With a fresh NHL season underway we thought it would be a good time to check in with some of our Island-connected NHL players and coaches.
The Island has a small but not insignificant footprint in the NHL, with a few players born on the island playing in the league and a few non-local lads who have suited up for Island teams on their path to the NHL.
Let’s take a look at seven of ‘em to follow this season.
Jamie Benn, Center, Dallas Stars
Jamie Benn has long carried the flag as Victoria’s marquee NHL player, after beating the odds and not just making the NHL as a 5th round draft pick, but becoming a true star and a captain of his franchise.
Now 35, Benn is approaching the age where we all realize we’ve been taking his story for granted, and is an easy player to cheer for to win his first Stanley Cup.
And the thing is, Benn and his Stars have a real shot at doing that.
From the 2019-20 season through the 2021-22 season it appeared that Benn’s days as a top line, 30 goal forward were long gone, and his league-leading 89 point Art Ross season from 2015-16 felt like it was eons ago. He endured a four-season stretch of scoring less than 60 points (though COVID impacted games played totals), and Benn’s harshest critics were wondering just how poorly his $9.5 million cap hit was going to age as he approached his mid-30s.
But not so fast.
The Stars have drafted brilliantly over the past 5 seasons, injecting much needed youth to a team that desperately needed it. Budding star Wyatt Johnston has exploded playing alongside Benn over the past two years, while Jake Oettinger, Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, Thomas Harley, and Logan Stankoven have all stepped up to ensure the post-Benn era is in good hands.
That franchise refresh has done wonders for Benn, who had a resurgent year two seasons ago when he buried 33 goals and 78 points at 33 years old. He followed that up last year with a 21 goal, 60 point performance, working with Johnston and Stankoven once he was called up to the NHL.
That trio crushed their minutes together, outscoring opposition 15-9 in 228 even strength minutes while also controlling 58% of the shot share.
Dallas has an incredibly deep and complete roster, and one with a real chance of making a run in the playoffs.
Benn and his Stars are without a doubt Victoria’s best shot at seeing the Stanley Cup come home.
It’s also Benn’s last year of an 8 year, $76 million contract, so it will also be interesting to track whether Benn and the Stars can come to terms and push him closer to retiring as a Dallas Stars lifer.
Jim Hiller, Head Coach, Los Angeles Kings
Los Angeles Kings head coach Jim Hiller probably represents the most unique situation for a Vancouver Islander this season, given the fact he was officially named head coach this past offseason.
Born in Port Alberni, Hiller took over for a struggling Kings team as interim coach last season. He was promoted from assistant coach after long-time coach Todd McLellan was fired, and had to deal with the difficult transition of going from assistant to head coach. Assistants often get to be “good cop”, while the head coach has to lead with more of a hard hand. It’s not a transition all coaches can make smoothly.
Despite a 21-12-1 record as coach last year, the Kings still conducted an offseason coaching search, but ended up keeping Hiller as the guy.
So Hiller comes into a unique position where, in theory, he has a pretty long leash as a newly appointed head coach, but also a weird amount of pressure given the fact that the Kings have lost to Edmonton in the first round of the playoffs three years in a row. Management, the fans, and the team all know they need to take a step.
The challenge is, the Kings have a good, but not amazing roster. They were defensively stout last season, allowing 2.56 goals against/game, good for 3rd in league. But their Pierre-Luc Dubois trade was a complete disaster, and they never quite found the chemistry in their top 9 that they were hoping to.
But the question for Hiller and his Kings will remain: is this just a team that’s good, but not good enough to win playoff rounds? Will the end of the Drew Doughty and Anze Kopitar era ultimately be a team that went through a rebuild but never got over the first round playoff hump?
We’ll see if Hiller has the answers.
Laurent Brossoit, Goaltender, Chicago Blackhawks
Laurent Brossoit represents the Island’s most recent player to be engraved on the Stanley Cup, having won the Cup with Vegas back in 2022.
Born in Port Alberni, Brossoit captured a Stanley Cup a few seasons ago with Vegas, and was the starting goaltender as Vegas eliminated the Winnipeg Jets in the first round before injury ended his playoffs in the 2nd round.
Aside from his one year cameo in Vegas, Brossoit has been one of the best backups in the league over the past half-decade, spending four years as Connor Hellebuyck’s backup in Winnipeg. He’s excelled in that role, posting save percentages of .926, .895, .918, and .927 over his four seasons with the Jets.
Last year he went 15-5-2 with a 2.00 GAA.
But this year will be decidedly different.
Brossoit was ready for a bigger challenge, and will be trying to cement himself as a tandem starter after signing a 2 year, $6.6 million dollar contract with the Chicago Blackhawks in the offseason – the highest salary he’s commanded so far in the NHL.
While he’ll get to know and work with ‘Hawks phenom Connor Bedard over the next two years, he’ll also have a difficult workload playing behind a young, inexperienced, and undermanned NHL roster.
It will be a bit different compared to the defensive, clampdown style the Jets played over the past few years.
He’ll get to battle it out with Petr Mrazek, who played surprisingly well last year for the Blackhawks.
Unfortunately, Brossoit begins the season on Injured Reserve after having knee surgery in the summer, but it expected to return some time in October.
Tyson Barrie, Defenseman, Calgary Flames
Tyson Barrie is Victoria’s “other good player”, but one who has really had to earn his place in the league over the past few seasons.
A purely offensive defenseman, Barrie stacked up points with ease over his 6 full seasons with the Colorado Avalanche, scoring 294 points in 442 games over that span, good for 8th in the league. At his point-producing prime, Barrie was a no doubt top power play quarterback who could play at the top of the lineup. He’s always been a defensively leaky player, but with the right defensive partner, you took the warts with his superb offensive talent.
Unfortunately, though, Barrie has had the poor luck of having a young, star defensemen emerge behind him wherever he’s played.
Back in 2018-19, Barrie produced a career high 59 points for the Avalanche. But in those 2019 playoffs, Colorado got a glimpse of a young defenseman named Cale Makar, and the Avalanche correctly deemed he was their number one defenseman of the future.
He was shipped off to Toronto where there never quite was a fit, and after a decent but tumultuous season he signed with Edmonton as a free agent.
In Edmonton, the fit was great, having a clear need for a power play quarterback to play with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, and Barrie scored 48 points in just 56 games. He was excellent in his time in Edmonton, lauded for his power play wizardry and fitting seamlessly in the locker room.
But Edmonton had a fella named Evan Bouchard they’d drafted 10th overall recently, and just like Makar in Colorado, Barrie had a ticking time bomb of talent waiting to push him out the door.
Barrie was eventually traded to Nashville at the deadline a few seasons ago, and the fit was never quite there with Roman Josi as the top dog on the power play. He struggled to earn a ton of playing time and was ultimately a healthy scratch for the Predators down the stretch run last season, appearing in one game of the Predators’ 4-2 series loss to Vancouver.
A this point, Barrie has aged into a skilled, 3rd pair defenseman but one who needs to be sheltered from high quality opposition.
And now at age 33, he’s trying to keep his career going.
He signed a one year deal with the Calgary Flames on October 3rd, hoping to find a 3rd pairing role and some power play time for a team that can desperately use some offence.
But the Flames just drafted dynamic offensive blueliner Zayne Parekh with the 9th overall pick this past draft, so Barrie has yet another future power play star behind him once again.
Matthew Wood, Right Wing, University of Minnesota
Matthew Wood is a youngster all Vancouver Islanders should find easy to cheer for.
Wood has played on the island through most of his junior career, and is an alumni of the Nanaimo Clippers and Victoria Grizzlies.
He was an absolute star for the Grizzlies, scoring 45 goals and 85 points in 46 games as a 16 year old. It was the best 16 year old season the league had seen in decades.
Wood then graduated high school early and played college hockey as a 17 year old, scoring 34 points in 35 games for the University of Connecticut as one of the youngest players in the NCAA.
That earned Wood a 1st round selection in the 2023 draft, being selected 15th overall, and becoming then-newly appointed general manager Barry Trotz’s first ever draft selection.
Last year, however, didn’t go as planned. We won’t pretend to watch University of Connecticut games, but his stat line sagged, going from 34 points as a freshman to 28 as a sophomore. If penalty minutes can be used as a correlation to frustration, that was also a part of the equation, as Wood tallied just 4 PIMs as a rookie, but accumulated 43 last year.
His team also got worse, winning 15 games last year compared to 20 the year before, which never helps anyone’s stat lines.
So Wood enters his critical 3rd season in college having entered the transfer portal and now suiting up for the University of Minnesota. He’ll be playing on a much more talented team, alongside former first round draft picks such as Oliver Moore (CHI), Jimmy Snuggerud (STL), and Sam Rinzel (CHI).
There will be more talent around him, but also stiffer competition for power play spots and ice time.
Wood is a 6’4, rangy winger with soft hands and a wicked shot. Power forwards often take a little bit more time time to develop, so there shouldn’t be any panic among Predators fans or Wood supporters.
But last season was disappointing regardless, and both the Nashville Predators and Wood himself are hoping for a bounce back season where he makes it a no-brainer decision to sign an NHL contract and turn pro at the end of his college season.
Spencer Carbery, Head Coach, Washington Capitals
Spencer Carbery comes into his second season as Washington Capitals head coach having done the impossible: get the ageing, washed up, Backstrom-and-Kuznetsov-less Capitals into the playoffs.
Hopefully Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh was taking notes.
Carbery lead the Capitals to one of the oddest playoff berths in recent memory, bringing a 40-win, -37 goal differential team into the Stanley Cup playoffs. That team lost more games than it won, and also let in more goals than they scored.
But hey, all you’ve got to do is be one of the top eight, and you punch your ticket to the dance.
The Capitals did that, thanks in large part to goaltender Charlie Lindgren coming out of nowhere to have a career year, beating out Darcy Kuemper for the starting job.
This season, the Capitals come into the season with a similarly weird dynamic to the Kings. On paper, the Capitals have a better roster than last year, having brought in Jacob Chychrun, Andrew Mangiapane, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Matt Roy and goaltender Logan Thompson.
But still, no one believes in them and few would predict them a playoff team this year.
Carbery will also have to manage the noise around the team and their playing style as Alex Ovechkin chases Wayne Gretzky’s all time goals record. He needs 42 goals to pass him, and if he gets over 30 again this year (as has been routine for the past 2 decades), the media will become a circus and his teammates may be tempted to overfeed him the puck – similar to what happened with Auston Matthews last season as he chased 70 goals.
Regardless, Carbery’s debut season last year was an absolute success for the Capitals, and we’ll see if they can surprise everyone again and earn a berth in the post season once more.
Alex Newhook, Center, Montreal
Alex Newhook begins his second season in Montreal with opportunity, intrigue, and a great situation in Montreal. The former Victoria Grizzlies star has made good on the Avalanche selecting him 16th overall back in the 2019 NHL draft, as he’s been an immediate NHL contributor ever since he made the Avalanche back in the 2021-22 season. He’s produced as at least a quality third line center over his young career, with 30 points being the lowest total of his career.
The question for Newhook – and it’s the very same question scouts had during his draft year – is if he is capable of turning that quality third line center floor into a top six center man ceiling. He has the traits for the role, given he’s a speedy, hard working player who darts around and battles on the forecheck. He has good hands and decent vision, too. But is that just the toolkit of an effective middle six player? Or one that can play in the top six?
It’s all those tools and questions that made Montreal acquire him in the first place. Newhook has had a dream start to a hockey career – playing 71 games for the Avs as a rookie en route to suiting up for 12 playoff games that culminated in a Stanley Cup victory.
But when he couldn’t make the jump as a 21 year old to the second line center for a team that had Cup aspirations, the double-edged sword of being drafted by a Cup contender came slashing through, and he was shipped off to Montreal.
Newhook has shown signs he can take the next step, scoring 34 points in 55 games last season for a bad Montreal team – a 51 point pace over a full season.
Unfortunately, his presumed new linemate in Patrik Laine was injured in the preseason, leaving a glaring hole alongside Newhook and Kirby Dach on the second line.
Regardless, Newhook has a clear cut opportunity to play a ton, and Montreal appears to have a good thing going with head coach Martin St. Louis nurturing and developing their young core.
Can he take the next step and produce as a bonafide top 6 center? Can he help be the solution to Montreal’s glaring top six forward needs?
If there’s any season to do that, it’s this one.
Be the guy who gets to say “grab a slice”
Everyone loves the guy who brings in a few wheels of pizza to the game and says “grab a slice”.
Domino’s offers an exclusive deal with Victoria Buzz to save you 25% off pizza, wings, and all the rest.
Here are three great times to have the gang over, order some ‘za, and have a good time.
NHL season in Canada starts Wednesday night:
- NHL season starts for Canadian teams
- Toronto @ Montreal, 4 p.m.
- Calgary @ Vancouver, 7 p.m.
- Winnipeg @ Edmonton, 7 p.m.
Thursday night football:
- San Francisco 49ers @ Seattle Seahawks, 5:15 p.m.
Connor Bedard, then Friday night Vancouver Canucks hockey:
- Chicago @ Winnipeg, 5 p.m.
- Philadelphia @ Vancouver, 7 p.m.
