The 2017 World Juniors are underway and so far the biggest surprise has been Team Finland’s showing. After winning the gold medal in two of the last three years, they’ve lost their first two games against the Czech Republic and Denmark.
To some extent Finland is a victim of their own success as the nation’s top players from 2016, Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujarvi, and Sebastian Aho are all good enough that they couldn’t join Finland this year due to their NHL commitments. Even with that in mind though, this is still a disappointing showing for Finland. All hope isn’t lost, but they are in a sizeable hole going into their last two games against Sweden and Switzerland.
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Aside from that, it will be interesting to see which players rise to the challenge going forward. There’s also been a good history of the tournament MVP going on to have a strong NHL career. Starting with 2014 and working our way back, the MVP winners have been Filip Forsberg, John Gibson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Brayden Schenn, Jordan Eberle, John Tavares, Steve Mason, Carey Price, and Evgeni Malkin.
Shifting our focus back to the NHL, Sidney Crosby has closed the gap on Connor McDavid in the scoring race at 42 points with Malkin being just a hair behind. Of course among them Crosby has the best points per games rate given that he missed the start of the season. Crosby has also been finding the back of the net at a ridiculous pace as he now has 26 markers while no other player has reached the 20-goal milestone.
Already Crosby is just 10 goals shy of his 2015-16 mark, which he accumulated over 80 games. Crosby also has a 24.3 shooting percentage though, which seems unsustainable. Not that many are expecting to see him maintain a pace that would leave him with 64 goals in 76 contests anyways. Still, at this point it seems plausible that he’ll at least reach the 50-goal mark for the second time in his career, so long as he stays healthy. He’s also just 20 points shy of 1,000, which is something he should have no problem accomplishing this season.
He’ll be one of a couple players that should surpass that mark in the not too distant future as Henrik Sedin and Alex Ovechkin are just seven and eight points shy of it respectively. Daniel Sedin also might get there by the end of the season as he’s 36 points shy and while it’s a long shot, it’s worth noting that Shane Doan is only 45 points behind.
So it’s likely we’ll see at least three more entries to the 1,000-point club in 2016-17 and possibly a fourth or fifth, which makes this a very special season from that regard. Just 83 players have ever reached that milestone, but obviously that’s not going to be the case for much longer.
Speaking of major milestones, Jaromir Jagr surpassed Mark Messier for sole possession of second place on the points list last Thursday. Which begs the question: What’s left for Jagr as far as obtainable accomplishments go? Jagr might become just the second player ever to reach the 2,000-point mark if he can continue to defy the aging process for long enough, but at 1,889 points currently, he’s still not going to come close to reaching Wayne Gretzky‘s 2,857.
Jagr still has an outside chance of moving up further on the all-time goals list though. He has 755 right now, which is 46 behind Gordie Howe. He also has some climbing to do on the all-time assists list. He’s at 1,134, which is good for sixth place. Paul Coffey sits at 1,135, Ray Bourque has 1,169, and Mark Messier has 1,193. Finally, one category where he might end up as the NHL’s top player on is the games played list. Jagr is at 1,665 games played, which leaves him in fourth place, but Gordie Howe‘s first place mark is just 102 games away. So if Jagr stays healthy and remains in the league for at least one season beyond this one, then he could claim that record.
Moving past Jagr and onto a player nearly two decades younger, Artemi Panarin agreed to a two-year, $12 million deal with the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday. There’s a couple assumptions we can make based on this move. The first is that the summer of 2017 is going to be another one where Chicago will be looking to shed salary. Exactly who they move remains to be seen, but the ideal will probably be to trade Marcus Kruger (or hope that Las Vegas claims in him in the expansion draft) as he’s owed a little less than $3.1 million annually over the 2017-18 and 2018-19 campaigns.
Even if they accomplish that though, Chicago is going to be hurting for cap space. Currently they already have $66.6 million committed to 15 players for 2017-18, according to capfriendly. They got a strong core, but as usual they’re going to be counting on players making near the minimum to round out their roster.
The other thing we can glean from the signing is that Panarin probably won’t be a career Blackhawks player. That’s far from decided of course, but with Panarin locked up for only two seasons beyond this one, he’ll be eligible to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2019. As it is he’s averaging nearly a point-per-game, if we reach 2019 and he’s kept that up for four seasons, then he’ll be able to command a salary in the $8 or $9 million range. It’s unlikely that Chicago will be in a position to pay him that long-term in addition to Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews’ matching $10.5 million cap hits.
There are still scenarios where Panarin might stay. The cap might rise substantially between now and then for example. Perhaps Chicago eventually trades a player inked to a pricey long-term deal, like Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, or even Marian Hossa (while it seems unlikely that there would be takers given Hossa’s age, you never know what a small market club looking to make the floor might be interested in, especially given that Hossa’s actual salary will be just $1 million annually for the final four seasons). Or maybe Panarin doesn’t keep up this pace and by the time 2019 rolls around, he’s not in a position to demand that elite player salary. But as it is, Panarin looks like he’ll eventually be another player Chicago loses to its cap reality.
