Suggestions for the hockey gods: Eight ways this latest Leafs collapse could end

The Toronto Maple Leafs are coughing up yet another playoff series they should win. They’ve now lost 13 of the 14 games in the Auston Matthews era in which they’ve had a chance to eliminate an opponent. Five of those games have featured blown leads. Five have come in overtime. There’s been at least one in every year since 2018. And now it’s all happening again, in the same way, to the same group, building to Saturday’s inevitable Game 7 loss.

I know you know all that stuff. I just wanted to make sure any especially sensitive Maple Leaf fans had a chance to click away in horror before we went any further.

You wouldn’t think there’d be many of those fans left. After all, anyone who’s been paying attention over the years should be thoroug

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Remembering your favorite team’s worst postseason by goals differential

 What was your favorite team’s worst postseason?

Probably this one, at least for now. Nobody has fun in the playoffs, at least until they’re over.

But let’s try to find a more objective answer. We could just point to any time that your team was swept in the first round, since going four-and-out is about as bad as it comes. But if we did that, we wouldn’t be able to use every team. (Yes, that was a stealth trivia question: Name every team that’s never been swept in a first-round best-of-seven. Answer down below.)

So instead, let’s go with team stat that a reader recently asked me about: playoff goals differential.

I haven’t run it by Dom’s supercomputer quite yet, but I’m going to work from the assumption that scoring goals is good and giving up goals is bad, and giving up way more than you score is a sign that things haven’t gone great. So today, let’s find each team’s single worst postseason by goals differential, and dig up those miserable memories. Let’s remember some sighs.

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Which playoff year produces the best roster of overtime goal scorers?

We’re a week into this year’s playoffs, and there hasn’t been enough overtime.

There’s been some, sure, but it hasn’t been enough. That’s because it can’t be. It’s not possible. Playoff overtime is the best thing in sports, always, unless it’s your team playing, in which case it’s the absolute worst, right up until it’s maybe the best again. Cocaine, helicopter, you know the drill.

And of course, in those big moments, you expect the sport’s biggest stars to shine the brightest. Overtime is a canvas on which great artists create their masterpieces. It’s the stage for the biggest names to leave their marks for generations to come.

Names like Alex Ovechkin. And, uh, Simon Benoit.

Yeah, overtime is weird that way. So today, I’m going to dig into a question that a Puck Soup listener sent in a while ago: Which seasons had the best collection of overtime goal scorers? In other words, what’s the best all-star team we can build using only a given year’s sudden death heroes?

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Out with the old, in with the new? Remembering 10 classic Battle of Ontario moments

This post is about the Senators and Maple Leafs, but first I need to tell you a story about the Colorado Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings.

It comes from a game played late in the 1995-96 season. The Wings would go on to win a 7-0 blowout, so you can imagine that the players on both sides were already agitated. At one point, Detroit’s Keith Primeau had his stick slashed out of his hand as he went to the bench. Colorado’s Mike Ricci tried to slide it away, at which point Kris Draper slashed his stick out of his hand. Primeau picked up Ricci’s stick and intentionally broke it. In return, Ricci grabbed a water bottle and tossed it at Primeau, hitting him in, uh, a sensitive area.

It was all very funny, and if you saw the highlight at the time, you probably joked about it with your hockey fan friends for weeks afterwards. It was, we all assumed, one of those memorable hockey moments.

Two months later, some other stuff happened between the Avalanche and Red Wings. And then later, a lot more. And then even more. And these days, when that rivalry comes up, nobody really talks about broken sticks or water bottle tosses.

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Who wants to win vs. who has to win? It's the 2025 NHL playoff pressure rankings

We’re a few days into the playoffs. Have you had a chance to unclench yet?

Probably not. And you probably won’t for a while yet, because this is the time of year when everything that happens feels massive. We watch a game, or a period, or a shift. We overreact. And then something else happens, and we either double down or swing all the way in the other direction. It’s both the best and worst part of the playoffs, all rolled into one.

In one word: Pressure. It’s unbearable. And that’s just for us, as fans. Imagine what it’s like for the teams in the middle of it.

Of course, that pressure isn’t divided equally, and some teams are facing significantly more than others. So today, let’s do our annual Pressure Rankings, as we count down from the teams that don’t want to lose to the teams that absolutely can’t.

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2025 Old Guy Without a Cup rankings: Brock Nelson, John Tavares, Ryan Suter and more

It’s tough times for OGWAC fans.

I won’t sugarcoat it. It’s been a bumpy year for us here in the OGWAC world. For those of you who are new, that would be Old Guys Without a Cup, the beloved NHL playoff trope that’s served up classic stories like Ray Bourque, Teemu Selanne and Lanny McDonald. Everyone loves an OGWAC story – especially one that ends with a Cup.

It happened last year, with Kyle Okposo. He won his first Stanley Cup at the age of 36, in what would turn out to be the final game of his 17-season career.

But while seeing Okposo get his lap with the Cup was a great moment, it’s been largely downhill since then for the OGWAC community. We lost Joe Pavelski, the patron saint of active OGWACs, to retirement. We’ve also said goodbye to Zach Parise, Sam Gagner, Blake Wheeler and Mark Giordano. And this year’s playoff field means we can’t root for names like Chris Kreider, Anders Lee or Tyler Myers.

That said, change can be good, even when it comes to old guys. All those absences should clear the way for some new names on this year’s list, and maybe a few older ones that we haven’t seen in a while. Let’s see where this takes us.

