After Last Night, Every Canadian NHL Team Has Officially Been Eliminated From Playoff Contention
After the Philadelphia Flyers picked up 2 points against the Caps in a shootout last night, the Ottawa Senators were officially eliminated from the playoff picture. So let’s take a quick peek in on how things looks in the East.
And now let’s do ourselves a favor and check out how things look in the West…
For the first time since 1970, there will be zero Canadian NHL teams in the playoffs this year. I was negative 22 years old at that time so I don’t exactly remember how it felt. But I just have to assume that it was as satisfying as it is today. Now I know the instant response from any of you Canadian stoolies out there will be either pointing to your Olympic gold medals or pointing out the fact that the majority of every NHL team is made up of Canadian born players. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s been since 1993 since the Cup has been in Canadian possession. Think about that for a minute here. Kids that were born in 1993 have graduated from college already. If you were born the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup, you could be out in the real world with a real job paying off real student loans and hating your real life. Kids that were born the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup are already jaded. They’ve seen the world and all it has to offer already. But the only thing they haven’t seen is a team from Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver or Winnipeg win a Stanley Cup. And for the 23rd year in a row, that streak will continue. And wait, there’s more.
First off, the league needs to do something about Edmonton. They need to rig the lottery this year to make sure those bastards don’t end up with the #1 pick again. It’s horrible for the game and they’re consistently ruining potential superstars. But yeah, here are the chances for teams to win the 1st overall pick in this year’s Entry Draft as of yesterday. As you can see, there’s about a 69% (nice) chance that a Canadian team ends up with that draft pick. And who will they take with that #1 slot? American Auston Matthews. After Matthews goes off the board, there will be two Finns in Jesse Puljujarvi and Patrik Laine. After that? Probably another American in Matthew Tkachuk. Or American born Jakob Chychrun. Or Swede Alex Nylander. Or another Finn in Olli Juolevi. The moral of the story here is that the Canadian teams could have picks 1-7 in this year’s NHL Entry Draft and not a single one of them would draft a Canadian-born player. All that needs to happen now is for Team Canada to lose at the World Cup and it will officially be the worst year in Canadian Hockey history.
Now somebody do me a favor and cue the music!