Columbus Blue Jackets News Clips April 3, 2020 Columbus Blue Jackets Cleveland Monsters/Prospects NHL/Websites PAGE 02 The Athletic: Free agents, coaching moves and more: 12 storylines for the NHL offseason PAGE 07 Sportsnet.ca: 10 critical unanswered questions brought on by NHL's pause PAGE 13 TSN.CA: History suggests NHL Awards for 2019-20 season will be distributed The Athletic: Free agents, coaching moves and more: 12 storylines for the NHL offseason By Scott Burnside – April 2, 2020 League officials and players’ union representatives are in constant contact about what lies ahead with both sides taking their cues from medical officials, hoping for a signal at some point that players can start talking about returning to gyms and rinks, and fans can start to imagine a return to the game itself. But at some point, the league will move on and the normal offseason situations will play out. Hopefully these storylines play out after a Stanley Cup champion is awarded, and if that’s the case, the answers to some of these questions may be altered. So let’s look into the future at the 12 pivotal storylines to watch before the 2020-21 season. 1. Whither Alexis Lafreniere? The NHL Draft scheduled for June in Montreal has been postponed. We remain eternally optimistic that there will be a playoff at some point and it’s possible, if not likely, that the playoff grid is expanded to include possibly 10 teams per conference instead of eight. Or maybe it’s 12 teams per side. Would those additional teams at the bottom end of the playoff ladder automatically be excluded from the draft lottery? Presumably. That would leave 11 or seven teams in the hunt for the elusive No. 1 pick instead of the normal 15 teams. Obviously Detroit, with its embarrassing minus-122 goal differential in 71 games, is the most deserving of talented forward Alexis Lafreniere – if you believe that ghastly hockey should be rewarded. But deserving and getting have often been mutually exclusive when it comes to the draft lottery. Since 2015 the last-place club has earned the No. 1 pick twice or 40 percent of the time. Even if Lafreniere ends up in Detroit, the Red Wings are still a million miles away from relevancy. But it’s possible that literally any other team that lands Lafreniere might be able to parlay that into immediate playoff results, including but not limited to San Jose, Anaheim, Los Angeles and New Jersey. Ottawa with Lafreniere is still likely a year or two away, but already there are positive signs in the Canadian capital and Lafreniere could be a key piece. That’s how good the young man from Saint-Eustache, Quebec, is. But, what if the entire season is canceled and there is a lottery process not unlike the lottery to determine who landed Sidney Crosby after the 2004-05 lockout? Even with a similarly weighted lottery based on recent playoff appearances and recent No. 1 draft picks acquired would throw open at least the possibility that any NHL team could end up with Lafreniere. 2. Scouting issues in Arizona Also unknown is how the league is going to rule in its investigation into the possibility that the Arizona Coyotes violated league rules that prohibit teams from doing any physical testing of draft-eligible players outside the draft combine, which has also been postponed. Sources told The Athletic’s Craig Morgan that the Coyotes do not believe they went afoul of the rules. If they did it could cost the team millions of dollars as each violation brings with it a fine of not less than $250,000. That’s potentially a huge hit for a team that, while under the new ownership of billionaire Alex Meruelo, remains 28th in the league in home attendance based on percentage of seats sold. One longtime amateur scout suggested that, if the Coyotes were working outside the rules, they might now have an unfair advantage over other teams vis a vis data collected given that junior hockey and college hockey seasons were canceled. The NHL has no timeline for when its investigation will be completed and when a resolution made public, although one assumes it will be before the draft for the sake of transparency. 3. Whither Taylor Hall? There’s still a chance that with an expanded playoff grid Taylor Hall and the Coyotes qualify for the 2020 playoffs and Hall gets a chance to rewrite the narrative surrounding him as he heads toward unrestricted free agency. The former Hart Trophy winner was the marquee rental on the market this season and went to Arizona via a December trade. In spite of additional time to get acclimatized with the Coyotes, Hall’s impact was far less than most anticipated. In fact, when the league paused, Hall had collected just two more points playing in five more games for Arizona than he did with a woeful New Jersey team. So, what does the market look like for a dynamic winger who was the first-overall pick in 2010 who has played in just five playoff games in his career? Arizona GM John Chayka and Hall’s agent Darren Ferris have had preliminary talks during the pause about an extension, but Chayka has to be very cautious about how he proceeds given the early returns. Teams are still going to line up for a chance to sign the 28-year-old, including possibly Hall’s hometown Calgary Flames. Buffalo and Montreal need help up front, although both have more pressing needs down the middle. Assuming a full seven-year term, what does Hall’s number look like? A number of scouts don’t think Hall is a game-changer on his own, that he is a more complimentary player and doesn’t drive play on his own. The fact he’s a winger and not a center will also blunt the dollar amount. At this stage, how much more valuable is Hall than Chris Kreider, who signed a seven-year, $6.5 million annual cap hit before the trade deadline? Certainly Hall is a lot closer now in terms of marketability to Kreider than say Artemi Panarin, who signed a seven- year deal last summer as an unrestricted free agent with an $11.6 million annual cap hit. The one mitigating factor is, if not Hall, who else will be on the free agent market for teams looking to beef up offense? Mike Hoffman, who actually out-pointed Hall at the time of the pause? Mikael Granlund, who actually had more goals than Hall this season? Still, if a $10 million windfall for Hall seemed possible at the start of this season, that thinking has changed dramatically even without taking into account all of the uncertainty regarding the salary cap that has come with the pandemic. 4. What of Henrik Lundqvist? The pause in the NHL’s season also pauses one of the most difficult decisions for the New York Rangers: What to do with one of the greatest players in franchise history in netminder Henrik Lundqvist. Lundqvist went from the third wheel in an uncomfortable three-goalie rotation to a spare tire this season. His last win was on Feb. 1. He started just one of the Rangers’ last 19 games, appearing in relief in two other games. Igor Shesterkin and Alexandar Georgiev both displayed the skills that speak to franchise netminding and were among the main reasons the Rangers are ahead of their evolutionary curve. In short, the play of the two young netminders meant there was simply no room for Lundqvist on this emerging team. Georgiev is a restricted free agent and there was talk he could be moved at the trade deadline but that didn’t happen. Could it happen before the 2020 draft? Not unless there is a premium return coming back, although there are teams looking for goaltending stability like San Jose, Detroit, Buffalo and Edmonton. Lundqvist, whose name also surfaced, at least peripherally at the deadline, has one more year left on his current deal at $8.5 million with full trade protection. Certainly no one wants a repeat of what transpired this season. The Rangers could buy Lundqvist out of the final year of his deal or maybe there’s a trade to be made with Lundqvist’s blessing plus the Rangers eating a chunk of his salary. The buyout is much more likely than a trade given the moving parts. But then what? Lundqvist is 38. His line this year: 10-12-3, 3.16 goals-against average and .905 save percentage. In a perfect world, the Rangers are part of an expanded playoff grid and Lundqvist gets a chance to prove he’s not done at the NHL level even if the sands have run out on his time in New York. But those are long odds. Could a team like Colorado use Lundqvist on a one-year deal? Buffalo? San Jose? Great story for the romantic in all of us but not a narrative that appears to be based in reality. 5. The Braden Holtby conundrum It’s not quite the same situation that Pittsburgh found itself in heading into the Vegas expansion draft, but Washington is facing its own tough, tough choice. Vegas, of course, ended up with Marc-Andre Fleury as the Pens moved forward with Matt Murray after the duo had split time during back-to-back Cup runs in 2016 and 2017. The Capitals have veteran netminder Pheonix Copley under contract and can expose him in the Seattle draft should they choose to while protecting the future in goal Ilya Samsonov.