Hockey’s bare-knuckles legacy and whether fighting will likely always be a part of the NHL

In the sport’s earliest days, before the NHL even existed, hockey was known for outbursts of violence — not just fights, but stick-swinging and outright assaults, sometimes involving fans or officials. Fighting has always been a part of hockey but its place in the game has evolved, with marked shifts in how (and how often) hand-to-hand combat is featured. And not everyone agrees on what those fights mean, or why they’re part of the sport’s legacy at all.

Even a century ago, debates raged over whether hockey would need to clean up its act to find a wider audience. In the Original Six era, there were essentially no enforcers — everyone fought, and stars like Gordie Howe were largely expected to protect themselves. With only six teams and just over 100 jobs available, there was no room on the roster for one-note fighters.

But then came the 1967 expansion, which doubled the size of the NHL. More expansion followed, and the WHA arrived soon after, pushing the number of big-league teams into the dozens. And as that shift was happening, one team emerged as the most influential group in the modern history of NHL fighting.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: The five best teams who haven’t cracked the Top Five

As we head down the season’s final stretch, we’ve hit that part of the schedule where the top and bottom five aren’t changing all that much. The top five has featured the same three or four teams for most of the last few months, with the occasional cameo from a fringe contender or two. The bottom five is even more locked in, with four teams pretty much set in stone and just the last spot up for grabs.

That’s life with a long-term view; as the long-term becomes near-term, it shouldn’t be fluctuating all that much. But it does mean some teams might not be getting the attention they deserve, especially in the top five. There are always more than five real contenders in the parity era, after all, and even if these teams aren’t chasing down the Bruins, they still deserve some respect.

Let’s focus on a few of those good teams that haven’t cracked the top five all year long. We’ve had good teams like the Leafs, Stars and Lightning show up on the list from time to time. But today, let’s offer up some accolades to the best five teams that haven’t found a spot even once all season long.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

The Athletic Hockey Show: That 70 show?

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- How high can Connor McDavid go?
- Taking stock of the wildcard races
- Jesse Granger nerds out on goalie gear
- A great listener email about Pride events
- This week in history, featuring the worst MVP ever
- 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)

Puck Soup: Fighting Fanatics

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Yet another player sits out Pride Night
- Fighting is banned in the QMJHL, sort of, while NHL reconsiders the instigator
- The league partners with Fanatics and people are mad
- Looking at the dwindling playoff races
- How high can McDavid's numbers get?
- The NHLPA player poll is out
- A few rounds of 20 Kesstions, and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Weekend rankings: Which playoff bubble team is under the most pressure?

We’re exactly four weeks away from the playoffs, and as always at this time of year there are four groups of teams: Those that have had a spot locked up for weeks or months, those that have been out of the race forever, those that are right on the bubble, and those that still think they’re in the race but probably aren’t.

That last group, sadly, includes a few of this year’s teams that have been the most fun to watch. That includes our beloved Sabres, as well as the perpetually not-quite-pesky-enough Senators, plus the Wings and Capitals. Each of those teams could still make a run, but would need an enormous hot streak to pull it off. Even that might not be enough.

So with apologies to those teams, let’s focus on the six teams that were sitting between 10% and 90% playoff odds based on Dom’s projections (as of Sunday). These are our bubble teams, and they’re fighting for four spots. They all want to make it, obviously, but some are under more pressure than others. But who? Let’s break it down, from the least pressure to the most.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: Changes for Flyers, Kings keep rolling and April highlights

It’s mid-March, the trade deadline is over, and I just want you to know that it’s perfectly OK to admit that you’re already looking forward to April.

April rules. It’s when we get the last few weeks of the season, leading into the first round of the playoffs, which is the absolute best time of the year to be a hockey fan. It’s the time where we find out what the matchups will be, and whether of all the (non-McDavid) stars can get to 50 goals or 100 points. And if your team stinks, April is also the draft lottery. Either way, it’s what everything is building towards, and it’s pretty great.

March? Or to be more specific, post-deadline March? Eh. It’s good too, some of the time. It’s fine. The playoff race starts to form, and we get lots of low-scoring three-point games between division rivals. March is a perfectly acceptable month of the hockey calendar. It’s just not April.

And it’s OK to want to look ahead to the really good stuff. That’s what I did, and I found five gifts that the schedule-maker has left under the April tree. We can’t open them yet, but let’s pick them up and shake them. I feel like I’ve strangled this metaphor sufficiently, let’s get to the link.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

All 95 members of the 50-goal club ranked, from Gary Leeman to Rocket Richard

While it was at least a little bit lost in all the trade deadline news, Connor McDavid made some history by joining the 50-goal club last week. Somewhat surprisingly, it was the first time he’d reached the milestone, making him the 95th player in NHL history to have achieved the feat.

This seems like a good excuse for a ranking.

Now, with 95 different names to sort through, am I going to write an extensive explanation of each and every rankings, droning on for roughly 10,000 words that nobody will read? Sure, sounds like fun! (Editor’s note: No you will absolutely not.) No I will not. But with some judicious use of grouping and categorization, we can get this down to a manageable level. Remember, these sorts of lists aren’t about being right or wrong. They’re about you CTRL+F’ing down to your favorite player and then having a temper tantrum in the comments about him being too low.

I can’t think of a better way to spend a Friday, so let’s do this. To be clear, I’m not ranking these players best on who had the best careers. I’m not even ranking them based on who had the best goal-scoring season, since we can just sort by stats to get that. No, we’re looking for the guys who do the best job of capturing that 50-goal vibe. I realize that’s vague, but you know it when you see it, so let’s get to the ranking.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

The Ahtletic Hockey Show: Talking trades

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- We discuss the human side of NHL trades
- Is it time to worry about the Jets?
- Tony DeAngelo spears Corey Perry in the pills
- Brainstorming future NHL bobbleheads
- Jonathan Quick's role in Vegas
- Listen mail, this week in history 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)

Puck Soup: Deadline aftermath

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We run down the biggest trades from the final days before the deadline
- The Coyotes keep cooking the books
- The Canucks, Flyers and Penguins are... interesting
- What's next for the Flames
- Rumblings of expansion to Atlanta and Houston
- Ryan makes his Oscar picks, and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

With the NHL deadline done, I have a nagging question about all those trades

Trade deadline season is finally past us, with a wild few weeks that saw a ton of action. Our trade grades page lists over 30 trades that were worth debating. Some big names were moved. And that’s not even mentioning all the other stars that were rumored to move and didn’t, with some of those discussions sure to resume in the offseason. As a fan, it was pretty great, and it might even be the new normal.

And through it all, something has been bugging me. Do me a post-deadline favor and indulge me as I try to work my way through it.

I want to be clear on what’s going to happen here. Usually, when I throw out an opinion, it’s because I’m trying to convince you that I’m right. I want to change how you think about something. I think I know what the answer is, and I’m trying to get you on board with me.

I’m not sure whether that’s what I’m trying to do here. It might be. But it’s also possible that what I really want is for you convince me that I’m wrong. Your job might be to talk me out of this.

That’s because I’ve spent most of my writing career celebrating the art of the trade, and I’ve made it clear that I love this part of the sports world. Heck, I want to see even more of it. In over a decade of doing this for a living, I may have written more words about trading than any other subject.

But I haven’t written these ones: Are all these trades a good thing? Should we be celebrating them?

Imagine you’re an NHL player. You’re a celebrity, probably rich, and living out your childhood dream while playing a game for a living. You’re also a human being. It's possible that you could be struggling with your mental health, or marriage issues, or addiction, or bad decisions. You might be helping to care for an elderly parent. Maybe your spouse is struggling in their career, or your kid is going through a tough time at school. Through it all, you’re trying to do your job while also dealing with real life, just like the rest of us.

Then one day you get a phone call: You’ve been traded. Your whole life is being upended. You now live in a new city, or time zone, or country. There’s a car on the way and you’re expected to be on a plane in a few hours, to start a new chapter of your life. And you’ve got absolutely no say in the matter.

Is that OK? Is that even a question worth asking?

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: Most interesting deadlines, Sens surge, Canuck questions

Well, that was a week.

Deadline day ended up being a bit of a bust, but only because all the big names had already moved. You can get caught up on all the important stuff here, plus grades for all the deals and all the teams. (That last one is fun. Four teams got a 3/10 or worse. Hint: Two of them are in the same state. That state is hopelessness.)

For our purposes, when we last did these rankings we’d just seen Timo Meier head to New Jersey in a 13-piece deal, and Tanner Jeannot got to Tampa in exchange for all the picks. We also knew Patrick Kane was going to be a Ranger, even though it wasn’t official. But we hadn’t yet seen the deals for Mattias Ekholm or Jakob Chychrun, the Jonathan Quick drama, trades for Tyler Bertuzzi or Max Domi, whatever the Leafs were doing with their blueline, or roughly two dozen other moves.

So things have changed. But ultimately, how much? After all those moves, do the rankings really look all that different?

We’ll get to that in a minute. But first, let’s use our bonus ranking to cover off a few teams that kept things interesting over the last week or two. These aren’t necessarily the teams that made the biggest or most important moves, but rather the ones that left us wondering how things will turn out. The Devils getting Meier was a monster move, but it was straightforward – good team gets great player and improves Cup odds. These five teams are a little more uncertain, and that will make them especially interesting down the stretch.

Top five teams that had the most interesting deadline

5. Calgary Flames/Florida Panthers – I’m cheating to cram an extra team in, but these two both make it for the same reason. It’s not often you see a team in the thick of a playoff chase basically sit out the deadline, but the Panthers didn’t do anything and the Flames didn’t do much (although the brother trade was cool). It’s a little ironic that the two teams that hooked up on the biggest offseason trade in years decided to stay the course with their playoff lives on the line. In Calgary’s case at least, maybe it doesn’t even matter.

https://twitter.com/domluszczyszyn/status/1632394796705693699

4. Seattle Kraken – They didn’t do anything at all, unless you want to count Jaycob Megna, and that’s certainly a choice. I get the argument that Ron Francis is already playing with house money, as a team that few of us expected to make the playoffs is holding down a spot that only the Flames are anywhere within range of. Still, this was shaping up to be a magical year in a new market that’s still finding its feet. Staying the course might make sense in the long run, but sometimes it’s OK to go off script.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Trade deadline live blog

I'll be live-blogging all of today's action(?), along with Sean Gentille and Hailey Salvian. We'll have all the rumors, trade grades, and updates from beat writers on whatever moves might be left. Swing by and join us right here.

The Athletic Hockey Show: Deadline headlines

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Has this been a great deadline, or just a busy one?
- Thoughts on some of the recent deals, including Tyler Bertuzzi to Boston
- The David Pastrnak news breaks as ww're recording
- Jesse Granger on whether the Golden Knights will trade for Jonathan Quick
- A weird Arizona Coyotes stat, remembering the 1996 Blues, a great magic draft pick idea 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)

Puck Soup: Three minute warning

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We try (and fail) to spend only three minutes on every NHL trade from the last week
- Maybe some other stuff but seriously there were like 140 trades to get through.

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Remember some trades: One underrated NHL trade deadline deal for all 32 teams

Everyone loves a good deadline trade, with the possible exceptions of players, their families, most teammates, and the GMs who get mocked and then fired for screwing them up. But sure, everyone else, which is to say sportswriters like me who need content.

That’s especially true when the trade is a genuine blockbuster featuring a big name. Those are the sort trades that get remembered forever, with fans still reciting details decades later. But most deadline deals aren’t like that, and sometimes they can even fade from our collective memory. That doesn’t mean the trade didn’t matter, but it does give us an excuse to go back and pick an underrated trade from every team’s deadline history.

The premise might be a little tricky here, since one fan’s underrated move is another’s obvious blockbuster. We’ll try to thread the needle as best we can, looking for deals that ended up being important but that might not be all that well-remembered outside a given market. We’ll even dig up some old links to send you even further down the rabbit hole. It’s deadline week, it’s not like you were going to get any work done.

Sound good? Cool, let’s remember some trades.

Anaheim Ducks

The Ducks are a fun place to start. They’ve made some memorable deals over the years, including the ones that landed Teemu Selanne in 1996 and sent him to San Jose in 2001, plus a busy deadline last year. But the trade that best fits our premise came in 2003, when the Ducks sent a young Mike Commodore and prospect Jean-Francois Damphousse to Calgary for veteran center Rob Niedermayer. That deal was a winner in more ways that one – Niedermayer helped the Ducks make a surprise run to the Cup final that year (along with fellow deadline pickup Steve Thomas), then stuck around long enough to be a key reason that his brother Scott signed as a free agent in 2005.

Arizona Coyotes

For Arizona’s deadline deal, let’s go with the Antoine Vermette trade. No, the other one, and that’s part of the beauty of it. The 2012 trade that saw the Coyotes get Vermette from Columbus for picks paid off nicely during that year’s playoff run. Vermette stuck around for three years, was dealt to the Hawks at the 2015 deadline in a more memorable deal that landed the Coyotes a first-round pick, and then even came back that summer as a UFA.

Boston Bruins

The Bruins have a long history of taking advantage of dumb teams on the trade market, but finding a deal that qualifies as underrated is a bit trickier. I don’t think Adam Oates in 1992 would qualify. Taylor Hall can’t, and neither can Hampus Lindholm. You know what, let’s go with the 2006 deadline move that sent Sergei Samsonov to Edmonton for two players and a second-round pick that turned into Milan Lucic at that summer’s draft. (Bonus fun fact: The pick that would become Brad Marchand was traded that same day, but it went from the Coyotes to the Islanders; the Bruins later acquired it on the draft floor.)

Buffalo Sabres

I don’t think we can count the 2003 Danny Briere deal, so let’s go way back for our Sabres pick. At the 1981 deadline, they sent all-star Rick Martin to the Kings for a first-round pick two years down the road. This one ended up being contentious, since Martin was hurt and was at risk of missing the playoffs, leading to the rare sight of the trades terms being renegotiated after the fact. The 1983 first stayed in the deal, though, and ended up being fifth overall, and the Sabres used it on Tom Barrasso, who immediately won the Vezina as a teenager. The deadline pick that turns into a star goalie trick works well for them; they pulled it off again in 1999 when they flipped Mike Wilson for the pick that became Ryan Miller.

Calgary Flames

Their deadline history includes trading away a young Brett Hull, plus an old Jarome Iginla to two teams on the same night. But I’m going to go with a classic hockey trade that features six great 90s names: Gary Suter, Paul Ranheim and Ted Drury to Hartford for Zarley Zalapski, Michael Nylander and James Patrick. Why yes, that would be Chris’s brother, William’s dad and Ryan’s uncle all in the same trade, because there are like nine families left making all the NHL players.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: Meier, Kane, Trotz, and a look ahead at what should be a wild deadline week

Welcome to deadline week. Let’s get caught up, before something else happens and this is all out-of-date.

The Devils won the Timo Meier sweepstakes, ending weeks of speculation by closing the deal yesterday (and then making us all wait for hours to find out what it actually was, but who’s counting). That’s a huge deal, not just as far as what it does to the Eastern race, but also in terms of which other players now get circled back on. The consensus is that the Devils did well for themselves, although it's hard to say given that the full deal includes roughly eight players that nobody had heard of until last night.

Others trades over the weekend included Nino Niederreiter to Winnipeg, Barbashev to Vegas and Evgeni Dadonov to Dallas. That made for an interesting swing, with the veterans heading to the Western Conference after it was the East that had been landing the big names for the past few weeks. We also learned of a major change in Nashville, where David Poile will be stepping down as GM at the end of the season, to be replaced by Barry Trotz.

Then there’s the big news of a trade that hasn’t officially happened yet, but is apparently a done deal: Patrick Kane to the Rangers, who appear to be the only team he’s willing to move to. If so, the Hawks will have to take what they can get, which likely won’t be much. We’re told that the Rangers may need to wait for later in the week before they can work the deal under the cap, which led to some weekend lineup oddities. But according to all the insiders, this is happening.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Mailbag: LTIR trade dump rosters, birth-year numbers, coach swaps and more

We’ve got one week to go, and then we can all stop writing about the same thing over and over sit back and enjoy trade deadline day. While we wait, let’s open up the mailbag and see what kind of nonsense you all came up with this month.

Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.

In light of Coyotes Legend Shea Weber: Which team has the better overall roster, Team Midseason Dead Space or Team Summer Dead Space? Team Midseason Dead Space  is any space that was traded from opening night to the trade deadline, while Team Summer Dead Space is from whenever the Stanley Cup was awarded until final rosters are due.

I doubt you would get a full 20 players for each side, but I bet you could definitely get a shinny game together. And seeing how they're all LTIR guys anyways, that's probably for the better. – Jacob B.

Sounds like fun, although I’m guessing Team Summer will win this one. Let’s find out.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

The Athletic Hockey Show: One week to go

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- The Eastern wildcard race gets crazy
- Patrick Kane is on fire, but is he on the way out?
- Jesse Granger explains the Shea Weber trade
- Phil Kessel is good again
- Listeners respond to my magic draft picks idea
- Ray Sheppard makes history 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)

Puck Soup: O RLY?

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Maple Leafs land Ryan O'Reilly
- Thoughts on Timo Meier possibilities
- JT Miller reportedly on the block
- Jonathan Toews won't be traded, but we're not sure about Patrick Kane
- The eastern wildcard race heats up
- McDavid and Draisaitl hit milestones
- A quiz, and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Be prepared: The13 types of trade deadlines fans should be ready for

The trade deadline is almost here, marking one of the most important times of the year for all 32 teams. Whether your favorite is a contender, a bottom-feeder, or somewhere in between, they’re going to make some crucially important decisions over the next few days. No team can escape the trade deadline.

But what kind of deadline will your team have? That’s the big question, and it’s a tougher call for some teams that for others. So today, while we wait for the blockbusters to roll in, let’s get organized by running down the various options available to your favorite team.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Let's do a trade deadline mailbag

Hey folks...

I've run out of things to write about the trade deadline, so now it's your turn. Let's get creative with questions, comments, ideas or whatever else. Send them via email at dgbmailbag@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Sean

Weekend rankings: Ryan O’Reilly to the Leafs, Wild worries, and are these rankings cursed?

One of the things that happens when you do a power rankings, especially one that’s limited to a few teams, is that fans get mad at you. Where’s my team? Why aren’t they higher? Do you even watch them? It’s part of the deal, and up to a point it even adds to the fun.

Then you have these rankings, and readers who have a different question: How much would it cost us to bribe you to never mention us again?

It happened again last week, when I wondered if the Oilers were becoming a Western force. Full disclosure, I wrote most of that take on Sunday morning, assuming they’d be able to handle the Habs later that day. They lost that game, by a lot, and then lost to the Red Wings too. Message received, Oilers, I won’t bother you again.

Look, I think I do a pretty good job with these rankings. At the end of the year, when we look back on them, they almost always hold up well. I like that we try not to get caught up in short-term swings, and I think it helps us paint a more realistic picture. I stand by my work.

But also, yes, there does seem to be a disturbing trend of teams that are playing well getting a pat on the back in this column, and then immediately forgetting how to hockey.

Let’s just put it on the table: These rankings might be cursed. We should dig into the evidence.

Top five times these rankings cursed a team (maybe)

5. Dallas Stars, January 2 – After being hesitant on the Stars on year long, I finally put them in the top five as part of a New Year’s shakeup. They debuted at a lofty number three, partly on the strength of a four-game win streak. They immediately Kings and Ducks(!), and have lost 11 of 18 since that ranking.

4. Maple Leafs, December 13 – The Leafs didn’t just crack the top five, they got a whole section explaining why. (You have to do this when so many fans have made complaining about a team their entire personality.) They’d won four in a row and nine of ten. They immediately lost their next two, and five of nine.

3. Sabres, January 30 – I didn’t put them in the top five, but I did pump their tires pretty hard, and made that the case for why you should bandwagon their playoff push. Did you listen? I hope not,  because they got crushed 5-1 in their next game and Tage Thompson left with an injury. They’d end up losing four straight, seeing their playoff hopes dwindle back down to long shot territory.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Which team can make the best current roster of players they traded away?

We all love trades. Trade are the best. There’s no better feeling than finding out that your favorite team has made a big deal.

Well, unless they trade away somebody good.

That’s the problem with the trading game – most teams have this weird thing where they want to get something back in return. In today’s NHL, that’s often just cap space, or some draft pick you’ll forget all about. But occasionally, teams still trade away actual NHL talent. And sometimes, that talent ends up looking pretty good in their new home.

So today, let’s see which team can make the best starting lineup out of guys that they’ve traded away. We’re talking current NHL talent – the three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie that your team traded and might wish you had back right now. We’re only counting the trades that put a player on his current team, so the Oilers can’t claim Taylor Hall, for example. We’re not counting draft picks that turned into players, and we’re not looking at free agents or waivers or anything else. Just those player trades, please.

It's harder than you’d think to build full six-man lineups for most teams. Hard, but not impossible, and they don’t pay me to do the easy stuff. Let’s go through a few teams and see what we can come up with.

Buffalo Sabres

Let’s start with the obvious: Rebuilding teams are going to be our prime target here, because those are the teams that are trading established players away. And no team has been rebuilding longer than the Sabres. As soon as I had the concept for this post, I knew the Sabres would be my first stop.

And sure enough, there’s a ton of talent to work with. Too much, in fact, at least up front. We can start with Jack Eichel, who went to Vegas in last year’s blockbuster. We can also use Sam Reinhart. And for our third spot, we can have our pick of either Taylor Hall or Ryan O’Reilly, with Marcus Foligno available as depth. That’s about as good as we’re likely to get for a forward group.

The blueline isn’t quite as strong, but still has some options. The Sabres fleeced the Flyers into taking Rasmus Ristolainen a few summers ago, and we could pair him with Brandon Montour. Not exactly a Norris-worthy pairing, but not bad, and with five players down our Sabres lineup is in great shape.

That’s where it falls apart though, as I don’t think there are any active NHL goalies who were traded to the current team by the Sabres. We could argue over Jonas Johansson, who was traded from Buffalo to Colorado but recently had a brief waiver stop in Arizona, but he’s only played one game this year. The big miss is Linus Ullmark, a former Sabre who’ll probably win the Vezina but was a free agent, not a trade.

So somewhat surprisingly, the Sabres aren’t going to run away with this. Let’s check in on another rebuild to see if we can do better.

Chicago Blackhawks

The Hawks haven’t been at this as long as the Sabres have, but Kyle Davidson has made up for lost time over the last year or two. And unlike Buffalo, we have a clearcut goaltending option in Marc-Andre Fleury, dealt to the Wild last season.

Up front, we don't even need to wait on Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, because we can lean on last year’s draft sell-off to start with Alex DeBrincat and Kirby Dach. And we can find a solid third option if we reach back to 2018 for the Nick Schmaltz trade. Sorry Brandon Hagel, we’ll keep you on speed dial.

The blueline is OK, with Adam Boqvist and Nikita Zadorov. That makes Chicago our first entry with a legitimate six-man group, and it’s a solid one that might get even better very soon. It doesn't feel unbeatable, though, so let’s check in on one more rebuild.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Puck Soup: Bally who

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We try to make sense of the Bally RSN bankruptcy story
- Breaking down the Tarasenko trade
- Where things stand with the other big trade targets
- ESPN's list of the best goaltenders
- Dustin Brown gets a weird statue, and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Scrap the cap? No more NTCs? Seven ideas to bring back the NHL blockbuster

It’s trade deadline season in the sports world, with the NBA’s just passing and the NHL’s a few weeks away. And let’s just say that basketball’s GMs have set the bar high for their hockey counterparts.

That’s usually how it works. The NBA is notorious for dropping massive blockbusters, both during the season and over the summer. It’s not unusual to see a a franchise player or two on the move, and the trades are often multi-team monstrosities that you need a PHD to fully break down. This year, NBA fans saw one of the best players of his era traded in a shocking move that came together overnight, and it was just one of many major deals.

Meanwhile, NHL GMs are constantly complaining that their job is too hard, simple player-for-pick deals take weeks to hammer out, and we’re all still trying to figure out who Vladislav Gavrikov is.

It wasn’t always like this. The NHL used to have plenty of big, bold trades. But over the years, the market has dried up, and there are some years where the deadline comes and goes and the biggest targets are guys you’ve barely heard of.

Maybe this year will be different. A few legitimately big names have already moved, and at least a few more reportedly on the block. But it’s certainly fair to say that the art of the deal isn’t what it used to be in the NHL. So why is that? And more importantly, is there anything we can do about it?

If you start from the premise that more trading is good for the league’s overall entertainment value, then it seems like we should want to encourage bigger and better deals. Great. But how? Today, let’s walk through seven ideas that could move the needle, and see if any of them could actually happen.

Idea 1: Allow more salary retention

The idea: Fans know the drill with salary retention by now. A team trading away a player can retain up to 50% of their cap hit (and real dollars) for the full length of their remaining contract, with a max of three retentions per team at any given time.

But why stop at 50%? What if we let teams retain as much as they wanted to, all the way up to 100%?

Why it would work: It would pretty obviously make midseason trades easier, especially for big-ticket stars. Imagine if the Blackhawks could trade Patrick Kane while retaining as much of his salary as the other team needed them to… at a cost in picks and prospects, of course. Remember, we’re not doing anything to circumvent the league-wide cap here, because the full cap hit is still in place. It’s just with a different team.

As an added bonus, this would reduce if not eliminate those weird third-party double-retention trades that tend to just be overly complicated and confusing.

Why it wouldn’t: Some GMs would object, just like they did over a decade ago when Brian Burke was originally pushing for the retention idea. Back then, they felt like the idea went against the spirit of a hard cap, and made it too easy for teams to get out of bad contracts. Their arguments weren’t good in 2012, and they won’t be good now.

How much I like it: I’d like to aim a little bigger, as you’ll see in a bit. But as a compromise or an interim step, we could do worse.

Odds of it happening: It feels like allowing 100% retention might be a bridge too far, but I could absolutely see a world where we went higher than 50%.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: Are the Oilers emerging as Western Conference favorites?

Saturday was fun, right? Fourteen games, running all day long, with a nice mix of matchups and reasonably staggered starting times. Mix in a handful of afternoon games yesterday before the NHL cleared out for the Super Bowl, and it all added up to a good weekend to be a hockey fan.

Let’s embrace the fun, by skipping the usual analysis and using our bonus five to relive some cool stuff that you may have missed if you were locked in on a football game.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Ranking the 50 greatest players from before 1967

After three months of counting down, this week marked the finale of our NHL99 project, which ranked the best players of hockey's modern era (1967 to today). It was a lot of fun, with some great pieces leading to plenty of reminiscing, recollection and debate.

OK, but what about the era that came before?

After all, there’s 50 years of NHL history that didn’t get included in the modern list. While it made sense not to include those decades in our NHL99 list – the difference between eras is just impossible to parse in any meaningful way – we should still recognize it, if only briefly.

So that’s what we’ll do today, as I count down my list of the Top 50 players of pre-1967 era, factoring in both peak performance and longevity. I’ll be considering anyone who wasn’t on our modern list based on everything they did up until 1967. I also reserve the right to nudge a handful of guys up if their career timeline means they ended up “stranded” between the two lists, since this is my ranking and I can cheat if I want to.

One other important note on the process: For the modern era NHL99, we had a panel of voters, each carefully curating their own ballots which were then combined to create a final list based on the wisdom of the crowd. This is not that. This is one writer’s opinion, based on research and analysis but pretty much entirely subjective. If you don’t agree with any of these rankings, you have one and only one person to yell at. (That person, for the record, is Gentille.)

The original premise behind the modern NHL99 was that we all knew who’d end up in top spot. I think that’s the case here too, although you never know. Let’s count it down and see where we end up.

(*Denotes a player whose career continued past the 1966-67 season that we're using as our "modern" cutoff.)

50. Lionel “Big Train” Conacher, D, 1925-37

Voted Canada’s greatest athlete in 1950, Conacher dominated in multiple sports, including football, boxing and rugby. We can only give him credit for hockey here, in which he was a three-time all-star, a two-time Hart Trophy runner-up from the blueline, and a Hall-of-Famer.

49. Frank Boucher, C, 1921-44

The four-time all-star was a setup man who led the league in assists three times. He was also awarded the Lady Byng seven times, more than any other player in history.

(By the way, you'll see frequent references to being an all-star in this piece. All of those are referring to the league's postseason all-star honors, which include a first and a second team. The midseason all-star game isn't a factor here, in part because it didn't even exist when many of these guys played and mostly because even when it did, it doesn't tell us much about how good a player was.)

48. Bill Cook, W, 1926-37

The best of the three Cook brothers (with Bud and Bun), Bill led the league in goals twice and was Hart runner-up both times.

47. Dickie Moore, W, 1952-67*

The fiesty winger led the league in goals in 1957-58, then assists the following year. He took home the Art Ross in both campaigns, and remains an underrated star of the Original Six era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twDe-PiQIKg

46. Harry Howell, D, 1952-67*

Howell’s lone Norris trophy just slips under our cutoff, as he won it in 1967. It was partly a lifetime achievement award, as he’d been the rock of the Rangers’ blueline for 15 seasons, missing just 20 games over that span.

45. Bill Gadsby, D, 1946-66

One of the best defensemen to never win a Norris, Gadsby finished second three times and was named an all-star on seven occasions.

44. Johnny Bower, G, 1953-67*

The beloved Bower was a two-time Vezina winner and nearly won the Hart Trophy in 1961; he had more first-place votes than anyone, but finished just behind Bernie Geoffrion based on total votes. Not bad for a guy who had nearly washed out of the league after one strong season with the Rangers. And of course, he’d go on to give the world the gift of Honky The Christmas Goose.

43. Johnny Bucyk, W, 1955-67*

He's losing almost half of his longevity to our 1967 cutoff, but still deserve a spot on our list. All told, Bucyk spent 21 of his 23 seasons in Boston, and despite playing in the era of shorter season, still ranks in the top 20 for games played to this day. Bucyk rarely posted eye-popping single-season numbers, but was among the most consistent stars the league has ever seen.

42. Auriel Joliat, W, 1922-38

The winger played 16 seasons, all with the Canadiens, and won the Hart Trophy in 1934. This despite apparently playing at just north of 130 pounds, which was tiny even for those days.

41. Ted Kennedy, C, 1942-57

The long-time Leaf was the key to five Stanley Cups, and won a Hart Trophy in 1955. He retired after that season, then returned for one more before leaving the sport for good at the age of 31.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

The Athletic Hockey Show: Ranking the rankings

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Julian McKenzie steps in for Ian, who is still too sad about the 49ers
- We talk NHL99, and Julian has some questions about my ballot
- Jesse weights in on where the goalies ranked
- My attempt to make a movie reference fails miserably
- A listener wants to know about Jamie Benn's HHOF case
- This week in history 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)

Puck Soup: Dear John

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Bo Horvat, Dylan Cozens, and everyone else gets an extension
- The NHLPA gets a new leader, and Ryan has a scouting report
- John Tortorella writes a letter
- A look at where the trade market stands
- We have to mention all-star weekend
- And more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

A brief history of players who were just OK suddenly becoming trade deadline darlings for some reason

It’s trade deadline season, and that means it’s time to fire up the rumor mill and figure out who’s going to be moved. This time of year is all sorts of fun for hockey fans, and this season’s trade board features several stars who seem likely to be dealt, including Patrick Kane, Timo Meier, Ryan O’Reilly and Jakob Chychrun.

Those are legitimately big names, which we don’t always get at deadline time. But that’s fine, because hockey fans and media are going to go all-in on trade talk whether the market deserves it or not. And that leads to one of my favorite trade deadline traditions: The perfectly adequate player who suddenly becomes one of the hottest names available for reasons nobody is quite clear on.

It’s honestly pretty great, our own little hockey-themed version of the 1600s tulip craze. You hear a guy’s name mentioned once and you shrug. Then he keeps coming up, over and over, and suddenly you’re hearing that the asking price is a first-round pick. You’re confused, but eventually you get worn down, and the next thing you know you're on hold with your local sports radio station so you can yell about how your GM better get this guy, price be damned.

Then the deadline ends, the guy barely makes an impact on his new team, and we all look at each other and wonder what the heck that was all about.

I love those guys. So today, we’re going to remember 10 of the best examples of this deadline phenomenon, with a brief history of decent players who suddenly got to be the belle of the ball for a few weeks, even if none of us can quite remember why.

2006: Brendan Witt

Who they were: A 31-year-old defenseman who’d played his entire career with the Capitals, Witt was a physical presence. He was also a 20-goal scorer. As in, he had scored a total of 20 goals over his 10 years in the NHL.

Why they were in demand: This will shock you, but veteran, hard-nosed defensemen are going to show up on this list more than once. Also, Witt had asked for a trade to a contender.

Quote that captures the general vibe: “Witt, a rugged, stay-at-home defenseman, has been a mainstay on the Capitals' blueline for a decade. His departure will leave a huge void in the locker room and in the lineup … He was also a vocal leader and the team's most experienced defenseman.” – Washington Post.

The eventual deal: The Capitals sent Witt to Nasvhille for a first-round pick and Kris Beech.

How it turned out: Witt played 22 games for the Predators, recording three points, before their season ended in a first-round loss to the Sharks. He signed with the Islanders in that summer, where he was run over by an SUV. Oh, and the first-round pick turned into Semyon Varlamov.

2011: Dustin Penner

Who they were: Years after the offer sheet that almost led to a barn fight, Penner had settled in as a productive winger on some very bad Oiler teams, peaking with a 31-goal season in 2010. He’d also been occasionally accused of being out of shape, but haven’t we all.

Why they were in demand: This was back in the era where power forwards were still a thing, and while Penner wasn’t exactly Cam Neely, he was a big winger who could contribute offensively. Also, the Oilers did a very good job of coyle playing the “we might not actually want to move him after all” card, which always drives up interest. And it was just a generally bland deadline, so somebody had to be the main attraction.

Quote that captures the general vibe: “The 28-year-old power forward has a good pair of hands to go along with his 6-foot-4, 245-pound frame. He figures to fit in well with a team that covets size and the ability to play around the net…” – LA Daily News.

The eventual deal: The Oilers sent Penner to the Kings for a first, a conditional third, and a prospect.

How it turned out: Penner scored just three goals the rest of the way for the Kings, and just 15 more in parts of two additional seasons. One of those was the 2012 Cup win, though, so in that sense maybe you say this one worked out OK. It was better than that for Edmonton, as they turned the first into Oscar Klefbom.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: Just how worried should the Golden Knights be right now?

We don’t have much of a week to wrap this time around, so let’s start with my in-depth take on all-star weekend.

It was fine.

Cool, with that out of the way, let’s get onto this week’s rankings. Spoiler alert: With two-thirds of the league off since the last time we did this, the top and bottom five won’t have changed much. But maybe that makes this a good time to look back at the rankings up until now, if only to set the stage for the stretch run.

Five observations about this year’s rankings (so far)

5. No team has stayed in the top five all season long – I tried, Colorado fans, but I couldn’t make it happen. The Avs’ season-opening stretch of 12 straight top five appearances is a season-high streak, although it leaves them one back of the Hurricanes for the most total appearances.

4. Somehow, the same is true for the bottom five – This one shocked me, especially in a season where so many teams have been tanking since day one. The Coyotes have come the closest, missing out for just one week. The Blackhawks escaped for a few weeks in November when they were kicking around fake .500. The Ducks have the current longest streak at 14 straight bottom five mentions, but they weren’t in the season-opening list.

3. One team stands above all others in terms of mediocrity – We’ll use the middle spot on this list to highlight on team that’s done an amazing job of staying in the league’s mushy middle.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Which cap era trade deadline can produce the best six-man roster?

Today marks exactly one month until the NHL trade deadline, which means the only content I’m legally allowed to create until then is trade-related stuff. Sorry, I’m pretty sure it’s in the Canadian constitution.

Today, let’s try a simple roster game: Which deadline in the cap era produces the best starting six of players who were traded? That sounds like a nice easy way to waste a Friday.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Puck Soup: Oh good more Canucks talk

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Islanders land Bo Horvat
- 30 years of Gary Bettman
- An amateur goalie gets his shot with the Oilers
- The Rangers' pride night debacle
- Bobby Hull's legacy
- All-stars, post-game awards and more

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Don’t judge Gary Bettman’s 30 years on what he’s done, but on what could have been

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Gary Bettman becoming the NHL's first commissioner. It’s a big milestone, one that puts Bettman ahead legendary president Frank Calder's 26 years and within range of Clarence Campbell's 33.

Even that doesn't do his term justice – given the ever-expanding size of the league and the shifting landscape of today's pro sports world, Bettman's reign long ago surpassed any of his predecessors in terms of complexity. He's the most influential figure in the history of the NHL, and it's not close.

Influential, sure. But has that influence been a positive one for the league and its fans? That's a more complicated question.

To get to an answer, let's begin at the beginning. On Bettman's first official day on the job back on February 1, 1993, the league was unsteadily lurching its way into a new era. Many teams were struggling financially, the games were needlessly violent and often uncompetitive, and the league had just been through a brief but jarring midseason players' strike. In America at least, hockey was a decidedly niche sport that often seemed in danger of being left behind.

There's no two ways about it – Bettman inherited a mess. Compared to what the NHL was when Bettman walked through the door, the state of today's league makes his tenure looks like an unqualified success.

But that hardly seems like the right way to judge his work. By the early 90s, the bar for NHL leadership had been set so low that virtually any halfway competent executive could have stepped over it. If representing an upgrade on Gil Stein is good enough, then sure, hand Bettman his A+ and be done with it. Most of us would like to aim a little higher.

So instead of comparing Bettman to what had come before, let's take the admittedly trickier approach of measuring him against what might have been. Is the NHL that we have now the best we could do? Have hockey fans been well-served by the Bettman era?

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: You are now a Sabres fan. Plus Rangers, Canucks and more

We are all Sabres fan now.

Yes, you too. I realize they may not be your original team, but this year there’s a very good chance that your team is tanking. That’s a valid strategy, absolutely, but you’re under no obligation to donate a few hours of your time to watching it play out night after night. You tank fans are entitled to a temporary hall pass.

And even if your team is good this year, or at least trying to be, the Sabres are hard to resist. I’ve never been on board with the whole “second favorite team” deal, but there are occasional exceptions. This might be getting into that zone. Even if you’re not rooting for the Sabres with your whole hockey fan heart, you can at least send them a few good vibes.

Why? Here’s why.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Grab Bag: Bruce Boudreau vs. Jim Rutherford, secret NHL trade deadline plans and more

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- My spies report on teams' top secret trade plans
- An obscure player who was kind of trade for a Hall-of-Famer
- January comedy stars
- An important proposal for the month before the deadline
- And a YouTube breakdown of Bruce Boudreau's first career goal

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

NHL99: Ray Bourque had to be in our top 10 — here are 77 reasons why

Is it possible to be recognized as one of the ten best players of the modern era and still be underrated?

I think it is. And I think you could argue that the concept applies to Ray Bourque, a player who dominated the NHL for two decades and is my pick as the second-best defenseman of all-time, and yet still doesn’t seem to get enough respect among this generation of fans.

How do I help fix that, now that our countdown has reached Bourque? I suppose I could wax eloquently, or track down some former teammates who witnessed his greatness up close, or find a few signature plays to break down. But you know what? We’re 90 picks into this project, and I don’t feel like doing subtle. Instead, I’m breaking out the firehose.

With apologies to Paul Coffey and Victor Hedman, Ray Bourque was the most famous #77 in NHL history. So today, you’re getting 77 facts about him. If you kids out there aren’t on board by the end, then I’ve done all I can. And for the rest of us, it’s a chance to remember some of the greatest stats, moments and oddities from one of the most dominant careers we’ve ever seen.

1. Ray Bourque was born December 28, 1960, which means he shares a birthday with fellow Hall-of-Famers Harry Howell and Terry Sawchuk. That’s really neither here not there, but I think it’s neat. Keep your head up, Mario and St. Patrick.

2. Bourque was good in junior. That’s weird to write, because it was probably the last time for about 20 years that you could stop at “good” with this guy.

3. He had 93 points for the QMJHL’s Verdun Black Hawks in 1978-79, in a season in which he was just 17 on opening night. Those were big numbers, but in that era of the Q, they weren’t jaw-dropping. He was 56 points back of forward Normand Aubin for the team lead, and trailed Michel Leblanc among league defensemen. He was only a few points ahead of Kevin Lowe.

4. All of which is to say: He was a very good prospect, but hardly a can’t-miss. And when the NHL draft rolled around, Bourque watched fellow defensemen Rob Ramage, Craig Hartsburg and Keith Brown go ahead of him.

5. Yes, Keith Brown. Look, scouting is harder than it looks.

6. By the way, this was the infamous “double cohort” draft which saw the NHL lower the age threshold by a year, resulting in what’s often considered the best class ever. Bourque would go on to rank second in the draft in games played and points, trailing third-rounder Mark Messier in both categories.

7. If you’re a Bruins fan who got to enjoy the Ray Bourque era, you can thank a man named Ron Grahame.

8. Well, you should actually thank Harry Sinden, who was the guy who traded Grahame to the Los Angeles Kings on the eve of the 1978-79 season. The Kings had been a decent team for years, but weren’t breaking through in the playoffs, and Grahame was a young goalie who’d just posted very solid numbers in his first year in Boston. The Kings needed a replacement for Rogie Vachon, so they made the deal.

9. In hindsight, it was a bad move for L.A., but this was no Sam Pollock situation where a dumb team traded away a pick that was obviously going to be high. The Kings put up 80 points with Grahame, comfortably making the playoffs. In a 16-team league, that translated to the 8th overall pick, and in 1979 that meant a chance to draft Bourque.

10. Grahame won 23 games in three seasons with the Kings, so… let’s call the trade even.

11. Wait, hold on. All this early-career stuff is nice and all, but did Sean just casually slip in a “second-best defenseman ever?” reference up above in that intro? Yes, I did, and now that you’ve settled into this piece, there’s something we need to talk about.

12. OK, look – I love Nicklas Lidstrom. He was an absolute stud. If you’re a fan of his, you may have noticed that he hasn’t appeared yet in this Top 100, so you’ve got a sense of how highly regarded he was by our voters. There isn’t a reasonable hockey fan alive who wouldn’t trade just about any player their favorite team has ever had for a career of Nicklas Lidstrom locking down the blueline. An undisputed legend.

13. BUT! At some point in the last decade or so, it feels like hockey fans decided that “Nicklas Lidstrom is the second-best defenseman ever” was settled science. If anything, the controversial part of that statement might be “second”, because there are fans out there who’d put him ahead of Bobby Orr, too. (Those fans are wrong, but let’s roll with it.)

14. Is Lidstrom number two? Maybe! You could absolutely make that argument. But it is an argument, and anyone who claims otherwise is doing it because they don’t understand just how good Ray Bourque really was. He was right there with Lidstrom, and yes, he might have been even better.

15. The purpose of this piece is not to diminish Lidstrom in any way, or any other great defenseman that may be in that Orr conversation. But I still can’t help but feel like there’s a generation out there that doesn’t appreciate what Ray Bourque did for over two decades. So to borrow a turn of phrase from another legendary Bruin, we’re going to use this as an opportunity to pump his tires.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Puck Soup: Tanks for nothing

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Gary Bettman swears that nobody is tanking
- The Canucks finally fire Bruce Boudreau. Now what?
- Updating our all-star tiers
- What's happening with the Yzerplan in Detroit?
- Oilers up, Islanders down
- Barry Trotz media tour, and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

What’s the best cap team you can build for 2025-26 using today's contracts?

Back in 2019, my readers wanted me to build the best possible cap-compliant roster I could assemble using existing contracts. That’s not an especially unique idea, and it’s not even all that challenging if you load up on entry-level contracts. So we added a twist: We were trying to look three years into the future, to the 2021-22 season. That meant we had to rely on long-term contracts, with no entry-level deals or other short-term bargains.

You can find that post here, and I eventually revisited it to see how it turned out. In short: I scored big with guys like Nathan MacKinnon, Elias Lindholm and Aleksander Barkov. I also whiffed on John Gibson over Connor Hellbuyck, and somehow Paul Byron ended up on the team.

All in all, I did OK. But I want another shot. So today, I’m giving myself one, as we revisit the concept in an updated attempt to build for the future. We don’t know what the cap will be in 2025-26, and the pandemic era made it tougher to guess. But we do have Elliotte Friedman’s report from a few months ago that the league was projecting $92 million, so we’ll go with that.

As a refresher, here are the ground rules:

• We’re focused on the 2025-26 season here, meaning every contract we pick has to stretch at least that far. Extensions that are signed but haven’t kicked in yet are fine, but otherwise we can't use anyone whose current contract expires before then. Boston fans keep telling me that pending UFA David Pastrnak will take another hometown discount, and I’d never doubt them, but until that happens he can’t be on our roster.
• We want the best team possible in 2025-26, not today, meaning we’re projecting ahead and age will be an important factor.
• We don’t care about real dollars, only cap hit.
• We need 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies. We don’t need to have any spares, although we can add some at the end if we have room, which we absolutely will not. We’ll try to balance centers and wingers and defensemen playing on their proper side, but we won’t obsess over it. After all, these guys have three years to adjust to new positions if we need them to.
• We’re assuming everyone will be healthy in three years, with the exception of guys like Shea Weber who are already LTIR-retired.

There are 171 players with deals that run through 2026, ranging from Nathan MacKinnon’s $12.6 million cap hit to Paul Cotter’s $775,000. One of those players is better than the other. One is also more likely to end up on our roster, but we’ll get to that.

Let’s get started, building from the net out as all good teams do.

Goaltenders

This was the toughest position last time, and it’s not much easier this time around. There are only 14 goalies in the league with deals that run through 2025-26, and one of them is Carey Price. Among the others, it’s a hard pass on names like Elvis Merzlikins, Philipp Grubauer, Jack Campbell and Sergei Bobrovsky. I won’t fall for John Gibson this time. And at a lofty $9.5 million, I don’t think we’ll be able to afford Andrei Vasilevskiy.

That leaves seven candidates for two spots, and here’s where things look a little brighter than they did a few years ago. This time, there are actually a handful of reasonably priced options, including apparent all-star Stuart Skinner at $2.6 million and Pyotr Kochetkov at just $2 million. There’s also two solid young options in Spencer Knight at $4.5 million, and Thatcher Demko at $5 million.

A few months ago, this would have felt like a slam dunk: Demko would be our starter. But he’s been awful this year, which makes me a little nervous. Knight hasn’t been much better, but at 24 in 2025-26 he should just be entering his prime. Of course, he may already have turned out to be a bust. I’m not sure I trust Skinner, and Kochetkov is in the AHL right now and could be yet another fake Hurricanes goalie that they bail on before the rest of us figure it out.

Even with all those reasonable doubts, I can’t talk myself into a more expensive option like Jordan Binnington or a 35-year-old Jacob Markstrom. So I’ll roll the dice on a cheap-ish combo that will free up money elsewhere. Give me Thatcher Demko and Pyotr Kochetkov as my duo.

Cap space spent so far: A tidy $7 million on two players, leaving us with $85 million for our 18 skaters, an average of $4.7 million each.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: The Bruce Boudreau debacle gets a fittingly pathetic final chapter

No bonus top five this week because I’m cranky. Instead, I’m going to ask you to let me vent for a bit.

I’m a bit of an NHL history buff. You may have picked up on that based on roughly half the columns I post here. I also wrote a book on the subject. I’m not an expert, but I feel like I know my stuff.

I’ve never seen anything like this Bruce Boudreau story.

Never. And I lived through the era of Harold Ballard, an owner so mean and awful that he once asked Roger Neilson to wear a paper bag over his head. Neilson told him to get stuffed, and Ballard backed down, because even the worst of the worst are still capable of realizing when they've gone too far.

The Canucks went too far. Way too far. Their treatment of Boudreau over the last few months went from comical to bizarre to outright cruel, which is where it’s been for weeks now. Yesterday’s announcement of the inevitable was just one last act in a bad farce. The way this was handled makes Gerard Gallant’s infamous taxi look like a stretch limo.

Look, coaches get fired. It’s never pleasant, but it happens, to almost everyone, and it’s part of the game. You could absolutely make the case that Boudreau deserved a pink slip based on how this season went, or at least that the coach taking the fall for a flawed roster would be standard operating procedure in plenty of places around the league. That’s fine. Maybe Rick Tocchet will be the better fit.

But there’s no reason to do it like this. None. We’ve known the coaching change was coming. We knew who’d be replacing him. The exact date it would happen leaked out a while ago. And yet the team still sent Boudreau out there, night after night, as dead coach walking. Just fire him! If Tocchet can’t take the job right away because of TV commitments or whatever, then let Mike Yeo run the bench for a few games on an interim basis. There’s no reason to let a respected coach with over 600 career wins who almost saved your season last year twist in the wind like this. No reason to have Jim Rutherford periodically show up to kick him when he’s down. No reason to send him out there for what everyone knew would be his final games, then watch him have to clarify to the media that he hadn’t actually been fired yet.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Should your team make a deadline blockuster? Yes, and here’s why

Will your team make a blockbuster between now and this year’s deadline? I don’t mean a minor addition, or even a traditional pick-for-rental for move. I’m talking big and bold, the sort of move that makes fans around the league stop what they’re doing and stare at a screen with jaws drop and eyes bulging. Creative, gutsy, confident. Will you team do something like that?

Of course not. Your team is run by an NHL GM, the most timid and risk averse creatures in all of pro sports. Your team will tinker at best, or maybe just mumble about running out of time and not wanting to disrupt the room.

But should your team pull off a blockbuster? Yes! Or at least, you could make the case. In fact, that’s what we’re going to do today.

We’ve got 32 teams, and 32 reasons for their GMs to swing for the fences. We’ll have some overlap, some unique situations and some cases that are tougher than others. Let’s run through this one-by-one and see if we can convince anyone to get out of their comfort zone and make the big move.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

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)

Puck Soup: Canucks in chaos

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- What the hell is happening in Vancouver?
- A few new extensions, but no David Pastrnak yet
- Seattle looks like a contender... maybe
- Ivan Provorov sends an anti-LGBT message
- The Avalanche could miss the playoffs
- Jack Adams candidates, and lots more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Who wins, a team of coaches who coached their own team or those that never did?

NHL teams love hiring former players as coaches. You could argue that makes perfect sense, since nobody is better suited to understand the details of the game than somebody who spent years learning it up close. You could also argue that this is just more evidence of hockey’s old boys club, with the same names recycling through the league because their buddies keep hiring them. Whichever side you’re on, you could certainly find a few coaching stints that would support your view.

Today, we’re going to try a different angle, with a pair of rosters made up of modern-era NHL stars who became coaches. Who you got: Guys who went on to coach one of their former teams, or guys who coached elsewhere?

I kind of love this concept, because in theory it shouldn’t be close. We’re talking about an era with more than 20 franchises, so even if the average star suits up for a few teams in their career, the odds are solidly stacked against the “own team” side. The numbers are just overwhelmingly against them. But of course, we know it won’t work out that way, because star players always seem to wind up coaching the same team they played for.

Or do they? It’s not universal, and you can probably already think of one star who’s going to wind up on the “other teams” squad that could tilt the balance. I’m genuinely curious how this will turn out.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: A tipping point for the Avalanche… and maybe the Kraken?

OK, now I’m worried.

Anyone who has followed this column over the last few months knows the drill when it comes to the Colorado Avalanche. These are the long-term rankings, it’s about who’s positioned for a Stanley Cup, and we don’t overreact to an unexpected win or loss here and there. The standings matter, but they’re not all that matters. The Avs are the most talented team in the league, they’ll get healthy, and they’ll be fine.

You guys… I’m starting to wonder about whether they’ll be fine.

And no, this isn’t just about the Blackhawks game. Bad teams beat good teams all the time, and even historically bad teams beat championship-caliber teams at least occasionally. As I’ve preached all year, one result doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. This goes deeper than that, as Peter described on Friday. They’ve been awful since the holidays, including losses to Chicago, Arizona and Florida.

https://twitter.com/domluszczyszyn/status/1613750462158602240

Now, Dom. We start worrying now. And we’ll use the bonus top five to outline a few reasons why.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

NHL99: Don’t diminish Marcel Dionne with a pointless Stanley Cup asterisk

Ernie Banks. Dan Marino. Charles Barkley. Don Mattingly. Patrick Ewing. Barry Sanders.

Advertisement

As a sports fan, what do you think of when you hear those names?

I’d like to think that your mind floods with memories of amazing moments, historic achievements, highlight reels, records and milestones. If you were lucky enough to see at least a few of them play with your own eyes, I hope those are the moments that leap to mind. If they’re simply names from the past for you, then maybe you’re conjuring up old highlights, or better yet, stories that older sports fans in your life have passed down to you. I’d like to think that.

But I know there’s a good chance you’re thinking of something else, something that unites those names. You’re thinking about a dreaded qualifier that gets pinned to an otherwise unquestioned superstar’s career like a scarlet letter: They never won the big one.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Prediction contest update: You're not doing great, but it could be worse

We’ve hit the midway mark of the season, which means this as good a time as any to check in our prediction contest. How’s everybody doing? The answer: Not great! But alos, not terrible… so far.

If you’ve been missing out on the fun, the prediction contest is annual exercise that offers up a list of seemingly easy questions. Who’ll make the playoffs, who won’t get fired, who’ll be in the Hart race, that sort of thing. You can offer up to five answers, with more points up for grabs the further oyu go, but the catch is that you take a zero on the question if you get even one wrong.

The contest debuted for the 2020-21 season, and you all did poorly. Then came last year’s version, and it was carnage. Out of 1,583 entries, only one even managed to get a 50% grade. This thing is tougher than it looks. Which, of course, is the whole point.

This year’s contest can be found here; a summary of the over 2,100 entries is here. Midway through the season, how’s it going? Let’s find out.

---

#1. Name up to five teams that will make the playoffs.

By this time last year, a majority of you were in big trouble with the Islanders, and almost everyone was at least a little nervous over the Golden Knights. Neither team made it, meaning the failure rate on the question ended up close to 99%.

It could be even worse this year.

That’s because almost every single entry includes the Avalanche, who are currently just barely holding down a wildcard spot by points percentage. That’s maybe not quite as scary as it seems, since they’ve had a ton of injuries to deal with. Readers of the weekly rankings know that I’m not especially worried about Colorado, and I’d bet that not many of us actually think they’re in real danger of missing the postseason. Then again, we all felt the same way about the Golden Knights last year, right up until the door slammed shut. Weird stuff happens.

Beyond the Avs, over 900 of you had the Flames and/or the Oilers, and there may not be room for both. Florida needs a second-half miracle, and if they don’t get it they’ll take out over 500 entries. And condolences to the one entry that picked the Ducks, it's not looking great for you.

#2. Name up to five teams that will not make the playoffs.

This one’s going a little bit better, as the Connor Bedard tank sweepstakes have mostly led to all the expected bottom-dwellers being as bad as advertised. Your top five answers – Arizona, Chicago, Montreal, Philadelphia and San Jose – all look safe. We do hit a snag on the next most common response, as over 650 of you had Seattle missing out. Another 500 listed Buffalo, who could still make it interesting.

If you avoided those two danger picks, you should be OK unless you’re one of the 50 or so who had New Jersey or Winnipeg. Otherwise, there are points in play here.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Puck Soup: Ryan goes to Arizona

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Ryan reports on his trip to Arizona
- The NHL hits the halfway mark, and we name the three biggest surprises
- We tier the all-stars
- The Oilers on the brink
- The tank index
- Plus more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Flyers up, Ducks down, Panthers added in the midseason edition of the Tank Index

It’s January. Do you know where your team’s tank is?

You should, because we’re about to hit the halfway point of the season, and it’s time to get serious about losing with our second Tank Index of the season. This is normally a gimmick that I break out once a year, but this upcoming draft class is so top-heavy that we needed multiple check-ins along the way.

Our first came back in November, with the surprisingly awful Ducks and Blue Jackets leading the way. Since then, we’ve seen teams move up and down the standings. But far more importantly, we’ve just seen a World Juniors where Connor Bedard went absolute cheat code on the rest of the world. If anything, the urgency should be even higher now. Spoiler alert: For at least a few teams, it absolutely is.

As always, this entire exercise takes place in a fictional alternate universe where tanking exists, because Gary Bettman has assured us that it doesn’t in this one and he wouldn’t lie to us. We’re scoring teams based on four criteria:

Season so far: How are they doing so far? A team will have less motivation to really commit to a tank if the absolute bottom is already out of reach. The worse the record, the better the score.

Seller potential: Who has the potential to get worse quickly by trading useful contributors? The key here is having useful players that others teams might actually want.

Goaltending problems: The most volatile position in hockey is also the key to a tank. One hot goalie can ruin the plan, while a few lousy ones can make it look easy.

Motivation: Maybe the most important factor of all, especially this year. Sure, you want a high draft pick, but how far are you willing to go? If you’re a GM, are you risking you job? If you’re the owner, will it impact your bottom line? Will the media be calling for heads? What about the fan base?

Four scores, each out of ten, and then we add it all up

Last time, we looked at a dozen teams that felt like tanking contenders, which feels like a good cutoff. This time around, the Predators and Sabres have played well enough to escape consideration, at least temporarily. That means that two new teams have joined the list, and one of them has some unique circumstances attached. We’ll get to those guys first.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: Giving the Central their due, the fading Wings, and more

We’re crossing the halfway mark this week, which means we can officially and mercifully put “it’s too early” to bed. There’s still plenty of time for twists and turns, and history tells us that we’ll see at least a few teams collapse or surge. But we’ve seen enough that we can start digging through the numbers without the constant disclaimers about how none of it actually matters.

For example: Let’s look at some records by division and conference.

We don’t tend to spend a lot of time digging into those numbers. And rightly so: We’re dealing with small samples, so there’s definitely a ton of noise, and it’s easy to overreact. But there can still be some interesting stuff in there, so let’s use this week’s bonus top five to see what we can find.

Top five division/conference record oddities that may or may not mean something

5. Golden Knights – They’ve been great against the Central and Atlantic, at a combined 18-4-0. They’re an OK 4-3-0 against the Metro. But against their own division, they’re a losing team – just 5-6-2 in the Pacific.

If it holds up: Maybe we shouldn’t be so sure that this is the Knights’ division to run away with.

4. Penguins – At first glance, their 20-13-6 record looks solid enough. But they’re a combined 13-13-6 against the Metro, Atlantic and Pacific, and a perfect 7-0-0 against the Central. Three of those wins have come against the tanking Hawks and Coyotes, although they’ve also beaten the Stars, Wild and Jets.

If it holds up: They’ll be rooting for the Central in the Western Conference final, because they’re only 3-6-0 against the Pacific.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

The Athletic Hockey Show: Rev up the tanks

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Connor Bedard is unstoppable, and soon the tank wars will be too
- Could the Canucks join the race?
- I remember a once-common type of trade that today's GM are too scared to try
- Leetch vs. Chelios, who do you want at their peak?
- I get to tell my Craig Berube jersey story again
- Plus WJC, outdoor games, NHL99 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)

Puck Soup: Episode 300

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We celebrate a milestone with a special guest named Greg
- Notes on the Winter Classic
- Alexander Ovechkin takes a photo with your mom
- Joe Pavelski's extension
- Some WJC talk
- Name Pat Falloon
- And more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Weekend rankings: A shakeup in the Top 5, Oiler questions, and a Panthers mess

Welcome back. We didn’t have a weekend rankings column last week, because there was no weekend to rank. But a two-week break represents an opportunity, and I’m going to take it. This week, I’m shaking up the top five.

How big a shake up? Well, not completely enormous, if we’re being honest. After all, this is still the long-term rankings, so even two weeks shouldn’t be enough to entirely scramble things. But we’re going to be adding a new team that’s been knocking on the door for a while now, knock out a pair of teams who've been regulars, welcome one contender back, and nudge another one down further than they've been all year.

We’ll get to all of that down below. But first, let’s mention five teams that you might be expecting to see in this week’s top five, and why you won’t.

Top five teams that aren’t in the top five (but maybe should be)

5. Washington Capitals – I’ll admit that I at least thought about it. The standings say not to bother – they actually went into the weekend in sixth in the Metro by points percentage – but they’ve been hot lately and are getting healthy. Is 11 wins in their last 13, including an absolute stomping of the Habs on Saturday, enough to call them a Cup contender? Not yet. But at the very least, there’s more to pay attention to here than Alexander Ovechkin’s record chase.

4. Tampa Bay Lightning – They have the fifth best winning percentage in the league, and if the playoffs started today they’d be on the road for round one. That would scare me more for other teams than this one.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)