As we await word on the fate of the 2020-21 NHL season, theScore is revisiting innovative ideas from different corners of the hockey world. Consider this four-part series food for thought during a most unusual offseason. (Part 1 is about replacing the draft lottery. Part 2 is about teams picking their own playoff opponents. Part 3 is about implementing an Exception Player Rule.)

Roughly a dozen years before he earned a role with an NHL team, you could find Jack Han punching orders into a cash register a few steps from one of professional hockey's most iconic arenas.

Han, now 31 years old but a high-schooler back then, helped with his parents' mobile fast-food stand near the Bell Centre on Montreal Canadiens game nights. Operated by Han and two cooks, the stand served burgers, paninis, and fries to passersby waiting for puck-drop. Following the rush, Han would hustle home to catch the game on TV.

"Working together in a commercial kitchen is really close to playing hockey," Han said in a recent interview.

In both environments, individuals simply can't fulfill their duties in isolation, he added. Everyone must be positionally flexible.

Han - who worked in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization as an NHL video and statistical analyst for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons and an AHL assistant coach in 2019-20 - often uses food to explain and describe his takes on modern hockey. The approach has come in handy of late, with his Hockey Tactics Newsletter gaining notoriety following a four-part series that detailed an eyebrow-raising deployment strategy.

The unconventional idea: Rather than the traditional three forwards and two defensemen on-ice configuration, coaches should consider deploying two forwards and three defensemen - 2F-3D for short - during five-on-five play.

Icing one fewer forward seems counterintuitive, especially since most power-play units across the NHL feature four forwards and one defenseman. In theory, though, 2F-3D would provide tighter coverage in the defensive zone, and a distinct "three backs" look in transition through the neutral zone and on the attack in the offensive end. It would also give coaches the freedom to divide ice time more appropriately among their top players, regardless of position.

However, not every NHL squad boasts the right mix of skaters to embrace the switch (i.e. teams with fewer than seven NHL-caliber defensemen), and those with the right mix probably wouldn't make the change on a permanent basis. It's not a one-size-fits-all idea aimed to overhaul the hockey playbook.

Han is instead suggesting that, for coaches with access to a certain player pool, there may be an alternative formation hiding in plain sight. In fact, the 2F-3D concept is borrowed from the "inverted pyramid" deployment strategy in soccer. Basketball, too, has been reinventing its positional concepts for many years.

Naturally, Han goes back to food to explain the nuances.

"All of this is in the spirit of respecting the ingredients that you have, right?" Han said. "If you have a lot of good forwards and not many good Ds, I don't see the point in (2F-3D). But, if it's the opposite, why not? If you're making burgers and you're out of buns, use a lettuce bun. Make the most of it."

He notes, in terms of X's and O's, adopting the 2F-3D formation wouldn't be a great departure from the norm.

"If you watch hockey now without any preconceived notions of who plays what position, you would think that there's actually three D on the ice at various times in the game," he said.

In one of his posts on the topic, Han breaks down a sequence from the bubbled postseason, in which Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh scored from the top of the circle. On the play, forward Nikita Kucherov assumed the role of the "third defenseman" by lingering high in the offensive zone. He's the so-called "F3" just inside the blue line.

"It is effectively a 2F-3D play, with wingback Mikhail Sergachev pinching down on the right half-wall to win a puck to fullback Nikita Kucherov, who dishes to McDonagh on the opposite wing," Han wrote.

For the majority of NHL teams, including the stacked Lightning, 2F-3D wouldn't make much sense for the top of the lineup. However, bottom-six minutes could be doled out differently if the right personnel - mobile, intelligent, and responsible defensemen - is readily available.

Han's old employers, the Maple Leafs, are an interesting case study - in his words, they're "the perfect testbed." Half of Toronto's payroll is committed to four forwards: Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander. Those stars should continue to play upward of 20 minutes a night, and the same goes for the likes of Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, and TJ Brodie on the blue line.

But what about those at the other end of the spectrum? How much ice time is there for Rasmus Sandin, Timothy Liljegren, and Mac Hollowell, three young defensemen on the outside looking in for a roster spot on the 2020-21 Maple Leafs? The answer is very little, or none, based on the depth chart.

"For me, the biggest downside that I see in this (2F-3D concept) is simply that having one fewer forward makes you less potent offensively," Han said. "Perhaps it's then a formation you start rolling out within your bottom six."

Han argues, therefore, the team should dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen - or even 10 and eight - and slot in the Sandin-Liljegren-Hollowell trio as the third "pair." Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe could deploy the trio alongside two veteran forwards - maybe Joe Thornton and Jimmy Vesey - in sheltered situations and, for 10 or so minutes per game, the club would be more skilled, more dynamic, and better defensively while utilizing inexpensive pieces.

"That's a really good use-case for me, especially if the top of your forward group is very strong and you don't have a strong bottom six and also have a lot of Ds," Han said. "The perfect fourth-line game is finishing with zero shots for and zero shots against. Because if you tie every one of your fourth-line shifts, then generally speaking you're in good shape for the rest of the game."

For the record, Keefe isn't buying what Han's selling - at least publicly. Han, a former member of Keefe's staff, told Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star in early November that the likelihood of the Maple Leafs trying out the 2F-3D configuration in 2020-21 is "pretty high." Two weeks later, when asked if it's something he's considering, Keefe said "no." (Though he did go on to share a real-world example of the 2F-3D working at a lower level of hockey.)

"I like to think of myself as someone who will really never say never to anything," Keefe said. "In fact, in my time in (OHL) Sault Ste. Marie, we worked with (2F-3D) at different times when the situation called for it, such as a big defensive-zone faceoff with the goalie out. We felt we had three really strong defenders and put out three defenders and two forwards and had them play more like a penalty-kill situation with three good defenders on the back."

"I remember one time we had a bad injury situation when we were really short on defensemen and we went with four forwards and one defenseman throughout the game and managed that," he added. "So, I've had some experience with that. I think there's enough examples at various levels where I think that has been done, but it's not something I've given a second of thought to for this season's team."

Since going public with the 2F-3D idea, Han has heard from coaches who've used the formation in the past and found varying degrees of success. He said most of them adopted it due to unforeseen circumstances, such as not having enough healthy forwards and plenty of strong defensemen for a single game or adjusting the lineup before facing an overwhelming offensive team.

At its core, the 2F-3D concept is a commentary on the utility of the modern defenseman. Hockey has been accustomed to the faster, high-skill skaters lining up at forward and the heavier skaters who don't move around particularly well taking a spot on the blue line.

"But the game is moving away from that," Han said. "Now you have more and more defensemen who can play the puck and get involved on both sides of the puck."

Defensemen are generally paid less than forwards, too, which is important in an NHL currently experiencing flat revenues.

Roman Josi is the prototypical modern blue-liner. The Nashville Predators captain is an exceptional skater who's responsible defensively and elite in transition. He's a forward-defenseman hybrid who impacts the game in all three zones every single shift. And though there is only one Josi, Han said there are "maybe two-dozen" defensemen finding it difficult to make an NHL roster right now who have a few Josi-like traits and could be deployed in a 2F-3D setup.

Hollowell in Toronto, Calen Addison with the Minnesota Wild, and Ryan Merkley with the San Jose Sharks are three players he mentioned.

"When you change the parameters of the game a little bit, maybe you give these guys an in," Han said. "All of (a) sudden, maybe you have a guy playing on an entry-level (deal) who is an elite offensive contributor from that position that you just (plug in). All you've done is make the job description more favorable to his skill set."

Han didn't pass on a chance to compare hockey to food - and vice versa - to drive home his point.

"It's like anchovies," he said of the 2F-3D configuration. "You hate the idea of it. Then you realize a caesar salad doesn't taste as good without it. Try it in a tomato pasta sauce or on a pizza (and) it just works."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

As we await word on the fate of the 2020-21 NHL season, theScore is revisiting innovative ideas from different corners of the hockey world. Consider this four-part series food for thought during a most unusual offseason. (Part 1 is about replacing the draft lottery. Part 2 is about teams picking their own playoff opponents. The final installment arrives Tuesday.)

Like most highly competitive industries, hockey always has blue-sky ideas floating around behind the scenes - in boardrooms, press boxes, bars.

Most of these concepts are such grand departures from the status quo that they rarely see the light of day. The "Exception Player Rule" idea is, fittingly, an exception to the rule.

In April, NHL player agent Kurt Overhardt and his KO Sports associate Brian Schoelzel co-wrote a post for the agency's website titled, "KO Sports, Inc. Opinion: An Opportunity to Increase the Competitive Landscape in the NHL."

Their post laid out the argument for exempting one player per team from salary-cap calculus. These exemptions would effectively free up tens of millions of dollars in cap space across the league each year and, in theory, ensure the NHL's revenue-driving stars receive compensation better aligned with the value they provide to their respective teams, the league, and the sport at large.

"From an economic standpoint, allowing one marquee player to get paid - if teams want to do it - while being able to keep the rest of the team together would benefit fans, and it would benefit the other players in the locker room, so there should be no resentment," Overhardt told theScore.

"It would also reward these guys who are the superstars and, right now, in my opinion, they're not being rewarded (appropriately)."

Intrigued? Let's peel back the layers of this concept.

The case for the Exception Player Rule

Since 2005, the NHL has used a "hard" salary cap, which prohibits teams from exceeding a specified payroll total - with no exceptions. These parameters make it incredibly difficult for teams to both retain their core players over the long term and pay their stars hefty annual salaries.

The Chicago Blackhawks are a prime example of this conundrum. The Blackhawks won Stanley Cup titles in 2010, 2013, and 2015, but not without bidding farewell to key pieces seemingly every offseason to stay below the cap. Franchise cornerstones Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, both now 32, signed eight-year, $84-million deals in the summer of 2014. Today, their combined cap hit of $21 million constitutes a little more than 25% of Chicago's player payroll.

"Why not give teams the opportunity to exempt someone? And they can use it any way they want," said Overhardt, who's based in Denver and began representing NHL players in 1992. "In Chicago, for instance, if (owner Rocky) Wirtz determines he needs to pay - or wants to pay - Kane and Toews $10 million apiece, then that's great. He can make one of them the Exception Player and have $10 million available to give the other 22 guys."

The Blackhawks are not alone. The Tampa Bay Lightning have managed their contracts fairly well over the past decade but are in a bind this offseason, chiefly because they employ too many quality players. The Edmonton Oilers' cap situation would look wildly different if Connor McDavid's league-high $12.5-million cap hit was excluded from the equation. The Toronto Maple Leafs handed their top young players big-ticket second contracts, and the team has already been forced to part with complementary youngsters like Connor Brown, Kasperi Kapanen, and Andreas Johnsson as a result.

"The Maple Leafs haven't won anything - like, nothing - and people are talking about how they're going to have to disassemble their core," Overhardt said.

Overhardt shared the Exception Player idea with more than 30 clients before publishing. The players, he says, were generally supportive of the concept. (Though he didn't name names, KO Sports represents dozens of NHLers, notably Ryan Johansen, Jacob Trouba, Dylan Larkin, Jaccob Slavin, and John Gibson.)

The longtime agent points to Nathan MacKinnon - an Octagon client - to further his point. Earning $6.3 million a season through 2022-23, the Colorado Avalanche center is arguably hockey's top bargain. He's due for a significant raise, though MacKinnon told Forbes last year he would "take less again" on his next deal if it meant keeping Colorado's enviable core intact.

"If you have a superstar like that, they shouldn't have to be making excuses to justify the money they should be making. They should be getting that money," Overhardt said. "The National Hockey League, including our clients and every other player in the league, is going to benefit from Nathan MacKinnon's play over the next 10 years."

