Give us a reason to watch, Habs

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This article was published 04/07/2021 (1615 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MONTREAL — Go figure that a memorable NHL season is finishing with what is quickly becoming one of the most forgettable Stanley Cup Finals in recent history.

Regardless of which team you might be rooting for, a stinker on hockey’s biggest stage is never good for business. But with the Tampa Bay Lightning on the verge of sweeping the Montreal Canadiens and capturing a second straight championship, this is shaping up to be a mismatch of epic proportions.

You have to go all the way back to 1998 to find the last time the final ended in four games, as the Detroit Red Wings led by coach Scotty Bowman made short work of the Washington Capitals that spring. Now, Jon Cooper’s club is poised to break out the brooms tonight at Bell Centre.

To be honest, the whole sorry state of affairs leaves a bad taste.

My biggest pet peeve is with the Lightning themselves. Depending on the health of forward Alex Killorn, the 18 skaters and two goaltenders who hit the ice for Game 4 will carry a cap hit somewhere between $86 million (if Mathieu Joseph is in for Killorn) and $90 million (if Killorn suits up). That’s quite the feat, considering the NHL salary cap for an entire 23-man roster is $81.5 million. Once you roll in those extra bodies, they’re approaching triple-digits.

Tampa has turned the trick by utilizing— I prefer the term circumventing — existing league rules to their considerable advantage.

They parked star forward Nikita Kucherov and his US$9.5 million salary on long-term injured reserve for the entire 56-game regular-season, which allowed them to be over the ceiling without penalty. Conveniently, the 28-year-old didn’t go in for hip surgery until late December, which created a perfect storm for a team that was going to have to shed some key players to otherwise be cap compliant.

There were strong rumblings in hockey circles that Kucherov was healthy long before the playoffs — when the salary cap no longer applies — and the Lightning should have been forced to activate him earlier, which would have required surgery to their roster. The NHL claims they investigated such claims and found no wrongdoing on the Lightning’s part. Peachy.

“Nothing inappropriate was done here, and at the end of the day all the (general) managers know what the rules are,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly told us last week on a Zoom call. “The facts seem to align with the situation that allowed Tampa to bring back a significant player in the playoffs. I’m not apologizing for what is a sound system and has been a sound system from the start.”

I suppose it’s just a coincidence that a guy coming off a significant medical procedure, who you’d think might need some time to get back up to speed, is lapping the rest of the league in playoff scoring. Kucherov has 32 points and is likely going to win the Conn Smythe as MVP. Teammate Brayden Point is second overall with 23, to put that in perspective.

Tampa also put Steven Stamkos on LTIR in mid-April, clearing up additional cap space in the process which allowed them to add defenceman David Savard at the trade deadline. Columbus retained half of Savard’s $4.25 million salary, and Detroit retained another 25 per cent as part of a three-team swap in which the Lightning sent three draft pics. Stamkos, like Kucherov, was ready for Game 1 of the playoffs, and is third in scoring with 18 points.

Gee, yet another one of those coincidences. I guess the NHL’s most talented team also happens to be the luckiest.

Look, if we’re to take Daly at his word, then this entire episode shows that a major re-think is required. Because this strikes at the very heart of competitive balance and integrity. A simple solution would be applying the salary cap from start to finish, right through until the playoffs end. But that would have to be negotiated between the league and the players association, and the current Collective Bargaining Agreement was just extended through 2025-26. I won’t hold my breath.

I’m not sure why more owners and managers around the league aren’t crying foul over this. Perhaps they’re too busy trying to find ways they can exploit an obvious loophole going forward. To be fair, Tampa wasn’t the only team to spend beyond the cap due to LTIR. They’re just the most egregious example of it, one that is likely going to end with the ultimate reward.

“We had a great season. We lost to a team that’s $18 million over the cap or whatever they are,” Carolina defenceman Dougie Hamilton said following his club’s second-round exodus. They finished on top of the reconfigured Central Division, holding off Florida and the Kucherov-less Lightning during the regular-season, only to face a very different-looking foe once the stakes were raised.

“If you think about how many players you could add to your team with that money you realize how much deeper you would be,” he added. No kidding.

There were some who felt last year’s championship should come with an asterisk, since the regular-season wasn’t fully completed due to COVID-19 and the playoffs took the form of a 24-team tournament for the first-time ever. Such talk was silly. If anything, the Tampa triumph was even more impressive considering all the extenuating circumstances involved, which included playing in hub cities and completely empty rinks after a four-month pandemic pause and more competition than ever vying for the trophy.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said this year. The seemingly inevitable trophy-raising is going to be tainted, at least in my eyes.

The playing field is uneven in other ways, too. Tampa has been allowed to skate in front of near-capacity crowds, with 18,600 taking in Game 2 last week. Meanwhile, Montreal has been limited to 3,500 due to public health and safety regulations. I’m not suggesting one is right and one is wrong — give me slow and steady over fast and loose any day when it comes to re-opening society — but merely pointing out how it only adds to the feeling of watching an NHL team taking on a minor-league outfit.

And don’t think I’m letting the Canadiens off the hook here. They have wilted under the spotlight. Sure, players and coaches talked a good game before the puck dropped last week, about how they weren’t just happy to be here after upsetting favoured opponents in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vegas and were determined to finish the job. Then they went out and looked like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights, a 98-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face.

Now, they’re on the verge of becoming just the 21st team in NHL history to get to the Stanley Cup Final and fail to win a single game.

There’s a lot of concern among locals about what might happen if the Habs get swept tonight, with tens of thousands of folks congregating in the downtown streets outside the rink for games. Police clearly share those fears, given the major presence that is planned given the history of rioting around here.

If Montreal can find a way to keep their season alive, then it’s off to Florida they go for Game 5 on Wednesday, where Tropical Storm Elsa is bearing down and expected to cause issues later this week.

Either way, it’s shaping up to be an ugly ending to a unique season that started with so much promise. I guess we really can’t have nice things.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg