The Contrarian: Brett Hull’s Cup-winning goal was good, and other fake arguments

The Edmonton Oilers were apparently feeling a little bit contrarian this week.

With all of hockey ready to crown the Florida Panthers, hand over the Cup and call it a season, the Oilers ruined the party on Saturday night. They finally showed up for the final, and turned what was supposed to be a coronation into a butt-kicking. In the process, they made all of us shelve our “Panthers win” takes for at least one more game, and sent the hockey world grumbling to the airport for yet another travel day.

I can respect it. I’ve been known to dabble in the whole contrarian thing myself, with takes like “Mark Messier was a great Canuck” and “Ray Bourque’s Cup win was bad, actually”. With some unexpected time to kill before Game 5, let’s break that gimmick out again.

As always, the concept is simple: You make what you think is an obviously true statement, the kind of thing that nobody could even argue with. I take the contrarian position, and make my best case. And as always, you can try to guess which of these arguments I actually mean, and which are just a case of a grumpy sportswriter instinctively going against the grain.

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Puck Soup: Shout at the Devils

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Devils fire John Hynes
- The Taylor Hall trade watch begins
- More reaction to the Bill Peters story
- The Marc Crawford allegations, and what comes next for hockey coaching
- Nicklas Backstrom is going to try to be his own agent
- A surprisingly tricky "pick your team" challenge
- A way-too-long discussion of pro wrestling stables

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The Baffled of Ontario: Who’s had it worse, the 1980s Maple Leafs or today’s Senators?

It’s​ been a bad two​ years​ for​ the​ Ottawa Senators.​ Ever​ since they​ lost a heartbreaking Game​ 7 showdown with​ the​ Penguins in the​​ 2017 conference final, the franchise has endured a seemingly endless series of setbacks both on and off the ice. The misery has been well-documented – you may have seen this epic Twitter thread – and the worst part is that some days it doesn’t feel like there’s any end in sight.

And, at some point, beaten-down Senators fans have probably wondered: From ownership to coaching to off-ice scandals to the steady stream of star players bolting for the exit, has any fan base ever had it this bad?

At which point Maple Leafs fans of a certain age might hobble over, waving their canes and mumbling ominously: You kids don’t realize just how bad it can get.

You see, some of us had to deal with the Harold Ballard era back in the 1980s. And while we can sympathize with what Senators fans are going through right now, we might object to the suggestion that Ottawa has it any worse than we did. We’ve seen some stuff, man.

So since the playoff version of the Battle of Ontario has been on pause for over a decade and doesn’t seem like it will be resuming anytime soon, let’s take the rivalry in a different direction. Who’s had it worse, modern-day Senators fans or 1980s Maple Leafs fans?

This is going to get depressing. Let’s go through 10 key categories and figure out which of Ontario’s teams can claim the suffering hockey fans’ crown.

Worst season

Let’s start with the basics. When you’re building a solid foundation of misery, you want to start from rock bottom.

Today’s Senators: While it’s still a work in progress, it’s fair to say that this year will go down as the worst in the Senators’ post-expansion history. They’re on pace for a point total in the low 60s and will likely finish last in the league for the first time since the Sparky Allison days.

The 1980s Maple Leafs: Despite finishing under the 60-point mark five times, the Maple Leafs somewhat amazingly only came in dead last once during the ’80s. That was in 1984-85, when they won just 20 games on the way to a pathetic 48-point season. The good news: They at least had their own draft pick, unlike some teams we could mention, and the guy they used it on turned out to be pretty fun.

Who had it worse? Based on points, it’s the Maple Leafs by a fair margin. But their worst season came during an era where horrible teams were commonplace, while the Senators are having theirs in what’s supposed to be the parity era. They’re also finishing last in a league with 10 more teams than the one the 1980s Leafs faced. I think you have to adjust for era here, and when we do this one comes out fairly even.

Best season

The flip side of the last category. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then, right?

Today’s Senators: It seems more amazing with every day that goes by, but it’s really true: The Senators really were one goal away from the Stanley Cup final just 21 months ago. Sure, in hindsight their three-round run was powered by some lucky matchups and good bounces, and it probably did more harm than good by convincing the front office that they were legitimate contenders. But it did happen, and it was all sorts of fun for Senators fans in the moment.

The 1980s Maple Leafs: The Leafs made the playoffs six times during the 1980s because they played in the Norris Division and somebody had to go. But they only won two rounds in the decade and never made it out of the division final.

Who had it worse? The Leafs get the edge here.

Franchise player falling outs

Even when things are bad, at least you’ve got a franchise player to cheer for. Right up until you don’t.

Today’s Senators: They watched Daniel Alfredsson walk away as a player in 2013 and then again as an executive in 2017.

Then they went through the same sort of situation with Erik Karlsson with some added off-ice drama, culminating in him being traded last fall. And then it happened yet again with both Matt Duchene and Mark Stone at the 2019 deadline. (And we haven’t even mentioned Jason Spezza or Dany Heatley.)

The 1980s Maple Leafs: The team’s relationship with Darryl Sittler went off the rails in the early ’80s. The front office wanted to move him, but he had no-trade protection, so they dealt his best friend Lanny MacDonald instead to send a message. That led to Sittler infamously cutting the captain’s “C” off his jersey, and he’d eventually walk out on the team citing doctor’s orders. He’d be traded to the Flyers a few weeks later.

Who had it worse? This one’s close. Nothing that’s happened in Ottawa can match the over-the-top ugliness of the Sittler situation. But I feel like you have to give the Senators a slight edge here just based on volume.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Handing out some awards at the NHL's quarter pole

We’re almost at the quarter-mark of the NHL schedule, which means it’s time to do a few things. First, and most importantly: Start wildly panicking if your team isn’t doing as well as they should be. You guys on that, Montreal and Edmonton? You are? Great, nice work as always.

For the rest of us, we may as well hand out some quarter-season awards. Sure, most of these will turn out to be regrettable in hindsight by the end of the year, and some of them will look bad within weeks. But that’s part of the fun.

So let’s do it. You can vote for your own picks right here with results revealed this week on Wednesday Night Hockey. In the meantime, here’s who we’d be handing out the tiny quarter-sized trophies to, based on the season’s first six weeks.

Most valuable player

Every sport that features an MVP award has the same debate over how exactly we should define “valuable.” Some see it as simply a fancy way of saying the best player, while others look for some deeper meaning related to a player’s relative importance to his teammates in terms of his team’s playoff chances.

Some years, one player emerges as the favourite under either definition and we can skip the semantic debate. This year, we may not be so lucky. Because based on the first quarter of the season, Hart Trophy voters could end up facing a dilemma: What do you do when the season’s two best performers are on the same team?

With Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos racking up big numbers while helping the Lightning to top spot in the standings, some will try to argue that they can’t be considered more valuable than someone like Connor McDavid or Johnny Gaudreau, who are the clear offensive leaders on their team. Others would point out that points aren’t everything, and that a two-way force like Anze Kopitar should get some consideration.

Of course, if we’re not going to just look at the top of the scoring race (like Hart voters usually do), we could make the case for a goalie or defenceman. That would bring guys like Sergei Bobrovsky, Alex Pietrangelo and Corey Crawford into the conversation. And then you’ve got guys who’ve missed time to injury, but are clearly their team’s most valuable players when healthy — that group would include Erik Karlsson and Auston Matthews.

Luckily, we fall into the category of voters who keep it simple. The league’s most valuable player is the one that’s having the best season, period. That means Kucherov gets the nod, edging out Stamkos. And we’ll toss Bobrovsky a third-place vote, if only because non-forwards rarely get enough Hart love.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Grab Bag: It's OK to be honest about the 2018 Olympics

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The Olympics aren't going to anywhere near as much fun without the NHL and it's OK to say that out loud
- Debating that NHL Network goalie list everyone is mad about
- An obscure backup goalie who had super cool pads
- The week's three comedy stars
- And Team Sweden would like to sing you a song about the 1989 World Championships

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

The Red Wings/Avalanche brawl: The definitive insanity rankings

March 26, 2017 marks the 20-year anniversary of one of the most beloved moments in recent hockey history, which is kind of awkward because that moment involves a lot of people punching each other.

Today’s fans aren’t supposed to like brawls, especially ones that involve blood, sucker punches and flying goaltenders. We’re supposed to be above that these days, with fighting on the decline and the days of true bad-blood rivalries all but over. The game has evolved, we’re told. This is a good thing, we’re expected to reply.

So you may experience some cognitive dissonance when your caveman brain tells you that this was just about the greatest thing ever:

Yes, Sunday will mark two full decades since the infamous Red Wings/Avalanche brawl at Joe Louis Arena. The fight served as payback for Claude Lemieux’s hit from behind on Kris Draper the year before, and was the catalyst for what would go on to become quite possibly the greatest rivalry in hockey history.

We'll save the philosophical debate about whether everything that happened on March 26, 1997, was good or bad or somewhere in between. Instead, let's agree on this: It was crazy. Madness. Flat-out hockey insanity, the likes of which we'll almost certainly never see again.

So today, let's celebrate shake our heads disapprovingly at the events of nearly 20 years ago in a manner befitting the moment: By assigning insanity rankings to anyone and everyone who was involved in the Red Wings/Avalanche brawl.

Peter Forsberg and Igor Larionov

Their role: They started it.

Well, I mean, they didn't really start it. Lemieux did, back in the 1996 playoffs, and there had already been some fallout between the two teams in their previous matchups during the 1996–97 season. That included this game itself, which had already featured a pair of fights and several scrums.

But still, out of everyone who you'd expect to light the fuse that eventually blew the whole rivalry sky-high, two guys who'd get plenty of Lady Byng votes over the course of their careers were an odd choice. Forsberg and Larionov's wrestling match barely involves any punches, but it's enough to draw the full attention of the crowd, most of the players and all four officials. As we'd find out a few seconds later, that last part turned out to be kind of important.

Insanity index: 4/10. Jut for the sheer weirdness of these two being the undercard for everything that was to come. (Although, for the record, when it came to the Red Wings rivalry Forsberg was never exactly a saint.)

Claude Lemieux

His role: Innocent bystander minding his own business and/or notorious cheap-shot artist who was about to finally get what was coming to him, depending on your perspective.

His hit on Draper and everything that followed came to be the defining incident of Lemieux's career, but it's worth remembering that his reputation among hockey fans was already a divisive one well before any of this happened. He was a good player who'd won a Conn Smythe, and was seen as a guy you could tolerate just as long as he was on your team. Fair or not, he was also known as an occasionally dirty player, not to mention a diver and a faker, and more than a few fans already had him on their "most hated" list

Despite a starring role in this brawl, Lemieux doesn't actually do all that much. He gets suckered by Darren McCarty and then immediately covers up. He was widely mocked for turtling, but later explained that McCarty's first punched had concussed him.

Insanity index: 1/10. You can think what you want about Lemieux, and maybe he should have been ready for whatever was to come on this night. But once McCarty drills him, covering up seems like a pretty reasonable choice.

(For what it's worth, Lemieux answered the bell for a more-even tilt with McCarty the following season.)

Darren McCarty

His role: The classic enforcer who's doing his job.

This is where things get a little dicey, and we're going to run into a generation gap between fans. Anyone who did what McCarty did in a game today would face a major suspension, not to mention generating dozens of reputation-stomping think pieces in the process. Just ask Shawn Thornton.

But right or wrong, things were different in 1997. Enforcers were still expected to police the game, and that meant extracting payback. McCarty saw an opportunity and he took it. And to be clear, he's absolutely trying to hurt Lemieux here – in his book, he admits to trying to slam his head onto the ice, and claims he intentionally dragged him over to the benches so the players could see the blood. At one point, he even seems to be trying to knee Lemieux in the face.

Through the lens of today, it all looks brutal. Back then, most of us agreed that it was just a guy fulfilling his job description.

Insanity index: 10/10 by today's standards, but more like 5/10 at the time.

Nicklas Lidstrom, Vladimir Konstantinov, Alexei Gusarov, Valeri Kamensky

Their role: Innocent bystanders.

We'll get to the main event in a bit, but first, let's take a moment to recognize the supporting cast. They don't do much other than stand around and stare, but every great battle scene needs a few extras. It's a talented group – it's not like the coaches had sent out the goon squad for this shift – and we thank them for their contribution.

Insanity index: 2/10. In case you're wondering, five of the 12 players on the ice for this massive and brutal line brawl ended up as Hall of Famers. And yes, that includes the guy we have to get to next...

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

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

A beginner's guide to game one

Every day of the Stanley Cup finals brings at least one micro-controversy, those little issues that flare up sometime around mid-morning and cause a good day or two of fist-shaking before eventually being forgotten.

At one point yesterday, the issue of the moment was a beginner’s guide to hockey published by one of the local Tampa papers. The reaction was predictable: old-school diehards rolling their eyes at a city that has had a team for 22 years needing a refresher on icing, followed by more forgiving types scolding those diehards to be more welcoming to new fans.

Every sport’s fan base gets its back up over new fans, but it seems to be a specialty in the hockey world. After all, NHL fans have spent so many years being told what’s wrong with their sport that they’re instinctively defensive of their turf. But that approach does more harm than good, because hockey has plenty of room for new fans. There’s lots of space available on the bandwagon, and the more rookie fans who climb aboard, the better.

So in that spirit, let’s do this game story in the style of a beginner’s guide to NHL hockey. Consider it a peace offering to any new fans, in Tampa Bay or beyond, who are trying to figure out the rules of this fun but occasionally confusing game.

Rule no. 1: Hockey is a sport that is played by two teams. Or at least it’s supposed to be. As last night’s first period wore on, it began to seem as if the Blackhawks had missed that particular memo. The Lightning dominated, outpacing the Hawks in shot attempts and often spending extended periods in the Chicago zone.

That sort of thing isn’t news when it comes to the Lightning, a tremendously talented team that can often overwhelm lesser opposition. But it is new for the Blackhawks, who haven’t fallen into that lesser-opponent category in a long time. The Blackhawks are the bullies of the NHL postseason and have been for years, and while nobody can be expected to bring their best game every night, it was still stunning to see them chasing the play for as long as they were.

The early imbalance stoked an already enthusiastic Tampa Bay crowd, one that had just finished being blasted by a series of pregame scoreboard videos that ran for roughly as long as the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Having endured that ordeal, they celebrated by cheering on the Lightning toward what quickly started to feel like an inevitable first goal.

Rule no. 2: In hockey, teams attempt to score a goal by directing the puck into their opponent’s net. This can be done in any number of ways; popular methods include the slap shot, the backhand, or the deflection. Or, if you’re Alex Killorn, all three things at once.

I’d strongly encourage you to click that link and watch Killorn’s first-period goal a few times, because I’m honestly not sure I can do it justice. Anton Stralman takes a shot from the point that’s almost comically unthreatening as it flutters toward the net like a knuckleball, headed well wide. And then, at least theoretically on purpose, Kilorn reaches back and swats the puck out of the air. The NHL’s official box score described it as a “tip-in,” which is technically the correct term for a shot that’s redirected but doesn’t seem quite adequate for a play that more closely resembled someone delivering a midflight 7-iron to a monarch butterfly.

The goal came less than five minutes in, and gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead. In today’s NHL, that tends to be important.

Rule no. 3: The winning team is the one that scores the most goals over the course of the game. In theory, that means that the lead can change hands several times, and comebacks are possible. In reality, not so much, and that’s especially true in games involving these two teams. The Blackhawks came into last night sporting a 9-1 record when scoring first in these playoffs; the Lightning were even better at a perfect 9-0. When they score first, they win, and Killorn’s circus act had just given them that first goal.

Tampa Bay fans spend much of each game chanting “Let’s Go Bolts.” If you happen to suffer from an acute inability to interpret chants at sporting events, that can end up sounding confusingly like “Let’s Go Home,” which would be far better, as if cocky Lightning fans are already chalking up the win and moving on to the next one. As the Lightning followed Killorn’s goal with more and more time in the Chicago zone, you started to wonder if that might be right.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Stanley Cup preview

The Stanley Cup final gets started tonight in Tampa, as the young Lightning face the seasoned Blackhawks. It’s a fantastic matchup, one featuring plenty of star power and two teams that have at times looked both vulnerable and invincible over the past few weeks.

The Blackhawks have won two Cups since 2010; the Lightning look poised to win a few more down the road. But it’s this year’s that is up for grabs, so let’s see if we can figure out who’s going to win this thing by breaking down all the usual categories — plus a few more.

Forwards

Lightning: Tampa Bay is stacked up front, so much so that franchise player Steven Stamkos has somehow wound up as an afterthought for much of the playoffs. After a slow start to the postseason, Stamkos heated up against the Rangers with goals in four straight games, and linemates Alex Killorn and Valtteri Filppula have come along for the ride. That essentially gives the Lightning two no. 1 lines, since the “Triplets” trio of Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, and Nikita Kucherov shows no signs of slowing down.

If there’s a concern, it’s that the top six is basically doing all the team’s scoring. Filppula has three goals, while the other five each have at least seven; by comparison, nobody else on the team has more than one. That includes guys like Ryan Callahan and Cedric Paquette, who’ve been largely invisible on the offensive side. If you’re a Lightning fan, you could look at that as a good thing — the bottom six are playing other roles, and if they ever did start chipping in, the offense would basically be unstoppable. But with a matchup coming for one of those top lines against Jonathan Toews and friends, there has to be at least a little bit of concern with how top-heavy the Lightning lines are.

Blackhawks: The Blackhawks feature just as much star power as the Lightning, and maybe more. Toews and Patrick Kane get most of the attention, especially when they’re playing together (as they did in the late stages of the Anaheim series). Toews is that rare player who can be dominant at both ends, and Kane’s knack for scoring big goals is becoming legendary. Mix in a young star in Brandon Saad and a pair of old ones in Marian Hossa and ex-Lightning Brad Richards, and you’ve got enough firepower in the top six to push a guy like Patrick Sharp down to the third line.

The edge: There aren’t many teams that can match the Lightning’s top six, but the Hawks are one of them. And Chicago’s better depth and more balanced scoring gives it an edge here.

Defense

Lightning: Victor Hedman is the kind of guy you might not fully appreciate until you see him play live. You watch a Lightning shift and find yourself thinking Who’s that huge guy back there? and you realize it’s Hedman (he’s listed at 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds). Then a few seconds later you think Who’s that fast guy up there? and you realize it’s Hedman again. He’s smart, skilled, and just 24 years old; it’s scary to think about what he could be in another year or two.

The rest of the blue line is solid, which is an upgrade from the unit of recent years that was often a weak link. The other key guy to watch is Anton Stralman, a longtime darling of the analytics crowd who finally seems to be breaking through to some mainstream attention. He’s not big, but he’s a skilled puck-mover and a possession monster who doesn’t make many mistakes.

Blackhawks: Duncan Keith is getting all the attention these days, and rightfully so. He’s been ridiculously good at both ends of the rink, and would probably win the Conn Smythe if voting were held today. He plays huge minutes, and at some point you’d assume that fatigue would have to become a factor, but he’s such a physical freak that maybe he really can play 30 minutes a game (with gusts to 40 in overtime) without wearing down, at least for up to seven more games.

Beyond Keith, the rest of the Hawks’ top four is excellent, with Niklas Hjalmarsson, Brent Seabrook, and Johnny Oduya playing big roles. Things then get dodgy, though, because the fifth and sixth slots have been a mess. The Hawks have been using some combination of David Rundblad, Kimmo Timonen, and Kyle Cumiskey and don’t seem to trust any of them, limiting their minutes and sheltering them as much as possible. That’s tough to do, especially on the road, and it tends to catch up with teams. It hasn’t really yet for the Hawks, but it would make life a lot easier if at least one of those guys could up his game enough to take some of the heat off the big four.

The edge: We’ll give the edge here to the Blackhawks, at least for as long as Keith can keep up the Superman routine, but Hedman and Stralman mean it’s not as big a gap as you might think.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Seven thoughts on a pair of game sevens

For the first time since 2000, hockey fans have a pair of Game 7s to look forward to in the conference finals. The Rangers will host the Lightning on Friday, with the Ducks welcoming the Blackhawks on Saturday, and by the time it’s all over we’ll have our Stanley Cup final matchup.

Game 7s tend to be just about impossible to figure out ahead of time, but that’s no reason not to at least try. So let’s take a look at seven factors that could help decide a Game 7 … or two.

1. Goaltending

It’s the goaltending. It’s always the goaltending. In fact, this seems like such an obvious category that I spent way too much time trying to figure out a way to get around including it at all. But I can’t, because it will be the biggest factor in both games, so we might as well start with it. Here’s the short version: The team with the better goaltender will probably win.

The slightly longer version is that both series feature battles between goalies who’ve taken turns looking both unbeatable and awful, often in the same game. That’s probably caused an ulcer or two on the coaching staffs, but it’s made for some fascinating hockey, where no shot is harmless and no lead is safe.

Let’s break down the numbers. As you’d expect, Henrik Lundqvist has been the best of the four remaining goalies, putting up a .928 save percentage. He’s also been the best in the third round at 5v5, where he’s at .934, although his poor .720 while shorthanded has dragged his overall numbers down. That gives him an edge over Ben Bishop, who’s at .917 overall and just .898 at 5v5. Both Bishop and Lundqvist have had awful games in what’s been a surprisingly high-scoring series, so nobody’s looking unbeatable, but Lundqvist has clearly been better.

Out west, Frederik Andersen and Corey Crawford have very similar numbers over the course of the playoffs. In this series, Andersen has been better 5v5 while Crawford’s numbers are slightly better overall, although we’re dealing with a six-game sample size, so we won’t read too much into small gaps. The eye test says both have looked shaky in recent games, but Andersen in particular has been fighting the puck over the past two games, including this stinker that almost certainly cost the Ducks Game 4.

2. The big stars

We like to think of a Game 7 as the time when the biggest stars shine brightest, and it’s certainly true that it works out that way sometimes. But just as often the stars go quiet, some random scrub plays the hero, and we all agree to never speak of it again.

Given all the star power spread out between these four teams, it seems likely that at least one big name will break through. That would bode well for Chicago, since its top guns are already hot. Jonathan Toews had those two late goals in Game 5, and Patrick Kane has scored in three of the past four. Meanwhile, Duncan Keith may be playing better than anyone else in the playoffs right now, which works out well since at this point he rarely leaves the ice.

By comparison, the Ducks’ big two of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry has had mixed results, combining for just two goals in the series. Getzlaf has been held scoreless but has chipped in seven assists, so he’s creating offense even if he’s started blaming himself for losses. Perry has been quieter, with two goals and no assists after racking up 15 points through the first nine games of the postseason.

In the East, the Lightning continue to get big production from the Triplets line of Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, and Nikita Kucherov, and Steven Stamkos has now heated up (bringing Alex Killorn along with him). They’ve been more consistent than the Rangers’ top stars, although both Rick Nash and Derick Brassard have posted huge games late in the series. Meanwhile, Martin St. Louis has remained mostly invisible, and now has just one opportunity left to haunt his former team.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Win or lose, are we witnessing the end of the Blackhawks?

Heading into Game 6 of the Western Conference final last night, the Anaheim Ducks held a 3-2 series lead, making it impossible not to watch the game without thinking that this might be the end of the Blackhawks.

Not the end of the Blackhawks’ 2015 season, mind you. That wasn’t the source of the drama. It was the realization that had the Ducks eliminated Chicago on Wednesday, they would be finishing off the Hawks for years to come. Finishing off the team that has spent the past seven years winning two Cups, going to five conference finals, and generally being just about the closest thing the league has seen to a dynasty in the salary-cap era.

Those Blackhawks are a brilliantly constructed team, but their pending cap crunch has been an inescapable subplot to their postseason. The question, never quite front and center but always just under the surface, has followed them all spring: Is this finally their last run? Last night, with the team facing elimination for the first time this year, everything that happened carried the weighty possibility that we were seeing something special for the last time.

You thought it when Hawks forward Brandon Saad finally scored the opener, midway through the second period after a lackluster first in which Chicago was outshot and largely outplayed. A harmless-looking play suddenly turned into a breakaway, and Saad snapped one past Frederik Andersen between the legs. The United Center erupted, Saad was mobbed by teammates, and you wondered how the heck the Blackhawks are supposed to get this guy signed when he hits restricted free agency this summer.

You thought it again when Marian Hossa made it 2-0 just three minutes later, and you wondered just how much his heavily front-loaded contract, which stretches until he’ll be 42 years old, will handcuff this team in the years to come.

You thought it when Patrick Kane trickled a shot past Andersen after a beautiful individual effort, which I am linking to here not so much for your benefit but just in case Matt Beleskey is still trying to figure out where Kane went. That one came just two minutes after Hossa’s goal, made it 3-0 for Chicago, and reminded you that both Kane and Hawks captain Jonathan Toews have new deals kicking in this summer, ones that give them the league’s two highest individual cap hits. They’re fair deals, and other stars will catch up and pass them soon enough, but, man, will they eat a big chunk of cap space.

You thought it as Duncan Keith was putting up three assists while logging 28:35 and saving goals in his own end, and you looked at the eight years left on his deal and … well, and you thought Duncan Keith is a beast. Sorry, I can stretch this whole concept only so far. Keith’s deal will look bad someday, but last night he was a bargain at any price.

But you had to keep thinking about the future of these Hawks, whether you wanted to or not. Brent Seabrook played his usual solid game on the second pairing; how do you get him the extension he’s eligible for this summer? Andrew Shaw scored the insurance goal to make it 4-2; he should be in for a nice raise after next season too. Corey Crawford made 30 saves for the win; is it completely crazy to think that maybe he’s the guy they should trade?

You wouldn’t think this way about most teams. Most teams make the playoffs, eventually lose, and go home, and nobody really offers up much sympathy because that’s just how the playoffs work for the also-rans. And you certainly wouldn’t think it about the Ducks, seemingly poised to be back here next year and beyond because of their young talent and solid cap situation.

But the Blackhawks, yeah, you can’t really escape it. Hell, you even had to think it during the pregame pump-up video that welcomed them to the ice. It’s brilliant, a chill-inducing production that juxtaposes the players from the current roster with the stars of the franchise’s past, and it’s a reminder of just how long this team went without a championship. Fans in Chicago waited 49 years for a Stanley Cup, many of those seasons agonizingly ordinary, some utterly without hope. Nobody ever really deserves a dynasty, but these guys at least come close. And they know as well as anyone that once something slips away, it can take a very long time to get it back.

