Making the case against the HHOF candidacies of 15 NHL stars

It’s Hockey Hall of Fame week, with the mysterious committee holding its annual top-secret meeting on Wednesday, leading to the announcement of this year’s honorees. As always, the top candidates are a mix of slam dunks, borderline newbies, and holdovers from the past whose cases are strong but maybe not quite strong enough.

This is the time of year when I’d typically write a post laying out the strongest arguments in favor of a bunch of players. But there’s a problem with that approach – it just ends in disappointment. With a limited number of spots up for grabs each year, most candidates won’t make it. And that list will probably include some that you feel are deserving, especially if you’ve just seen guys like me pumping their tires to convince you they should be in.

So today, let’s flip the script. I’m going to give you a list of candidates, and then try to convince you that they shouldn’t make it. Yes, I’m switching sides, and arguing to keep stars out. That will be just fine for some of you Small Hall types, and infuriating for at least a few of you when it comes to your favorites. But the important thing is that I’ll be proven right on Wednesday, when the committee agrees with me on the vast majority of these players... and maybe even all of them.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Oh sheet

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Thoughts on the Jesperi Kotkaniemi offer sheet, and where it goes from here
- Still no Jack Eichel trade, and is there any good way out for the Sabres?
- Lots of listener feedback on our August debate episodes
- Is Patrik Elias a Hall-of-Famer?
- The 30-year anniversary of the Scott Stevens/Brendan Shanahan ruling
- Plus Lundqvist's popularity, McSorley's high-stick, the 1972 Summit Series opener and lots more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)

Five times that something actually happened in August

The calendar has flipped over to August, which means that all around the NHL, teams are hard at work on…

Wait! Come back! Don’t close the page!

Look, we get it. August is the worst month on the NHL calendar by a mile. Almost all the big offseason moves have already happened, training camp is still weeks away, and it seems like everyone who matters is away at a cottage somewhere.

But it’s not actually true that “nothing happens in August.” Almost nothing, sure, we’ll grant you that. But the NHL history book’s entry for the month isn’t completely blank. So today, let’s look back on some of the newsworthy moments that have happened in August, and whether there’s any hope of something similar going down this year.

A BIG NAME FREE AGENT SIGNING

While it’s rare to see a major free agent sign in August, it has happened. Some seem minor at the time and only loom larger with the benefit of hindsight, like the Penguins’ scooping up Matt Cullen last year. But sometimes, the player involved is a genuine star.

Historical precedent: Mike Modano signed with the Red Wings on August 5, 2010, and Owen Nolan joined the Coyotes on August 16, 2006. Granted, both guys were well past their prime when they signed, but they were still stars. And there is a precedent for an elite player in his prime signing a UFA deal in August. Scott Niedermayer did just that with the Ducks on August 4, 2005. And plenty of other big names signed in August that year too, including Peter Forsberg, Eric Lindros and Paul Kariya.

See? It can happen! There’s hope!

(This is the part where we hope you won’t notice that 2005 was the year that the season-long lockout pushed the start of free agency back to August 1.)

Odds of it happening this year: Huh. Well…. [checks list of remaining free agents]… do Kris Russel or Jiri Hudler count as a big names? Because if not, we may be out of luck, at least until the Jimmy Vesey sweepstakes kick in.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

The five active players who make the toughest HHOF calls

The Hockey Hall of Fame announced its class of 2016 yesterday, with Eric Lindros, Sergei Makarov, Rogie Vachon and Pat Quinn receiving the game’s ultimate honour.

These announcements always make for a fun debate. And that extends to future classes; we’re already seeing some attention turn to 2017 and beyond, when we’ll have a mix of holdovers from this year’s vote, recently retired sure-things like Teemu Selanne and Martin Brodeur, and some tougher cases like Daniel Alfredsson and Saku Koivu.

But today, let’s look ahead even further. Let’s look at the five players nearing the end of their careers who could make for the toughest calls among active players when they become eligible for Hall of Fame consideration.

Let’s set a couple of ground rules. First, we’ll focus on players who are 36 or older, since drawing the line there should limit us to players who truly are almost done. Note that that limit means we can hold off on a few contentious names, like the Sedin twins and Henrik Zetterberg.

And we're also going to exclude active players who are already shoe-ins. That list might be controversial in its own right, but we're going to go ahead and award early Hall passes to:

• Jaromir Jagr: Because come on.
• Zdeno Chara: While he only has one Norris, his seven post-season all-star nods and a Stanley Cup win as a captain will be more than enough to get him in.
• Jarome Iginla: Scoring 600+ goals means guaranteed entry (unless you're Dave Andreychuk).
• Marian Hossa: I took an in-depth look at the argument for Hossa last season, and concluded that his case was strong but not a slam dunk. I heard from several respected hockey people who thought he was a sure thing, and he's since added another Stanley Cup ring, so let's say he's in.
• Joe Thornton: Every player ahead of him on the career points list is already in, with the exception of Selanne (who isn't eligible). And his playoff run this year seems to have put a few dents in that "can't win the big one" narrative that's followed him through his career. Maybe voters pull a Mark Recchi and make him wait, but surely we can all agree he gets in eventually, right?