The criteria remans the same as previous years: A player is “old” if they’ve been in the league for at least 10 seasons and will be at least 33 when the Cup is awarded. The older the better, and while we’ll consider everyone, we prefer OGWAC stories that feature players who are actually contributing, preferably to a legitimate contender. Bonus points if the player has had an agonizing near-miss or two in their past.

I went into this wondering if all that turnover meant we’ve even be able to find 20 names, but that didn’t turn out to be a problem. Let’s start the list, and see who earns the top spot that Pavelski held for the last few years.

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The Stanley Cup bandwagon-hopper's guide to the 16 teams you could root for

It took a bit longer that expected – thanks for the suspense, Columbus – but we’ve got our 16 playoff teams. That means we’ve also got our 16 teams that missed, and those fan bases have a choice to make.

Stay neutral, and just root for the best playoff hockey possible? A very valid option. Root against your team’s rivals, and hope they lose in a way that makes them sad? We’ve all been there. Sit on the sidelines and sulk, acting like you don’t even care who wins? A bit unseemly, but understandable.

And then there’s the most controversial option: Pick a new team, just for the postseason. Yes, it’s the dreaded bandwagon pick, a path that some fans find untenable. If that’s you, feel free to check out now. But if you’re open to at least considering a bandwagon pick, you want to at least take the right one. That’s where this post comes in, as we’ll rank the 16 playoff teams from worst to best in terms of the bandwagon-ability.

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Win our prediction contest by getting this one easy question right (you won't)

The NHL playoffs are back, or will be in a few days. And that means its time for the annual playoff prediction contest, an incredibly simple single-question test that you will almost certainly fail.

We tried this last year, and readers seemed to enjoy it. A few of you even did reasonably well. But not many, and that was in a year where the postseason didn’t serve up many surprises. Let’s see how things go this time around.

All you need to do is leave a comment below, with your answer to our single catch-all question.

 

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NHL weekend rankings: A top 16, oddly specific predictions and Gold Plan standings

Welcome to the last Weekend Rankings of the 2024-25 season.

Longtime readers know what that means: You’re getting a Top 16 instead of a Top 5, with every playoff team ranked. We’ll also check in on what the Gold Plan standings would be looking like in the Bottom 5, and we’ll even make a few oddly specific predictions.

When the schedule first came out, I was a little bit nervous about having the season end on a Thursday, since that meant the last rankings would come out when each team still had a game or two left. What if there was a furious race down to the wire, and I couldn’t do a Top 16 because there were 20 or more teams still battling it out for the final spots?

Luckily, the NHL heard my concerns and responded accordingly, delivering an absolute dud of a late-season race in which we basically already know all the playoff teams and most of the matchups. Yay?

We’ll get to the rankings in a bit. But first, let’s make five oddly specific predictions...

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Let's find three positive thoughts for each of the NHL's 15 most hopeless teams

The theme of this post is kindness.

As in, let’s be kind to the fans of the league’s worst teams. It’s easy to forget these days, as some fans watch their teams fight for a playoff spot and others are already thinking about the Stanley Cup, that not all of us are having fun right now. Some of us cheer for teams that are already out of the playoff hunt, and in some cases might have been for months now.

That’s where the kindness comes in. Let’s show empathy and basic human decency to those fans, the ones who have the misfortune of rooting for one of those horrible, embarrassing, miserable loser teams.

I’ll admit that that last sentence could have gone better. Kindness isn’t easy. But it can be instructive.

For example, we did this post last year, featuring 11 teams. Of those 11 teams who were in bad shape, two – the Devils and Senators – have already clinched playoff spots this year. Another, the Canadiens, are about to join them. Optimism can be real.

Um, also one of those 11 teams ceased to exist a few days after the column ran. So sure, a mixed bag. Let’s stay focused on the positive. Kindness, remember.

According to Dom’s model, there are 15 teams that are either eliminated from playoff contention, or that have odds of less than 1%. In other words, they’re done. And they could probably use a kind word or two. Well, we’re going to give them three, as in three positive thoughts in a season of despair.

As always, we’ll do this in order, starting form the easiest team to find positivity for and working our way down to the most challenging.

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With Gretzky's goal mark gone, how many NHL records are truly unbreakable?

And just like that, Wayne Gretzky’s unbreakable record has been broken.

Well, one of them. Gretzky had more than his share. But for hockey fans of my generation, it really is hard to believe that Alexander Ovechkin actually did it. He broke Gretzky’s career goals record. That wasn’t supposed to be possible.

For decades, old-timers like me figured there was just no way that anyone could get to 894. Not in the Dead Puck Era, which eventually gave way to the Only Comatose Puck Era. Not when it meant scoring at a 45-goal pace for 20 consecutive seasons. Not in an era where players were bigger and stronger, meaning just staying healthy was a challenge. Not in a league where forwards were supposed to peak in their mid-20s and then give way to the next generation.

But here we are. So now we have to ask: What other “unbreakable” records could we be wrong about?

We’ve had some fun in the past with unbreakable records, as well as a few breakable ones. But today, let’s look at some of the sport’s marks that have at some point seemed unreachable, and try to figure out if they could actually be in play.

Jesse already took a look at Gretzky’s other records, and I’m mostly on the same page. I’d argue that the nine Hart Trophies is probably unbreakable, given how much modern sportswriters seem to value the novelty of getting new names on their ballots. But I’d agree that the career points and assists records are untouchable, and I like Jesse stopping just short of taking the 92-goal regular season record off the table.

What about the records that aren’t Gretzky’s? Let’s have a look at 15 of the most imposing, and see if we can imagine them being broken someday.

