Trades, traditions, and jean shorts: A reason to be thankful for all 32 NHL teams

It’s Thanksgiving, at least among some of the lesser hockey countries. So today, I’m going to list a reason that I’m thankful for each NHL team.

That’s it. No gimmicks, or clever twists. I promise I’m not even going to do the “Thanks for reminding us it could always be worse” backhanded compliment thing to anyone. Just one sincere, if slightly bizarre, reason to say a quick thanks to every team.

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NHL weekend rankings: Looking at the Kings, Blue Jackets, and Canadian panic

If you’re American, this is Thanksgiving week. There’s a good chance that you’re making plans to see friends and family. You might be travelling, in which case we wish you the best of luck with all that. By Thursday, if all goes well, you’ll have a belly full of turkey and a full slate of NFL games to doze to.

If you’re a Canadian, you’re probably busy panicking about your NHL team.

For our purposes, that second group is more interesting than the first. So let’s take a quick tour around the country and ask the question: Just how worried should you be right now?

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I have stumbled on incontrovertible proof that the hockey gods hate the loser point

 This post was originally going to be about something else. As often happens, I got sidetracked and went down a rabbit hole. And I’m glad I did, because I appear to have found something very important.

I think I’ve discovered a relatively new but immutable law of the hockey universe, and I need to share it with you now because it could have crucial implications for the immediate future of two teams, starting as early as tonight.

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All 29 times the Leafs have traded away a first rounder, ranked from best to worst

I love trades and I love rankings, and I’m a Maple Leafs fan so it goes without saying that I love misery. For today’s post, I figured I’d combine all of those things into one piece, with a ranking of all the times that the Maple Leafs have traded away a first-round pick. After all, it feels like a timely topic right about now.

After some digging, I found there have been 29 separate trades in Leafs history in which they’ve traded away a total of 31 first-round picks, so I did what any normal person would do and ranked them all, from the ones that turned out best to worst.

Two things surprised me about that. First, 29 seems low. The Leafs seem to do this kind of thing a lot. I was pretty sure Brad Treliving had traded away 29 firsts on his own, although I guess the math doesn’t quite work out on that one. Give him time, guys, he’s working on it.

The second surprise was the best-to-worst part, since that implies that some of these trades have worked out in the Leafs’ favor. I didn’t think they’d all be disasters, mind you, because some of these are going to be boring draft floor swaps that nobody even remembers. But finding actual wins? Impossible. Or so I thought.

It goes without saying that we're doing this with total benefit of hindsight, which isn't fair to the GMs but too bad for them. Let's go on this journey together...

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NHL weekend rankings: These teams are who we thought they were (maybe)

The biggest story through the season’s first month or so was that nobody knew anything.

OK, sure, there were a few teams that stuck to the script. The Avs were good. The Predators were bad. But in between, it was chaos. Teams that nobody thought would be all that good were dominating. Teams we thought would be terrible were competitive, or better. And so many presumed contenders were struggling that you could barely hear the goal horns over the sounds of all the windows slamming shut.

It seemed to set up a wild season where you could just the preseason projections entirely. But then, over the last few weeks, something changed. Not entirely, and there are still plenty of surprises playing out. But doesn’t it feel like the hockey gods are trying hard to slam the brakes on this runaway season?

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