Who was the worst NHL GM to keep his job for five years or more?

 I’m a big fan of sports questions that seem simple but are actually more complicated than they appear, which is how I’ve managed to waste huge chunks of my life on questions about jersey numbers or building rosters of terrible contracts that are still somehow cap compliant. Today, we’re going to try another one.

Which GM had the worst long stint with a team, meaning five years or longer?

You can already see the problem. There are lots of GMs in NHL history who’ve held the role for a particular team for a long time. And there are lots of GMs who didn’t do an especially great job. But those two groups aren’t supposed to overlap. This is supposed to be one of the most important jobs in a relentlessly results-oriented league – if you’re not having success, shouldn’t your team replace you with somebody else who might?

You’d think so. And sure enough, most of the GMs who are remembered poorly fall short of our five-year cutoff, often by a lot. Even guys that stuck around longer than fans might have wanted, like John Ferguson Jr. in Toronto, Ron Hextall in Pittsburgh, Ned Harkness in Detroit or Peter Chiarelli in Edmonton didn’t get to the five-year mark. Five years is a lot.

But every now and then, for a variety of reasons, a team sticks with a guy well past the point that results would dictate. Those are the guys we’re interested in today, as we count down the ten worst GMs to get at least five years with the same team.

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Puck Soup: You're fired

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- If you missed it we fired Greg
- Big changes for the Canucks and Flyers
- The NHL has a new program that's about respect
- Are we still going to the Olympics?
- Four controversial hits from three players leads to two suspensions and we have thoughts
- 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.

Weekend rankings: Maple Leafs? Wild? Rangers? This week’s top five is impossible and I quit. Plus, the Canucks finally blow it up

Last week, I wrote about how difficult it was to do a top five when there were at least 10 worthy teams, if not more. I complained that “Often, the gap between fifth and sixth is a small one, if it’s even there at all. Sometimes, there isn’t much gap between third or fourth and ninth or tenth.”

The hockey gods apparently read that and said: OK, let’s really screw with this guy.

Last week’s mild confusion feels like the good old days now, because I have absolutely no idea what to do with this week’s top five. Honestly, it feels like all the teams got together and decided to make life difficult for the rankings people. Let’s do a quick summary:

• In the Pacific, the Oilers have been in my top five for a month, but regulation losses to the Kraken and Kings opened the door for the Flames to pass them in the standings as well as in Dom’s projections, while the maybe-better-on-paper Golden Knights continued to spin their wheels. So now it’s Calgary’s division. But then the Flames lost in regulation to Vegas last night, so maybe not.
• The Avalanche finally reached something approaching full power by getting Nathan MacKinnon back, setting them up to justify my ongoing faith that they’re among the best teams in the league despite what their record says. Then they went out an got stomped by the Maple Leafs and somehow even lost to the Senators, and now Cale Makar is hurt, and also they’ve been caught by the red-hot Stars. Meanwhile, an eternally disrespected Minnesota Wild team that didn’t even make my top ten last week continues to beat everyone, including those unstoppable Leafs.
• So right, Toronto. This was the week everyone seemed to grudgingly accept that they were really good, to the point that the Friday rankings guys had them at number one. Then they lost to the Wild, because of course they did, except that it was a shootout so it only kind of counts and they erased a 3-0 deficit on the road against a good team to get there. There was no such comeback last night, as they lost to the Jets by a 6-3 final. Also, they’re the Leafs, and nobody thinks they’ve actually got a long playoff run in them. While all that was going on the Lightning, who I quietly dropped from last week’s top five, were personally offended and took it out on the Flyers last night.
• And those are the three easy divisions. The Metro is a complete mess. I’ve had the Hurricanes in or around the number one slot all season long, but they’ve gone legitimately cold with three straight regulation losses before getting back on track against the Sabres. That’s dropped them down to third in their own division by points percentage, ever-so-slightly behind the Capitals, who were the team I moved up to the top five last week. But both teams are now well behind the Rangers, who’ve won six straight in a streak that’s truly impressive if you don’t look too closely at who they’ve played, but still. Also, their goalie is on the IR now.