In short, the Exception Player Rule - which Major League Soccer has called the Designated Player Rule since 2007 - would throw a bone to teams that draft and develop players well, along with clubs that carry multiple star-level contracts on their books. (The "exception" label, it should be noted, could be applied to a drafted player, a player acquired via trade, or a player signed in free agency.)

Compared to their counterparts in the NFL, NBA, and MLB, NHLers are underpaid relative to the health of their league. "The other three leagues have increased superstar players' salaries at a rate that much more accurately mirror their respective league's growth," Overhardt and Schoelzel wrote.

Jaromir Jagr was the highest-paid NHL player in 1999-00. In a pre-cap world, the Hall of Fame forward made $10.4 million, which means McDavid's $12.5 million a decade later represents a 20% increase. The estimated average franchise value in the NHL rose by 351% over that period, according to Forbes. The salary cap, meanwhile, has risen by 109% since the league instituted it for the 2005-06 season.

Compare that with MLB's Albert Belle making $11.9 million in 1999 and Mike Trout earning $33.5 million in 2019. That's an increase of 197%. According to Forbes, the estimated average franchise value in MLB - a league using a luxury-tax system - jumped 647% in that span.

"The NHL's top salary has only increased by 20.19% despite over 350% growth in franchise values," Overhardt and Schoelzel wrote. That means the NHL's franchise value has grown at a rate 17.3 times greater than the top salary. The gaps in the other three leagues are much smaller: NBA, 7.1 times greater; MLB, 3.3 times; NFL, 2.6 times.

Pushback against the Exception Player Rule

The initial response to the article was largely positive, Overhardt reports. Some owners he spoke with were "really excited there was actually creative thought" ready for public consumption. Still, there are critics. Here are Overhardt's rebuttals to a few common counterarguments:

• Exempting one player per team from the salary cap would naturally put "me" before "we," which is a big no-no in traditional hockey culture.

In a vacuum, exempting the league's most elite players from the cap does indeed go against the grain in a sport married to a team-first value system. Overhardt contends this would be healthy in the long term - not only for the elite players, but for other players, the teams, and the NHL.

The upper limit for the 2020-21 salary cap is $81.5 million, or $3.5 million per player on a 23-man roster. Remove one player from the equation and, on average, there's nearly $160,000 to hand out to each of the other 22. More money in the system equals more money for various stakeholders.

And, Overhardt notes, that's just player payroll itself.

"(By) having that (exempted star) player under contract, and having that player as part of your organization, it creates a lot of value for season tickets, merchandising, licensing, and for your whole digital media platform," he said. "And that's the way we need to be looking towards for revenues, rather than worrying only about (merely) protecting our costs."

• This concept primarily benefits big-market franchises. Adopting it would hurt small-market clubs and undercut league parity.

Overhardt understands this perspective but insists there are several deep-pocketed small-market owners, including Tampa Bay's Jeff Vinik and the Winnipeg Jets' True North group. Such parties could handle the extra expense.

The Exception Player Rule would also likely produce a frenzy around top-tier unrestricted free agents. Wouldn't it be nice if more teams had seats at the negotiating table when talents like Alex Pietrangelo hit the open market? And if teams like the New York Rangers are thriving, that can't be a bad thing, can it?

"They all own teams for different reasons, but at the end of the day, they're all very competitive," Overhardt said. "Let's let (owners) be competitive."

Something else to keep in mind: Depending on the terms attached to the Exception Player Rule, teams that don't opt in could get a luxury-tax kickback from those that do. Again, a rising tide lifts all boats.

• The NHL and the National Hockey League Players' Association have bigger fish to fry at the moment. Why even bring up this outside-the-box, blue-sky idea?

KO Sports published the article a few months before the NHL and the NHLPA agreed on a return-to-play plan for the 2020 postseason and a new collective bargaining agreement. Overhardt was well aware of the climate then, and even now, with the 2020-21 season hanging in the balance, he's enthusiastic about the idea.

"We wrote the article pre-pandemic (in early 2020). So some of these things have been put on hold temporarily, but they're not going to change when the market gets back to normal," Overhardt said. "I think that's a fair assumption."

Parting thoughts

Though he's worked through five work stoppages as an agent and sports lawyer, Overhardt concedes the potential implementation of the Exception Player Rule is above his pay grade. It's ultimately an issue for the league and the players' association.

In any event, he believes NHL stars simply deserve a bigger slice of the pie.

"I don't represent (Alex) Ovechkin, I don't represent (Sidney) Crosby, but those two guys have propped up the league on their backs, branding-wise, for the greater part of a decade," Overhardt said. "Yeah, they get paid a lot of money, but for what they've given to the game, they should be compensated much closer to where (the superstar market should be) now."

But does he foresee the Exception Player Rule gaining traction in the near future?

"I think in the next couple of years, probably the next half-dozen years - and this is me speculating - we'll have a change of the guard," he said, referring to 68-year-old commissioner Gary Bettman. "And hopefully, we won't have labor lawyers running these organizations anymore.

"I think we need people with some creative thought. I think that will be good for the game, and I think it would be good for players."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

As we await word on the fate of the 2020-21 NHL season, theScore is revisiting innovative ideas from different corners of the hockey world. Consider this four-part series food for thought during a most unusual offseason. (Part 1 is about replacing the draft lottery. Parts 3 and 4 will arrive Monday and Tuesday, respectively.)

Picture this: It's Sunday, April 7, 2019, hours removed from the NHL regular season and three days before playoff action begins. The Tampa Bay Lightning, who laid waste to the competition for the past six months - winning 62 of 82 games - have earned the right to choose their first-round opponent in the Eastern Conference. That pick is due to the league office in advance of a selection show airing Sunday night on national TV.

It's a gigantic decision that could smooth their path through the first round. Or it could blow up in their face.

Tampa Bay could tap the Columbus Blue Jackets, who recorded the fewest points among East playoff clubs. Or perhaps the Lightning will pick the Carolina Hurricanes, who finished with just one extra point and don't boast a true No. 1 goalie. And then, there are the Toronto Maple Leafs, who are, essentially, Lightning Light.

The Lightning were 3-0 in the regular season against both Columbus and Carolina and 3-1 against Toronto, a division rival. Now they get to pick their poison.

In reality, the 2018-19 Lightning were automatically paired with the wild-card Blue Jackets, who went on to sweep Tampa Bay. Maybe the Hurricanes or Maple Leafs would have made quick work of the Lightning, too. But that's not the point.

What matters is that such a decision would add a layer of suspense and intrigue to the NHL campaign. The top regular-season team each year claims the Presidents' Trophy and home-ice advantage for the duration of its playoff run. What if that club also had an influence on the first-round matchups?

This hypothetical has played out at lower levels of hockey. Teams in the ICE Hockey League of Austria have been choosing opponents since the 2012-13 postseason in its "Playoff Pick." The Southern Professional Hockey League did something similar - called the "Challenge Round" - in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 postseasons.

"If you're the NHL and you want people to obsessively talk about you, have some drama," former SPHL president Jim Combs said in a recent interview.

In the SPHL's case, the regular-season points leader picked its opponent from a pool of four teams that finished fifth through eighth in the standings for a best-of-three series. The second and third seeds in the 10-team, division-free league followed suit, leaving the fourth-place club to link up with the remaining playoff contender. (Teams were reseeded in the second round and paired according to their regular-season point totals.)

The SPHL - which introduced three-on-three overtime in 2004, a decade before the NHL did - is a rung below the ECHL on the North American pro hockey ladder. Its franchises are clustered in the United States' Midwest and Southeast, in places like Huntsville, Alabama; Pensacola, Florida; and Peoria, Illinois. Therefore, travel factored into the decision-making process for teams tasked with choosing a playoff foe. The quality of the opponent, health of rosters, and recent performance were other variables commonly considered.

In the first year of Combs' experiment, the league aired an event called the Challenge Round Selection Show. Former NHLer Terry Crisp and Alabama football radio voice Eli Gold co-hosted, and, after a live audience rained boos on Combs a la Gary Bettman, the president revealed each pick.

If it sounds gimmicky, that's because it was. But there was also an undeniable appeal to the whole gambit, and Combs - who left the SPHL in 2018 to pursue other opportunities - remains bullish on the idea.

"In the NHL, we already know who is going to play who. There's no point in talking about who's going to match up with who (as the regular season winds down) because it's already set by the standings," Combs said. "Well, with the Challenge Round, we put the onus on those top teams to pick who they think they can beat.

"Sometimes the one-seed doesn't want to touch the eight-seed because eight could have been terrible for the last two months but they got their best players back recently, are on a hot streak, winning lots over the last three weeks, and really have a lot of momentum coming into the playoffs. Now, what do they do?"

Combs borrowed the idea from former NHL linesman and referee Lyle Seitz, who since 2011 has been the director of hockey operations for ICE. Seitz reports parallel benefits to the Challenge Round in his loop's Playoff Pick format, including heightened intensity in the regular season as teams jockey for position throughout the standings, great publicity for the postseason through a widely watched TV spectacle, bulletin-board material for the lower-end teams, and an extra incentive and reward for the elite clubs.

"The owners and players mostly like it," Seitz said. "The major complaints I get are from the coaches. It's not as if they don't like the idea, it's just that all the pressure's on them."

Therein lies the fundamental problem with the pick-your-opponent proposal, at least from the NHL's perspective. It's often dismissed as "bush league," or something below the standards of the world's top association. So, who among the owners, managers, coaches, and players would ever champion such an outside-the-box concept?

"It might be great for (the SPHL), but it's not something I'd encourage our league to do, and I couldn't see it ever happening," Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill said in 2018.

"I don't like it," Washington Capitals GM Brian MacLellan told Craig Custance of The Athletic in March. "I like to play who you're supposed to play. You play a whole season to get your spot in the standings and you play it out. I imagine, if you're picking someone it'll be a little motivation to the team you're picking, 'Oh really? You're picking us?'"

MacLellan raises a valid point. There's nothing wrong with the NHL playoffs' level of entertainment. The on-ice product sells itself year after year, sans gimmicks. And as the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The NHL held a fantasy draft ahead of the annual All-Star Weekend for five years from 2011 through 2015, during which captains chose their teammates for the weekend. By all accounts, it went well in terms of production and buzz. A similar show before the playoffs would be an entirely different beast, however, with the stakes infinitely higher and tone much more serious.

"The fans liked it. The coaches hated it. It's a great idea until you pick a fight with someone," Combs said, laughing at the memory of the SPHL's experiment. "My favorite part about being involved in the Challenge Round was that I administered it, was involved in the show, but there was no pressure on me. I didn't have to pick an opponent, no one picked me."

The selection show would be somewhat familiar to NHL fans, too. It would essentially serve as the draft lottery on steroids. Instead of Bill Daly flipping over a giant card to reveal who has the first overall pick, the NHL's deputy commissioner would unveil exactly how Playoff Team X feels about Playoff Team Y, manufacturing hysteria in multiple markets. The drama, then, would begin prior to Game 1 puck drop, not at some point during the series.

Keith Yandle is in favor of the concept, though the Florida Panthers defenseman admitted last year he's probably in the minority. Combs said one NHL team absolutely loved the idea when the SPHL first unveiled its plans in 2017. An executive told him the club's hockey operations staff debated the merits of potential opponents for hours on end.

There's a case to be made that the 2020-21 NHL season would be an ideal time to introduce the pick-your-opponent concept, as it will be a shortened campaign. TV ratings were down for the 24-team bubbled postseason, and this twist, which Major League Baseball has also discussed, would spice up the schedule. Let's not forget, changing the playoff format is not without precedent in the NHL.

"Is it a good thing? I would say 100%," Seitz said. "Would the NHL ever do it? I would say no. Because they follow traditions."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

As we await word on the fate of the 2020-21 NHL season, theScore is revisiting innovative ideas from different corners of the hockey world. Consider this four-part series food for thought during a most unusual offseason. (Parts 2 to 4 will run Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.)

Adam Gold's idea about the NHL's draft order was hatched out of a moment of frustration back in March 2008. The regular season was nearly finished, the Steven Stamkos-headlined draft was approaching, and Gold - a die-hard St. Louis Blues fan - could only shake his head at the television.

"John Davidson shouldn't have to go on TV for an interview and have to say something like that," Gold recalls thinking as he watched the former Blues president promise fans their favorite hockey team wasn't losing on purpose.

That surreal but not entirely unique scene - an executive feeling compelled to publicly assure supporters that winning, not losing, remains the goal every night - led to Gold developing what's now known as the "Gold Plan," or as he's called it since it was first publicized, the "NHL Draft Order Based on Mathematical Elimination."

The premise is straightforward: rather than the league's worst teams entering a lottery each spring to determine the order of the upcoming draft, picks are doled out based on point accumulation starting when a team is mathematically eliminated from postseason contention. At the end of the regular season, the team with the most post-elimination points is awarded the first overall selection, followed by the team with the second-most, and so on.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of this idea? Let's investigate.

The case for the Gold Plan

The core objective is to rewire the incentive system for teams outside the playoff picture. In this scenario, all 82 games would matter to all 31 teams because the NHL would reward winning over losing, which, in turn, would discourage teams from tanking to chase higher draft-lottery odds.

"The value of a win should always be more than the value of a loss," Gold, a 36-year-old data scientist working in agriculture, told theScore. "A fan from any team could look at the schedule of remaining games and want to win each or any game remaining."

This mindset is in stark contrast with what the hockey world witnessed on March 26, 2015, when Buffalo Sabres fans were openly cheering for the opposing team, the Arizona Coyotes, during a late-season home game. The sparkling prize for finishing last that season was a 20% shot at the No. 1 draft pick, Connor McDavid. Sabres fans simply couldn't help themselves. (Of course, the last-place Sabres - who dropped that game in overtime - didn't end up winning the lottery. They picked another future star, Jack Eichel, at No. 2.)

"The second you start convincing someone to cheer against you, you're one step closer to losing them as a fan," former Coyotes captain and Gold Plan supporter Shane Doan told Sarah McLellan of AZ Central a year later.

Though the McDavid tankfest was an extreme example, there are legions of fans every year who come to a realization at some point in the second half of the season that their team's short-term ineptitude is better for the franchise's long-term outlook. So they cheer for penalties and goals against, losses, and losing streaks. And it's hard to blame them. The current system is closely linked to bottoming out in the standings, though it's also tempered by the luck of the lottery.

Case in point, the upstart New York Rangers in October made Alexis Lafreniere the first overall pick after winning the lottery with just 2.5% odds. Meanwhile, the Detroit Red Wings, who are in the middle of a substantial rebuild, had no incentive to improve their roster for or during the 2019-20 season. Yet, on draft weekend, Detroit selected fourth despite entering the lottery with a league-high 18.5% odds of claiming the No. 1 pick.

It was a miserable season for Red Wings fans, and Lafreniere is now a Ranger.

"The fear of a bitter ending is an emotional decision that limits season-ticket purchases, game attendance, merchandise sales, and fan support," Gold wrote in a 2010 paper for the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports.

If the NHL replaced the draft lottery with the Gold Plan, or some variant of it, the luck portion of determining the draft order would vanish, and the league's worst teams would still have a relatively strong chance at picking atop the draft.

The Red Wings, for example, were eliminated from playoff contention with a loss to the New York Islanders on Feb. 21 in their 63rd game of the season. They would have had 19 games to collect points toward winning the Gold Plan race had the season completed as usual. As it was, they collected five points in the eight games they did play. The Ottawa Senators - the team with the second-fewest points last season - weren't eliminated until March 10 and would have had only 10 games to collect points. (Ottawa lost its only contest before the regular season was halted.)

On the surface, the Gold Plan sure seems to be a smart alternative, balancing the opportunity to pick No. 1 overall with a reason to try to keep winning.

The case against the Gold Plan

The plan first gained mainstream traction after Gold presented it at the 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, but it's not without its critics. Gold has attempted to address these arguments:

• This new incentive system wouldn't solve anything. Rebuilding teams would just begin tanking earlier in the season to "start the clock" on accumulating draft-order points as soon as possible.

To this, Gold notes the NHL could retroactively "start the clock" a certain period before a team is eliminated (let's say 10 games) to safeguard against any early tanking or strength-of-schedule issues that may arise. At the end of the day, he adds, if fans of bad teams are cheering for wins for the vast majority of the year, that's an improvement over the lottery.

Also, the current iteration of the Gold Plan would inevitably need tweaking.

"If you want to fully resolve the tanking and you want to get rid of any incentive to lose, it's hard to do it in a way where everyone is going to agree on the best strategy right off the bat, without it being tested," Gold said.

• The late-season race for the top pick wouldn't be all that exciting in practice. By definition, eliminated teams aren't very good and thus won't win many games. Where's the entertainment value?

The 2019-20 Red Wings, who lost an unbelievable 49 of 71 games and oftentimes looked closer to a high-functioning AHL team than a respectable NHL outfit, would qualify for this type of sad-sack squad. The Gold Plan, in theory, would discourage teams from bottoming out and starting over in the first place, which Detroit has done to some degree with its present rebuild effort.

"I believe, in a pro sports league, there should be an expectation that any team can win any game," Gold said. "Otherwise, don't expect fans to pay."

• One marquee TV event - the NHL draft lottery - would be toast with the implementation of the Gold Plan, while another - the NHL trade deadline - would lose a ton of appeal. That's bad for business.

What happens to all of those pending unrestricted free agents who swap cities ahead of the annual deadline? Do they stay put in an effort to push for the first overall pick? How does that dynamic affect the transaction market?

Why would the NHL want to water down a day in the calendar for which fans take the day off work to sit in front of the TV and think about nothing but hockey? Assuredly, the league's broadcasters wouldn't be thrilled by this development, losing out on a big day of ad sales and sponsorships.

As for the lottery, the benefits of the Gold Plan likely overpower the gains from that event, which certainly has its viral moments but can be dull and stiff.

"How many hot dogs do they sell at the lottery show? How much revenue is generated from parking to see the ping pong balls?" Gold said. "Play for the picks on the ice."

Parting thoughts

Ideally, the Gold Plan would be tested at a lower level of hockey - perhaps the major junior circuit in Canada - before the NHL takes a leap of faith on what's viewed in hockey circles as a radical idea. Communication with fans would be critical in the early stages, and there are several other considerations, including what happens when a first-round pick is swapped midseason.

Gold, who says people tend to either really love or really hate the plan, admits there would be growing pains for the league if it adopts his idea. But, in his eyes, there's little risk involved. The worst-case scenario is a U-turn back to the mechanisms in place now.

"It would be interesting if the NHL played with it for a few years, and if they don't like it they can always go back to the lottery," he said.

Gold offered an anecdote about the 2017-18 Vancouver Canucks in an effort to illustrate the plan's potential beauty.

In the club's final home game of the season, Daniel Sedin scored in overtime off a pass from his brother Henrik to cap two phenomenal careers. It was a storybook ending for the career-long Canucks, and, under the Gold Plan, the win would have vaulted Vancouver into the first-overall position for the 2018 draft.

Now, Canucks fans will gladly keep No. 7 pick Quinn Hughes given the defenseman's quick rise to stardom. But blue-chip prospect Rasmus Dahlin was the shiny object entering draft weekend, and it would have been poetic if the Canucks got a new franchise cornerstone thanks to one final highlight from the Sedin twins. A perfect passing of the torch and also a completely rational way to decide the order of the NHL draft.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Rick Vaive is no different than the average Joe - and he's not afraid to admit it.

The Toronto Maple Leafs great was asked Monday what life's been like during the COVID-19 pandemic. "Shitty," he replied with a hearty laugh.

"There's no alumni games, no appearances. It just kind of sucks all around," the 61-year-old said. "But, hey, it affects other people worse than us, so I can't complain too much."

That short exchange sums up Vaive's disposition quite well while also underlining why the three-time 50-goal scorer decided to write a memoir. "Catch 22: My Battles, in Hockey and Life," which hit bookstores last week, is centered around Vaive debunking the widely held notion that all professional athletes are perfectly happy, fabulously rich, and immune to mental illnesses.

"Let's put it this way: There's been struggles, not just on the ice but off the ice," said Vaive, who grew up in a household plagued with alcoholism. As an adult, he's battled anxiety as well as substance-abuse issues.

Vaive, who currently lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario with his wife Joyce, was selected fifth overall in the 1979 NHL draft by the Vancouver Canucks. A right-winger nicknamed "Squid," he played in the world's top league for 13 years, racking up 788 points in 876 games for Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, and Buffalo. The former Leafs captain went on to coach in the ECHL, AHL, and, most notably, the OHL, under former Mississauga IceDogs owner Don Cherry.

"This, hopefully, will show people that we're all human and we all make mistakes," Vaive said of the ups and downs detailed in the 242-page book co-authored by veteran hockey journalist Scott Morrison. "We all have issues, we all deal with challenges in our lives, and pro athletes are no different."

theScore chatted with Vaive about "Catch 22," his playing and coaching careers, some of the bold characters he's crossed paths with, and the current iteration of the Leafs. Below is an abridged version of that conversation.

theScore: Why publish a book now? Why not 10 years ago, 15 years ago? Why is November 2020 the sweet spot?

Vaive: It's kind of hard to really give a real answer. I just thought it was time. … When my grandson was born (in mid-2019), I think that was really a big part of it. You realize that you're getting older when you have grandchildren. Plus, you want people to know what your life was all about. I see a lot of people, meet a lot of people, and for the most part, except for the older, wiser generation, everybody thinks, 'Oh, he played in the NHL for 13 years, he must have had a perfect life growing up. Now he's a multi-millionaire.' But it's so far from the truth. I've got a mortgage, for Christ's sake!

theScore: That dynamic is laid out clearly in the book. You list off your yearly salary and, even though you were one of the best players in the NHL, it's obvious you weren't being paid that much, a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. The league has changed dramatically in regard to economics and the amount of money associated with the NHL.

Vaive: Absolutely. The revenues are substantially higher than they were back then. But, at the same time, they made enough money to pay us a bit more in Toronto, for sure. The owners controlled everything, though, and Alan Eagleson (the former executive director of the NHL Players' Association) was on their side. Free agency was 32 years old! He didn't really help us at all. He was in with the owners, and they controlled everything.

theScore: Speaking of owners, what's the craziest story you can share about infamous Leafs owner Harold Ballard?

Vaive: Oh boy, there's a few. One of the funniest involves his dog, T.C. Puck. He was in our team pictures, which I thought was kind of crazy. I don't have a single team picture without the dog in it. Anyway, T.C. Puck was sitting right in front of me and Harold was beside me. We were sitting there for quite some time. I don't know why, maybe the photographer was moving people around. And then everything got going, we finished, and everybody was getting off the bleachers. The dog tried to get up and it yelped. It turned out his balls were frozen to the ice. So out comes one of the crew members with one of those scrappers and some hot water … (Laughs) Ah, that was pretty funny.

theScore: And then, as an OHL coach, you worked under Don Cherry in Mississauga. You note in your book that he once told you that you "couldn't coach a good f-----g peewee team." Can you describe what Cherry was like as a boss?