It wasn’t always like this. For decades, more than any other pro sports league, the NHL was a league of dynasties. You had the Maple Leafs of the early ’60s, the Oilers and Islanders of the ’80s, and the Canadiens of, well, just about every other era. That had faded by the first decade of the Gary Bettman era, but teams like the Red Wings, Avalanche, and Devils still dominated, combining to win eight of nine Cups from 1995 to 2003.

The 2005 lockout changed that. In the decade since, there’s yet to have been so much as a repeat champion, and only a handful of teams have been able to put together more than a few seasons as top-tier contenders. The salary cap is the biggest and most obvious reason, although revenue-sharing and liberalized free agency help too. Even beyond the rule changes, the gap between the league’s smart teams and the patsies — which used to be huge — has been narrowing for years. With so much information available to anyone interested enough to look for it, the margins for competitive advantage have grown smaller and smaller.

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When goalies lose their minds, and more conference finals thoughts

We’re almost there. One conference final is into elimination territory, and the other will be after tonight. We’re just days away from having our Stanley Cup final matchup, at which point the NHL scheduling department will probably give us two weeks off to think about it.

Here are 10 thoughts on a weekend’s worth of conference finals action.

1. Ben Bishop makes his move. Like most playoff series, this Rangers-Lightning battle has largely been about the goalies. After a defensive battle in Game 1 resulted in a 2-1 Rangers win, the Lightning poured it on with a dozen goals over the next two games. That led to speculation over what was wrong with Henrik Lundqvist. Was he tired? Hurt? Had the Lightning, who’d also lit him up during the regular season, somehow figured something out that the rest of the league had missed?

Apparently not, since he looked fine Friday, as the Rangers stormed to an easy 5-1 win. That meant it was Bishop’s turn under the microscope, with Jon Cooper even being asked whether he’d considered switching goalies for last night’s Game 5 in New York. That led to a weird discussion over whether the word “asinine” could appear in a newspaper (don’t ask), and an assurance that Bishop would be back in the net. And indeed he was, although that briefly seemed in doubt when he took a puck in the groin during warm-ups.

One shutout win later, we can safely say that was the right call. Bishop didn’t make any especially spectacular saves last night, but he didn’t need to. This was a night when a solid performance was all it would take to grab the series lead, and Bishop delivered at least that. He even kind of sort of seemed to take a shot at the empty net when the Rangers pulled Lundqvist with three minutes left; his weak shot was the only thing he screwed up all night.

Bishop is now 6-1 after losses in this year’s playoffs, which is a bad sign for the Rangers if they can win tomorrow in Tampa Bay and extend the series to a Game 7. Of course, Lunqvist is 12-3 when facing elimination since 2012, so go ahead and pick the stat you want to believe in.

Either way, it’s safe to say there won’t be any question about Bishop’s status heading into Game 6. (Barring another shot to the pills, of course.)

2. They can’t all be winners. Last week, we talked about how the Rangers’ tendency to play low-scoring games didn’t necessarily translate into a boring style. In that spirit, let’s just chalk up last night as the exception that proves the rule. It wasn’t a dull game, but it certainly wasn’t exciting, as the Lightning played the sort of smothering road game that coaches love and fans have learned to tolerate.

The teams combined for just 48 shots, with the Lightning blocking more (26) than they got on the Rangers’ net (22). At one point, that included almost an entire half-period without a single save. Every NHL playoff series includes a few memorable games and a few that will be largely forgotten. Let’s chalk this one up as a stage-setter for whatever comes next and move on.

3. Steven Stamkos stays hot. Remember when the main Lightning story line was that the Triplets line of Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, and Nikita Kucherov were producing enough offense to mask a disappointing postseason from Stamkos? You probably do, since it was a week ago. Well, the Lightning captain has now scored in four straight games, including last night’s power-play tap-in off a brilliant tic-tac-toe passing play.

Needless to say, that’s yet another thing to worry about for the Rangers, and it could soon be something to worry about for whoever comes out of the West. The Lightning were the league’s highest-scoring team in the regular season, and that doesn’t tend to translate to Stanley Cups. When they were largely a one-line team, the Lightning still managed to look dynamic offensively. If the big line stays hot while Stamkos and linemates Alex Killorn and Valtteri Filppula (who also scored last night) also get rolling, look out.

Now, about that third line …

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How long will the western reign of the Kings and Blackhawks last?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: The Los Angeles Kings and Chicago Blackhawks are locked in a battle for Western Conference supremacy, with the winner heading on to play for the Stanley Cup.

Oh, right — you have heard that one, because this year’s Western Conference final is a repeat of last year’s matchup. It’s also L.A.’s third straight trip to the final four, and Chicago’s fourth in six years. The two teams have combined to win the last two Stanley Cups, and three of the last four. And with all due respect to the Rangers and the Habs, the winner of this year’s series will likely be a solid favorite to take home the championship yet again next year.

There sure seems to be a pattern developing here — a two-headed Western monster that isn’t leaving much room for other contenders. That’s not good news for teams like the Blues, Sharks, and Ducks, who’d like to think of themselves as having legitimate Cup chances. And it’s especially rough on teams like the Avs, Wild, and Stars, who seem to be on the verge of breaking into that group. As for teams like the Oilers, Flames, and Predators — well, they probably feel like they should just give up now.

But hold on. After all, this is the NHL, where fortunes can change quickly. All hockey fans need to do is take a look at the Vancouver Canucks to see how quickly an elite team can crumble. If you’re a fan of a Western Conference team, maybe there’s still hope.

So let’s take a deeper look at how the Hawks and Kings got here, and whether we can find any signs that they’re on the verge of letting somebody else have a chance any time soon.

The Talent

Let’s start with the easy one: Both of these teams have a ton of really, really good players. I know, that’s not exactly breaking news. But the Kings and Blackhawks aren’t just stacked with talent; they’re stacked with talent in remarkably similar ways.

Both teams are built around a top two-way center, with Chicago captain Jonathan Toews getting some recent “best player in hockey” talk and L.A.’s Anze Kopitar not far behind. Both players are surrounded by a very good top six, with the Kings boasting big names like Jeff Carter, Marian Gaborik, and Mike Richards, while the Hawks can send out an even better trio in Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, and Marian Hossa.

Both teams feature a stud defenseman anchoring the blue line (Chicago’s Duncan Keith and L.A.’s Drew Doughty), both have a very good no. 2 defenseman who could be a top guy on many teams (Brent Seabrook and Slava Voynov, respectively), and both supplement that top pairing with a solid complement of supporting pieces.

Then there’s goaltending. In Corey Crawford and Jonathan Quick, each team has a solid goalie who seems to elevate his game in the playoffs. We’ll leave that “seems to” in there since there’s always the risk that playoff sample sizes can be misleading — but both guys have been excellent again this year, and it’s fair to say both teams are very comfortable with their goaltending when the games start to matter.

So, yeah, both teams have deep rosters featuring plenty of great players. After all, that’s what you’d expect from a pair of Stanley Cup contenders. But if you’re a Western Conference team hoping the Kings and Hawks will come back to the pack over the next few years, the depressing parts come next.

The Salary Cap

The NHL has been a salary cap league since 2005, and we’ve become used to seeing top teams feel the strain of financial pressure within a few years. The best teams end up overspending on their elite talent, the supporting guys have to seek their fortunes elsewhere, and the resulting lack of depth brings the top team back to the pack. Call it the Pittsburgh Model.¹

And in fact we’ve already seen that scenario play out with one of these teams. When the Blackhawks won the Cup in 2010, they were forced to part ways with a big chunk of their roster, including good players like starting goalie Antti Niemi, defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, and forward Andrew Ladd. It was exactly the sort of enforced parity that hockey fans had been promised under a cap system.

And all of that kept the Blackhawks from the ranks of the elite teams for … two whole years. They’d win another Cup by 2013, and now they’re on the verge of yet another. And looking ahead, they’re not exactly in bad shape for next year and beyond.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Playoff goalie stock watch

At times, the NHL playoffs can feel like they’re all about the goaltenders. It’s the most highly visible position in the sport, and in a short series where an entire season can come down to one play, the goalies are often the first to get the credit, and always the first to get the blame.

One guy stands on his head and steals a game. Another gives up a bad goal and loses his job. And then someone else has 20,000 fans booing him, right up until he makes a game-saving stop and everyone goes back to pretending they loved him all along. Sometimes, if a series goes long enough, one goalie gets to be all three of those guys.

It can be hard to keep track of it all. So with the second round almost over, this seemed like a good time to take stock of the market and check in with the goalies who’ve played key roles in this year’s postseason.

Stock Rising: Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens

Price had the best season of his career, which was good. He was the starter on gold medal–winning Team Canada in Sochi, which was better. But now that he’s led the Canadiens into the Eastern Conference finals, vanquishing the heavily favored Bruins along the way, he may be approaching legend status. He’s not there yet — this is Montreal, after all, where you either win the Cup or apologize to everyone for wasting their time. But if Price keeps generating stats like this one, it’s hard to bet against him.

The almost creepily stoic Price was good against the Lightning and great against the Bruins. In between, he managed to work in an adorable dog-rescue story. Can he keep it going? I wouldn’t put it past him. Then again, these days nobody is putting anything past him.¹

Holding Steady: Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings

Quick’s reputation has always been tied directly to his playoff performance, since his career regular-season numbers are only a little better than average. But it’s his postseason play that has earned him his elite status (and massive contract). He was unbeatable during the Kings’ 2012 Cup run, and almost as good during last year’s trip to the conference finals.

He hasn’t managed to perform the same magic this year, and that’s a big part of the reason the Kings are facing a Game 7 against Anaheim on Friday night. He looked like he was back in beast mode during a six-game win streak that eliminated the Sharks and put the Ducks in a 2-0 hole, but returned to earth while Anaheim clawed back.

If the Kings lose Friday, Quick’s postseason will go down as a disappointment. If they win, his stature as one of the league’s best big-game goalies will be set to grow yet again.

Stock Rising: Corey Crawford, Chicago Blackhawks

Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images

Like Quick, Crawford has his share of doubters based on his regular-season numbers. And his postseason totals hadn’t been especially impressive, either, right up until he led the Blackhawks to last year’s Stanley Cup. That was enough to earn him a big contract extension, one that some pointed to as a possible overpay based on one random hot streak.

Well, make it two random hot streaks, because Crawford’s been fantastic so far this postseason. His Game 3 shutout against the Blues helped turn that series around, and he went into lockdown mode on Tuesday to eliminate the Wild. His .931 save percentage and 1.97 GAA are among the league leaders, and he’s doing it with the type of saves that leave opponents making adorably sad faces.

It’s been more than two decades since a starting goalie won back-to-back Cups.² Crawford is halfway there.

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What can the rest of the league learn from the NHL's big four?

Midway through the second round of the playoffs, the NHL has a shot at an interesting conference final scenario. The Kings, Blackhawks, and Penguins are all leading their series, and the Bruins are still very much alive despite trailing the Canadiens, 2-1. If Boston can come back and the other three teams hold on, we’d be left with a repeat of last year’s final four.

That would be an especially rare result, not just in the NHL but across North American pro sports. The NHL has only had one repeat final four since the Original Six era (it happened in 1977). And according to the Elias Sports Bureau, it’s only happened once in MLB (1978) and once in the NBA (1952); it’s never happened in the Super Bowl–era NFL.

So would a final four repeat just be a fluke? Or is it possible these teams know something the rest of the league doesn’t? That Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and L.A. also happen to be the league’s four most recent Cup winners might make you lean toward the second option.

I figured I’d take a deeper look at these four teams, and see what sort of lessons they could offer us about building a successful NHL contender. That turned out to be easier said than done, because while they have plenty in common, finding any one factor that applied to all four gets tricky. Have you ever tried to get four kids to pose for a photo, only to find that one is constantly wandering off? That’s what this felt like.

So instead, here are eight lessons we can learn from most of the NHL’s big four, along with the one team from the group that ruins it.

Lesson 1: Build the blue line around a stud defenseman

Bill Smith/NHLI via Getty Images

They say you build a championship team from the net out. We’ll get to the goaltending part of that equation in a minute, but whoever you’ve got in the crease will need a solid blue line in front of him. And the easiest way to build one is to find one stud to handle the heavy lifting.

Chicago’s Duncan Keith is the odds-on favorite to win the Norris this year, thanks to a season that saw him rack up 61 points while logging big ice time. He’s already won the award once, in 2010. Not bad for a guy who slipped to the 54th pick in the 2002 draft, just behind such noted stalwarts as Alexei Kaigorodov and Barry Tallackson.

If Keith doesn’t win, this year’s award will probably go to Boston’s Zdeno Chara, another previous winner who’s a finalist for the sixth time. In addition to being absolutely terrifying, Chara is probably the most successful free-agent signing of the cap era. It seems strange now, but there were doubts about Chara’s overall game when the Bruins pried him out of Ottawa with a $37.5 million offer in 2006. Eight years later, not so much.

The Kings’ Drew Doughty didn’t earn a spot in this year’s top three Norris vote-getters, though there’s a good chance he finishes fourth. He’s the youngest of the trio at 24, which means we probably haven’t seen his best yet. That’s a scary thought for a guy who was already a Norris finalist in 2010 at the age of 20.

Having one of the league’s best defensemen on your roster doesn’t guarantee you a deep playoff run — hello, Shea Weber — but it sure helps.

The exception: Is Kris Letang a stud? He’s certainly paid like one, and he was a Norris finalist just last season. But despite his inspiring comeback this year, he’s not really viewed as being in that Chara/Keith/Doughty ballpark.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Other cases of NHLers getting attacked by animals

Yes, this is a camel scaring Evgeni Malkin.
No, I don't have a joke.

The biggest news in hockey this week was Mike Fisher getting attacked by a chipmunk.

Well, OK, maybe it wasn't the biggest news. But it's a marginally interesting thing that happened, and since training camp hasn't opened yet we will damn well take what we can get. So this week it's animal jokes.

Where was I? Right, Mike Fisher getting attacked by a chipmunk. As it turns out, the tiny creature invaded the home Fisher shares with wife Carrie Underwood, and while heroically trying to protect his family, the Predators center sustained two tiny bite marks on his hand.

As it turns out, that puts Fisher in good company. For some reason, NHL players and personalities just seem to have trouble when it comes to interacting with animals. Here are some recent examples of the hockey world's more dangerous encounters with the animal kingdom:

Gary Bettman - Was badly injured during a recent trip to the zoo after instinctively jumping into the wild canine exhibit in a desperate attempt to prevent the coyotes from moving.

Dustin Brown - Has been tormented his entire career by an invisible wolf who chases him around the ice and repeatedly makes him fall down even though no other players touched him.

Corey Crawford - Was distracted during recent extension negotiations by a giant seabird, I'm pretty sure, since when you type "Corey Crawford contract" into Google it immediately auto-fills "huge albatross".

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2013 Stanley Cup Final preview

Even Hossa agreed that his stick's Gregory
Campbell impression was in poor taste.

The Stanley Cup Final start tomorrow, which means it's time for an in-depth preview of the two teams that will be competing to be crowned champion.

With the Bruins and Blackhawks this evenly matched, even a small advantage in one area can become the key to victory. Here's a look at each of the crucial matchups that could end up deciding the series.

Coaching

Blackhawks: Joe Quenneville is a savvy veteran who can be counted on to avoid rookie mistakes, like picking up when his general manager tries to Skype him.
Bruins: Claude Julien has turned the Bruins into perennial Cup contenders thanks to the patented strategy he calls "Always make sure you have pretty much the best goalie in the entire league".

Forwards

Blackhawks: Patrick Kane has been on fire lately, which is pretty much what you'd expect from something greasy that's frequently soaked in alcohol.
Bruins: Brad Marchand has established himself as one of the best agitators in hockey, in the sense that watching a guy rack up goals and assists against your team in crucial situations can be really agitating.

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