Seriously, what am I supposed to do with all of this?

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Puck Soup: Montreal mess

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Big changes in Montreal
- Should more be on the way in Vancouver?
- We have a biting suspension
- Time to reset the "days since Brad Marchand did something dirty" sign
- The Penguins are sold
- Playoff bubble, holiday stuff, a quiz and lots 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.

Weekend rankings: A few things we know and a whole lot we still don’t after one month

We’re over a month into the season now, so we should know a few things. Not everything, obviously. There’s still plenty of time for twists and turns and there will be more than a few surprises by the time we get to the games that actually matter. But a month of hockey is a long time, and that means we should be pretty sure on at least a few things by now.

For example… uh…

(Checks list.)

The Coyotes are bad. Connor McDavid is good. The Hurricanes are probably good too.

(Checks list again.)

(Turns list upside down.)

(Shrugs dramatically.)

I mean, what else have we got that you actually feel confident about right now? The Panthers were probably on that list a week ago, but haven’t won since. The Avs, Knights and Lightning were all supposed to be elite contenders, and maybe they still are, but they’ve certainly made us wonder at a few points along the way. The Islanders and Bruins seem OK but were supposed to be more. Calgary and Edmonton are better than expected. Who knows about the Penguins, Maple Leafs and Flyers. The Caps, Wild and Jets are maybe about right, I guess?

At the other end of the spectrum, other than the Coyotes pretty much all the teams who were supposed to be bad have been decent other than maybe Ottawa. The Hawks looked awful but were better this week. The Habs are a mess but we’re still waiting to see what they’ll look like when Carey Price is back. Dallas and Vancouver both seems to be almost out of chances. And maybe one of the biggest surprises is that an expansion team looks like an expansion team, which we probably should have all expected but here we are.

Basically, the first month has been a whole lot of “huh”. Depending on your perspective, that might make all of this frustrating or a lot more fun.

Anyway, it’s my job to understand the NHL and explain it to you but I really have no idea what’s going on right now. Please enjoy the power rankings anyway…

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Grab Bag: Summer days, an idea for bad GMs and the best Don Cherry soundbite ever

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- It's summer, so we won't be doing these every week
- I have a great idea for how we could mess with the league's worst GMs
- An obscure player with a familiar name
- An offseason confession that I have to get off my chest
- And a look back at the best minute of Don Cherry soundbites you'll ever hear

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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NHL GMs don’t get second chances anymore. That might change how your favorite team is run.

If​ you had to​ guess,​ how​ many​ current​ NHL​ head coaches​ do you think​ have held that​ job​ for at least​​ one other team during their careers?

You might assume the number would be fairly high. After all, the NHL is often accused of being an old boys’ club, where teams prefer the safety of a familiar name to taking a chance on a fresh face.

If so, you’d be right. The vast majority of current coaches – 21 out of 31 – are on at least their second head coaching job. That includes nine coaches who are on their second chance, eight who are on their third, and four who are on their fourth. John Tortorella is actually on his fifth if you count his brief interim stint with the Rangers in 1999-00.

OK, now let’s move up the org chart and try the same question for the front office. How many of today’s 31 GMs are on at least their second chance at the job? If anything, we might think that the old boys’ club effect would be even more pronounced here. GM jobs don’t open up very often and they typically require plenty of experience, so you might expect to see the same old faces being recycled through the league.

But we don’t. In fact, only 10 of the league’s current GMs are on their second full-time job. (It’s 11 if you count Jeff Gorton’s interim stint with Boston, although that only lasted a few months.) Two-thirds of today’s GMs are on their first shot at the job. And only one GM in the entire league, Lou Lamoriello, has done it for more than two teams.

That seems pretty amazing. It didn’t used to be like this – even a decade or so ago, it wasn’t unusual to see guys like Cliff Fletcher, Bobby Clarke, Brian Burke or Bryan Murray show up for third, fourth and even fifth cracks at a GM’s job. But these days, most teams don’t seem interested in hiring a retread. More often than not, a GM’s career is one-and-done.

