Puck Soup: Bowl me over

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Wait, they don't have 5-pin bowling in the United States?
- Josh Manson heads to Colorado, and the Avs look like they've got more moves on the way
- Our thoughts on who's buying, who's selling, and who we want to see move
- The Golden Knights are collapsing, and we're waiting for the coaching change
- The Leafs need a goaltender
- Ryan has strong feelings about a Tyler Seguin quote
- Scott Hall, the Auston Matthews suspension, and more...

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Does Logan Couture have a bad contract? How about Tyler Seguin? Cap court is back in session

Please rise. Salary cap court is back in session.

If you’re new to cap court, the concept is simple. We’ll take five NHL players who might (or might not) have a bad contract. We’ll weigh both sides of the argument, then deliver a verdict. This will be the court’s fourth session, with previous editions having seen us weigh in on names like Erik Karlsson and Jonathan Toews, Carey Price and John Tavares, and Nicklas Backstrom and Jacob Trouba.

For those keeping track at home, the dreaded “bad contract” verdict has been delivered six times out of 15, so we tend to be pretty generous. Some of the decisions hold up better than others, and there were certainly some moments when we tip-toed right up to the line but couldn’t quite convict. Will we get that sort of unsatisfying conclusion again today? Probably, yeah.

The key thing to remember is that we’re judging contracts based on how they look from this point on; we’re not worried about the past. It’s possible that a player’s deal could have been reasonable at the time it was signed, but looks bad now due to declining play or the flat cap or shifting circumstances or whatever else. If so, that’s a bad contract. There’s no room for appeals on the grounds that “it was good for the first few years”.

We’ve got five new cases on the docket today, and they total 40 years of commitment and $326.4 million. That’s a lot. But is it too much? Let’s find out…

Tyler Seguin, Stars

The details: The forward, who turns 30 at the end of the month, is in the third year of an eight-year deal that carries a cap hit of $9.85 million that was signed in 2018.

The case that it’s a bad contract: The cap hit ranks tenth among forwards, ahead of names like Nikita Kucherov, Alexander Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby and Mark Stone. Of the nine players ahead of him, eight have won an award or been a postseason all-star; Seguin hasn’t done either. (The only player with a higher cap hit who hasn’t won anything is Jack Eichel.) Put simply, Seguin is being paid like an elite player and has never really been that, topping out as a guy who could score a point-per-game or maybe a bit more.

And that was before a hip injury threatened to derail his career. He missed almost all of last year, and this year’s comeback, while inspiring, hasn’t been especially productive. It looks increasingly unlikely that Seguin will ever be an elite offensive force again, which is bad news when a contract that pays you that way still has five full years left to go.

The case that it might be OK: We’re focused on today and the future, but it’s still worth making the obvious point that the Stars didn’t know Seguin would get hurt when he signed his deal. (Like every other team in this post, they also didn’t know the cap would be flat for years due to a pandemic.) Given what Dallas knew at the time, the contract wasn’t outrageous when it was signed.

Still, bad stuff happens and we said we’re only judging contracts based on what they look like right now. This one admittedly doesn’t look great. That said, let’s wait and see what Seguin looks like when he’s fully recovered. He’s been a very good scorer in this league before, and it’s possible that this year’s numbers are partly due to the grueling recovery he went through just to get back on the ice. If he can get back to his point-a-game ways, this deal won’t seem awful as the cap slowly rises and other centers pass him on the cap hit list.

Key witnesses: Other guys near Seguin’s age and cap hit include Artemi Panarin, which isn’t a flattering comparison, and John Tavares, which is a little better. You’d probably still take Seguin over fellow 29-year-old Jeff Skinner’s $9 million, even as Skinner is more productive this year. And while it’s depressing for Stars fans, the closest comparable might be 31-year-old Jamie Benn at $9.5 million.

The verdict: We haven’t mentioned it yet, but the deal is also heavy on bonuses, meaning a buyout doesn’t offer much relief. Seguin’s hip problems weren’t something anyone could have predicted, but this deal was on shaky ground even before then. Now? It’s a bad contract.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Puck Soup: And now we wait

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The NHL officially has a target date for training camp; will they hit it?
- We react to that tone-deaf Tyler Seguin BLM video
- John Tortorella shifts his stance on anthem protests, kind of
- We try to figure out where our award votes should go
- Yet another Eugene Melnyk soap opera
- And a quiz: Tik-Tok star or 2019 fifth-round draft pick?

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Puck Soup: Cap court, perfect movies, and should the draft happen before the playoffs?

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The NHL mulls having a June draft before the playoffs
- The latest on the empty arena plans
- Thoughts on the 2011 Bruins reunion
- Should the Devils hire Gerard Gallant?
- Perfect movies
- Ranking wrestling theme songs
- And we bring Salary Cap Court to the podcast, with Mitch Marner, Shea Weber, Brent Burns and more on the docket
- Seriously, Lambert has to defend the Drew Doughty deal and it's the best

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

DGB Grab Bag: An idea to save the All-Star game, Jim Lites’ bleeping tirade and the story of the Saska-Who Blues

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Stars like Alexander Ovechkin skipping the all-star game is a problem, but there's a simple solution
- Dallas Stars CEO Jim Lites had a bit of a meltdown, but I have an idea for how he can make it up to us
- An obscure player with a famous name and a monster rookie season
- The week's three comedy stars, plus the last member of the Hall of Fame class of 2019
- And a YouTube breakdown of the time that a dog food company tried to move the St. Louis Blues to Saskatoon

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

DGB weekend power rankings: The Oilers retool, the Predators fade, and the Stars do whatever the #### that was

The​ rankings took last​ week​ off,​ so​ with​ two​ weeks of​ action to account​ for we should​ expect​ to see a higher-than-usual​​ level of turnover in both the top and bottom five to the extent that blah blah blah let’s talk about how the Dallas Stars have gone looney tunes.

Seriously, I realize that this is a power rankings piece and I should stay focused on which teams go where. But I have a few rules in life, and one of them is that if a team’s CEO kicks off the weekend by going on an expletive-laden rant that would make the corpse of Harold Ballard blush, it gets to be the lead story.

If you haven’t read the rundown in Sean Shapiro’s piece yet, you must do so immediately. And if you have read it, you need to read it again to convince yourself that you didn’t dream it. Go do that now, then come back.

Done? Cool. Now that you’ve read the story, learned some new curse words, and your screen is covered with the singed hair that used to be your eyebrows, let’s figure out what all of this means.

Point one: I don’t think Dallas Stars CEO Jim Lites is super-happy with Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn, you guys. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Is he right? Well, no, not really – Seguin and Benn don’t seem to be the problem in Dallas. But that hardly matters now, since it’s not like these are the sort of comments you can walk back.

Point two: Man, the timing is weird here. The rant came the night after the Stars went into Nashville and shut out the defending Presidents’ Trophy winners. That win was their third in five games, and moved them back into a wild-card spot. You’d think you might want to build on that, not use it as a starting point to go scorched earth on your two franchise players.

And finally, the biggest point of all: It’s hard to imagine any way in which this helps the Stars, either now or in the future. Benn and Seguin didn’t sound happy on Saturday, as you’d expect, and while neither poured any additional gas on the fire the NHLPA is now getting involved. Both players are signed to long-term deals, and even if the Stars wanted to trade them – ownership denies that they do – it would be hard to pull it off in a way that made the team better. And which players are going to be lining up to replace them at the top of the lineup, now that the entire league knows that the Stars are an organization that will publicly humiliate its top players when things are going well?

And it wasn’t just about Benn and Seguin. Lites’ comments didn’t just bury his two stars; they sure seemed to imply that GM Jim Nill could be under the gun too. He probably should be, given the teams’ recent record, but having management advertise the fact publicly can’t make his job any easier.

Maybe the biggest problem with Friday’s meltdown is that it wasn’t spontaneous or off-the-cuff, meaning it appears to reflect the agreed-upon thinking of the organization from the top down. And when you strip away the profanity and the hyperbole, that thinking seems to boil down to: We’re already good enough – “too good”, in fact – and we just need to try harder. Not scoring enough goals? Just “get a little bit closer to the action”, as Lites put it, and the problem is solved.

It sure sounds easy when you put it that way. Unfortunately, that’s not the sort of thing that a struggling team comes up with after any sort of serious self-reflection. It’s wishful thinking, the sort of feel-good story you tell yourself when you don’t have the guts to admit that there are bigger flaws in play.

Maybe it works, and Lites’ tirade ends up inspiring the team. Maybe it doesn’t but ends up coinciding with a win streak and we all decide to pretend it somehow helped. Or maybe the boss just torpedoed a season, or even more than that. We’ll find out. At the very least, we can say the Stars are interesting again. For three years they’ve been that team you forget about when you’re going through the Central in your head and get stuck at six teams. Not anymore.

On to the power rankings. We have two weeks to work with, which should shake up our rankings. Let’s find out just how much.

Road to the Cup

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

Saturday was the rare case of the league breaking out the maximum 15-game schedule. Then they went and played just one game last night. That’s a bit weird for fans, but as someone who writes most of a weekend wrap column on Sunday afternoon, I’m all for it.

5. Winnipeg Jets (24-12-2, +22 true goals differential*) – They’re opening up some space on top of the Central. But the loss of Dustin Byfuglien will hurt, and the offence has only managed multiple goals in one of their last five games. This week’s schedule is a fun one, with the Oilers, Penguins and Stars on tap.

4. Calgary Flames (23-12-4, +28) – Flames or Sharks? That’s the tough call in the Pacific these days. The Flames hold a slight lead, but the Sharks are the hotter team right now. Some models like Calgary. Others prefer San Jose. We’ll get to see them head-to-head tonight, but for now I’m leaning toward the Flames. (Now they just need to avoid any unnecessary distractions…)

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

When teams trade away top-five picks

The​ Ottawa Senators are coming​ off​ one​ of​ the​ worst​ stretches in​ recent pro sports​ memory, including an​ offseason​ that brought one​​ negative story after another. At this point, you’d like to think that they’ve hit rock bottom. But that might not be true, because there’s a nightmare scenario looming.

It goes something like this: The Senators have the kind of season everyone seems to think they will, finishing at or near the bottom of the league. That earns them one of the top picks in the Jack Hughes draft. But they’ve already traded that pick to Colorado in last year’s Matt Duchene deal, so they get to cap off their season by watching the Avalanche draft a potential franchise player instead.

It would be an undeniably awful way to end a miserable season, and it makes a rebuild a much tougher sell to an exhausted fan base. After all, how do you squeeze any optimism out of a losing season if you don’t even have your own first-round pick to look forward to?

If it’s any comfort, the situation the Senators could be facing isn’t unheard of in recent NHL history, although it is relatively rare. In the last 35 years, eight teams have traded away a future first-round pick, only to suffer through a season that placed that choice in the top five of the draft. (To be clear, we’re not counting teams that traded away a pick they already knew would be a top-five; no trade deadline moves or draft floor wheeling and dealing here. We’re looking for teams that traded their pick in the previous calendar year or earlier, meaning that like Ottawa, they didn’t know their pick would be so high when they moved it.)

The Senators will be hoping not to expand that club to nine. But if they do, a look back at those previous cases might give us a sense of what to expect.

A word about arbitrary endpoints

But first: Wait, why are we going back 35 years?

It’s admittedly a bit of a weird place for a cutoff. But when it comes to teams trading away top five picks, there’s actually an interesting reason to draw the line right around 1983.

In the 35 years since, the scenario plays out just those eight times (one of which probably shouldn’t even count, as we’ll see). But from 1980 through 1983, it happened ten times in just four years. That’s kind of crazy, and the list includes the picks used on future Hall of Famers like Denis Savard, Larry Murphy and Pat LaFontaine, not to mention three out of four first overall picks.

What happened? That’s probably a topic for a bigger piece, but we can call it the Sam Pollock influence. Pollock, the legendary Canadiens GM who built the last great Habs dynasty in the 70s, was constantly trading veterans for future draft picks that he turned into stars like Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson. It was his signature move, and it worked so well that you wondered why other GMs weren’t catching on. They eventually did, and you can pretty much divide the history of trading for future draft picks into three distinct eras: The Pollock era, spanning the late 60s to late 70s, in which he was the undisputed king of the move; 1980 through 1983, in which a few other GMs caught on and started pulling off that kind of deal; and 1984 through to today, in which everyone smartened up and realized that trading a future first-round pick is a dangerous move and the deals became an endangered species.

Endangered, but not extinct, as Senator fans are well aware. So today, let’s draw that line at 1983 and look back at the eight times since then that a team has traded away what turned out to be a top-five pick in advance. It’s a club that Ottawa’s front office is really hoping it isn’t about to join, although as we’ll see, sometimes the results are more disastrous than others.

Pierre Larouche (L). (Photo by Denis Brodeur/NHLI via Getty Images)

1984 – Montreal and Hartford

The circumstances: We have to go way back to December of 1981 for the actual trade here. Back then, the Habs and Whalers had only been division rivals for a few months. Hartford had failed to win a playoff game in two seasons since arriving in the WHA merger, and on December 20, they lost 8-2 to the Sabres to fall to 7-16-9 on the year, dead last in the division. New Whalers’ GM Larry Pleau figured they could use some help.

The trade: The Whalers and Canadiens hooked up on a Pollock-style trade that saw Pierre Larouche head to Hartford. Larouche had just turned 26, was a year removed from a 91-point season, and had 21 points through 22 games that season, so he was a decent pickup. He did fine in Hartford for a few years before leaving as a free agent.

But the rest of the deal was unusual, with the teams swapping a total of five picks – all of them coming in 1984 and 1985.

The pick: The two teams exchanged first-rounders in 1984, three years down the line. By then, the Canadiens weren’t very good, finishing with just 75 points. But the Whalers were even worse, and their pick ended up being fifth overall. The Canadiens used it to take defenceman Petr Svoboda.

The aftermath: Svoboda was a decent player. But the Whalers used Montreal’s pick to take Sylvain Cote, who was basically the same guy, so we can call this one even. If you’re a Senators fan looking for assurance that these deals can work out OK, this one helps.

That said, the deal could have been a history-altering debacle for Hartford. The top prospect in that 1984 draft was a French kid who turned out to be pretty good, and it’s safe to assume Montreal had him in mind when they made the deal way back in 1981. If the Whalers had been even worse than they were, this could have been the trade that put Mario Lemieux in Montreal.

1987 – Bruins and Canucks

The circumstances: By the 1986 offseason, the Canucks hadn’t won a playoff round since their surprise trip to the 1982 final, and were getting tired of being also-rans to Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers. So they decided to trade their 1987 first to the Bruins for somebody who could make an impact right away.

The trade: In June 1986, the Canucks landed two-time 100-point center Barry Pederson from Boston in exchange for their 1987 first rounder, plus a young winger who’d been kind of a disappointment through three seasons.

The pick: Thanks in parts to Pederson, the Canucks actually improved in 1986-87. But so did a few of the league’s other bottom-feeders, and Vancouver’s pick ended up being third overall. The Bruins used it to take defenseman Glen Wesley.

The aftermath: Wesley was a good player, and played in the 1989 all-star game. He’d spend seven years in Boston, many of them alongside Ray Bourque, and was eventually traded to Hartford for a stunning haul of three first-round picks, all of which ended up in the top ten.

Still, it could have been worse. The Canucks finished the season with three straight wins; take a few of those away, and the Bruins could have been using a top-two pick on Pierre Turgeon or Brendan Shanahan.

So even though Pederson didn’t stick around very long in Vancouver, trading away the pick to get him wasn’t a total disaster. Well, not on its own. As every Canuck and Bruin fan well knows, that disappointing young winger was a kid named Cam Neely. He exploded in Boston, quickly turning the Wesley pick into an afterthought and making this one of the worst trades of all time.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Grab bag: The shootout debate

In the Friday Grab bag:
- Examining both sides of the Olympics shootout debate
- The secret to getting the trade market moving may be some long-term thinking
- The very rare obscure Montreal Canadiens captain
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube look at an NHL front office talking themselves into a terrible trade...

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Grab Bag: Irregularly schedule programming

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Debating the Stanley Cup Final schedule
- What the NHL needs to do with compensatory draft picks
- The week's three comedy stars
- An obscure former Shark and Penguin
- And a YouTube look back at San Jose's playoff debut.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Weekend report: When injuries change everything

Faceoff: Insult to Injury

With one week left in the regular season and the playoffs drawing near, hockey fans have turned their attention to the usual questions: Who's in? Who's out? Who's playing who? Who's hot, who's cold, and who's got the clearest path to the final?

This year, another question is starting to loom even larger: Who's healthy?

The quick answer, as always, is "nobody" because this is the NHL and everyone is banged up in one way or another by this point. But this year, there are some very significant names showing up on injury reports around the league in the season's final days, and many of them are big enough to change the perception of some team's playoff chances.

The latest bombshell arrived late Saturday evening, with news breaking that Lightning captain Steven Stamkos would need to undergo surgery for a blood clot in his arm. He'll miss at least a month, and could be sidelined until after the final. While the good news is that the clots apparently won't impact his long-term health outlook, the timing is devastating to a Lightning team that had been considered a favourite to come out of the Atlantic, if not the Eastern Conference. The team had already lost key defenceman Anton Stralman to a broken leg that's left him hoping for a return "at some point." Losing Stamkos too may be enough to shift Tampa Bay from Conference favourite to first-round underdog. (And now, even potential AHL saviour Jonathan Drouin is apparently hurt, too.)

The Stamkos story followed on the heels of Saturday morning's news from Pittsburgh that Marc-Andre Fleury has been shut down with his second concussion of the season. That's a major blow to a team that had emerged as a legitimate Cup threat under new coach Mike Sullivan. We don't yet know how long Fleury will be out, but an extended absence would put all the playoff pressure on 21-year-old rookie Matt Murray. (For what it's worth, Murray has looked very good in his nine career games, including a 24-save shutout against the Islanders after the Fleury news broke on Saturday.)

Fleury isn't the only playoff-bound goaltender on the sidelines with a head injury. The Ducks announced Friday that sometimes-starter Frederik Andersen is out indefinitely with a concussion. Anaheim will also be without forward David Perron, who'll miss four to six weeks with a separated shoulder.

Just when things were going right for the Penguins...–Photo by Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

And then there's the ongoing mystery of Blackhawks starter Corey Crawford. He hasn't played since March 14 due to what the team is calling an upper-body injury, and there's been plenty of speculation over exactly what that might mean. The team still says it still hopes to have Crawford back in time for the playoffs, but with a tough first-round matchup looming, any sort of absence—or even rust—could spell disaster. Meanwhile, the Hawks have also lost Andrew Shaw to injury and Duncan Keith to a suspension, and could now be without Marian Hossa, who left Sunday's game after a collision and did not return.

The list continues. Tyler Seguin of the Stars. Travis Hamonic and Jaroslav Halak of the Islanders. Marc-Edouard Vlasic of the Sharks. Jay Bouwmeester of the Blues. Marian Gaborik of the Kings. All big names, all sidelined as the season winds down, all hoping to return for the playoffs but none a sure thing.

Any predictions of injury-related doom and gloom at this time of year need to be taken with a grain of salt—the star player who misses time late but manages to miraculously recover just in time for the playoffs is a story we've seen before. But the flood of big names on the injury report could be enough to tilt the balance of power in at least a series or two. And we still have a week to add to the list...

Race to the Cup

The five teams with the best shot at winning the Stanley Cup.

5. Chicago Blackhawks (46-26-7, +25 true goals differential)—I should have slipped the Penguins in here and dropped Chicago off the list. Then I watched the shorthanded Hawks speedbag what should have been a desperate Bruins team for 35 minutes Sunday and I went "Oh yeah, these guys." Then I watched the last 25 minutes and went "Wait, I'm confused." I remain confused.

4. Los Angeles Kings (46-27-5, +30)—They hold their spot in our top five, but the Ducks have passed them again for top spot in the Pacific.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Weekend report: In praise of the Central

Faceoff: Central Division

The phrase "best division in hockey" gets thrown around a lot. It's faint praise, in a way—there are only four divisions, so by definition each one has a 25 percent chance of earning the honour. At any given time, someone has to be the best.

And so we probably need a better term to describe what's happening in the Central Division these days. It's not just the best division in hockey, it may well be the best division in sports, period. It's also a bar fight, one that's taking place on a Tilt-A-Whirl during a tornado. It's beautiful.

This isn't new. Last year's Central made its way into the best division ever discussion, then went on to produce the season's Stanley Cup champion. This year's edition doesn't have the same top-to-bottom excellence, but it's even more impressive in a way because it's so top heavy. For much of the past few weeks, the Central has featured three of the league's top four teams in terms of overall points.

That would be the Hawks, Stars and Blues. Or maybe the Stars, Blues and Hawks. Or the Blues, Hawks and Stars. The order shifts around pretty much every day, which is a big part of the fun. Nobody has been able to pull away for the lead. And that's important because this isn't some battle to see who'll get to fly a meaningless "division champ" banner next year. The two teams that don't finish first will have to play each other in the first round, a prospect that's as cruel to the teams and fans involved as it is amazing for the rest of us.

Imagine being, say, the Stars, storming through the regular season on your way to one of the best year's in franchise history only to start the playoffs on the road against the Blackhawks. That's the kind of outcome waiting for one of these teams based on how the last nine games play out.

And it may well be the Stars who end up falling to the dreaded third spot, even though they own the top seed today. They've got a tough schedule, one that features teams like the Sharks, Kings and Ducks, and they've now lost Tyler Seguin to a gruesome Achilles injury that you definitely shouldn't click on. The Blues won't have much sympathy, given the injury problems they've suffered through all year. But they're starting to get healthy just in time for the stretch drive, with Brian Elliot the latest name to resurface. They've got an ugly schedule of their own, one that features a pair of meetings with the Capitals (although it's possible that Washington could have wrapped up the top seed and be resting stars by that point).

Vladimir Tarasenko has the Blues within striking distance of their second straight division title. —Photo by Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

And then there's Chicago, the team we'll all be picking no matter where it winds up. The Blackhawks haven't dominated the Central's regular-season standings over the years the way you might assume they have—they've started the playoffs on the road in four of the last five seasons, including last year. They've got the easiest schedule of the three by far, with patsies like the Flames, Canucks, Jets and Blue Jackets showing up. They're also stumbling somewhat down the stretch, losing five of their last six including Sunday's shootout decision to Minnesota.

The Stars sit at 95 points, with the Blues at 93 and the Hawks at 91. All three teams have played 73 games, and while it's still too early to go too far down the tie-breaking rabbit hole, it's worth noting that the Blues are well behind in the ROW column, which could turn out to be big. It's not as if the division winner will get a bye—they'll face a wild-card team, and we'll get to them in a minute—but in a league where the playoffs are a war of attrition and a short series or two can go a long way toward a championship run, it's not hard to see which matchup looks preferable.

But for now, the race to the top of the Central should be fantastic fun for the rest of the season. And for two unfortunate teams, the bar fight will spill over into the opening round.

Race to the Cup

The five teams with the best shot at winning the Stanley Cup.

5. St. Louis Blues (42-22-9, +8 true goals differential)—Elliott posted a shutout in his return, which stopped a disturbing mini-slide; they'd lost to Calgary and Edmonton earlier in the week, giving up 13 goals in the process.

4. Chicago Blackhawks (42-24-7, +25)—They lost to the Wild? Man, someone's not in playoff form yet.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

We are all Dallas Stars fans now

As leaguewide scoring rates continue to drop and the NHL mulls yet another round of rule changes to boost offense, many fans are no doubt wondering: What can I do? What kind of steps could a typical fan take to help the league get back to the sort of exciting action it used to showcase a generation ago, before defense and goaltending took over?

The answer has always been: not much. Fans can complain all they want, but the issue is a complicated one and the league has shown precious little resolve to make the sort of drastic changes that might address it. You can vote with your eyeballs or your wallet, but that’s about it. There’s nothing you can do to help the league save itself.

Until now. This season, there really is a simple action we all could take that could make a difference.

This season, we all need to cheer for the Dallas Stars to win the Stanley Cup.

>> Read the full post on ESPN.com

Making sense of the Phil Kessel trade

If the last few days of NHL transactions have reminded us of anything, it’s this: There’s a huge difference between the trade you choose to make and the one you need to make.

After a round of failed contract talks with Dougie Hamilton and a growing sense that he wanted out, the Boston Bruins felt like they needed to trade him. With a cap crunch and the threat, real or perceived, of an offer sheet looming, the Blackhawks felt like they needed to trade Brandon Saad. In both cases, the return was underwhelming and widely panned. That’s what happens when it’s a trade you need to make — you end up taking what you can get when you can get it, even if that means you’re selling at a discount.

On the surface, the Maple Leafs didn’t need to trade Phil Kessel. The 27-year-old sniper has seven years left on his contract, so he wasn’t hitting the open market anytime soon. At an $8 million cap hit, he certainly wasn’t cheap, but he also wasn’t especially overpaid based on his production. And he was easily the team’s best player, and among the very best in the league when it comes to what he does best; only Alexander Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, and Corey Perry have scored more goals over the last five years, and Kessel managed that while dragging Tyler Bozak around the ice as his center.

Now, the Leafs did need to trade someone — president Brendan Shanahan had said as much in April, acknowledging that “for whatever reason, the mix doesn’t work” — and after yet another disastrous season, nobody on the roster deserved to be untouchable. If the right offer came along, anyone was available. But if there was one guy among the team’s core that you’d be happy to keep, you’d think Kessel would be that guy. The Maple Leafs could certainly choose to trade him, but they didn’t need to.

Or did they? Yesterday, the Maple Leafs sent Kessel to the Penguins in a trade that would make sense only if it were one they thought they needed to make. The full deal has Toronto sending Kessel to Pittsburgh along with a second-round pick, Tyler Biggs, and Tim Erixon. In exchange, they get prospects Kasperi Kapanen and Scott Harrington, forward Nick Spaling, a first, and a third.

That’s a mouthful, but we can trim it down for evaluation purposes. Biggs and Erixon are minor pieces that were presumably included primarily to free up contract spots, and Spaling is a mildly useful player who’s mostly a salary dump. It’s not unfair to think of this trade as boiling down to Kessel for Kapanen, Harrington, and a first.

That’s not an awful return, but it’s not the sort of package that typically makes a team move its top player. Kapanen is a good prospect, a skilled winger who was the Penguins’ top pick in 2014 and still hasn’t turned 19. He projects as a top-six guy, maybe even a future first-liner if everything breaks just right. Harrington is a 22-year-old defenseman who could still top out as a solid second-pairing guy. Both have value; neither is a sure thing. As for the first-rounder, it’s actually a conditional pick that can’t fall into the lottery, and could revert down to a second-rounder if the Penguins miss the playoffs in each of the next two years.

Then there’s the not-so-small matter of salary retention. The Leafs will eat $1.2 million of Kessel’s salary and cap hit for all seven years left on his deal. Shanahan has (correctly) refused to put a timeline on the Maple Leafs’ rebuild, but it’s safe to say that it’s not “eight years or more.” At some point when the plan calls for them to be contending for a championship, the Leafs will still be sitting with $1.2 million in dead cap space on the books from this deal. That hurts.

So if that’s the best Toronto could do for Kessel, why trade him at all? Why not focus on moving out other players and hold on to the guy you can pencil in for 30 goals and 80 points most years? And in fact, the Leafs had spent the last few weeks assuring everyone that they were perfectly prepared to do just that. If the market wasn’t there, why not wait it out?

Today, the answer seems clear: They were bluffing. They were always going to move Kessel this summer. They didn’t think they had a choice.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Grab bag: Bulletin board material

In the grab bag:
- Enough with "bulletin board material"
- The NHL's playoff scheduling is awful
- Hawks vs Ducks means it's time to celebrate the Grim Reaper
- The second round's comedy stars
- And a YouTube breakdown of the Lightning's impressive debut.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Is this the worst it's ever been? Part four

Randy Carlyle attempts to remember
what a smile feels like

Almost six years ago, the Maple Leafs were in a bad place. They'd missed the playoffs for a team record three straight years. The Muskoka Five situation had just unfolded. They'd fired John Ferguson Jr., but failed in their efforts to lure Brian Burke out of Anaheim. And fans were starting to wonder: Is this the worst it's ever been?

So I decided to find out. In what would go on to become one of the most popular set of posts from this blog's first year, I went back to 1983 and reviewed a quarter century of Maple Leafs misery, assigning a "How bad was it?" score to each season.

• Part one: the reign of Harold Ballard
  
• Part two: the Fletcher and Quinn years
  
• Part three: The JFJ era

The conclusion: Yes, it really was the worst that it had ever been. With a final score of 95/100, the just-completed 2007-08 season took the crown as the worst in recent Leafs history.

But that was a long time ago. In the years since, I've often heard from fans wanting to know when I'd update the series with entries from the Burke/Nonis era. I always figured I'd know when the time was right. Today, with news of Randy Carlyle's contract extension, I think that time has arrived.

And so, six seasons later, it's time for the sequel. Welcome to part four, as we try to answer the question: Is this the worst it's ever been?

2008-09

The good: The Leafs fail to hire a GM during the summer like they said they would, and head into the season with Cliff Fletcher still in charge. But it turns out to be all part of a master plan, as Brian Burke mysteriously becomes available a month into the season and is hired after all. He gives an entertaining press conference that introduces the word "truculence" to the sports world, and eventually has his own guys in place, like Ron Wilson and Dave Nonis. He also outbids Ottawa for college free agent Tyler Bozak, who projects as a possible third-liner someday.

The bad: Before Burke arrives, Fletcher makes a series of odd moves, like trading up to draft Luke Schenn, signing Jeff Finger and trading away Alex Steen. He also fails to get anything for Mats Sundin's negotiating rights, and gives the Habs a second round pick for some punk kid named Mikhail Grabovski.

The team struggles through another non-playoff year, finishing last in the Northeast while leading the NHL in goals allowed. Jason Blake is the team's leading scorer. The goaltending, led by Vesa Toskala and Curtis Joseph, is terrible. Burke should probably get to work on fixing that.

Sundin eventually signs with the Canucks, then comes back to Toronto and beats the Leafs with a shootout-winning goal. It's pretty much the highlight of the season.

How bad was it? 75/100. The team is terrible, but at least Burke seems to have a plan. For the first time in years, there's a palpable feeling of hope.

2009-10

The good: The Leafs draft Nazem Kadri, leading to one of the great draft floor moments of all time. In September, Burke trades three draft picks to the Bruins for Phil Kessel. Despite missing the first month, Kessel scores 30 goals andeveryone agrees that the deal will be a good one for the Leafs as long as the draft pick doesn't end up being unexpectedly high, like tenth.

Later in the season, Burke acquired Dion Phaneuf in exchange for a handful of spare parts, and also manages to somehow offload both Toskala and Jason Blake's contract.

The bad: Burke signs a ton of free agents, pretty much all of whom are expensive busts. The team loses its first eight games and is basically eliminated from the playoffs by Halloween. Toskala and rookie Jonas Gustavsson provide the team with almost historically bad goaltending, and as the season wears on, it becomes apparent that the Leafs could finish dead last and hand the Bruins the #1 overall pick. They avoid that, narrowly, but finish 29th instead.

How bad was it? 90/100. Just an awful year. Among the many, many awful elements of this season was the nagging feeling that Burke wasn't as smart as we'd all hoped he was, and the next few years was just going to be more of the same. But the Phaneuf trade inspired just enough confidence to keep this year out of "worst ever" contention.

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Phil Kessel's suspension hearing: The top secret transcript

Kessel spears Scott right in the creepy extra
leg that apparently hangs off of his hip.

(Scene: A boardroom in a downtown skyscraper. Brendan Shanahan sits at one end of a long table, preparing for the hearing. After shuffling a few papers, he's ready to begin.)

Shanahan: OK, first up we need to hear from the Maple Leafs. Send in Phil Kessel and Randy Carlyle.

(Phil Kessel walks into the room.)

Shanahan: Uh, where's Randy?

Kessel: Oh, he's on his way.

(Carlyle, sprawled out on top of a fainting couch, is carried into the room by several MLSE interns.)

Carlyle (with the back of his hand to his forehead): Fighting! Enforcers! Oh the humanity! However could an NHL team do such a thing!

Shanahan: Uh, Randy…

Carlyle: Won't somebody please think of the children!

Shanahan: Good try, Randy.

Carlyle: Not buying it, eh?

Shanahan: Not especially.

Carlyle (getting up from the fainting couch): Want to fight about it?

Shanahan: Maybe later. But first I want to talk to Phil. Phil, you're here because you slashed John Scott twice. It sure seemed like intent to injure. Let's start with the first slash, how can you justify that?

Kessel: Before the faceoff, John Scott told me he was going to attack me. He's much bigger than me and has far more experience fighting, so I felt that I needed to take action to protect myself. Whether it's on the ice or on the street, a person in imminent danger of being assaulted has a right to self-defence, and so I did what I had to do.

Shanahan: Hm. That's pretty convincing.

Kessel: Thanks.

Shanahan: And the second slash?

Kessel: Oh, I was just trying to break his ankle.

Shanahan: Ah.

Kessel: Seriously, screw that guy, am I right?

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Beyond the DMV: Other ways NHL stars get preferential treatment

They told him he couldn't smile for his license photo,
so he thought about Marc-Andre Fleury in the playoffs

.

It's August and there's not much happening in the NHL, which means it's time for the hockey world to find something completely harmless and blow it up into a manufactured controversy. Luckily, Sidney Crosby was kind enough to get the ball rolling for us.

In what's become a major story in Pittsburgh, Crosby was apparently allowed to skip to the front of the line at a local DMV over the weekend. This has led to accusations of preferential treatment and has some fans painting Crosby as a diva who can't be bothered to follow the same rules as everyone else.

It's all nonsense, of course. Expecting a celebrity to sit and wait for an hour while getting mobbed by fans would be silly. And besides, it's not like Crosby is the only NHL player who occasionally gets to experience the benefits of fame.

In fact, sources tell me that some of the biggest names in the hockey world often get special treatment:

Roberto Luongo - The managers at the moving supplies store never call security on him even though he goes in once a day to randomly yell "No I don't need any packing tape or boxes today thanks!" and then runs out of the room crying.

Dustin Byfuglien - Managers at the local grocery store have confirmed that they would let him cut in front of the other customers in the checkout line, in theory, if he ever left any food behind for anyone else to buy.

Alexander Ovechkin - Cops are always letting him off the hook for making illegal turns, since it's not like anyone could reasonably be expected to remember the difference between left and right.

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Grantland: Ten names in the offseason spotlight

Last week was a busy one in the NHL, featuring the draft, several major trades, and the opening days of unrestricted free agency. And while the offseason stretches into September, history tends to show that most of the key moves are made within those frantic first few days.

Some transactions will fly under the radar, while others will be noticed and then forgotten relatively quickly. And then there are the important decisions that catch everyone’s attention, spurring debate and inevitably thrusting some poor soul directly into the spotlight — whether he wants to be there or not.

Here are 10 names from around the league who, for good or for bad, have found themselves solidly in that spotlight after the offseason’s opening act.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Free agency preview

Honestly, I don't even have a joke here.

While the opening of free agency has historically been one of the most important days on the NHL calendar, it's diminished somewhat in recent years. As teams got accustomed to life in a salary cap world, fewer and fewer marquee players have made it to unrestricted free agency and the day has started to lose some of its lustre.

But that trend may not hold this year, thanks to a salary cap that will drop for the first time in history. With cap space harder to come by, some teams have had to make the tough decisions to let players explore free agency. Mix in a handful of victims of compliance buyouts, and the list of available players suddenly doesn't seem so bad.

Here's a look at some of the top players who'll be available to the highest bidder on Friday.

Vincent Lecavalier - Is a player that every NHL owner would love to have chance to meet with in person, in most cases because they'd like to borrow money from him.

Tyler Bozak - Will probably proofread his contract offers very carefully to make sure he avoids any careless mistakes, like looking at a number three and for some reason fooling yourself into thinking it's somehow a number one.

Ilya Bryzgalov - Has spent the last week holed up in his home office loudly yelling about how many years could be available and how high the numbers might go, which is weird because he doesn't have a phone in there and hasn't been told he's a free agent and also his "office" is a castle he made out of lego.

Nathan Horton - Teams are said to be concerned about reports that his recurring dislocated shoulder is such a complete and irredeemable mess that Tyler Seguin recently moved into it.

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Beyond "You Lit A Fire": Other recent newspaper ads from around the league

By now you may have seen the mysterious “You Lit A Fire” ad that recently appeared in a Toronto newspaper. If not, you can view a copy of the ad here. Really, I can't recommend it highly enough.

The ad is interesting for several reasons, not the least of which is that we don’t know who paid for it. But it’s that quasi-poetic and sort of creepy repeated mantra of “You Lit A Fire” that really makes it memorable. What does it all mean? Nobody seems to know for sure.

But while the circumstances around this particular ad are a little bit unusual, these sorts of paid messages actually show up in newspapers fairly often this time of year. In fact, I’ve seen several similar ads in various newspapers around the league over the past few days.

Just in case you don't believe me, I cut a few out out and scanned them for you.

---

For example, this recently showed up in a Colorado paper.

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