SIMMONS SAYS: NHL’s Eastern Conference pretenders remain just that

This was going to be the year. That’s what everyone said.

This was going to be the year that the Ottawa Senators, the Buffalo Sabres, the Detroit Red Wings or maybe even the Montreal Canadiens would matter. One of them, anyhow.

But instead, life has returned to the hockey norm and the Senators look soft with troubles in goal. The coming Sabres lack identity and the Red Wings have a mixed bag of a roster that doesn’t seem to make any sense — and none of them look like anything that resembles a contender in the National Hockey League.

It’s slightly different with the Canadiens, who are at an earlier stage in their apparent rebuilding. They do not look like ready-for-prime-time players in any way. Their minus-20 goal differential heading into Saturday night’s game at Scotiabank Arena was tied for worst in the league with the expected-to-be-terrible San Jose Sharks.

As of Saturday afternoon, the Red Wings, Sabres and Senators ranked 11th, 12th and 14th, respectively in the Eastern Conference. None of them look like playoff teams. None of them look like budding contenders.

The bottom of the East is now stacked with teams hoping to go somewhere — Philadelphia, Montreal, Ottawa, Columbus, Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh. The key word is hope. Beyond that, these teams may not have much to offer.

Hockey can be a strange game sometimes. The Maple Leafs can’t do anything on the power play and then hockey’s greatest goal-scorer, Auston Matthews, gets hurt and suddenly the Leafs are scoring with the man advantage without him. Someone please explain … Not that there was any doubt that Mitch Marner will play for Team Canada in February, but it didn’t hurt that he was rather great on Friday night with Olympic general manager Doug Armstrong watching from up top … Marner will play for Canada. Matthews, if healthy, will play for Team USA. William Nylander will play for Sweden. It will be fun to watch the three best Maple Leafs forwards playing against each other …. GM Bill Guerin and coach Mike Sullivan will have fascinating decisions to make for Team USA. Who’s their first-line centre? Matthews or Jack Eichel? Or, when you have those two, does it matter? … This doesn’t happen often: The best player through the first month of the NHL season has been Kirill Kaprizov of the Minnesota Wild. Kaprizov was a fifth-round pick of the Minnesota Wild in the same draft that Connor McDavid went to Edmonton and Marner was taken by the Leafs. Kaprizov has 27 points in 14 games this early season. That’s an incredible and unsustainable 158-point pace. Kaprizov played for Russia in the 2018 non-NHL Olympics in South Korea and was just about the best player in the tournament. This is McDavid’s 10th NHL season. This is only Kaprizov’s fifth. McDavid is three months older than Kaprizov … Anthony Stolarz, who has played excellent in goal, made his 10th start for the Leafs on Friday night, which is something rather new for him. He didn’t make his 10th start for Florida last season until Dec. 30. In some of his NHL seasons, he didn’t make 10 starts, period … You don’t always notice John Tavares a lot until the puck is in the net. He may not be flashy, though he once was. He may not be a game changer any longer. But here he is, with 15 points in 15 games, the straight-line scorer Tavares has always been. Doing the Tavares thing at age 34.

Without any official announcement — that won’t come until June — I can project right now the Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2025: It will include Carey Price, Joe Thornton, Duncan Keith and Zdeno Chara. And who could argue with any of those selections? … And probably still on the outside, Alexander Mogilny (I wrote a long piece on this earlier in the week) and Curtis Joseph … There is a dud or two on almost every televised panel, especially those midweek on Rogers Sportsnet. Which begs the question: How is Jeremy Roenick not working on television for somebody, talking hockey? He was funny, charming and anecdotal on Friday, the day the Hall of Fame inductees were presented with their rings … Sports radio is at its absolute worst when it sounds like an inside joke that you’ve missed out on. A lot of buddy talk. A lot of nicknames. The fundamentals of radio missing. That’s The Fan Hockey Show. And really, I want it to be great … I’m repeating myself now, but if anyone put together a best of Rick Middleton highlight tape from the late 1970s and early ’80s, when they called him Nifty, he would get direct entry to the Hall of Fame. The eye test here is all you need. He had a remarkable six-year run in Boston, averaging 96 points per season. Somehow he’s been forgotten in time … Anyone who doesn’t think Shea Weber belongs in the Hall wasn’t paying attention. This is what happens when you play most of your career in Nashville. Weber was Canada’s best player, other than goalie Price, at the 2014 Olympics. He was one of Canada’s best players in the 2010 Games. Everybody talks Sidney Crosby’s golden goal from Vancouver, but if you add the numbers together from the past two best-on-best Olympic tournaments, Weber had five goals, same as Crosby, but he had two more assists, if you can believe that … Weber led all defencemen in goals scored — many with that booming snapshot — during his 16-year career … Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky are the two greatest hockey players I’ve ever seen. Should I think less of them as hockey players because their political choices may be different from mine? I don’t know Mario Lemieux’s political leanings, nor do I care. I do know I’ve never seen anyone do what he did with the puck. That won’t change no matter who he might have voted for in America.

Winter is coming. This is our baseball season. The off-season had better be a huge improvement over the summer season. We do expect this: Every free agent available will be linked to the Blue Jays. They make sure of that. The Jays will be in on Juan Soto, Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki and every other sexy name available in the market. And unlike the standings of the past season, they’ll say they were close to getting the great prizes available … We don’t know who they’ll end up with in this very important off-season. But I do know that I don’t trust Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins to get this right. And why should I? Trust based on what? The Jays need an outfielder who can hit, another bat for the middle of their lineup, a revamped bullpen, a second catcher, a third baseman or a first baseman, and a depth starting pitcher. It’s a rather tall order of needs in a division in which the Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles and Rays are all gearing up to compete in the AL East … You have to believe the prized free agent Sasaki will wind up with the World Series-champion Los Angeles Dodgers. That’s what’s going around baseball. Can you imagine the thrill of pitching in a rotation next season that includes Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto? Also imagine that kind of television interest in Japan for almost every night of the baseball season? Sasaki will have to spend a minute in the minors before being called up to whichever team signs him … Combined, the alleged NBA contenders, Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks are 3-14 to start the season while the Cleveland Cavaliers are 10-0 … All of my regular Raptors-watchers love what they’ve seen of this young team in the early season. Which is odd, considering they’re 2-7. Expectations aren’t what they used to be around here.

How bad a signing has Lorenzo Insigne turned out to be for Toronto FC? As my friend the retired sportswriter David Shoalts would say, he took the money and didn’t run. Now the club is hamstrung, salary-wise and trying to restructure without much flexibility. Insigne was paid more this season by TFC than the entire rosters were in Montreal or San Jose … Another TFC issue that will soon emerge: What to do with head coach John Herdman? He will be linked to the drone soccer scandal when all is complete. The expectation is that Herdman and TFC will have to part ways … This doesn’t usually happen in hockey: Veteran coach Kevin Dineen, who has been around the block a few times, was fired very early in the AHL season by the New Jersey Devils. Apparently, the players just stopped playing for Dineen, whose father was a coach as are his brothers. Oddly enough, Dineen’s younger brother, Jerry, happens to be the Devils’ video coach … Condolences to the hockey family of Craig, Christine and Dave Simpson on the passing of their wonderful mom, Marion … Chad Kelly was jumpy early on, effective as the Eastern final game went on, and then carried off on a stretcher. Take about running the gamut in this strange season for the controversial quarterback … Cale Makar is fourth in the NHL in scoring and fifth in being on the ice for even- strength goals against. This is not necessarily a Norris Trophy beginning for Makar … The biggest weakness on the Argos? Their secondary. Ottawa tore them apart last week and Montreal had open receivers against them all afternoon Saturday.

This column is being written today in a sad and emotional state. My friend and colleague Ted Wyman passed away Saturday morning, losing his fight with cancer. I had the good fortune of working with him at the Olympics in Rio and Sochi and being his roommate in South Korea for the Games of 2018. Those are not easy assignments. Teddy was the Mary Tyler Moore of the sportswriting world. He turned the world on with his smile. He took a nothing day and suddenly made it all seem worthwhile. I feel blessed and honoured to have called him a friend, to have worked with him on three Olympics and numerous Grey Cups. It’s amazing how many people across the country he touched. Rest easy, old pal. Wyman, the Winnipeg Sun sports writer and sports editor, was 58 years old … Suffering from panic attacks, anxiety and insomnia, I almost broke down at the beginning of the PyeongChang Olympics in Korea. It was a frightening time for me. I was ready to leave three days in. Teddy helped me stay. He calmed me down. He did what good friends do. He talked me off the proverbial ledge. I will forever be grateful for that and for his caring friendship … One of the things that cost Randy Ambrosie his job as commissioner of the Canadian Football League was the stagnancy of franchise value. While the major leagues have seen an explosion in franchise value in recent years, so have lesser leagues such as the WNBA and MLS. It didn’t happen in any way for the CFL, where at least half the teams have no real dollar value … My guess is the only way Erik Karlsson will play for Sweden at the 4 Nations Face-off tournament is if management values the fact that he happens to be a right-handed shot. The Swedes have five excellent left-shot defencemen in Victor Hedman, Gustav Forsling, Mattias Ekholm, Hampus Lindholm and Rasmus Dahlin. They have only Rasmus Andersson along with Karlsson on the right side … There is no one person to blame for the rather sad state of the Nashville Predators, says David Poile, the original general manager. “This is a total team effort,” said the Hall of Famer. “Right up and down the lineup. Everybody’s not doing what they’re supposed to do. It’s terrible,” … Happy birthday to Guerin (54), Andre De Grasse (30), Ken Holland (69), Shawn Green (52), Mike McCarthy (61), Todd Gill (59), Bob Neely (71), Cowboy Bob Orton (74), Kendrick Perkins (40) and Isaac Bruce (52) … And hey, whatever became of Ben Cahoon?

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