NHL free agency, on the surface, is about teams spending millions. Millions to improve, to augment their roster, to turn vulnerabilities into strengths.
Really, however, it’s about teams telling a new story to their customers. Altering the narrative. Contradicting the stories of the past. Believe in us. Look at all we’re trying to do to win a Stanley Cup. For you. Our fans.
And so, Henrik Lundqvist goes from the veteran who lost his job to the younger goalies in New York to the ideal mentor for youngster Ilya Samsonov in Washington. Bobby Ryan goes from being too expensive in Ottawa to the perfect fit in Detroit. Torey Krug, a well-priced contributor on the blue line in Boston, signs in St. Louis for a gigantic $45.5 million (U.S.), potentially as the replacement for Alex Pietrangelo.
Anaheim signs Kevin Shattenkirk, now a defenceman imbued with championship qualities in Tampa Bay after being viewed as an underachiever in Manhattan. Braden Holtby goes from unwanted in Washington’s crease to a necessary veteran overseer behind Thatcher Demko in Vancouver. Jacob Markstrom, a playoff hero in Vancouver, becomes the latest candidate to fill the unending void between the pipes in Calgary. Even if the Flames had to wildly overpay, it was worth it to quiet the wolves on the team’s inability to find a successor to Miikka Kiprusoff.
The story, as you see, changes to fit the narrative. So Wayne Simmonds become the missing element in Toronto as GM Kyle Dubas abandons his convictions to meet the demands of a public that wants the Maple Leafs to be nastier. Between Simmonds and Jason Spezza, the Leafs are trying to sell past performance as current value. T.J. Brodie, once part of the Big Four on defence in Calgary, leaves to join the Leafs as a desperately needed solution on the blue line.
Get the picture? Shifting storylines, shifting needs. While free agency is sold as 31 NHL clubs working hard to get better, it can easily be viewed more as a means of selling their product to an ever-skeptical public that wants to believe their team is doing all it can to win. Just like all the teams did this week at the NHL draft when they anointed various 18-year-old prospects as the next generation of hope.
But known names work better than unknown teenagers. So Jack Johnson is bought out in Pittsburgh, and now becomes an affordable addition for the Rangers. Ditto for Mark Borowiecki, who becomes a Predator after Ottawa no longer wants him. Kyle Turris, bought out in Nashville, becomes a bargain in Edmonton.
If you look at recent history, teams don’t need to be successful through free agency to win an NHL championship. Draft picks and trades and careful management are far more important than which player can be acquired by auction.
Free agency, then, seems to be more a superficial means of selling an idea, a vision, to a particular NHL community. In Edmonton, for example, Ken Holland needs to convey the notion that players want to play for his team. So luring Jesse Puljujarvi back from Europe and convincing Turris to restart his NHL career as an Oiler are messages to the local faithful that the process of changing the club from a chronic loser into a winner is moving forward because players want to live and work in Alberta.
In Toronto, the overall vision seems to have lost focus under Dubas, who now seems to be guessing as to the nature of an NHL roster that will please Leaf Nation as opposed to actually making moves based on his personal beliefs. Adding Brodie seems like going in circles after letting Jake Gardiner go last summer, just as selling Kasperi Kapanen to Pittsburgh for a first-rounder seems a boomerang play after the Leafs had acquired Kapanen and a first-round pick from the Penguins for Phil Kessel. More than ever, Dubas seems like a GM managing upwards, or managing to popular demand, as the Leafs seek to make their fans understand why it is the NBA Raptors can win a championship but the hockey department of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment can’t win a single round in the playoffs.
Hockey fans often forget this notion, that their favourite team is a sports entertainment business that needs to sell tickets. These days, with no tickets to sell, those teams are hustling more than ever to sell interest, hope and intrigue. The Red Wings, for example, haven’t played a game since March and won’t play another until at least January. Signing Ryan offers the opportunity for GM Steve Yzerman to communicate to spoiled Motown fans that in addition to drafting prospects, he really is trying to ice a watchable product in 2021.
The flat salary cap, of course, has changed the landscape and caused teams to cut loose players they otherwise might keep. But really, it seems more a game of musical chairs than a shifting of power. As always, free agency moves bodies around at great expense, but doesn’t overly alter the balance of the league. Tampa will begin next season, whenever it begins, as the favourite to repeat. Twenty other clubs will try to sell their fans on the idea that they are close to a championship. Ottawa is desperately trying to make customers believe that Eugene Melnyk’s rebuilding plan will actually lead somewhere.
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More signings will come over the next few days. They won’t turn losers into winners any more than John Tavares made the Leafs better when he signed. But they will help teams sell the promise of the future.
If anything, in a time when the future seems foggy and ill-defined because of a global pandemic that won’t allow the sport to proceed as normal, promise and possibilities matter more than ever.
