Grab Bag: About those unsigned RFAs, in defense of a bad stat and laughing at the 1993 Leafs

In he Friday Grab Bag:
- What's up with all those unsigned RFAs? My spies got the scoop.
- Another unpopular opinion I can share because it's summer and nobody's paying attention
- An obscure player who didn't have to be a goalie
- The month's three comedy stars, featuring dad jokes
- And a YouTube look back at my origin story in hockey comedy, featuring Jim Ralph and 1993-94 Leafs

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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When opening week games go horribly wrong

On​ Tuesday, we had​ some​ fun​ with​ the​ idea of​ overreacting to​ the season’s first​ week. It’s a silly​ thing​ that hockey fans​​ tend to do, and we usually end up looking back in a few months and wondering what all the fuss was about.

But every now and then the hockey gods like to smack us on the nose with an opening-week game that’s so lopsided, we wonder if they’re trying to tell us something. It’s one thing to lose a game or two. It’s another thing entirely to see your team get blown out of the water. That’s when it’s time to worry.

Or is it? I fired up the hockey-reference play index to see how many teams had been blown out by five goals or more in one of their first three games of the season during the cap era. It turns out to be rare, but not overly so, happening about twice a year on average. And as it turns out, some of the teams on the wrong end of those lopsided scores turned out just fine.

So today, let’s provide a dose of optimism for any teams that happen to get embarrassed this week. If they’re lucky, they’ll end up having a season like one of these seven teams.

---

The team: The 2017-18 Winnipeg Jets

The game: With hopes high that this would be the year the Jets finally returned to the postseason and maybe even win the first playoff game in their v2 history, Winnipeg hosted the Maple Leafs for their season opener. It was Steve Mason’s first game as a Jet, not to mention an early test against a fellow Canadian team hoping to contend in the near future.

It didn’t go well. The Leafs jumped out to a 3-0 lead, widened the gap to 6-0 at one point, and went on to a 7-2 win.

The aftermath: Patrik Laine described the game as “just embarrassing” and one columnist remarked that the Jets would “need to go back to the video machine for another look at that defensive game they thought they had patched up in training camp”. (For their part, Maple Leaf fans reacted with their typical mix of humility and good grace.)

The Jets looked almost as bad in their second game, a 6-3 road loss to the Flames in which they gave up 45 shots, as well as five unanswered goals after the first period. But they wouldn’t lose two straight in regulation again until December, recording 114 points and making the conference final.

In a sense, the first two games probably helped, since they weakened Mason’s hold on the starter’s duties and paved the way for Connor Hellebuyck’s emergence as a Vezina candidate. And besides, as bad as their start was, the Jets weren’t even the biggest loser of that season’s opening week …

The team: The 2017-18 Pittsburgh Penguins

The game: After opening their season with an overtime loss at home, the Penguins headed to Chicago for a battle between two teams that had combined to win six of the last nine Cups. We all figured it was going to be a classic. It was not.

Instead, in a game that still stands as one of the strangest of the season, the Blackhawks shelled the Penguins 10-1. It was one of the most lopsided games of the modern era, and the Penguins’ most embarrassing loss since the dark days of their pre-lockout bankruptcy era.

The aftermath: When asked what went wrong, Sidney Crosby responded with: “Do we have enough time? It’s embarrassing.” Kris Letang described it as, “no effort, no emotion.” Coach Mike Sullivan called the outcome “disturbing.”

Then, the Penguins went out in their next game and shutout the eventual Presidents’ Trophy winners Nashville, 4-0.

That didn’t quite cleanse the memory of the Hawks wipeout, but it set the Penguins back on track. They ultimately failed to win a third straight Cup, but did finish with 100 points and win a playoff round and everyone largely forgot about the Chicago debacle.

(Well, maybe not everyone. That night’s starting goalie was the newly acquired Antti Niemi. It would be one of only three appearances he’d make as a Penguin before being waived with a 7.49 GAA and a .797 save percentage.)

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Podcast: The Karlsson question

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...

>> Stream it now on Vice Sports

>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.

Don't panic (yet)

Don’t panic.

It’s a phrase worth keeping in mind as you make your way through life. It’s calming, and helps keep things in perspective. Somebody should put it on the cover of a book someday.