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NHL weekend rankings: Ovechkin breaks the goals record, plus my worst rankings

We’re down to two editions of the Weekend Rankings left, before we run out of regular season runway. Next week is the season finale, which is always fun, because it's when we ditch the Top 5 for a Top 16 (or more), check in on the Gold Plan standings, and make some oddly specific predictions.

This week is not so fun. At least for me – some of you seem to enjoy it. It’s time for our annual look back at the very worst Top 5 and Bottom 5 picks I made over the course of the season.

Look, I never said I was perfect. I also never said I wasn’t, and it’s possible that all of these “bad picks” were really just made ironically, or to see if you were paying attention, or as occasional intentional mistakes that I made in tribute to watching too much Astro Boy as a kid. But whatever went wrong, these picks have not aged well, and I have to take my medicine.

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A goalie and a goalie-hater debate equipment, interference, bigger nets and more

Let us acknowledge the noble goaltender. The last line of defense, tirelessly doing the thankless work of keeping pucks out of the net, sacrificing their own bodies to block vulcanized rubber fired at upward of 100 miles per hour, all the while knowing that they’ll take the blame for the bad and rarely get the glory for the good. They’re hockey’s unsung heroes, doing the hardest job in all of sports without credit or complaint.

Well… unless they’re just big weird oafs in oversized equipment who are ruining the game we love, robotically sucking the excitement out of the sport in between bouts of flopping and crying about somebody barely brushing up against them in what's supposed to be a contact sport.

That’s the debate. Or at least, it will be today, as two of The Athletic’s hockey writers have decided to go back and forth on various topics from the goaltending world. Jesse Granger is our goaltending expert, who both plays the position himself and breaks down its intricacies for the rest of us. Sean McIndoe is an old man who sits on his couch and complains about things, and he loves the very offense that goalies are there to prevent.

Like Patrick Roy in his prime, they’ve decided that the best way to handle a dispute is to skate out to center ice and duke it out. They got together for five mini-debates, presented below.

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A brief history of the second-team all-star goalie being the NHL’s weirdest award

With a just few weeks left before awards ballots go out, we already know how one of the races will go. Connor Hellebuyck will win the Vezina. And if there’s any justice, the GMs who vote on the award will make it unanimous.

Cool. Now let’s talk about the best goaltending award.

Not the award for best goaltender – I mean the award for goaltending that is the best. The best award, as in the most fun, the most interesting, and also the weirdest.

I’m talking about the second all-star team honors.

Yes, this might be something only I’m interested in. But today, I’m going to try to get you onboard.

Each year, PHWA writers vote to create two all-star teams, which are not to be confused with the (far inferior) teams from the actual all-star game in seasons where the NHL forces us to endure one. These postseason all-star awards are a genuine honor, proof that a player was considered among the very best at his position during that season.

Each of the two teams consist of two defensemen, a center, a left and right winger, and a goalie. The highest vote-getters earn first-team honors, which is the very best of the best of any given year. Then comes the second-team, which is… sometimes interesting.

That’s true at all positions, at least occasionally. Sometimes you’ll see a good-but-not-great player earn second-team honors up front, like Thomas Vanek in 2007 or a 39-year-old Ray Whitney in 2012. Sometimes a lesser-known defenseman will earn the honors, like Lubomir Visnovsky in 2011 or Francois Beauchemin in 2013. But for the most part, a look at the second-team all-star squads are pretty much the names you’d expect – the best of the best, with the occasional exception that proves the rule.

Second-team goalie honors? Those get weird. Or at least, they serve up some names that you might generously call unexpected.

It could happen again this year, with Logan Thompson battling Andrei Vasilevskiy for second-team honors. One of those guys has a Vezina, a Conn Smythe and multiple Cup rings. The other is Logan Thompson, who got traded in the offseason for midround draft picks. He’s probably the favorite.

Why? Because goaltending is weird. And apparently, being the league’s second-best goaltender is especially weird. Let’s remember some guys, who had one year where they were very nearly The Guy.

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NHL weekend rankings: The Wild, the Habs, and the 10 teams we haven't ranked yet

With the calendar about to flip over to April, we’re down to three weeks left in the regular season. And that means we don’t have many of these columns left. The finish line is in sight.

It’s safe to assume that the last few weeks will be dedicated to breaking down the various playoff races, unless every bubble team in the East just voluntarily folds their franchise to avoid landing a spot that it’s clear nobody wants. But in this semi-calm before the storm, a few of you have pointed out that we’ve yet to visit an annual tradition around here: Recognizing the teams that made it through the entire season without ever landing in either the Top of Bottom 5.

This is the true middle-of-the-pack, although as you’ll see, they come in some very different flavors. And this year, the numbers reinforce that in a pleasingly symmetrical way: There have been 11 different teams that showed up in the Top 5, and 11 more than had at least one appearance in the Bottom 5. That leaves us with an even 10 teams that didn’t appear on either list all season long. Let’s divide them into categories.

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Battle of Ontario? Avs vs. Stars? Ranking the best potential first-round matchups

With just a few weeks left in the season, the playoff picture is coming into focus. And while we’re not sure which teams will claim the final wildcard spots in either conference, we’re pretty much locked in on 14 of the 16 playoff teams. That means we can start turning our attention to the potential first-round matchups, and arguing over which ones will be the best.

That’s easy: It’s Dallas vs. Colorado.

Look, I get that some people think this is happening too soon, and that the 1-vs-4 format means that some prime matchups arrive earlier than they should. I get that. But also: This series is going to absolutely rock. I can’t wait.

The downside of that monster meeting looming on the horizon is that other potential matchups can’t compete. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of the first round can’t have a few bangers. So today, let’s go through the series that have at least an 25% chance of happening, based on the calculations from hockeyviz.com as of yesterday afternoon.

We’ll count this down from the fifth best matchup to number one, with an added rule that each team can only appear once. Try not to pass out from the suspense of which matchup will be number one.

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12 of NHL history's greatest record-breaking goals, ranked from worst to best

With the Alex Ovechkin goals chase now down to single digits, it no longer feels like a question of if he’ll break Wayne Gretzky’s mark this season, but rather when.

We’ve already covered that question, a few weeks back. But there’s a second, and maybe even more important question that’s now looming: Will the record-breaking goal be any good?

The NHL is already worrying about this, especially the possibility that the record-breaker falls victim to their very bad and nit-picky replay review system. Other fans have been openly antagonizing the hockey gods with ideas for the most Team Chaos-worthy way the record could fall. (Personally, I’m a big fan of the “Ovechkin has an empty-net look against the Penguins but Sidney Crosby throws his stick for an automatic goal, meaning Sid's the one who actually ‘scores’ the record-breaker” scenario.)

Whatever happens, it will be a cool moment. But how cool? Just in case Ovechkin is looking for inspiration, today’s column is going to look at a dozen historic NHL goals that broke an important record. To be clear, we’re not worried about individual milestones, or important game-winners or sudden death snipes. We want the guys who broke a significant record, did it with a goal, and did it in style. Just like how we all hope Ovechkin will over the next few weeks.

We’ll use a modified version of the scale we established for the goalie goals ranking, with an emphasis on the creativity and/or skill of the goal itself. We’ll go from worst to best, which means there’s really only one pick for 12th spot…

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NHL weekend rankings: A lot can change in 2 weeks, but I still believe in the Blue Jackets

Welcome back to the rankings, which took a week off last week. That gives us more recency bias to chew on than a typical week, and that means a minor shakeup in the Top 5 that features a new number one and the return of an old friend.

But first, let’s do a quick reset on how much things have changed in two weeks, if only to remind us of how much this league and its storylines can pivot in a short time.

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The Contrarian: The Ovechkin goals record chase is bad, and other fake arguments

Welcome back to The Contrarian, the feature where you state the obvious and then I argue against it, because I’m a sportswriter and that’s just what we do, whether we mean it or not. This time around, you want to debate Alex Ovechkin, Connor McDavid, the playoff format, and the Olympics, among other topics. Or then again, maybe you don’t. Let’s wade into the mailbag and find out.

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When the players and the writers disagree on the best player: Breaking those ties

With a month left to go in the regular season, some of the award races are more of less settled. Connor Hellebuyck is going to win the Vezina, and will also be a first-team all-star. Barring an injury, Leon Draisaitl will win the Rocket Richard. Sasha Barkov seems set to win another Selke, and Spencer Carberry is pulling away in the Jack Adams race.

But other awards are still up in the air, including the big one: The Hart Trophy, for league MVP, as voted on by the writers. That means we can assume that the Ted Lindsay for best player as voted on by the NHLPA is also up for grabs. And that means there’s at least a decent chance that we get a split, with the players and the writers picking different players for their top honors.

I can’t decide whether or not I hate when that happens.

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Help me become a better contrarian

Hey folks…

Thinking of doing another edition of The Contrarian. You send in a statement that you think is obvious or inarguable, and I’ll try to come up with the contrarian view.

We've done a few of these, and the ones that work best find that sweet spot of feeling difficult but not impossible. "Mark Messier was a bad signing for the Canucks" and "Ray Bourque's Cup win was good" worked great. Stuff like "Connor McDavid is good at hockey" or "The Leafs have a bad playoff record", not so much.

Send me your sure-thing statement via email at dgbcontrarian@gmail.com.

NHL weekend rankings: An unpredictable trade deadline shakes up the Top 5

Well, that was something.

The annual trade deadline didn’t deliver huge numbers as far as the actual volume of trades, but the ones that did happen were significant, with more big names moving than just about any year in recent memory. A lot has changed since we last did this one week ago, and the rankings will reflect that.

We’ll get to those in a minute. But first, let’s close the book on a fascinating week with a few final deadline thoughts.

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Your favorite GM vs. himself: The roster he traded for against the one he traded away

Your favorite GM probably has his hands full this week, so let’s do him a favor and put him in a position where he can’t lose. Specifically, let’s put him in a contest against… himself.

Yeah, this is going to get weird, but stick with it. Today’s post will be all about one question: Who’d win, a starting six made up of the players a GM has acquired in his career, or one of players he’s traded away?

But first, a few ground rules™:

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Weekend rankings: The 5 most interesting names to watch on deadline week

Five days to go, and pretty much the entire hockey world is all deadline, all the time. While we overhype the deadline every year, this season really does feel different. I can’t remember many previous years where it felt like such a wide range of outcomes were in play, from a week full of big names being moved and shaking up races to a quiet week that feels like a total bust and ends with James Duthie quietly playing solitaire on live TV for six hours.

History tells us that the next few days will play out more like the second option than the first, but for now, a lot of scenarios are in play. Here are the five I’m most interested in.

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Remembering the best seasons by a player who was traded midway through

With just one week left before the deadline, let’s kill some time on a Friday with a trade-themed question.

What are the best statistical seasons a player has ever had while being dealt during that same season?

It’s a tricker question than you might think. We’re used to seeing big names get moved at the deadline, but those stars aren’t typically having career years. After all, a player in the midst of a monster season wouldn’t typically be available – for all the talk this time of year about selling high, teams rarely seem to do that.

So today’s post will be a mix of familiar names you might expect, and a few you might not. And of course, any talk of the best statistical season hinges on which stat you’re looking at. Let’s start with the big one.

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Should your team make a big bold move at the deadline? Yes, and here's why

The trade deadline is just over a week away. Is your team going to make a blockbuster move?

No, because this is the NHL, where all the GMs are whiny babies and making trades is too hard. There will be trades over the next few days, maybe even lots of them. But they’ll be by-the-numbers stuff, a pick here for a rental there, not anything big and bold. Given the extremely middling talent expected to be available, that’s all anyone can do. Your team will play it safe.

But should they? That’s a different question. And for just about every team in the league, we could at least make the case that they should be aiming much higher than they inevitably will.

So that’s what we’ll do today. Every team gets the cursory nod towards why they won’t make a blockbuster, and then a longer section on on why they should. Is that fair? No, because we’re putting a thumb on the scale here, because trades are fun and we want all of the (many) NHL GMs who read my column to get to work. Here we go...

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NHL weekend rankings: Closing the book on a memorable 4 Nations Face-Off

We’re back, because the NHL regular season is back. Not very much of it, though, with only two days’ worth of games to go on for this week’s rankings. In other words, don’t expect many big changes from a few weeks ago.

Don’t expect a ton of deep dives on those games either, because I’ll be honest, it was a little tough to get hyped for matchups like Ducks/Bruins and Sharks/Flames after eight days of high-stakes best-on-best. Just a slight downshift in intensity, you might say. So sure, we’ll talk NHL where we need to. But we’re also going to get in one last round of 4 Nations talk, starting right now.

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Five reasons Team Canada will definitely beat Team USA tonight (and vice versa)

It’s Canada vs. the USA tonight, and it’s fair to say everyone is just a little bit dialed up.

On one hand, that’s great – hockey rules when it’s played with real stakes, and it’s been a long time since a game has felt this important. But more crucially, this makes life tough for me, a hockey writer who just wants to write a simple preview without getting yelled at. Do I know who’s going to win tonight? Yes, of course I do, but I also know that half of you aren’t going to like the answer.

So here’s the deal: I’ve got five reasons why Team Canada is definitely winning, and five more why Team USA is the obvious pick. You decide which ones you want to read. The only rule is that you’re not allowed to read both, because doing that is illegal and your continued scrolling of this article signifies your acceptance of the terms and conditions.

Agreed? Cool, let’s do this.

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Is Kyle Connor McDavid the best same-name combo player in NHL history?

We’re one day away from the biggest international showdown in 15 years, with Team USA hosting Team Canada in a grudge match that will feature all sorts of bad blood both on and off the ice.

And I’m going to be honest: My tummy hurts.

I know you're probably here looking for some sort of preview, or maybe historical context. I can’t do it. Not today. Right now, I could use a distraction.

So instead, we’re going to get dumb today. Call it a palette-cleanser. This is an idea I’ve had on my “too dumb to actually do” list – yes, of course that list exists, don’t act like you’re remotely surprised – for a while now, but it popped into my head again this week while watching Team USA.

That team has a pair of Connors… sort of. They’ve got Kyle Connor on the first line, and Connor Hellebuyck is goal. That had me wondering if Kyle Connor Hellebuyck would be the best combined name in international hockey history. And if we reach over to Team Canada, would Kyle Connor McDavid be the best offensive combo?

I have no idea, so I’m going to waste some of your valuable time figuring it out.

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NHL weekend rankings, 4 Nations Face-Off edition: A Saturday night for the ages

Here are this week’s NHL power rankings: The same as last week’s.

That’s it. That’s the list. As you may have noticed, there haven’t been any NHL games played over the last week, which means there’s no reason to shift any of the rankings. We haven’t even had any trades, meaning the only team that’s seen its outlook change at all is the Golden Knights, who lost a key defenseman to injury. They haven’t been in the Top 5 for a few weeks already, so it’s status quo.

So yeah, if you’re here for the NHL rankings, thanks for the click and we’ll see you next week. But there’s also an international tournament playing out, so let’s turn an abbreviated version of the rankings into a chance to talk about that instead.

How about that Saturday night?

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Every Canada vs. USA matchup from a men's best-on-best tournament, ranked

On Saturday night, after over eight years of waiting, it’s finally back: Canada vs the USA in a best-on-best men’s hockey tournament.

OK, maybe the 4 Nations Face-Off doesn’t have quite the same claim to “best-on-best” status as some of the tournaments that have come before, given that there are only four teams competing. But those four teams are bringing the very best players they have available, so yes, this is a best-on-best matchup. And it should be a good one.

Tomorrow marks the 20th time in men’s hockey history that Team Canada has faced Team USA in a true best-on-best, by which we mean the Canada Cup, the World Cup, and the Olympics in years where the NHL sent its players. Canada has dominated the head-to-head with a record of 14-4-1, but it’s been closer since the dawn of the World Cup and Olympic era, and this year the Americans may be slight favorites.

We’ll see how it turns out, and whether we have to settle for just this one game or also get a rematch in next week’s championship game. For now, let’s look back on those 19 previous matchups and rank them from worst to best.

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Which NHL team has the best all-time roster from one country that isn't Canada?

Since we’re all in an international hockey mood this week, let’s try a roster challenge that reader Derrick sent in a while ago. His question was simple: Which NHL team could produce the best lineup of three forwards, two defensemen and one goalie from the same country, that isn’t Canada.

That sounds just about perfect for a Wednesday time-killer while we wait for tonight’s return of best-on-best hockey. Let’s see where this takes us.

And yes, before we start, I know what you’re thinking. It’s the same thought I had when I first saw Derrick’s question, and he told me he had it too. It’s that this is too easy, because the answer is obviously going to be the Detroit Red Wings and their Russian contingent. Start with the famed Russian Five, mix in Pavel Datsyuk, and this one is over before it starts. Except it isn’t, because it turns out that the Red Wings have never had a Russian goaltender, meaning they can’t ice a team for this challenge.

That tells me two things. First, today’s column won’t be 200 words long, and second, this might be tougher than it sounds. Let’s find out.

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NHL weekend rankings: No, your predictions are wrong

Yes, it’s yet another batch of predictions. But this time it’s not me or the other writers making the picks, but you. Yes, you, personally, because I’m going to assume that you took part in The Athletic’s recent survey. More than 2,500 readers did. Including you.

And that means that this week, I get to tell you why your predictions are bad.

Oh, how the turns have tabled. Give me a second while I get into full “comment section” mode. (Hits self in the head with a brick several times.) Heh heh… clicks. OK, let’s do this.

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The 4 Nations Face-Off can't have any trades, obviously... but what if it did?

There are no trades in the 4 Nations Face-Off.

There couldn’t be. It wouldn’t make any sense. Players play for their home countries, just like every other international tournament. Each team has a GM, but that guy’s job is simply to assemble the best roster he can from the players available to him. Making trades with that roster? That would be dumb.

So let’s be very, very clear: We acknowledge that what you’re about to read is indeed dumb, and we’re doing it anyway.

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Emergency Cap Court session: Does the rising cap change the verdict on these stars?

But the cap is going up.

For years, it’s been the go-to excuse for any questionable contract signed in the NHL. Aside from the years immediately following the pandemic, the NHL’s cap ceiling always goes up, at least a little bit. And that meant that any criticism of a contract would immediately be met by a condescending reminder that the cap would eventually go up. A rising cap was an optimistic fan’s – and an overspending GM’s – very best friend, even when it was obviously nonsense.

Except…

Well, now the cap is really going up. Like, way up, by an amount that’s enough to have us reconsidering what we thought we knew about how the league’s economics work. So today, I’m convening a special session of Cap Court, the feature where we put contracts on trial. We’re going to reach back into the last few editions of this column to find deals that got the dreaded “bad contract” verdict, and give them another look based on last week’s news.

I went back through the archives and found five contracts that have a solid case for appeal. Let’s see if any of those can reverse the original call.

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NHL weekend rankings: Huge cap news, more blockbuster trades, and oh yeah, games

It was another weekend where the biggest stories came off the ice, including our second consecutive Friday night blockbuster. We’ll get to the J.T. Miller trade, and the follow-up deal with the Penguins, in a bit.

But first, let’s focus on the biggest news of the weekend, a story that will have repercussions in the league for years to come. The salary cap is going up – way, way up. After years of stagnation due to the pandemic, the ceiling will rise from the current $88 million to an estimated $113.5 million over just three years, an average jump of $8.5 million per year. And it’s possible those numbers end up being even higher.

Let’s break down what this could mean.

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Grab Bag: Offseason grades, a 4 Nations request, and happier times in Vancouver

We’re halfway through the season and haven’t done a Grab Bag yet. Let’s fix that today, with your favorite Friday complete waste of time…

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How rare is it for first overall picks like Taylor Hall to play for this many teams?

Friday night’s Mikko Rantanen blockbuster was such a monster trade that the inclusion of a former Hart Trophy winner felt like a footnote. But there was Taylor Hall, heading to Carolina and his seventh stop in the NHL.

That led to what I thought was an interesting question from a reader:

What's the record for most teams played for by a first-overall pick? Hall's gotta be getting close if he doesn't already have it, that's seven teams now

— Jay (@JRTW1206) January 25, 2025

That could be a fun topic for a post. Spoiler alert: The record isn’t held by Hall… yet. And you might be surprised how many first overall picks ended up building resumes worthy of a journeyman.

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Weekend rankings: The Mikko Rantanen blockbuster shakes up the league

The word “blockbuster” gets thrown around a little too often in today’s NHL, often for trades unworthy of the term, in the same way that anything might feel like a five-star meal to a starving man. But the deal that dropped on Friday night? That one deserves the title, no questions asked.

First, the details if you somehow missed them:

Trade official:
Colorado trades Mikko Rantanen to Chicago in return for UDC Nils Juntorp
Chicago trades Mikko Rantanen (50% retained) and Taylor Hall to Carolina in return for Chicago’s own 2025 3rd round draft pick
Carolina trades Martin Necas, Jack Drury, Carolina’s own 2025…

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) January 25, 2025

There’s a lot there to unpack, but the basics are jaw-dropping enough on their own: The Avalanche traded Mikko Rantanen. And the Hurricanes gave up Martin Necas to get him.

Let’s get into it.

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Do you know your defensive defensemen? The ‘Who Didn’t He Play For?’ quiz returns

Folks, it’s time to honor the noble defensive defenseman.

I don’t mean with a new trophy, although that idea popped up again recently. Sharks’ blueliner Marc-Edouard Vlasic is the latest to call for a new award, an idea that Daniel wrote about last season. You can understand why a guy like Vlasic would be on board, but a lot of fans seem to like the idea too, especially as the Norris Trophy becomes the domain of guys who produce offense. Having a Rod Langway Trophy, or whatever else you would call it, would be a way to recognize the guys who put the actual “defense” in defenseman.

But that’s not the honor we’re awarding today, because I don’t have to ability to create new NHL trophies. (As much as I’ve tried.) No, we’ll have to settle for the greatest honor that I can bestow – their own version of the “Who Didn’t He Play For?” quiz.

This is the quiz where I give you a player and four teams, and you have to tell me which one he never played a game for. In the past, we’ve covered everything from Hall-of-Famers to Conn Smythe winners to some of history’s top goalies.

This one might be tricky, since a lot of the league’s best defensive defensemen don’t bounce around all that much, a fact we were reminded of in last week’s rundown of teams’ games played leaders. But for every Ken Daneyko or Chris Phillips or even Vlasic himself who’s a franchise lifer, there’s a journeyman who travels from town to town, clearing pucks and cross-checking spinal cords. Not every stay-at-home guy gets to stay at home, you could say. Let’s give those players their due, while seeing if you really know and appreciate the noble defensive defenseman as well as you should.

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Every goalie goal ever scored, ranked, in way too much detail

These goalies are out of control.

You already know about Alex Nedeljkovic’s record-breaking Friday night, as he became the first goaltender in NHL to record a goal and an assist in the same game. But that goal doubled down on the history by also making the 2024-25 season the first to ever feature multiple goalie goals.

In fact, we’ve now had four goalie goals in less than two years, with Linus Ullmark in February of 2023 and Tristan Jarry that November. And yes, Jarry and Nedeljkovic both pulling it off means the Penguins go in the books as the first team to have two different goalies score goals.

That’s a lot of history. And it probably makes this a good time to regroup, with a way-too-in-depth ranking of every goalie goal the NHL has ever seen.

To be clear, for our purposes today, a “goalie goal” is when they shoot the puck the length of the ice into the net. We’re not counting all the times that a goalie has been credited with a goal after being the last player to touch the puck before a team scores on itself. Those moments are neat too, but they’re more statistical quirks than they are actual achievements. So with apologies to legendary offensive names like Damian Rhodes, Chris Mason and Mika Noronen, we’re looking for shooters today. Please don't come to my house and hack my ankles, Billy Smith.

As it turns out, we have an even dozen to choose from. We’ll rank them from worst to best, factoring in crucial criteria like the circumstances and the degree of difficulty, as well as important factors like the crowd, the call and the celebration. Let's do this.

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NHL weekend rankings: McDavid’s cross-check, an imminent trade and a goalie goal

The Panthers have earned a break, meaning they drop off the Top 5 for the first time all season and free up a spot. And there are more than a few teams with a decent case to make. By points percentage, the East’s next team is the Maple Leafs, who spent their Saturday teaching us all a valuable lesson about not pointing at the scoreboard too early. The Devils and Hurricanes are right nearby, as are the Wild despite a recent slump. And if you know that this section is about projecting the eventual Cup winner and would prefer a team with a track record of playoff success, the Avs and Lightning are worth a look.

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The 9 levels of bad sports owner hell

It’s been an interesting week for NHL owners. In Buffalo, Terry Pegula watched his team get embarrassed while fans chanted for him to fire the GM or sell the team. In Philadelphia, Comcast dropped a surprise announcement of a new arena, a goal that Michael Andlauer is still chasing in Ottawa. And in maybe the biggest news, it’s the lack of an acceptable owner (among other issues) that’s standing in the way of the league’s return to Arizona.

Not quite business as usual. But not far off, in a league where a team’s owner is often just as important as the best player or the GM – and sometimes much more. If you’re lucky, your team has a good owner, or at least one that does no harm. But as with any other North American pro sport, a bad owner can feel like a death sentence for a team’s hopes at a championship.

As a fan who grew up rooting for Harold Ballard’s Maple Leafs, I have some expertise in this area. So today, let’s break down the nine levels of bad ownership hell. I sincerely hope that you don’t recognize your own team’s situation on this list.

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Which non-Hall-of-Famer played the most career games for your favorite team?

The Hurricanes retired Eric Staal’s number one Sunday, a well-deserved moment for one of the most popular players in franchise history. Sending a player’s number to the rafters can be tricky business, and some teams handle it better than others, but that’s part of the fun. At the end of the day, these honors are as much about the fans as the players, as they get a chance to celebrate a guy who was important to them.

Next up for Staal’s legacy: The Hall-of-Fame debate, which will be a tough one. He won’t hash it out here, but it’s fair to say that you could see it going either way depending on which way the wind is blowing whenever the secretive committee gets together. My gut says he doesn’t get in, but my gut has been wrong about this stuff before.

Either way, seeing Staal get his flowers in Carolina got me thinking about a question: Who is each team’s all-time leader in games played among guys who didn’t make the Hall of Fame? Lots of fans could tell you their team’s all-time leader in games played, because it’s somebody like Gordie Howe, Ray Bourque, Mike Modano, Sidney Crosby… you get the idea. But what about the guy who stuck around forever, but wasn’t a superstar? Some of those guys have interesting stories, while others fall into that category of “you had to be there to truly appreciate it” for a fan base that watched them forever.

Today, let’s go through every team and see which player answers our question. (Well, almost every team – there’s not much point using Vegas or Seattle here, since they haven’t been around long enough to have a true lifer in the books. Sorry, newbs, check back in another generation or two.)

Do you know who your team’s guy will be? How many of the 30 teams do you think you’ll be able to guess? Lock in your answers in now, because we’re about to find out…

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Weekend NHL rankings: The Blue Jackets are the league’s best story and it’s not close

We’re past the midway mark of the season, which means we can’t just hand-wave away any surprises with a dismissive “too early”. That’s bad news for people like me who make preseason predictions, because it means we might have to accept that we were wrong. Key word: might.

For example, back before opening night I grouped the league into four divisions, including one for the true contenders. Of those eight teams, only three – Edmonton, Vegas and Florida – have appeared in the Top 5 since early December. That’s partly because we’ve had teams like Washington and Winnipeg that have forced themselves into weekly spots. But it’s also because five of my so-called sure things have been varying degrees of disappointments.

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DGB Mailbag: Ovechkin’s record-breaker, the Jack Adams curse, and 4 Nations fights

We haven’t done a mailbag since just after the season started. Remember back then? When the Rangers and Bruins were elite, the Predators were ready to contend, the Habs and Blue Jackets were write-offs and the Sabres were going to take the Capitals’ playoff spot? Good times. In related news, it’s possible we’re all dumb.

On that note, let’s see what was on your mind this time around.

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Ranking 25 of the NHL's biggest blockbuster trades from the last 25 years

Happy new year. How did you enjoy the first quarter-century of the 2000s?

That question probably makes you either feel old (because there’s no way it’s been that long) or young (because you haven’t even been around that whole time). I’m solidly in the first camp, and that’s why I’m going to distract myself from my feelings by talking about trades.

Today’s topic: Let’s rank 25 of the biggest trades of the last 25 years. Specifically, we’re going to pick the single biggest trade of each calendar year from 2000 through 2024, then rank those from least to most important. Admittedly, “biggest” and “most important” are pretty vague criteria with tons of room for subjectivity, but that’s the way we like it.

To give you an idea of how much time we have to work through, the very first NHL trade of the 2000s involved Stephane Richer. Yes, the guy who used to score 50 goals for the Canadiens back in the 80s. He was apparently a St. Louis Blue for a minute way back when. You learn something new everyday, even when you are extremely old.

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NHL weekend rankings: Offseason regrets, Lightning surge, and are the Habs good?

The holidays are done, you’re sitting in a home surrounded by all your new stuff, and you’re probably thinking: I don’t need some of this junk after all. I hope I kept the receipts.

A few NHL teams know how you feel.

We did this last year, and it’s interesting to go back and look at that list. I think it holds up fine – there aren’t any obvious cases where a player turned it around and made the doubters look bad. But what stands out is that even with a couple of honorable mentions slipped in, only one name from the list is still on the same team. That would be Anaheim’s Alex Killorn and his long-term UFA deal that everyone thought was too expensive. But the six other names had all found new homes by opening night, including three – Pierre-Luc Dubois, Joonas Korpisalo and Ryan Johansen – who were traded, despite having contracts that felt unmovable. I guess there’s some optimism to be found there if you see a guy on your favorite team on the list below.

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Mid-season mailbag?

Hey folks...

It feels like a good time to do amidseason mailbag. I need your questions. Fun ones, silly ones, complicated ones, simple ones, about everything from fictional awards to history to real, actual hockey news. Topics could include the season so far, WJC, Four Nations, or anything else. Please bring it. Send your questions, comments and rants via email at dgbmailbag@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Sean

Florida vs. California: Debating the NHL's best state of the salary cap era

Which state has been the NHL’s best of the cap era?

There are four states with multiple NHL teams, but two stand out above the others for our purposes today. New York has three teams but no championships to show for the cap era, and are, to put it mildly, going through it right now. And while Pennsylvania has three titles to go with plenty of big stars and memorable moments, virtually all of those have come from the Penguins, which would make for a one-sided combination.

That leaves us with two contenders, at least for today: Florida and California, the only two states who can boast multiple cap-era Cup winners. And with the Tampa Bay Lightning arriving in California for a three-game road swing that starts on Thursday, this feels like as good a time as any to have the debate.

We’ll divide the question into categories, and then make the case for each side. Eric Stephens will represent California, because he pulls double-duty covering the Ducks and Kings and knows the state’s NHL situation better than anyone. And Sean McIndoe will take Florida, because he’s an eastern-based writer and has therefore never watched a West Coast team play in his life. (That was, of course, a harmless little joke. Sean has indeed watched a California team play. Once. It did not go well.)

It's California vs. Florida, and Eric vs. Sean. Ring the bell, and let's see where this goes.

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Ranking the 10 best (and 5 worst) games for Alex Ovechkin to break the record

Alexander Ovechkin is back, and the chase for history has resumed.

Ovechkin returned to the Washington lineup on Friday, needing 27 goals to pass Wayne Gretzky for the all-time crown. He wasted little time in getting the first of those that night, and then added enough on Sunday in Detroit, bringing him to 870 on his career heading into last night’s matchup with Boston.

A broken leg ended up costing Ovechkin just 16 games, which is on the low end of what we were told to expect. It’s still a decent chunk of time, and mean that catching Gretzky this season is far from a sure thing. Can he still do it? Of course he can, and everyone knows it.

But when? After all, if you’re going to build towards the fall of arguably the greatest individual record in the sport, you’d at least hope that the hockey gods have a sense of drama. And now that he’s back, it’s not too early to look ahead at the Capitals’ schedule and wonder: Which games would be the best ones to see some history?

Luckily for those hockey gods, I’ve gone ahead and done the work for them. Heading into last night, Ovechkin was 25 goals away from the record, and the Caps had 46 games left. If we assume that even the sport’s greatest sniper’s absolute ceiling would be to score at a goal-per-game pace, that takes us to the first week of March and a roughly 20-game window in which the record could realistically fall (although we’ll bend that rule with one exception you’ll see below).

Let’s rank the best and worst games for it to happen.

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