How Canada Was Shut Out of the NHL Playoffs

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

When hockey fans emerge from their offseason slumber in October, everything that follows is a celebratory march toward a glowing light that beckons them in April. It’s the two-month crown jewel of sports that stirs joy in even the most cynical of fans.

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Next week, it’s finally here.

The United States Hockey Championships™.

There’s no reason to think the NHL will rebrand its Stanley Cup Playoffs for 2016 but perhaps it should, as none of the seven Canadian franchises qualified for the postseason. The teams north of the border were so bad that all seven were mathematically eliminated with two weeks remaining in the season.

How did hockey become America’s game? How did Canada, once the world’s premier hockey superpower, become reduced to cheering for the Toronto Marlies in the AHL playoffs?

There are many reasons and some apply to more than one team. Here’s how hockey became as American as apple pie, stealing from other cultures and hockey.

1. The declining value of the Canadian dollar

Victims: None

Depending on the moment in which you are reading this, the Canadian dollar is worth about 77 cents compared to the American dollar. That’s bad. It will hurt overall league revenues and affect the upcoming salary cap, which is connected to revenue, but it will hurt teams on both sides of the border equally.

But in terms of Canadian franchises fielding a team, it has no bearing, at least not this season.

It’s not as though teams tightened their purse strings in the offseason and had to let players walk or could not attract players. Heck, Toronto enticed Mike Babcock to coach the team when Buffalo was making a strong push. The 2015-16 salary cap is $71.4 million; among Canadian teams, three are within $1 million of that figure, two are within $3 million while Ottawa and Winnipeg lag behind, as they have historically.

It bears watching to see how a stagnant or reduced cap figure for next season hampers teams, but it didn’t really matter this season.

2. They never had a chance anyway

Victims: Toronto, Edmonton

Let’s not pretend that before Canada relinquished the rights to the term “hockey nation” that EVERY team had a chance at the playoffs. The slogan “Our Game” was just a shorter version of “Our Game But Seriously We Know Toronto And Edmonton Are Terrible.”

Toronto landed Babcock, sure, but this season was all about The Tank. They traded Phil Kessel in the summer and Dion Phaneuf before the deadline for prospects and picks and used Matt Hunwick on the top pairing a lot. Finishing dead last was always their goal.

Speaking of dead last, the Oilers are again in a great position to pick first in a draft. They may have felt that hiring Todd McLellan wouldn’t lead to a playoff spot in Year 1, but they probably didn’t expect to be this bad.

The Oilers and Leafs were so bad for so long that this would be a lost year, anyway.

3. Inept roster management

Victims: Calgary, Vancouver

For years, the Flames were terrible. Inexplicably, despite being as terrible as they’ve always been last season, they reached the playoffs AND won a round. Of course, that round came against the Canucks, another team that wasn’t quite Flames Bad but were bad nonetheless. Hockey is a funny game sometimes.

In both cases, it wasn’t entirely the current regime’s doing; the Flames spent years trading future assets in a foolish attempt to reach an unreachable playoff spot while the Canucks were in salary cap hell thanks to bad contracts handed out by former GM Mike Gillis.

But it’s things like giving money to Deryk Engelland, Brandon Bollig, Luca Sbisa, Derek Dorsett and Ryan Miller doesn’t help.

4. The reigning MVP and Vezina Trophy winner missed almost the entire season with an injury and his team relies on him way too much to win

Victims: Montreal

Sometimes the obvious answer is the correct answer.

5. Mostly bad luck

Victims: Winnipeg

Yeah, the goaltending wasn’t but it also wasn’t the detriment it had been in years past. When the Jets made the playoffs last year, their 5-on-5 save percentage was .927; this year, it’s .921. So, it tumbled, but isn’t the most glaring reason for a 25-point drop in the standings.

You know how luck went the Flames’ way throughout 2014-15? It mostly went against the Jets in 2015-16. The Jets were a top-10 team in score-adjusted Fenwick while having a bottom-10 team in PDO. It won’t take much for the Jets to return to the playoffs in 2017.

6. Andrew Hammond didn’t go 20-1-2 with a .941 save percentage down the stretch after finding a magic lamp and making a wish

Victims: Ottawa

I mean, yeah.

7. Bad coaching

Victims: Calgary

Bob Hartley won the PDO Coach of the Year Award in 2014-15, something archaeologists will look back on in 500 years with utter confusion. It was the perfect confluence of low expectations, getting every bounce possible and a never-ending stream of 6-on-5 goals late in games.

All the luck went away in 2015-16 but the horrendous deployment and possession numbers stayed. Imagine having Dougie Hamilton at your disposal and using Kris Russell about three more minutes per game. The Flames have considerable talent but are a rudderless mess under Hartley.

8. Horrible road play

Victims: Everyone!

Of the nine worst road teams in the NHL, seven are the Canadian franchises. In a way, it’s understandable. A lot of those road games occur in America, land of freedom and opportunity. You’re on the road, you want to get a good night’s sleep before the game, but how often do you get to spend two days in Columbus? You have to get out and see the sights!

9. Not enough Americans

Victim: Calgary

The Flames have two players on their roster born in the hockey country of America—Johnny Gaudreau and Brandon Bollig. OK, so really, one player and one guy who punches people for money. And that one guy—Gaudreau—is one of the best players in the league. If only the Flames were smart enough to invest more in American talent—it’s a hockey factory down here, folks—maybe they could have reached the playoffs. Alas, the Flames chose to ignore our nations’ free-trade agreement and have paid the price.

10. Too much pressure to win

Victim: Everyone (except Winnipeg and Ottawa)

It’s true—in the United States, hockey is a tertiary, at best, sport. It means fans don’t care until the playoffs but it also means a lot of teams can afford to take their time and build winners. There isn’t a pressing need to win now like there is Canada, where fans are more rabid and demanding of their teams as a whole.

The Canucks and Flames have refused to commit to a full rebuild for years for the sake of winning now. The Leafs mortgaged the future for years just to get to the playoffs in a 48-game season and haven’t been competitive for nearly a decade. The Canadiens have shown patience under the Marc Bergevin regime but mistakes from the old guard still linger. The Oilers have been a perennially young team and yes, that organization was run poorly for years, but that spotlight in Edmonton has to be unbearable.

Winnipeg just got back there and everyone loves the team while Ottawa lives in the shadow of Toronto and Montreal and has an owner that doesn’t really spend money, so if the Senators are feeling pressure, they aren’t showing it.

That’s the beauty of America. We eat cheeseburgers, let our teams work at their own pace and take over a sport that will be officially ours after we win gold at the next Olympics.

‘Murica.

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How Canada Was Shut Out of the NHL Playoffs

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