
Let’s Keep This Ball Rolling
Like it or lump it, this is the final week for hockey in the 2024-25 season.
Folks enjoy debating the merits (or lack thereof) of what generally is an exceptionally long stretch of season. This year we kicked things off, in of all places, Prague, way back on Oct. 4th as the Buffalo Sabres faced the New Jersey Devils.
More than eight months later, we approach the finish line.
This is indeed a rare year for this corner of your page. We here won’t be moaning and groaning about how desperately long the NHL season can be, rather, we’ll be missing the play, skill, gamesmanship and hate.
Especially in these playoffs.
Since Game 1 of the final, hockey followers have been proclaiming this to be one of the all-time whiz bangers of conclusions.
They are not wrong.
Edmonton and Florida have delivered; delivered on a colossal scale.
This is, I guess, what happens when you bring arguably the two best players in the world up against, arguably, the best all-around and coached team in said world.
Wonderfully engaging stuff. Intense from the get-go. Storylines abounding.
How this one wraps up is almost inconsequential to the purists. In the end, hockey and its fans are the winners.
We’ll be sad to see you go.
SO, WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
Good question.
It’s funny how the emotional pendulum has swung in this set-to. The cavalcade of emotions after Florida’s Game 3 win – a one-sided 6-1 blow out – was this-one-was-done. As in – the Oilers are turning into an easy out after that manhandling by the Panthers.
Pack your bags Edmonton, your headed for the dustbin?
Not so fast.
That gutsy comeback in Game 4, highlighted by a Leon Draisaitl overtime goal (who else?) set minds churning quickly in the opposite direction.
The Oil was now in charge.
A dominating win in Game 5 and Edmonton was closing in on its first Stanley Cup since 1990 (. . . That’s a whopping 35 years ago, bean-counters).
Florida had other ideas and coasted in a dominant 5-2 victory to send the series back to Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise. And with that, the shoe slips onto the other foot and the betting line flops back heavily to the Panthers for Game 6.
If you suffer from high anxiety or buy into trends, this isn’t the series for you.
So, who’s to say or what’s to say about the pending Game 6 (Tuesday night, 8 pm ET)?
We’ll step out onto a limb – which we haven’t done once in this finale – and say the series heads back to Edmonton for Game 7 on Friday night.
It’s pretty well the only way to do this playoff season justice.
WHO STARTS IN GAME 6?
Another brilliant question?
Not really, because it might not make any sort of difference if the Oilers don’t step up and play with more energy and drive as a whole.
The goaltending question’s become something of a story for the Oilers, and not just this season. It’s been a few years since Dwayne Roloson carried the mail for Chris Pronger, Ales Hemsky and Shawn Horcoff. That was in 2006, the last time Edmonton made the final (losing to Carolina). Roloson was the story then.
Nowadays?
Well, the organization latched its leash to the backside of Jack Campbell most recently . . . which turned into a nightmare. The summer of 2022 saw the signing of Campbell who ended up playing one full and dreadful season with the Oilers before being shipped to the AHL.
Stuart Skinner is/was/has been the heir apparent. He’s delivered and not delivered; depends on the day of the week, seemingly.
Calvin Pickard is your other choice selection.
If goaltending becomes the story of the final game (or games), it’s likely not going to be kind to the Canadian contingent. Likely it’ll be down at the other end, via Sergei Bobrovsky, if you’re searching for roses.
MITCH LEAVES WITH A BIG SCREW-YOU TO BUDS
As indicated by many, once the season ended for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Mitch Marner has played his final game for the Southern Ontario blue-and-white.
He’s done.
And he leaves with a major-league kiss-off to the Leaf organization. Talking with a former league executive just after the trade deadline, I received this text from the man: “Marner with a big F-U to Toronto.”
Then the story comes out (eventually).
Marner was asked about lifting his no-trade deal back in March so the Leafs could move on and send him to Carolina for Mikko Rantanen.
Marner, embittered (no doubt) said no.
N-O.
The Leafs then had him on board whether they liked it or not for another post-season disappointment.
The ironic part of all this is word comes out – now – that Carolina is prepping for July 1st and free agency with a seven-year contract offer worth more than $14 million US per year for the 29-year-old.
If Marner follows through with ink to paper, my connection was bang-on.
Reportedly, the Leafs have been making overtures to Marner and his people about negotiating a new deal this off-season. That phone – again, reportedly – hasn’t been picked up on the Marner end.
It’s not like you couldn’t see this coming. Marner steered away from that hard-core Toronto media in his final couple of years there. You could see it in his face – he felt he was a target of the large contingent.
Unfair?
Unlikely. Marner did not produce when it mattered. Highly skilled, no question, but highly susceptible to being physically removed from the game when the game got tough.
He was a victim, in his eyes.
That same heat went straight at Auston Matthews as well. But he’s a much-different kind of cat. It just bounces off.
So then, what was Marner’s reasoning for remaining a Leaf when the door swung open for him to go to a top competitor?
The only explanation was evident – the Leafs’ points-leader this past season wanted his F-U to be heard loudly, and clearly.
thegrossgame@yahoo.com
Photo: Courtesy Imagn Images