In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The NHL mulls having a June draft before the playoffs
- The latest on the empty arena plans
- Thoughts on the 2011 Bruins reunion
- Should the Devils hire Gerard Gallant?
- Perfect movies
- Ranking wrestling theme songs
- And we bring Salary Cap Court to the podcast, with Mitch Marner, Shea Weber, Brent Burns and more on the docket
- Seriously, Lambert has to defend the Drew Doughty deal and it's the best
p>Over the next few days, writers across this site will be looking back at the last decade in sports. You’ll read about the best players, the greatest moments, and most memorable games, as well as in-depth breakdowns of the most important stories and their lasting impact on the sport.
I was not asked to write any of those posts.
No, like any well-run team, The Athletic makes sure to use everyone in the role they’re best suited for. And that means that I was asked to write about the NHL’s 10 dumbest moments from the last decade.
My answer: I’m going to have a tough time narrowing the list down.
To be clear, we’re looking for dumb moments that were, for the most part, ultimately harmless; we’ll save the serious stuff for another day. Maybe these moments made us laugh at the time. Or maybe we only laugh when we look back in hindsight. Or maybe we don’t laugh at all, instead slowly lowering our head onto our desk and then sobbing quietly over why we ever let ourselves become a fan of this ridiculous league in the first place. You do you, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life.
We’ll do this in chronological order, because trying to rank these moments would be like asking me to rank my own children, except that my children can occassionaly go a few straight weeks without embarrassing me.
June 9, 2010: When sudden death isn’t all that sudden
Imagine being a middle-aged Blackhawks fan in 2010. Your team hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1961, before you were even born. They’ve come close, but never sealed the deal. You’ve literally waited your entire life just to see them score a Cup-winning goal.
And then they finally come through and win it all and… you still don’t see them score a Cup-winning goal.
In terms of immortal goal calls, you’ve got “Henderson has scored for Canada”, “May Day!” and “What a goal, what a move, Lemieux, OH BABY”. For the Hawks’ first Cup-winner in almost half a century, we got “To the net… [awkward silence]… Leighton stopped it… Where’s the puck?” That one might need some work.
But in defense of Jim Hughson, I didn’t realize the puck was in either. You probably didn’t. Just about everyone in the building seemed to miss it, including the referee and the goal judge. Other than Patrick Kane and Michael Leighton, nobody seemed to realize that the Blackhawks had just won the Stanley Cup.
It was the NHL’s first big moment of the 2010s, and nobody saw it. In hindsight, maybe that should have been a sign of what was to come for the rest of the decade.
Nov. 15, 2010: Email etiquette
One of the ongoing stories from the start of the decade was a lawsuit between the league and former referee Dean Warren. It was a marginally interesting story, if kind of dry and largely stuck in the legal weeds, and most fans probably didn’t pay much attention.
But Tyler Dellow did. Long before he was employed as a stats guru by NHL teams (or as a contributor at The Athletic), Dellow was a fan with a legal background who took an interest in the Warren case – specifically, with some emails that had been included in court filings. Those emails, sent between league executive Colin Campbell and former head of NHL officiating Stephen Walkom, were redacted because they were sensitive in nature. Only, as Dellow discovered, they weren’t redacted very well.
And so we all learned that Campbell had sent at least one email ranting about a call against his son, Gregory, and that he thought Marc Savard was “a little fake artist”. That was embarrassing enough, but the fact that the revelation came just months after Campbell had declined to suspend Matt Cooke for essentially ending Savard’s career only made matter worse.
Somehow, this wasn’t even the decade’s only controversy involving Campbell’s emails. Say what you will about how things were done in the old days, but you never saw Original Six executives getting embroiled in email scandals.
Nov. 9, 2011: The Flyers stage a Lightning strike
By the start of the new decade, the NHL was still firmly mired in the Dead Puck Era of defense-first thinking. But with the post-lockout rules limiting clutch-and-grab tactics and the lack of a red line hindering the old school neutral zone trap, the next generation of coaching minds had to come up with new ways to stifle the game.
One of those minds was Guy Boucher, who took over in Tampa in 2010 and immediately guided the Lightning to an impressive 103-point season based partly on his 1-3-1 system: One player back, three players across the neutral zone and one lone “forechecker” passively guiding the attacking team towards the traffic jam. It was a tough system to beat. But on November 9, 2011, Peter Laviolette’s Flyers figured out what to do: Nothing.
Literally. The first time they had control in their own zone and the Lightning set up their 1-3-1, the Flyers did nothing. Thirty seconds into a nationally televised showcase game, Chris Pronger got the puck, and just… stood there.
Nobody knew what to do. Pronger clearly wasn’t going to make a move. Boucher’s system meant the Lightning were under strict orders not to directly attack the puck-carrier. And as long as somebody is controlling the puck, there’s nothing in the rulebook that says that any of the players in a hockey game actually have to, you know, play hockey. The stand-off lasted 30 seconds before the officials blew the play dead, only to resume again when the same sequence played out a few minutes later, and again several times during the period.
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Alexander Ovechkin and Drew Doughty weigh in on the Leafs, but should we take them seriously?
- Doughty's complaints about his quotes being taken out of context
- The Sharks continue to struggle
- Trying to make sense of the Pacific
- The Islanders' win streak
- Disney's new streaming service
- And far most importantly of all, Ryan finally tries his hand at an ad read
It’s Halloween tomorrow. Do you have a scary costume?
If not, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. If you want to frighten anyone this week, all you’ll need is an NHL jersey, a hockey stick and a stats sheet to point at. Other props are optional, although you might want to invest in accessories like hands of stone, a turnstile or a great big goose egg.
Yes, it’s time for our annual tribute to the league’s scariest starts, where we build an entire roster out of some of the biggest names having the ugliest Octobers we can find. Some of these are bad signs for the rest of the year. Most of them will be forgotten by mid-November. We’ll try to figure out which is which as we go, but in the meantime, you can get into the Halloween spirit by yelling “Boo!” at each guy. It probably won’t be the first time this year that they’ve heard it.
Forwards
The player: Jonathan Toews, Blackhawks
The start: On the heels of a career year at the age of 30, the Hawks’ captain has managed just two points on the season so far. We already had our first wave of “Is Toews breaking out of his slump?” stories two weeks ago; since then he’s been pointless in six.
Odds it ends well: Toews will get going offensively at some point. But for now, at least, last year’s 81-point season is looking like an aberration for a player who’d been in the 50-something range for the three years before that. That’s not good news for a Hawks team that needs all the help it can get these days.
The player: Sebastian Aho, Hurricanes
The start: Three goals and three assists through a dozen games, with only one of those goals coming against an actual goaltender. To put that in historical context, it’s the worst start in six years for a player who had just signed an offer sheet.
Odds it ends well: Aho’s been heating up lately, or at least getting back to lukewarm. He had that first real goal on Thursday and followed that up with his first multi-point game of the season on Saturday. He can be his own toughest critic, so once he gets a few more solid games under him, he could take off.
The player: Taylor Hall, Devils
The start: On the bright side, Hall is the only player on this roster who is also his team’s leading scorer. On the not-so-bright side, he has just seven points and, well, (gestures at the Devils’ entire season). We could just as easily go with fellow forwards like Jack Hughes or Nikita Gusev, since they’re underperforming Hall. But with apologies to the all-about-the-team narratives, the former MVP has a lot more on the line than his younger teammates. With an extension or unrestricted free agency on the horizon, this isn’t a great time to be sitting with just one goal in the first month.
Odds it ends well: Hall is still generating a ton of shots, and has somehow managed six assists, which doesn’t sound impressive until you realize the Devils are dead last in scoring with just 22 goals on the season. He’s doing his part, even if the numbers don’t look great. The question now is whether he’ll finish the season still doing it for the Devils.
The player: Kaapo Kakko, Rangers
The start: He has just two goals and an assist, is getting caved in on possession and has been on the ice for just one even-strength goal for vs. eleven against. Other than that, things are going great.
Odds it ends well: I think we’ve seen enough to know the kid is a bust. (He’s 18, he’ll be fine.)
The player: Joe Pavelski, Stars
The start: Six points in 14 games for one of the biggest UFA signings of the offseason, half of which came last night. Maybe more concerning, his shots rate has dropped by over a shot-per-game compared to his last few seasons.
Odds it ends well: The shots rate is a concern for sure. But I think we can give Pavelski a bit of a break here; after 16 years and thirteen NHL seasons with the same organization, a bit of an adjustment period after switching teams for the first time seems reasonable. Now if only he could play the Wild every night …
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- We need more rivalries like Doughty/Tkachuk and I have an idea on how we can get them
- Please tell me I'm not the only one developing trust issues when shots hit the post
- An obscure player who knew how to put on a show
- The week's three comedy stars
- And happier time for the San Jose Sharks (their goalie taking a slapshot to the pills)
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Doughty/Tkachuk rivalry doesn't disappoint
- James Neal cannot be stopped
- One week in, which surprising starts are for real and which will be forgotten
- An interview with Julie Stewart-Binks
- Batman villain talk
- I give the boys a quiz on NHL team leaderboards
- And more...
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Drew Doughty rips into Matthew Tkachuk and Brent Burns
- Ilya Kovalchuk rips into his own coach
- Roberto Luongo nears the end, and what that could mean
- Thoughts on fighting, concussions, and my piece from earlier this week
- Ryan finds out about that St. Louis bagels thing and has some feelings about it
- An interview with Matt Porter of the Boston Globe
- Greg and I face off in an NCAA hockey quiz
- And lots more...
Or more specifically, let’s remember all the various ways that NHL teams got weird over the last few months. It’s time to fire up the Bizarro-meter, a feature I debuted back in 2013 in an attempt to understand whatever it was the Maple Leafs thought they were doing, and have been using since 2014 to round up every team in the league. It’s a high-tech system which evaluates each team’s offseason oddity index by, uh, giving it a score out of ten. Look, we never said this was complicated.
Before we get started, an important annual reminder: “bizarre” doesn’t necessarily mean “bad.” In last season’s list, some of the highest rankings went to the Capitals and Golden Knights, who ended up meeting in the final, as well as to the Avalanche, who shocked everyone by going from dead last to the playoffs. Sometimes, a little bit of chaos can work out well for a team. And maybe more importantly, sometimes a conservative, uninspired, paint-by-numbers offseason is the absolute last thing a team needs.
So with that caveat in mind, let’s dig in. As always, a team’s offseason begins the moment its season ends and stretches until last weekend. We’ll start today with the 15 Western Conference teams; we’ll be back to finish up with the Eastern Conference Tuesday.
Central Division
Nashville Predators
The offseason so far: They locked down Ryan Ellis on a long-term deal, and got future starter Juuse Saros signed at a very manageable number. Mike Fisher retired again, Dan Hamhuis will slot in for Alexei Emelin, and Auston Watson will miss a third of the season pending an appeal of his suspension for domestic assault. But otherwise, last year’s Presidents’ Trophy winners will bring back mostly the same roster.
But their strangest story was: Signing Zac Rinaldo always raises a few eyebrows, even when it’s a two-way deal. But the strangest moment of their offseason probably came when Ryan Johansen and Ryan Kesler appeared to arrange a street fight over Twitter.
Bizarro-meter ranking:2.2/10. At this point, not being a jerk on Twitter is basically a terms of service violation, so even the Kesler/Johansen spat doesn’t earn many points. We’re not used to seeing a whole offseason go by without a major trade or two from David Poile, but for now it probably makes sense to stay the course with a top Cup contender.
Minnesota Wild
The offseason so far: It started early, with the firing of GM Chuck Fletcher in April. But other than that, it’s been strangely quiet; the biggest headlines were the signing of Matt Dumba to a $30-million extension and a buyout for Tyler Ennis.
But their strangest story was: Not making many moves. The Wild have been spinning their wheels for years now, always good enough to make the playoffs but never quite good enough to feel like a real contender. At some point, they’re going to need to move forward or take a step back. For now, they seem content to plod ahead with the status quo.
Bizarro-meter ranking:3.7/10. New GM Paul Fenton appears to be taking a wait-and-see approach. Sometimes that works out well. Sometimes it just means another lost season.
Winnipeg Jets
Blake Wheeler. (Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports)
The offseason so far: It’s been largely a case of maintaining the status quo, which makes sense given the season they’re coming off. The only major departure was deadline rental Paul Stastny, and they didn’t add anything major. Instead, the big headlines were around extension for existing players, including an intriguingly long one for Connor Hellebuyck, a disappointingly short one for Jacob Trouba, and an impressively cheap one for Josh Morrissey.
But their strangest story was: Signing captain Blake Wheeler to an extension that will carry an $8.25 million cap hit until he’s 37. That deal was mostly well-received in Winnipeg, although other reviews haven’t been as kind.
Bizarro-meter ranking: 4.2/10. The Wheeler deal may well turn out to be a mistake. But bizarre? Not really. Wheeler is enormously popular in Winnipeg, is coming off a career year, and is the team’s captain. NHL teams almost never play hardball with those sort of guys, even if there’s some evidence that they should.
Another July 1 has come and gone in the NHL, meaning we’re now a day into the free-agency market. And for once, we had some Canada Day fireworks to enjoy. An actual, honest-to-goodness NHL star in his prime actually made it to the market. Not only that, he changed teams. You probably heard about it.
John Tavares wasn’t the only name on the move. But he’s the one we have to start with, because this is a winners and losers column. And for one of the only times in the last half-decade or so, the big winners in the NHL were the Toronto Maple Leafs. That’s confusing, and a little scary, but here we are. So while we’re all trying to sort through this strange new world we’re living in, let’s start our July 1 rundown in the only place we can.
Winner: The Maple Leafs
They actually pulled it off. They lured a local hero back home, and even got a bit of discount in the process. For all the fun you can have with Leafs fans and their constant belief that every superstar secretly wants to come to Toronto, this time it really happened. As Tavares himself put it, the Leafs won this sweepstakes because they could offer a chance to live a childhood dream.
So now what? This is where the contrarian reflex is supposed to kick in. But at least in the short term, it’s honestly hard to find any kind of downside here for the Leafs. They’ll pay Tavares the league max this year, almost all of it in bonuses, but they have more than enough cash flow and cap room to afford it. Things will get trickier in 2019-20, once the Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner extensions kick in, but even that crunch could be manageable. (And seeing Tavares leave a little money on the table could encourage the younger players to do the same.)
For now, the Leafs are as strong down the middle as pretty much anyone, and the idea of either Tavares or Matthews getting easy matchups is scary. The blue line still needs work Frederik Andersen isn’t a sure thing, and the Leafs still have to get through Tampa and Boston to get out of the Atlantic, so there’s work left to do. But even for a lifelong Maple Leafs cynic, there’s really no way to spin this: It’s a huge win for Toronto.
That's a hometown discount from John Tavares. He may not be the last #leafs player to do that to keep this team together.
Honestly, we don’t even have a joke here. This is a brutal, brutal moment for Islanders fans.
For some teams, watching your franchise player walk away for nothing would be a wakeup call. Not for Islanders fans. They’re already wide awake. They’ve had plenty of time to worry that the team was adrift; that Charles Wang and Garth Snow and the arena mess and one playoff series win in 25 years had dug a hole so deep that even new ownership and Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz couldn’t dig out of it. They’ve had years to think the worst. They’re used to it.
But it’s one thing to think the worst. It’s another to have a once-in-a-generation player look you dead in the eye and tell you that you’re right. Tavares can soften this with talk of childhood dreams and coming home, and there’s no doubt something to that. But the brutal truth remains: In a league where star players always choose to stay put, the Islanders were the one team who couldn’t convince theirs to stay.
That stings. And it has some Islanders supporters lashing out, with the predictable stream of YouTube clips of outraged fans and burning jerseys. But once the initial bitterness clears, the question will be where this team goes next. It’s upgraded the front office and behind the bench, even if it turned out not to be enough for Tavares. A goalie is needed, and now a top-line forward. There’s plenty of cap space, which is good news if it’s used wisely and bad news if there’s a knee-jerk panic move. So far, the early indications aren’t good.
Leo Komarov signs with the Islanders. Four years, $12M.
Whichever way the Islanders go next, there are going to be a lot of tough questions for a team that chose not to trade Tavares for a windfall at the deadline. Eventually, there will be answers, and in the long term some of them may even be positive ones. Just not right now. Right now, it’s nothing but brutal.
Another July 1 has come and gone in the NHL, meaning we’re now a day into the free-agency market. And for once, we had some Canada Day fireworks to enjoy. An actual, honest-to-goodness NHL star in his prime actually made it to the market. Not only that, he changed teams. You probably heard about it.
John Tavares wasn’t the only name on the move. But he’s the one we have to start with, because this is a winners and losers column. And for one of the only times in the last half-decade or so, the big winners in the NHL were the Toronto Maple Leafs. That’s confusing, and a little scary, but here we are. So while we’re all trying to sort through this strange new world we’re living in, let’s start our July 1 rundown in the only place we can.
That’s a phrase you hear a lot around the NHL, especially at this time of year. When a team’s window is closed, it means they’re no longer a real threat to win the Stanley Cup. Maybe they won a Cup or two, but now those days are gone for good, and it’s time to figure out what comes next.
It’s the sort of thing we say a lot. Probably too much. Over the last few years, there may not have been a team we said it about more than the Washington Capitals. Even as the team was winning back-to-back Presidents’ Trophies in 2016 and 2017, their constant playoff failures made it clear that something was wrong. After last year’s devastating loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, we wondered what they would do next and struggled to find a good option. There was talk of trading Alexander Ovechkin, and the Caps didn’t exactly deny that they were thinking about it.
Ovechkin was well into his 30s. Nicklas Backstrom was almost there, and Braden Holtby wasn’t far off. The expensive core that had been so dominant in the regular season but always come up small in the playoffs was old enough that we knew what we were getting. They’d tried, they’ve come close, but they failed. And now some fans figured it might be time to burn it all down. The window was well and truly closed.
Except, of course, that it wasn’t. As the Caps’ summer-long Stanley Cup celebration wears on, it’s fair to wonder if some of us are a little too eager to declare that a team’s window has slammed shut. Maybe they stay open longer than we thought. Maybe they can even be reopened.
And if that’s true, then what other NHL teams might we be wrong about? Today, let’s look at eight teams around the league that, to at least some extent, have received the “your window is closed” treatment from the hockey world. If we were wrong about the Caps, could we be wrong about these teams too?
Why their window seems closed: The Blackhawks may be the best team of the salary cap era, winning three titles in six seasons. But the last of those came in 2015, and they haven’t won a playoff round since. Even worse, the trend in the wrong direction is hard to miss: They dropped a seventh game to the Blues in 2016, were swept in 2017, and didn’t even make the playoffs this year.
What’s worse, the three-year stumble coincides with the matching $10.5-million extensions for Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane kicking in.
Combined with Duncan Keith and (especially) Brent Seabrook, that suggests that the Hawks just have too much money tied up in an aging core, and even Stan Bowman won’t be able to find enough cheap depth to get this team back into the title picture. Even getting back to the playoffs seems like a long road right now.
Why it might not be: As bad as this season was, this is still the same core that won three titles. They’re older, sure, and in today’s NHL that can matter a lot. But the veteran talent is there, and younger pieces like Brandon Saad, Alex DeBrincat and Nick Schmaltz are on hand to support and maybe even eventually supplant the old-timers.
And remember, the 2017-18 season really went off the rails when two-time Cup winner Corey Crawford was out of the lineup. If he’s back and healthy, this team doesn’t look all that different from the one that finished first in the Central in 2017.
Bottom line: The Blackhawks seem like they’ve got a long way to go, especially now that the Jets and Predators have emerged as Central juggernauts. But would anybody be surprised to see them rebound into the playoffs next year? And if so, are we sure we want to count them out as legitimate contenders?
Why their window seems closed: A lot of what we just said about the Blackhawks could apply to the Kings too. They won multiple titles, but the last of those came years ago, and they haven’t won a playoff round since. In fact, in four years since their 2014 championship, the Kings have only won a single playoff game. Their core is getting older and more expensive, including a Toews-like extension for Anze Kopitar. Oh, and there’s at least a chance that Drew Doughty could be leaving in 2019.
Why it might not be: Let’s assume that Doughty sticks around, since all signs point in that direction. His new deal will be expensive, and will tighten the screws on the Kings’ cap even more than it already is. But it will keep the core together, and unlike in Chicago, this team is at least coming off a decent season. They made the playoffs, Kopitar played at an MVP level, Dustin Brown rediscovered his game, and Jonathan Quick still looks like a guy who can steal a series or two.
Bottom line: Another advantage the Kings hold over the Blackhawks: the Pacific Division doesn’t seem all that scary, so a return trip to the playoffs seems like a good bet. Once they’re there, some of that old Quick magic could take them a long way. All the way to another Cup? That seems unlikely, but it seemed that way in Washington too.
We’re on to the NHL off-season, which means it’s time to start wildly speculating about which big-name players are about to be traded.