Vaive: (Pauses) I don't even know what word to use. Controlling? Controlling. And he's sticking his nose in all the time. That's the way he was. What you see on "Coach's Corner" is what you get with the man himself. It's no different.

theScore: Have you and Don ever patched up the wounds from your time together running the IceDogs? Are you on good terms nowadays?

Vaive: I don't see him very often. I see him at banquets and different things, and I always say hello, how are things, and all of that. I hold no grudge against the guy. It's water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned. Although I think that experience may have affected my ability to get another coaching job. But, you know what, I treat him as I treat everybody else: Very nicely.

theScore: Switching gears, what's your favorite Darryl Sittler prank?

Vaive: The problem is, no one ever knew if it was Darryl or not because he never got caught. He was pretty sneaky. (Laughs) But I know guys who have had their shoes nailed to the floor and the legs of their jeans tied in a really, really tight knot. I would literally sit there for half an hour to get it out. But no one ever caught him. I think we all knew it was him, but you couldn't catch him in the act.

theScore: What do you recall from your times hanging out with late comedian and actor John Candy?

Vaive: We formed a good relationship. We started hanging out in Toronto and he'd meet some of us Leafs downtown for lunch, stuff like that. I remember really well one time in L.A. He happened to be there, probably working on a movie. I knew he was coming to the game, but I didn't expect him to walk right down into the dressing room. I was in the shower and he's calling for me. 'Where's Squid? Where's Squid?' All the guys are wide-eyed, like, 'Holy cow, John Candy!' I walk out, he's there, we start talking. I get dressed and we go out to the bar. That was kind of a funny story about our relationship. I mean, he was a great person. Funny as hell. Even off the screen. He was just hilarious.

theScore: Was it a charisma thing with John? Would you simply find yourself laughing around him no matter the setting?

Vaive: He would come up with things that you couldn't not laugh at, you know? We were out for lunch and there were three or four of my teammates there, and the whole place would just start erupting. He was just naturally funny.

theScore: In those days NHLers would smoke cigarettes in the dressing room. That mental image is like something from another world at this point, given how far society and hockey have come along with smoking.

Vaive: It was between periods in the bathroom. It's completely different, you're right. I'd say 25% of every team back then probably smoked. Maybe even higher. And now I'd be shocked if there's one player on every team in the NHL who smokes. Obviously, it's not good for you. It's not healthy, and I ended up quitting at 28, I think, because it was starting to affect me, playing-wise. When you look back, it was kind of weird.

theScore: In general, so much has changed on and off the ice in the hockey world since you were an active player. What's one thing you like about the modern game? And what's one thing you don't like?

Vaive: I would say the thing I like the most is probably the way the players are treated. Injury-wise, medically-wise. Everything. They have a solid players' association. Finally, they are getting what they deserve, which is 50% of the (revenue) pie. I guess the least favorite would be the fact they took the red line out. I'd love to see the game with the center-ice red line back in, just so you can't make those passes from beside the net all the way up to the far blue line. It has opened the game up, and it probably is a little bit more exciting, but I would like to see the red line come back in.

theScore: Can you unpack that thought? What do you like about the red line?

Vaive: A lot more thinking would have to go into the game. A lot more strategy, too, in that it's a lot harder to get out of your own zone. Wingers play a more important role with the red line in because they have to do their job along the wall, get pucks out, and that sort of thing. That's what I loved about the game. Defensemen could come down and pinch a lot easier. But now, it's just completely different, and it's hard because if someone blows the zone and the defending team gains possession of the puck, you have to retreat and get back there to stop that long pass.

theScore: Off the ice, you struggled with alcohol, and in 2009 you got pulled over for driving under the influence. The charges were ultimately dropped after a couple of years in the court system but, I'm wondering, how difficult was that time in your life?

Vaive: Those were probably two of the toughest years I've ever had in my life, to be honest with you. I was getting no work, no appearances, nothing. Every time there was a court date, it was everywhere (in the media). That wasn't much fun, I can assure you of that. The outcome (not guilty) was great and a big relief, but the drinking got worse as time went on, even shortly after the trial. But that's when I decided to go to rehab and get help.

theScore: How are you doing these days with your sobriety?

Vaive: I'm fine. We played golf all summer, and my buddies would go on the patio and order a couple of pitchers. I would sit there and drink my ginger ale. I don't think about it that much anymore at all.

theScore: You played for the Canucks, Leafs, Blackhawks, and Sabres in the 1980s and '90s. Those jerseys you wore are now "vintage" looks, especially the "Flying V" in Vancouver. Which of your NHL jerseys did you enjoy the most?

Vaive: (Sighs) I think the coolest one, with the logo and everything, was probably Chicago. That was a pretty impressive-looking sweater in my mind. For the Leafs, I love the one they wear now. I didn't particularly like ours, the ones we wore in the '80s with the blue all the way down the sleeve, similar to the retro one they've come out with recently. And I didn't like the leaf itself. I like the new leaf, which is very similar to the one from 1967.

theScore: What do you think of the moves Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas has made this offseason? Do the Leafs get over the hump in 2020-21?

Vaive: I sure as heck hope so. (Laughs) I think they're good moves, I do. I say that because these new guys have been through it. Some of them have been to the Stanley Cup Final or semifinals, so their leadership will be very, very important. I still think they're all pretty decent players in the league. Joe Thornton is probably one of the best passers in the league.

At the same time, I think the young group, the top-six forwards and top couple of defensemen, has to start taking control of the situation. The guys they brought in are a little bit older, almost near the end. Yes, they're going to be a big part of it, on and off the ice, but if this team is going to get over the hump, it's going to have to be the core guys. They're not kids anymore. They're not too young. They've all played three, four years in the NHL, and they've probably learned a great deal from the last three or four years.

I fully expect guys like (Auston) Matthews, (Mitch) Marner, (William) Nylander to say, 'OK, we have to get this done.' I think, by now, they know what it takes, and I believe they will take over and get this team over the hump.

theScore: You've said previously that you'd be happy to see Matthews score 50 and maybe even 55 to break your team record …

Vaive: Well, I didn't say I was happy … (Laughs).

theScore: OK, maybe I'm putting words in your mouth. How would you frame it?

Vaive: No one wants their records to be broken. But, inevitably, they are going to be broken at some point. And Auston was so close last year. He would have scored 50, I'm almost 100% sure of that. Maybe even 54, 55. That opportunity, with 47 goals and 12 games left, was taken away from him. It wasn't taken away from him by injury, which he ran into in his first three or four years. It was a pandemic that took that away from him. I feel bad for him. I would have loved to have been there to watch everything unfold and to see if he could have done it.

theScore: In your mind, what makes Matthews a special scorer?

Vaive: Well, first of all, he's got such an incredible shot. I think his deception, where it looks like he's shooting toward one part of the net and then he changes the angle quickly and puts it somewhere, is special. Besides that, the vision and the ability to read the play is uncanny.

theScore: One final topic: What would it mean to you to have your number 22 retired by the Leafs?

Vaive: It would be a great honor, for starters. I'm at a lot of the games, and I'll look up and see the numbers, and you always think, 'Aw geez, it would be nice to see my number up there …' Yeah, it would be a significant honor. I don't make those decisions, but if it ever happened it would be a wonderful evening and, with my family there and everything, it would be exciting.

theScore: It would essentially be the cherry on top after your career and ambassador work with the team.

Vaive: It would be, but, again, I don't know if it'll happen. If it does, I would cherish it, and it would be a wonderful, wonderful gesture on their part. It would be a heck of an honor.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Ken Reid's brain is filled with hockey card memories.

There's the time when the Sportsnet broadcaster's mother brought home a box of 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee cards from an auction. It cost $10. Inside was a highly coveted and extremely valuable Wayne Gretzky rookie card that Reid and his younger brother immediately wrestled over.

There's also the card and collectible shows that the brothers would frequent as teenagers coming of age in Nova Scotia in the early 1990s. Sometimes they'd even set up their own merchandise table and, after a weekend of action, head home with an extra $500 to spend on new cards.

Then there's the recent flashbulb memory of Reid's 7-year-old son, Jacoby, opening up a 2019-20 O-Pee-Chee Platinum pack and staring at a rare Jack Hughes autographed card. That moment - and Jacoby's interest in the hobby in general - brings everything full circle for the 45-year-old Reid.

"We live in a world where everything changes all the time," the longtime Sportsnet Central anchor said. "I love the fact that you can buy a card and it's still 2.5 by 3.5 inches, the same as it was in 1960. Of course, there are cards that are different - jersey cards and autograph cards, for instance - but I absolutely love that for old-school collectors like me, the main cards are the same."

While there's no silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, one byproduct of 2020 is the sports card boom. Industry insiders claim there hasn't been this much interest in collecting since its peak in the late 1980s and early '90s. Sports fans from Reid's generation are now nostalgic adults with disposable income, impressionable children, and messy closets that hold troves of old cards.

This perfect storm has led to massive growth in all card categories, including hockey. "It's exploded, I think, is how I would put it," said Ryan Cracknell, an editor for Beckett, a media company specializing in sports card coverage.

"When we realized how serious things were with COVID-19, my initial reaction was, 'If it's going to affect the economy, if it's going to affect people's jobs - this is not good.' The first thing people traditionally put on the sidelines are their collectibles, their hobbies," said Chris Carlin, the head of customer experience for Upper Deck. "But, what we found out pretty quickly was that people weren't going on trips, weren't going out to dinner. As they were stuck at home, they were looking for hobbies, ways to pass the time."

Chris Callahan, the director of marketing for auction house PWCC Marketplace, concurs: "This is the best spot the industry has been in many, many years. The interest has been amazing, the price appreciation has been amazing. The types of collectors or investors that have entered into the market are really impressive, from serious money injected to fairly big celebrities that have gotten involved. There's a lot of momentum right now."

The ultimate sign of the times? In August, Vegas hotshot Dave Oancea sold a 2009 autographed rookie card of Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout for a whopping $3.94 million. The transaction surpassed the $3.12 million benchmark that a 1909 Honus Wagner T206 card established in 2016. (Another Wagner card went for $3.25 million in October.)

Hockey's flagship set, Upper Deck's Series 1, hit brick-and-mortar and online stores Wednesday. The 2020-21 edition, headlined by the first NHL card for New York Rangers blue-chip prospect Alexis Lafreniere, was eagerly anticipated. Predictably, cases flew off the shelves across North America.

Customers at Breakaway Sports Cards in Hamilton, Ontario, bought an entire Canada Post van's worth of product ahead of the release, co-owner Chuck Durka said. More than 100 people purchased Upper Deck products online while the store itself was nonstop all day with a substantial lineup outside. "We're having trouble staying on top of the orders," Durka said Thursday. "It's just nuts."

On eBay and other digital marketplaces, the Lafreniere "Young Guns" card is already being flipped for upwards of $350. "There hasn't been anybody that's done those kinds of numbers since (Connor) McDavid," Durka said.

Upper Deck, the sole producer of hockey cards thanks to an exclusive multi-year agreement with the NHL and players' association, dropped another set last week through Tim Hortons. The Tim's collection is especially popular among kids because of the price point (one three-card pack sells for $0.99 CAD with the purchase of a beverage) and the allure of pumping some safe fun into a drive-thru order.

"It sounds weird, but I think a lot of credit should go to Tim Hortons for them putting packs back in stores a few years ago," said Reid, who has authored a pair of "Hockey Card Stories" books. "Suddenly, people would randomly buy a pack with their coffee for a buck. That might have reignited the spark in a lot of older collectors and started a spark in a lot of younger collectors."