And “don’t panic” is especially good advice when it comes to an NHL season that’s still just three weeks old. Every team in the league has over 70 games left to play, which is plenty of time to fix any flaws that may have emerged over the season’s first few matchups.

That said, we could all use a reminder every now and then. So today, let’s look at five situations around the league that have been a cause for concern, and why it might not be time to panic quite yet.

The team: Chicago Blackhawks

The panic: Their penalty killing is the worst.

Literally. It might be the worst we've ever seen. Through nine games, the Blackhawks are killing penalties at a rate of just 53 per cent. They'd been at just 50 per cent before Sunday night's performance against the Kings, the first game all season that the Hawks hadn't allowed a power-play goal. Granted, they only went 2-for-2, but hey, baby steps.

But wait: We'll start with the obvious, which is that there's simply no way the Blackhawks' penalty kill can continue to this bad. They've quite literally been historically bad, or at least as far back into history as our numbers can go. There's simply no way that a team that employs guys like Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Marian Hossa can be that bad over the long haul.

According to STATS, the #Blackhawks have the worst PK percentage over first 7 games as far back as STATS can go, which is 1987-88.

— Chris Hine (@ChristopherHine) October 27, 2016

But while it's tempting to just say "small sample size" and move on, the Blackhawks struggled last year too, ranking 22nd in the league. That's a big drop from the strong PK that was a big part of their championship runs as recently as 2013 and 2015. Something is going on here, and a special teams unit doesn't have to be historically bad to derail a season.

So what's happening? That's a question that seems to have stumped most observers. There doesn't appear to have been any kind of strategic shift, nor have we seen any key penalty killers leave the team. A breakdown of some of the early goals against revealed that many were coming from right on the doorstep, but didn't reveal any obvious tactical issues.

One area that does stand out is the goaltending; Corey Crawford is posting a short-handed save percentage of just .683, compared to a career average of .861. That doesn't necessarily tell us a ton, since we know that a goalie's penalty-kill save percentage is heavily influenced by how the team plays in front of him. But a nearly 200-point drop is hard to ignore, and it suggests that there may be something to the whole sample size argument.

The other good news is that the Blackhawks have one of the league's best coach-GM combos, so you'd have to figure that they find a way to make whatever changes need to be made. In the meantime, Chicago has still managed to win five of nine. That's not great, but it's good enough to keep them in the Central Division picture. You'll probably take that when a big part of your game has been historically bad.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Five expected offseason moves we're still waiting for

The dog days of the NHL offseason got a nice jolt on Monday when the Senators and Rangers hooked up on a decent-sized trade. The deal sends Derick Brassard and a seventh to Ottawa in exchange for Mika Zibanejad and a second, improving the Senators’ top six while adding some youth to the Rangers and giving them some additional cap room to work with.

The trade also answered one of the offseason’s lingering questions, which was: When are the Rangers going to get around to doing something? We were all told to expect a busy offseason in New York, as GM Jeff Gorton would look to shake up his aging and expensive core. But until this week, not much had happened aside from a few minor free agency signings. Trading Brassard isn’t exactly a blockbuster, but at least now the Rangers are on the board.

But that still leaves a few more stories lingering in the “still waiting” file. Here are five moves everyone went into the offseason expecting to see that still haven’t happened yet.

The move: The Kevin Shattenkirk trade.

Heading into the offseason, it seemed as if Shattenkirk was the most likely blueliner to be on the move. With UFA status a year away, it just didn’t seem as if he was part of the Blues long-term plans. And with holes in the lineup created by other departures and several teams on the market in the hunt for defensive help, trading Shattenkirk seemed like the most obvious move for Blues’ GM Doug Armstrong.

Why hasn’t it happened yet?: The short answer is that Armstrong hasn’t found the right deal yet. But that just leads to the next question: Why not? It’s not like the market for defensemen suddenly dried up this summer; between P.K. Subban, Shea Weber and Adam Larsson, there’s been as much talent on the move as ever, and maybe more. But in Shattenkirk’s case, the move might get complicated. He’s one year away from free agency, so teams may be reluctant to acquire him without a firm sense of how much they’ll have to pay to keep him.

