Mailbag: Golden Knights' success impacting prospects
NHL.com's Dan Rosen answers weekly questions
Where does the Vegas Golden Knights' amazing season leave guys like Cody Glass, Nick Suzuki and Erik Brannstrom? Normally, an expansion team should be an ideal situation for a young player to crack the lineup early, but what about now with how successful they've been? -- @jdjensen
For this season, the Golden Knights' success leaves Glass (No. 6), Suzuki (No. 13) and Brannstrom (No. 15), Vegas' three first-round picks in the 2017 NHL Draft, in the same spots they would have been anyway. Glass, a center, is playing well for Portland in the Western Hockey League. He has 63 points (25 goals, 38 assists) in 42 games. Suzuki, also a center, is similarly playing well for Owen Sound in the Ontario Hockey League. He has 60 points (23 goals, 37 assists) in 40 games. Brannstrom, a defenseman, is playing in the Swedish Hockey League for HV71. It's status quo for them.
Beyond this season, though, Vegas' immediate success and the impacts being made by some previously unheralded players, including forwards William Karlsson and Alex Tuch, along with defenseman Colin Miller, will create the kind of competition that should only benefit prospects like Glass, Suzuki and Brannstrom. They're still considered big parts of Vegas' future core, but having to battle and earn their way into the NHL instead of being given a spot by default, perhaps before they're ready, should, in theory, make them better players down the road and make Vegas a better team when it eventually has to turn the page to its young core. It's certainly not the end of the world if Glass, Suzuki and Brannstrom aren't in the NHL next season as long as they're continuing to develop on the right path. Just because Vegas might have players ahead of them now doesn't mean they're not big pieces of general manager George McPhee's long-term vision for the team.
Where does John Klingberg rank on your Norris Trophy list? He leads the League's defensemen in points by a large margin (important in today's NHL). Similar [SAT] numbers to Victor Hedman and Drew Doughty. Less turnovers than John Carlson, Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang. One of the main reasons for the Dallas Stars' success this season. -- @JacobPullen
Everything you mention about Klingberg is true. They're impressive stats and they are telling of why Klingberg is deservingly going to play in the 2018 Honda NHL All-Star Game at Amalie Arena in Tampa on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVA Sports). They're telling of the big impact he's had on the Stars this season. But I still have Doughty, Hedman, St. Louis Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, Nashville Predators defenseman P.K. Subban and arguably Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara ahead of Klingberg on my Norris Trophy list right now because they all play regularly on the penalty kill too. In my opinion, to win the Norris Trophy, you should be a regular on the PK unless you are so extraordinary in other areas. Klingberg is not a regular on the PK, and he's not dominating the competition in another area. He is averaging 1:17 of shorthanded ice time per game, fifth among Stars defensemen who have played at least 25 games. His 48 points lead NHL defensemen, but Brent Burns of the San Jose Sharks, last season's Norris Trophy winner, is second with 39 in two fewer games. A nine-point lead is not blowing away the competition.
The lack of PK ice time didn't stop Karlsson from winning the Norris Trophy for the 2014-15 season, when he averaged 33 seconds while shorthanded. That could be a reason Klingberg is higher on other people's lists. But let's not forget that Karlsson was third in the NHL in ice time per game that season (27:15) and led NHL defensemen with 66 points, six more than Burns and Subban. Klingberg is 28th in the League in ice time per game (23:33).
Klingberg told me he thinks the lack of PK ice time is holding him back from being a true No. 1 defenseman.
"I don't play very big minutes on PK and I think that's what a No. 1 does," he said. "I think I can play [big minutes on the] PK, but I don't do it now. I think I'm almost there."
I like Klingberg's game. I like it a lot. I think he's going to be even better than he is now. His offensive numbers put him in the discussion and likely will garner him votes, but looking at the overall game, I have to give the edge now to Hedman, Doughty, Pietrangelo, Subban and Chara. And that is not in any way a knock on Klingberg.
Are the Colorado Avalanche for real? -- @lateinthegoldie
It depends on what you mean by saying "for real." Are they for real a Stanley Cup Playoff contender? Yes. Are they for real a Stanley Cup championship contender? I can't say that yet.
What the Avalanche have done this season is remarkable, especially considering the depths from which they came from after last season. However, they were basically a .500 team less than a month ago (17-16-3). It's too soon to say they're now a for real championship contender because of a 10-game winning streak, which ended Tuesday with a 4-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens.
