It\u2019s a scary time of year.\u00a0Haunted\u00a0houses\u00a0and horror movies abound, but perhaps most terrifying is the sight of kids full of sugar after a night of trick-or-treating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are reasons for some NHL\u00a0squads\u00a0to be scared, too.\u00a0Every\u00a0off-season plan looks perfect in September, but come Halloween,\u00a0you start to realize things aren\u2019t\u00a0going exactly as planned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inevitable injuries, lines\u00a0not\u00a0clicking the way\u00a0teams envisioned\u00a0or\u00a0holes in the roster not able to be filled are all issues different general mangers are trying to solve for around the league.\u00a0It\u2019s getting close to the time\u00a0where teams may have to take action\u00a0in order to improve their situation where they can.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at four teams\u00a0and why they\u00a0have a reason to be scared right now.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re just a couple\u00a0of days away from November\u00a0and Quinn Hughes is still without a contract extension.\u00a0Maybe there\u2019s no reason to panic and he\u00a0and Bill Guerin\u00a0will work something out, but every\u00a0day that goes by\u00a0without an extension brings Hughes that much closer to free agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It sounds like the Wild are willing to give Hughes a max deal for whatever term he wishes, so\u00a0you\u2019d think the ball is in his court at this point. In other words, if he wanted to extend in Minnesota, wouldn\u2019t he have done so by now?\u00a0We also know that playing with his brothers is very important\u00a0to Hughes and both Jack and Luke currently play for the New Jersey Devils.\u00a0They\u00a0just traded for Connor Hellebuyck as well,\u00a0who is\u00a0a friend and teammate of Hughes from the American\u00a0Olympic team.\u00a0A move to New Jersey has to be very tempting for Hughes \u2014\u00a0and he would be free\u00a0to do so in eight months if everything remains status quo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s interesting from the Wild\u2019s perspective is that\u00a0Hughes doesn\u2019t have any trade protection. Theoretically,\u00a0Guerin could move Hughes if he doesn\u2019t think he can ink him to a contract extension. If you\u00a0listen to the Wild GM’s latest comments on the subject, an imminent deal doesn\u2019t sound promising. It would be a bold move, but Minnesota wouldn\u2019t want to lose him for nothing and Hughes would\u00a0return the Wild a haul, even as a rental, helping them recoup some of the assets they gave up to acquire Hughes in the first place. But the Wild also have Stanley Cup aspirations. Trading Hughes would severely hurt their chances.\u00a0The whole situation has to be a bit worrisome for Minnesota, any way you slice it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are two distinct versions of the Toronto Maple Leafs: one\u00a0with a healthy Chris Tanev, and one without him. The former has been very infrequent over the past year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tanev\u00a0played in just 11 games last season and has only skated in six so far this season.\u00a0The current ailment that has him sidelined came on what looked like a pretty innocuous\u00a0collision, so concerns about durability\u00a0for the soon-to-be\u00a037-year-old\u00a0are very real.\u00a0What makes this more problematic for the Maple Leafs is\u00a0how critical Tanev is to the entire makeup of the blue line.\u00a0Darren Raddysh\u00a0has been forced to play almost 24 minutes a night, Jake McCabe looks like a different player without Tanev, Morgan Rielly and Troy Stecher\u00a0have taken on added responsibility and it forces someone like Dakota Mermis\u00a0into the lineup.\u00a0There\u2019s also the matter of Sergei Bobrovsky, who has struggled\u00a0of late \u2014 having Tanev back\u00a0would go a long way in limiting the quality chances the Leafs netminder sees.<\/p>\n
Everyone has done an admirable job with Tanev out,\u00a0but an upcoming homestand is daunting. Utah, Montreal, New Jersey, Colorado, Minnesota and Edmonton are on deck\u00a0and even though it sounds like Tanev is close to returning,\u00a0it\u2019s becoming increasingly difficult to believe he won\u2019t miss more significant time as the season goes on.\u00a0Even with him in the lineup, the Leafs defence corps was probably missing a\u00a0top-four piece. Now, John Chayka\u00a0has to decide how to proceed with only minimal assets available to make a move.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The promising\u00a0Ben Danford could eventually get a call-up\u00a0to help and the Leafs have done a good enough job to where Chayka doesn\u2019t have to make a panicked move\u00a0immediately, but it really does\u00a0feel like Toronto\u2019s ceiling this season is tied to Tanev\u2019s health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The past\u00a0six seasons have looked very similar for the Chicago Blackhawks and this one\u00a0is feeling\u00a0no different. Chicago\u2019s rebuild\u00a0can\u2019t really get off the ground as the Blackhawks enter another year with little support for Connor Bedard.\u00a0Only the Vancouver Canucks have fewer points than\u00a0Chicago entering Friday’s action.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bedard\u00a0has been his usual self with seven\u00a0points in seven\u00a0games, but very few other Blackhawks players\u00a0are making an impact.\u00a0Among all Chicago skaters other than Bedard, only Patrick Kane is on pace for more than 50 points and he\u2019s only trending for\u00a052. Kane is also a team-worst minus-15\u00a0and\u00a0his\u00a0two-year contract with an $8 million AAV\u00a0remains\u00a0a very curious decision for the Blackhawks. Obviously, there’s a nostalgia factor where Kane is concerned and it\u2019s a great story,\u00a0but there were probably better places to use that cap space than on a soon-to-be 38-year-old forward\u00a0who lacks foot speed.\u00a0Even if there was\u00a0no one to spend it on this summer, saving that money to try for a more impactful move in-season may have been the smarter strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chicago\u2019s other big move from the summer was bringing in Bowen Byram. He\u2019s an important piece, though it cost the Blackhawks the fourth-overall pick\u00a0and\u00a0even though he may help move the puck up to Bedard, Byram can only aid the\u00a0Chicago superstar so much from the blue line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like the Blackhawks don\u2019t have talented young players, but it may be a while before the likes of Anton Frondell, Frank Nazar, Roman Kantserov, Sam Rinzel and Artyom Levshunov really start making an impact. Bedard needs an established and talented NHL player or two\u00a0to make a difference sooner rather than later. This is Year 4 for Bedard\u00a0and he\u2019s never known anything else\u00a0other\u00a0than\u00a0last place in the Central Division. That\u2019s not ideal\u00a0and there doesn\u2019t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lost in the shuffle\u00a0in\u00a0Devin Cooley\u2019s\u00a0strong play\u00a0and the fact that he\u2019s become the most interesting interview\u00a0in the world has been the play of Dustin Wolf. The Calgary Flames netminder owns an\u00a0.839\u00a0save percentage through\u00a0six\u00a0games and has essentially lost the net to Cooley.\u00a0He also sits 70th\u00a0out of 71 qualified goalies in goals saved above expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You could point to the fact that the Flames\u00a0are one of the weaker teams in the league and that’s impacting Wolf\u2019s numbers, but\u00a0Cooley seemed\u00a0to be thriving in the same situation before he was injured Wednesday.\u00a0Cooley\u2019s success is\u00a0all well and good\u00a0for Calgary\u00a0in the short-term, though Wolf just started a significant contract for a goaltender which has seven years\u00a0remaining worth $7.5 million per season.\u00a0If Wolf\u00a0can\u2019t find his game again, that contract is going to be a huge problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To be fair, Wolf\u2019s numbers this season have come in a very small sample size\u00a0and he did post a .910 save percentage two years ago.\u00a0There\u2019s a chance he could regain his form\u00a0with a stronger team in front of him. Still, goalies are unpredictable\u00a0and Wolf signed his contract with only 71 NHL games under his belt. The Flames\u00a0must be at least slightly concerned\u00a0about where Wolf\u2019s game is at right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a scary time of year.\u00a0Haunted\u00a0houses\u00a0and horror movies abound, but perhaps most terrifying is the sight of kids…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":["post-952043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}