Powering the renaissance is this cross section of several large groups of people - young and old, experienced and inexperienced, casual and hardcore. Within those groups are subgroups of people who either buy sports cards in lieu of lottery tickets or treat collecting cards strictly as a passion project.

"The neat thing about the sports card industry is that it can be used as a tool to make money, but it can also be used as a tool for simply having a hobby," Reid said. "For most people, it's a hybrid of both. Everybody, even the hobbyist, likes to make a buck, right?"

A flurry of popular pack-opening livestreams over the past few years - better known as case or group "breaks" - laid the groundwork for the 2020 boom, said Rey Revereza of Dolly's Sports Cards in Toronto. Zion Williamson's much-hyped NBA debut in January got the ball rolling. The nostalgia-soaked Michael Jordan documentary "The Last Dance" moved the needle again, and the industry has been on a steep incline ever since, with dozens of influential voices, including entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, musician and DJ Steve Aoki, and reality TV's Rob Kardashian, encouraging outsiders to enter the market.

Revereza estimates there's a 65-35 split between investors/flippers and hobbyists among his customer base. He's lost count of the number of young people who've noted their passion for collecting cards can be traced back to watching a single TikTok or YouTube video during the pandemic. "Social media has transformed the way this hobby is perceived," Carlin said.

Investing in sports cards versus company stocks is inherently cooler and more interesting, and the barrier to entry, from an intellectual standpoint, is lower. As Callahan points out, "How much easier is it to follow LeBron James' career, Sidney Crosby's career - whoever it is - versus a Citibank stock?"

Callahan's company, PWCC, has been in business since 1998, but it took until 2019 to introduce a new service: access to a Class 3 bank vault located in its Oregon officers. Collectors can secure and insure cards, which typically aren't covered under homeowner insurance, and receive an appraisal. PWCC customers can also take out a loan against their cards.

Insiders tend to subscribe to the notion that the value of a sports card is determined by five factors:

1. Supply and demand (scarcity of the product drives up the price)
2. Card condition (bends and chips drop a grading)
3. Brand power (some sets catch on over the years, others don't)
4. Card style (premium marks, such as a jersey patch, boost appeal)
5. Name recognition (legendary players like Gretzky and Trout occupy their own stratosphere)

The boom 30 years ago nosedived in the mid-'90s amid labor strife in hockey, baseball, and basketball. Card publishers had flooded the market with so much product that the supply-and-demand ratio was completely out of sync. So far, it appears companies have learned their lessons.

"At the end of the day, we have to make what's responsible for the category," Carlin said. "Otherwise, there's a perception that it's not collectible because there's too much of it and there's just not enough interest in it anymore. You can really do a lot of damage to your brand if you make too much."

Cracknell and Callahan are both bullish on the industry, believing that although booms don't last forever, this is not some one-year fad. "If there were 100 people interested in cards in 2019 and this boom ... grows it to 500, and we're left with half of those new people when the boom is over, we're in a better place than we were a couple of years ago," Callahan said.

As for Reid, no matter his age, there's no denying the dopamine rush associated with ripping open a package of untouched cards.

"With hockey cards, it's kind of like the Mark Messier Lay's potato chips ad: You can't eat just one, you can't have just one," he said.

"It's an easy thing to get hooked on."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

A giant van marked with the University of Vermont's colors and logos sat outside the duty-free shop. Men's hockey assistant coach Jeff Hill had borrowed the bulky vehicle from the Catamounts' varsity ski team to transport Dovar, Azzaro, one other freshman, and the players' luggage - clothes, hockey gear, televisions, microwaves - in one run.

Hill had briefed border authorities on the handoff plan and promised to quickly return stateside with three Canadians bound for the UVM campus in Burlington, some 40 miles south.

"In a way, it felt like I was smuggling them over the border," Hill told theScore with a laugh.

The Tinling family had driven the scenic two hours from Montreal to Burlington many times over the years. But this trip, like seemingly everything else in 2020, was strange - "surreal," as Azzaro put it. The two boys could cross the border, but Mom and Dad couldn't - not unless they wanted to endure a lengthy quarantine.

After a teary goodbye, the parents headed north and the van south. "It was weird, but it actually went pretty smoothly," said Dovar, the younger of the two brothers. "We pulled up to customs, did everything there, and we were off. It took about an hour, tops."

Strict protocols greeted them at UVM. Before exploring campus, the brothers were required to pass multiple COVID-19 tests while observing a 10-day quarantine. It wasn't the storybook going-off-to-college scene anyone had envisioned. But that's how it had to be to keep everyone safe and healthy.

Dovar, a top prospect for the 2021 NHL Draft, won't turn 18 until March. That makes him the youngest player in NCAA Division I hockey and the youngest Canadian NCAA player since Jonathan Toews and Simon Danis-Pepin dressed for North Dakota and Maine, respectively, in 2005-06.

This is the story of Dovar's rise through the ranks, why he chose UVM, and the part his older brother Azzaro, 20, has played in shaping him as a person and athlete.

The Tinling brothers, born three years and two months apart, grew up in Pointe-Claire, a low-density suburb of Montreal. The family home backs onto Lake Saint-Louis, which in the winter, with some light shoveling, can be converted into a frozen playground.

As kids, Dovar and Azzaro would come home from elementary school on their lunch break, lace up their skates, and spend 20-30 minutes on the lake. Their mom, Tracey, would fix sandwiches as the lifelong best buddies buzzed around. Most days it would be one-on-one; other times, someone was the goalie. They'd carve up the lake after school and on weekends, too.

"It was just fun to us," Azzaro said. "We didn't think anything of it at the time."

In organized hockey, the brothers were on independent timelines. Azzaro's birthday is in December, so he was four age groups ahead of Dovar. There was no scenario - not even in midget, where three cohorts play with and against each other in the Quebec system - in which their paths in minor hockey would cross.

The brothers insist Tracey and dad Adolphe never forced hockey upon them. Their love for the sport and drive to improve came naturally. Education, on the other hand, was a top priority in the Tinling household. Adolphe would often use his own story to deliver the message to the brothers and their sister Jordan, now 23.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-70s, Adolphe came of age in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, then one of Montreal's roughest areas. He promised himself he'd graduate high school, a promise he says saved his life.

"Around one-third of the guys I grew up with are dead," he said. "Around one-third are so screwed up because of being exposed to drugs and whatnot. And around one-third are in prison. Take away about 5%, and those are the people who got out and did OK."

In a roundabout way, it was this emphasis on education that finally brought Dovar and Azzaro together on the same team last season. Both had aspirations of earning a degree while pursuing the pro hockey path, and the Hawkesbury Hawks of the junior A Central Canada Hockey League happily made room for both forwards as they looked to maintain their NCAA eligibility. Azzaro, an intimidating, heavy winger, recorded 16 goals and 23 assists in 51 games in 2019-20, his second year with the Hawks. Dovar, meanwhile, claimed CCHL Rookie of the Year honors after recording 21 goals and 30 assists in 50 contests.

"He's a kid who has always played up to the level of competition," said Hill, who started recruiting Dovar to UVM at the beginning of his lone season in midget AAA.

Hawks head coach Rick Dorval liked the brothers' chemistry, so he kept them on the same line for the majority of the season. It seemed a wise move in Azzaro's eyes.

"I knew where he was before I would have to look," Azzaro said of his on-ice synergy with Dovar. "I can't even describe it. It's something you can't really say. I just knew where he would be. I knew his tendencies."

Dovar's tenure with Hawkesbury, though short-lived, was formative. He asserted himself against more physically mature players as a wiry 16-year-old and juggled the demands of multiple Team Canada tournaments and endless school assignments. "Last year," he said, "was definitely an interesting experience."

Hawkesbury, a small Ontario town that runs along the Ottawa River, is a 50-minute drive from Pointe-Claire, so the brothers lived at home. Azzaro, the self-proclaimed "suburban mom," would pick up Dovar from school and drive him to and from practices and games. The rides, sometimes running deep into the night or in the middle of a storm, became something to look forward to. With Azzaro in the driver's seat, Dovar rode shotgun and served as DJ, blasting "Return of the Mac," among other classics.

On the ice, there was no question Dovar was a burgeoning talent.

"He matured a lot, and as he matured, he became a really elite player," Dorval said. "I wouldn't be afraid to say that - if we were able to put on the playoffs - Dovar could have easily been one of the top three players in the postseason, and he could have been a big reason for us having a legitimate chance at winning a championship."

Jon Goyens, Dovar's midget coach, was originally hesitant about his star pupil playing junior A at 16. The CCHL is a hodgepodge of promising prospects and kids at the end of their competitive hockey careers. How might he fit into the mix?

"Well, it fit because he made it fit," Goyens said, labeling Dovar a hyper-observant "sponge."

"He's just not a kid I bet against. He's committed, he's dialed in."

A couple of weeks ago, NHL Central Scouting released its preliminary players-to-watch list for the 2021 draft. Four NCAA players made the list: Owen Power, Kent Johnson, Matthew Beniers, and Dovar. Power, Johnson, and Beniers - all from the University of Michigan - received "A" ratings, indicating they're candidates to go in the first round. The 5-foot-11, 185-pound Dovar was rated a notch below as a "B" prospect.

"Dovar's that Kyle Connor-type player," UVM head coach Todd Woodcroft said. "He's got really good vision. He's got very good patience with the puck."

Woodcroft's resume includes two decades behind NHL benches, most recently with the Winnipeg Jets as an assistant to head coach Paul Maurice. He's extremely familiar with Connor, Dovar's favorite player, after working with him on a daily basis in Winnipeg. Both forwards have slight builds, explosive hand speed, and off-the-charts hockey sense. Connor is an elite goal-scorer - the Michigan product has notched 31, 34, and 38 goals for the Jets in his first three full NHL seasons - and Woodcroft and Goyens believe Dovar could have a similar trajectory. Dovar, for his part, understands what he has to work on to get there.

"I'm a pass-first kind of player, but I also think I can score," he said. "I think my biggest asset is my hockey IQ, especially with the puck. I think I'm a strong skater as well. I could work a lot on every aspect of the game, but my play without the puck - defensively and also in the offensive zone - needs work."

First, Dovar must prove himself in the college hockey scene. Recruited heavily by a number of powerhouse hockey schools including Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State, he settled on UVM. Household names Martin St. Louis, Tim Thomas, John LeClair, and Patrick Sharp are Catamounts alumni. Now Dovar - alongside Azzaro, the protective older brother - hopes to join that list over the next few years.

Every family attacks decision-making from its own unique angle. For the Tinlings, lists are a crucial, necessary part of the process. Ever since Dovar, Azzaro, and Jordan were young kids, they've leaned on one particular kind of list: pros and cons.

"It takes the emotion out of a decision," Azzaro said.

Dovar sat down on two separate occasions this past summer to craft lists relating to his hockey career. The first helped determine if UVM was the right school for him.

In the pros column, he scribbled four main points: He'd be on the same team and campus as his brother and best friend; he'd be joining a historic Hockey East program; he'd play a key role in revitalizing UVM hockey, which has fallen on hard times of late amid three straight losing seasons; and he'd be able to learn from Woodcroft, who was hired in April to replace longtime UVM bench boss Ken Sneddon.

Under cons, he outlined similar points with different twists: He'd be following in his brother's footsteps instead of charting his own path; he'd be joining a rebuilding team, not a powerhouse; and, by living 100 miles from home, he'd remain in his comfort zone.

"The pros completely outweighed the cons," Dovar ultimately concluded, and in June he officially committed to UVM for the 2021-22 season. He'd be 18 by then, a "true freshman" by NCAA standards. In the interim, he'd move west to Des Moines, Iowa, to suit up for the USHL's Buccaneers while taking Grade 12 classes at a local high school (high school in Quebec ends after Grade 11) and preparing for the SATs.

But not long after Dovar's commitment, Woodcroft volleyed an idea back to the Tinlings. Based on game tape, conversations between player and coach, and the NCAA softening its eligibility rules because of the coronavirus (no SATs, for example), Woodcroft thought Dovar could start college this fall, a full year ahead of schedule.

Fast-tracking was an enticing but overwhelming idea. "I had to sit down with both of my parents and really go over it," Dovar said. "I had to do more pros and cons."

Hovering over the obvious challenges of changing course were two external variables: The 2020-21 season would be Dovar's NHL draft year, and most - if not all - of the campaign would be played amid a pandemic. Would college hockey be the best setting to maximize exposure to NHL scouts? How much ice time would he get as an underager? How many games would UVM even play?

"I'd love to go as high as I can," Dovar said of the draft. "So you definitely take into account which spot is better for you. That played into my choice, getting to know and trusting coach Woodcroft and what he'll be able to do with this program while I'm here. Plus, coming from the NHL, he knows what teams want and how to mold a player."

After deep reflection, the pros column had won again.

"While his peers are playing in the USHL and playing against guys who are 18, 19, maybe 20, this guy's playing against people who are going to have a mortgage next year," Woodcroft said, sprinkling in some hyperbole to make his point.

At even strength, Dovar is slated to line up alongside Latvian center Ray Vitolins, also a freshman, and right-winger Alex Esposito, a senior from Connecticut. He'll also get time on the power play during UVM's 20-game schedule. Both team and player are prepared for growing pains.

"He's going to make mistakes, he's going to turn the puck over, he's going to get scored on, and he's going to get right back out there. That's how he's going to develop," Woodcroft said of Dovar, whose maturity, quiet attention to detail, and general disposition remind the coach of a young Steve Yzerman or Joe Sakic.

"He's a 17-year-old, but to me, he's a 27-year-old," Woodcroft said. "He's a wise and mature and humble guy. He just gets it, you know?"

Dovar and Azzaro share a room on the seventh floor of an on-campus dormitory. There's one fridge, one microwave, one TV, two desks, and two beds. On the wall hangs a pair of posters: one of Michael Jordan and another of Kobe Bryant. There's also a flag depicting a cartoon gorilla lifting weights. It's not hard to guess which pieces of wall art belong to whom. "He's a beast in the gym," Dovar said of Azzaro.

The brothers, along with UVM's other first-year players, talked recently about the opportunity before them, to one day be known as the freshman class that kick-started a successful and proud period of Catamounts hockey. The Nov. 26-27 weekend signals the beginning of the Woodcroft era with two games against UMass.

You can bet Adolphe and Tracey will be tuning in. You can also bet Dovar will try to heed some brotherly advice as the youngest kid on the ice.

"The biggest thing Azzaro's taught me over the years - I think I was 14 at the time - is that at some point, you have to realize age isn't a factor," Dovar said.

"Ever since then, I've stopped comparing ages. If you're a hockey player, you're a hockey player."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

This is the second half of a two-part series ranking all 31 NHL teams by tiers for the 2020-21 season. Part 1, which addresses the bottom 14 teams, was published Monday.

This is an annual exercise conducted after the dust has settled on the draft and free agency. The tiers are based on projections for the 2020-21 season only, not the long-term trajectories of each franchise. Lastly, keep in mind the timing. We're all awaiting word on the 2020-21 NHL season, which means there's runway for teams before rosters need to be finalized.

Moderately dangerous (4th tier)

Possible playoff teams unlikely to go on deep run

Calgary Flames

"Solid" is the word that comes to mind regarding the 2020-21 Flames. They're a high-floor team (make the playoffs, probably?) whose ceiling is limited (win a round or two, at best?). Landing stud goalie Jacob Markstrom in free agency was massive; he'll be a huge help over the short and long terms. Otherwise, the roster is unexceptional: above-average top-six forwards, above-average top-four defense, decent but unspectacular depth at both positions. The playoff history of this team during Johnny Gaudreau's six-year tenure (two total series wins) doesn't inspire a ton of confidence. The Flames fit - solidly - into the fourth tier.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Anybody with half a hockey brain could have guessed what Columbus general manager Jarmo Kekalainen would attempt to do this offseason: Find. More. Goals. The John Tortorella-coached squad is routinely one of the top defensive outfits in the NHL, but it finished last season tied for 27th in team offense. Acquiring free-wheeling playmaker Max Domi should help the cause. Domi will find a home down the middle behind young star Pierre-Luc Dubois - who's currently unsigned - while 37-year-old former Minnesota Wild captain Mikko Koivu, added on a cheap one-year deal, will fill the third-line center role.

Many wonder if Kekalainen has more maneuvers up his sleeve, seeing as Gustav Nyquist is scheduled to miss a big chunk of 2020-21 because of shoulder surgery. Perhaps the Blue Jackets put the full-court press on free-agent winger Mike Hoffman to supplement the attack. They need finishers. Some food for thought: What should we expect from the Joonas Korpisalo-Elvis Merzlikins goalie duo?

Vancouver Canucks

The Canucks have taken a small step in the wrong direction. After a breakout year filled with thrilling storylines and two playoff series wins, their starting goalie (Markstrom), a top-six winger (Tyler Toffoli), and two everyday defensemen (Chris Tanev, Troy Stecher) left via free agency. Nate Schmidt and Braden Holtby arrived to more or less replace Tanev and Markstrom. Looking strictly through a 2020-21 lens, the Canucks are worse - albeit by a small margin.

Assuming the upward trajectory continues for Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, J.T. Miller, and Quinn Hughes, the end product might actually look pretty close to the 2019-20 Canucks: a team very much in the hunt for a playoff spot. That description surely isn't what Vancouver fans hoped for following a transformative and exciting season, but it is the reality of the situation.

Montreal Canadiens

It's easy to like the Canadiens' offseason. Aside from the term of the contract handed out to power forward Josh Anderson, all of GM Marc Bergevin's transactions could be filed under "astute." Anderson, exchanged for Domi in a swap of two 20-something forwards, and Toffoli, a medium-sized free-agent splash, shore up the top six. Former Hurricane Joel Edmundson and Russian prospect Alexander Romanov add some oomph to the back end. Jake Allen, acquired via trade from the Blues, is an excellent backup for Carey Price.

The flurry of activity comes after a confidence-building showing in the bubbled postseason, where youngsters Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi impressed. The Habs are suddenly in the mix for the best team in Canada. They are, unquestionably, the most fascinating of those seven clubs.

New York Islanders

In the Barry Trotz-Lou Lamoriello era, the Islanders have made the playoffs both years and won four series, earning a trip to the conference finals in the 24-team bubbled postseason. There's little reason to expect anything different in 2020-21. Trotz's style of play - keep opponents' shots to the outside, cycle the hell out of the puck in the offensive zone - perfectly suits the mentality of Lamoriello's stable of mostly blue-collar players. Losing top-four defenseman Devon Toews in a salary-dump trade stings, but it's not the end of the world. Meanwhile, star center Mat Barzal, a potential offer-sheet target, will eventually re-sign. The train keeps chugging in New York.

Philadelphia Flyers

As usual, the Flyers are hard to nail down. Based on last year's success in the regular season and their current roster, it wouldn't be crazy to suggest they're a top 10 team in the NHL. But Philadelphia is definitely in the bottom half of that list, perhaps even 10th, which means its chances of winning a Cup aren't overly high.

It feels like this team is one significant piece - even two - away from jumping from the fourth tier to the third, though that upgrade could still happen this offseason or at the trade deadline. Not helping matters: veteran defenseman Matt Niskanen's surprising retirement. GM Chuck Fletcher picked up Erik Gustafsson in response, but the offensively inclined blue-liner probably doesn't fully compensate for the loss of Niskanen.

Edmonton Oilers

It's going to come together for the Oilers someday … right? 2020-21 will be Connor McDavid's sixth year in the NHL, and his team - beyond superstar teammate Leon Draisaitl and a few other pieces - is once again middling. So once again, it's difficult to envision a deep playoff run for Edmonton, barring some miraculous performances from McDavid and Draisaitl. Top-pairing defenseman Oscar Klefbom is expected to miss most, if not all, of next season because of his chronic shoulder injury.

GM Ken Holland reeled in fresh faces Kyle Turris, Dominik Kahun, and Tyson Barrie on short-term deals. Settling for a Mikko Koskinen-Mike Smith duo in net, however, is a tough pill to swallow for the fan base.

Scary at full potential (3rd tier)

Cup win not out of question, though a lot must fall into place

Pittsburgh Penguins

God bless Jim Rutherford. No GM provides fodder for fans and media as consistently as Rutherford, who obtained forwards Kasperi Kapanen, Colton Sceviour, Mark Jankowski, and Evan Rodrigues and defensemen Michael Matheson and Cody Ceci this offseason. Gone are Matt Murray, Patric Hornqvist, Patrick Marleau, Dominik Simon, Justin Schultz, and Jack Johnson. From an aggregate talent standpoint, it's probably a wash.

That's been the Penguins' approach for a few years: Squeeze every last ounce out of the tail end of the Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin era by trying out new peripheral pieces every season. This team will make the playoffs for the 15th straight time. If 2019-20 All-Star Tristan Jarry can hold down the fort as the No. 1 goalie, look out. The long offseason will benefit Crosby, 33, Malkin, 34, and running mate Kris Letang, 33, while the early exit from the bubble should add extra fuel to the fire.

Toronto Maple Leafs

GM Kyle Dubas made his team wiser, nastier, and bigger by bringing in Joe Thornton, Wayne Simmonds, and Zach Bogosian this offseason. According to Dubas' critics, these moves show growth because the Leafs have been "too easy to play against" for the past few years. Toronto also signed longtime Flames defenseman T.J. Brodie, who undoubtedly upgrades the blue line. Meanwhile, homegrown wingers Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson were shipped out of town while Joey Anderson, Jimmy Vesey, and Travis Boyd were welcomed into the fold.

The revamped depth chart isn't markedly better or worse - it's just a little different. Make no mistake, the Auston Matthews-led crew will win plenty of regular-season games in 2020-21. The success or failure of this group ultimately depends on its performance in the playoffs, which is why Toronto earns a third-tier spot in these rankings. The Maple Leafs have consistently been better on paper than in the games. Time to flip the script.

St. Louis Blues

The Blues would have landed in the second tier if they had re-signed Alex Pietrangelo, weren't in a bind up front with Vladimir Tarasenko out until at least February after his third shoulder surgery in as many years, and had some semblance of salary-cap flexibility. They're a deep, experienced hockey team only two seasons removed from winning the Cup, but they're in a few pickles. The optimistic spin: Torey Krug's presence lessens the Pietrangelo hit and a breakout season from Robert Thomas could go a long way in helping to replace Tarasenko's production. In terms of projecting regular season and playoff success, St. Louis looks to be among the best of this tier.

Boston Bruins

It feels like 2020-21 could be the beginning of the end for this iteration of the Bruins. Krug is gone, Zdeno Chara might retire, Tuukka Rask and David Krejci are both entering the final year of their contracts, and Patrice Bergeron turned 35 in July. That said, the 2019-20 Presidents' Trophy winner is still a force to be reckoned with. Signing play-driving forward Craig Smith at $3.1 million per season for three years ranks as one of the smartest moves of the offseason. Although Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak are both coming off surgeries, they're world-class players. Rask remains an upper-echelon goalie, and Charlie McAvoy is underrated and only 22. So this team can't be counted out of Cup contention. Not yet, anyway.

Carolina Hurricanes

The Hurricanes have been relatively inactive this offseason - and that's totally fine because Carolina has been knocking on the door for a while. The team controls the flow of play most nights and quietly boasts deep groups at forward and on defense. As for star power, Dougie Hamilton and Jaccob Slavin are two of the best blue-liners in the game; Sebastian Aho is an elite top-line center; and Andrei Svechnikov, who will surely score 50 goals one day, is due to level up again. Jordan Staal and Vincent Trocheck fill out the second and third center roles nicely, while Jesper Fast, who signed a three-year deal as a free agent, is a reasonable replacement for retiring longtime Cane Justin Williams.

The roster's only true weakness is in goal; barring a trade, Petr Mrazek and James Reimer will share the workload. If this club was located in Canada and not the Sun Belt, it'd be due for more buzz. The Hurricanes are a bit of a sleeping giant in the Eastern Conference.

Washington Capitals

The Capitals are well-known at this point. Most of the long-term core is locked up for a few more years and GM Brian MacLellan hasn't performed any major surgery around the edges this offseason. Sure, Henrik Lundqvist arriving as the wily backup to Ilya Samsonov is cool, and Justin Schultz subbing in for Radko Gudas on the back end is interesting. Brenden Dillon's extension is team-friendly. But that's it, in part because the 2018 Cup champions have so much money tied up in their top guys.

The sticky thing about Washington is its lackluster showing in the bubbled postseason, and now Alex Ovechkin - one of the lone playoff standouts - is in the final season of his 13-year deal. Calling 2020-21 a crossroads season might be a tad dramatic, but the coming campaign does have a certain urgency. Well-respected coach Peter Laviolette provides a fresh voice behind the bench, so there should be equal amounts of motivation and pressure.

Dallas Stars

The Stars are running back the same crew that captured the Western Conference title, though top center Tyler Seguin and starting goalie Ben Bishop will be sidelined until late March or early April as they recover from offseason surgeries. Let's be clear: Dallas' players, along with GM Jim Nill and head coach Rick Bowness, deserve full marks for what they accomplished in the bubbled postseason. Hit by the injury bug, they gutted out 14 playoff wins before running out of gas against Tampa Bay. Nobody can take away those accomplishments. But let's be clear again: It was a perfect storm for the Stars. They're a very good NHL team, but not a great one, so repeating or improving on their playoff feats is a daunting task in 2020-21.

Secondary Cup favorite (2nd tier)

Elite, battle-tested team with a few minor concerns

Vegas Golden Knights

The Golden Knights landed the biggest fish in free agency by inking Pietrangelo to a seven-year, $61.6-million deal. He's an elite blue-liner fresh off a Norris Trophy-caliber season. However, having to ship out top-four defenseman Schmidt and top-six center Paul Stastny to make room for Pietrangelo was suboptimal, and that's fundamentally why Vegas landed in its own tier below Tampa and Colorado.

Coach Pete DeBoer doesn't have a proven second-line center right now, though there is a chance rookie Cody Glass slides into that role. Shea Theodore and Marc-Andre Fleury are other 2020-21 X-factors. How much growth is left in Theodore, the breakout star of the bubbled postseason? How will Fleury perform as the 1B goalie to 1A Robin Lehner? Vegas is one of those rare teams constructed to win both in the regular season and the playoffs, and management is clearly all-in.

Heavy Cup favorites (1st tier)

Star-studded, deep - simply a cut above the rest

Colorado Avalanche

GM Joe Sakic has been inching toward this moment since he was hired in 2014. Through masterful drafting, developing, and acquiring, the Nathan MacKinnon Avalanche have evolved into legitimate Stanley Cup favorites. Like the Lightning, Colorado's roster offers a fantastic mix of high-end talent (MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Gabriel Landeskog, Cale Makar) and dependable depth (Nazem Kadri, Brandon Saad, Devon Toews, Samuel Girard, etc.). The only real question mark for the Avs is in the crease, where Philipp Grubauer returns as the starter. But it could end up a moot point since Colorado possesses the firepower to dominate in every other facet of the game most nights.

Tampa Bay Lightning

It's tempting to look at the Lightning's salary-cap conundrum and conclude the reigning champions will regress in 2020-21. Could one or two of Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn, Yanni Gourde, and Ondrej Palat be absent from coach Jon Cooper's lineup card on opening night? It sure seems likely given the crunch that GM Julien BriseBois is dealing with. But zoom out for a moment and it's reasonable to suggest this juggernaut can withstand a notable roster hit; the Lightning did win the Cup with Steven Stamkos sidelined for all but five playoff shifts. Tampa Bay is built to repeat, with any value lost in the offseason made up by improvements from Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev, and Erik Cernak, four players in their early 20s who still have plenty of room to grow.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

This is the first installment of a two-part series ranking all 31 NHL teams by tiers for the 2020-21 season. Part 2, which addresses the top 17 teams, will be published Tuesday.

This is an annual exercise conducted after the dust has settled on the draft and free agency. The tiers are based on projections for the 2020-21 season only, not the long-term trajectories of each franchise. Lastly, keep in mind the timing. We're all awaiting word on the 2020-21 NHL season, which means there's runway for teams before rosters need to be finalized.

Worst of the worst (8th tier)

In a league of their own in a not-so-nice way

Detroit Red Wings

The Red Wings' offseason has been undeniably productive, which is a step in the right direction for a franchise looking to regain respectability. Up front, Vladislav Namestnikov, Bobby Ryan, Sam Gagner, and Adam Erne were brought in on short-term deals. Troy Stecher, Jon Merrill, and Marc Staal are all also under contract for a year or two and were added to the blue line. And inking goalie Thomas Greiss at $3.6 million per season for two years was a tidy piece of business from general manager Steve Yzerman.

These acquisitions improved Detroit, yet the offseason work will only slightly move the needle because the bar was set so laughably low last campaign. The 2019-20 Wings lost 54 of 71 games while finishing with a minus-122 goal differential. Among 31 teams, they're still the furthest away from a Stanley Cup in 2020-21.

Head barely above water (7th tier)

Rebuilding with the inside track on prime draft-lottery odds

Anaheim Ducks

Where are the goals going to come from? That's the biggest question tied to the Ducks right now, with Ryan Getzlaf, Rickard Rakell, Adam Henrique, Jakob Silfverberg, Sonny Milano, and Danton Heinen probably making up the team's top six.

Getzlaf, who's 35 years old and on an expiring contract, could be trade bait as the deadline approaches. Anaheim's blue line is solid, especially with Kevin Shattenkirk arriving on a three-year deal, and John Gibson is a premier goalie, so there's a glimmer of hope for this capped-out franchise in transition. But the Ducks will be a bottom-five team in 2020-21, and they'll benefit from finally committing to a full-scale rebuild.

Los Angeles Kings

Of the four teams in the seventh tier, Los Angeles' fan base has the least to gripe about. GM Rob Blake has been honest about trudging through a weighty rebuild while aging stars Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty remain under contract. So far, so good, with Quinton Byfield, Alex Turcotte, Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Rasmus Kupari, Arthur Kaliyev, Akil Thomas, Samuel Fagemo, and Tobias Bjornfot headlining an impressively deep and talented prospect pipeline.

The club also holds nine picks in the 2021 draft and plenty of cap space to weaponize. The Kings' future looks bright, but don't expect anything beyond minor gains this season.

San Jose Sharks

The Sharks are one of the trickiest teams to gauge. In 2018-19, they lost in the conference finals. Then while struggling through injuries and poor performances this past campaign, they ranked 29th in points percentage, missing the 24-team postseason. Most of their top players are 30 or older, and GM Doug Wilson didn't accomplish much this offseason.

Notable new faces include top-six forward Ryan Donato and goalie Devan Dubnyk, both of whom were acquired in a trade with the Minnesota Wild. On paper, Dubnyk and Martin Jones are far from a reliable goaltending tandem, which is why San Jose lands in this lower tier. Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, Logan Couture, and other key contributors could bounce back during Bob Boughner's first full year behind the bench, but the Sharks' roster probably isn't strong enough to mask the deficiencies in net.

Ottawa Senators

The Senators are on a similar trajectory to the Wings, though they're a bit further ahead in the rebuilding process. They're not ready to contend for a playoff spot despite graduating from the painful bottoming-out phase. Picking up two-time Stanley Cup champion Matt Murray in a trade should solidify the goaltending position in Ottawa, while former Panthers winger Evgenii Dadonov is set to inject some much-needed offensive punch.

Still, this team's record will largely rest with the growth of core youngsters like Thomas Chabot, Erik Brannstrom, Brady Tkachuk, Colin White, Josh Norris, Drake Batherson, and Alex Formenton. Really, it's in the Sens' best long-term interest to enter the draft lottery again before transitioning into a new, more competitive phase in 2021-22. The wait continues in Canada's capital city.

Notch below the playoffs (6th tier)

For various reasons, 2020-21 doesn't project to be a banner season

Arizona Coyotes

The Coyotes have been a hot mess lately, and that's putting it mildly. The team's effort in the postseason was uninspiring, and Arizona forfeited two high draft picks due to scouting violations. The club then attempted but failed to trade captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and it renounced the rights to draft pick Mitchell Miller following a public outcry.

That series of events has left Arizona with a dire outlook over the next few years. The Coyotes should be fine in 2020-21, largely due to stellar netminders and Rick Tocchet's coaching. However, Clayton Keller and Phil Kessel leading an attack isn't intimidating anyone.

Minnesota Wild

There are simply too many unknowns with the Wild. The club's center depth leaves plenty to be desired. Who knows how impactful highly touted Russian forward Kirill Kaprizov will be as an NHL rookie. First-round pick Marco Rossi may or may not make the team. Top-four defenseman Matt Dumba has been mentioned in the trade-rumor mill all offseason. Three longtime leaders - Dubnyk, Mikko Koivu, and Eric Staal - are gone. Cam Talbot is the new starting goalie. And much more.

Toss in the fact that GM Bill Guerin, who's been on the job for a year, isn't done turning over the roster, and Minnesota is in an awkward, ho-hum position for 2020-21.

New Jersey Devils

Tom Fitzgerald is quickly putting his stamp on this team, and the GM's first offseason in charge has been sharp. Signing Corey Crawford makes a ton of sense, as the move gives goalie-of-the-future Mackenzie Blackwood veteran support. The acquisitions of Andreas Johnsson and Ryan Murray were shrewd, and Lindy Ruff appears to be a solid head coach hire.

However, the Devils - an organization with just two playoff appearances over the past decade - will be chasing the seven other Metropolitan Division teams even after all of their moves. With Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier green still, is New Jersey as good as or better than Carolina, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Columbus, or the two New York teams in 2020? Probably not.

It's an optimistic time for the Devils, but they're only starting an upward trajectory.

Chicago Blackhawks

Like the Kings, the Blackhawks are trying to rebuild without tearing down the entire championship foundation, which, in this case, includes Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, and Brent Seabrook. Longtime starting goalie Crawford wasn't re-signed, creating a dangerous dynamic in the crease. Chicago is porous defensively, and now Malcolm Subban and Colin Delia will be tasked with bailing out that unit? Good luck.

On the flip side, Kane is an elite player, Toews experienced a resurgent 2019-20, and Alex DeBrincat, Kirby Dach, Dominik Kubalik, Adam Boqvist, and Ian Mitchell are all promising young talents. The Blackhawks finished last year with a .514 points percentage. Just above .500 is a fair prediction for 2020-21.

Florida Panthers

No NHL franchise is spinning its wheels more than the Panthers. Jonathan Huberdeau is 27 years old, Aleksander Barkov is 25, and Aaron Ekblad is 24, and the team has accomplished basically nothing over the trio's six seasons together (zero playoff series wins in two appearances).

Now there's been a huge turnover, with the club bidding farewell to Mike Hoffman, Evgenii Dadonov, Mike Matheson, Colton Sceviour, Josh Brown, Erik Haula, Brian Boyle, Lucas Wallmark, and Mark Pysyk while welcoming Patric Hornqvist, Alex Wennberg, Markus Nutivaara, Radko Gudas, Vinnie Hinostroza, Carter Verhaeghe, and Ryan Lomberg. The acquisitions were cost-effective and carry little risk, yet Florida has become worse.

Down the road, Bill Zito and Joel Quenneville - a pretty good GM-head coach tandem - could turn the ship around. In the present, though, prepare for more mediocrity.

Standings purgatory (5th tier)

Playoff potential, but the stars must align perfectly

New York Rangers

Putting the Rangers in the "purgatory" section may seem negative. But it's actually a compliment to the fine job management has done while rebuilding the Original Six franchise.

A playoff spot in 2020-21 isn't out of the question. Then again, even after adding first overall pick Alexis Lafreniere and continuing to develop sophomores Adam Fox and Kaapo Kakko, New York is still in a transition zone. The club's rise has been fast and virtually mistake-free. However, we don't know how good the goaltending tandem of Igor Shesterkin and Alexandar Georgiev will be in the short term. Nor do we know if the defense corps, as currently constructed, is strong enough to protect one-goal leads against high-octane offensive squads.

Nashville Predators

It's almost unfair to slot the Predators into any tier right now, as they appear far from finished with their offseason maneuvering. There's $12.9 million in cap space for GM David Poile to work with, and two unsigned free-agent forwards - snipers Mike Hoffman and Anthony Duclair - are obvious fits.

The Preds disappointed in the postseason, losing to the Coyotes in the qualifying round. Despite boasting an elite blue line and quality goaltending, Nashville has generally failed to build off a trip to the 2017 Stanley Cup Final. Unless something drastic happens soon, the franchise could be entrenched in the NHL's mushy middle as an annual toss-up while good but not nearly good enough to win a championship.

Buffalo Sabres

The Jack Eichel-era Sabres will finally challenge for a playoff spot this year. Whether they make the postseason is another question. Either way, there's no denying first-time GM Kevyn Adams has upgraded the club's forward group substantially.

The top six now features Eichel, former MVP Taylor Hall, veteran two-way center Eric Staal, former 40-goal scorer Jeff Skinner, young sniper Victor Olofsson, and reliable producer Sam Reinhart, with hot-shot rookie Dylan Cozens also in the mix. There are question marks on the back end and between the pipes, but the Sabres' offense should keep them competitive every night.

Winnipeg Jets

The Jets land in the fifth tier because there's a lot of variance in their possible outcomes for 2020-21. If everything goes according to plan, they can make some noise in the Western Conference. If the season's bumpy, they're likely not a playoff team.

Reacquiring Paul Stastny to fill the vacant second-line center role has been Winnipeg's lone notable transaction this offseason. The team's defense, which was atrocious last year, is essentially the same. And while he's among the league's best goalies, there's no guarantee Connor Hellebuyck produces another Vezina Trophy-caliber season.

However, Winnipeg's attack remains scary with Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Nik Ehlers, and Patrik Laine (if he doesn't get traded) leading the charge. And head coach Paul Maurice is a difference-maker himself.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

After seven months away from his place of work, an amateur scout for an NHL club drove into the parking lot of a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League arena and found a prime spot. The lot, usually bustling on game nights, was nearly empty.

The scout, who had been asked by the league to register for the game 24 hours in advance, confirmed his identity at the arena entrance. Someone took his temperature and he filled out two COVID-19 forms - one to collect information for contact tracing, the other to screen for symptoms.

A set of doors led to an empty rink featuring roped-off sections for the 20 or so scouts on hand for a rare live viewing. Each of them wore their mandatory face covering. There was no mingling due to physical distancing rules, no customary pregame scout's meal; music blared from the speakers, for nobody in particular, before and during the fanless game.

From a player evaluation perspective, the game felt relatively normal - the scout could do his job. Otherwise, the experience was a little surreal. "Weird. That's the way I would best describe it," said the scout, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as he's not authorized by his employer to talk to the media.

Amid a global pandemic, hockey scouts are far from the only group of people being forced to recalibrate. Everybody, in some way, is sacrificing in 2020. Still, there's no denying these creatures of habit - whose job it is to project the future performance of teenage hockey players in large part based on these in-person viewings - are operating under suboptimal conditions.

COVID-19 interrupted the 2019-20 scouting season in March before the evaluation process for last week's two-day draft could be wrapped up. It wasn't ideal. However, properly evaluating prospects for the 2021 draft will be an infinitely more difficult undertaking for all 31 teams. So much is unknown.

"It's challenging for every NHL organization," Arizona Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong said. "I think the good news is that whenever something happens, you have to find a way around it. You have to adapt. My dad used to always talk about it: 'Adapt or die, son. Adapt or die.' That's what this situation is about."

Live viewings are the bedrock of the evaluation process. In person, scouts can watch an entire play develop before their eyes, zero in on certain players for a full shift, and monitor body language between whistles. Thorough scouting reports are formed after seeing a kid a half dozen times.

"You get the feel of the game," director of NHL Central Scouting Dan Marr said. "You get to see the mannerisms of the players. You get to see what leads up to the big plays. You get to see how the player handles adversity within the specific game. You don't necessarily catch all of that on video."

Right now, for a large chunk of NHL scouts, live-game scouting remains a fantasy.

Of the five most prominent junior leagues in North America, the QMJHL is the only one that has launched a 2020-21 season, though it has already gone off the rails. Twenty-six people within two teams tested positive for COVID-19 and a slew of games were postponed. Elsewhere, the United States Hockey League is targeting a November start, both the Ontario Hockey League and B.C. Hockey League are aiming for December, and the Western Hockey League has its sights set on January. Generating some semblance of revenue, solving logistical puzzles, and keeping everyone safe and healthy are just some of the challenges facing these development leagues.

"A lot of these other leagues have their dates sort of written in pencil rather than in pen at this point, and that's all going to be determined based on how things play out with the pandemic," assistant GM and director of scouting for the Nashville Predators Jeff Kealty said recently.

European leagues are on a better track. Action is well underway in Sweden, Finland, and Russia - which is both a blessing and a curse for NHL teams who don't have a huge scouting presence overseas. If they wanted to ship a few scouts to Europe, it would come at a hefty price during a time in which budgets are tight across the league. It would also involve heavy lifting at the government level with so many international borders closed.

"Right now, the most important thing is just the safety of, first of all, those (development) leagues, those players and staffs in those leagues, and the safety of our scouts," Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill said. "We're like everybody else in the world. We're going to monitor this, make adjustments as we go, and see what's the best way to go."

"We'll adjust, and it probably means when we do get (traveling), it'll be a lot of nights on the road," Washington Capitals assistant GM Ross Mahoney added with a whimsical laugh. "Try to catch up with everybody."

Annual specialty events are hit or miss at this point, too. The world junior championship, which starts the day after Christmas, will be held in a secure bubble in Edmonton. But the Hlinka Gretzky Cup was canceled, and other important showcases such as the CHL Top Prospects Game and the USA Hockey All-American Game could also end up being postponed or canceled.

Last week, The Athletic's Corey Pronman released a top-35 player ranking for the 2021 NHL Draft. Of those 35 upper-echelon players, 15 have yet to appear in a game this fall. All of this uncertainty about schedules and limited access to rinks makes you wonder how exactly NHL teams can be expected to gather adequate intel on some of these prospects. As Armstrong noted, every team is at the same disadvantage - but that doesn't make it easy.

Will we look back on the 2021 draft in 10 years and chuckle at how teams were completely off in their projections for these players? Or will certain NHL clubs shine during a chaotic period that will surely test a scout's eye?

"I can tell you right now, I've watched a lot of the players for the 2021 draft, and do I want to see them more? Absolutely. And I know NHL teams do too," said former NHL GM Craig Button, who's led the draft coverage for years at the Canadian TV network TSN.

"But I have a lot of confidence in what I've seen up until this time because of watching them at 15, 16 years old. That's where NHL teams are going to have to evaluate their processes." Teams that have taken a longer view of a player’s development, he believes, won’t be as adrift as those who only rely on draft-year scouting.

For the time being, adapting means managers and scouts retreating back to their home offices to pour over video. There was roughly half a year between the stoppage of the 2019-20 season and the 2020 draft, so the industry has already learned from being thrust into using technology for evaluation purposes at the end of the last scouting cycle.

Every organization has a different philosophy, though, and some started the 2021 process better equipped to deal with this mess. For example, one of the amateur scouts on Mahoney's staff has long been tasked with covering pre-draft eligible players, giving the Capitals a head start on each incoming class. He'll be relied upon even more to provide baseline knowledge of the 2021 kids.

The Buffalo Sabres have one of the smallest scouting staffs in the league after enduring a staffing purge in June. Yet, director of scouting Jeremiah Crowe believes the current climate could actually be a sweet spot for the Sabres. The club wasn't afraid to dive deep into video and analytics to slot players on their 2020 draft board, and it sounds like they won't be shy to do so again in 2021.

"I do think this process might make us a little bit uniquely suited to be prepared to cover (the 2021) draft class, just because we've ensured that we have full coverage from a video perspective of levels all around the world," Crowe said.

His staff will be ready to resume live viewing but can easily maintain their current operation for 2021.

Both Armstrong and Crowe hinted at the cost-effectiveness of scouting through video. Perhaps this unexpected detour for the industry will change some minds about the validity of evaluating prospects via the camera's eye.

"It's been unique to tweak a process through video because when you're live-scouting, you go to a game and you fill out a game report. That's a snapshot, which is obviously of value," Crowe said. "But you can watch three games of players in a row (on video) and fill out one game report and get closer to reality in many cases, too, and be more efficient, and 'cover' more ground than you could if you were actually covering ground."

As noted by an amateur scout based in the U.S., this season will not only test the trust between area scouts and their superiors, it will also test teams' flexibility.

"Teams that collaborate well, work well with each other, have experience using video, those are the organizations that are going to have an advantage going into the 2021 draft," he said. "Teams that are dependent on seeing guys live, if that's the meat of your process, you're behind.

"Maybe this is the year," the scout added, "we use more data, deploy our analytics people more, and give them a bigger seat at the table."

Scouts have also relied on the opinions of people close to players, and knowing how to filter and interpret that information - separating the genuine analysis from the sales jobs - will be a key skill. Perhaps they can use this awkward period away from the rinks to make extra phone calls to a minor hockey coach or junior hockey trainer to dig into the player's history.

The NHL scouting combine, which typically runs each May in Buffalo, was canceled for the 2020 draft. If the world is still grappling with the pandemic next spring, physical testing could again be a missing link in the evaluation process. Technology has allowed teams to replicate the combine's in-person interviews, and both teams and players seem OK with the new normal.

Scouting for the 2021 draft will be about filling in the gaps created when the entire system was upended. Can a team learn more about a player's character or psychological makeup to shore up a report deemed incomplete due to a lack of live viewings? Can video and analytics identify underrated talents? How can an organization unearth a competitive advantage in undesirable circumstances?

"There's no question it's going to be different, and we're going to have to find ways to get it done. Just like we did to get ready for this draft," Kealty noted.

Said one Ontario-based scout: "The 2021 draft is going to be the strangest one."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.