Odds that it still will: High. It just seems like this one has gone too far down the road to be pulled back now, with Shattenkirk’s agent going as far as calling a deal “inevitable” a few weeks ago. Maybe Armstrong has to lower his asking price, and maybe that brings teams like Edmonton back into the mix.

What if it doesn’t?: It’s going to seem awkward if training camp arrives and Shattenkirk is still a Blue. Still, having him in the lineup wouldn’t be the worst thing in the word for a legitimate Cup contender. Conventional wisdom says that you just can’t let a player like that reach free agency without trading him first, but as the Lightning showed with Steven Stamkos last year, sometimes it’s better to stay the course. Still, that’s risky territory for the Blues, and it’s hard to see how this gets that far.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Last year's biggest offseason stories, and what they can teach us

Welcome to the NHL off-season, Penguins and Sharks fans. The rest of us have been here for weeks, and in some cases months. It’s been pretty slow, to be honest. But now that everyone’s arrived, we can finally kick this thing into high gear.

So what will the summer hold? Nobody knows, but as with most things in life, we can find some clues in what’s come before. After all, the NHL tends to be a copycat league where new fads can take hold quickly and teams can sometimes change direction on a dime. One year’s surprise might end up foreshadowing the next year’s must-have trend.

Let’s prepare for the future by looking back at the past. Here’s a look back at a half-dozen of the biggest stories from the 2015 off-season, and what they could teach us about what to expect this year.

The story: The Phil Kessel deal. In arguably the biggest trade of the off-season, the Penguins sent a first round pick, a prospect and some smaller parts to the Maple Leafs for Kessel, with Toronto retaining a chunk of his salary. It was a deal that had been rumoured for weeks, and it saw the two teams make clear their intentions for the coming season: the teardown was on in Toronto, while the Penguins were all-in on a Stanley Cup run.

The lesson: Sometimes, bold trades really do work out.

We all know how this ended for the Penguins, with the vision of Kessel skating the Stanley Cup around the rink in San Jose still fresh in our memories. The trade looked dicey as Pittsburgh tumbled off to a rough start, and even as the team turned around, Kessel's numbers never approached the sky-high expectations the deal created. But he found his groove in the playoffs, leading the team in scoring and even earning some Conn Smythe Trophy love.

While the deal was a major win for the Penguins, it worked out for Toronto too. None of the pieces it acquired in the trade had much impact during the season, but the Leafs cleared cap room and added depth to their prospect pipeline. And maybe more importantly, Kessel's absence helped contribute to a last place finish that will yield Auston Matthews next week. One year in, the Kessel trade looks like one of those deals where both teams won.

Who it could impact: Any GM who's still trotting out the "You just can't trade in today's NHL" line. Fans have been hearing that for years, from various GMs around the league. And it's undoubtedly true that making trades is more difficult under a cap system; just look at the first few months of this season, where we didn't see a single deal involving an NHL player until mid-December.

But as Jim Rutherford went out and proved, difficult doesn't mean impossible. Between the Kessel deal and other trades for Nick Bonino, Carl Hagelin, Travor Daley and Justin Schultz, the veteran GM helped turn the Penguins from a top-heavy pretender into a well-balanced contender. Fans in other cities who are used to being serenaded with excuses from risk-adverse GMs may want to take note.

The story: Offer sheet worries lead to big trades. Dougie Hamilton and Brandon Saad both went from young franchise cornerstones to trade bait within days of the draft, with Hamilton heading from Boston to Calgary and Saad going from Chicago to Columbus. In both cases, the deals were inspired at least partly by fear that the players, who were both RFAs, could be offer sheet targets.

The lesson: NHL GMs hate having their hands forced, and would rather trade a player on their own terms than risk the threat of losing a player to an offer sheet.

The irony, of course, is that that tends to be all an offer sheet ever is: a threat. It's been over three years since one was actually signed (Ryan O'Reilly, which almost led to disaster for Calgary), and almost nine since one actually worked (Dustin Penner, which almost led to a barn fight).

And yet, GMs apparently still worry about falling victim to one. In theory, that's the sort of thing a team could use to their advantage.

Who it could impact: The list of this summer's RFAs features some decent names, including Nikita Kucherov, Seth Jones, Nathan MacKinnon and Jacob Trouba. It's hard to imagine any of those guys switching teams this summer. Then again, we could have said the same for Hamilton and Saad around this time last year, and we saw how that worked out. At the very least, don't be surprised if some sneaky front offices find a way to float a few rumors over the coming weeks.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

What went wrong for the playoff losers (and can they fix it)?

With the conference finals underway, we’re down to the NHL’s final four. The eyes of the hockey world are focused on the Sharks, Blues, Lightning and Penguins, and rightly so. One of those four teams will be our next Stanley Cup champion.

But four teams in the conference final also means 12 playoff teams sitting at home, wondering where it all went wrong. So let’s help those teams out and look at each of the dozen franchises that didn’t make the cut, and try to pinpoint the key flaw that sent them packing. And, more importantly, let’s ask the question: Can they fix it?

Dallas Stars

What went wrong? Goaltending. Hey, we might as well start off with the easy one, right?

The Stars were one of the league’s best stories, roaring back from a playoff miss to finish as the West’s top seed while leading the league in goals scored. They were also one of the most entertaining teams we’ve seen in years. But they went through the season with a massive question mark, and we all saw it: the goaltending duo was weak. Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi were good enough to get them to the second round, but a Game 7 meltdown against the Blues ended their season and drew a big red circle around the sport’s most important position.

Can they fix it? It won’t be easy. Before they can add anyone, the Stars will presumably need to subtract, and that’s no simple task. Their two incumbents carried a combined cap hit of $10.4 million, and both are locked in for two more years. Neither will have much trade value at that price. That doesn’t mean they can’t be traded – a willingness to retain salary and/or taking back an equally bad deal can open doors – but it’s possible that a buyout ends up being Jim Nill’s best option.

Even assuming that Nill can clear a spot on the roster, who does he go out and get? There are always goalies available in the off-season, but the tough part is finding the right one. The reality is that this is a league with about a half dozen sure-thing goalies, and a whole lot of question marks after that. Those sure-things aren’t going to be available, so Nill and the Stars will have to roll the dice.

History has shown that you don’t need a future Hall-of-Famer in net to win in this league. This year’s final four has shown it too. But you do need a guy you can trust, and the Stars just reminded us that finding that guy is no simple task. They’ll try again this summer, but it’s no sure thing that they’ll do any better.

Detroit Red Wings

What went wrong? The offence couldn’t finish. The Red Wings produced plenty of pressure against the Lightning, averaging 32 shots per game. But they never managed to score more than two goals in any game of the series, and ended up with just eight goals total. That included just one on the power play despite 25 attempts.

Can they fix it? We’ll cut the Wings some slack here. They were facing a strong defensive team with a hot goaltender, and their power play was decent over the regular season, ranking 13th. But the lack of offence wasn’t strictly a post-season problem. Detroit only scored 209 goals on the season, ranking just 23rd overall, and didn’t have a single player finish with more than 50 points.

So how do they get better? Losing Pavel Datsyuk won’t help, and if he heads home for Russia, as expected, he’ll leave a huge void. Henrik Zetterberg is 35-years-old, and his production has dropped sharply in each of the last two years. On the other hand, guys like Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist should improve with age and expanded roles, and Dylan Larkin is only just getting started.

Add it all up, and the Red Wings probably need help from outside the organization, either via free agency or trade. And to do that, they’ll likely need to find a home for Datsyuk’s cap hit first. That won’t be impossible, but Ken Holland has got some work cut out for him this summer.

Minnesota Wild

What went wrong? After splashing out on big-money franchise players in Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, the Wild have failed to surround them with enough talent to truly compete in a very tough Central Division.

The Wild spent big to build a team that could contend, but they could never beat the Blackhawks, and this year they were eliminated by what turned out to be a very flawed Stars team. Now they’re left with a core that’s old and expensive, most of whom are well into the stage of their careers where we should start expecting to see a decline.

Can they fix it? They’ve already made a big improvement, upgrading to Bruce Boudreau behind the bench. Adding one of the best coaches in the league could go a long way.

It may have to, because upgrading the roster is going to be a massive challenge for GM Chuck Fletcher. He’s largely locked into this core – they have nearly $50 million tied up in just nine players through 2017-18, and six of those guys are already over 30 today. Finding takers for any of those players in trades will be tough, and buyouts just kick the cap pain down the road.

Maybe Boudreau can work his magic and turn this group into contenders. The Wild had better hope so, because if there’s another realistic path to improvement here, it’s a tough one to find.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Goalie controversy roundup: The Western Conference

On Wednesday, we looked at a half dozen Eastern Conference teams with unsettled goaltending situations. Some were old-fashioned controversies, whereas others were short-term situations caused by slumps or injuries.

We move on to the West, where we'll start with a team that seems to have a permanent spot on this list over the years.

Edmonton Oilers: Cam Talbot vs. Anders Nilsson

In this corner: Coming off a surprisingly good season with the New York Rangers, Talbot was the Oilers' offseason trade target. They got him, at the cost of three draft picks. Would he finally stabilize years of shaky goaltending? Spoiler alert: These are the Oilers we're talking about.

And in this corner: Nilsson was another trade piece, although one that received far less attention. He came over from the Chicago Blackhawks to provide the organization with some depth, and perhaps push Ben Scrivens for the backup job.

The results so far: Nilsson pushed Scrivens all the way to the AHL, and he didn't stop there. He's earned a share of the starter's job with Talbot, who hasn't played well at all.

Prediction: The Oilers have a decision to make on Talbot, and soon; he'll be an unrestricted free agent this summer, and with Edmonton looking like it will be well out of the playoff race, you'd expect the team to either sign him long term or try to flip him at the deadline to recover some of the assets it gave up to get him. That still gives Talbot a few months to find his game and reclaim the starter's job, and there's good reason to think that he can.

>> Read the full post on ESPN.com

California Dreaming: The NHL Takes It Back Outside

On Saturday, they played a hockey game outdoors in California, and it says something about the evolution of the NHL that the whole thing didn’t seem all that remarkable.

That’s not supposed to be the case with these outdoor games, and it certainly wasn’t the case last year when the league set up shop at Dodger Stadium. That game felt like something wholly unique, with beach volleyball and a marching band and a performance by Kiss, as hockey fans across the continent tuned in to find out whether the ice would melt. It didn’t. In the end, it all came together perfectly.

This year’s game, played in front of just more than 70,000 fans at Levi’s Stadium, didn’t carry that same first-time curiosity factor, and that may help explain why there seemed to be so little buzz about it. Heading into Saturday, there was as much focus on the standings as on the setting. This was perhaps the league’s first outdoor game where the emphasis was firmly on the “game” part of the equation.

In the last decade, the state of California has won three Stanley Cups, one Presidents’ Trophy, and two MVPs, all while serving up the best three-way rivalry in the sport. The state’s teams have been so good for so long that fans around the league now warily eye their favorite team’s schedule for the dreaded California Road Trip of Doom.

So when it comes to California hockey, there’s an overwhelming temptation to ignore the past, because the present is just so much better. But you’d be missing out if you did, because the history of the NHL in California is rich and deep and completely ridiculous. And it was hard not to think about that on a Saturday night at a football stadium.

♦♦♦

The L.A. Kings arrived in 1967 as part of the NHL’s first wave of expansion, and they weren’t very good. In the ’70s, they were best known for helping to build the Canadiens’ dynasty by continually giving their top draft picks to Sam Pollock. In the ’80s, their main job was to be just competitive enough to occasionally make the powerhouse Oilers (and later Flames) break a sweat. And they looked ridiculous, wearing awful yellow and purple uniforms. If you squinted just right, it looked like Wayne Gretzky and friends were skating circles around a bunch of bruised bananas.

That Gretzky guy turned out to be pretty important a few years later, when he was traded to the Kings in 1988. That move put the Kings on the map. They switched to modern-looking black and silver uniforms, and suddenly, almost overnight, the Los Angeles Kings were cool. But it was an L.A. cool, and in hockey, that’s not a compliment. After all, you still had the B-list celebrities and Barry Melrose’s mullet and that blue bandanna thing that Kelly Hrudey wore.

For most of their first four decades, the Kings were one big punch line. Two Stanley Cups later, nobody’s laughing anymore.

