NHL weekend rankings: The Pacific stinks, and other emerging storylines

It was an unusually busy weekend in the NHL, with 25 games meaning the majority of the league was in action twice. That gives us plenty to dig into, including some storylines that are getting hard to ignore.

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Buffalo might be the greatest bandwagon team ever. Sabres fans, do you want this?

Today’s column is based on a question that I’m genuinely curious about, and we’ll get to that in a minute. But let’s start with a few statements of fact, none of which should be in dispute.

Fact: The Sabres haven’t made the playoffs in 15 years.

Fact: That’s tied with the New York Jets for the longest streak in North American pro sports.

Fact: More impressively, it’s the longest drought in the 100+ year history of the NHL.

Fact: The drought is ending this year.

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NHL Cap Court: Do William Nylander or Adrian Kempe have bad contracts? Does anyone?

It’s been a while since we’ve broken out the Cap Court gimmick. The idea here is that we pick five players and try to figure out if they have bad contract from a team perspective. Too much money, too much term, that sort of thing. We make the case for and against, and find a few comparables to help us. Then we deliver a verdict.

Nice and simple. Or at least it’s supposed to be. But now that the salary cap’s upper limit is growing again, and growing quickly, does anyone have a bad contract anymore? Aside from the obvious misfires that nobody’s debating, just about every deal out there could be defended with a shrug and a mumbled “cap’s going up”.

It’s enough to make it tempting to hang a Sprit Halloween sign on the old cap courtroom. But this is still one of my favorite recurring bits, and we haven’t tried it all season. So let’s give it a shot. Five more names, five more contracts, and five more verdicts. Can we find a guilty verdict among them? We'll find out, and we'll start with one of the biggest names out there...

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NHL weekend rankings: Which playoff bubble teams are facing the most pressure?

It’s mid-March, the Olympic break and trade deadline are in the rearview mirror, and the stretch run to the playoffs is well and truly on. Exactly on month from today, the NHL regular season will see its final night of action. Can you feel the pressure?

Probably. But how much pressure you feel might vary based on which teams you care about, because in the NHL, not all pressure is created equal. Every team wants to succeed. But there’s a difference between wanting and needing, and there’s a difference between playing with house money and going all-in with your last dollar.

So as we cross the threshold into the season’s final month, let’s have a look at the playoff bubble and rank the teams based purely on how much pressure they’re under to make it. We’re going to ignore the teams that are all but in, as well as the ones who’d need a miracle. That leaves about ten teams that are truly on fence. Here are the five that the most to lose if they, well, lose.

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NHL Tank Index: Which bad teams are best positioned to boost their draft lottery odds?

We’re entering the stretch drive of the NHL regular season, and about a third of the league’s teams are already playing mostly meaningless games. Some of these fan bases are actively rooting for losses, so their teams have the best possible draft lottery odds of landing the No. 1 pick.

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