Weekend rankings: Five teams that should be in the Top 5 but somehow aren’t

Over the course of my writing career, I’ve been known to produce the occasional ranking or two or several dozen, and I can tell you from experience that there’s a weird thing that happens when you do any kind of top five or top ten – people get mad.

OK, that’s not the weird part, because these days you lose your internet account if you go a full day without being furious at some random opinion you were exposed to just because you went specifically looking for it. But it’s the way people get mad: They’ll swear that a certain player or team or whatever absolutely deserves to be on the list, without making any kind of case for which spot it should take.

So if you say that the five best players in NHL history are Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe and Rocket Richard, somebody will show up and be furious that your list doesn’t include Jaromir Jagr or Sidney Crosby or Nicklas Lidstrom. They don’t seem to want you to take anyone off of your list, mind you, they just want their guy there too.

And I get it. When you hear terms like “top five” or “top ten”, they feel more like labels or tiers, a badge that can be earned for being near the top of the mountain. But the obvious problem here is that that’s not how numbers work. There might be eight or nine players who feel like they have a Top Five case, but the number five doesn’t care. There’s five spots, you get five names, and that’s just how it works, even if it means seemingly deserving candidates have to be left off.

All of which is to say that this week’s Top 5 was an ordeal, because there are more than five teams in the league that feel like they deserve a spot right now. This has been an ongoing theme this year, one that has as many as 14 teams looking like genuine contenders. I’ve only got five spots to work with, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for subtlety. Your favorite team is either in and you’re happy or they’re out an I’m an idiot.

I am an idiot, for the record, but today seemed like a good time to expand the field a bit. Let’s use our bonus five to list teams that are on the outside of this week’s real list but shouldn’t be, because they’re clearly Top 5 teams, you dummy.

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Penguins vs. Oilers: Which team holds all-time bragging rights?

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.

Oilers vs. Penguins. Who you got?

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Six times NHL fans thought their teams were getting a superstar, and were wrong

It’s hockey season, and Toronto sports fans are sad, as usual. But for once, it’s not the Maple Leafs’ fault.

After weeks of speculation turned into a whirlwind few days of hype, the Toronto Blue Jays did not sign Shohei Ohtani. The world’s greatest baseball player, an unprecedented unicorn who can both hit and pitch like a superstar, chose Los Angeles over Toronto in a record-shattering $700-million deal.

Ohtani joining the Dodgers isn’t much of a surprise, and in fact was the expected outcome all along. But where things get cruel for Blue Jays fans is in terms of expectations. As the process played out, they went from underdogs to dark horse to legitimate contender. And then, on Friday, fans were told that the deal was all but done, with private planes and celebratory dinner reservations already booked; they’d landed the biggest name to ever hit baseball free agent market. But the reports were wrong, and the fan base was duped, their expectations raised up only to be shattered.

Here's where hockey comes in.

While no NHL player can touch Ohtani’s price tag – there are a few teams with full rosters that can’t – that doesn’t mean that hockey fans can’t appreciate getting their hopes up only to have the rug pulled out from under them. So today, we’re going to go back and remember six times that an entire NHL fan base thought they were getting a superstar, only to find out that they weren’t.

To be clear, we’re not talking about the blockbusters that were close in hindsight, like Steve Yzerman to Ottawa or the infamous Vincent Lecavalier to Montreal rumors. Those moves were whispered about at the time, but we didn’t learn just how close they came until after the fact. We’re looking for moments in NHL history where a fan base thought they had a star signed and sealed, then were disappointed.

It happens more often than you might think. Here are six examples, starting with maybe the most famous of them all.

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Who wins, a roster of players who won the Cup in their first year or their last?

We’re going to build some rosters today, and we’re going to start with a simple question that feels appropriate given the stakes of tonight's game: Who’s better, a team of guys who won the Stanley Cup in their first year in the NHL, or guys who won it in their last year?

That’s it. I don’t even feel like I need some long preamble breaking down how the question works. You get it. But as per DGB by-laws, we do need to say: But first, a few ground rules™.

• The important one: Once he’s on the roster, you get credit for a player’s entire career, not just what they did in that Cup-winning season. We’re dealing with rookies and old guys, those rosters would be pretty bad.
• That said, a player has to have appeared in at least one playoff game for the winning team to qualify. Anyone who has traded, waived or in the press box doesn’t fit the spirit of the thing.
• We’ll start the clock at the Original Six era, which prevents us from having to deal with old-timey players you’ve never heard of, not to mention guys whose “rookie NHL season” came well into their pro career after the arrived from other leagues.
• First and last year means the years they played their first or last NHL game – no WHA or other leagues count – which is not the same as full seasons. Note that a player’s first year isn’t necessarily their rookie season, because they can maintain that eligibility for multiple years. Everyone only gets one first or last season.
• Active players can count for the first year team, but (obviously) not for the last. Also, anyone who won a Cup in both their first and their last year is ineligible for both teams. And also, let’s just say it, kind of greedy.
• We’re building a full roster, featuring two goalies, six defensemen and 12 forwards, but won’t worry about position beyond that.

I’m kind of interested to see where this goes, and I’ve already gone back and forth on which teams I think will win. My first thought is that Team Last Year will take it, because of the Ray Bourque factor –legends who want to go out on a high note and retire immediately after winning a Cup. Then again, the Ray Bourque story is great in part because it’s relatively rare, so maybe there aren’t as many of those guys as you’d think.

As for Team First Year, we know that there won’t be any top draft picks on the team, since those players go to bad teams and have to wait at least a few years for their Cups. So no Mario Lemieux, no Sidney Crosby, not Alexander Ovechkin. But we should still be able to find enough talent to fill out a roster, even if it may not have the elite-level guys that Team Last Year has.

Let’s find out. As always, we’ll start in goal and build from there.

Goaltenders

Team First Year starts off with a pair of agonizing near misses. Patrick Roy won the Cup and the Conn Smythe as a rookie in 1986, but he played a single game with the 1984-85 Habs, so he’s out. We also can’t use Ken Dryden, who memorably won the Cup a year before winning the Calder, because he doubles up by also winning in his last year.

That said, we can still find a Canadiens’ Hall-of-Famer in the criminally underrated Bill Durnan, who was winning everything as the league’s best netminder as soon as he arrived in 1943-44. He’ll be capably backed up by Cam Ward from the 2006 Carolina run, with Jordan Binnington on speed dial if we need depth and/or someone to throw water bottles around.

There’s a lot less to choose from in Team Last Year, partly because old goalies often stick around forever. Luckily, we only need one starter, and we can find that in Dominik Hasek, who didn’t play much for the 2007-08 Red Wings, but still qualifies for the team. That saves us from total disaster, because believe it or not I’m pretty sure our only other option is Cristobal Huet of the 2010 Blackhawks.

So far, Team First Year has better depth while Team Last Year has higher star power. Let’s see if that continues on the blueline.

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Puck Soup: The Great Eight (Hundred)

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Alexander Ovechkin hits 800
- It's Board of Governors time and Gary Bettman is making stuff up again
- You won't believe what penalty Colin Campbell wants to fix
- Bettman does not want a play-in round
- The Canucks have to make a decision on Bo Horvat
- Let's rename some awards
- An ugly brawl in the stands
- Tage Thompson, Jaromir Jagr and more...

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Phil in the blanks

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- I have to yell at Ian about Phil Kessel's ironman streak
- Should Michael Bunting be a legitimate Calder candidate?
- Why would the Devils terminate P.K. Subban's contract?
- Is Jaromir Jagr overlooked in the all-time GOAT discussion?
- A surprisingly large amount of baseball talk for some reason
- Plus this week in history, the goalie quiz, Wayne Gretzky as an analyst 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)

Building a 20-man roster of history’s terrible starts (that turned out OK)

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!

But you just booed: Jaromir Jagr in 1996-97.

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.

But you just booed: Sidney Crosby in 2015-16.

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.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Taking the red eye

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- We're both terrified of Jeff Petry's eyes
- The Habs come tied with Vegas, but does it change the narrative around the North Division?
- Ian makes the case for Tyler Toffoli being best free agent signing by a Canadian-based team in the past decade
- After two obvious blown calls in Lightning/Isles, is it time for expanded replay review?
- Nikita Kucherov looks like the favorite for the Conn Smythe
- Jesse Granger drops by and we decide the odds on Habs/Knight are out of whack
- Who would you rather have drafted in 1990, Jaromir Jagr or Martin Brodeur?
- Plus a look back at the NHL's only coach trade 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)

Revisiting some of the NHL's most painful breakups

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and after the year we’ve all been through, it presents a nice chance to refocus on what really matters by asking ourselves important questions like “Am I currently going out with someone” and “What was going out like, I can’t remember” and “Wait, does this person live with me because that would explain who’s been eating all my food.”

Then you could break up with them. That part’s optional, and not necessarily recommended based on your personal circumstances. But it’s how a lot of relationships end, both in the world of romance and in the NHL. This is called tying your sports story into a current event. I am a professional writer.

Years ago, I put together a list of ten of NHL history’s ugliest player/team breakups. It wasn’t an exhaustive list, because it couldn’t be, because this sport is constantly tossing new examples onto the pile. Just recently, we’ve seen the Pierre-Luc Dubois drama play out in Columbus, and it may not be long before the Patrik Laine sequel gets good. We saw the end of long-term relationships like Zdeno Chara in Boston and Joe Thornton in San Jose. And we’re still not sure what exactly happened with John Chayka in Arizona. This league and its soap operas, am I right?

So today, let’s remember a few more bad breakups from NHL history. My first piece covered names like Patrick Roy, Dany Heatley, Eric Lindros and Pavel Bure, but we’ve got plenty more ground to cover. After all, it’s the NHL, where everything ends badly and nobody should ever get too attached.

Sergei Fedorov and the Red Wings, 2003

Happier times: Fedorov is one of the greatest players in Detroit history, a supremely skilled Russian star who won a Hart and two Selkes while providing the dominant two-way play that helped finally tip the Red Wings from regular season monsters to Stanley Cup champions.

But then: In 1998, after a lengthy RFA standoff that dragged well into the season, Fedorov signed an offer sheet with the Hurricanes that was ridiculously front-loaded with bonuses designed to make it unmatchable. The Wings matched anyway, and Fedorov stuck around for five more seasons, but a relationship that had been rocky from the start never fully recovered.

How it ended: Fedorov finally left for good in 2013, signing with the Ducks in free agency, and the bad feelings lingered for years. Even after his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, the team still hasn’t retired his number. But time heals some wounds, and there have been recent signs of a thaw in the relationship, especially with Steve Yzerman running the Wings now. There’s even been talk of Fedorov joining the organization in some capacity.

What kind of breakup it was: The couple that’s always on the verge of breaking up but ends up holding on a lot longer than everyone thought before the inevitable final straw.

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Mailbag: Leafs/Habs in 1993, broadcaster ratings, and all-hair teams

It’s mailbag time again, and for the first time in a while, we can do this in the shadow of some certainty about what the coming season looks like. It sounds like we’re all but locked in on a start date, and at least the broad strokes of a format.

And you know what? I’m pretty pumped. Yes, we probably all have plenty of reservations over whether this can all work, or just how badly it might fall apart. But for now, we have an opening night to look forward to. We’re only a few weeks away from some sort of training camp. We have an all-Canadian division, which I’m sure the whole country will be super chill about it. This is going to happen, at least to start with, and I kind of can’t wait.

So how did you all decide to celebrate? By asking a bunch of weird questions that have nothing to do with the upcoming season at all, of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s get weird.

Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.

Thanks to a recent grab bag and that great head shot of Al Iafrate, there is something now that I never before knew I needed: Team Mullet vs. Team Perfect Hair. I kindly request that you determine the best rosters for each and then determine which team would win a best-of-seven playoff series. I sincerely hope you have Jagr and Lundqvist as team captains, with Melrose and Babcock as head coaches. — Jason M.

Wait… you want me to talk about hockey mullets, but also perfect hockey hair? Um…

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In which I attempt to answer a simple question about jersey numbers that almost breaks me

Every now and then, a reader will reach out to me with a question. Sometimes, I already know the answer. Often, I have no idea where I’d even start. But the best kind of questions are the ones that make me think: “Huh, I’m not sure, but I bet it would be fun to find out.”

I got one of those a little while ago from a reader named Bryce. It was nice and simple. Bryce wanted to know which NHL player had scored the most goals in a single season in which their total matched their jersey number.

That’s kind of a cool question. And it’s one that shouldn’t be all that hard to figure out. I couldn’t come up with an answer off the top of my head, but I knew how to find one: just crack open a list of the highest single-season goal totals and work backward.

So that’s what I did. It will be fun, right?

Let’s begin, the way all great journeys do, at the beginning. In this case, that meant a list of every NHL player to ever score 60 goals or more in a season. It’s not a long list, but it’s probably longer than you might think. There have been 39 seasons of 60+ goals in NHL history. Could we find our answer in that list? I wasn’t sure, but it was the right place to start.

Five of those 39 seasons belong to Wayne Gretzky, and we can obviously eliminate him; he wore No. 99 for his entire NHL career, and he never got that many goals in a season. He came reasonably close, topping out at 92 in 1981-82, which still stands as the all-time record and probably always will. But we’re not looking for close here, so Wayne’s not our man.

He does have an impact, though, because his iconic No. 99 encouraged a generation of stars that followed to wear distinctive high numbers of their own. That was a new thing, and it should make our search easier.

Here’s where we run into our first problem: A lot of history’s greatest offensive talents have worn high numbers, but they were too high. Gretzky’s the only player to ever crack the 90-goal plateau, which wipes out the chances of plenty of today’s 90-wearing stars, like Connor McDavid and Steven Stamkos. Eric Lindros and Patrick Kane have posted big goal-scoring years, but neither got anywhere close to the 88 they wore. Alexander Mogilny’s 76 goals in 1992-93 is tied for the fifth-most ever, but he had a long way to go since he was wearing No. 89. Sidney Crosby’s great, but he hasn’t come anywhere near 87.

Brett Hull did, scoring 86 in 1990-91 and hitting the rarified 70-goal mark on two other occasions. But he did that while wearing No. 16, which leads to our second problem: Star forwards who don’t wear really high numbers usually wear relatively low ones. It’s a tradition thing. So right off the bat, we know we can rule out low-numbered stars like Rocket Richard and Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull (all No. 9), Alexander Ovechkin and Cam Neely (No. 8), Guy Lafleur and Pavel Bure (No. 10). Mike Bossy, Teemu Selanne, Steve Yzerman, Luc Robitaille or Jari Kurri? Sorry. All wore good, solid, traditional numbers that are way too low for what we’re looking for.

There is one player who wore a number in the 70s and had a 70-goal season. But that’s Phil Esposito, and he scored 76 in 1970-71 while wearing No. 7; he didn’t switch to No. 77 until he was traded to the Rangers, so he’s one goal and five years away from being our answer.

After dropping down into the 60s, optimism kicks in because there are two legendary scorers who both wore numbers in this range – Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, with both showing up on the list of 60-goal scorers. But Jagr topped out at 62 goals in 1995-96, missing his iconic No. 68 by a half-dozen. And while Lemieux had two seasons of 69 goals, one of 70, and one of 85, he never landed on exactly 66. He goes down in history as the highest jersey number to be exceeded by his goal total, but our search for an exact match carries on.

The only other candidates left on our initial list are Lanny McDonald, Dennis Maruk, Steve Shutt and Reggie Leach, and they all came along before higher vanity numbers were a thing. So no, we won’t find our answer in the 60+ club after all. No worries, though – we’ll just have to open up the search to the 50-goal club. And as it turns out, that’s a very big club indeed. Dropping our cutoff down to 50 goals opens the floodgates enough to allow 157 new seasons onto our list, so surely we’ll find our answer here.

The good news is that our list now includes dozens of names that we haven’t seen yet. The bad news is that a glance at some of the guys who had seasons in the high 50s tells us that we’re going to immediately run into the same two problems as before. Marcel Dionne, Tim Kerr and Michel Goulet? Traditional numbers that are too low. Pierre Turgeon or Sergei Fedorov? Too high.

And then, the first sense of doubt creeps in: Wait, what kind of star forward wears a number in the 50s?

There sure aren’t many. Typically, if they hand you a number in the 50s in training camp, it’s because they don’t expect you to stick around long. If you do, you get yourself a real number as soon as possible. What kind of self-respecting sniper is going to wear No. 58?

Not many. But that’s OK because we only need one. And the 50-goal tier is where we start to see some names where I wasn’t sure what number they wore. Charlie Simmer? Craig Simpson? Blaine Stoughton? Rick Kehoe? Nope across the board. John Ogrodnick, Wayne Babych or Pierre Larouche? Negative. I held out some hope for No. 55 since the double-digit thing was in vogue after Gretzky, Lemieux and Lindros. But no such luck, as guys like Keith Primeau, Jason Blake and Eric Daze fall well short, and Mark Scheifele has yet to come close. Dave Andreychuk did wear No. 52, but only for one season in 2000-01 when his 50-goal days were well behind him. Same with Dany Heatley wearing No. 51 for the Ducks.

I had a brief flutter of optimism when I remembered Jonathan Cheechoo’s 56-goal season. Did Cheechoo wear No. 56? It seems like the sort of number he might wear, right? He’d never been an elite goal-scorer before that wild 2005-06 season, so maybe he was still wearing a scrub’s number when he broke through. Alas, he was not. He wore No. 14 that year. Not even close.

By the time I got into the low 50s – Rick Martin? Blaine Stoughton? Ray Freaking Sheppard? – desperation was beginning to set in. I felt like I may have made a terrible mistake.

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Every trade deadline of salary cap era ranked

There have been 15 trade deadlines in the salary cap era, and out of all of them, 2020 was definitely the most recent.

That’s about all we can say with any certainty right now. Monday’s deadline was high on volume, but the impact of those moves remains to be seen, even as some initial reactions have already surfaced. That’s how these things work, after all – the deadline arrives, and we all start ranking the winners and losers.

Well, forget that. I say we aim a little bigger. Let’s not just stop at one trade deadline; let’s pass judgment on all of them. Or at least, all of them since the salary cap arrived, since we’re constantly told that that changed everything. So today, let’s count down all 15 deadlines of the cap era to remember the big deals, the worst busts, some random crap you’d long since forgotten, and which ones actually delivered for NHL fans.

#15. 2011

Biggest trade: The Oilers sending Dustin Penner to the Kings for prospect Colten Teubert, a first and a second. That’s right, we sat around all day to see where Dustin Penner wound end up. For what it’s worth, Teubert was a bust, but the first turned into Oscar Klefbom.

Most important trade: Probably Penner, as sad as that it is, since he helped the Kings win a Cup in 2012. Other than that, the Canucks traded for Maxim Lapierre and Chris Higgins to add depth for a long playoff run.

Worst trade: Fighting for top seed in the East, the Penguins had already pulled off a significant hockey trade to land James Neal. But they went cheap on their big deadline rental, sending a seventh-round pick to the Senators for 38-year-old Alexie Kovalev. He didn’t do much, and the Pens were upset in a first round that saw them lose game seven 1-0.

Trade you totally forgot about: Bryan McCabe to the Rangers. In related news, Bryan McCabe was apparently a Ranger?

OK, sure: The Canadiens added a future Wrestlemania main eventer.

Final grade: D. This could surprise you, since you might remember the 2011 season having more action. It did, but not in the days leading up to the deadline; big trades involving names like Tomas Kaberle, Kevin Shattenkirk, Blake Wheeler, Craig Anderson, Francois Beauchemin and Mike Fisher were all done in mid-February. If anything, 2011 marked the year when GMs realized they didn’t have to wait until the last minute to do their shopping, a trend that’s been looming over deadline days ever since.

 

#14. 2012

Biggest trade: Zack Kassian for Cody Hodgson. Yes, really. The deal broke late on deadline day, and with both players still early in their careers, it launched all sorts of debate over who won and how the trade would look years down the road.

Most important trade: Jeff Carter from Columbus to the Kings actually happened several days ahead of the deadline, but it’s pretty much the only pick we can make here. Johnny Oduya from the Jets to the Hawks is a distant second.

Worst trade: Buffalo sending Paul Gaustad to the Predators for a first-round pick. You know that thing where every fan base thinks their bottom-six depth guys should be worth a first on deadline day? Blame this trade.

Trade you totally forgot about: A still-figuring-it-out Ben Bishop going from St. Louis to Ottawa

OK, sure: Remember when Brian Burke said people would eventually remember the seven-player Dion Phaneuf blockbuster as the Keith Aulie trade? Two years later, the Leafs traded Aulie to Tampa for Carter Ashton, a forward who scored zero goals in 54 games in Toronto.

Final grade: D+. The Kings’ Carter deal saves it a bit, but otherwise this was almost as bad as 2011 without any of the pre-deadline fireworks. It’s the year that fans officially started to worry about the deadline.

 

#13. 2016

Biggest trade: Eric Staal going from Carolina to the Rangers for two second-rounders and a prospect who didn’t pan out. It was a classic case of a rebuilding team sending a longtime franchise player to chase a Cup with a contender, but Staal went pointless in the Rangers’ opening round playoff loss.

Most important trade: The Oilers gave up on Justin Schutlz, sending him to the Penguins for a third. He’d help the Pens win the next two Cups.

Worst trade: Dustin Jeffey, Dan O’Donoghue and James Melindy from Arizona to Pittsburgh for Matia Marcantuoni. I’m pretty sure at least three of these four players are made up.

Trade you totally forgot about: Niklas Backstrom to the Flames. Wait, he played for Calgary? (Double-checks.) Oh, that Niklas Backstrom.

OK, sure: Michael Sdao, Eric O’Dell, Cole Schneider and Alexander Guptill from Ottawa to Buffalo for Jason Akeson, Phil Varone and Jerome Leduc. I’m 100 percent sure that seven of these seven players are made up.

Final grade: C-. I got to be part of Sportsnet’s live broadcast of this one, so it was probably my fault.

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Grab bag: Three stars of comedy HOF, Seattle GM power rankings, the Vegas outdoor game and more

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The Three Stars of Comedy hall of fame class of 2019 is here, and it needs your vote
- A power ranking of the ten most entertaining choices for Seattle's new GM
- The NHL really needs to stop putting one player from every team in the all-star game
- An obscure player who's basically just there so I could make a bad Christmas pun
- And a YouTube look back at the modern NHL's original outdoor classic

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Six teams that were forced into trading a star, but still won the deal

We’re still waiting on an Erik Karlsson deal. We’re still told that the Lightning and Stars are the frontrunners, but the rumour mill has largely gone cold and a deal no longer seems imminent. Some reports now suggest that Pierre Dorion could even end up holding on to Karlsson until training camp, if not beyond.

As far as the Senators and their fans go, no news may feel like good news. After all, conventional wisdom says that this is a trade they just can’t win.

For one, there’s the old adage about the team that gets the best player winning the deal, and that will be Karlsson. But more importantly, it’s always been clear that the Senators are dealing from a position of weakness. They don’t want to trade their captain, but they might have no choice. And as the old saying goes, when the league knows you’re drowning, other teams start throwing anchors instead of lifejackets.

We’ve seen it plenty of times in NHL history, and the team that’s forced into dealing a star typically gets taken to the cleaners. Think of Montreal trading Patrick Roy to Colorado, or the Oilers sending Mark Messier to New York, or the Flames all but giving Doug Gilmour to Toronto. Those ended up being some of the most lopsided deals in NHL history, but the teams making them didn’t have much choice. That’s the sort of situation the Senators may be headed towards, and it always ends in misery.

Well, almost always. Because while it’s rare, there have been some cases in NHL history where a team was forced into trading away a superstar and actually ended up doing well on the deal. So today, let’s offer up some optimism for Ottawa fans by looking back at six times that a team was backed into a corner and still found a way to come out even, or even ahead – and what the Senators could learn from them.

Eric Lindros to Philadelphia, 1992

The setup: We’ll start with the most obvious example, and a blockbuster that reminds us that sometimes the best player in a trade doesn’t end up being who you might think.

When the Nordiques drafted Lindros in 1991, they thought they’d landed their franchise player. Lindros was the most hyped prospect to enter the league since Mario Lemieux, and was viewed as a sure-thing superstar. But he didn’t want to play in Quebec and went back to junior rather than sign a contract with the Nordiques. The team tried to play hardball, but after a full year had passed it became evident they’d have to make a trade.

The trade: This gets a little complicated, since the Nordiques actually ended up trading Lindros twice. They agreed to separate deals with both the Rangers and the Flyers, and it took a hearing in front of an NHL arbitrator to figure out which deal would stand. After five days and 11 witnesses, the ruling came down: Lindros was headed to Philadelphia, in exchange for Ron Hextall, Steve Duchesne, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, the rights to Peter Forsberg, two first-round picks and cash.

The result: While he wasn’t the next Lemieux, Lindros came reasonably close to living up to the hype. He won a Hart Trophy in his third season, and eventually made the Hall of Fame despite an injury-riddled career. But the Nordiques may have got the best player in the deal in Forsberg, and the rest of the haul helped them make a quick transition from laughingstock to Cup contender.

(For what it’s worth, the Flyers would end up being backed into an unwanted trade of their own in 2001, when Lindros sat out an entire season to force his way out of town. That deal ended up being a bust.)

The lesson: With all due respect to Karlsson, it’s hard to imagine a player ever having as much trade value as the 19-year-old Lindros did, so the Sens won’t be getting anywhere close to that sort of windfall. But they do seem to be following one key page from the Nordiques’ playbook by working to create a bidding war between two teams. If Dorion can maneuver the Stars and Lightning into an auction, he may be able to extract enough value to make the move work out. Just, uh, don’t pull the trigger on both deals at the same time.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Ranking the ten best Rocket Richard races

With less than three weeks left in the season, most of the attention is focused on the playoff races. And rightly so, as teams battle it out down to the wire to see who’ll earn a spot and how the matchups will sort out.

But there are other races worth watching, including for some of the individual honours. The Art Ross battle is shaping up as a great one, with season-long leader Nikita Kucherov trying to fend off late surges from Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Evgeni Malkin among others. Meanwhile, Kucherov’s teammate Andrei Vasilevskiy is trying to hold off Pekka Rinne and Connor Hellebuyck for the wins title.

But with all due respect to those races, the best of the bunch is for the Rocket Richard Trophy. The goal-scoring title is shaping up as a potential head-to-head fight to the finish between Alex Ovechkin and Patrik Laine, a classic contest between the old guard and the next generation. Laine is the teenaged whiz kid hungry to claim the title in just his second season, while Ovechkin represents the grizzled veteran who isn’t ready to give it up. Mix in Malkin, Eric Staal, the stunning underdog story of William Karlsson and a few others, and this one could come down to the wire. If so, it may be remembered as one of the greatest Rocket Richard races we’ve ever seen.

So today, let’s put together that list, if only to give Laine and Ovechkin something to aim for. The Rocket Richard Trophy has been around since the 1998–99 season, giving us 18 races to work with. Some of those were duds; even in the dead-puck era, the award has been won by a margin of 10 goals or more a half-dozen times. We’ll narrow it down to a top 10, counting our way down to the best race we’ve seen… at least until this year’s.

No. 10: 2000–01

The race: One year after running away with the 2000 title by 14 goals, Pavel Bure had his sights set on a second straight win. It seemed like he’d get it by a similar margin, but a late-season slump saw him finish with just one goal in his final six. That opened the door for two veteran stars who finished hot: Jaromir Jagr, who scored nine in his last six games, and Joe Sakic, who had eight in his last four.

The winner: Bure had built such a big lead that the strong finishes only managed to make the gap respectable. Bure took home the crown with 59 goals, easily topping Sakic (54) and Jagr (52).

The legacy: As races go, it wasn’t all that dramatic. But the fact that it featured three first-ballot Hall-of-Famers earns it a spot in our top 10, narrowly beating out Corey Perry‘s win in the similarly lopsided 2011 race.

No. 9: 1998–99

The race: The Rocket Richard didn’t even exist when the season began; it was only unveiled that January. Still, it looked like Teemu Selanne would capture the inaugural trophy relatively easily when he hit the 45-goal mark with eight games to play. But he went cold down the stretch, opening the door for a field that included Jagr, Alexie Yashin, Tony Amonte and John Leclair to at least make things interesting.

The winner: Jagr and Amonte made a late push, with each scoring four times in their final three games to hit the 44-goal mark. But Selanne coasted home to the crown, finishing the year with 47.

The legacy: The race was just OK, and is probably best remembered just for being the first for the new trophy. Still, given the increased profile that came with attaching Richard’s name to the goal-scoring race, Selanne felt like a worthy winner. An odd fact: The 47 goals made this only the fifth-highest goal-scoring season of his career, but it was the only time he ended up alone in top spot on the leaderboard.

No. 8: 2015–16

The race: It came down to a two-horse race, with Alex Ovechkin gunning for his fourth straight crown while Patrick Kane looked for his first.

The winner: Kane finished the season with a two-goal performance, but Ovechkin topped him with a hat trick. That gave him the title by a four-goal cushion, and even that makes it sound closer than it really was — Kane needed seven goals in his last five to even get that close, and nobody else came within nine of Ovechkin.

The legacy: In terms of star power, this race was right up there; Kane took home the Hart Trophy that season, and Ovechkin had already won it three times. But there wasn’t much suspense, beyond wondering whether Ovechkin would get to 50. He did, with 10 minutes to spare.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Grab bag: Extinguished Flame

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Saying goodbye to Jaromir Jagr
- The week's three comedy stars, all-star edition
- The Whalers are back, kind of
- An obscure player who scored his goals in bunches
- And a YouTube look back at Peter Forsberg's famous Olympic moment, as called by two very impartial Swedish broadcasters

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Podcast: All-star edition

In this week's Biscuits hockey podcast:
- Dave and I react to all-star weekend
- The end(?) of Jaromir Jagr
- Is tweaking interference replay enough?
- Gary Bettman's 25th anniversary arrives
- The Rangers consider becoming deadline sellers
- Reader questions and lots more...

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Grab bag: RIP Johnny Bower

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Introducing the inaugural class of the Three Stars of Comedy Hall of Fame
- Sorry Maple Leafs, but shootout goals don't count
- An obscure WJC star with great hair
- The regular batch of comedy stars
- And the YouTube section looks back and the life, times and brief singing career of Johnny Bower

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Saturday storylines: Leafs vs. Habs

Welcome to our weekly look ahead to the Saturday slate of games. Last week, we told you all about how unstoppable Connor McDavid was. Since then, he’s had no goals, one assist and is a minus-three and the Oilers haven’t won a game.

Whose career will we curse this week? Read on to find out.

HNIC Game of the Night: Maple Leafs at Canadiens

Not exactly a tough call here. Any time the Leafs and Habs meet, it’s something special, especially if it’s on a Saturday night. And if the matchup comes at a time when the two teams can offer up some particularly interesting storylines to chew on, all the better.

That’s the case tonight, as we’ll have plenty of subplots to work with. For example: Offence. The Canadiens can’t score, and the Leafs can’t stop scoring. Not counting the shootout, the Canadiens have scored just four goals all year. Through four games, they’ve yet to manage a multi-goal period.

Meanwhile, the Leafs have already scored three or more in a period four times. The Canadiens got shut out by Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers on Sunday; the night before, the Leafs scored more goals against Lundqvist in the first period than the Habs have in their entire season.

So yes, that would seem to tilt things in Toronto’s favour. But then there’s a second subplot: Goaltending. The Canadiens have the best goalie in the world, while the Maple Leafs still aren’t quite sure what they have. Frederik Andersen looked sharp against the Jets in the opener, but he’s been iffy ever since. He’s not getting a ton of help from a young team that still struggles in its own end, but his .871 save percentage has to have Leaf fans worried (and checking up on Calvin Pickard scouting reports).

Carey Price hasn’t exactly been on fire either – he’s clocking in at .899 – but his track record is just slightly better than Andersen’s, and he’s been the least of Montreal’s concerns so far.

These games have always been fun over the years, even when one team (or both) wasn’t very good. We’ve seen bad blood, sudden death and unfortunate singalongs. Mix in the fact that this year’s meeting could be a first-round playoff preview – no it’s not too early to talk about that; we’re just one good Lightning season away from it finally happening – along with what’s sure to be a vocal Montreal crowd, 14 straight wins for the Habs in the rivalry, the ongoing Alex Galchenyuk drama, and all the Maple Leafs’ best players calling Jonathan Drouin “grandpa,” and you’ve got a matchup that should be all sorts of fun.

It’s the first of four Leafs/Habs meetings this year, and all of them come on Saturday night. We’ll try not to put each and every one in the feature spot of this column, but no promises.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Grab Bag: The NHL needs a Jagr Draft

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Jaromir Jagr is still unsigned. Here's how we fix this.
- Introducing a new name for overrating one-team players
- An obscure player whose name is fun to say
- The week's three comedy stars
- And as the Flyers prepare to retire his jersey, we look back on Eric Lindros's all-time career highlight: Appearing on Arsenio Hall

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports