CH’s top scorer each year and compare it with St-Louis’ offensive statistics, the latter leads them by 98 points. And it was particularly during Kovalev’s good years in Montreal.
Superstars
Most teams that are still rebuilding have some players who have the potential to become superstars.
The Ducks are banking on Leo Carlsson, Trevor Zegras, Mason McTavish and Jamie Drysdale.
The Senators have Jake Sanderson and Tim Stutzle.
The Blue Jackets have Adam Fantilli. The Kraken has Matty Beniers.
The Red Wings are Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond. The Wild have Matt Boldy. The Sharks are pitiful, but waiting for Will Smith.
Chicago obviously has Connor Bedard.
Archive photo, AFP
At the CH, could it be Cole Caufield? We can hope so, but he is showing this year that, alone, he cannot change a trio.
Nick Suzuki? Maybe, but at 24 years old he seems more like a very responsible 60-70 point player.
Juraj Slafkovsky? It’s not impossible, but it doesn’t have the profile of a points machine.
Kirby Dach? It’s starting to cause a lot of injuries.
The general in defense
Defensively, every team that wins the cup has something in common, a superstar defender: Alex Pietrangelo, Cale Makar, Victor Hedman, Kristopher Letang, Ducan Keith, Drew Doughty…
Who will this defender be with the CH? Kaiden Guhle? He’s amazing, but does he have the offensive potential to get there? Not sure.
David Reinbacher does not have this profile either. Logan Mailloux and Lane Hutson are candidates for the offensive aspect, but can we compare them to the defenders in the previous paragraphs? That seems a bit bold to me.
Look at the teams dominating the rankings this year. Whether they went through the rebuild or not, they have something in common: superstars.
The Bruins have missed the playoffs twice in the last 16 years. They are worried about rebuilding. But they have David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand and Charle McAvoy.
The Rangers have gone through some tough years quickly, but their impact players have no connection to this rebuild. Their three best scorers this year arrived via a trade or through the free agent market: Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trochek and Mika Zibanejad. Trochek may not be a superstar, but the point is that he didn’t get on the team through lean years in New York. He showed up as a free agent. Zibanejad may not be a big superstar either, but his 91 points last year, we haven’t seen that in 34 years in Montreal.
Their top defenseman, Adam Fox, opted not to play in Carolina and the Rangers were able to get him.
The Avalanche missed the playoffs six out of seven years before becoming a power again. The CH has been four times in the last six years. But the Avalanche is counting on Makar, Nathan Mackinnon and Mikko Rantanen. That’s the difference.
The Canucks are an interesting example. It’s been three years since the team participated in the playoffs, but management has not always agreed to dive into a reconstruction and has made several bad decisions. During those three years, the team traded 13 draft picks, including two first-rounders and three second-rounders.
But Vancouver still dominates this year, it wasn’t a drama to try. Because the team counts on its superstars: Elias Pettersson, JT Miller and Quinn Hughes. Tatcher Demko is also stunning.
Archive photo, AFP
Please Santa
Anyway, Santa, this year, I want a Martin St-Louis type or a superstar for the Canadian. If the CH already has it, help us, Santa Claus, to make its superpowers shine in a few years.
I think the team really needs it if they want to be able to become a contender for major honors. I would love that so much, to open my newspaper to the statistics page and see a CH player in the first column of counters.
The last time it happened, a new baby arrived in our lives: the iPhone.
It’s been too long.