What's the deal with NHL GMs who go from genius to dunce after switching jobs?

Seven years ago, the Red Wings pulled off the near-impossible: They made a move that absolutely everyone loved.

Their own fans, who were thrilled. Other fan bases, who were grudgingly jealous. The media. The experts. The insiders. The nerds. All 200 hockey men.

Everyone agreed: Hiring Steve Yzerman as GM was a slam dunk.

The news landed one Friday morning, somehow both coming out of nowhere while also feeling like we’d known it all along. Of course the captain was coming home. After an apprenticeship in Tampa Bay that saw him build the Lightning into a powerhouse, Yzerman was returning to Detroit to do the same for the team he’d led to three Cups on the ice. The news received glowing reviews everywhere, with the possible exception of Tampa Bay, where a team already reeling from an historic playoff collapse in their first year without Yzerman worried about what might come next.

After all, this wasn’t just the typical NHL homecoming, where a struggling team trots out a former player to buy some time with a skeptical public. In 2019, Steve Yzerman was considered one of if not the very best GMs in the league. He’d worked magic Tampa, he’d led Team Canada to gold, he’s won GM of the Year. Now he was home, taking over a team ready to make the next step toward contention and beyond.

It was a new hope, because it couldn’t fail. And then it did.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Which draft year makes the best lineup of players traded for first-round picks?

Hidden away on my laptop is a list that’s simply labeled “ideas”. It’s where I keep all those potential columns that I haven’t got around to yet, or in some cases haven’t worked up the courage to try. A lot of them are weird. Some are probably just flat-out dumb. In some cases I’m waiting for some sort of news hook; in others I’m just holding off until Slow News Summer hits its peak. A lot of them just aren’t there yet in terms of supporting a whole piece, but might be some day if I get desperate enough circumstances change.

The point is, sometimes it just makes sense to wait on an idea. And yes, I’ll pause here so you can think about the stuff I have published and then wonder what isn't making the cut.

But there’s a downside to this approach: It turns out that if you wait too long on a given idea, the NHL might just decide to make it moot.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

NHL offer sheet rules used to be wild. Here’s how history looks if that never changes

There’s a good chance that years from now, we’ll look back at these last few weeks as the dawn of the offer sheet era, with the Barret Hayton shot followed by a massive Leo Carlsson chaser. Things got crazy.

But it could have been crazier. So much crazier. Gather round, kids, grandpa’s got a quick story time.

The concepts of restricted free agents and offers sheets first appears in the NHL in 1988, and for the first few years they looked very different from what we know today. In certain circumstances, the player’s original team had no right to match. And if a team couldn’t or wouldn’t match the offer, there was no pre-made chart of draft pick compensation to refer to.

Instead, the compensation would be players – basically, the two teams would be forced to work out a trade. And if they couldn’t directly agree on what that trade should be, things got even wilder. Both teams would submit a proposal for what they thought a “fair” deal would look like, and an independent arbitrator would have to pick one or the other.

The most infamous example of this process came in 1991, when the Blues signed Brendan Shanahan to an offer sheet, prying him away from a Devils team that had no right to match. The Blues offered a compensation built around two young players, Rod Brind’Amour and Curtis Joseph. Not bad. But the Devils wanted more, and they asked for superstar blueliner Scott Stevens instead. Somewhat shockingly, the arbitrator sided with the Devils, sending a furious Stevens to New Jersey and altering the next decade-plus of NHL history.

That decision directly led to the NHL scrapping the forced-trade system in the 1994 CBA. Today, we’re bringing it back.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Which of these eight NHL fan bases should be most insulted by the offseason so far?

The NHL offseason has been in full swing for a few weeks now. Have you been mortally insulted yet?

Not necessarily. For plenty of teams and their fan bases, a modern NHL offseason is just a steady stream of being told how wonderful they are. Both Florida teams know the drill. So does Vegas. This summer, Minnesota is playing the role of the lifelong loner who finally gets invited to sit at the cool kids’ table. How long will that last? We’ll find out, but for now they’re living large.

And then there are those other teams. You know the ones. They’re the markets nobody seems to want to play for, which means they’re at a disadvantage from day one. While other teams seem to have the wind behind the backs at all times, these teams are constantly pushing a boulder up a mountain, wondering when it will veer off course and they’ll have to start all over again.

And yes, it’s all a little bit insulting. If you’re a fan of one of these teams, the act gets old. You can be all for player empowerment (and you should), but at a certain point a fan is going to look around and wonder: What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with my team, or my city? And maybe worst of all: Is there hope?

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Which syllable combination makes history's best roster? Welcome to Slow News Summer

So… we’re well into July.

Most of the big offseason action is over. Things are largely quietly. Pierre is at his cottage. Most importantly, my editors are exhausted and not paying attention. And longtime readers know what that means.

Welcome to Slow News Summer. It is time to get well and truly weird.

OK, sure, a lot of what we do around here is weird anyway. I’ll grant you that. But the dog days of summer? That’s when its time to reach down deep on the ideas list.

If that’s going to bother you, consider this your fair warning to tag out now, and we’ll see you in September. If you’re the sort of person who likes to post “slow news day?” in the column, then yes, it absolutely is, so kick rocks. But for everyone else, let’s get weird.

Today’s question: Which combination of syllables can build the all-time best starting lineup from NHL history?

In other words, you count the syllables in both of a player’s first and last name, and that’s their team. Wayne Gretzky has one syllable in his first name and two in his second, so he’s the captain of Team 1-2. Mario Lemieux is Team 3-2, Bobby Orr is Team 2-1, and so on.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic