Why the European Soccer Super League can never take place? Because only the best clubs are planned to participate, and it is clear that sooner or later there will be a wild stratification of ownership in the league of the top 16 clubs, after which the conditional Borussia at the Super League level will be no different from the Darmstadt level of the native Bundesliga.
Despite the declaration of equal opportunities, in almost all American leagues there are extras for whom little shines. For someone, geography, which is “fate”, hits, for someone, mediocre management. Despite the fact that the NHL has some of the strictest rules of the “big four” American leagues, there are also teams that are threatened with eternal mediocrity or have been in this mediocrity for a long time.
Let’s highlight some of them. The teams here differ from each other: for some boredom is the past, and now there is hope for the future, someone is trying to get out of this state right now, and for someone it is a promising tomorrow.
Calgary
In general, all Canadian teams could be included in this list: after 1993, the America’s Cup counter has been running without the slightest interruption. Almost everything hits Canadians: geography, weather, fan and press frenzy, mismanagement, high taxes. The case of the Flames, however, is special. They have never been in the shameful position of the “Edmonton” neighbors of the early 2010s, but they did not have a shadow of hope that appeared there now “Neither great, nor terrible” – the words of a character from “Chernobyl” describe the entire situation of the club in the last 30 years.
The Calgary never went into a complete rebuild. The early 2010s attempt was interrupted by Bob Hartley suddenly jumping over his head with the young team. However, even if the Enlightenment did, it would be hard to expect the success of their draft. Coaches and scouts change, but Calgary is a terrible recruiter, especially in the first round. Matthew Tkachuk has been the only success in all these years, and he alone represents a large number of outright failures, whose names have to be googled, or strong middle peasants from the lower levels.
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And now Calgary is in an idiotic position. There is no need to prematurely characterize the Huberdo and Kadri contracts as bad; after all, no one knows what locker room issues kept them from playing Sutter. However, the possible revival of this couple in the new season does not negate the fact that several players with expiring contracts met at once with things to date, including Mikael Backlund, who seems to have become Calgary. And again, the club is at a loss: not good enough to make the playoffs, too good to wear out the season, and even with contracts that still appear unchanged.
“Montreal”
Jokes about “Toronto” have long been an integral part of hockey folklore. But are your beloved French-speaking neighbors playing much better? They’re lucky the hub crowd doesn’t have that poise that infuriates most of the rest of Canada, and the Canadiens, unlike the leaves, made it three times past the second round. But for Enkhael’s “record master” it sounds too funny.
Alexey Kovalev
Photo: Rick Eglinton/Getty Images
Surprisingly, in the 21st century, only one Canadiens player has surpassed the 80-point mark per season: his name is Alexei Kovalev. Another important mark of 40 goals was not surpassed by anyone, not even by Max Pasioretti. A team that has always had a lot of offensive talent and even shooting guards has simply stopped recruiting and producing stars. Like Calgary, the Canadiens draft in a very peculiar way, choosing in the first rounds specific talents (Kostitsyn, Galchenyuk), or good defensemen and goalkeepers, or it is not clear who.
Most of the Canadiens’ success this century has been due to the solid defense built around Carey Price (Jaroslav Galak dragged the team to the Eastern finals in 2010). Without new attacking stars, Montreal’s future will be as bleak as the present, but the hopes for Suzuki, Cofield, Slafkowski and company are pretty high.
“Minnesota”
The Savages is a slightly more southern version of the Calgary, which is also mired in perpetual mediocrity. It can be understood why Kaprizov was awaited with aspiration and impatience in Minneapolis: there were rarely any attacking players of this caliber, even in their prime, at the club. Gaborik’s career was marred by injuries and Minnesota’s ultra-defensive style of play, Eric Staal came to the team in the downturn of his career, but he was reborn in a new spot.
At the same time, already in the third year of her life, newborn Minnesota unexpectedly jumped into the conference finals, twice winning 1-3 on the way. It seemed to take all the vitality out of the team for the future, and after that, the club’s runoff never happened. In 2012, the club spent big money on Suter and Parise, but early on the club’s cup ambitions were unceremoniously destroyed by domineering Chicago, and the arrival of Bruce Boudreau moved the mysterious “no cup” of the red-cheeked swear word to a new place.
Kirill Kaprizov
Photo: Abbie Parr/AP Photo/TASS
It’s now clear that Minnesota fans are waiting for the monstrous buyout fines on Parise and Suter to evaporate out of pay and for the club’s many recruited talents to mature (the “Wilds” prospect pool was recently recognized as the best in the league by The Athletic). But who knows what their progress will be and what the West will look like in the coming years? If Minnesota isn’t taking advantage of the window of opportunity that has opened up in front of them due to massive team restructuring in the West, then it’s not certain that it will show up again in a few years. Kaprizov, whom the theorists are already sending to Philadelphia, will also leave.
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“Arizona”
Whole volumes have already been written about “coyotes”, “Arizona” has long become the banner of the soil, which wants to prove that not everything is smooth in the kingdom of Battman, there are also their own “Kunluns”. But at the same time, right now, the Coyotes are pretty good from a purely hockey standpoint: they’ve got Clayton Keller, who’s already become a superstar, interesting young players, a bunch of draft picks, and spots under the roof. Unless there are no better defenders on this team.
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There is only one problem: somewhere in a computer game, where there are no financial restrictions and there are few restrictions in general, with this lineup it would be possible to fight for the Cup in three years. In real life, Arizona has severe financial constraints, due to chronic lack of profitability, it can’t spend to the top, which means that good hockey players will leave the club anytime they want a good contract (see Ottawa, which allowed Karlsson, Stone, Zibanejad and many others to leave like that). Moving to Houston or Utah will certainly solve this problem and allow you to spend the most, but when and will it be?
islanders
When they talk about teams that are doomed to enter perestroika in two or three years, most of the time (which is logical) they name Pittsburgh and Washington. However, few people talk about the club, which is located on Long Island. And there, Lou Lamorello clearly plans to do what happened in his New Jersey run: flirt with the spine until he’s completely old.
At one time, Lamorello tried to “compensate” for Kovalchuk’s departure by inviting market veterans: 40-year-old Jagr, 35-year-old Gomez, 33-year-old Gavlat and many others came to the team, whose average age was already 30 years. Nothing came of it, and it took Lou’s successors nearly a decade and two first-round picks to rebuild a great team from the old spot.
Lou Lamorello
Photo: George Walker IV/AP Photo/TASS
Approximately the same situation is repeated in New York, with the only difference that the islands still have Sorokin and Barzal, who are in the juice itself, as well as an outdated defense. Most of the backbone of the club has changed little since the previous management, the average attacking age of the club is receding to 30 years, and in a couple of years the club is waiting for almost the same scorched earth that was left in the neighboring “devils”. I hope only for the goalkeeping team.
