|
It doesn’t matter if they’ve been naughty or nice, every NHL team is getting a gift from us this holiday season.
Some of these gifts are clearly off their wish lists. Other gifts are the kind that you don’t realize you need until you’re given it, and then it makes perfect sense. And yeah, some of them are definitely gag gifts.
Here are 32 presents for 32 NHL teams this season. Here’s hoping it’s a happy and healthy holiday for all of you.
Atlantic Division
Boston Bruins: Bo Horvat
The Bruins have been the best team in the NHL through the first three months of an all-in season, trying to win the Stanley Cup in the potential swan songs for Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. If only there was a player who could bolster their Cup chances in the short term and give the Bruins a long-term replacement at their soon-to-be thin center position.
Buffalo Sabres: To get those eight games back
The Sabres did as the Sabres do earlier this season, winning seven of their first 10 games and then stepping off a proverbial cliff with an eight-game losing streak, all of them in regulation. Then Tage Thompson ripped off 14 goals in 14 games, they improved defensively and the promise of the season’s start appeared to be fulfilled. Imagine where they’d be without that winless skid?
Detroit Red Wings: ‘The Guy’
When the Red Wings went on their decades-long run of championship contention, they had a collection of home-grown, focal-point players who led the charge: Steve Yzerman to Sergei Fedorov to Nicklas Lidstrom to Pavel Datsyuk to Henrik Zetterberg. They’d import a few more, too.
The current Red Wings have some great players but not transcendent ones. It’s tough when a team misses the playoffs for six seasons and potentially doesn’t have a franchise player to show for it — although if Moritz Seider can be last year’s version more than this season’s player, he’s a contender to become one.
Florida Panthers: An outdoor game
Once Carolina plays its outdoor game in 2023, there will be four franchises left that haven’t played in one: Newbie Seattle, current basement dwellers Arizona and Columbus, and the Panthers. Don’t know where, don’t know when, but the Panthers have achieved enough consistent success and boast enough star power to warrant a trip outdoors. Battle of Florida, outdoor game? Who says no? Besides, you know, the barometer.
Montreal Canadiens: About five more Kirby Dachs
Dach is well on his way to having the best season of his four-year NHL career, immediately rewarding the investment (first- and third-round picks) that the Canadiens made to land him in a trade from the Blackhawks. The third overall pick in 2019 was off track in Chicago, and the Canadiens deftly determined that he had more to give with a change in scenery. That’s what good front offices do. Montreal just needs to do it a few more times, particularly on defense.
Ottawa Senators: Ryan Reynolds’ ownership stake
I’ve never been more convinced of anything in the NHL than I am that Ryan Reynolds can make us care about the Ottawa Senators. “Welcome To Wrexham” is terrific. In “Wrexham,” part of the story is that connection between a team and its city. Reynolds has such an affinity for the city of Ottawa. The Senators might not be facing relegation, but having Reynolds invested — literally and figuratively — in the success of the franchise would infuse the Senators with much-needed relevance.
Or, failing that, he shows up to the board of governors meeting dressed as Deadpool.
Tampa Bay Lightning: An eraser
We took a lot of flak for listing the Lightning’s jersey last in our Reverse Retro rankings for the worst 1990s resurrection this side of a nu-metal revival.
So let’s meet in the middle: You can keep your goofy bolts down the sleeves. But we get to erase those corny rain drops on the front that make it look like the Lightning just skated out of a winter carnival confetti drop. Deal?
Toronto Maple Leafs: A first-round bye
The schadenfreude party that’s been held for the Leafs when they inevitably exit the playoffs in the opening round? It has long lost its appeal. Let’s get them out of the first round.
We’re not even talking about seeing Toronto make a serious push for their first Stanley Cup since 1967, although that could assure that general manager Kyle Dubas and coach Sheldon Keefe keep their jobs. We’d settle for a second-round elimination. Wouldn’t a chaser of vibrant hope make another Leafs failure all the more satisfying? Of course it would, you sick haters.