ScorchStack #105b - Pacific Preview
That's right, this is the only SUPER PAC the NHL is involved in. This joke will definitely land for our 90% Canadian readership base.
Friends, loved ones, it is finally here: the 2022 NHL season. We are firmly entrenched in the “Era of the ScorchStack” and it is a blessed time for all.
Even though the NHL season technically began last week and then we still had some preseason games, they really mean it this time. And you might be asking yourself: who are the Flames playing this season? Well, I mean, every team. All other 31 of them. But only seven are fortunate enough to be in the Pacific Division and have what is agreed upon to be the easiest division, but did they get better for this season?
As you will soon learn: not really for most of them. But content never stops.
The Anaheim Ducks
by Mike (@mikeFAIL)
What’s new with these guys?
For starters that bald-headed fucko Ryan Getzlaf is gone. Bald-on-bald hating is usually prohibited among our hairless community, but I’ve never been a Getzlaf respecter; I’ve been a consummate Getzlaf Hater.
Pat Verbeek became the general manager and started sending out everyone from the most recent core with the exception of John Gibson, Cam Fowler, and Jakob Silfverberg. Their whole schtick is built around Trevor Zegras as a marketable SoCal young team on the rise.
This summer they signed Ryan Strome (remember him? He got traded for Jordan Eberle and the five loonies stuck between his two front teeth), Frank Vatrano (Italian), and Dmitry Kulikov (Not Italian), and Glenn Gawdin (former Flame; proto-Ruzicka in that the potential “ceiling” was not even close to true).
Oh and that Mason McTavish kid made the team. Good for you, kid. You won’t be overhyped at all by anyone ever.
What's the same?
I legitimately don’t know. I guess John Gibson, Trevor Zegras, and Cam Fowler? I often forget about this team not because of the Flames’ losing streak in Anaheim, but because they aren’t memorable. Sort of like the Winnipeg Jets but California is nice and the province of Manitoba should be paved over.
Oh, and Adam Henrique is making $5.825M until the end of next season. That’s a lot of money for a guy who no one ever thinks of, ever.
Some very good reasons to hate them
If you find yourself with unfounded and questionable rage for no reason then look no further than the Anaheim Ducks as a useful punching bag. You can hate them for no reason and no one will even care because their arena smells like an open septic tank.
I’ve been there once and the entire arena gave off a “you could use this as a funeral home” vibe.
Their fans all look like they came from a Pennywise concert and were sighted kissing their cousins at the aforementioned concert. I have nothing but contempt for that market on a scale that rivals my disdain for Oilers fans. It’s worth noting if you call them the Los Angeles Ducks, some of their fans will try to fight you like they did with me when I visited Anaheim.
One reason to begrudgingly like them
Paul Kariya left Anaheim decades ago. There is zero reason to even like this franchise.
Final prediction
I don’t know? They’re better than Arizona and San Jose but they’re not better than Los Angeles (Kings). They’re exactly where I want them to be though: hopelessly on the outside looking in. Eat shit Anaheim.
The Edmonton Oilers
by Floob (@itlooksreal)
What’s new with these guys?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they signed Jack Campbell in free agency, that’s not what everyone came here to see. You’re here, of course, to read about Oilers+:
If you’ve ever thought “Yeah, I like the Edmonton Oilers, but I would really love it if they had a subscription streaming service,” well, has Daryl Katz got an offer for you (maybe the first one from him that does not need to be settled in a court of law)
Oilers+ provides diehard fans with footage of their favourite Edmonton Oilers playing golf, detailed interviews with fan favourites from the past like some guy named Jason Smith or whatever, some kind of show about the Edmonton Oil Kings, and original programming that features a lot of Connor McDavid wowing you with his trademark charm.
What could be more quintessentially Edmonton Oilers? Not much! They keep true to the brand though by making sure the promo code for three months free (and $20 at Pizza 73!!!) does not work. Perfect.
What’s the same?
Pretty much all the same players except for Campbell in over our all-time favourite goalie Mike Smith. Same coaches. Same management. Same media. Same Jesse Puljujärvi trade drama. Same The Ice District. Same Boston Pizza in The Ice District. Same sex predators (almost added a new one!)