With those five off the board, here are the five active players that look like they'll make for the toughest HHOF calls.

Patrik Elias

The longtime Devil's status for next year isn't known yet. He'll technically become a free agent on Friday, but all indications are he'll be back in New Jersey or not at all.

The case for: He's an extremely well-respected veteran with two Cup rings. He's also crossed a pair of major milestones, cracking both the 400-goal and 1,000-point marks during the 2014-15 season.

The case against: While he did reach both milestones, it was only barely, and he didn't add much to his career totals last season due to injury. Plenty of players with better career numbers haven't made it in, and that remains true even if you adjust for era. Realistically, Elias was always very good but was never viewed as one of the game's very best – his 2000-01 season was the only one in which he made a postseason all-star team or cracked the top-10 in Hart voting.

My vote: This feels like one of those Hall-of-Very-Good cases. He's a no for me.

Prediction: Elias is a tough call who always seems to split the vote. One factor that could work in his favour: he played his entire career for one team, and for some reason that seems to help. As the all-time leading scorer for one of the more successful franchises in recent league history, he'll have an entire fan base (and more than a few media) pushing his candidacy hard. But unless he comes back and has a big year or two, I don't think he gets in.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

A detailed review of all eleven New Jersey Devils shootout losses

The New Jersey Devils’ line in the NHL standings may be the saddest thing in the hockey world.

They sit at 34-29-16, good for 84 points in 79 games, which leaves them three points behind Columbus for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. Despite a late surge, time is running out, and the Devils will almost certainly fall just short of the playoffs.

But that’s not the sad part. Keep scanning the row of numbers and you hit one that has literally never been seen before: 0-11. It shows up in the shootout column, and it represents 11 consecutive losses in the NHL’s tiebreaking sideshow. If the Devils end up going winless in shootouts this season, it will be the worst performance in league history. Only one other team, the 2006-07 Hurricanes, went an entire season without winning a shootout, and they only lost five.

In the nine seasons the NHL has featured shootouts, we’ve come to learn they’re basically all luck, in the sense that teams that are especially good or bad at them one year are no more likely to repeat the status than anyone else. There’s individual skill involved, sure, but at the team level, we’re essentially flipping coins. Do you know how hard it is to have a coin come up tails 11 times in a row? Go ahead and try it; I’ll wait here until you give up.

If the Devils had managed to just be bad in the shootout — let’s say four wins and seven losses — they’d be in great shape right now. But the Devils are 0-for-11, and they’re probably going to miss the playoffs because of it.

And, as broken down in detail here, they’re doing it despite a roster full of players who’ve historically had decent shootout success. Yet in a league in which shooters typically convert on about one-third of their shootout chances, the Devils have somehow managed to go just 3-for-39. Their team shooting percentage in the shootout is significantly worse than their shooting percentage during the actual games, which, when you really think about it, should probably be impossible.

And it’s not like they’re some expansion-level roster full of cast-offs — they have the league’s active leading scorer and all-time winningest goaltender. But none of it matters.

It almost defies belief. So just to make sure this hasn’t all been a bad dream, I went back and rewatched every shot of every Devils shootout from this season. And since I don’t like to suffer alone, now I’m going to make you relive it all with me.

October 4: Islanders 4, Devils 3

What Devils fans were thinking: Oh yay, a shootout, these are fun!

The goalie: Martin Brodeur

The shooters: Damien Brunner, Ryane Clowe, Patrik Elias, Travis Zajac, Michael Ryder, Jaromir Jagr

Did anyone score? No.

Highlights: The very first round gives you a hint as to how the rest of the year is going to go, as Brunner dekes past Evgeni Nabokov’s pokecheck attempt and then shoots it directly into his pad, followed by Brodeur stopping Frans Nielsen but appearing to hurt himself in the process. Clowe’s appearance briefly makes everyone wonder if they blacked out for 10 rounds. Pierre-Marc Bouchard tries Jason Allison’s patented “skate in slowly enough that the goalie might die of old age” move, but Brodeur stops him. Brodeur also stops John Tavares, then has to make a second save when the puck defies the laws of physics by trying to bounce directly into the net on the rebound because the hockey gods are sending a message.

New York’s Matt Moulson eventually wins it in Round 6, then vows to be traded at least twice before the Devils mange to win one of these.

How cruel was it in hindsight? Watching six guys fail to score couldn’t have been fun, though Brodeur looked sharp. Ah well. Get ’em next time, right?

October 7: Oilers 5, Devils 4

What Devils fans were thinking: Oh yay, a shootout, these are fun (except for that last one).

The goalie: Brodeur

The shooters: Brunner, Clowe

Did anyone score? No.

Highlights: Brunner tries the Forsberg move, but puts it wide. Jordan Eberle and David Perron both beat Brodeur with essentially the same move, and this one is done after just two rounds.

How cruel was it in hindsight? Pretty cruel, since the Devils had blown a 3-0 lead in regulation. And also, it was a loss to the Edmonton Oilers. Probably more that second part, actually.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Free agency preview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of this post...

At the combine: A look at the top prospects for the 2013 NHL draft

In hindsight, the photographer picked a weird
time to ask Drouin and MacKinnon where they
thought Seth Jones would get picked

The NHL scouting combine is being held this week in Toronto, which makes this as good a time as any to have a look at the top prospects for next month's draft.

Well, technically a better time would be right before the draft. But thanks to the lockout, there appears to be a good chance that this year's draft will be start 15 minutes after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup finals, so we might as well go ahead and do the preview now.

Here are sixteen top prospects who can expect to hear their names called at the 2013 entry draft in New Jersey.

Seth Jones - This big strong defenceman would be a perfect fit in Colorado thanks to his ability to protect goaltenders from traffic in the crease and forwards driving the net and crazy coaches who keep trying to fight them.

Nathan MacKinnon - Scouts in Florida say he's exactly the kind of player who could really bring Panthers fans out of their seats, so based on recent attendance figures he's apparently already been playing there for a few years.

Jonathan Drouin - Oh sure, he racked up the points in Halifax playing on a line with MacKinnon, but let's see what he can do when he's stuck in Tampa Bay playing with Steven Stamkos and wait actually he'll probably be pretty good at that too.

Nikita Zadorov - The 6'5" 230 pound teen did very well on the Wingate cycling test, assuming that the bicycle immediately exploding is considered a good thing.

Max Domi - Is well-known for having grown up with famous NHL bloodlines, in the sense that every time his dad came home from work he'd leave a trail of the blood of famous players all over the house.

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Grantland: The NHL players nobody hates, and why we should hate them

Here’s a general rule about hockey fans: They hate just about everyone.

If you’re an NHL player, it doesn’t take much for hockey fans to turn against you. Sidney Crosby? Too whiny. The Sedins? The whole twin thing is creepy. Alexander Ovechkin? Once he scored a goal and then looked happy about it, so screw that guy. Basically, if a player has ever signed a big contract or won a fight or expressed an opinion, some large bloc of fans has already added him to their enemies list.

But every once in a while, a player manages to stick-handle through the neutral zone trap of hockey hatred and break in alone on the goaltender of positivity and — holy crap, that was a terrible metaphor, but I’m leaving it in because you get the point.

Anyway, here are a dozen of the NHL’s most universally admired active players, the reasons why we love them, and a suggestion for why we should all just turn against them now and get it over with.

>>Read the full post at Grantland

2012 Free Agency Preview

The last known photo of these two without a
trillion dollars stuffed in their pockets

Tomorrow marks the start of the NHL's annual free agent frenzy. This year's crop is thin on big name talent, but there should be enough top tier players available to ensure that tomorrow will be a busy day.

Here are some of the players who'll be getting the most attention once the clock strikes noon tomorrow.

Ryan Suter

The good: It's extremely rare to have the opportunity to see one of the best defensemen in all of hockey patrolling your team's blueline, so Suter was pretty lucky to get to watch Shea Weber all those years.
The bad: Unlike all his brothers and cousins who are cool about it, when you ask him what it was like growing up on the famous family farm in Viking, Alberta he just stares at you like you're some sort of idiot.
Worth noting: Has been so torn over which of his many potential destinations to choose that he's spent several nights wide awake, pacing his bedroom floor in his favorite Red Wing footy pajamas.

P.A. Parenteau

The good: Shows surprising speed, according to Nassau Coliseum security guards who watched him sprint out of the building the second the season ended.
The bad: Has racked up impressive assist totals with the Islanders over the years, but there's no way of knowing if he could also do it with good players.
Worth noting: His signing will be our only chance to read the headline "Ownership and P.A. reach agreement" for the next six months.

Ray Whitney

The good: Has been a team leader in Phoenix for the past two years, so is probably getting really good at fake-laughing at a teammate's twitter updates.
The bad: Was teammates with Raffi Torres for an entire season and never once pushed him out the cargo door of a moving airplane, so how good a guy can he be?
Worth noting: The league is trying to cut down on ridiculously back-loaded contracts that take a player well past the typical age of retirement, so they'll probably veto any Whitney deal longer than three weeks.

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Winners and losers at the NHL's midseason mark

"Jarome, what would you say is the absolute best-
case scenario for the Flames' record this year?"

The NHL will officially cross the midway mark later this week, with all 30 teams having played their 41st game of the season. And while a lot can change over the next few months, it's fair to say the first half has been kinder to some teams than others.

A handful of elite teams are already looking ahead to the possibility of a deep playoff run. Others are left to contemplate trade deadline fire sales and wonder where it all went wrong. Here's a look at the winners and losers from the first half of the season.

Winner: Calgary Flames - The struggling franchise continues to draw comparisons to the 2008 Maple Leafs, which is great news since it means they're only a few years away from being able to trade all their worst players to the Calgary Flames.

Loser: Pittsburgh Penguins - Have had to deal with a ridiculous string of significant injuries, we think, although it's hard to say since their guy in charge of reporting injuries is currently injured.

Winner: St. Louis Blues - Goaltender Brian Elliot has put up outstanding numbers ever since new coach Ken Hitchcock broke down film of his time with the Senators and suggested he try the slight adjustment of turning his goalie mask around so that the eyeholes are in the front.

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