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.
Not because he’s playing poorly. Quite the opposite – even at 37, he’s still scoring and playing a strong two-way game. No, the sad part is that it’s not anywhere near enough for the Penguins. With a sub-.500 record in a surprisingly tough division, their seasons already looks like a lost cause.
If so, it will be third straight year that Crosby misses the playoffs. And with two more years left on his extension, and little in the way of optimism that the aging Penguins can get any better, getting to five straight doesn’t seem unrealistic. Assuming he doesn’t push for a trade, it’s legitimately possible that we’ve already seen the last of Sidney Crosby in NHL games that actually matter.
Maybe things will turn around in Pittsburgh. But if not, Crosby could at least take some solace in knowing that he won’t be the only legend to end his career with little or no playoff action. It happens more than you might think, especially when we’re talking about players who are still performing at a high level. You’d think the hockey gods would make sure that every star got the sendoff they deserve. But for every Ray Bourque or Lanny McDonald or Mark Recchi who goes out on top, or even an Adam Oates who at least comes close, there are stars who never get that chance.
Let’s remember a few of those guys today, if only to make Sid feel better. OK, fine, to make me feel better about where Crosby might be headed.
The Edmonton Oilers have a chance to make history this week, as they’ll look to stretch a win streak that currently stands at 16 games. They’ll try to get to 17 tonight in Vegas and then 18 on Friday in Anaheim, which would break the all-time NHL record currently held by the 1992-93 Penguins.
In a way, that feels fitting. The Penguins and Oilers have felt like two teams connected for the better part of four decades. Wayne Gretzky gave way to Mario Lemieux as the league’s best player, around the same time that the Oilers dynasty was stepping aside for the Penguins. A generation later, it was Sidney Crosby passing the torch to Connor McDavid. And along the way, we’ve been able to debate Mark Messier vs. Jaromir Jagr, and Leon Draisaitl vs. Evgeni Malkin, and Paul Coffey vs., uh, Paul Coffey.
OK, great. So which team is better?
I don’t mean right now. I mean which team wins the all-time battle? The Penguins joined the league in 1967 and the Oilers arrived in 1979, and they’ve each won five Stanley Cups, tied for the most since they’ve both been in the league. They’ve both had legendary players. They both have devoted fan bases, and also plenty of other fans who can’t stand them.
The NHL fixed the skills competition, and all it took was the right reward.
Specifically, it took $1,000,000, which was the prize offered to the winner of tonight’s 12-man showdown. There was also an additional $100,000 available to the top goalie. And that, along with the various format changes, seem to have made the difference. The players seemed engaged. They actually tried. Well, almost all of them, but we'll get to that.
The bottom line is that apparently, these guys respond to the promise of the right reward. OK then, I’m in. Let’s hand out a few more.
Since today’s generation of player wants to be bribed rewarded for their hard work, let’s keep the good vibes going. I can’t offer another million because I spent it all on buying one souvenir hat for my kids, but I can get creative. Let’s give out 15 awards for the best and worst of all-star weekend so far, based on some of the event's previous memorable moments.
Heading into last night’s action, there had been 762 skaters and 74 goalies that had appeared in at least one NHL game this season. That’s well over 800 names, ranging from big stars to no-names, grizzled veterans to fresh-faced rookies, guys with personalities and lots who never say a word, and everything in between.
Can we find just ten that everyone likes?
Good luck. Hockey fans are notoriously difficult to please, which is a nice way of saying we’re all crusty jerks who are simmering with rage at all times, all carrying a long list of players we’re sworn to never forgive for some sin we don’t even remember. You like your own team, sometimes, but that’s about it. Maybe there’s one or two guys on other teams that you respect, or even like.
But ten? Forget it.
Well, I love a challenge. The last time I did this was back in 2019, and the results were mixed. I managed to come up with a few names that most of you seemed to agree on, including Henrik Lundqvist and Patrick Marleau. Both of those guys have rudely retired, so I can’t use them again. In fact, I’m going to go one further: This time around, I can’t use anyone who made the cut back in 2019. That means still-active names like Patrice Bergeron, Marc-Andre Fleury and Phil Kessel are off the table too. This is going to impossible.
That’s never stopped me before, so let’s do this. Ten active players, ten reasons why we should all like them, and ten exceptions that prove the rule.
On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Ian's on vacation so Jesse steps in to host
- The Rangers come back and Sidney Crosby is hurt
- The Panthers finally look like the Panthers
- I make a strong argument in favor of one team winning, then realize I picked the other team
- Thoughts on the other series, and the Thursday night slate
- Jesse is too young to have heard the "Yellow Sunday" story and I'm a little too exicted to tell him about it
- Listener mail 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)
On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- The Canadiens hire a coach with no coaching experience
- What's the worst-case scenario for Martin St. Louis in Montreal?
- We can hate Brad Marchand again
- Has any coach had a weirder calendar year than Dominique Ducharme just did?
- Sidney Crosby approaches a milestone
- Is Darryl Sittler's ten-point night an unbreakable record?
- Listener 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)
Well, we made it through 2021. Was it a good year? It was not, but it’s over, and 2022 can’t possibly be any worse, unless it totally is. On that cheery note, let’s close out the year with a mailbag.
Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.
What if Ovechkin wins the Art Ross and Rocket Richard this year? At the time of writing, he’s one goal and two points behind the league leaders. He closes in on the all-time goals record and beats McDavid for points in a season, both very impressive. Do we start talking about him as one of the greatest five players ever? Who gets bumped down? – James O.
It’s kind of interesting that we’re not already talking about him as one of the best ever, right? Maybe I’ve missed it, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone make the case that Ovechkin will belong in the top five or even top ten by the time he’s done.
The top five debate in the NHL is always fun. Most fans would agree that there’s a Mount Rushmore of Gretzky, Mario, Orr and Howe as the uncontested top four, and then a battle for the fifth spot that includes candidates like Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau, Bobby Hull, Phil Esposito and Jaromir Jagr, maybe with a defenseman like Ray Bourque or Nicklas Lidstrom or even a goalie in the mix too. But I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Ovechkin nominated for that spot.
You do hear that for Sidney Crosby, who’s sometimes mentioned as a guy who might be number five by the time he’s done. And it kind of feels like we settled the whole Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate a while ago, with everyone agreeing that Crosby was better, if only by a narrow margin. Maybe we need to rethink that. Crosby is a center, which is the more important position, and he has more Cups and gold medals, plus an additional scoring title. But Ovechkin has more MVPs, far more all-star picks, and might end up breaking one of the biggest career records in the league. If he keeps his current pace and has another elite season this year, doesn’t that have to put him in the running for Crosby’s title as the best of the pre-McDavid era? And if so, does he end up getting that coveted fifth spot?
One more Ovechkin question…
This article from a couple weeks ago wants to give credit to Ovechkin’s overtime goals (!?!) as for why he might pass Wayne Gretzky’s goal-scoring title. I feel like this is a pretty ridiculous take to have, considering Ovechkin has been robbed of approximately two full seasons worth of games and goals due to labor strife and a pandemic. Can we project out where Ovechkin would likely be for total goals today, given when in his career he had to miss those games, and how much more likely he’d be to pass The Great One had he not lost all those games? – Michael L.
I’m glad you asked this, because I feel like we need to clear this up once and for all before Ovechkin gets too close to Gretzky’s record. I keep seeing fans who want to give him credit for goals he would have scored during the pandemic or lockouts, maybe in anticipation of him just falling short of Gretzky. And while I get where they’re coming from, that’s just not how this works.
An interesting fact about mailbags is that nobody reads the intro. You still have to have one, because it will look weird if you just jump directly into the questions without some sort of preamble. But as soon as your readers see “mailbag” in the headline they just automatically skip ahead to the bolded section that means the first question, so you can pretty much write anything you want and it’s fine because literally nobody will see it. When I was three my parents dressed me up as a Habs fan for Halloween and they still have the photos. On to this month’s questions!
Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.
When is the right time for the Habs to start the official tank? Assuming it hasn’t started already? – Christopher C.
I’m a Habs fan, and I’ve switched over to rooting against them this year so we can get Shane Wright. Some of my friends think it’s too early for that. Could you provide us with some guidance? – Dan H.
Two separate but related questions. But first, Gary Bettman has asked me to remind you all that tanking isn’t a real thing. It doesn’t happen. NHL GMs would never tank, even though the league’s entire system of incentives means that it is very clearly the optimal strategy for bad teams, because dot dot dot reasons. Please ignore decades of circumstantial evidence, outright confessions, and basic common sense. Tanking isn’t real, and the media made it up.
Now that we have that out of the way, yes, of course the Habs should tank.
We’re two weeks into the season, and your favorite team probably has at least one player that’s off to a bad start. Maybe they’re not posting numbers, or maybe you’re barely noticing them, or maybe they just look lost out there. Whatever the case, they’re not meeting expectations, and that’s putting it kindly.
And you know what that means: The guy’s a bum. A has-been, or maybe a never-was, or perhaps somehow both at the same time. You should give up on them now.
Or not. That’s the fun of pro sports, where sometimes a slump is just a slump. String together a few bad weeks in January and maybe nobody notices. But do it at the start of the season, and everyone assume it will last all season long. Sometimes that matters, and sometimes it doesn’t.
So today, we’re going to build a roster out of terrible starts from NHL history. Twelve forwards, six defensemen and two goalies, all of whom stunk at the start of a season. I’ll give you facts, you can join me in booing the player for being a bum, and then we’ll reveal who we’re talking about and how it all turned out.
The idea here is to give you some hope for the early-season duds on your favorite team. Hey, a little foolish optimism never hurt anyone, so let’s remember some awful starts.
