Grab Bag: World Cup pros and cons, when a streak isn’t a streak and Rick Bowness bites his tongue

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The pros and cons of holding another World Cup of Hockey
- A debate about losing streaks
- An obscure player who did not qualify for this week's Team Brother roster
- The three comedy stars
- And a YouTube clip of Rick Bowness trying very hard not to say what he really wants to say

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Get ready for holiday shopping regret with the NHL’s all buyer’s remorse team

Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S., and if I know my Americans friends, that means two things: Some of you are reading this through the haze of a turkey coma and you’re going to do some serious shopping tomorrow.

The whole Black Friday thing isn’t as much of a thing in Canada yet, at least in its full-on “fight a stranger to save $20 on a blender” form. But we get the gist of it. You’ve got a list of stuff you need. You’ve got a chance to get that stuff. You go out and get the stuff, and hope you don’t regret your spending spree when it’s all over.

It’s kind of like the NHL offseason. Except that the offseason has hockey players instead of electronics, it lasts three months instead of a few days, and nobody gets a discount. So really, it’s nothing like the NHL offseason. But it’s too late now because I’m committed to the bit and we’re going with it.

Today, we’re going to celebrate this weekend’s shopping spree by looking back at the NHL’s version. With a few months’ worth of hindsight, some of those offseason trades and free-agent signings look pretty good. But others haven’t aged well, and like a cheap TV that stopped working after a few days, they may be causing some buyer’s remorse.

We’re two months into the season, which means there’s still plenty of time for some of these moves to work out in the long run. That’s part of the fun. But for now, let’s put together a roster of players who switched teams in the offseason and may have their new GMs looking around to see if the receipt has a return policy on it.

Goaltenders

Sergei Bobrovsky, Panthers

Twenty starts into the season, and one of the offseason’s biggest prizes is still sporting a save percentage well under .900. The good news is that there’s still plenty of time for him to get into a groove. Almost seven years, to be exact. So assuming this is a slump, and not a guy hitting the downside of the aging curve at 31, he should be fine. Of course, with the second-highest cap hit at his position, the Panthers might want more than just “fine.”

Cam Talbot, Flames

He wasn’t traded for Mike Smith – he signed as a free agent after a quick stop in Philadelphia – but it kind of felt that way. And it seemed like a decent exchange because even coming off of a brutal season, you figured a change of scenery could get Talbot back on track. Instead, he’s only had six starts, and hasn’t looked great in most of them. He comes cheaper than Smith, and it’s just a one-year deal, so this signing has hardly been a disaster. It hasn’t been much of anything.

Late cuts

Other than Bobrovsky, the two biggest crease names to move in the offseason was Robin Lehner leaving the Islanders for Chicago and Semyon Varlamov coming into New York. Both have been very good in their new homes. Smith’s been fine in Edmonton, James Reimer has been OK in Carolina and nobody else who switched teams were expected to do much more than mop-up.

First pairing

P.K. Subban, Devils

Given his name value and Norris Trophy pedigree, you figured that the Devils got him so cheap that the trade had to work out. Maybe it still will, but with just five points through two months, Subban’s been a bust in New Jersey. The analytics say he’s been a little bit better than his boxcars would suggest. But only a little, and the Devils are on the hook for another two expensive years after this.

Justin Faulk, Blues

He’s scored double-digit goals in four of his last five seasons but doesn’t have even one in St. Louis yet. Instead, he’s stuck at six assists and hasn’t recorded a primary point in over a month. Even the head coach trying to pump his tires can only come up with “he’s been fine.” The only good news for the Blues is that they didn’t rush into handing him a huge extension before they’d seen how he’d fit in. (Double-checks notes.) Well then.

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Puck Soup: Rough draft

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Greg and I are in Vancouver for the draft
- Reviewing the NHL awards, both the show and the ballots
- My take on the new replay and challenge rules, and why they're not great but could have been worse
- Erik Karlsson gets a big new deal
- Thoughts on Mitch Marner, Corey Perry, Jacob Trouba, Kevin Hayes and lots more...

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Weekend rankings: Sorting through the trade deadline fallout

The​ trade deadline was​ last​ week.​ It​ feels​ like​ last month.

That’s​ the thing about​ the deadline. It’s​ such​ a hugely important milestone​​ in the season that it almost manages to warp our sense of time around it. The weeks leading up to it seem to drag on forever. The day itself flies by in a blink. And then it’s all over and it almost immediately feels like a lifetime ago. Looks at us, watching Mark Stone play for the Ottawa Senators. We were so young then.

While you might be ready to move on past the deadline, the weekend rankings can’t quite yet. That’s because last week, we were still in pre-deadline mode and trying to figure out how different these rankings might look once the dealing is done. We can’t just leave a question like that open. Let’s dig in and find out how much the deadline day changed the rankings?

Uh, not all that much, actually.

That’s because the deadline saw something unusual this year: The best teams didn’t actually do all that much. Instead, most of the biggest moves were made by teams closer to the mushy middle.

That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. You’re supposed to have your sellers, who are bad and trying to get worse. They do that by selling off assets to the buyers, who are supposed to be the good teams searching for the final piece of a Stanley Cup puzzle.

But this year, we didn’t really see that. In fact, last week’s top five teams – the Islanders, Bruins, Sharks, Flames and Lightning – didn’t do all that much in the days around the deadline. The Bruins got Marcus Johansson and Charlie Coyle and the Sharks got Gustav Nyquist. But with apologies to Oscar Fantenberg and the Flames, that was about it in terms of meaningful moves. The Islanders and Lightning didn’t do anything at all.

In theory, that should open up the door for other teams to storm in and take those spots. But that didn’t really happen either. The Golden Knights were the biggest winners of deadline day itself thanks to the Stone blockbuster, but they’re not catching the Sharks or Flames so their path out of the Pacific remains brutal. And while the biggest trade deadline week moves were made by the Blue Jackets, they’re barely in the playoffs right now, let alone the top five. After this weekend, if anything, it might be time to start worrying about them.

The teams that could make a deadline-based claim at a spot are two that have spent much of the season shifting in and out of the top five. The Jets landed Kevin Hayes and the Predators got Wayne Simmonds and Mikael Granlund. Spoiler alert: One of them does crack the top five this week but we’ll get to that in a minute.

As for the sellers, the big one was the Senators. But they’ve already been owning the No. 1 spot in the bottom five, and after consulting with The Athletics’ analytics experts, it’s been determined that that’s as bad as I can rank them. I thought about trying to slot them in somewhere like “zero” or “negative three” or “let’s never speak of this again,” but apparently those aren’t options. The Senators stay where they already were and the rest of the bottom five doesn’t see all that much deadline-related movement either.

And that’s it for the 2019 deadline. I promise, after today, there will be no more weekly power ranking columns framed around it.

(But tune in next week for the 2020 trade deadline preview.)

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.

We all had a chance to learn a new rule yesterday: You can win a shootout without actually putting the puck into the net, thanks to the ultra-rare shootout HORN OF DOOM:

That win also moved the Capitals back into first place in the Metro, as the Islanders lost both weekend games and continue to struggle when they’re not pantsing John Tavares and the Maple Leafs. That leaves us without a Metro team in our top five again, at least temporarily, while making room for a Central team to nudge back in. But which one? Let’s end the suspense …

5. Winnipeg Jets (39-22-4, +28 true goals differential*) – Should this be the Predators? Maybe. But the Jets are still holding down a narrow lead in the Central and maybe more than narrow if you factor in their games in hand. They beat the Predators head-to-head on Friday. And they may have landed the bigger deadline day prize in Hayes, although that’s a close call and probably hinges on whether you think Simmonds has much left. It’s not much more than a coin flip, really. But we don’t do ties here, so the Jets get the spot this week.

4. Boston Bruins (39-17-9, +34) – Their win over Tampa snapped the Lightning’s 10-game win streak and was the sort of statement game that suggests that the Atlantic may not be quite the sure thing it looks like. The Bruins are riding a streak of 16 straight with at least a point, although they still haven’t opened up all that much of a lead over the Maple Leafs for home ice in their almost inevitable first-round matchup. Maybe that comes this week; Boston gets a tough matchup tomorrow with the Hurricanes, but then finishes off the week with home games against the Panthers and Senators.

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Draft weekend wrapup

Some closing thoughts on what was, all things considered, a pretty positive weekend...

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Mats Sundin is an ex-Leaf. It's all but official now. Even if he doesn't wind up with the Habs, it's clear that Fletcher has figured out that Mats isn't coming back.

At this point Mats Sundin is the unhappy girlfriend who, rather than just break up with you, decides to give you the silent treamtent. So she pouts about how you don't respect her and stops returning your calls, all the while hoping you'll break up with her so that she can cry to her friends about how badly she was treated.

Well, Cliff has been around long enough to know the game, and he's not having it. The question now isn't whether Mats comes back -- we know he isn't. It's whether Cliff can manage to get something worthwhile for him.

If Fletcher manages to extract a first round pick for Sundin, or anything of significant value, I'll be doing cartwheels. The rebuilding Leafs will be better off without Sundin at this point, so anything Cliff can get is gravy.

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At first, I wasn't sure about the Luke Schenn pick. The price to move up was high (thanks, Paul Maurice), and I get nervous about using the #5 overall pick on a guy who's considered only fourth best at his position.

Then I heard Pierre McGuire call him an "eraser" and a "one man wrecking crew", and I was excited. And then, as the first round went on, I heard McGuire get equally excited about every single other player who was picked. He loved every single player for three straight hours.

I guess he's only critical when he's bashing about the Leafs on Ottawa radio to make the morning show crew giggle.

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Jimmy Hayes is an interesting choice. Hayes was considered a top-ten pick heading into the season so he could be decent value in the late second, and he's got plenty of size. But scouts soured on him because he doesn't play hard and often looks like he does't care.

You know what that means: he's ahead of the game! It usually takes a Leafs prospect years to learn the dressing room culture. Once McCabe teaches him how to blame injuries and use the phrase "we've got a great group", this kid could be captain material.

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Mikhail Stefanovich seems like a great value at #98. Unlike Hayes, Stefanovich was well-regarded through most of the year. The Hockey News had him going in the top 20 of most of their lists throughout the year and he went #25 in the most recent mock draft, so he was certainly worth a shot in the late third.

If you missed it, here's a funny pre-draft take on Stefanovich from AOL Fanhouse.

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How long did the last six rounds take? An hour? I heard on the radio that teams had 30 seconds to make a pick after the first round. How is that possible? I can't even get the guys in my fantasy football league to make a late-round pick in less than ten minutes.

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Finally, you know the Leafs must have done something right this weekend because even Damien Cox can't find anything to criticize. It's true - here's Damien's Sunday column.

Yes, you can always tell when Cox thinks the Leafs have done something right, because he finds something completely different to write about for a few days.

Seriously, the Leafs draft a franchise blueliner, load up on size, and part with Mats Sundin all in one weekend... and Toronto's top hockey columnist files a glorified fluff piece on the new Lightning owners for his Sunday piece? This is the best we can expect?