So that was … interesting.
One of the most common complaints about the modern NHL is that the league’s product is occasionally boring. And when it comes to the action on the ice, that’s often true. But in the bigger picture, 2016 couldn’t be accused of being dull. The year was a lot of things – ridiculous, controversial, head-scratching – but it was rarely boring.
Here are 10 of the biggest stories from an undeniably weird but entertaining year in the NHL.
1) The Penguins win it all
By the end of 2015, the Penguins were a mess. They’d just fired their coach, they were barely hanging in the playoff race, and they seemed more like a collection of aging, overpaid stars than an actual team.
By the end of 2016, they were the best team in hockey.
Nobody had a better 2016 than the Penguins, who close out the year near the top of the NHL standings and as defending Stanley Cup champions. They won that Cup thanks to a dominant performance by Sidney Crosby, now fully healthy and once again the undisputed best player in the world. He was supported by an unlikely hero in goal, as rookie Matt Murray took over the job despite having just 13 career starts heading into the playoffs.
And then there was Phil Kessel, the much-maligned winger who’d been acquired the previous summer. He went from league-wide punch line to the Penguins’ leading postseason scorer, not to mention one of the sport’s most lovable memes. By September, he was even throwing bombs on Twitter.
Phil Kessel is the best. In 2016, the Penguins were too.
2) The day the hockey world went nuts
June 29 seemed like it would be a relatively normal day in the NHL. The draft had just passed, and the start of unrestricted free agency was still two days away. The rumor mill was busy, as it always is this time of year, but nobody was expecting anything too crazy.
Then everyone lots their minds.
First came word that the Oilers had traded former first overall pick Taylor Hall to the Devils for defenseman Adam Larsson, in a move that stood as easily the most stunning one-for-one deal in recent NHL history. It held that honor for all of a half hour or so, before we learned that Montreal had sent PK Subban to the Predators for Shea Weber. You could hear hockey fans’ heads exploding around the world.
By the time reports emerged that Steven Stamkos had re-signed in Tampa, the day seemed almost incomprehensible. The Stamkos free agency auction was the biggest story in the league when the day began; by the time it ended, fans barely noticed.
In a league where nobody makes big moves anymore, we got three within an hour. It was madness. Here’s hoping it happens again someday soon.
3) The kids take over
One of the fun parts of any NHL season is watching rookies and other young players emerge. In a typical season, two or three will arrive as true superstars. In 2016, they seemed to collectively take over the league.
After missing most of the first half of the 2015-16 season with an injury, Connor McDavid returned to establish himself as the heir apparent to Crosby for “best player in the word” honors, and the favorite to win the 2016-17 scoring title. Number one overall pick Auston Matthews debuted with a record-breaking four-goal performance, while second choice Patrik Laine is among the league’s top goal scorers. Murray won a Cup, the Jack Eichel era was established in Buffalo, and players like Shayne Gostisbehere, Aleksander Barkov and Zach Werenski all made their mark.
It’s rare to see this much young talent excelling at the same time, and it may signal a long-term shift towards younger players (and their entry-level contracts).
4) Canada – still bad at NHL hockey
The playoffs are sometimes referred to as the NHL’s big dance. In 2016, an entire country was left sitting at home without an invite. And to make matters worse, it was the country that likes to think of themselves as the game’s owners.
For the first time in a generation, every one of Canada’s teams missed the postseason; to be honest, none even came close. That hadn’t happened since 1970, when there were just three Canadian teams. Now there are seven, and against all odds the country is still seeking its first Stanley Cup since 1993.
The sight of an entire nation being sidelined before the postseason even started set off plenty of hand-wringing over what exactly was going on. It also had a practical impact, as TV ratings plunged and broadcasters cleaned house. It was a miserable year all around, the kind that leaves you wishing for an opportunity to get all your friends together and smash things.
Luckily enough, one such opportunity happened to be right around the corner…
5) Canada – still good at international hockey
September’s World Cup was the first since 2004, and featured a pair of new teams that drew decidedly mixed reactions when they were announced. In addition to the traditional six international powers, the tournament included a Team Europe made up of players from the continent’s lesser hockey nations, as well a Team North America that featured the game’s younger stars. That latter team stole the show in the round robin, but fell victim to a format that had been created in hopes of ensuring a Canada/USA showdown in the final.
Instead, Team USA imploded quickly. The Russians fell short yet again, Sweden bowed out in a semi-final upset, and we wound up with an anticlimactic final between Team Europe and Team Canada. The Europeans put up a better fight than expected, but were still swept, leaving Canada with a perfect record and their ninth best-on-best international win in 13 tries.
6) Now about the Olympics …
Did you enjoy the World Cup? Do you wish that elite international hockey could be played in front of an even bigger audience, with even bigger stakes? Then it sounds like you’d love seeing NHL players compete at the Olympics.
And these days, it sounds like you might be out of luck.
Yes, despite the nearly universal positive reception to NHL player participation in the Olympics, which has been happening since 1998, it now sounds like the league may be thinking of bailing on the 2018 games. Apparently they heard that it made their fans happy, and that’s against long-standing league policy.
Maybe it’s posturing. Maybe it’s just a bargaining chip. Or maybe this league really would walk away from something important to fans and players alike, just because a few owners find it inconvenient.
It’s the NHL. When it comes to fun, then need to have it all but forced on them. Speaking of which …
7) The saga of John Scott
Hockey fans don’t seem to like the NHL’s all-star game. It’s a dull corporate shillfest, none of the players want to be there, and nobody actually tries. So this year, fans decided to send the league a not-so-subtle sign of their disenchantment, in the form of John Scott.
Scott was a longtime enforcer who, to put it politely, isn’t really a player you’d call an all-star. But that was the whole point. Fans stuffed the ballot box for Scott in an attempt to embarrass the NHL, and it worked. He was voted into the starting lineup, and despite clumsy efforts by the league to talk him out of it, he ended up playing in the game.
And then something strange happened. Instead of being an embarrassment, Scott ended up being the game’s best story. He scored twice, won MVP honors, and was carried off the ice by his teammates. It was a made-for-Hollywood ending, one that might be made into a movie. And it happened despite the league’s best efforts to prevent it.
8) The Wideman hit
The ugliest moment of the year came in January, when Flames’ defenseman Dennis Wideman appeared to intentionally run over an official on his way to the bench. It was a strange play, one that seemed nearly incomprehensible on first viewing. The linesman, Don Henderson, suffered a potentially career-ending injury on the play, and the league’s officials demanded a long suspension.
Wideman later claimed to have been concussed by an earlier hit, but the NHL wasn’t buying it. The league suspended Wideman for 20 games; the sentence was later reduced to ten by an independent arbitrator after Wideman had already sat out 19.
It was a suitably strange ending to a bizarre incident, one that still seems hard to believe really happened.
9) We’re going to Vegas
The NHL’s plans to expand were among the worst-kept secrets in the sport, so it was nice to finally get things confirmed in 2016. The league will be the first major pro sport to head to Las Vegas, an interesting experiment that could pay off with a lucrative new market (or end up with yet another struggling southern franchise).
The team doesn’t have any players yet – that will come at next summer’s expansion draft. But in 2016, they got their official invitation to join the league, and later added a name and a logo during a disastrous unveiling in which they couldn’t get their video to work.
10) A look ahead to the 2020 lockout
Both MLB and the NBA agreed on new CBAs during 2016. Both leagues did so without missing a single day due to a work stoppage.
And then there’s the NHL. We all know where this is going.
The NHL’s current agreement won’t end until 2020 at the earliest, but the league is already laying the groundwork for their next lockout. A recent offer to the players to extend the agreement was quickly rejected, and rightly so. It was a transparent attempt to paint the players as bad guys in the next work stoppage. It will probably work.
In 2016, NHL owners want the current CBA to be extended. In 2020, they’ll swear it’s completely unworkable, and that they have no choice but to shut down the league for a half-season or more to get a better one. Hockey fans have been down this road three times during the Gary Bettman era, and they know the drill.
The end of the year is a time to look towards the future. For other sports, that means a time for optimism. For the NHL, it means planning ahead for the next chance to shut the whole thing down. Happy new year, hockey fans.