First line
The bum: This flashy mega-star is a former Art Ross winner and finished second in scoring last year. But this year he’s barely doing anything as the calendar flips from October to November. Eleven games into the season, he hasn’t had so much as a single multi-point game, and is sitting at a pedestrian eight points overall, way below his career average. Even worse, he’s already a -8 on the season, cementing his reputation as a one-way threat who barely knows how to find the defensive zone. Only now he’s not scoring at the other end either. Boo this man!
How it turned out: He breaks out with a four-point night in game 12, one of three he’ll have in the next two months. He’ll end up missing 20 games to injury but still finishes the season with almost 100 points, third in the league in points-per-game. Oh, and then he wins each of the next four scoring titles.
The bum: Expectations were sky-high for this established star who’d just won a Hart to go with a Rocket Richard. He looked OK early, scoring his first two goals of the season in his second game. But those would be his last goals for almost a month, as he went his next nine games without scoring, and as the slump went on he wasn’t even getting many shots. He’d finally score again by the second week of November, but you can kiss those trophies goodbye, Slumpy.
But you just booed: Alexander Ovechkin in 2008-09.
How it turned out: He’d score in each of his next five games and never really slowed down from there. He’d finish the season with 56 goals, 110 points and the second most shots in the history of the NHL, and would indeed capture both the Hart and the Richard for a second straight season.
The bum: This player had been considered an elite superstar for a full decade. But everyone slows down eventually, and this guy dropped off big time. He went pointless in his first five games and nine of his first ten, and by mid-November he was on pace for just ten goals and 40 points in a full season. Hey, nobody dominates forever.
How it turned out: Game 19 launched a scoring streak, and Crosby stayed red hot for most of the rest of the season. He’d end up earning first-team all-star honors, was Hart Trophy runner-up, and won the first of two straight Conn Smythe Trophies as the Penguins captured back-to-back Cups.
On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- A Penguins surprise as Sidney Crosby will miss the start of the season
- Is the Pens' playoff spot in danger?
- The most intriguing players for this coming season
- With an Olympics return on the horizon, should we keep the World Cup?
- Pierre Dorion gets an extension and declares the Senators' rebuid over
- Jesse Granger on which teams have seen their Cup odds change the most since July
- A look back on one of the weirdest and most underrated blockusters in NHL history, the Rod Langway trade
- Plus listener mail 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)
The NHL playoffs are an endless grind of grief and disappointment, a joyless slog filled with underperforming stars and unfair outcomes that serve no purpose beyond sapping whatever remaining traces of happiness might still exist in the deep crevices of our exhausted brains. Nobody enjoys any of it, and there is growing consensus that postseason hockey should be banned. The maddening spiral of pointless cruelty and abject misery serves only to foster a sense of deep foreboding as we crawl towards our inevitable…
(Checks earpiece.)
Huh. I’m being told that all of that might only apply to Leaf fans. Apparently other teams occasionally win in the postseason? Some fans get to be… happy? That sounds weird to me but I guess I’ll take your word for it.
But yeah… disappointment. Let’s celebrate it. As we close in on the end of the third round of this year’s postseason, it’s time to build out our annual team of playoff underperformers. We’ll go with a full 20-man roster, with at least one rep from each of the eliminated teams. Keep in mind that this won’t necessarily be the postseason’s worst performers, since that would include a bunch of fourth-liners who nobody expects to contribute. Instead, we’re going for disappointment, which factors in the higher expectations that some stars carry.
Have you practiced your weary sighs and sad head-shaking? Good, let’s get started…
Goaltenders
Tristan Jarry, Penguins
Every Penguins fan knew he’d be here, and they probably would have shown up at my house in protest if he wasn’t. We could mention the .888 save percentage, or the 3.18 goals against. We could focus on the 16 goals against in the last four games of the series. Or we could just remember this moment, which was probably the turning point of the Penguins’ postseason.
Sergei Bobrovsky, Panthers
I feel like Jarry would be the consensus pick for the starter on this team, but his numbers were actually significantly better than Bobrosvky’s .841 and 5.33, which would be enough to get you benched in the mid-80s Norris Division. It was enough in 2021 too, as the league’s second highest-paid goaltender lost his job not once but twice, and to two different guys. That’s generally a sign that a series isn’t going well.
First pair
John Carlson, Capitals
Like a lot of players on this roster (and pretty much everyone who takes the ice in the playoffs), Carlson was playing through injury, in his case a bad knee. Still, a guy with a reputation as one of the league’s top offensive blueliners managed just a pair of assists against Boston, both on the powerplay, and his underlying numbers were awful. You could make a strong case that Dmitry Orlov was even worse, but Orlov wasn’t the Norris runner-up last year, so Carlson takes the disappointment crown.
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Claude Julien is fired minutes before we record
- Greg reports from Lake Tahoe
- The Artemi Panarin situation
- Is Sidney Crosby headed for all-time top 5 status
- Let's trade Jack Eichel
- And lots more, including a weird new quiz...
On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
Katie Strang joins us to talk about her blockbuster Coyotes report, including:
- How a story like this comes together
- What she's thinking the night before a big story drops
- Her thoughts on that Bill Armstrong threat
- What's the deal with those mysterious investigators lurking around?
- What the next chapter of this story could bring...
Plus:
- That Maple Leafs collapse
- Has Sidney Crosby reserved his spot in the all-time top five?
- The Hawks and Panthers surprise
- This day in history, listener questions 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)
We did this once already, back in June, and the results were … well, they were interesting. Having a placeholder team win the first overall pick created a bizarre scenario where the chance to pick left winger Alexis Lafreniere would be “won” by a qualifying round loser. We just didn’t know which one. Tonight, we find out.
It’s a crucially important moment because Lafreniere is an extraordinary prospect who should have an immediate impact on whichever team lands him. Now, instead of winding up on a truly needy franchise like the Red Wings or Senators, he’s going to go to a team that’s already good — and maybe very good.
That seems like something worth breaking out a ranking for. We already did this part too, back in June, when we were rooting for unintentional comedy and Team Chaos. We got our wish, but perspectives may have changed. So rather than make multiple lists, we’re just going to do one big one, covering all eight teams from a variety of angles to see if we can figure out who neutral hockey fans should be rooting for tonight.
We’re looking for five factors:
How much they need it
It’s of course true that every team in the league could use a star winger, especially one on an entry-level deal. But the whole idea behind basing draft order and lottery odds on the standings, I’m told, is that we’re supposed to want to help the very worst teams. That won’t happen this year – sorry Detroit – but we can still hope that Lafreniere doesn’t go to a team that’s already stacked, either now or in terms of their future.
How much they deserve it
A tricky category since nobody “deserves” to win a random drawing. But some teams warrant it more than others, especially the ones that haven’t had much lottery luck or don’t often pick high.
Outrage factor
It’s the nature of lotteries that whichever team wins will be happy and everyone else will be mad. But how mad? It goes without saying that the madder, the better.
League impact
Think big picture. Would this result be good news for an NHL that will have a new star to market and a revenue deficit to make up?
Alternate reality comedy potential
A unique category this year, thanks to the weird lottery setup. The league is basically drawing a series here, meaning that whichever team beat the lottery winner in the play-in round will have cost themselves Lafreniere. This will be funnier for some teams than others.
I also reserve the right to award or subtract bonus points if I see fit. Let’s see where this takes us.
8. Florida Panthers
How much they need it: 5/10. The Panthers have a ton of young talent, especially up front, led by Jonathan Huberdeau (who’s a left winger) and Aleksander Barkov. Based on their results over the years, though, there’s no question the Panthers could use some additional help.
How much they deserve it: 3/10. They’ve already won the first overall pick in the lottery three times, although they only used the pick once, trading it in 2002 and 2003. They still have Aaron Ekblad to show for their 2014 win but haven’t picked higher than tenth since then.
Outrage factor: 2/10. Minimal, even given their lottery history. There’d be the usual grumbling from hardcore Canadian traditionalists who are mad the Panthers even exist, but that’s about it.
League impact: 5/10. The Panthers are a small market, but they’re one the league would like to see on firmer ground.
Alternate reality comedy potential: 4/10. The Islanders could have used Lafreniere, and it would have been mildly amusing to watch Senators fans realize they just lost a protected first-round pick.
Bonus points: +1 for the Panthers being the only team with a history of trading the first overall pick, which would let us at least pretend there was a possibility of a draft floor blockbuster coming. But -1 for all the “Lafreniere will sell a lot of tickets when they move to Quebec” jokes.
Total: 19/50. With no high scores in any category, this would be a perfectly acceptable but not-especially-interesting result, which means nobody who isn’t a Panthers fan should be rooting for it.
7. Edmonton Oilers
How much they need it: 8/10. An elite winger to play with Connor McDavid? Yeah, I’d say they could use a guy like that.
How much they deserve it: -5/10. That’s right, minus-five. They’re already a reasonably good team, at least according to this year’s standings. Far more importantly, they’re basically the poster child for NHL lottery luck. They’ve had the first overall pick four times in the last decade, three of those thanks to lottery wins. And that includes by far the biggest lottery win of the cap era when they jumped past Buffalo and Arizona to win the Connor McDavid sweepstakes in 2015.
That was the year I did my first ever lottery rankings. Here’s what I wrote then: “Look, I’m all for fairness and integrity, but if the Oilers win the lottery, then the league absolutely has to scrap the results and run it again. Don’t even delete the footage or try to cover it up — just have Bill Daly walk into the frame screaming, ‘Take two!’ while angrily stuffing ping-pong balls back into the machine.”
Then they won, McDavid stared into the abyss on live television, and five years later he’s won one playoff round. We can’t let this happen to Lafreniere. The league absolutely needs to “forget” to put the Oilers’ ball into the machine.
Outrage factor: 10/10. People will be beyond furious. It would be kind of amazing.
With no new NHL action these days, the league’s broadcast partners have been dipping into their archives to fill airtime with memorable games from the past. And it’s been pretty cool. We all miss live hockey, but getting to rewatch some old classics isn’t a bad way to spend an evening.
For example, over the weekend Canadian viewers were treated to replays of a pair of classic Canucks Game 7s: their showdown against the Flames in 2004 and their grudge match against the Blackhawks in 2011. A few days earlier, both Sportsnet and Fox Sports West showed the Kerry Fraser game between the Leafs and Kings from 1993.
All memorable games. But they had something else in common, and you may have noticed it. They all featured a very specific type of goal. They all had a Zelepukin.
OK, I’m guessing you don’t call it that, since that’s a label I’ve been using in my own head over the years. But you know the moment. A Zelepukin is when a team scores a dramatic goal to tie a crucial game at the end of regulation but then goes on to lose that game in overtime.
A Zelepukin goal is always a weird moment in hindsight. When the tying goal happens, it’s euphoric for one fan base and crushing for the other. But then the script gets flipped in overtime, and you realize that the Zelepukin just prolonged the misery. Sometimes, the tying goal itself is all but forgotten, replaced in the collective memory by the overtime goal it spawned.
And that’s where the paradox of the Zelepukin kicks in – if your team scored it, you might end up wondering if you’d rather it had never happened at all.
That question has always kind of fascinated me. So today, let’s look at those three Zelepukin goals we’ve been able to relive in recent days, as well as a few more famous ones from hockey history. We’ll start with the one that might have been the most memorable in NHL history. If you’re not sure which one that is, well, the name might give you a hint.
May 27, 1994: Devils vs. Rangers
The setup: It’s Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final, with the Rangers hosting the Devils at Madison Square Garden. New York has won the Presidents’ Trophy and is looking to punch a ticket to the final and a chance to end a 54-year Cup drought. But the underdog Devils are giving them all they can handle. The series is already legendary, having featured Mark Messier’s infamous Guarantee that kept the Rangers alive in Game 6. Now it all comes down to one winner-take-all showdown.
The situation: Game 7 turns into a fierce defensive battle, with Mike Richter and Martin Brodeur trading saves in a 0-0 tie until Brian Leetch gets the Rangers on the board midway through the second. As the third period ticks away, it starts to look like that goal will hold up as the winner.
The Zelepukin: With Brodeur on the bench and 18 seconds left, the teams line up for a faceoff in the Rangers’ end. Messier wins the draw but the Rangers can’t clear, and a goalmouth scramble leads to a golden scoring opportunity. Richter makes what seems like an impossible save, but a certain Devil is there to hack away at the rebound: Tom Chorske!
No, just kidding. It is, of course, Valeri Zelepukin.
And just like that, 18,000 delirious Rangers fans go dead quiet. For at least a little while.
But then: In arguably the most famous overtime of the era, the two teams don’t score through one period before Stephane Matteau’s harmless-looking wraparound attempt ends it. The goal isn’t especially pretty, but the call will live forever.
Do you wish it never happened? If you’re a Devils fan, it’s quite possible that Zelepukin’s goal, at the moment it happened, was the highlight of your entire life as a sports fan. But in hindsight, if you could wave a magic wand and make it disappear, I think you’d have to. Sure, losing 1-0 on a Brian Leetch goal would have been painful. But if you never had to hear Stephane Matteau’s name screamed at you ever again, I think it would be worth it.
April 26, 2011: Blackhawks vs. Canucks
The setup: By 2011, the Hawks and Canucks had managed to brew up a surprisingly heated inter-division rivalry, one that had seen Chicago eliminate very good Vancouver teams in both 2009 and 2010. The Hawks had gone on to win the Cup after that second series, but the Canucks were the favorites heading into their 2011 rematch after a franchise-record 117-point season. All they had to do was slay the dragon.
And through three games, they did. The Canucks built a 3-0 series lead, one that the history books said should be all but insurmountable. But then the Hawks fought back with a blowout win, and then another, and then an overtime win in Game 6 to tie the series. That set up a Game 7 in Vancouver where the Canucks would either fight back with one of the biggest wins in franchise history, or suffer a loss so devastating that they’d have no choice but to detonate the roster. No middle ground.
The situation: Alex Burrows opened the scoring early in the first, and it seemed like that might be enough as Roberto Luongo held off a surprisingly toothless Chicago attack. Late in the third, the Hawks’ chances went from bad to worse when Duncan Keith took a tripping penalty to leave them shorthanded. All the Canucks had to do was play keep away for two minutes, then take it home.
The Zelepukin: A neutral zone turnover led to a harmless looking 2-on-4 rush for the Hawks. But as it turns out, Jonathan Toews is pretty dangerous, even from all fours.
And just like that, the Canucks were headed to sudden death on the verge of what would have been viewed as one of the most epic chokes in NHL history.
Do you wish it never happened? Watch that overtime winner again. Do you see how happy Burrows is? It’s the highlight of his entire career. If you were a Hawks fans, would you want to take that away from him? Of course you would. It’s not even a hard question. This Zelepukin clearly needs to go.
Last Friday was the 10th anniversary of Sidney Crosby’s golden goal, the overtime winner against the United States that delivered Olympic gold in front of a delirious Vancouver crowd.
It was a remarkable goal that still holds up as a “where were you” moment to this day, and the anniversary spurred a rush of pride and patriotism among Canadian hockey fans. But it also prompted something else, something far more rare and wonderful: a good tweet.
Specifically, a tweet by user @thupka1982 asking a seemingly simple question: What’s the Mount Rushmore of Team Canada goals? In other words, which four stand above the others as the best and/or most memorable in Canadian international hockey history?
I’m going to take the liberty of expanding the question to not just goals, but moments. The beauty of the question is that the first three are obvious. Just about everyone would give you the same list: Crosby’s Golden Goal, Paul Henderson’s winner in 1972 and Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux teaming up to beat the Soviets in 1987. You can’t get hockey fans to agree on anything, but I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t have those three moments on their list.
But what’s No. 4? That’s where it gets interesting. Today, with permission from our pal @thupka1982, let’s break down some of the candidates.
Darryl Sittler’s fake shot
The game: The inaugural Canada Cup in 1976 was meant to expand on the success of the 1972 Summit Series, with the expectation that we’d get a rematch between Team Canada and the Soviets. Instead, Canada ended up facing an underdog Czechoslovakian team in the final.
The moment: Canada won the first game of the best-of-three in a 6-0 blowout. But they had a tougher time in Game 2, needing a late goal to send the game to overtime. That’s when this happened:
Why it’s in the running: It was the first great international moment to happen in sudden death, and it’s an absolute beauty of a goal. (Side note: Don Cherry has tried to claim the credit for the move, which may or may not factor into where you rank it.)
The case against: Not having it come against the Soviets hurts the case a bit, as does the fact that it wasn’t a must-win game for Canada.
Bottom line: It’s definitely in the conversation, although I’m not sure there’s room on our Mount Rushmore for two games from the 1970s.
John Slaney plays the hero on home ice
The game: Heading into the 1991 World Junior Championship, Canada was the defending champs. But they’d never won back-to-back tournaments and had never won the tournament on home ice. They had a chance to make history on both fronts when they faced the Soviets in their final game of the tournament, with the winner taking gold.
The moment: Late in a 2-2 tie, a draw in the Soviet zone ended up with the puck sliding back to Canadian defenseman John Slaney, who had time to step into the shot of his life.
Why it’s in the running: It’s not the greatest goal on the list, although it might challenge for the best celebration. But this moment, along with the crowd reaction and TSN’s coverage of it all, may have been the one that elevated the world juniors from a vaguely important tournament to a Canadian institution.
The case against: In terms of big names to score a crucial goal, Slaney doesn’t exactly rank up there with Crosby or Lemieux or Sittler. Then again, when it comes to the world juniors, that might be part of the appeal.
Bottom line: It’s probably hard to explain to younger fans, but this one really was a huge moment back in the day and set the stage for other great WJC moments to come. Like this one …
Jordan Eberle’s buzzer-beater
The game: Canada and Russia renewed international hockey’s greatest rivalry at the 2009 world juniors in Ottawa. Canada had won four straight golds, but the Russians held a one-goal lead late in the game.
The moment: With the goalie pulled and Canada pressing in the final minute of the third, Ryan Ellis made a play at the blue line to keep the puck in the Russian zone. After an extended scrum along the sideboards, the puck squirted free to Jordan Eberle in front of the net.
Why it’s in the running: There may not be a goal in Canadian hockey history that came out of nowhere quite like this one. One second, the puck was by the boards as the game ticked away; the very next, Eberle was somehow all alone in front of the Russian net. The whole thing played out almost too quickly for a fan’s brain to process in real time, which made it one of the great “Did I actually just see that?” moments ever.
The case against: Memory is a funny thing. You know Canada went on to win the game, but do you even remember who scored the winner in overtime? Nobody did because the game was decided in a shootout, which is kind of lame. Another piece you may not remember, with shades of the Miracle on Ice: This wasn’t the gold medal game. It was the semifinal.
Bottom line: The fact that a goal that didn’t end a game or a tournament is still remembered to this day just drives home how insane the moment was for those that watched it live.
It was a busy weekend in the NHL, one that served up 20 games. That slate included crucial divisional showdowns like Jets/Predators and Leafs/Panthers, at least one potential Cup final preview in Penguins/Avalanche, a 50th-anniversary celebration (sort of) and the temporary return of a defunct team. There was a lot going on.
And chances are, you’re not going to remember any of it a few weeks from now. Instead, what we’ll all remember from this weekend is a stunning GM firing – we’ll get to that in a bit – and what happened between the Oilers and Flames on Saturday night.
The Battle of Alberta is back. Or at least it was, for one game.
If you somehow missed it, let’s recap. It won’t surprise you to learn that Mathew Tkachuk was in the middle of it, as he always seems to be. On this night, he locked in a big target in Zack Kassian, drilling the Oilers’ winger with three big hits. The hardest of those knocked Kassian’s helmet flying and sent him spinning to the ice.
As you might expect, Kassian didn’t appreciate the attention, and late in the second period, he decided he’d had enough.
That earned him four minutes, which was actually a pretty lenient sentence for a half-dozen haymakers. The Flames went on to score the go-ahead goal on the powerplay, and it held up as the winner.
And almost instantly, the NHL had one of those Rorschach test moments. What do you see when you watch those plays unfold?
A lot of fans, including most of the ones wearing Flames jersey, see a classic case of a physical player doing his job well enough that he suckers an opponent into a bad penalty. Tkachuk’s hits were clean, or at least close enough, and if the Oilers can’t handle that then they shouldn’t be on the ice in what’s still a contact sport. Kassian has made a career out of catching guys with their head down, but when it happens to him he has a meltdown, and costs his team a crucial game in the process. Tkachuk wins this round.
Hold on, says the other half of the room, including most of Edmonton. Tkachuk is nothing but a rat, running around throwing borderline hits and then refusing to answer the bell for it. Hockey is a rough sport, sure, but it’s also one with a code, and nobody gets unlimited free shots. If you’re going to play that way, you eventually have to back it up. If Tkachuk won’t do things the honorable way, guys like Kassian will just have to give him no choice.
The fallout came quickly, with both players dropping memorable postgame quotes on each other. Kassian called Tkachuk a “punk,” among other things, and made it clear he had no regrets. Tkachuk responded that Kassian should “stay off the tracks” if he doesn’t want to get hit, then twisted the knife: “We’ll take the power play, we’ll take the game-winner, and we’ll move on to first place.”
Call it advantage Tkachuk in the war of words. They weren’t the only ones talking after the game; it seemed like just about everyone had a take. Maybe Tkachuk was exposed as a wimp and a turtle, out there throwing dangerous hits. Maybe the problem is guys like Kassian who can dish out the contact but can’t take it. Maybe both guys were wrong. Maybe neither one was.
Maybe this is all exactly the sort of nonsense you hate seeing in a sport that was supposed to have evolved past all of this. Maybe it’s exactly the kind of old-school bad blood you miss about what the league used to be.
On Tkachuk hits v Kassian. I’m serious here. Aren’t these the same hits Raffi Torres used to throw that the league eventually said were penalties? Any hit from above goal line to player coming from below. #thenandnow
For what it’s worth, the Department of Player Safety called Kassian on the carpet for a hearing, while apparently giving Tkachuk’s hits a passing grade. The two players do have a history, which could come into play, as could the weak call on the ice and Kassian’s lack of remorse. That hearing will happen on Monday, so we’ll probably get a verdict later in the day.
Did we mention that the Flames won, and took over a share of first place in the division? That sort of gets lost in the shuffle, but it seems important, especially since it was only a few weeks ago that the Flames’ season seemed to be slipping away. They’ve rebounded nicely from the Bill Peters debacle, and Geoff Ward has them looking more like last year’s contender. Cam Talbot looking like vintage Mike Vernon helps too.
Meanwhile, the rest of us were scrambling to figure out when these two teams play next. The answer: soon. They’ll face each other twice in the week after the buy, on Jan. 29 and Feb. 1. It’s been a while since we’ve circled our calendars for a Battle of Alberta matchup, at least for reasons other than draft lottery odds. But it’s safe to say that everyone will be watching these next two meetings. (Possibly including Kassian, who’ll miss the games if his suspension stretches to five games.)
On to this week’s rankings …
Road to the Cup
The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.
It was another Whaler night for the Hurricanes, as they blanked the Kings for their third straight win and second straight shutout. This is always a bit of a tricky one since I know some fans love the retro feel of seeing the Whalers’ green again while others feel like it’s forced nostalgia, driven by the marketing department. Either way, it means we get to hear Brian Burke’s favorite song which is always fun.
5. Pittsburgh Penguins (28-12-5, +29 true goals differential*) – They continue to roll along without Sidney Crosby, getting tough wins over the Knights, Avalanche and Coyotes. Crosby’s return had seemed imminent earlier in the week, but hit a snag when he wasn’t feeling well enough to practice on Friday. We should see him soon, but in the meantime, the Pens continue to rack up points without him.
I had something very rare happen to me last week. Somebody pointed out a prediction that I actually got right. Sort of.
@DownGoesBrown I feel like you were the only one I heard on @PuckSoupPodcast over the summer predicting that the Sharks could end up taking a nose dive like they have this year. Feeling good about that hot take yet?
To be clear, I didn’t predict that the Sharks would actually be bad. I was pretty sure they’d be one of the better teams in the league. But I added the caveat that if they were bad, they might be really bad. It’s part of a larger point I’ve made before: When it comes to teams that have been good for years but feature an aging core and a tough cap situation, the window often doesn’t close as slowly as we expect. You would think that a really good team should gradually slide from, say, a 105-point Cup contender one year to maybe a 95-point wildcard the next to missing the playoffs and then eventually being outright bad. But as fans of the Kings or Blackhawks could tell you, it often falls apart much quicker than that. For a lot of teams, windows don’t close, they slam shut.
That’s what seems to be happening the Sharks. So yay me, I (kind of) got one right.
Except that in making that point over the summer, I also made it about another team: The Pittsburgh Penguins, whose sudden downfall I’ve been predicting for years now. And they’ve been one of the very best stories of the season.
It’s weird. At a high level, the Sharks and Penguins came into the season in similar situations. Both teams had just put up 100-point seasons. Both clubs boasted star-studded rosters, but those marquee players are mostly on the wrong side of 30 and locked into big contracts. Both teams had questions in goal. Both had a coach on the hot seat, or at least a warm one. Both seemed to be all-in on one or two last runs before all the bills came due.
If anything, the Sharks were in better shape. They’d just been to the conference final, after all, while the Penguins hadn’t even won a playoff game. If you had to pick one team to keep the success going, it was San Jose. And if your crystal ball told you that pretty much of all of Pittsburgh’s top players would get hurt, then it was an easy call.
Except it hasn’t been. The Sharks have been the season’s biggest disaster, while the Penguins somehow keep churning along, even without Sidney Crosby. It’s yet another reminder that this is a league where logic sometimes takes a vacation.
In San Jose, they’ve already fired the coach, they don’t have their own first-round pick and we’re officially into the “overhearing stuff in the dressing room” section of a season-long nightmare. That last one’s not the end of the world, but it’s certainly not a great look for a veteran team of well-paid stars that was supposed to be all-in on a winning season.
The Sharks actually had a respectable week, with points in three of four, so there’s still a pulse on their playoff hopes. But it’s very faint. Yesterday’s collapse in Washington was devastating, and in the bigger picture, this may be the scariest tweet I saw all week.
Meanwhile, the Penguins keep producing points, with nine in their last six games. They’ve passed the Islanders for second spot in the Metro — albeit with extra games played — and look like they could still take a run at the Caps for top spot. And now it seems like Crosby’s return is getting close. Lately, the Pens can do it all, with the exception of managing their passports.
The Penguins’ window will close at some point, and that when it happens, the results might be ugly. But it sure doesn’t look like it’s going to be this year. They’re starting to look unbeatable.
Well, almost. Before last night’s loss to the Panthers, they’d only dropped one game since the Christmas break. That one came against the Sharks, because of course it did. We get it, NHL. You make no sense.
Last week, we had one of these two teams in our power rankings, as the Sharks cracked the bottom five while the Penguins sat just outside the top five. Let’s see where they landed this week …
Road to the Cup
The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.
It’s a new month, meaning we have a new set of power rankings from The Athletic’s hockey collective. And this time, they’ve landed on the same top five that I have here, at least as far as the teams involved (in a slightly different order). I’m not completely sure what to make of that.
5. Pittsburgh Penguins (25-12-5, +27 true goals differential*) – So yeah, I probably should have found room for them last week. But now, they’re in, because when a ranking system factors in the future as much as what’s already happened, we can go ahead and start factoring in Crosby’s return. It’s a little too early to start getting excited about another epic Pens/Caps playoff round, especially with an Islanders team that swept Pittsburgh last year still very much in the mix. But the possibility is out there.
4. Boston Bruins (24-8-11, +35) – Their loss on Saturday to the Oilers was their third straight, and 11th out of their last 15. And for a change, they didn’t even get a point. We can’t just call this a slump or a cold streak anymore. The Bruins have some problems.
Now the question becomes whether their sure-thing grip on the Atlantic is in question. They’re still six points up on the Maple Leafs, and seven on the Lightning (who have two games in hand). That’s a good spot to be in, of course, but it’s not the lock that it once looked like. One site has them at less than a coin flip to finish first. That would have seemed unthinkable just a month ago.
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We react to the Don Cherry story
- Greg's list of his top ten candidates to replace Cherry
- Sidney Crosby is out for six weeks
- The Leafs are bad now
- The Devils are worse
- The Islanders are good, again
- The Ilya Kovalchuk era in L.A. appears to be over
- Greg and Ryan nerd out about Star Wars stuff
- The top ten TV shows of the decade
- and lots more...
Puck Soup is a podcast featuring me and Ryan Lambert. We release one free episode each week during the season, plus mailbags and other bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers.
"Biscuits" was the Vice Sports hockey podcast, hosted by DGB and Dave Lozo. It ran for two seasons; the final episode was in July, 2018. You can find the archives below:
