Trades, Utah and Celine Dion: Ranking the biggest surprises from a busy NHL week

By / / Sports / 10 minutes of reading


The NHL Draft has ended, capping off a two-day event in Las Vegas and a busy week across the NHL.

Surprised?

OK, probably not by the existence and/or ending of the draft. But half the fun of a draft is the surprises it hits us with, both big and small. After all, we spend weeks making mocks and ranking prospects, and if everything just went off according to those lists, it wouldn’t be very interesting.

Let’s take a moment to recalibrate, by running through some of the most and least surprising moments from the past week. We’ll do this in chronological order, reaching way back into the past for our first pick.

The Stanley Cup Final ended

The Panthers beat the Oilers in Game 7. Remember that night? We were all so young.

Surprise scale: 80/100. Wait, that was this week? As in, five days ago? It already feels like a month. Time has no meaning anymore.

The pre-draft action

We won’t get into rating each move individually, but the week had already seen trades involving Linus Ullmark, Jake Walman, Ilya Mikheyev and Andrew Mangiapane, among others. That’s one big name and then a bunch of table-setting. But setting the table is important if someone’s going to cook, which we were assured that NHL GMs would.

Surprise scale: 55/100. I wouldn’t call any of the deals shocking, although the disappointing return on Ullmark was close.

The Sharks paid off a miserable season by landing a genuine franchise player.

Surprise scale: 0/100. Mike Grier had basically already told us who he was taking, which would have spoiled the suspense if there was any. It was anti-climactic, sure, but sometimes the obvious choice is absolutely the right one.

The Ducks pick shocks at least one person

At third, the Ducks went with forward Beckett Sennecke.

Surprise scale: 100/100. At least if you’re Beckett Sennecke, whose wholesome reaction to the pick was one of the highlights of the night, not to mention the evening’s best source of memes. Eric had more from the kid himself.

Celine Dion!

After a brief preamble, the Canadiens told us that their pick would be made by their “biggest fan.” We all sort of rolled our eyes – remember, this is a team that once picked one of its own players as their celebrity captain – but instead, they dropped a legitimate legend on us. Dion got a huge pop from the Vegas crowd, and rightly so.

Surprise scale: 70/100. In hindsight, maybe we should have seen it coming, but it made for a great moment.

One of the weekend’s most intriguing storylines was what would happen when the Flames pick at No. 9 came up and Tij Iginla was still on the board. Tij is of course the son of franchise icon Jarome Iginla, and would be the sentimental pick. But if they had somebody else ranked higher on their board, would Craig Conroy have the guts to break his fans’ hearts?

We didn’t get to find out, as Utah took Iginla with the sixth pick. According to reports, the Flames did talk to Utah about moving up, but couldn’t pull it off. So now we wait and see if they regret that for years to come, or look back on this as a blessing in disguise.

Surprise scale: 65/100. Utah’s been in the league for 15 minutes and is already ruining everything.

Michael Buffer!

The “Let’s get ready to rumble guy” showed up to help the Flyers make their pick. That could have been lame, but they really leaned into the bit, having him do the full heigh-and-weight introduction, and it worked.

Surprise scale: 75/100. At this point, having seen Celine Dion and Michael Buffer announce picks, there was some buzz about which celebrity would show up next. The answer was none, which was disappointing. This could have been a neat proof-of-concept for future celebrity draft pick announcements, but those probably won’t work as well next year when we’re doing this all over Zoom.

The Sphere being undeniably cool

Everyone said it would be. But this is still the NHL, so it wasn’t hard to imagine them taking this giant marvel of technology and using it to project static headshots or bored-looking players mumbling about how much they love getting pucks in deep. Nope. They crushed it. Full credit to the league for going out of their comfort zone, spending the money to make it work, and delivering something truly memorable.

Surprise scale: 50/100. If you missed it, check out Other Sean’s deep dive into what the experience was like.

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

Inside Sphere: The NHL Draft experience from inside the one-of-a-kind venue

And speaking of the league getting things right…

The NHL to GMs: Shut up and pick

It’s become a night one tradition: Team after team trudging to the stage with dozens of front office suits, then having their GM give a rambling speech thanking the host city, congratulating the champions and saying hi to their fans back home. And the whole time, you’re sitting at home screaming, “Just pick!”

The NHL apparently heard you, as rumors before the draft were that the league had told teams to cut out the preamble, limit their stage presence to three or less, and just make the dang pick. And they did. And it was a beautiful thing.

Surprise scale: 95/100. I’ve been begging for this for years, but it was still a shock to see them actually do it.

(Also, Ottawa slipped up and accidentally offered a quick thank you to Vegas, which will presumably lead to Gary Bettman taking away another first-round pick.)

Lots of pick trades on Day One

Seven, to be exact. None of them involved a player, falling more into the category of standard asset management. But at least they did trigger the giant “TRADE ALERT” graphic and accompanying sound effects, which really seemed to throw Gary Bettman off each time it happened.

Surprise scale: 35/100. We always see a few of these, on both days of the draft. The twist this year was that a few of them got done days before the draft, which is a bit strange – you’d think a GM would want to wait to see who was available before surrendering draft capital to move up a few spots. But it was a draft that some saw as having very clear and specific tiers, and the prices to move into one were high.

But it’s worth noting that this score could have been a lot higher, as one team was apparently willing to take a very big swing:

No player trades on Day One

There’s a real “Charlie Brown taking a run at the football” vibe over draft weekend trade rumors, but a total shutout was still a disappointment, if only because we didn’t get to hear Bettman struggle to pronounce anyone’s name while the TRADE ALERT horn interrupted him every few seconds.

Surprise scale: 30/100. The calm before the storm, as it turns out.

The first player traded at the draft

It was Beck Malenstyn, a player you definitely knew existed, and who went from Washington to Buffalo for a second-round pick shortly before Day 2 got started.

Surprise scale: 0/100. We’ve all been on Beck Malenstyn watch for weeks now. He wasn’t even on our trade board, presumably because it was so obvious that he’d be the first domino. Now that he’s been moved, all the other big deals could fall into place.

Utah makes its mark

We’ve been hearing about them being in on just about everyone, thanks to a stockpile of draft picks, plenty of cap space, and a new owner willing to explore the novel strategy of (checks notes) actually spending money. And sure enough, they delivered with a pair of deals, landing Mikhail Sergachev from the Lightning for a package of picks and players and John Marino from the Devils for picks.

Surprise scale: 90/100. The Sergachev deal was a genuine blockbuster, with the added bonus of involving a player who most of us hadn’t been thinking about as a trade chip. Gosh, I wonder what other players the Lightning might be willing to move?

Tanner Jeannot to the Kings

Oh right, the guy they traded roughly a dozen draft picks to acquire just a few years ago. Ah well, sunk costs and all that, and the Lightning are clearly getting their cap in order for something.

Surprise scale: 35/100. We all assume that some of that cap space will go to bringing Steven Stamkos back, and eventually to a Victor Hedman extension that will kick in for 2025-26. But Tampa may have enough space to do something else now, especially since Julien BriseBois is clearly willing to make some tough calls this weekend.

He didn’t cost them anything, and in fact came with a second-round pick attached in return for taking him off the Blues’ books. Still, is a 32-year-old making $3.5 million against the cap really what the Penguins need right now? I don’t get it, and I’m clearly not the only one.

Surprise scale: 87/100. See, when we said the Penguins needed to get younger, what we meant was…

Montreal takes Saku Koivu’s son

Aw, they drafted the son of their beloved former captain. That’s nice. Isn’t that nice, Flames fans? No? Too soon? OK, cool, good to know.

Surprise scale: 11/100. Seriously, this was pretty great.

One of the funniest moments of Day 2 came midway through the second round when the Maple Leafs ground the proceedings to a halt when it was time to make the 58th pick. That led to multiple admonishments from an increasingly annoyed Bill Daly, and eventually to boos raining down from the fans in attendance.

And yes, we all made the same “It’s the Leafs, how would they know what to do in the second round?” jokes.

Surprise scale: 67/100. I need to figure out how to get “If you take too long to make a pick, a few thousand people start booing you” worked into my fantasy football league.

They sent Logan Thompson to Washington for picks, which was fine, except for:

Surprise scale: 0/100. The league’s most heartless organization strikes again. I wouldn’t be surprised if they immediately deactivated Thompson’s employee pass, and he’s still wandering around Sphere pulling on locked doors and begging to be let out of the building while Kelly McCrimmon points and laughs at him.

This story

And you thought Pronman was good at spoiling picks.

Surprise scale: -100/100. As long as you have psychic abilities.

Lots of big names still on the board when the draft ended

In terms of trade targets, we didn’t get anything on Mitch Marner, Martin Necas, Nikolaj Ehlers, Yaroslav Askarov, Jacob Trouba, Patrik Laine or Jakob Chychrun. There’s no guarantee that all or even most of them are moved, but with cap space around the league set to start disappearing, you’d figure something has to give with at least a few over the coming hours.

And Monday’s UFA market still features Stamkos, Sam Reinhart, Jake Guentzel, Jonathan Marchessault, Matt Duchene and Chris Tanev (unless he signs with the Leafs, who acquired his rights in the draft’s final trade). That’s still two days away, which is a long time in a league where players love to stay where their stuff is.

Surprise scale: 80/100. The NHL’s week-long offseason churns on.

The whole thing being a ton of fun

Sphere was cool, the vibes were good, the fans were drunk enthusiastic, and we eventually even got some wheeling and dealing. What more could you ask for?

Surprise scale: 50/100. These in-person drafts never fail to deliver a good time, and it gives the NHL something unique that you don’t see from other major pro leagues. I hope they keep doing this forever.

They’re not doing this anymore

Oh, right.

Surprise scale: 0/100. This is why we can’t have nice things.

(Top photo of Celine Dion at the NHL Draft: Dave Sandford / NHLI via Getty Images)





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About The Author

Avatar of Rachel Thomas
Rachel Thomas is a writer who focuses on arts, automotive, travel, and fashion. She also writes about her hobbies: cooking, reading, and playing video games. Rachel has been a writer for Free Press Georgia since 2016. In that time she has written about everything from the best restaurants in Atlanta to how to make your own face mask at home. When she's not writing for FPG she spends her time with her husband and two cats in their apartment.

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