Story by
The holiday freeze is here.
Teams are stuck for the next week or so with the rosters they have, and that's all well and good. Gives us time to reflect at a point in the season where the most interesting team is, still, somehow, the Philadelphia Flyers . Who, by the way, aren't even last in their division.
Advertisement
But rumors are swirling and it feels like, right after this roster freeze, something might happen. Probably it won't, but it might. And well, that's something, isn't it? Barely?
Let's have a quick chat:
Joanna asks: "Does it really make sense to bring up Carter Hart this season instead of letting him develop more in the AHL?"
Bringing up Carter Hart is an unorthodox move for the Philadelphia Flyers. (NBC)
The idea here, I guess, is that Hart wouldn't be able to develop in the NHL, practicing every day against top talent and facing the best teams in the world on a nightly basis. The idea probably also includes that there's less of a learning curve for a 20-year-old goaltender in the AHL.
Advertisement
Which, yeah that's true, but Hart struggled early in the AHL (call it growing pains) before turning into an elite goaltender at that level in relatively short order. It's only 17 games, but the sub-.900 first month and a half gave way to .930 goaltending pretty quick and it might not really benefit him to just keeping being really good against lesser talent as much as you might think.
Plus, you gotta keep two things in mind:
1) He'll probably get sent back down when everyone gets healthy, but in the meantime the team didn't really have any other options; he's famously their sixth goalie already this year.
2) You're not gonna break his brain forever if he comes into the NHL and is average or worse for a few weeks. He's 20 and the idea that goalies need more time to develop into the pro game isn't really borne out by aging curve stats; goaltenders peak at the same time, more or less, as skaters.
Advertisement
Then again, I said they should have gone with him on the roster to start the year so maybe I'm biased. I just don't think they have a better option.
Gabriel asks: "Who do you see going second and third in Calder voting this year?"
Seems like Elias Pettersson is gonna run away with it, obviously, so the logical answers here are Rasmus Dahlin , who looks pretty good for the Sabres, and Brady Tkachuk , who got a bit of shine on him while Pettersson was hurt and, to be fair, keeps producing pretty effectively.
Dark horse here: Miro Heiskanen , who also looks great but is older, less hyped, and on a worse team than Dahlin.
Advertisement
Dylan asks via email: "With the recent firing of Hakstol, is there an easily identifiable reason that college coaches do so poorly in the NHL?"
Yeah they got hired by bad teams. The Flyers, Stars, and Rangers aren't exactly the '77 Canadiens , y'know?
And more to the point, you're talking about Hakstol, a team with a goaltending situation so bad the average Yahoo Sports reader wouldn't have been an awful backup option for them, and who by the way got them into the playoffs twice in three seasons. Plus Dave Quinn and Jim Montgomery are a combined 67 games into their careers, on teams that are self-acknowledged rebuilders and very much on the verge of doing so, respectively.
On the whole I'd say "college coaches" have been fine in the past few years. Not great or anything, but "so poorly" is a crap evaluation.
Advertisement
R.S. asks: "Is Andre Burakovsky good?"
He's one of those guys that has the obvious toolbox but never really seems to put it together to the extent that people would like.
Eight points in 29 games so far this year is bad, for sure, and his underlyings aren't good either. But before this his career per-82 scoring pace is just about at 16-24-40 and I think you take that from just about anyone on your roster who has a $3-million AAV.
I guess I haven't paid close enough attention to him during Caps games to know if he's just getting tougher assignments this year (the time on ice and most common opponents don't indicate it, but y'know) or if he's playing hurt or what.
Advertisement
Point is if the Caps are putting him on the market, depending on the price, you'd probably be wise to take a flyer on him and see if this 23-year-old can start scoring 40 points again if you put him in a position to succeed. I'd bet on yes.
Trevor asks via email: "If you could ban five songs from ever being played again at any sporting event, what would they be?"
This comes up because Seattle indie station KEXP will be doing all the in-arena music for the new NHL team in a few years, which kicks ass and is cool.
And obviously most arena songs are not in the indie oeuvre, instead being loud and dumb and pandering to the exact kind of person who wants to sing along to a loud, dumb song. There are, however, some common arena songs that, in particular, need to be eradicated from the face of the earth. For me, they are as follows (no particular order):
Advertisement
Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" – maybe the worst song — definitely the worst famous song — by a really bad band.
Walk the Moon's "Shut Up and Dance" – utter unlistenable garbage, clearly written to be played at weddings of the most boring people imaginable.
Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" – a corny song about wanting to date a literal tween girl made worse by the "bum bum bum" part every moron does.
Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part II" – the guy is a literal convicted pedophile. I don't think we lose anything by canning this one.
Advertisement
Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out?" – the only person who should be allowed to perform this song is Mitt Romney.
I'm sure I'm missing a lot but that's a pretty good start.
Sam asks: "Do you think a Chicago team with both Toews and Kane can contend again?"
I mean if they can get all that other bad money off the books, sure. They're both still good players even if they cost too much and they're north of 30.
But I don't think they can compete with Seabrook and Anisimov and Murphy and, sadly, Crawford still on the payroll, just because of what a huge impediment those contracts are to giving Toews and Kane something legit to work with.
Advertisement
Maybe Stan Bowman (or his successor) can work some magic there, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Tom asks: "Does Michael Dal Colle's AHL production this year mean he might actually contribute as an NHL pro someday?"
Wow, yeah, Michael Dal Colle has 14 goals and nine assists in 23 AHL games this season, at 22 years old. And you're not gonna believe this, but he's shooting north of 26 percent.
He's tied for seventh in the AHL in goals but he's 113th in shots on net. So you tell me how likely he is to keep scoring like this.
Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports hockey columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.
All stats via Corsica unless noted otherwise. Some questions in the mailbag are edited for clarity or to remove swear words, which are illegal to use.