The two types of second-chance GMs

The trend gets even more pronounced if you look at the 10 GMs who did manage to get a second chance. Almost all of them fall into one of two categories: Stanley Cup winners, or guys who held their first job forever.

The Cup winner category includes names like Ray Shero and Peter Chiarelli, as well as Dale Tallon, who built pretty much the entire Blackhawks’ 2009-2010 roster before being fired after free agency. The Blackhawks made a point of giving him a ring even though he wasn’t employed by the team anymore, so we’ll defer to their judgment and consider him a Cup winner.

Then there’s the guys who didn’t win a Cup, but held their previous job forever. That would include George McPhee (17 years in Washington before going to Vegas); David Poile (15 years in Washington before Nashville); and Don Waddell (12 years in Atlanta before getting the Carolina job this summer).

Two more guys, Lamoriello and Jim Rutherford, fit into both categories, having held previous jobs for well over a decade while winning Cups in the process.

That leaves us with just two current GMs in the entire league who managed to get a second crack at the job despite not either winning a Cup or sticking around forever in their first.

The first is Doug Armstrong. He does have a Cup ring, earned as an assistant in Dallas, but didn’t have much success in five years as GM there. He still managed to work his way back to the big chair in St. Louis in 2010, and he’s held it ever since.

The second is Anaheim GM Bob Murray. You may not even remember his previous time as a GM, because it came back in the 1990s. He had a quick stint as GM in Chicago from 1997 to 1999, then waited nearly 10 years before getting a second shot with Anaheim in 2008.

That’s it. Two guys in the entire league who didn’t succeed in their first crack at being a GM and still got a second chance. One of them had to wait nearly a decade. And neither was hired within the last eight years.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Winners and losers from day one of free agency

Another July 1 has come and gone in the NHL, meaning we’re now a day into the free-agency market. And for once, we had some Canada Day fireworks to enjoy. An actual, honest-to-goodness NHL star in his prime actually made it to the market. Not only that, he changed teams. You probably heard about it.

John Tavares wasn’t the only name on the move. But he’s the one we have to start with, because this is a winners and losers column. And for one of the only times in the last half-decade or so, the big winners in the NHL were the Toronto Maple Leafs. That’s confusing, and a little scary, but here we are. So while we’re all trying to sort through this strange new world we’re living in, let’s start our July 1 rundown in the only place we can.

Winner: The Maple Leafs

They actually pulled it off. They lured a local hero back home, and even got a bit of discount in the process. For all the fun you can have with Leafs fans and their constant belief that every superstar secretly wants to come to Toronto, this time it really happened. As Tavares himself put it, the Leafs won this sweepstakes because they could offer a chance to live a childhood dream.

Not everyday you can live a childhood dream pic.twitter.com/YUTKdfMALl

— John Tavares (@91Tavares) July 1, 2018

So now what? This is where the contrarian reflex is supposed to kick in. But at least in the short term, it’s honestly hard to find any kind of downside here for the Leafs. They’ll pay Tavares the league max this year, almost all of it in bonuses, but they have more than enough cash flow and cap room to afford it. Things will get trickier in 2019-20, once the Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner extensions kick in, but even that crunch could be manageable. (And seeing Tavares leave a little money on the table could encourage the younger players to do the same.)

For now, the Leafs are as strong down the middle as pretty much anyone, and the idea of either Tavares or Matthews getting easy matchups is scary. The blue line still needs work Frederik Andersen isn’t a sure thing, and the Leafs still have to get through Tampa and Boston to get out of the Atlantic, so there’s work left to do. But even for a lifelong Maple Leafs cynic, there’s really no way to spin this: It’s a huge win for Toronto.

That's a hometown discount from John Tavares. He may not be the last #leafs player to do that to keep this team together.

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) July 1, 2018

Loser: Islander fans

Honestly, we don’t even have a joke here. This is a brutal, brutal moment for Islanders fans.

For some teams, watching your franchise player walk away for nothing would be a wakeup call. Not for Islanders fans. They’re already wide awake. They’ve had plenty of time to worry that the team was adrift; that Charles Wang and Garth Snow and the arena mess and one playoff series win in 25 years had dug a hole so deep that even new ownership and Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz couldn’t dig out of it. They’ve had years to think the worst. They’re used to it.

But it’s one thing to think the worst. It’s another to have a once-in-a-generation player look you dead in the eye and tell you that you’re right. Tavares can soften this with talk of childhood dreams and coming home, and there’s no doubt something to that. But the brutal truth remains: In a league where star players always choose to stay put, the Islanders were the one team who couldn’t convince theirs to stay.

That stings. And it has some Islanders supporters lashing out, with the predictable stream of YouTube clips of outraged fans and burning jerseys. But once the initial bitterness clears, the question will be where this team goes next. It’s upgraded the front office and behind the bench, even if it turned out not to be enough for Tavares. A goalie is needed, and now a top-line forward. There’s plenty of cap space, which is good news if it’s used wisely and bad news if there’s a knee-jerk panic move. So far, the early indications aren’t good.

Leo Komarov signs with the Islanders. Four years, $12M.

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) July 1, 2018

That’s… I mean… yikes.

Whichever way the Islanders go next, there are going to be a lot of tough questions for a team that chose not to trade Tavares for a windfall at the deadline. Eventually, there will be answers, and in the long term some of them may even be positive ones. Just not right now. Right now, it’s nothing but brutal.

Another July 1 has come and gone in the NHL, meaning we’re now a day into the free-agency market. And for once, we had some Canada Day fireworks to enjoy. An actual, honest-to-goodness NHL star in his prime actually made it to the market. Not only that, he changed teams. You probably heard about it.

John Tavares wasn’t the only name on the move. But he’s the one we have to start with, because this is a winners and losers column. And for one of the only times in the last half-decade or so, the big winners in the NHL were the Toronto Maple Leafs. That’s confusing, and a little scary, but here we are. So while we’re all trying to sort through this strange new world we’re living in, let’s start our July 1 rundown in the only place we can.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Evaluating the GM class of 2014

Hockey fans love to review, rank and debate draft classes. Is this year’s any good? Was 2003 better than 1979? How does the Oilers’ class of 1980 hold up against the Red Wings’ haul in 1989?

But what about the guys who make those draft picks? Each year also brings a new class of NHL GMs, and like draft picks, some years are better than others. This off-season is shaping up to be a busy one in that regard, with plenty of GMs on the hot seat and the possibility of some major changes around NHL front offices.

With that in mind, it seems like a good time to look back at the 2014 off-season that saw eight teams anoint a new GM. According to the archives over at NHL Trade Tracker, that was the busiest single year of turnover since 2006, which was the year a bunch of NHL teams realized that the new post-lockout rules would require some fresh thinking. Other high-turnover years include 2000 (eight new GMs), 1997 (nine, including the expansion Predators), 1994 (eight) and 1974 (nine, including the expansion Scouts and Capitals).

Why was 2014 so busy? It’s hard to say, although history shows that the years immediately before and after lockouts tend to bring significant change to NHL front offices. The 2013 class had been busy in its own right, with six changes, and seven if you count coach Patrick Roy being briefly slotted in ahead of Greg Sherman on the Avs’ org chart. But the years before had been unusually stable, with just one new GM each in 2011 and 2012, so there was some pent-up demand for change. That feels a little like the situation right now, with only six GM changes (including the first hire for the expansion Golden Knights) since July 2015. That’s not quite as extreme as the situation heading into 2013 and 2014, but it’s not far off, so we could be in for a rocky few months ahead.

Of those eight GMs hired in 2014, seven are still on the job. (We pause here to sadly pour one out for Tim Murray.) But the clock may be ticking on them. We often say that a new GM deserves five years to implement a plan, and the Class of 2014 is about to head into year five. And history suggests that we should expect at least a few to not even make it that far – from that busy class of 2013, only Jim Nill and Jarmo Kekalainen are still employed.

So which of the 2014 GMs is in the most danger of not making it to 2019? And who’s got the best shot of being remembered as the class of the, uh, class? Let’s run through the seven names and see if we can figure it out.

Jim Benning, Canucks

The hiring: After missing the playoffs and firing Mike Gillis at the end of the season, the Canucks hired Benning away from the Boston Bruins, where he’d served as assistant GM, on May 21.

Record since: 133-142-36, one playoff appearance

Best moves: Benning came into the job with a reputation for drafting well, and he’s largely lived up to that. Getting Brock Boeser 23rd overall in 2015 was a major win, and 2017 fifth-overall pick Elias Pettersson looks like the real deal. Benning also landed a good prospect from Ottawa for the husk of Alex Burrows, and turned Sven Baertschi into a reasonably successful reclamation project from the Flames.

Worst moves: Given Benning’s image as a draft guru, 2016 pick Olli Juolevi looks like a miss. Worse, the Loui Eriksson signing felt like a flat-out disaster from day one. But the biggest objection to Benning’s tenure in Vancouver is probably the moves he didn’t make. From rarely acquiring draft picks to re-signing Erik Gudbranson to holding onto Chris Tanev, Benning hasn’t tried for the sort of full-scale teardown many fans seem to want to see.

Current outlook: A lot better than it was a month ago, thanks to the three-year extension he signed in February. That move came as a bit of a surprise, with the team on track to finish in the bottom five for the third straight year. Rebuilds take time, sure, but often it doesn’t seem like Benning knows the Canucks are rebuilding.

Odds of seeing 2019: Excellent. The importance of GM extensions can be overstated – remember when Dave Nonis got a five-year deal in 2013, Leafs fans freaked out, and then he was gone less than two years later? – but the vote of confidence from ownership and Trevor Linden means Benning will make it to the new year. Will he see his five-year anniversary in May? That looks likely, too, but another year without progress could call it into question.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Podcast: Deadline day

In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast:
- A dramatic deadline day features a blockbuster that happened and a blockbuster that didn't
- Breaking down the Ryan McDonagh deal, and whether anyone can beat the Lightning
- Where do the Senators go now that an Erik Karlsson deal didn't happen?
- The Jets are going for it, and the Blues are doing the complete opposite of that
- Max Pacioretty: Still a Hab
- Jim Benning and the Canucks have an interesting view of rebuilding
- The Sabres don't get much for Evander Kane
- Quite possibly the greatest lottery-protect pick of all-time
- What could the Islanders have received for John Tavares?
- Plus reader questions and lots more...

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.

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

Saturday storylines: Be afraid of the Penguins

We’ve got 11 games on tap tonight, including six of the seven Canadian teams in action. With the races tightening and the trade deadline looming, it’s getting tense out there. So let’s try to keep things calm by starting with two teams that are pretty much already in the playoffs…

HNIC Game of the Night: Maple Leafs at Penguins

It’s officially time to be afraid of the Penguins again.

After two straight Stanley Cups, they were kind enough to give us a bit of a break early in the season. The Pens stumbled out of the gate, including an embarrassing 10-1 loss to the Blackhawks during the season’s first week, and never seemed quite right through the first few months. As late as the first week of January, they’d lost more games than they’d won. They were dipping in and out of a wild-card spot, and GM Jim Rutherford was reportedly ready to make major changes to try to save the season.

But while it didn’t seem like it at the time, a 4-0 win over the Islanders on Jan. 5 now looks like a turning point. They followed that by beating a red-hot Bruins team in overtime, then added wins over the Red Wings and Rangers. They’ve stayed hot ever since — they haven’t lost two straight since the end of December. In all, the Penguins are rolling to the tune of a 13-3-1 record during the stretch, blowing by the wild-card traffic jam and putting them within range of the Capitals for the Metro title.

And they’ve looked scary doing it, scoring five or more goals seven times and winning eight games by three goals or more. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are back to their old selves after slow starts, and Phil Kessel continues to rack up the points.

Maybe most frightening of all, they’re still not at their best. Matt Murray has been much better lately, but has still been inconsistent. If he were to heat up, the Penguins might start to look unbeatable. Then again, Murray tends to do his best work in the playoffs, and that’s where he and his team are headed. At this rate, they’ll be back among the favourites once they get there.

The Maple Leafs are headed to the post-season too, although their status as legitimate contenders is still in question. It’s been a weird season for Toronto, who’ve spent much of the year all but locked into the third spot in the Atlantic. The Leafs are trying to make that interesting, taking a run at the Lightning and Bruins in an effort to at least land home-ice advantage in the first round, although that’s still a longshot. But with nine wins in their last ten and two lines filling the net, they’re at least looking more like the team that was briefly considered a Stanley Cup favourite back in October. That stretch has included wins over a couple of legitimate Cup contenders in the Predators and Lightning. Tonight, they get a shot at another one.

It all adds up to a good test for both teams, and a decent measuring stick of where we’re at in an Eastern Conference that suddenly seems wide open. We’ll hold off on any conference final preview hyperbole for now, since the Lightning, Bruins and Capitals will all have something to say about that. But if both of these teams keep rolling the way they have, we make no promises about where the hype machine may be at when they face off again three weeks from now.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Podcast: We have a trade to announce

In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast:
- We react to the Phaneuf/Gaborik deal
- Did Jim Benning deserve his extension?
- Dave is a big baby about Team Canada beating Team USA in women's hockey, which is weird because you'd think he'd be used to it
- Islanders fans are trying to get Garth Snow fired
- The Oilers hang a banner for their fan-voted best team ever
- Reader questions and lots more

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.

Grab bag: We have a trade to announce

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Holy crap the NHL actually had a major trade
- Canada is torn apart by a political controversy involving a Bob Probert fight
- An obscure player from the biggest three-way trade ever
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a classic YouTube clip of the time David Poile turned down the Maple Leafs GM job

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Weekend wrap: Here come the Blackhawks

This time last week, we figured we were counting down to something, even if we weren’t quite sure what. Well, the deadline has come and gone, and we were right. That was… something.

A week ago, it looked like we could be in for a deadline that would shake things up as far as the top contenders were concerned. Instead, while we saw plenty of deals over the course of a busy 72 hours or so, it’s fair to say that the Earth didn’t exactly shift beneath the road to the Stanley Cup.

The biggest-impact players on the block didn't go anywhere, as Joe Sakic and the Avalanche decided to wait until the summer to break up their flailing core. Other big names, like Patrick Sharp, Shane Doan and Radim Vrbata, also stayed put for various reasons. Most of the top contenders chose to tinker rather than bring in major reinforcements. And the two best players who did move ended up going to the teams that were already sitting at one and two in our power rankings.

So was it all just a big waste of time? Not quite. For one, the Capitals' grip on overall-favourite status got a lot tighter, and barring some sort of late-season slump we can pretty much pencil them into the top spot for the rest of the year. The Wild made it clear that they're all-in to emerge from the Western Conference. And even the Senators signaled that they're serious about emerging from the Atlantic, recognizing that there may never be a clearer path through the division than the one in front of them right now.

But we didn't get the sort of seismic change we might have seen if, say, the Rangers had landed Kevin Shattenkirk or a team like the Canadiens had pulled the trigger on Matt Duchene. Time will tell if those teams end up regretting their cautious approach, although history tells us that big deadline moves can backfire at least as often as they work.

So sure, the balance of power shifted, even if only slightly and mostly in the direction of the teams who already had it. Now we find out how much any of it ends up mattering.

Meanwhile, a contender that's been in and out of the top five all season has caught fire and shot up the rankings. That could end up being more important than any of the deals that did or didn’t get made last week. More on that in the next section.

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they're headed towards Stanley Cup–favourite status.

5. San Jose Sharks (38-19-7, +26 true goals differential*): They came out of last night's showdown in Minnesota with a regulation loss, the first time in eight games they haven't managed a point.

4. Pittsburgh Penguins (40-16-8, +43): When they're healthy, the Penguins still seem like they have as good a shot as anyone to win it all. But right now, Kris Letang is hurt, and this didn't sound good.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Podcast: Evaluating all 30 teams' deadlines

In this week's episode of Biscuits, the Vice Sports hockey podcast, Dave and Sean go through the entire league and evaluate every team's trade deadline, including questions like:
- What were Joe Sakic and the Avalanche doing?
- Will the Rangers regret letting Kevin Shattenkirk go to the Caps?
- What was up with Shane Doan?
- Did Steve Yzerman misplay his Ben Bishop hand?
- Seriously, Sakic knew the deadline was this week, right?
- Did Jim Benning really win the deadline?
- Minnesota overpaid for Martin Hanzal, but was that OK?
- Did Garth Snow just prove Dave's "secret 10-year contract" theory?
- Like, do calendars work differently in Colorado maybe?
- And much, much more...

>> Stream it now on Vice Sports

>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.

Grab Bag: The dumbest brawl ever

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- On the almost ridiculously stupid reaction to the Philip Larsen hit
- A small rant on GMs who won't ask players to waive NTCs
- An obscure player with an anniversary coming up this weekend
- The week's three comedy stars, all of which are children
- And a classic YouTube clip featuring Bryan Trottier and a live mic

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Five GMs on the hot seat

We're a week into the NHL season, which is nowhere near enough time for any reasonable person to start talking about anyone's job being on the line. Luckily, we're hockey fans and reasonable has nothing to do with it, so let's get to the speculation.

Usually when we talk about hot seats, we look at the league's coaches. After all, as the old saying goes, they're hired to be fired, and as Todd Richards found out last year, it doesn't take too many losses at the start of the season to cost a coach his job. But today, let's aim a level higher. NHL GMs tend to have a little more job security, and most get at least a few years to show progress before they come under fire. And when things get bad, they can often offer up their coach as a scapegoat first. But through all that, at some point, the buck stops with the boss.

Plenty of GMs around the league are probably safe no matter what happens. Guys like Jeff Gorton and Peter Chiarelli have only been on the job for a little over a year. Dean Lombardi and Stan Bowman both have a handful of Stanley Cup rings to ward off any criticism. And John Chayka can't legally be fired due to child labor laws. But others are facing more uncertainty.

I've already singled out on GM for hot seat honors – in Sportsnet's preseason predictions, I chose Chuck Fletcher as being on the shakiest ground, given that the Wild were old, expensive, hadn't made a conference final under his watch and had already fired their coach. I won't pick on him again today, so here are five more GMs who could use a strong season to take some of the heat off.

Jarmo Kekalainen, Blue Jackets

On the one hand, you could argue that Kekalainen hasn't been given enough time in Columbus. He's only been on the job since February 2013, and while that actually puts him in the upper half of the league's GMs in terms of seniority, it's still less time than you'd ideally give a GM.

On the other hand… well, how much time have you got? The Blue Jackets haven't won a playoff round under Kekalainen (or anyone else), and they missed the playoffs in each of the last two years. The roster is clogged with bad contracts. Kekalainen made a controversial decision at the draft, grabbing Pierre-Luc Dubois instead of Jesse Puljujarvi. And he's already played his coaching card, having replaced Todd Richards with John Tortorella around this time last year.

Add it all up, and the Blue Jackets are under plenty of pressure to get off to a good start this year. Instead, Tortorella is telling the media that they're not even close. That's not a good combination, and you have to wonder how long it might be before president of hockey ops John Davidson gets the urge to clean house and start all over again.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Weekend report: Free agency winners and losers

The NHL's annual free agent frenzy opened on Friday at noon. Within hours, most of the big names were gone. By the end of the first day, only a handful of major names were left. And by the end of days two and three... well, actually, pretty much nothing happened on days two and three. Seriously, the weekend was weird. I think everyone already went on vacation. Am I the only one left? Because I don't know how to work the coffee machine.

Anyway, the slow weekend was bad news for a handful of decent players who are still available, most notably Kris Russell, Shane Doan, Matt Cullen and James Wisniewski (a latecomer to the part after being bought out the day before bidding opened). History tells us that those guys better hope they find a home soon, because as the summer wears on and cap dollars become scarce, the market dries up quickly. Maybe it already has.

Let's skip the preamble and get right to what you came for: Instantaneous declarations of winners and losers, most of which will be proven wrong by midway through training camp. Here are the five best and five worst from a busy start to the NHL's new year, along with one signing that fits both categories.

Top Five

The biggest winners of the market's early days.

5. Montreal signs Alexander Radulov—What does the art of comedy have in common with infuriating the Montreal Canadiens fan base? As GM Marc Bergevin could tell you after this week, the secret is in the timing.

At any other time, signing recent KHL star and former NHL castoff Alexander Radulov to a one-year, $5.75 million deal would seem like a reasonable move, albeit a risky one. Radulov has tons of talent; he also has a history of immaturity, most famously when he was benched for a playoff game after missing curfew with the Predators in 2012. He hasn't been seen in the NHL since, heading to the KHL where he put up four solid seasons. Now he's back, and the Habs hope he's smartened up.

And maybe he has. But again, there's that issue of timing. The signing came just two days after the Canadiens shocked everyone by trading P.K. Subban, taking back an inferior, older player with a worse contract in the process. The reason, the whispers went, was character. And then the team goes out and signs the poster boy for lack of it? It's all very confusing, and Bergevin didn't do much to explain himself on Friday. You could forgive Habs fans for throwing their hands in the air and concluding that this franchise doesn't have the first clue what it actually wants.

When you search your own name on Twitter after trading PK Subban. Photo by Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

But all of that overshadows an important point: This is a great deal for Montreal. Radulov is a wild card, and even if he has his head on straight, we really have no idea what he'll be in the NHL after four years away. He might not work out. But he could also be a star, the sort of first-line talent that's virtually impossible to add during an NHL offseason. And Montreal got him on a very reasonable one-year deal.

Best case, he's a monster and the Canadiens have a massive bargain to help lead them back to the playoffs. Worst case, he's a bust and you can write him off as a failed experiment that you cut your losses with without any future exposure. That looks a lot like the sort of medium-risk, high-reward deal that any team should jump on. Bergevin deserves credit, even if his timing was awful.

4. The David Backes fake out—The Bruins signed David Backes to a five-year, $30 million deal that wasn't especially remarkable. It was a little too much money and way too much term for a 32-year-old coming off his worst season in years, but it addressed a need and looked like a good fit between player and team. For a July 1 signing, it was fine.

But for a moment, it seemed like it was much more than that. When the signing first broke, it was widely but incorrectly reported as a one-year deal. Both Canadian networks covering the day's news—why yes, just like trade deadline day, NHL free agency gets covered by two full networks up here, thanks for asking—ran with the bad info, with both panels praising the Bruins for their restraint and common sense in not overcommitting to an aging player. Finally, they all agreed, some sanity. Don Sweeney is figuring this stuff out. Hey, at least it wasn't five years, right?

And then, minutes later, we found out that it was five years, and everyone just kind of looked at each other sheepishly and then changed the subject. And I laughed for about eight solid minutes.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Grab Bag: In Canada (there aren't any good hockey players anymore)

In a special Canada Day edition of the Friday Grab Bag:
- Steven Stamkos snubs your favorite team
- Jim Benning gets caught tampering
- An obscure player who was traded straight up for a Hall of Famer in his prime
- The week's three comedy stars
- And we all sing along proudly with the new Canadian national anthem

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports