Speculation: Offseason Thread II: ideas, proposals, general roster discussion

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CBJWerenski8

Formerly CBJWennberg10 (RIP Kivi)
Jun 13, 2009
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Have no clue where you pulled this from, but Bettman has always said starting the season with no fans is an option, with a move to possibly adding fans later in the season:



NHL 2021: How games, alignment and schedule could look for next season

And with cases rising exponentially in Columbus/Franklin County, having fans at CBJ home games any time soon is a pipe dream.

I’ll add more to this later if I remember (I’m on mobile) but here’s this to prove I’m not just pulling this out of nowhere:

“It’ll be difficult to play many [NHL] games without fans from a business perspective. We’ll wait and see when we start next year. Let’s get through this season and see what happens next season,” Neely said. “I think everybody is anticipating some kind of a spike [of COVID-19] in the fall. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but I don’t know that you can play too many games without fans. Everybody [across the NHL] is building out their models without fans, 1/3 [full of] fans, 1/2 [full of] fans and full buildings, but it’s all speculation right now what we think we’re going to see at the start of next season.”

Cam Neely says playing 2020-21 NHL season would be 'difficult' without fans

I’m not saying I agree with having fans back or anything. Especially with the current spike. As a person who just tested positive for it a week ago, it’s not fun and I don’t wish it on anyone. However, I do understand why the NHL needs some sort of revenue intake as their TV deal isn’t enough to keep the league afloat or pay the players their salaries over a season. With a vaccine coming, I think it’s more likely than not the nhl will try to get fans in at least some capacity. It’s a slippery slope, I’m not sure where the right answer is. Selfishly I want hockey back, with fans and everything, but logically that doesn’t make sense.
 

majormajor

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They'll start without fans, possibly in a hub situation. Given the uncertainty with how long it will take to get the public vaccinated (February? April?), I wouldn't be surprised if they just schedule the season piece by piece, starting with like 3-6 weeks of games, and then schedule the next batch when you get to it. Could be some hubs with uneven number of teams to start.

Columbus' season could look like this, for example:

January 15th - February 5th
12 games in a hub with Detroit, Chicago, and Nashville (easy pickins for CBJ).

February 11th - March 13th
17 games in a hub with Detroit, Pittsburgh, Washington, Philadelphia, Carolina, Tampa, and Florida.

March 18th - May 18th
33 games with full intercity travel. A few thousand fans permitted in the beginning, gradually ramping up towards full houses.

Playoffs May 21st - July 16th
Cup awarded just before the Tokyo Olympics, next season begins on a normal schedule in October.


They might not even bother with divisions or conferences this year. The priority is squeezing games in. They can do a 16 seed playoffs with no conferences if they have to, which would be a reprieve for the Eastern Conference squads.
 
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EDM

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I have to agree that there is very serious doubt about the ability to play a season with fans in 2021.
 

Long Live Lyle

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The NHL needs fans in the stands to be financially viable. It's not like the NFL or NBA that have huge TV deals. That said, the NHL also "can't" afford to miss out on a season completely. It'd be disastrous.

The 2013 season started on Jan. 19, and they played until June 24 with 48 regular season games and a normal playoffs. If you were to push each of those up a week, that'd be Jan. 12 and June 17, respectively. You have to be done mid-July with the NBC Olympic deal, so you could push that June 17 back to July 17 and use that extra month to get a 60-game season instead of 48 games. Basically mid-January to mid-July* for a 4-month regular season until mid-May with 60 games, followed by a normal two-month playoffs. (FWIW, the national championship is currently scheduled for Jan. 11, so starting it up right after that might also be better for business than directly competing for fans's split attention.)

You'd not be able to have fans early on, but with the recent vaccine news combined with an increase (sadly) in natural immunity that we're likely going to see taking place in the weeks after Christmas, cases might decrease enough where you might be able to have some fans for the latter portion of the season, starting around mid-March. And maybe this is optimistically naive of me, but maybe, just maybe, you might even be able to have a full house for the playoffs from May to July. While I think the NHL may have been reluctant to have a season a few weeks ago, I think the vaccine news might give Bettman the push he needs to try to get a season up-and-running with the assumption that fans will be back (in some amount) at some point during the season.

*Tangentially, I'd actually like if the NHL permanently pushed back a month, starting in early November instead of early October and ending mid-July instead of mid-June. On the front end, you'd avoid the baseball playoffs completely and limit the amount of time you'd have to compete against NFL/college football. On the back end, your conference finals and Stanley Cup would stand on their own and get to avoid the NBA and basically any other sports competition besides the dog days of baseball's regular season. I think it'd be best for the league's viability. I know that's not the most popular opinion, haha.
 
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JacketsDavid

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Heres my issue. If they don't start until January and play until July - when will next season start? Doubt they will call guys back in early September.
I would just bite the bullet and play a very condensed regular season, expand the playoffs and try to end it on normal calendar time.
Then play a normal 2021-2022 season.
 
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EspenK

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With those divisions wonder how the schedule will work? With talk of "pods" & probably a limited number of games I wonder if there will be any games against the other Eastern division. With an all Canadian division I think all games will be intra-division only. Anybody hear anything else about this?
 

majormajor

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*Tangentially, I'd actually like if the NHL permanently pushed back a month, starting in early November instead of early October and ending mid-July instead of mid-June. On the front end, you'd avoid the baseball playoffs completely and limit the amount of time you'd have to compete against NFL/college football. On the back end, your conference finals and Stanley Cup would stand on their own and get to avoid the NBA and basically any other sports competition besides the dog days of baseball's regular season. I think it'd be best for the league's viability. I know that's not the most popular opinion, haha.

I heard similar thinking supposedly coming from the league FO. I suppose football is a bigger killer than NBA playoffs, even if it's only on the weekends?

Personally I've never liked hockey playoffs being in the summer, it doesn't feel like hockey weather-wise, and the humidity makes the game noticeably worse. I would rather the season start in September and finish in May.

With those divisions wonder how the schedule will work? With talk of "pods" & probably a limited number of games I wonder if there will be any games against the other Eastern division. With an all Canadian division I think all games will be intra-division only. Anybody hear anything else about this?

I don't think uniformity or parity of scheduling is going to matter much this year. They could have travel across the U.S. divisions even if the Canadian division stays on its own.

Heres my issue. If they don't start until January and play until July - when will next season start? Doubt they will call guys back in early September.
I would just bite the bullet and play a very condensed regular season, expand the playoffs and try to end it on normal calendar time.
Then play a normal 2021-2022 season.

I think you can still start training camp late September and drop the puck early October if the playoffs finish mid-July. It will be a short offseason for the cup finalists, but why would we care? For most teams they'll have been off since May or June. Some teams haven't played at this point since last March! The teams that don't make the playoffs twice in a row will have gone from a ten-month offseason to a four-and-a-half month offseason. That's got to feel plenty long for them.
 

Monstershockey

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Personally I've never liked hockey playoffs being in the summer, it doesn't feel like hockey weather-wise, and the humidity makes the game noticeably worse. I would rather the season start in September and finish in May.
I agree. But I have to say, it was nice bringing the tv out on the patio and enjoying summer evenings watching hockey. I definitely look forward to a normal season though. I miss hockey right now, especially knowing we would be either going to a game, or watching Saturday night hockey on tv tonight.
 

majormajor

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I agree. But I have to say, it was nice bringing the tv out on the patio and enjoying summer evenings watching hockey. I definitely look forward to a normal season though. I miss hockey right now, especially knowing we would be either going to a game, or watching Saturday night hockey on tv tonight.

When I feel the chill in the air I associate it with hockey. The smell of leaves or fresh snow goes together in my mind with the smell of the rink (zamboni, ice, mostly bacteria) and I want to hit the ice. Or at least watch.

This summer's games didn't feel like bad hockey, maybe because it was in the dry air of Edmonton. But I played in a summer league in Massachusetts once and it was noticeably harder to play. The puck bounces and the skates stick to the softer ice. If they played the Finals in Tampa I would have a hard time getting the slow sloppy conditions out of my mind. The '96 Finals in Florida were some ugly hockey. Columbus is sticky in the summer too, I would rather our first Finals is in May and not July.
 
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Monstershockey

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When I feel the chill in the air I associate it with hockey. The smell of leaves or fresh snow goes together in my mind with the smell of the rink (zamboni, ice, mostly bacteria) and I want to hit the ice. Or at least watch.

This summer's games didn't feel like bad hockey, maybe because it was in the dry air of Edmonton. But I played in a summer league in Massachusetts once and it was noticeably harder to play. The puck bounces and the skates stick to the softer ice. If they played the Finals in Tampa I would have a hard time getting the slow sloppy conditions out of my mind. The '96 Finals in Florida were some ugly hockey. Columbus is sticky in the summer too, I would rather our first Finals is in May and not July.
I hear you. I also wish the finals were in May. Sometimes it feels like the goal is to strech out the season as long as possible. I remember when I played, the rink we played at was almost an outdoor rink except for the corrigated metal walls. The ice was great when it was cold, but if we had unseasonably warm weather, games would get cancelled because the ice was so bad.
 
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Iron Balls McGinty

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Heres my issue. If they don't start until January and play until July - when will next season start? Doubt they will call guys back in early September.
I would just bite the bullet and play a very condensed regular season, expand the playoffs and try to end it on normal calendar time.
Then play a normal 2021-2022 season.
Mid-July is only about 3 weeks longer than the current season end date. Shave a week off of training camp and maybe a delayed start to '21-'22 by a week basically gets you right back on schedule.
 

Mikos87

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How do you guys feel about splitting up Werenski and Jones?

To me I think that's the answer to the Blue Jackets offensive woes. You have potentially two 50-60 point top tier guys out there for 50+ minutes every game, and they can jump up and create a 4 man attack any time.

It's also easier to break in a guy like Carlson next to Jones right?

Tampa just won the cup doing this with Hedman and a guy who Tortorella molded in McDonagh. So he should know what he saw out there.

To me it makes the Blue Jacket team something completely different. You can even have long stretches where you are alternating Zach and Seth and getting different looks out there, like Werenski-Kukan, or Werensk-Peeke.

I know that CLB has typically been a regimented team when it came to pairings on the back end, but as an outside observer who thinks CLB can make a step towards contention, something like this can be a game changer for them that maximizes all of their assets.

If you think about the forward units, you have some potentially good pairings that can hit 20 goals across each of the top 3 lines, having Jones or Werenski out there should help the cause offensively, or control the situation as they normally would, would it not?
 

majormajor

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How do you guys feel about splitting up Werenski and Jones?

To me I think that's the answer to the Blue Jackets offensive woes. You have potentially two 50-60 point top tier guys out there for 50+ minutes every game, and they can jump up and create a 4 man attack any time.

It's also easier to break in a guy like Carlson next to Jones right?

Tampa just won the cup doing this with Hedman and a guy who Tortorella molded in McDonagh. So he should know what he saw out there.

To me it makes the Blue Jacket team something completely different. You can even have long stretches where you are alternating Zach and Seth and getting different looks out there, like Werenski-Kukan, or Werensk-Peeke.

I know that CLB has typically been a regimented team when it came to pairings on the back end, but as an outside observer who thinks CLB can make a step towards contention, something like this can be a game changer for them that maximizes all of their assets.

If you think about the forward units, you have some potentially good pairings that can hit 20 goals across each of the top 3 lines, having Jones or Werenski out there should help the cause offensively, or control the situation as they normally would, would it not?

- How about

Gavrikov-Jones
Werenski-Peeke
Kukan-Savard

- If you're covering Werenski you need to cover a lot of ice, so I like Peeke there because he's fast. I'm not sure how he'd handle the tougher minutes.

- Jones needs to get back to a more aggressive game and I don't want him pre-occupied with babysitting. Let Gavrikov stay at home and have Jones go nuts.
 

Mikos87

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- How about

Gavrikov-Jones
Werenski-Peeke
Kukan-Savard

- If you're covering Werenski you need to cover a lot of ice, so I like Peeke there because he's fast. I'm not sure how he'd handle the tougher minutes.

- Jones needs to get back to a more aggressive game and I don't want him pre-occupied with babysitting. Let Gavrikov stay at home and have Jones go nuts.

Absolutely. Right, any time during the game, protecting the lead or similar to how you put it, let Seth be an Apex Predator out there. Then see if Werenski can top that. You can even have Zach play the right side at times and get bombs off from different parts of the ice.

We know CLB can defend, but in the playoffs they played real hard to get to a draw. Mixing up the defense like Tampa did might work wonders. There isn't another team in the league equipped to do that, other than maybe a resurrected SJ.
 

majormajor

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Absolutely. Right, any time during the game, protecting the lead or similar to how you put it, let Seth be an Apex Predator out there..

Whatever lineups we go with that has to be the plan with Seth, get him to hit that next gear. I love the phrase "apex predator" here, it would be great if he can develop that kind of mindset. I don't think it comes naturally to him.
 

Mikos87

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Whatever lineups we go with that has to be the plan with Seth, get him to hit that next gear. I love the phrase "apex predator" here, it would be great if he can develop that kind of mindset. I don't think it comes naturally to him.

And I think revolving the ice around him and removing him from having to be that third layer with Werenski jumping in helps both guys be predators out there.

It seems like CLB likes to feel safe when they really like protecting the lead better. I think that's when CLB can be at it's best, when protecting leads. When you have guys like Jones and Werenski, you should be able to roll out a pair of predators pretty much all game if you wanted to, and let them dictate the situation as needed.

But it's hard to be that apex predator that can attack and take a bite out of the other team when you have to take turns doing so. Time to let the beasts out. It should make for some outstanding hockey.
 

Xoggz22

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Heres my issue. If they don't start until January and play until July - when will next season start? Doubt they will call guys back in early September.
I would just bite the bullet and play a very condensed regular season, expand the playoffs and try to end it on normal calendar time.
Then play a normal 2021-2022 season.
The NHL has continued to indicate they would not start the 21-22 season late and it would be a full/normal season. With Seattle coming into the league and an expected 6 months of vaccine availability behind them it makes sense. I have heard repeatedly (mostly podcasts from across the nation) the latest they would play this season is the first week of July. That's roughly 2 weeks after a normal finish. It also means a 48-60 game season is on tap. They have played 48 game seasons in the past after the lockout beginning in January. I don't see impact beyond this season.
 

majormajor

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I'd place the CBJ as the 3rd strongest team in that group behind TB and STL.

Without much thought I'd go

TB
--------
STL = CBJ
PIT = NSH = FLA
--------
CHI
--------
DET

It would be a nice change of scenery.
 

stevo61

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Without much thought I'd go

TB
--------
STL = CBJ
PIT = NSH = FLA
--------
CHI
--------
DET

It would be a nice change of scenery.
Id easily put Pit in the STL/CBJ group. Even if Jarry is unproven Crosby/Malkin earn that spot easily until proven otherwise
 
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