I think back to the Philadelphia Flyers from last season. They were just under .500 through 22 games (9-10-3), but then they won 10 in a row from Nov. 27-Dec. 14. They were back in the playoff race. They were looking like a team that, frankly, was ahead of schedule. It didn't last. They went 20-23-7 in their last 50 games and missed the playoffs by seven points.
The Avalanche have played their way into the race and for that they deserve a ton of credit. Nathan MacKinnon is a Hart Trophy candidate, if not the favorite at this point. They've done it without defenseman Tyson Barrie, out with a hand injury, much in the same way the Flyers last season did it without Sean Couturier, who missed the winning streak with a lower-body injury. But the Avalanche must show sustainability now. That's the next challenge, the one the Flyers couldn't meet last season.
Do you think the New Jersey Devils can get this turned around and make the playoffs, or did they outplay themselves to start the season and the rebuild isn't quite as far along as everyone thought it was so quickly? -- @Chris_Amos54
I'm somewhere in the middle with the Devils. I think they overachieved early this season, setting themselves up for higher expectations, which they aren't meeting right now largely because they aren't as good of a team as their 21-9-5 record indicated entering the Christmas break. Their rookies were bound to hit a wall as the League began to figure them out and they began to figure out that the NHL is as hard as people say it is. Their defense was bound to regress because, frankly, it's still a work in progress even with Sami Vatanen. They were going to need goalie Cory Schneider to carry them through the adversity, but the 31-year-old has struggled, allowing 27 goals in a personal seven-game losing streak (0-5-2), and he sustained a lower-body injury in a 3-2 loss to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday. Little things that went right earlier in the season were bound to go against them because no matter their record, they were still a team learning how to win, and winning gets harder as the season gets shorter.
However, the Devils have had the look and feel of a team that wants it bad this season. The perfect example of that is all-star left wing Taylor Hall, who has missed the past two games with a hand injury. They have enough of a veteran presence with players who have gone on deep playoff runs before like Brian Boyle, Andy Greene, Ben Lovejoy, Travis Zajac, Schneider and now Vatanen. They're right in the mix. They gave themselves a cushion to slump. Now they must learn from it and get over it. I think they can do it.
Do you think it's fair to start comparing John Tavares, Josh Bailey and Mathew Barzal to Sidney Crosby, Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin? And if the New York Islanders do re-sign Bailey and Tavares, do you think we make the comparison in the future? -- @mikeybox
Oh boy. No. No. No. Don't do this. Please, don't do this. I understand the excitement that Barzal has brought to the Islanders, and Bailey deserves heaps of praise for the season he's having, but to even infer that with Tavares they are the equivalent or comparable to Crosby, Kessel and Malkin is wrong. You're talking about three players who have been among the best players in the world for a decade or longer. Crosby is the best player, period. Malkin is close behind him. Kessel is one of the best scorers. They've done it for a long time and they've won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships together. Crosby and Malkin also have the 2009 championship. Tavares is the real deal, but he's helped the Islanders win one playoff round. One. Bailey set an NHL career high in points last season (56). Malkin has had nine seasons (soon to be 10) with more than 56 points. Kessel has had seven, going on eight. Barzal is an exciting rookie, but he's just a rookie. Unless the Islanders re-sign Tavares and Bailey and along with Barzal they go on a crazy run together, we will never make this comparison.
Has the Metropolitan Division gone from great to meh? -- @li2njpete
Nah.
I like the Metropolitan Division a lot. The teams aren't all that different from one to eight. It makes for an intriguing race. You can pick two teams at random out of the division and you'll likely get an exciting, long and unpredictable playoff series.
That says a lot about the depth of the division, which isn't home to one of the two or three best teams in the NHL, but it's also not home to a bottom-feeder, a lottery hopeful, if you will.
The Central Division is stocked too. The difference between now and earlier in the season is I think the Central should be considered slightly better than the Metropolitan because of the rise of the Avalanche and the fact that the Minnesota Wild keep winning, especially at home, and still can't seem to climb because of the consistency we've seen from the Winnipeg Jets, Predators, Stars and, albeit to a lesser degree of late, the Blues. That the Chicago Blackhawks are last in the division is telling even if the Blackhawks haven't been the Blackhawks that we've come to know in the past 10 years.
Will you finally have the Golden Knights ranked No. 1 in your Super 16? -- @cvdks
Guess you'll have to tune into the NHL Network on Wednesday to find out if I'm leaning that way, and check back here on NHL.com on Thursday to find out for sure. I will say this: I won't have the Tampa Bay Lightning as the No. 1 team this week.