Yes, the Oilers from 2021-22 will look remarkably the same this time around, which is fine. They’ll be pretty successful on the ice, unfortunately, but probably nowhere near as good as they should be, and we can count on at least one hilariously stupid meltdown over the course of the season. They always keep it interesting over there. I’ll bet at least one of their players runs somebody over with a car within the next 10 months.
Some very good reasons to hate them:
Oh man.
I’m trying to put my own Flames fandom aside when I say this, because it needs to be said from a perspective outside of sports rivalries: The Evander Kane shit is infuriating.
It’s not funny that they brought Kane back. It’s not funny that they signed him to an expensive long-term contract. It’s not funny that this is considered management “turning over every stone” to make the team better. This is an affront to survivors of domestic violence. Kane has done nothing at all to atone for the litany of crimes that have been under our nose this entire time, and seems to show no remorse at all.
At least the PR nightmare of the Jake Virtanen situation made the Oilers look very, very stupid, but that wasn’t funny either. It should have never gotten that far.
As far as everything else, well, it’s Edmonton, this is well-tread territory. The things I’m most upset about are Mike Smith and Zack Kassian being gone. They took away my favourite players. Now who am I going to gawk at?
Oh, one final note: prepare for an Oilers fan to come out of the ether at least once this season and call you a slur. Doesn’t matter who you are, it’s going to happen, it’s like tradition or something.
One reason to begrudgingly like them:
Nothing begrudging about this: the entire city melts down when the Oilers are eliminated from the playoffs, and it’s my favourite day every year. I never know what day it is, and I never entirely know the form it’s going to take, but it’s going to happen, and everyone, EVERYONE from Connor McDavid to some guy named @oilshitz99 on twitter is going to take it personally.
The nice thing now with the way the entire world is, and the Oilers fanbase in general, I think you’re going to see elimination day dovetail seamlessly into some Freedom Convoy discourse, and I’m very excited to see the mechanism that puts that in place.
Final prediction:
The Oilers will probably win the Pacific, lose in the second round of the playoffs, and trade Jesse Puljujärvi for Milan Lucic. Sorry, that went from a prediction to a manifestation.
The Los Angeles Kings
by Ramz (@ramzreboot)
What’s new with these guys?
I literally have no fucking idea. I am also currently in talks with my lawyers about suing Scorchstack for making me find things out about the LA Kings.
They got Kevin Fiala. Is he good? Let’s check in with the Evolving Wild twins on this.
Anyways, that’s literally all that’s different. I’m looking at their transactions right now. They made a couple of draft pick trades, not sure if it was good for them or not. I do not care enough to look into it.
What’s the same?
Adrian Kempe is still there and signed a four-year extension. Not sure why he would do that. They re-signed a bunch of guys to one or two-year deals, I’m not a statistician or that smart so I’m not sure if that’s a good move or not. I don’t see it being great.
Is Dustin Brown still playing? Hahaha they made a statue of him.
Some very good reasons to hate them:
1: Drew Doughty
2: Drew Doughty
3: Drew Doughty
4: Matthew Tkachuk is no longer on the Flames, so we have nobody to piss off Drew Doughty :(
One reason to begrudgingly like them:
Quinton Byfield. Also this Tweet that we have one more year to use against them:
Final prediction:
I know he’s no longer on the Flames, but the Kings will have another season of Drew Doughty shidding and crying and puking over the sight of Matthew Tkachuk, and for that, I will still root for Tkachuk. I think they’ll finish fourth in the Pacific and miss playoffs because the Pacific is ass every year and Central will make up the two wild card spots.
The San Jose Sharks
by special guest and San Jose correspondent NathanCSN (@nathanCSN)
First off I gotta mention what an honor (honour for my friends up north) it is to guest star write for Scorchstack. When Mr. Scorch calls you and says "I need you to write a season preview for a team that's already 0-2-0, hasn't been interesting since 2019, and probably won't be interesting again for a long time" you don't say no. You count your blessings and get to work.
The 2022-2023 San Jose Sharks are worth talking about in the sense that if you saw a school bus on fire, you'd want to talk about it! Surely there must be some story behind what happened. Who's gonna clean up the mess? Is the bus fixable? Great conversation starter.
What's new with these guys?
Okay maybe I'm exaggerating. It's not all bad there are some new exciting things:
Tomas Hertl signed an 8 year extension and has newfound dad strength.
26 year old Timo Meier is in a contract year after putting up career highs of 35 goals and 41 assists last season and is looking to build off of that.
Erik Karlsson's groin is feeling good and he's starting the season healthy. He's 32 now and is poised to have his first injury free season in his fifth year with the Sharks? We'll see!
Brent Burns and his massive contract are gone. Good news since the Sharks are trying to get younger and the declining unicorn 37 year old defenseman was signed until the end of 2025.
James Reimer and Kaapo Kahkonen are a solid goaltender tandem if they can keep it up. Reimer's a potential trading piece for the Sharks, rare for them, but he seems content in San Jose.
Some new folks are in charge between GM Mike Grier and head coach David Quinn. Is this the beginning of a new era? So far both those guys are dealing with the carcass of retired GM Doug Wilson's contracts, it remains to be seen if they turn things around because they have some fixing to do first.
If you take a look at the Sharks CapFriendly page the contract situation has been upgraded from "who let this embarrassing nightmare happen" to "this is bad but not broken." The Sharks got out of bad contracts by trade (Brent Burns), buyout (Martin Jones), and dishonorable contract termination (Evander Kane). Surrounding the Hertl/Meier/Karlsson core with young talent and free agents in the near future doesn't seem impossible now.
So that's what Sharks fans have to look forward to: A couple of very good players and the hope that things might get better. Not will get better. Might.
Another new change with the Sharks is their depth which I would describe as "not exciting" and "disappointing” because I have to learn the names of more mediocre athletes who would be completely unrecognizable to me on the street unless they were wearing their jerseys. Last season the Shark's depth was young but not necessarily in a good way. The front office boasted about having the 7th youngest roster in the league and playing a franchise record 18 rookies throughout the season. Given that they finished 32-37-13, it was quite clear most of the rookies lacked NHL talent and were called upon simply to fill ice time. Only 1 of those rookies, Jonah Gadjovich, was in last week's opening night lineup in Prague.
So who replaced those rookies? A bunch of new people that are a favorite of NHL coaches: low ceiling depth players that can take ice time away from prospects with potential. Oskar Lindblom, Luke Kunin, Steven Lorentz, Nico Sturm, Evgeny Svechnikov, Scott Harrington, and Markus Nutivaara are the new faces in town. These are names from around the league you might recognize and yes they're people with NHL experience but probably not part of the Sharks' future. So in other words, they're good for tanking. That's probably the key thing for this upcoming season.
What's the same?
The Sharks are continuing their MO (modus operandi for my uneducated friends) from the past three seasons: pray for aging veteran contracts to expire faster, hope prospects develop, and tank. These tasks are going okay. We're still years away from big, tough-to-move contracts expiring (Couture, Vlasic, Karlsson) and it looks like the prized prospects (William Eklund, Thomas Bordeleau, Ryan Merkley, etc.) won't be getting much NHL experience this season. This appears to be the trajectory for another year or two if they're lucky. Or maybe four or five if they're unlucky. Sharks fans don't have high hopes for this season other than getting the lottery pickto get [insert name of some dumbass born in 2005 whose name I don't know and refuse to learn].
Some very good reasons to hate them
Hmmm let me think. Wouldn't it be so crazy if someone hated the Sharks because they spent years following them watching them rack up the third most NHL playoff wins since 2000 perennially competing for the Stanley Cup but never getting there and turning into an awful team in the slowest moving trainwreck possible going from having childhood heroes to a roster full of terrible personalities that are so boring to watch on the ice with a stagnant Bob Boughner offense combined with talentless players with no future that aren't fun to follow at all but it's the only thing you know so not keeping up with them would be uncharted territory you don't have the capacity to explore so you follow the team anyway in the only possible manner that's entertaining which is absolutely hating everything they do and convincing yourself that it's all ironic when it's obviously not because you think about them all the time to distract you from the horrors of doing literally anything else with your time. Is that a good reason to hate them? Wouldn't personally know.
Other possibilities might be that you're some guy Logan Couture tweeted about before.
Or maybe you're a Flames fan still mad about the 2008 Flames-Sharks Western Conference Quarterfinal when the now disgraced Jeremy Roenick led the Sharks to a Game 7 victory.
Or maybe there's more bad blood between the team's that you remember from the '90s or '00s that I clearly don't know about because I'm so young (im gen Z, cd means cool dude to me).
One reason to begrudgingly like them
They're just a little guy! How can you hate a little guy! They're so nonthreatening right now and you barely know who they are! Isn't it endearing they're trying their best and it's embarrassing?
But actually the Timo Meier-Tomas Hertl duo is extremely fun to watch with their size and skill. Erik Karlsson can still send amazing passes that his less gifted teammates will bury into the glove of the opposing goaltender. If the aforementioned young talented prospects (Eklund, Bordeleau, Merkley, etc.) get significant NHL garbage time minutes this season expect random highlight reel goals. That's fun to watch!
Final prediction
Look, the past three seasons in San Jose have been tough but this is the NHL where strange things happen. There's always potential of a team quickly turning things around if the stars align and everything goes right. The impact players might have career years, the 32+ year olds might remain healthy and rediscover their form, the young prospects might get their chance and nail it, and for once the streaking hot goaltender peaking at the right time happens for my team. The playoffs are not impossible for this team. But yeah realistically we're looking at another year of the Sharks finishing second to last in the Pacific, eighth worst overall because this organization is bad at everything and that includes tanking.
The Seattle Kraken
by Konnie (@konnie49)
What’s new with these guys?
Certainly not as much as last year, since they were an expansion team, but Ron Francis continues to leave his mark adding complementary pieces to support a core that will take forever to actually materialize.
They added Andre Burakovsky, who after being a large part of the Avalanche in their run to a Stanley Cup victory, gets a nice 5-year deal that will see him make $5.5 million annually. He comes into a Seattle lineup that desperately needs some more offence, so it will not be surprising to see him continue him put up numbers like he did last year when he had a career year with 22 goals and 39 assists, given that he will have every opportunity to be an offensive driver. The same deal goes for the trade that brought in Oliver Bjorkstrand from Columbus as a cap casualty which was low-key one of the finer acquisitions done by any team this summer.
Seattle also brought in Justin Schultz, who is definitely now more of a “guy”. He is getting older, providing that “veteran presence” that teams will move heaven and earth to get, but other than that he isn’t likely going to drive much play if any.
The main additions to this team will come from the prospect vault. Matthew Beniers and Shane Wright are both highly touted centres who were both drafted in the Top 5 of their respective drafts and are expected to lead the future of this team. Beniers has the highest expectations for this season, especially after a very successful stint at the end of the season last year have people in Seattle excited for a player who looks like the favourite for the Calder. Look for him to establish himself as the Kraken’s top centre as early as this year.
Wright in his own right (hah) has a bunch of excitement surrounding him, though there is a little bit more patience with him compared to Beniers. This is a kid who is still just 18 years old and missed an entire year of development because of COVID in 2021, so there is no expectation for him to come flying out the gates. Still, look to see Wright play through any struggles he faces this year and develop into becoming the exceptional centre he is expected to become. Just will take a bit longer with him.
Oh, and they brought in Martin Jones to solidify the goaltending. lol.
What's the same?
As said above, the Kraken haven’t made too many changes over the summer, ever since they decided to slowly accumulate assets and players, at least compared to the other recent expansion team. They still have their Jared McCanns, their Vince Dunns, and such. Plus this year, they hopefully will get a full year of Brandon Tanev who got injured early last year and was out for the rest of it. Then again, if you are noticing Brandon Tanev that often, it means the rest of the team is not doing much.
Really the only notable omissions from last year’s team is the absence of Mark Giordano, who they shipped out to suffer a fate worse than death which is playing on the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Calle Järnkrok who they sent out to play for a bit for Calgary before he too decided to damn his fate and sign with the Leafs in the offseason.
Hell, they even kept their goaltending mostly intact too. The only reason Jones is here is that Chris Driedger got injured during the World Championships and is out for six months.
Given how not good they were last year, and how terrible their goaltending was, you’d think that the Kraken would have done more in the off-season but this is a Ron Francis GM’d team so…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Some very good reasons to hate them
If you really hate boring, uninteresting teams that have absolutely brutal goaltending, look no further. Neither goalie for the Kraken could stop a beach ball to save their lives. Philipp Grubauer started 55 games for this team and put up a truly abysmal .889 sv% and Driedger backed him up with another 27 games and an .899 sv%. Good lord.
Add that to the fact, they could not score. They were fourth worst in the entire league for goals for and not a single guy hit 30 goals for them last year. Hell, only three guys cleared 20 and only one guy cleared 25. Unless Matthew Beniers goes completely crazy for them, that’s likely gonna be the same story for them this year.
That’s all I really got for reasons to hate them. There is really nothing inherently hated about this squad. They just have this little brother energy that all you can really say is “you will get there one day little guy!” and be on your way. I guess these bastards stole Mark Giordano from the Flames but it didn’t even hurt them last year so it is moot. How dare they send him to Toronto.
One reason to begrudgingly like them
It’s not even that begrudgingly but they are just an expansion team going into their 2nd year who hasn’t built up any real hatred from anyone just yet. How can you have a team that has been relevant yet?
Final prediction
This year is probably going to be more of the same for them really. They are still quite boring apart from Beniers. Unless he is completely bananas this season, don’t expect them to be anything more than 23rd in the league, right at the bottom with San Jose.
The Vancouver Canucks
by Nathan (@hanoten)
What’s new with these guys?
Honestly, not much. It’s not often that a team can miss the playoffs and securely double down on much of the same and hope for a better roster, but Vancouver can make that claim.
Their big splashes in free agency were Andrei Kuzmenko, KHL late-bloomer turned good player, Ilya Mikheyev and Curtis Lazar. Yes, that Curtis Lazar. Unless the restaurants in Rogers Arena explode and there are a ton of hamburgers on the ice and preventing the Zamboni from cleaning the surface and someone needs to get rid of those hamburgers in a way that doesn’t waste all that food…….Curtis Lazar is doing nothing for you. Big splash indeed.
Sure, Mikheyev scored 20 goals last year, but that is because his shooting percentage doubled in a contract year, something that he can definitely replicate in Vancouver. They do this time and time again so it feels unfair to include this in the What’s New section. Also he’ll start the season on the IR thanks to a Flames prospect whose name I have already forgotten so that’ll take some time to bounce back from.
That being said, it is a full season of Bruce Boudreau despite the drama the team apparently has with committing to their very good coach. That’s new, and the young guys are a little older.
They also had a little trade last week that helped them achieve the first-ever perfect score on LTIR use so congrats to them I guess. #BecauseItsTheCap
What’s the same?
The everything else. J.T. Miller was extended, Brock Boeser is still here, that entire defence corps is the same in that Quinn Hughes is good and the rest of them are still getting paid.
However, if I had a coach like Bruce Boudreau and a goalie like Thatcher Demko, I would also be convinced I could make the playoffs alone on that. Hell, Paul Maurice did it for years because of mostly Connor Hellebuyck, and Paul Maurice sucks!
Some very good reasons to hate them:
Vancouver sucks to live in but they are so unjustifiably smug about the city so that makes it easy to hate anything associated with them. The fans have historically been shit, and I don’t even mean the 2011 riots. The Green Men bit needed to die way sooner than it actually did, and I’ll never forget that Vancouver fans were the ones to shine laser lights in the eyes of Miikka Kiprusoff for which I’ll never forget or forgive.
Fans frequently position themselves as the fanbase that has suffered the most and woe is me and wahhh wahhh wahhh get good or shut up.
Speaking of fans, some of them keep trying to make “Margaret Thatcher Demko” a thing which is awful for a number of reasons. Maggie Thatch was horrendous by herself, but also it led to the creation of this monstrosity.
Also, they got rid of Jim Benning which is very sad for hockey fans everywhere.
One reason to begrudgingly like them:
I have many dear friends who for some reason like the Canucks so Stockholm Syndrome is clearly a thing that this team is good at. But if you want a reason to like them without getting brain worms, I think it’s great that they drafted a second Elias Pettersson this summer. No notes on that move.
Okay fine, I’ll give an actual roster reason. Thatcher Demko used to dance between whistles and keep himself in a good headspace. The NHL needs more of that, so of course, Patrick Roy yelled at him over it so hard he stopped. Bring back the Dancing Demko and it’ll be very easy to get on board.
Final prediction:
To be honest, I think the Canucks have just enough pieces to sneak into the playoffs, which is great cause they’ll make some incredibly dumb trade deadline moves which is a treat. Out in Round One.
The Vegas Golden Knights
by Tibs (@decayinwtheboys)
What’s new with these guys?
They’re losers, and by becoming that, they’re fully an NHL franchise now. If acquiring mega-loser Jack Eichel wasn’t evidence enough, the Knights are now on the path to falling short of expectations in maddening fashion for the next few seasons. This is the true “welcome to the NHL” moment, now you get to argue with some guy about whether the 14th overall pick is worth trading away.
Otherwise, they had their first quiet NHL offseason ever. Evgenii Dadonov was granted his wish to leave on his terms, being sent to the Montreal Canadiens for Shea Weber (arrived in Vegas in a body bag). They cap dumped another useful player in Max Pacioretty for literally nothing, the second season in a row they’ve done that. Phil Kessel was their marquee signing.
Remember Spencer Foo? The Gulutzan-era Flames prospect who was going to be the next best thing despite being 24 and too shitty to crack the roster of a team whose best RW at the time was Troy Brouwer? They gave him an NHL contact. That’s how it’s going in Nevada.
What’s the same?
As already stated, nothing of major significance has changed. The Knights are still powered by superstars: Jack Eichel, Alex Pietroangelo, the shitty Stone brother, Jonathan Marchessault, all the stars are here. The bottom half of their roster, as usual, is filled with future Spengler Cup players, and that is the nicest thing we will say about the Golden Knights.
Some very good reasons to hate them:
Have you seen their tweets?
Let’s just get this out of the way: all NHL social media is cringe. They all try to act like they’re in the room with you, just one of your pals goofin’ around and trying to enjoy the game with their buds. In reality, they are your worst friend, spouting dumb catchphrases and outdated cultural references to forced but polite laughter, someone who you wish would just shut up.
Vegas social media is the worst version of that, and comes with a side helping of multiple personality disorder. Excessive sadposting, on the verge of mental breakdown when the team loses? Yup. Trying to tweet like a teenager but coming off like the famous Steve Buscemi meme every time? Yessir. Relatable tweets that would fail whatever that Blade Runner test is called? Of course. Overuse of AAVE that a white person wouldn’t dare say out loud in real life? Buddy. I just looked at their profile and they say in the bio that they’re the “big sib” of their AHL team. Does anyone know the Hague’s email address?
If the Vegas Golden Knights stayed offline, they would be a pleasant opponent like the Minnesota Wild or the Pittsburgh Penguins. They have dug their own grave on this one.
Outside of twitter dot com, the Golden Knights are on the downswing after years of boasting that it would never happen to them. No longer will they be in the running for every other player on the market (note: much different than ol’ Bradley kicking tires), they don’t have the assets or the cap space. They tried running a team like an EA NHL franchise (and to their credit: pretty unique) and now they’ve finally arrived at a hell of their own choosing, one that they can’t trade their way out of. They get no sympathy, as evidenced by the entire NHL was rooting for them to get eliminated.
One reason to begrudgingly like them:
There will be no team more fascinating to watch fall apart. What will it be this time? That’s the fun guessing game. Could be their goaltending, could be another injury crisis, could just be Jack Eichel’s loser aura stinking up the entire room. Whatever it is, you will be entranced by whatever’s going on in the desert this season. It’s irresistible.
Final prediction:
Fifth in the division, Jack Eichel wants out by March.