♦♦♦

The San Jose Sharks entered the league in 1991 as a quasi expansion team, part of a complicated split from the Minnesota North Stars that nobody really seemed to fully understand. They played in something called the Cow Palace, took to the ice by skating through a giant shark’s head, and introduced the word “teal” to the hockey world’s vocabulary.

They were also terrible. They finished dead last in each of their first two years, establishing a league record for most losses in a season in 1992-93. But they made the playoffs in 1994 and even won a round thanks to Chris Osgood’s brain cramp. That would start a run of 17 playoff appearances in 20 years. They’ve won six division titles and had seven 100-point seasons.

They’ve also never lost a Stanley Cup final game, which sounds nice except that they’ve never won one either. That’s the reputation the Sharks have forged over two decades: Year after year, they’re good in the regular season and then find a way to fall apart in the playoffs.

And that brings us back to the Los Angeles Kings.

♦♦♦

Until very recently, the Kings had spent the entire season desperately trying to look like a bad team and not fooling anyone.

When the matchup between the Sharks and Kings was announced last summer, it was projected as a grudge match between two of the league’s elite teams. The Kings are the defending champions. The Sharks have been one of the league’s top regular-season teams for more than a decade but just can’t get over the hump in the playoffs, and in each of the last two years that hump has been the Kings. These were two very good teams that didn’t like each other very much. That was the plan.

The first part of that plan hasn’t really worked out. Both teams have struggled, and instead of Saturday’s game being a showdown for top spot in the Pacific, it was a battle for the conference’s final wild-card spot. Despite a six-game winning streak, the Kings went into the weekend having lost more games than they’d won. They’ve been chasing a playoff spot for most of the last few months. And yet nobody seems to want to count them out, because they’ve been down this road before in 2012 and 2014, and we know how that turned out. A few Stanley Cup rings will buy you some benefit of the doubt.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

The pros and cons of fighting in the NHL

Kill him! But, uh, you know, don't hurt him.

The debate over fighting has returned to NHL circles. And if you're a fan of the occasional scrap, you probably didn't have a very good week.

Players like Rick DiPietro, Colton Orr and Derek Boogaard are still on the sidelines due to serious injuries suffered in fights. Then word came last week that the late Bob Probert was suffering from a degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated head trauma. Before fans could fully absorb that news, Edmonton Oilers' number one overall draft pick Taylor Hall had his rookie season ended by an ankle injury suffered in his first career fight.

So here we go again. It seems that the fighting debate has been raging for decades. And while it's lead to hours of heated rhetoric, there's little evidence of anyone ever actually changing their mind.

But maybe that can change. I've spoken to experts on both sides of the issue, and I've captured their best arguments below. For the first time, here are both sides of hockey's greatest debate presented side-by-side. Maybe, just maybe, we can settle this once and for all.

Pro-fighting: Banning fighting would eliminate the chance of a fight between Matt Cooke and Sean Avery that the linesmen could just "forget" to break up.

Anti-fighting: Fights are nothing more than quasi-exciting but ultimately demeaning sideshows that don't showcase any actual hockey skills and have no place in the game, and these days we have the shootout for that.

Pro-fighting: Without the threat of fighting, noble enforcers like Jody Shelley and Trevor Gillies would be unable to protect their teammates from despicable cheap-shot artists like Jody Shelley and Trevor Gillies.

Anti-fighting: Let's face it, nobody really likes having fighting in the game except for ignorant know-nothings like fans, most general managers and coaches, and virtually every single player.

Pro-fighting: Getting rid of fighting would just result in every episode of Coach's Corner being nothing more than a seven-minute diatribe about no-touch icing,

Anti-fighting: If punching somebody in the face at a hockey game is outlawed, only outlaws will punch somebody in the face at a hockey game. And Flyer fans. Actually, mostly Flyer fans.

Pro-fighting: If we just hold off on doing anything to address the rapidly growing list of players lost to concussions for another year or two, all of us will eventually get to play in the NHL for a few games.

Anti-fighting: Mike Milbury has historically been pro-fighting.

Pro-fighting: Wait, Mike Milbury is now apparently anti-fighting.

Anti-fighting: Fighting is an outdated concept that may have made sense for previous generations but has no place in the modern game, like goalies playing without masks or an NHL team in Winnipeg.

Pro-fighting: The inability to regularly write simplistic and condescending anti-fighting columns could spell the end of the already struggling newspaper industry.

Anti-fighting: Studies have shown that a total ban on fighting would increase hockey viewership by 20% in the southern United States, because Tom says he's pretty sure he'd start watching.

Pro-fighting: Hey, remember when they had fighting in NHL 93 and then they took it out for NHL 94? Which one did you like better? Exactly.

Anti-fighting: In addition to being overpaid and overrated based on last year's Cup run, Niemi is known to snore loudly on team flights and often plays bad Finnish pop music on the Sharks' team stereo. (Editor's note: Wait, sorry, this should have been listed as an "Antti fighting" argument.)

Pro-fighting: Players engaging in fights face the possibility of devastating injury and even long-term disability, which is a risk that I as a fan sitting in my easy chair have decided I am willing to accept.

Anti-fighting: Eliminating fighting would send a strong message to impressionable children that settling a dispute by knocking somebody unconscious with your fists is unacceptable; instead, use your rock solid shoulder pad like a gentleman would.

2010: An NHL year in review

Hey guys, how many of these can you
win before salary cap incompetence
forces you to tear the team apart?

As we prepare to ring in the New Year tonight, I thought I'd try something unique and spend some time taking a look back at the past 12 months.

What's that? It's not unique? Every blog in the world is doing the same thing today? Hmm. OK, let's try this again.

As we prepare to ring in the New Year tonight, let's engage in the rich and greatly beloved tradition of taking a look back at the past 12 months. Here are some of 2010's most memorable moments in the NHL.

January 31 - The Maple Leafs acquire defenceman Dion Phaneuf from the Calgary Flames, filling a critical void that came to light when it was apparently discovered that nobody on the current roster knew how to work the volume knob on the dressing room stereo.

February 28 - Sidney Crosby scores the dramatic winning goal in overtime of the Olympic final, then puts his gold medal in his trophy case next to his Stanley Cup ring. Meanwhile, Alex Ovechkin scores the dramatic winning goal in overtime of the Olympic final, then puts his copy of NHL 11 back on the shelf next to Guitar Hero.

April 21 - Trailing the heavily favoured Washington Capitals three games to one in their opening round playoff series, Montreal Canadiens' coach Jacques Martin makes the controversial decision to bench starting goaltender Jaroslav Halak and replace him with a 6-by-4 brick wall with a picture of Jaroslav Halak painted on it.

June 9 - Moments after Patrick Kane's overtime winner ends the Flyers' championship hopes, a disappointed Chris Pronger concedes that Chicago was the better team, offers his sincere congratulations to the Blackhawks' players, and then turns and walks slowly to his car while dragging a Stanley Cup-shaped duffel bag behind him.

June 22 - In the biggest trade of draft weekend, the Bruins send Dennis Wideman and two draft picks to the Florida Panthers in exchange for Nathan Horton and the right to not have any of their players get suspended anymore.

July 20 - While being announced as the new coach of the New Jersey Devils, John MacLean declines to offer detailed thoughts on his new team. "I believe you can't truly evaluate a team until they have ten wins," he tells reporters. "So check back with me some time in early November."

July 31 - While spending his day with the Stanley Cup, Antti Niemi wonders if it's a bad sign that his named is engraved as "miscellaneous replaceable starting goaltender".

August 9 - An arbitrator rules that the New Jersey Devils' front-loaded contract offer to Ilya Kovalchuk is in violation of the league's collective bargaining agreement. In a punishment that many feel is overly harsh, the team is forced to indefinitely employ Ilya Kovalchuk.

October 7 - The season kicks off in Helsinki with the Minnesota Wild hosting the Carolina Hurricanes as part of the NHL's comprehensive program to get Finland to stop bugging them about getting an expansion team.

October 31 - After their unsuccessful attempt to playfully frighten him, Brian Burke lectures the group of children on his doorstep that trick-or-treaters never yelled "boo" when he was in Vancouver.

December 7 -After his introduction of new mayor Rob Ford at his first council meeting creates controversy, Don Cherry explains his conservative views by saying he's been in Toronto for years without ever meeting a single decent left winger. "Tell me about it," says Mats Sundin.

December 28 - Calgary General Manager Darryl Sutter makes the difficult choice to resign his position. He later explains that he reached his decision based on the Flames' lacklustre record, a desire to spend more time with his family, and the fact that team president Ken King was dumping the contents of his office onto the front lawn and setting fire to it.

A buyer's guide to the remaining NHL free agents - 2010

Boogard got how much?

As hockey's off-season drags on, there are still dozens of unrestricted free agents who haven't found a team for the upcoming season. Many will end up being exiled to Europe or even retirement, while others will manage to find a job in the NHL.

But which ones? Here's an honest look at the strengths and weaknesses of some of the best known free agents remaining on the market, along with a prediction of where they could ultimately wind up.

Antti Niemi
The bad: Was easily the most over-rated Stanley Cup winning goalie in the entire league last year.
The good: Doesn't know the meaning of the word "quit", although technically that's also true of all the other words in the English language.
Where he'd fit: Philadelphia, according to everyone in the entire hockey world who doesn't work in the Flyers' front office.

Lee Stempniak
The bad: Only seems to play well in Phoenix, which pretty much limits him to one-year offers.
The good: Hasn't played for the Maple Leafs since the trade deadline, so most of the loser stench has worn off by now.
Where he'd fit: Any team that only hired a scouting staff in mid-March.

Paul Kariya
The bad: Most scouts agree that his dimples are slightly less adorable than they used to be.
The good: Was at one point, many years ago, Paul Kariya.
Where he'd fit: Pretty much any team that's looking for a veteran scoring winger to play on a line with Teemu Selanne.

Ilya Kovalchuk
The bad: May have suffered a series of undisclosed head injuries during his career, based on his apparent willingness to commit to spending 17 years in New Jersey.
The good: Will no doubt be well-rested after the upcoming year-long work stoppage that he caused.
Where he'd fit: Any team that's been smart enough to preserve some cap room in 2027.

Owen Nolan
The bad: Is widely recognized as one of the worst NHL players that Belfast, Northern Ireland has ever produced.
The good: Can offer detailed scouting reports on the 30 NHL teams, all of which he's recently played for.
Where he'd fit: A team that believes it is one salt-and-pepper goatee away from contending.

Kyle Wellwood
The bad: Has occasionally experienced minor conditioning setbacks, which some bloggers have cruelly exaggerated to get cheap laughs.
The good: Is an extremely well-rounded player. Often appears to be everywhere on the ice at the same time. Has an overwhelming presence which can dominate the dressing room. Is unanimously considered to be one of the hungriest players in the league.
Where he'd fit: Any roster with a large hole to fill.

Miroslav Satan
The bad: Is always going on and on about his theory that the whole thing was just a dream by Leonardo DiCaprio's character, which is odd since he's talking about the seventh season of Growing Pains.
The good: Was an alternate on the NHL's millennial All-Miroslav team.
Where he'd fit: The New Jersey Devils, according to the International Union of Hilarious Newspaper Headline Writers.

Jose Theodore
The bad: Goal scoring totals have dropped significantly since 2000-01 season.
The good: Has been known to entertain teammates with hilarious made-up stories about winning the Hart Trophy.
Where he'd fit: Any NHL team where he wouldn't have to worry about once again losing his starter's job to Cristobel Huet. So, any NHL team.

Darcy Tucker
The bad: Is too old and broken down these days to randomly leap into opponent's benches any more; now just sort of limps over and then tumbles in.
The good: Critics who accuse him of being dirty don't have a leg to stand on, mostly because he's blown out both their knees.
Where he'd fit: Sami Kapanen's sweat-drenched nightmares.

Vesa Toskala
The bad: Often reminds you of the love child of Hardy Astrom and Andre Racicot, assuming that child was forced to play goal before developing gross motor skills.
The good: Has never been one of those irresponsible goalies who takes a brand new set of equipment and then spends the season ruining it by letting a bunch of pucks hit it.
Where he'd fit: As the backup for whatever ECHL team John Ferguson Jr. is working for these days.