That’s been an annual tradition for hockey fans over the years, even if deep down we always knew that almost all of those blockbusters would never happen. But ever since the NHL off-season went haywire on a June afternoon in 2016, this time of year has felt just a little bit more exciting. If Shea Weber, Taylor Hall and P.K. Subban could all be traded within a few minutes, who’s to say that any big name is really off the table?
So today, let’s run down 10 of the biggest names that could be moved over the next few weeks. Will any of these players actually end up being traded? There’s a chance that at least one or two could be. Will most of them stay with their current teams, at least through opening night? Undoubtedly. Will at least a few these seem so ridiculous in hindsight that the author will feel embarrassed to have even mentioned them? Not if we remember to come back and delete this post, no.
Either way, let’s get to the trade bait. We’ll start with the most likely big name to be moved, and work our way further out from reality as we go.
Why a trade could happen: We’ll start with a player who may be the biggest star on this list, yet also seems like the most likely to move. The Karlsson trade saga was one of the biggest stories of the regular season, springing to life after some eyebrow-raising comments from the Senators’ captain about his impending free agency, blossoming into a full-blown bidding war by the deadline, and then ending without a deal being struck.
That last part sure feels temporary, as we head into an off-season that figures to see plenty of teams finding enough cap space to take a serious run at one of the best defencemen in the league.
Why we shouldn’t assume that it has to: The Senators don’t have to trade their star, and in a perfect world they’d sign him to a reasonable extension and get on with the work of building a contender around him. Back in February, it felt like there was just way too much smoke for there not to be a fire here — remember, Bobby Ryan told reporters that he and Karlsson actually thought a deal was done. But a lot can change in four months, and even if Karlsson doesn’t want to re-sign, the Senators could hold onto him through the summer in hopes of finding a better deal during the season.
And yet…: Players don’t normally make a point of collecting souvenir pucks when they think they’re sticking around. Karlsson seems like a guy who’s made up his mind to be elsewhere by 2019. And if so, it would be in the Senators’ best interest to get a deal done soon rather than let this situation hang over everything the team does for most of the next year.
Why a trade could happen: Few players should be untouchable after a last-place season. And that’s especially true when that player ends the season by suggesting the team has “been OK with losing” and that it’s cost him his love of the game. That’s not really what you want to hear from one of your leaders.
GM Jason Botterill came over last spring and played his let’s-wait-and-see card. That approach works for one year, but after watching his team finish dead last, it’s time for action. Finding a new home for O’Reilly would be the kind of shakeup move that teams occasionally need, if only as a reminder that the status quo isn’t good enough.
Why it doesn’t have to: After what we’ve seen recently in Toronto, New Jersey, Colorado and Vegas, anybody who suggests that a team as bad as the Sabres must be years away from a playoff run hasn’t been paying attention. Turnarounds can happen quickly these days, and O’Reilly is a good-enough player to be a key part of one in Buffalo. Besides, with a $7.5-million cap hit for five more years, it may be tough to get top value for him.
And yet…: After those end-of-season comments, bringing O’Reilly back for another year would almost seem cruel.
Why a trade could happen: He’s been in Pittsburgh for three years now, which is about the maximum length of time Kessel can last anywhere before the trade talk kicks in.
Why there’s a chance it might not: You may recall that the Penguins did pretty well in two of those three years, and Kessel had a lot to do with that. Given his production, his cap hit (which the Leafs are already paying a chunk of) is fairly reasonable. In a league where every team could use at least a little more speed, skill and scoring depth, you’d think a team might want to hold onto a guy who brings as much of all three as Kessel.
And yet…: Those are all good reasons to trade for a guy, too, which means Jim Rutherford should be able to extract a decent return on a deal. Whether the Penguins are tired of Kessel behind the scenes or just see him as an asset that could provide a nice return, Rutherford has never been shy about making big moves.
We may be one game away from the end of the Stanley Cup Final. As early as Thursday, the Washington Capitals could end 44 years of misery by finally getting their hands on the Stanley Cup, setting off a wild celebration in Washington and fulfilling the lifelong dreams many of these players have had since childhood.
We’d better get our complaining in while we still can.
So today, before we’re all distracted by that icky positivity, let’s break out the annual playoff-bust team. We’re looking for a full roster of post-season disappointment, which seems like a lot until you realize how many big names we’ll have to cut from well-deserved spots. The NHL playoffs are rough.
Keep in mind, we’re looking for players who were disappointing relative to what their teams had hoped they’d do. This isn’t a collection of the worst players from this year’s playoffs, since there are any number of fourth-liners or depth defencemen who did even less. In a way, appearing on a list like this is almost a compliment, since it implies that expectations were high. Remember that when your favourite player shows up and you want to yell at me.
We’ll start with the position that’s usually the easiest to fill in these sorts of things: those poor goalies. Emphasis on “poor.”
GOALTENDERS
Frederik Andersen, Maple Leafs: To his credit, Andersen helped the Leafs dig out of a 3–1 series hole with a pair of strong games. But they were in that hole largely due to a pair of stinkers early on, and with the series on the line he had a disastrous third period in Game 7. Even when the numbers said he was playing well, Andersen seemed to be fighting the puck for long stretches, and it caught up with him when the Leafs could least afford it.
John Gibson, Ducks: Gibson had a phenomenal season, one that had some observers touting him as a Vezina candidate. But he couldn’t maintain that magic in the playoffs, and it was a big part of the reason why the Ducks went out so meekly against the Sharks. His .889 playoff save percentage was the worst of any goaltender who started the majority of his team’s regular-season games. Granted, that number was skewed by a disastrous Game 3 in which he was shelled for five goals in two periods of what would become an 8–1 blowout, but that was a game the Ducks desperately needed.
Pekka Rinne, Predators: Gibson could have been a Vezina finalist; Rinne will almost certainly win it. But once the playoffs arrived he was inconsistent at best for a team that looked like a Stanley Cup favourite. He had his moments, including a pair of shutouts. But he was also pulled four times, including after giving up two soft goals in the deciding seventh game against the Jets.
Late cuts:Sergei Bobrovsky never came up with the sort of game that would have helped the Blue Jackets finish off the Capitals. Matt Murray and Tuukka Rask both won a round, but neither was at his best.
In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast:
- Dave and I go through all the first-round series so far
- Who got suspended, who didn't, and which calls the league got right
- I rant about a very stupid rule
- Ken Hitchcock is out in Dallas
- Eugene Melnyk and the Senators attack the fake news media, the way honest people do
- Reader questions and lots more...
In this week's episode of the Biscuits hockey podcast:
- We debate whether Erik Karlsson and the Senators are really on "a rocket to hell" or whether it's actually worse
- The minor detail in the Matt Duchene trade that might turn out to be a major problem
- This weekend's outdoor game, which isn't being held where you think it is
- Dave's push for the Nashville Predators to become an NBA-style superteam
- We accidentally come up with a brilliant fix the all-star breakaway competition
- I find out that apparently Dave has had another podcast all this time
- An extra helping of reader questions
- And lots more...
In this week's episode of Biscuits: A Hockey Podcast...
- We spend an uncomfortably long amount of time talking about Joe Thornton's butt check to TJ Oshie's face
- A breakdown of what's going on with Drew Doughty and Erik Karlsson
- We sort out last week's goalie fight debacle
- The Flyers finally win a game, but at least they're not the Sabres
- Dave basically admits he was wrong about 3-on-3 overtime and the shootout
- Reader questions, and lots more.
We’ve reached the point in the season where our attention tends to turn toward the future. Things have settled in, and our view of who’s good and who’s not isn’t swinging wildly day to day anymore. But there’s still plenty of season left, so it’s tempting to start thinking ahead to the trade deadline, the final stretch run, or the playoffs.
Or, as was the case this weekend, to the summer of 2019.
If that seems a little too far ahead, we can thank Drew Doughty and Erik Karlsson. The Kings’ defenceman got the ball rolling with a revealing interview late last week in which he admitted he was already looking ahead to free agency, and that he would be touching base with fellow 2019 UFA Karlsson to make sure they’re on the same page in terms of money. The Senators’ star then stoked that fire by telling a reporter that “When I go to market, I’m going to get what I’m worth.”
Well then. In a league where franchise players almost never make it to free agency, hearing Doughty and Karlsson muse about it openly was a surprise. Most players would mumble something about not thinking ahead, just being focused on winning tonight’s game, and hey let’s get pucks in deep. Not these two, apparently.
So naturally, fans around the league immediately started in on figuring how to react, parsing the specific words — does it mean anything that Karlsson said “when” he goes to market, not if? — and trying to figure out what number Doughty would wear for the Maple Leafs. (That last one may have just been in Toronto.) Meanwhile, fans in L.A. and Ottawa were really wishing everyone would leave them alone and go back to speculating about John Tavares.
Well, no such luck today. Instead, let’s try to handicap where the two stars will end up.
Possibility #1: Both guys re-sign before actually hitting UFA status
After all the speculation, both players do what virtually everyone else does and sign extensions well before they get to the market — maybe as early at July 1 of next year.
Odds of it happening: 80%
Entertainment value for Kings and/or Sens fans: It would be more like relief than entertainment, but they’d take it.
Entertainment value for the rest of us: Minimal.
Possibility #2: Both guys re-sign, but at least one makes it to UFA status first
A.K.A. “The Stamkos”
Odds of it happening: 5%
Entertainment value for Kings and/or Sens fans: Right up there with skydiving with a faulty parachute that doesn’t open the first few times you pull the chord, but eventually does.
Entertainment value for the rest of us: Strong for a day or two, then minimal.
Possibility #3: At least one guy gets traded
Hey, you can’t let him walk for nothing, right?
Odds of it happening: 7%
Entertainment value for Kings and/or Sens fans: Solid. They wouldn’t like it, but you’d get a ton in return for either guy. And if it did come to this, plenty of fans in Ottawa or L.A. would have already turned against the guy and talked themselves into moving on for the good of the franchise.
Entertainment value for the rest of us: Sky-high, especially if it comes after months of speculation. Trades are the best.
Possibility #4: At least one guy actually switches teams in free agency
I mean, it has happened before with star defencemen in their prime. There was Scott Niedermayer in 2006 and Zdeno Chara in 2007 and… uh… basically those two.
Odds of it happening: 7%
Entertainment value for Kings and/or Sens fans: Less than zero. Unless the departure came on the heels of a Cup win, this would be devastating.
Entertainment value for the rest of us: High, right up until the player ended up signing with your team’s biggest rival.
Possibility #5: Both guys end up on the same team
They’re represented by the same agency. They’ve already admitted they’re going to work together on this. They seem like friends. Is anyone else getting a Selanne/Kariya vibe here?
Odds of it happening: 1%
Entertainment value for Kings and/or Sens fans: We’ll be at the bar.
Entertainment value for the rest of us: Save us a seat; we can all drown our sorrows while we watch the same team get handed the Stanley Cup for the next few years.
Road to the Cup
The five teams that look like they’re headed towards Stanley Cup–favourite status.
5. Los Angeles Kings (17-8-3, +22 true goals differential*): They’ve retaken the Pacific thanks to five straight wins and a Golden Knights slump.
4. Columbus Blue Jackets (17-9-1, +11): They’ve got a big Metro showdown with the Devils this week, as the two will face off in back-to-back games (with two days off in between, for some reason).
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Thoughts on the media, criticism and players' feelings
- That Drew Doughty interview was the best
- An obscure player who helped introduce the modern goalie fight
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube clip that shows us what the 1990s hockey world thought the future of hockey would look like
You hear the term “franchise player” thrown around a lot these days, typically as a slightly fancier way of saying a player is very good. But actually playing out your entire career with one NHL franchise isn’t easy. Mario Lemieux managed to do it, but Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe didn’t. Nicklas Lidstrom did, but not Bobby Orr or Ray Bourque. Rocket Richard, Joe Sakic and Steve Yzerman made it, but not Mark Messier, Phil Esposito or Marcel Dionne.
And so far, it’s been an especially rough summer for modern-day players looking to join the club. Among the active leaders in games played with one team, as many as four players could have new homes in October. Patrick Marleau has already said goodbye to San Jose after 20 years. Shane Doan has been told that his services won’t be required in Arizona after 22 years with the organization, while Chris Neil got the same message from the Senators after 16. And as of right now, Andrei Markov’s 17-year tenure with the Canadiens appears to be in serious jeopardy.
Some of those players might still get to claim one-franchise status — Markov could re-sign in Montreal, and Doan and Neil could retire rather than sign elsewhere. But this summer has made it clear that playing out a decade or more with one organization doesn’t guarantee anything, and you never know when a player or team will decide that it’s time to sever a long-term relationship.
So today, let’s take a look at the 10 players with the most games played for a single team that they’re still on the roster of, and try to figure out which ones have the best odds of ending their career as a member of the one-franchise club.
Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Canucks
The tenure: 1,248 games for Henrik and 1,225 for Daniel, dating back to 2000
Why they’ll make it: Both sides in this one have been clear: The Sedins will finish their career in Vancouver. The twins have gone on the record to say they don’t want to leave. And the Canucks seem happy to hold onto them, resisting calls to think about moving their two veteran stars to help kickstart a rebuild.
On top of that, there’s another issue in play here: It’s just not easy to take on a pair of high salaries in the same deal. Assuming the twins will want to stay together wherever they play, there just aren’t many teams out there that could add that sort of cap hit. Sticking it out in Vancouver and then retiring as Canucks isn’t just the sentimental choice, it’s the practical one.
Why they won’t: The brothers have just one year left on their contracts, and the Canucks are expected to be a bad team this year and probably a few after that. Trading them today would be all but impossible, but getting a retained-salary deal done at the deadline might be realistic. And even assuming they finish the season as Canucks, the Sedins could head into unrestricted free agency next summer. Maybe they’d want to take a swing at a Stanley Cup somewhere before calling it quits.
Chance of making the one-franchise club: 75%. This will seem low to Canucks fans, many of whom seem to assume that the Sedins playing out their career in Vancouver is a sure thing. Maybe it is. But if Doan and the Coyotes taught us anything, it’s that loyalty has its limits, especially when a rebuilding team wants to go young. Is it really that hard to imagine the twins at least thinking about a discount deal with a contender next summer?
Henrik Zetterberg, Red Wings
The tenure: 1,000 games on the nose, dating back to 2002
Why they’ll make it: A lot of what we just wrote about the Sedins would apply here, too. It’s a veteran player on a rebuilding team that probably won’t have a shot at a Stanley Cup anytime soon.
But there are two key differences. First, Zetterberg already has a Cup ring. And second (and more importantly), he’s signed for four more years at a cap hit north of $6 million. Free agency isn’t on the radar, and even if the Red Wings wanted to trade him, they’d have trouble finding anyone willing to take on that deal.
On top of that, this is the Red Wings; no team holds onto its stars like Detroit. They made sure to do it for everyone from Yzerman to Lidstrom to Alex Delvecchio to Pavel Datsyuk. Well, kind of.
Why they won’t: Datsyuk never played anywhere else, but the Red Wings did trade his rights. That was a unique situation, of course, but it shows that Ken Holland is willing to get creative when it comes to dumping bad contracts. Zetterberg’s deal isn’t awful yet, but it’s headed there fast, and dumping it on a floor team down the line could be the sort of painful decision the rebuilding Wings have no choice but to make.
Chance of making the one-franchise club: 90%. In today’s NHL, I’m not sure you ever go higher than 90 until the player is actually making their way to the podium to announce their retirement. But of everyone on our list, Zetterberg is the most likely to retire with his team.
Dustin Brown, Kings
The tenure: 964 games dating back to 2003
Why they’ll make it: He’s been a warrior for the franchise, lifting two Stanley Cups as their captain. But let’s face it, the real reason Brown will retire as a King is his contract. With five years left at a nearly $6-million cap hit, and given Brown’s recent performance, it’s one of the worst contracts in the league. Even if the Kings wanted to trade him, no other team is going anywhere near that deal.
Why they won’t: The contract may be untradeable, but that doesn’t mean the Kings are stuck with it. Brown’s deal isn’t weighted down with bonuses, making it relatively straightforward to buy out. New management will no doubt give him a chance to find his game again before going that route, but this team already stripped him of his captaincy. The writing is on the wall here.
Chance of making the one-franchise club: 30%. Brown is a buyout waiting to happen.
We don’t see many trades in the NHL these days. Making deals is a dying art among NHL GMs, many of whom seem like they’d rather not pick up the phone at all. The few trades we do get are often relatively small ones, and sometimes it feels like the days of the true blockbuster are all but over.
Of course, we would have said all of that a year ago, too. And we know how that turned out.
Last June, hockey fans lived through one of the craziest days in hockey history, when we saw a pair of massive trades break within minutes of each other. First came word that the Oilers had sent all-star winger Taylor Hall to the Devils for Adam Larsson. Then came the P.K. Subban-for-Shea Weber deal, one that’s still being debated to this day thanks to Subban’s appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. Before that day back in June, most fans would have called all of those guys untouchable. In one hour, they were all on the move.
Most of them won't, of course, and it's possible nobody on our list gets dealt at all. But after last summer's day of madness, we can't rule anything out completely. So let's start with some names that have a good chance of moving, and work our way down to the biggest long shots.
Matt Duchene, Avalanche
Why a trade could happen: We'll start with the easy one. Of all the stars on our list, Duchene is the one who actually seems likely to move. The Avalanche have been openly shopping him for months now, and it seemed as if he might be moved at the deadline. That didn't happen, largely because the team felt like they could find a better deal in the off-season. Now, the pressure's on to get it done, and Duchene has been linked with teams like the Canadiens, Islanders and Blues.
Why there's a chance that it wouldn't: Duchene didn't do much to help his value after the deadline, going pointless in 18 of 21 games down the stretch, so it's possible that Colorado finds the market is even weaker now than it was in February. Even so, Avalanche GM Joe Sakic almost has to make a move here — the situation has just come too far to get cold feet now.
But we're not actually sure that Sakic will be the team's GM. Their recent play for Kyle Dubas paints a picture of an Avalanche organization that might be looking to kick Sakic upstairs and hand the reins over to new blood. If they do, that new GM might decide to take their time on any major moves, holding onto Duchene at least into the season.
And yet...: At some point, letting a star player twist in the wind gets to be too much. You'd have to think this gets done around the draft.
Marc-Andre Fleury, Penguins
Why a trade could happen: While Fleury has had his moments in Pittsburgh, including much of this year's playoff run, this is Matt Murray's team now. Normally, the team might be happy to have two solid goaltenders on the roster. But the Golden Knights throw a wrench into things; if Fleury is on the roster when it's time to submit the expansion list (and doesn't waive his no-movement clause), the Penguins would have to protect him and expose Murray. That's not going to happen.
The easiest solution would be to work with Fleury to find a destination he'd be willing to waive his no-movement for. The market for his services probably got a boost from this strong playoff run, so some team out there should be willing to give up some value to acquire the veteran Cup-winner.
Why it's not a sure thing: If the Penguins can't find a trade, or Fleury won't waive his NMC, they could always just buy him out. It's also possible that they could cut a side deal with the Knights to bypass Murray and hold onto both goaltenders.
And yet...: A trade to a team where Fleury could be the starter still seems like the best option for everyone involved.
Jordan Eberle, Oilers
Why a trade could happen: Everyone in Edmonton seems to want it to, after the winger laid an egg in the playoffs. With other holes in the roster to fill, it would make sense for the team to move somebody like Eberle or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, just like they did with last year's Hall deal.
Why it might not: Moving Eberle after the post-season he just had would seem like a classic case of selling low. And with two years left on a deal that carries a $6-million cap hit, Eberle would be a tough fit for most teams. The market wasn't exactly lining up for the guy at the deadline, so you can imagine what it would look like now. It might be better to hold on to him, if only until he can build back some value during the season.
And yet...: Between Leon Draisaitl's new deal and Connor McDavid's extension for 2018, the Oilers' cap room is going to vanish quickly. Underachieving players with big cap hits don't really seem to fit the long-term plan.
Alex Ovechkin, Capitals
Why a trade could happen: Ah, the big one. No name on the market carries the weight of Ovechkin, a three-time MVP who may go down in history as one of the greatest goal scorers of all time. And yet, after another disappointing playoff exit, the Capitals look like an organization in turmoil. All options seem to be on the table, including hitting the rest button on an entire era by moving the face of the franchise.
In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast:
- Dave and I try to fix the Kings, but can't, because they may not be fixable
- The Rangers can't win at home
- The Olympics debates drags on, and on, and on...
- Fond memories of the Avalanche/Red Wings brawl
- And Dave tries to get me to admit that the Maple Leafs are going to the playoffs
- Plus lots more...
Puck Soup is a podcast featuring me and Ryan Lambert. We release one free episode each week during the season, plus mailbags and other bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers.
"Biscuits" was the Vice Sports hockey podcast, hosted by DGB and Dave Lozo. It ran for two seasons; the final episode was in July, 2018. You can find the archives below:
