Various Mark Messier leadership award winners, ranked by how poorly they held up

I’m not sure the NHL has a weirder annual award than the Mark Messier Leadership Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Leadership.

It’s not quite a slam dunk, because the Lady Byng exists. But at least that award has been around for a century, and is voted on by a pool of writers who’ll always get it right because democracy never fails. The Mark Messier is a relatively new award that, as far as anyone can tell, just goes to whoever Mark Messier himself deems worthy. What’s the criteria? Nobody really knows. Leadership, apparently.

The award started off in 2006 as a monthly honor, before quickly being retconned into a more traditional annual award. That version has been handed out 18 times, with no repeat winners, because it’s just really hard to be a good leader more than once in your career. And while some of those winners are guys with reputations as legitimately great leaders like Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron and Jonathan Toews, other winners haven’t held up quite as well. We got a reminder of that this week, when the reigning Messier winner was traded after the team that had been trying to dump him for months threatened to waive him. You know, typical leader stuff.

So today, let’s look back at that list of 18 winners, and remember X times that the award didn’t turn out to be a great omen for the future.

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10 lessons learned from a wild first day of NHL free agency

The initial wave of the annual free agent frenzy seems to have slowed down, so let’s take a breath and ask the big question: Class, what have we learned today?

The NHL delivered on the promise of a busy market, with names flying off the board all day long. There was plenty of movement of unrestricted free agents, several big extensions, and even a handful of trades. Let’s recap the day with ten lessons we can pull from a frantic day. That won’t be enough to cover each and every signing or even every team, but we’ll try to hit on as many as we can. And we’ll do it quickly, before something else happens and renders all of this irrelevant.

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Puck Soup: Doused Flames

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- On the eve of the biggest game of the season, the Flames wet the bed
- The races: Western wildcard, Eastern wildcard, and top lottery odds
- Won't somebody please think of the Michael Bunting?
- One sportsbook says all the awards are already locked up
- Steven Stamkos and Kris Letang hit the 1,000-game mark
- Wrestlemania and more...

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Where does Stamkos rank?

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Steven Stamkos joins the 500 club -- where does he fit among the all-time greats?
- Fun with the adjusted goals list
- Connor McDavid arrives on the NHL99 list
- Jesse Granger ranks the goalie masks
- Me and Ian make a Cowboys/49ers bet
- Big game superstitions and lots more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)

The 10 active NHL stars that nobody hates (except for everyone who does)

Heading into last night’s action, there had been 762 skaters and 74 goalies that had appeared in at least one NHL game this season. That’s well over 800 names, ranging from big stars to no-names, grizzled veterans to fresh-faced rookies, guys with personalities and lots who never say a word, and everything in between.

Can we find just ten that everyone likes?

Good luck. Hockey fans are notoriously difficult to please, which is a nice way of saying we’re all crusty jerks who are simmering with rage at all times, all carrying a long list of players we’re sworn to never forgive for some sin we don’t even remember. You like your own team, sometimes, but that’s about it. Maybe there’s one or two guys on other teams that you respect, or even like.

But ten? Forget it.

Well, I love a challenge. The last time I did this was back in 2019, and the results were mixed. I managed to come up with a few names that most of you seemed to agree on, including Henrik Lundqvist and Patrick Marleau. Both of those guys have rudely retired, so I can’t use them again. In fact, I’m going to go one further: This time around, I can’t use anyone who made the cut back in 2019. That means still-active names like Patrice Bergeron, Marc-Andre Fleury and Phil Kessel are off the table too. This is going to impossible.

That’s never stopped me before, so let’s do this. Ten active players, ten reasons why we should all like them, and ten exceptions that prove the rule.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Should Leaf fans be panicking?

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- A listener wants to know why Leaf fans are such bummers right now
- Which team is in more trouble, Vancouver or Minnesota?
- We talk about one of the most underappreciated stars in the league
- A look back at one of the wildest games you've never heard of
- And more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)

Eight times it almost went bad for the inevitable Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning are one win away from a Stanley Cup. And in a way, it feels like this was always inevitable. The Lightning have been the best team in the league, or close to it, for a big chunk of the last decade. They went to the final in 2015 with a young roster of developing stars, and ever since then you’ve been waiting for the season where it would all come together. That’s finally happened, just like we all knew it would.

Almost. They’re still one win away. And that means it could still go bad.

If that’s not a pleasant feeling for Lightning fans, it’s hardly a new one. This team has had more than a few moments in their recent history where things could have fallen apart. A bad result here, or a bad decision there, and the story could have been very different.

That’s the thing about those inevitable championships. When you actually look back at the path it took to get there, they start to not feel so inevitable after all.

So today, while we wait to see if Tampa Bay can close it out, let’s head back to the 2013 offseason. The Lightning have just finished their third season under Steve Yzerman, and it’s been a bad one. They finished 28th overall, missing the playoffs for the second straight year. But some pieces are already in place. A fresh-faced Jon Cooper has taken over as coach, Ben Bishop has been acquired at the trade deadline, Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman are just entering their prime, and Nikita Kucherov is ready for the NHL after lighting it up in an AHL audition.

In hindsight, the ascent of the Lightning already feels preordained. But was it? Let’s look back at eight times it could have gone bad – and which current teams might be able to learn from it.

2014: Martin St. Louis wants out

The situation: As bad as those 2012-13 Lightning had been, St. Louis still led the league in scoring to capture his second Art Ross. After 13 seasons in Tampa, he was probably the most popular player in franchise history. But in a surprise, he was left off of Team Canada’s roster for the Olympics, a decision that Lightning GM Yzerman was in charge of. The decision created a rift that couldn’t be healed, and St. Louis made it clear that he wanted out.

How it could have gone: The Lightning could have held their ground and kept an unhappy star. Yzerman could have insisted that St. Louis relinquish his no-trade clause to facilitate the best possible trade. Or the whole thing could have turned even uglier than it was, poisoning a young team’s room.

What happened instead: Yzerman traded St. Louis to the only team he wanted to go to, sending him to Rangers for Ryan Callahan and draft picks. It wasn’t a bad trade, but it certainly wasn’t the kind of haul you might expect for a reigning Art Ross winner. Still, Yzerman got the deal done and the Lightning turned the page.

Who could learn from it: The Golden Knights, who have their own beloved franchise icon who might be on the way out after a rift with management. The Marc-Andre Fleury situation isn’t exactly the same – he’s feuding with the coach instead of the GM, and he insists he doesn’t necessarily want out. But there are some parallels, and it may be in the Knights best interest to follow the Lightning model: Find an amicable exit, accept whatever you can get in return, and let everyone move on to the next chapter.

2014: The early exit

The situation: The 2013-14 Lightning have been a pleasant surprise, overcoming the St. Louis story and an injury to Stamkos and making the playoffs for the first time in three years, earning a winnable matchup against the Canadiens. But the offense went cold and Bishop was hurt, and that added up to an early exit in the form of a four-game sweep.

How it could have gone: The disappointing showing could have led to the team taking a step back the following year. Worse, management could have overreacted to one series, deciding that a rebuilding team may not have as much cause for optimism as it seemed.

What happened instead: The Lightning shrugged off the loss and stayed the course, and a year later they were playing for the Stanley Cup.

Who could learn from it: The Rangers, a young team that made a surprising postseason appearance (albeit under vastly different circumstances) only to be quickly swept aside with a key goaltender sidelined. Disappointing, sure, but no need to panic.

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Puck Soup: Fading Stars

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Lightning surge to a 2-1 series lead
- The dramatic but brief return of Steven Stamkos
- Who'll win the Conn Smythe?
- Comparing the NHL's bubble product to the NBA and other sports
- Running down the awards, including the worst votes
- Alex Pietrangelo puts the pressure on the Blues
- Plus Bob Boughner, the 500 best albums of all-time, and a quiz

>> Stream it now:

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>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes (including next week's insane ultra-specific draft) by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

In which I attempt to answer a simple question about jersey numbers that almost breaks me

Every now and then, a reader will reach out to me with a question. Sometimes, I already know the answer. Often, I have no idea where I’d even start. But the best kind of questions are the ones that make me think: “Huh, I’m not sure, but I bet it would be fun to find out.”

I got one of those a little while ago from a reader named Bryce. It was nice and simple. Bryce wanted to know which NHL player had scored the most goals in a single season in which their total matched their jersey number.

That’s kind of a cool question. And it’s one that shouldn’t be all that hard to figure out. I couldn’t come up with an answer off the top of my head, but I knew how to find one: just crack open a list of the highest single-season goal totals and work backward.

So that’s what I did. It will be fun, right?

Let’s begin, the way all great journeys do, at the beginning. In this case, that meant a list of every NHL player to ever score 60 goals or more in a season. It’s not a long list, but it’s probably longer than you might think. There have been 39 seasons of 60+ goals in NHL history. Could we find our answer in that list? I wasn’t sure, but it was the right place to start.

Five of those 39 seasons belong to Wayne Gretzky, and we can obviously eliminate him; he wore No. 99 for his entire NHL career, and he never got that many goals in a season. He came reasonably close, topping out at 92 in 1981-82, which still stands as the all-time record and probably always will. But we’re not looking for close here, so Wayne’s not our man.

He does have an impact, though, because his iconic No. 99 encouraged a generation of stars that followed to wear distinctive high numbers of their own. That was a new thing, and it should make our search easier.

Here’s where we run into our first problem: A lot of history’s greatest offensive talents have worn high numbers, but they were too high. Gretzky’s the only player to ever crack the 90-goal plateau, which wipes out the chances of plenty of today’s 90-wearing stars, like Connor McDavid and Steven Stamkos. Eric Lindros and Patrick Kane have posted big goal-scoring years, but neither got anywhere close to the 88 they wore. Alexander Mogilny’s 76 goals in 1992-93 is tied for the fifth-most ever, but he had a long way to go since he was wearing No. 89. Sidney Crosby’s great, but he hasn’t come anywhere near 87.

Brett Hull did, scoring 86 in 1990-91 and hitting the rarified 70-goal mark on two other occasions. But he did that while wearing No. 16, which leads to our second problem: Star forwards who don’t wear really high numbers usually wear relatively low ones. It’s a tradition thing. So right off the bat, we know we can rule out low-numbered stars like Rocket Richard and Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull (all No. 9), Alexander Ovechkin and Cam Neely (No. 8), Guy Lafleur and Pavel Bure (No. 10). Mike Bossy, Teemu Selanne, Steve Yzerman, Luc Robitaille or Jari Kurri? Sorry. All wore good, solid, traditional numbers that are way too low for what we’re looking for.

There is one player who wore a number in the 70s and had a 70-goal season. But that’s Phil Esposito, and he scored 76 in 1970-71 while wearing No. 7; he didn’t switch to No. 77 until he was traded to the Rangers, so he’s one goal and five years away from being our answer.

After dropping down into the 60s, optimism kicks in because there are two legendary scorers who both wore numbers in this range – Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, with both showing up on the list of 60-goal scorers. But Jagr topped out at 62 goals in 1995-96, missing his iconic No. 68 by a half-dozen. And while Lemieux had two seasons of 69 goals, one of 70, and one of 85, he never landed on exactly 66. He goes down in history as the highest jersey number to be exceeded by his goal total, but our search for an exact match carries on.

The only other candidates left on our initial list are Lanny McDonald, Dennis Maruk, Steve Shutt and Reggie Leach, and they all came along before higher vanity numbers were a thing. So no, we won’t find our answer in the 60+ club after all. No worries, though – we’ll just have to open up the search to the 50-goal club. And as it turns out, that’s a very big club indeed. Dropping our cutoff down to 50 goals opens the floodgates enough to allow 157 new seasons onto our list, so surely we’ll find our answer here.

The good news is that our list now includes dozens of names that we haven’t seen yet. The bad news is that a glance at some of the guys who had seasons in the high 50s tells us that we’re going to immediately run into the same two problems as before. Marcel Dionne, Tim Kerr and Michel Goulet? Traditional numbers that are too low. Pierre Turgeon or Sergei Fedorov? Too high.

And then, the first sense of doubt creeps in: Wait, what kind of star forward wears a number in the 50s?

There sure aren’t many. Typically, if they hand you a number in the 50s in training camp, it’s because they don’t expect you to stick around long. If you do, you get yourself a real number as soon as possible. What kind of self-respecting sniper is going to wear No. 58?

Not many. But that’s OK because we only need one. And the 50-goal tier is where we start to see some names where I wasn’t sure what number they wore. Charlie Simmer? Craig Simpson? Blaine Stoughton? Rick Kehoe? Nope across the board. John Ogrodnick, Wayne Babych or Pierre Larouche? Negative. I held out some hope for No. 55 since the double-digit thing was in vogue after Gretzky, Lemieux and Lindros. But no such luck, as guys like Keith Primeau, Jason Blake and Eric Daze fall well short, and Mark Scheifele has yet to come close. Dave Andreychuk did wear No. 52, but only for one season in 2000-01 when his 50-goal days were well behind him. Same with Dany Heatley wearing No. 51 for the Ducks.

I had a brief flutter of optimism when I remembered Jonathan Cheechoo’s 56-goal season. Did Cheechoo wear No. 56? It seems like the sort of number he might wear, right? He’d never been an elite goal-scorer before that wild 2005-06 season, so maybe he was still wearing a scrub’s number when he broke through. Alas, he was not. He wore No. 14 that year. Not even close.

By the time I got into the low 50s – Rick Martin? Blaine Stoughton? Ray Freaking Sheppard? – desperation was beginning to set in. I felt like I may have made a terrible mistake.

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Weekend rankings: Sorting through trades, streaks and one major injury

We’re not going to waste any time with a long preamble on this week’s rankings, because this is one of my favorite weeks of the year.

Most seasons, things start to stabilize around December and January, and by February, it’s mostly the same teams that keep showing up in roughly the same spots and there isn’t always all that much new to say. But then the trade deadline arrives and things get shaken up. We’ve had about 30 trades since the last set of rankings, and while they weren’t all blockbusters, that should be enough action to move the needle.

So we’d expect to see some changes in this week’s rankings. But even without the trades, this has been a wild week. We’ve got some teams surging, including the top of the Central. We’ve got some teams flatlining, including the top of the Metro. And on Saturday, we found out about a big injury that could have implications for the rest of the regular season and beyond.

There’s a lot to get to, and we might need to work in a few more teams than usual. So let’s skip the usual intro essay and head straight to the rankings.

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.

The March edition of The Athletic’s collective power rankings came out over the weekend, and you can find them here. As a reminder, in the case of any discrepancy between my rankings and everyone else’s, you should assume that mine are right.

5. Colorado Avalanche (39-18-7, +49 true goals differential*) – They just keep rolling along, even if they’re not gaining any ground on the Blues or all that much on the Stars. The difference between finishing second in the division and facing Dallas or finishing first and playing somebody like Calgary or Winnipeg feels huge, so there may not be room for two Central teams down the stretch. But for now, we can make it work.

I’m still surprised that the Avs had such a quiet deadline given all their cap space, and I’m on board with the theory that Joe Sakic was eying Chris Kreider and didn’t have time to work a significant Plan B when the Rangers decided not to move him. This is one of those situations where the right answer only becomes apparent in hindsight, so we’ll see if Sakic deserves criticism for not being more aggressive or applause for not disrupting a winning room.

4. Vegas Golden Knights (36-23-8, +13) – Well, that didn’t take long. One week after they were getting close, the Knights kick the door down on the top five by running their win streak to eight while making what may have been the biggest addition of the deadline.

The streak ended last night at the hands of the Kings, but it means that Vegas has opened up a little bit of breathing room on top of the Pacific. It’s only a little, and they’ve still got a ways to go to close this out, but with the Canucks and Oilers battling injuries and inconsistency, this now feels very much like the Knights’ division to lose. Which is what we all figured it would be if they could ever get their entire lineup clicking the way it should; they’re pretty much there now.

I liked the Robin Lehner trade, although I’m not as ready to call it a home run as some are. That’s not a knock on Lehner, who’s been excellent for a few years now. Rather, I’m not sure that this will play out as easily as others seem to think. To hear some of the reactions, the Knights will either see Fleury snap back to his previous Cup-caliber form, or they switch over to Lehner and don’t miss a beat. I’m not sure it’s that simple, and we’ve seen teams turn this kind of thing into a Buridan’s ass scenario. But it’s still better to have a tough choice than no choice at all, so the Knights are in better shape this week than last. And that’s enough to move them back onto our list for the first time since the third week of the season.

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Grab Bag: Penguins/Lightning excuses

In a special Thursday edition of the Grab Bag:
- Penguins and Lightning excuses
- Breaking down a week of first-round outrage
- An obscure player who was at least consistent
- The week's three comedy stars
- And our old friend Alan Thicke helps us remember when the Lightning were just starting out...

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Podcast: Nik of time

In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast:
- Dave and I react to breaking news about Nikita Kucherov
- The Erik Karlsson watch continues
- Shea Weber was hurt and the Habs didn't tell anyone
- Artemi Panarin sounds like he wants out of Columbus
- Reader questions and lots more...

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Who should take Alexander Ovechkin's crown as the NHL star who can't win the big one?

Alex Ovechkin has heard it for just about his entire NHL career: He can’t win the big one.

Sure, he can rack up the stats and personal accolades during the regular season, winning Rocket Richards and Hart Trophies almost at will. But when it’s all on the line, either in the Stanley Cup playoffs or the Olympics, he can’t get it done. Everyone knows it. He’s basically the NHL’s poster child for coming up small when it matters most.

But now, Ovechkin has finally led the Capitals to the final, and he’s three wins away from a championship. He and the Caps will have their work cut out for them against the Golden Knights, but they’ve defied expectations all spring. And if they do pull it off and Ovechkin gets his skate with the Cup, the NHL’s can’t-win-the-big-one squad will need a new leader.

So today, let’s run through the rest of the NHL and figure out which players are in the best position to take over Ovechkin’s role as the star player who just doesn’t have what it takes to earn a ring. As it turns out, there are plenty of candidates. We’ll count down 10 options.

10. Patrick Marleau, Maple Leafs

Marleau’s name doesn’t come up all that often in these discussions, partly because he seems like such a nice guy. But the reality is that he’s now 20 seasons into his career and is still chasing his first championship. Most of that time was spent with the Sharks, a team that’s established a reputation for falling short of expectations in the post-season. This year, Marleau made the jump to the Maple Leafs in what some saw as an attempt to get closer to that elusive ring, only to see San Jose go further into the post-season than Toronto did.

Marleau’s playoff numbers are reasonably good, down only slightly from his regular-season production, and he’s at least played in a final. But with over 1,500 career games played without ever winning the sport’s ultimate prize, he has to be on our list.

9. Pekka Rinne, Predators

There are a couple of goaltenders who’ll rank higher on our list than Rinne, and we’ll get to them in a moment. But the Predators’ star is well worth a mention, even on the heels of what figures to be a Vezina-winning season.

Rinne has had some very good playoff runs in his 10-season career, including last year’s trip to the final that saw him post a .930 save percentage. But others have been decidedly average, and he’s coming off a rough 2018 run that ended in disaster, with him yanked from Game 7 against the Jets after giving up two softies in just over 10 minutes. That’s the kind of performance that creates questions even after an excellent season, and it will be interesting to see how much confidence the Predators still have in their suddenly beleaguered star.

8. Maybe nobody?

Hear me out. Maybe the whole “He can’t win the big one” narrative was fatally flawed from the start, not just for Ovechkin but for everyone it was ever applied to. And maybe instead of looking for an heir apparent for Ovechkin’s crown, we should use his appearance in the final as an excuse to drop the whole concept altogether.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Introducing the all-time Almost-a-Leaf roster

Did you hear that John Tavares is going to sign with the Toronto Maple Leafs this summer? They just have to figure out how to work in his cap hit after trading for Drew Doughty and Erik Karlsson.

OK, nobody really thinks that will happen. But you’ve probably heard some jokes about the possibility, since it plays into an old stereotype about Leaf fans — that they arrogantly assume that every star player is destined to wear the blue and white before their career is up, and anyone who doesn’t wind up in Toronto must have just missed.

Like most stereotypes, this one is hurtful and untrue. So just for the record: No, Maple Leafs fans don’t actually believe that every single star player to ever grace the league was this close to playing in Toronto.

Just almost all of them.

Seriously, it’s kind of a thing. And in fairness to Leafs fans, it’s not like we’re all just engaging in wishful thinking. There’s a long history of star players being linked to the Maple Leafs. Whether it’s a trade, a free-agent signing, or something more nefarious, the list of hockey legends linked to the Leafs is a long one. And most of those stories don’t come from delusional fans, but rather from media, executives or even the players themselves.

How long a list? Well, long enough to fill out a full roster. Which is what we’re going to do today. Consider it a warmup as we head towards the trade deadline and the Maple Leafs hype train revs up. And also a reminder that every Leaf fan you know might not be as crazy as they sound.

First line

Centre: Wayne Gretzky

Our first pick is an easy call. Gretzky was rumoured to be headed towards Toronto pretty much since he first arrived on the hockey scene, although much of that was admittedly just the fever dream of desperate 1980s Leafs fans. But the Great One really did almost become a Maple Leafs during the 1996 off-season. He was an unrestricted free agent and wanted to finish his career in Toronto. Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher was on board, but the Leafs’ board of directors shot the idea down for financial reasons.

Winger: Rocket Richard

The idea of Richard in a Maple Leafs’ sweater seems unthinkable — the sort of sacrilege worthy of 100 million moths. But while Richard would become the Canadiens’ most iconic superstar, there was a time early in his career when he was viewed as an injury-prone disappointment, and the team was reported to be shopping him to Toronto, among other teams. The Leafs missed their chance at the time, but GM Conn Smythe would later set his sights on The Rocket, offering a ransom to pry the winger away in both 1949 and 1951. The Canadiens resisted the temptation, and Richard finished his career in Montreal.

Winger: Ted Lindsay

The Maple Leafs were the first team to get wind of the future Hall of Famer’s prowess, and they dispatched a scout to put Lindsay on the team’s negotiation list. But an injury led to a mix-up, and the Leafs ended up adding the wrong player. That opened the door for the Red Wings, and the rest was history.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Handing out some awards at the NHL's quarter pole

We’re almost at the quarter-mark of the NHL schedule, which means it’s time to do a few things. First, and most importantly: Start wildly panicking if your team isn’t doing as well as they should be. You guys on that, Montreal and Edmonton? You are? Great, nice work as always.

For the rest of us, we may as well hand out some quarter-season awards. Sure, most of these will turn out to be regrettable in hindsight by the end of the year, and some of them will look bad within weeks. But that’s part of the fun.

So let’s do it. You can vote for your own picks right here with results revealed this week on Wednesday Night Hockey. In the meantime, here’s who we’d be handing out the tiny quarter-sized trophies to, based on the season’s first six weeks.

Most valuable player

Every sport that features an MVP award has the same debate over how exactly we should define “valuable.” Some see it as simply a fancy way of saying the best player, while others look for some deeper meaning related to a player’s relative importance to his teammates in terms of his team’s playoff chances.

Some years, one player emerges as the favourite under either definition and we can skip the semantic debate. This year, we may not be so lucky. Because based on the first quarter of the season, Hart Trophy voters could end up facing a dilemma: What do you do when the season’s two best performers are on the same team?

With Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos racking up big numbers while helping the Lightning to top spot in the standings, some will try to argue that they can’t be considered more valuable than someone like Connor McDavid or Johnny Gaudreau, who are the clear offensive leaders on their team. Others would point out that points aren’t everything, and that a two-way force like Anze Kopitar should get some consideration.

Of course, if we’re not going to just look at the top of the scoring race (like Hart voters usually do), we could make the case for a goalie or defenceman. That would bring guys like Sergei Bobrovsky, Alex Pietrangelo and Corey Crawford into the conversation. And then you’ve got guys who’ve missed time to injury, but are clearly their team’s most valuable players when healthy — that group would include Erik Karlsson and Auston Matthews.

Luckily, we fall into the category of voters who keep it simple. The league’s most valuable player is the one that’s having the best season, period. That means Kucherov gets the nod, edging out Stamkos. And we’ll toss Bobrovsky a third-place vote, if only because non-forwards rarely get enough Hart love.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

The craziest half hour in offseason history, one year later

Do you remember where you were one year ago this afternoon?

If you’re a hockey fan, there’s a good chance you do. That’s because today marks the one-year anniversary of the craziest 23 minutes in NHL off-season history. In less than the time it takes to deliver a pizza, NHL front offices delivered three of the biggest stories of the entire year: Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, P.K. Subban for Shea Weber, and Steven Stamkos re-signing in Tampa.

Sports fan like to talk about days and moments that change everything, and it’s almost always hyperbole. But June 29, 2016, might qualify. We woke up thinking that certain players were untradeable, that the art of the one-for-one deal was all but dead, and that a superstar in his prime really could reach free agency and switch teams.

By the end of the day, none of those things was true anymore, along with thoughts like, “Nothing that happens in an NHL off-season could truly shock me.”

So yes, a lot changed in just 23 minutes. But a lot can change in 12 months, too, and some of the things we were left believing a year ago have evolved since. Today, let’s mark the anniversary of that wild day by comparing how things looked in the immediate aftermath of the madness compared to how they look right now.

The view a year ago: Trading P.K. Subban is the kind of thing that could come back to bite Marc Bergevin.

The view today: Trading P.K. Subban has come back to bite Marc Bergevin.

We’re not declaring winners or losers in the Subban/Weber deal yet — we’ve still got another decade or so to decide that. But when you look at everyone involved in that wild afternoon, you could make a case that nobody’s reputation has taken more of a hit than Bergevin’s.

Being the GM of the Canadiens may be one of the toughest jobs in sports, and Bergevin has been doing it for five years now, so it was inevitable that some of the shine would come off. But it wasn’t all that long ago that Bergevin was pretty darn shiny. He’d been named a finalist for GM of the Year in just his second season, and notoriously hard-to-please Montreal fans seemed cautiously optimistic about the job he was doing. He’d locked down Max Pacioretty on a fantastic deal, and got Carey Price at what turned out to be decent value. The Thomas Vanek rental hadn’t really worked, but Jeff Petry seemed like a smart pickup, and Habs fans seemed OK with the recent Andrew Shaw trade.

And then came Subban/Weber, a blockbuster so big that nothing else really seemed to matter anymore.

Many fans and analysts absolutely hated the trade, calling it a huge mistake, maybe even the worst in team history. That view was far from unanimous, and even today many Habs fans are perfectly fine with the swap.

But after watching the Canadiens make a first-round exit while the Predators rolled all the way to Cup final, everything Bergevin does is viewed through the Subban/Weber lens. And it didn’t help that it sure looked like the Habs were choosing Michel Therrien over Subban, only to fire the coach midway through the season.

By the time the 2017 trade deadline arrived and Bergevin was remaking the bottom of his roster on the fly, the skepticism was palpable, and today many Habs fans seem to be holding their breath over his attempts to trade Alexander Galchenyuk and/or acquire a top-line centre. Bergevin is facing more off-season pressure than any GM in the league, and his fan base seems a lot less willing to give him the benefit of the doubt than they were before that fateful day a year ago.

The view a year ago: The Oilers don’t know what they’re doing.

The view today: The Oilers might know what they’re doing.

Here’s the other side of the criticism coin. While Bergevin was questioned about his trade, Peter Chiarelli was outright roasted for his. The Hall trade became an immediate punchline, with a consensus forming almost instantly. The Oilers had made a huge mistake. They needed to get a bigger return. The Devils had pulled off a robbery. One so-called expert even said Edmonton had finally “worked up the nerve to talk to the pretty girl across the street, then stepped right into an open manhole cover”. (That last one was me. Look, I’m a Leafs fan — bad trades are kind of an area of expertise.)

One year later, well, it’s funny what a 103-point season and a return to the playoffs after over a decade can do to perceptions.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Weekend wrap: You can't touch a Flame when it's red hot

Welcome to the home stretch.

We’re officially four weeks away from the NHL regular season being over. Four weeks from now, we’ll be spending Monday morning digesting an unusually busy weekend featuring 24 games packed into Saturday and Sunday. We’ll know who’s in and who’s out, and who’ll be playing who. A season’s worth of speculation, second-guessing and (in some cases) self-delusion will be over with, and 14 teams will be clearing out their lockers.

Now, we just have to get there. There's still a lot to sort out between now and then.

One welcomed factor: The Games Played column has finally evened out. With the exception of the Hurricanes, who are a non-factor at this point, every team is within two games played of everyone else. We're all done with bye weeks too, so those days of "they're six points back but have five games in hand" are mercifully over.

The race for the final playoff spots in either conference will get most of the attention, although it's not shaping up to be quite as wide a field as we thought we'd be getting. There are currently only three teams sitting outside of a playoff spot by five points or fewer; the West is especially sparse, with only the Kings so much as within eight. That could still give us some decent races down to the wire, but it's an odd sight given that it was only a few weeks ago that almost everyone was still in it, or at least close enough to pretend they were.

It looks like we will get some decent battles for the division crowns; first and second spot in three of the four divisions are separated by one point or less. The race for the Presidents' Trophy will be a good one as well, with the faltering Capitals still leading the way but a half-dozen teams within range to chase them down. And we all know how much NHL teams care about the Presidents' Trophy, right?

Mix in tight races for the Art Ross and Rocket Richard, add the usual jockeying for Hart, Norris and Calder votes, and factor in battles for seeding and home ice, and there's plenty left to play for at the top of the league. And at the bottom, draft-lottery watchers will be focused on... [double-checks how far back the Avalanche are]... well, there's plenty left to play for at the top of the league.

We've got four weeks to figure it all out. For today, it's on to the power rankings.

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they're headed towards Stanley Cup–favourite status.

5. San Jose Sharks (41-20-7, +31 true goals differential*): Three wins in four for the second straight week has them pulling away as the only division leader with any margin for error.

4. Minnesota Wild (43-18-6, +59): They dropped three of four on the week, and have now three times in their last seven after not having done so all season.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

World Cup final preview

So, uh... just like the NHL drew it up, right?

As expected, the three-game final of the World Cup of Hockey will feature the two playoff teams from Group A. That was the group that was built around Team Canada and Team USA, and sure seemed to have been designed specifically to get those two rivals into a marquee final matchup that would pack the building, boost TV ratings and have sports fans all around North America buzzing.

Canada held up its end of the bargain, running the table in the round robin and then beating Russia on Saturday night. But Team USA's grit-induced meltdown became the story of the tournament, and it opened the door for Team Europe to sneak into the playoff round instead. They then went into Sunday's matchup with Sweden as a heavy underdog, only to come through with a shocking 3-2 overtime win.

That would be the same Team Europe that many fans didn't want to see in the event at all, given that the whole point of the tournament is supposed to be finding hockey's top nation, and "Europe" isn't one. The same was true of the 23-and-under Team North America, of course, but at least those kids were fun. This European mash-up couldn't even settle on an anthem to play.

But now Team Europe is in the final, two wins away from being crowned international hockey's greatest... whatever they are. And all that's standing in their way is Team Canada. Sure, it seems like a tall order, but when you weren't even supposed to exist in the first place, winning two hockey games shouldn't seem all that tough.

Game 1 goes Tuesday night. Game 2 is on Thursday. And Game 3, if necessary, will be played Saturday. Spoiler alert: It won't be, but we'll get to that. Let's take a look at our two finalists.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Five more blockbusters that apparently almost happened

The 2016 offseason began with a bang, as two of the biggest trades in recent NHL history went down within minutes of each other on June 29. But since then, apart from the occasional move, the trade talk around the league has gone largely quiet.

Or has it? After all, just because blockbuster deals aren’t being made doesn’t mean they’re not being discussed. Hockey history is filled with monster trades that almost happened and that we only find out about after the fact. We covered five of the biggest near-misses a year ago, with names like Steve Yzerman, Corey Perry, Pavel Datsyuk, and even P.K. Subban and Carey Price (in the same deal). Today, let’s look back at a few more.

But first, the obvious disclaimer. While all of these deals were reported by reasonably trustworthy sources, we’ll never know how close they actually came to happening. When it comes to the “near” in near-miss, mileage may vary.

But with that out of the way, let’s get to the fun stuff. Here are five NHL blockbusters that apparently really did almost happen.

Steven Stamkos to the Rangers

Until the one-for-one trades started flying, Stamkos had been the focus of the 2016 off-season. His stay-or-go decision with the Lightning had dragged on all season, and he was reportedly the top target for several teams if he’d made it to free agency. He’s widely considered one of the best players in hockey. So it’s easy to forget that, at one point early on in his career, Stamkos was viewed as a bit of a bust.

The top pick in the 2008 draft, Stamkos arrived in Tampa with plenty of hype. But he got off to a slow start, scoring just twice in his first 21 games. He struggled under Lightning coach Barry Melrose, at one point seeing as little as six minutes of ice time. He just didn’t look ready for NHL action. And within weeks, according to Larry Brooks of the NY Post, the Lightning had decided to trade him.

The deal was struck with Glen Sather and the Rangers, and according to Brooks would have seen the future all-star sent to New York in exchange for “two or three from a wish list that featured Michael Del Zotto, Evgeny Grachev, Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky and Dan Girardi.”

According to Sather, the deal was done and sealed with a handshake. The problem: That handshake was with Lightning co-owner Len Barrie. When general manager Brian Lawton found out about the discussion, he wanted no part of the deal. Barrie still wanted to go forward, according to the report, but co-owner Oren Koules refused, and the deal died.

Melrose was fired, Stamkos was a 50-goal scorer by his second year in the league, and the rest is history.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Weekend report: Free agency winners and losers

The NHL's annual free agent frenzy opened on Friday at noon. Within hours, most of the big names were gone. By the end of the first day, only a handful of major names were left. And by the end of days two and three... well, actually, pretty much nothing happened on days two and three. Seriously, the weekend was weird. I think everyone already went on vacation. Am I the only one left? Because I don't know how to work the coffee machine.

Anyway, the slow weekend was bad news for a handful of decent players who are still available, most notably Kris Russell, Shane Doan, Matt Cullen and James Wisniewski (a latecomer to the part after being bought out the day before bidding opened). History tells us that those guys better hope they find a home soon, because as the summer wears on and cap dollars become scarce, the market dries up quickly. Maybe it already has.

Let's skip the preamble and get right to what you came for: Instantaneous declarations of winners and losers, most of which will be proven wrong by midway through training camp. Here are the five best and five worst from a busy start to the NHL's new year, along with one signing that fits both categories.

Top Five

The biggest winners of the market's early days.

5. Montreal signs Alexander Radulov—What does the art of comedy have in common with infuriating the Montreal Canadiens fan base? As GM Marc Bergevin could tell you after this week, the secret is in the timing.

At any other time, signing recent KHL star and former NHL castoff Alexander Radulov to a one-year, $5.75 million deal would seem like a reasonable move, albeit a risky one. Radulov has tons of talent; he also has a history of immaturity, most famously when he was benched for a playoff game after missing curfew with the Predators in 2012. He hasn't been seen in the NHL since, heading to the KHL where he put up four solid seasons. Now he's back, and the Habs hope he's smartened up.

And maybe he has. But again, there's that issue of timing. The signing came just two days after the Canadiens shocked everyone by trading P.K. Subban, taking back an inferior, older player with a worse contract in the process. The reason, the whispers went, was character. And then the team goes out and signs the poster boy for lack of it? It's all very confusing, and Bergevin didn't do much to explain himself on Friday. You could forgive Habs fans for throwing their hands in the air and concluding that this franchise doesn't have the first clue what it actually wants.

When you search your own name on Twitter after trading PK Subban. Photo by Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

But all of that overshadows an important point: This is a great deal for Montreal. Radulov is a wild card, and even if he has his head on straight, we really have no idea what he'll be in the NHL after four years away. He might not work out. But he could also be a star, the sort of first-line talent that's virtually impossible to add during an NHL offseason. And Montreal got him on a very reasonable one-year deal.

Best case, he's a monster and the Canadiens have a massive bargain to help lead them back to the playoffs. Worst case, he's a bust and you can write him off as a failed experiment that you cut your losses with without any future exposure. That looks a lot like the sort of medium-risk, high-reward deal that any team should jump on. Bergevin deserves credit, even if his timing was awful.

4. The David Backes fake out—The Bruins signed David Backes to a five-year, $30 million deal that wasn't especially remarkable. It was a little too much money and way too much term for a 32-year-old coming off his worst season in years, but it addressed a need and looked like a good fit between player and team. For a July 1 signing, it was fine.

But for a moment, it seemed like it was much more than that. When the signing first broke, it was widely but incorrectly reported as a one-year deal. Both Canadian networks covering the day's news—why yes, just like trade deadline day, NHL free agency gets covered by two full networks up here, thanks for asking—ran with the bad info, with both panels praising the Bruins for their restraint and common sense in not overcommitting to an aging player. Finally, they all agreed, some sanity. Don Sweeney is figuring this stuff out. Hey, at least it wasn't five years, right?

And then, minutes later, we found out that it was five years, and everyone just kind of looked at each other sheepishly and then changed the subject. And I laughed for about eight solid minutes.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports