Old Guy Without a Cup rankings, 2026 edition: Narrowing down a stacked field

It’s OGWAC time, as we celebrate one of the best running subplots of any NHL postseason: The Old Guy Without a Cup. That grizzled veteran who's done it all over a long career, but has yet to get their name on the sport’s most hallowed trophy. Can they finally win the big one? Will they run out of time? Will they get the first pass from the team captain, and if so, will they cry? Will we all cry?

You know the drill. The greatest OGWAC story ever told was Ray Bourque back in 2001. Teemu Selanne’s was pretty great. So was Lanny McDonald way back in 1989. Then again, we’ve spent years pumping the tires of OGWAC legends like Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski, and they never got their happy endings. Nothing is promised in OGWAC world.

Our criteria for being “old” remains the same as past years: An old player will be at least 33 years old when the Cup is awarded, and must have at least ten seasons of NHL experience. The older the better, and that’s especially true if the player has had some agonizing near-misses in their history. Ideally, our candidates will be playing an important role for a team with a legitimate shot at winning it all.

We’ll try to work in a candidate for as many teams as we can, and we’ll limit ourselves to a max of three picks from any individual team. We’ll start at 20 and work our way down to year’s best OGWAC.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

The Ben Chiarot, the Martin Erat, and more players you meet at deadline time

We’re days away from the trade deadline. Does anyone know who’s going where?

Yes. I do. I figured it all out a few days ago, because I’m smart like that. However, both the NHL and my editors have asked me not to spoil the suspense, and James Duthie keep showing up outside my living room window and doing to eye-pointing gesture. So for now, I’m going to keep it vague.

Here are 16 players that we typically hear about at deadline time. Will your team be adding a few, or maybe trading them away? Yes, absolutely, but that’s all I can say for now.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

A brief history of players who were just OK suddenly becoming trade deadline darlings for some reason

It’s trade deadline season, and that means it’s time to fire up the rumor mill and figure out who’s going to be moved. This time of year is all sorts of fun for hockey fans, and this season’s trade board features several stars who seem likely to be dealt, including Patrick Kane, Timo Meier, Ryan O’Reilly and Jakob Chychrun.

Those are legitimately big names, which we don’t always get at deadline time. But that’s fine, because hockey fans and media are going to go all-in on trade talk whether the market deserves it or not. And that leads to one of my favorite trade deadline traditions: The perfectly adequate player who suddenly becomes one of the hottest names available for reasons nobody is quite clear on.

It’s honestly pretty great, our own little hockey-themed version of the 1600s tulip craze. You hear a guy’s name mentioned once and you shrug. Then he keeps coming up, over and over, and suddenly you’re hearing that the asking price is a first-round pick. You’re confused, but eventually you get worn down, and the next thing you know you're on hold with your local sports radio station so you can yell about how your GM better get this guy, price be damned.

Then the deadline ends, the guy barely makes an impact on his new team, and we all look at each other and wonder what the heck that was all about.

I love those guys. So today, we’re going to remember 10 of the best examples of this deadline phenomenon, with a brief history of decent players who suddenly got to be the belle of the ball for a few weeks, even if none of us can quite remember why.

2006: Brendan Witt

Who they were: A 31-year-old defenseman who’d played his entire career with the Capitals, Witt was a physical presence. He was also a 20-goal scorer. As in, he had scored a total of 20 goals over his 10 years in the NHL.

Why they were in demand: This will shock you, but veteran, hard-nosed defensemen are going to show up on this list more than once. Also, Witt had asked for a trade to a contender.

Quote that captures the general vibe: “Witt, a rugged, stay-at-home defenseman, has been a mainstay on the Capitals' blueline for a decade. His departure will leave a huge void in the locker room and in the lineup … He was also a vocal leader and the team's most experienced defenseman.” – Washington Post.

The eventual deal: The Capitals sent Witt to Nasvhille for a first-round pick and Kris Beech.

How it turned out: Witt played 22 games for the Predators, recording three points, before their season ended in a first-round loss to the Sharks. He signed with the Islanders in that summer, where he was run over by an SUV. Oh, and the first-round pick turned into Semyon Varlamov.

2011: Dustin Penner

Who they were: Years after the offer sheet that almost led to a barn fight, Penner had settled in as a productive winger on some very bad Oiler teams, peaking with a 31-goal season in 2010. He’d also been occasionally accused of being out of shape, but haven’t we all.

Why they were in demand: This was back in the era where power forwards were still a thing, and while Penner wasn’t exactly Cam Neely, he was a big winger who could contribute offensively. Also, the Oilers did a very good job of coyle playing the “we might not actually want to move him after all” card, which always drives up interest. And it was just a generally bland deadline, so somebody had to be the main attraction.

Quote that captures the general vibe: “The 28-year-old power forward has a good pair of hands to go along with his 6-foot-4, 245-pound frame. He figures to fit in well with a team that covets size and the ability to play around the net…” – LA Daily News.

The eventual deal: The Oilers sent Penner to the Kings for a first, a conditional third, and a prospect.

How it turned out: Penner scored just three goals the rest of the way for the Kings, and just 15 more in parts of two additional seasons. One of those was the 2012 Cup win, though, so in that sense maybe you say this one worked out OK. It was better than that for Edmonton, as they turned the first into Oscar Klefbom.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

The Athletic Hockey Show: Deadline thoughts, father/son combos, and should the Canucks play?

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- We wrap up the trade deadline
- On Taylor Hall and his NTC
- Where Nick and Mike Foligno rank among father/son combos on the same team
- Jesse Granger lets us know if any deals changed the Cup odds
- T.J. Miller speaks out; should the Canucks be playing?
- Remembering Frank McCool's record, and our picks for the best hockey names
- Listener mail, Teemu Selanne's unbreakable record and 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)

Grab Bag: More jersey number trivia, an awards idea and Foligno swings at a fan

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- A follow-up to the jersey number trivia post, in which I answer some of your many questions
- An idea for how the NHL should announce this year's awards
- An obscure player who shared the net with two Hall-of-Famers in one game
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube look back at Mike Foligno using his dad-vision to try to murder a Bruins fan

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free 90-day trial.)

Grab Bag: Wanna bet?

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- If the NHL is going to embrace gambling, I have some suggestions for prop bets I'd like to see
- How that phantom Zach Hyman goal should have been handled
- Ab obscure player who had one of the best first months ever
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube breakdown of a classic blockbuster that made a bunch of new Red Wings very sad

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

The slow descent into madness that is the Columbus Blue Jackets' winning streak

Tonight, the Columbus Blue Jackets will try to make NHL history. With a win in Washington, they’ll tie the 1992–93 Penguins for the longest win streak the league has ever seen. It would be their seventeenth straight win, a stretch that dates all the way back to November.

Nothing in that opening paragraph makes any sense.

Really, go find a time machine and travel back to October and show that paragraph to the first hockey fan you find. They’ll have you committed. We’ve been trying to figure all this out for weeks without much success, but we know this much: This win streak isn’t just one of the best stories of the season—it’s one of the most unexpected stories of the last decade or two.

So how did we get here? How did a team that nobody thought was much of a threat to even make the playoffs suddenly wind up in the same conversation as Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr‘s mini-dynasty? How did a team that looked like a disaster early on manage to do something that the late-’70s Canadiens and mid-’80s Oilers never came close to?

The only way to make any sense of it is to relive it. So today, let's go back through the Blue Jackets' last 16 games and try to figure out what happened.

Game 1: Lightning at Blue Jackets (November 29)

Setting the scene: Tampa comes to town one point up on Columbus in the hunt for one of the East's lower playoff spots. The Blue Jackets are overachieving at 11-5-4, but they've lost three of their last four to drop to fourth in the Metro. They're one point up on New Jersey.

What happened: The Blue Jackets dominate, outshooting the Lightning 38–27 and pumping five goals past Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Final score: Columbus 5, Tampa Bay 1

Notable moment: Josh Anderson's third point of the night is an assist on a Scott Hartnell goal that makes it 4–0 and seals the easy win.

Postgame quote: "It's fun to be around this team now in this locker room. I'm enjoying every moment." – Sergei Bobrovsky. May want to pace yourself a bit there, Sergei.

What NHL fans were thinking: "Oh cool, the Predators won tonight. I bet those guys are ready to go on a run."

Game 2: Blue Jackets at Avalanche (December 1)

Setting the scene: The Blue Jackets get a rematch against a team that had beaten them the week before.

What happened: Columbus blows a 2–0 first-period lead, but gets a goal by Boone Jenner midway through the third to eke out a road win.

Final score: Columbus 3, Colorado 2

Notable moment: Blake Comeau scores what looks like the tying goal with two minutes left, but it's waved off after a replay review.

Postgame quote: "A lot of crazy things are going to happen during the year, as far as winning and losing." – John Tortorella. He wasn't wrong.

What NHL fans were thinking: "Huh. I guess Tortorella might not be the first coach fired this year after all."

Game 3: Blue Jackets at Coyotes (December 3)

Setting the scene: Columbus continues its tour through the bottom of the Western standings with a trip to Arizona.

What happened: The Blue Jackets thoroughly dominate with 60 shots on goal, but Mike Smith nearly steals one. He makes a franchise-record 58 saves, but the Blue Jackets get the win in the shootout.

Final score: Columbus 3, Arizona 2 (SO)

Notable moment: The Blue Jackets get a 90-second 5-on-3 in the third period but can't score, which is basically like seeing Superman struggle to open a jar.

Postgame quote: "I thought we stopped shooting the puck (in the second period)." – Tortorella. "I must have missed that part," replied Smith, probably.

What NHL fans were thinking: "Wow, 60 shots? That's impressive. But let's see them do it against someone other than the Coyotes. Who's their next game against?"

Game 4: Coyotes at Blue Jackets (December 5)

Setting the scene: In a rematch, the Blue Jackets return home in search of the franchise's 500th win.

What happened: Sam Gagner has two goals and four points to erase an early Coyotes' lead, and the Blue Jackets cruise to an easy victory.

Final score: Columbus 4, Arizona 1

Notable moment: The Coyotes challenge the third Blue Jackets' goal for goalie interference, but it's allowed to stand after review.

Postgame quote: "We were a little sluggish early." – Gagner. He's either referring to the first period, or the franchise's first decade.

What NHL fans were thinking: "Wait, why are the Coyotes and Blue Jackets playing a home-and-home? Everything OK, NHL schedule-maker? Anything you want to tell us?"

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

This Blue Jackets thing can't last... or can it?

Without question, the Columbus Blue Jackets have been one of the season’s best stories. Coming off of a disastrous year and with virtually nobody picking them to even make the playoffs, the Blue Jackets have exceeded all expectations while contending for first place in the Metro Division.

The power play is smoking, the goaltending is excellent, John Tortorella looks like the Jack Adams favorite, and the Blue Jackets are the hottest team in the league today, winning nine straight and counting. After years of misery, fans in Columbus finally have something to cheer about.

It’s too bad it can’t last.

I mean, it can’t… right? These are still the Blue Jackets. Seeing them beat up the Canadiens and run right alongside the Penguins and Rangers has been fun, but eventually things will go back to normal and they’ll fall out of contention.

Of course, plenty of us have been saying that for most of the season, and it hasn't happened yet. If anything, the Blue Jackets are getting better as the year wears on.

So today, let's try to get this settled once and for all. Let's lay out the case against the Blue Jackets—all the reasons why this can't be the real thing and their crash back to mediocrity is inevitable. And then let's pick that case apart and see if it actually holds up.

Let's start with an area where the Blue Jackets aren't just good, but historically good.

They're not for real because: Their power play is too good to be true. Literally.

Plenty of things have been going right for the Blue Jackets. But with apologies to Sergei Bobrovsky and Zach Werenski, the biggest story in Columbus has been the power play. And it's a virtual certainty that that unit will be coming back to Earth soon.

Right now, the Blue Jackets' power play is clocking in at a 27.7-percent success rate. Only one team in NHL history has finished with a higher rate over a full season, and that was back in the high-flying ’80s when everyone was filling the net against tiny goalies who hadn't figured out the butterfly yet.

Wayne Gretzky's Oilers never had a 27-percent power play. Neither did Mario Lemieux's Penguins or Mike Bossy's Islanders. But we're supposed to think that Nick Foligno's Blue Jackets have figured it out? Not a chance. This is a classic case of a decent unit hitting a hot streak for a few weeks, and once it regresses back to where it deserves to be, this team will look very different.

Yeah, but: Plenty of smart people have been studying the Blue Jackets' power play to try to figure out what makes it tick. And they've been finding some interesting things, including a five-man first unit that's doing an excellent job at consistently generating high-percentage shots from dangerous areas.

Sure, there's clearly a degree of good luck happening here; nobody thinks that the Blue Jackets have suddenly cracked the code on 100 years of power play strategy. But the top unit isn't simply succeeding based on a fluke; they've been earning it.

And even if you don't buy any of that, let's not overestimate the impact that the Columbus special teams could be having. If they were hitting at a league-average rate of 18 percent or so, their 23 power play goals would drop to 15 or so. That's eight goals, which conventional wisdom says translated to one or two wins.

That's nothing to sneeze at, and it's possible that Blue Jackets' power-play prowess is even more important because it's forcing teams to play them differently at even strength. But it's not enough to make the difference between them being an elite team and an also-ran. Even if the power play settles down, this still looks like a strong team.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Panic Watch: Should we be worried about any of the NHL's slumping stars?

Don’t panic.

That phrase once appeared on the cover of a famous book. And it should probably appear on the cover of programs in NHL arenas, because it’s good advice for hockey fans who like to overreact to slow starts and small sample sizes. Most of the time, an early season slump is just a slump, and the right answer it to shrug it off and move on.

And yet… Sometimes a slump is more than that. Sometimes it’s the start of something bigger, the sort of long-term downturn that changes the way we view an NHL star. A seemingly minor slump might end up being that first blinking light on the dashboard, warning us that a player could struggle through the rest of a season, or even a career.

The problem, of course, is that we don’t really know when that’s the case; we have to wait and see how it all plays out. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take a wild guess carefully analyze the situation in an attempt to figure it out. So today, let’s look at eight names from around the NHL world who are off to a rough start, and try to answer the question: Is it time to panic?

Jakub Voracek, Flyers

The season so far: One year after enjoying a breakout season (and signing a $66 million extension), Voracek has no goals. That’s bad, right? I think that’s bad.

Panic time?: You could forgive Flyer fans for being nervous here – after all, no franchise has a longer track record of seeing big money contracts blow up in its face. And Voracek’s lack of goals isn’t exactly a new development – even during last year’s breakout, he had only six in the season’s second half. And while he’s never been a pure goal scorer, even his five assists on the year are well below expectations.

All that said, a look beyond Voracek’s boxcar stats shows some positive signs. He leads the team in shots on goal by a wide margin, and his possession numbers are as strong as ever. Voracek himself sounds like he’s getting frustrated, and guy carrying cap hits north of $8M don’t often get much benefit of the doubt. But Voracek deserves at least a little bit of patience here, because his numbers say he should get on track soon. So don’t throw any batteries at him, Flyer fans. Or at least, no more than usual.

Ryan Getzlaf, Ducks

The season so far: I’m not saying it’s been a tough year for the Ducks, but we also would have accepted “Corey Perry”. Also, “Jakob Silfverberg”. And “Ryan Kesler”. And also, “pretty much everyone who plays for Anaheim and isn’t a goalie”.

But Getzlaf gets the nod, based on a season-long goalless slump. Granted, he missed a few games due to an appendectomy. But he’s just looked off at times, and doing stuff like this doesn’t help.

Panic time?: Getzlaf is on the wrong side of 30, so anything approaching a long-term slump is cause of concern – age comes for everyone eventually, and when it does the downturn can often be sharp and brutal. But this slump hasn’t quite hit “long-term” status quite yet, and Getzlaf has looked good playing with Perry in recent games. The Ducks are slowly but surely shaking off their awful start, and since they’re in the Pacific, they haven’t exactly been left behind by the rest of the division. They should be OK, and their captain should too.

>> Read the full post on ESPN.com

Once more unto the abyss: A game-by-game breakdown of the Blue Jackets' horrible start

It’s over. With Saturday night’s 4-3 decision over the Avalanche, the Blue Jackets finally snapped an eight-game losing streak and got into the win column for the first time on the season. The streak is dead.

It’s hard to overstate just how awful the Blue Jackets’ 0-8-0 start had been. The NHL has a long and glorious history of teams getting off to season-crushingly terrible starts, but none quite like this. No team in the past seven decades has managed to start a season without earning so much as a single point through its first eight games. None of the modern era’s biggest losers — not the 1974-75 Capitals, or the 1992-93 Senators or Sharks, or even the 2009-2010 Maple Leafs — had ever face-planted out of the gate quite that badly.

You have to go all the way back to the 1940s to find a start as bad as the one the Blue Jackets just suffered through. That would be the 1943-44 Rangers, who lost their first 11 and didn’t win a game until mid-December. And while the Blue Jackets didn’t quite reach that level of futility, when you factor in the weight of expectations (not to mention the presence of the loser point), I think there’s a pretty reasonable case to be made that the Blue Jackets’ start was the worst the NHL has ever seen, from anyone, at any time.

Remember, it was only three weeks ago that the Blue Jackets were itching to drop the puck on a regular season that was teeming with optimism. After a strong finish to 2014-15, a big trade in the offseason, and a strong performance over the preseason schedule, the Blue Jackets were ready to storm out of the gate and claim a place among the Metro’s contenders. Some well-known experts were even picking them to go to the conference finals.

And then came 0-8-0. And while it’s over now, like all wonderful things, we shouldn’t let The Streak fade into the fringes of our memories. No, we need to cherish it, to hold it close, to press it tightly against our cold little hockey fan hearts. And so today, we’re going to say goodbye to the Blue Jackets’ losing streak in the best way we know how: By reliving it, one game at a time. For Blue Jackets fans, it will be cathartic. For the rest of us, well, it might make us feel better about our own lousy teams.

So travel back with me to a time long past, in a long-ago era when the city of Columbus was happy and the Blue Jackets were going to be good. Eighteen whole days ago, to be precise.

0-1-0 — October 9, Rangers at Blue Jackets

The opponent: The Blue Jackets don’t get any early favors from the schedule-maker, as they start the season with a home-and-home against the team that won the Metro last season.

Reason for optimism: Sure, it’s a tough opponent, but that’s what you want, right? This is going to be the year that the Blue Jackets establish themselves as contenders in the Metro, and there’s no better way to send a message than by beating the defending champs.

Columbus fans are thinking: The Rangers, huh? Good. It’s like your first day in prison — you go over to the biggest guy in the yard and pop him in the mouth, right?

Bad omen: Less than a minute in, the Blue Jackets are storming the Rangers’ crease when a loose puck squirts out to Ryan Murray, who has an open net. He fans on the shot.

What happened: With the game tied at 1 with less than four minutes to go in the third, big offseason acquisition Brandon Saad scores on the power play to give the Blue Jackets the lead. But then they collapse, giving up two Rangers goals in 17 seconds, then one more a minute after that. The Rangers win, 4-2.

Highlight: The Blue Jackets look great early on, taking the game to New York in front of a raucous home crowd. When Saad snaps home what looks like it will be the winner, the place comes unglued. This season is going to be fun!

Lowlight: Kevin Hayes’ game winner is awful, coming on a nearly impossible angle from deep in the corner.

Depressing postgame quote: “It’s early in the season. I’m not going to read too much into it after one game,” says team captain Nick Foligno, while wondering where all that foreshadowing thunder and lightning is coming from.

Sadness rating: 2/10. OK, that hurts, but nobody was expecting them to go 82-0-0. And hey, at least they get a quick rematch, right?

0-2-0 — October 10, Blue Jackets at Rangers

The opponent: The Rangers. You may remember them from their recent work in “Three goals in 77 seconds.”

Reason for optimism: Despite the loss, the Blue Jackets had been the better team for 57 minutes the night before. They just need to put together a full game this time.

Columbus fans are thinking: You know, a split here won’t be the worst thing in the world.

Bad omen: Just 80 seconds in, a brutal giveaway by Fedor Tyutin results in a Rangers 2-on-0 in front of Sergei Bobrovsky that Oscar Lindberg buries.

What happened: Lindberg adds another, followed by Dominic Moore, and the Blue Jackets are down 3-0 before the game is six minutes old. They go on to lose, 5-2.

Highlight: Late in the first, Bobrovsky stops Rangers sniper Rick Nash on a penalty shot, because it’s becoming apparent than no Blue Jackets draft pick will ever score a big goal again.

Lowlight: When Moore finds the net, the Blue Jackets have surrendered six goals in less than nine minutes of action against the Rangers over two nights.

Depressing postgame quote: “We aren’t going to win games by giving up five goals,” predicts head coach Todd Richards. Accurately, as it turns out.

Sadness rating: 4/10. OK, tough start. But luckily, the schedule serves up a cupcake next...

>> Read the full post on Grantland

My (mostly) nice weekend with the NHL all-stars

I’m not a huge fan of NHL All-Star Weekend. You probably got that impression from last week’s post, in which I spent roughly 3,000 words listing some of the event’s biggest problems. Let’s just say that was the edited version.

Shortly after that post went live, I was on a plane to Columbus, site of this year’s game. By the time I’d touched down and checked into my hotel, All-Star Weekend had managed to get even worse with news that a pair of the game’s biggest stars, Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, had pulled out. Erik Johnson soon followed. The whole thing was shaping up as a disaster.

But over the course of the weekend, I spoke to a few people who’d read last week’s post. And while they generally agreed with the points I’d made, they all gave me the kind of side-eye that suggested I may have gone Krusty Burglar on the whole concept. So for today’s post, I’m going to switch lanes. We’re going positive. Nothing but nice. I am going to make 25 observations about an All-Star Weekend spent in Columbus, and they will all be positive, damn it.

Never let it be said I don’t challenge myself as a writer. Let’s put on our happy faces and do this.

Friday Afternoon: Media Day

Media day is a two-hour affair that sees most of the players led out to podiums where they could take questions from the media and/or stare into the distance while awkwardly waiting for someone to notice them.

No. 1 — Captain Nick Foligno: The announcement that Foligno would be captain of one of the teams raised some eyebrows. While he’s having a decent season and plays for the host team, the Blue Jackets winger isn’t exactly a household name, and you had to wonder if the NHL would have been better served with a bigger star.

But Foligno was having fun with the role, and he had been ever since he was told he’d be captain. That was especially true for his most visible role of the weekend: making his team’s picks during Friday night’s All-Star draft. A few hours before draft time, he acknowledged that he wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to bother meeting with his assistants, Drew Doughty and Patrick Kane, but figured he could draw on his fantasy football experience if needed. (He joked that he might cross names out of a magazine.)

This was actually the second straight All-Star Game for which Foligno played for the host team. Three years ago, he was a depth guy on the Senators when the game came to Ottawa. I asked him if, back then, he saw himself being named All-Star captain the next time around. He laughed and admitted he did not.

Not too many fans did either, even as recently as a week ago. But Foligno is a likable guy who has been through a lot in recent years, and it was nice to see him get some national recognition.

No. 2 — Ryan Getzlaf takes aim: Getzlaf was an assistant captain for Jonathan Toews’s team, and he didn’t seem to be taking the job too seriously. He said he hadn’t put much thought into his rankings and was worried that the notoriously focused Toews might force him to attend a strategy meeting. “Johnny’s pretty serious at some points,” he said. “I’m going to bring my empty portfolio and open it up like I’m going to talk about something.”

When Getzlaf was asked who he’d like to see go last, he said he was disappointed fellow Duck Corey Perry wasn’t there to do the honors. But he had a backup plan: Drew Doughty, the Kings defenseman and Getzlaf’s occasional teammate on Team Canada. “Dewey could use it. We’d knock him down a little bit, let him sweat it out at the end.” He seemed genuinely disappointed to learn Doughty was an assistant for Team Foligno and wasn’t eligible to be picked.

No. 3 — Doughty responds: Did I immediately find Doughty and narc on Getzlaf? Yes I did. He had a laugh about it, before suggesting he might conspire to help teammate Anze Kopitar win the car that goes with being the last pick. Then Doughty paused and asked whether Getzlaf was in the draft pool. (He wasn’t.)

The moral: Next year, Doughty and Getzlaf can’t both be assistant captains. This grudge match needs to go down. Make it happen, NHL.

No. 4 — Phil Kessel holds court: By now, you know the drill with Kessel and the media. He doesn’t have the personality to deal with it, he’s occasionally rude, and he always looks like he’d prefer to be anywhere else.

That’s why it was so strange to see Kessel show up on Friday and happily spend 25 minutes holding court. And this wasn’t contractual-obligation Phil — he was engaging and entertaining on subjects ranging from the struggling Leafs (he thinks they can still turn it around) to trade rumors (he wants to stay) to college football (he’s a big fan) to Canadian TV shows (they’re awful).

Maybe the best moment came when he was discussing the Leafs’ recent road trips and made an offhand mention of how he’d watched every movie the hotels had to offer. Then he caught himself, quickly adding, “But not the bad ones. Stay away from those!”

It was like watching Neo figure out how to dodge bullets. I’m not sure the world is ready for a media-savvy Phil Kessel.

Moment I can’t mention because I’m trying to only say nice things: Younger players typically get asked for their favorite All-Star memory from their youth. Flames rookie Johnny Gaudreau’s answer: Kane’s superman routine during the skills competition breakaway event … way back in 2012.

We are all so, so old.

Friday Night: The Draft

This relatively new addition to the weekend, being held for just the third time, sees the players draft their own teams during a made-for-TV event.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

The "everything wrong with the all-star game" fantasy draft

The NHL kicks off its annual (usually) All-Star Weekend tomorrow, as the league’s best players (sort of) head to Columbus for three days of events that will show off the best the sport has to offer (not really).

But while Saturday’s skills competition and Sunday’s All-Star Game will have their moments, the highlight of the weekend will probably be tomorrow’s fantasy draft. That’s the relatively new concept, introduced in 2011, that sees the players themselves draft the teams. It’s a great idea, since stolen by other leagues, and it’s almost guaranteed to provide some fun.

Does the fantasy draft include a bunch of unnecessary rules about when certain positions can be picked that just makes the whole thing overly complicated? Sure. Is there a history of the players ruining half the fun by giving away the top picks in advance? Of course. Look, we never said that the draft was perfect. But it’s still the best thing that NHL All-Star Weekend has going for it.

And that’s why we’re going to steal the concept. Just like All-Star Weekend has become a tradition, columns complaining about All-Star Weekend have too. The fantasy draft helped breathe new life into the All-Star concept; maybe it can do the same for this post. It’s worth a shot.

So please welcome our two participants for today’s event: Team Apathy and Team Absurdity. They’ll alternate picks as they draft their way through the myriad ways that the NHL has screwed up the All-Star Game over the years.

We flipped a coin before the event, but before it could hit the ground Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr started fighting over it. So we’ll just let Team Absurdity have the first pick, because Team Apathy shrugged and said it didn’t really care.

Let’s go to the podium for the first pick.

With the first overall pick, Team Absurdity selects: The one-player-per-team rule, which screws up the rosters

For most of its history, the All-Star Game has specified that each team must be represented by at least one player. That rule occasionally resulted in picks that were outright ridiculous, but it made sense in a big-picture way. If you want fans from around the league to tune in, you make sure there’s a player from the home team to cheer for.

So the rule mostly worked … back when there were 21 teams. With 40 (and later 42) roster spots up for grabs, that still left plenty of room to make sure all the top players had a spot and allowed the top teams to be well represented. You didn’t have to be a die-hard fan to scan down the All-Star rosters and think, Wow, the Oilers are a powerhouse, or, Yikes, the Penguins must be stacked.

These days, we’ve got 30 teams, which doesn’t leave much room to work with once all the mandatory slots have been filled. In theory, you’d still have a dozen spots to play with, which should be workable. But these days, one team is going to stuff the ballot boxes and elect too many guys, and the team that’s hosting always ends up with way too many players selected (more on both of those problems in a bit). This year, the league ended up having just six extra roster spots to cover the entire league. That’s ridiculous.

Inevitably, that leads to players who absolutely should be part of the event getting passed over. We won’t rehash the whole list here, since the specific players involved are beside the point. This isn’t some sort of fluke of the 2015 game. It’s going to happen every year, because the system makes it inevitable.

The reality is that not every team has a player who deserves to be an All-Star. Sometimes that’s due to injury. Sometimes a team is especially well balanced and doesn’t have one guy who stands out. And some teams are just plain bad. It doesn’t do us any good to pretend that teams like this year’s Hurricanes and Oilers have legitimate All-Stars. They don’t.

Here’s what the league should do: Try really hard to cover as many teams as possible, while keeping the focus on making sure that the game’s biggest stars are included. And surprisingly, that’s exactly that it did … for a while. In 2011 and 2012, the league dropped the requirement that every team be represented in the All-Star Game, wisely using the skills-competition rookie teams to cover any teams that were snubbed. But this year, the league went back to the old rules. It was the wrong call.

And yes, the whole thing gets back to marketing and wanting to make sure that fans of, say, Carolina have somebody to root for. But the league has lost sight of the big picture. If your marketing strategy involves showcasing Justin Faulk over P.K. Subban, your marketing strategy is broken.

With the second pick, Team Apathy is proud to select: Players who don’t want to be there

In theory, being picked to play in an NHL All-Star Game should be considered an honor, one a player would view as a boost to his legacy and a confirmation of his status as one of the game’s top names. That’s the idealized version of how this should play out, and there was probably a time when that was true, but those days are long gone.

Today, many players treat an All-Star nod as a bothersome inconvenience, one that ruins a midseason weekend off. After all, everyone is banged up by this time of year, and given how little the modern-day All-Star Game means, players probably would prefer a few days on a beach to participating in a tedious corporate shill-fest.

So it wasn’t a surprise when players started skipping the game in recent years, usually citing minor injuries. The situation came to a head in 2009, when the league announced that it would suspend players for skipping the All-Star Game unless they had also missed regular-season time. Pavel Datsyuk and Nicklas Lidstrom were forced to sit out a game as a result.

But extra rest isn’t the only reason that star players have tried to skip the event. Sidney Crosby once reportedly threatened to skip the game in protest of the league’s refusal to crack down on dangerous hits. Alexander Ovechkin pulled out because he was mad about being suspended.

Other players have opted for a subtler approach, with respected veterans using behind-the-scenes channels to suggest to the league that they’d prefer not to be picked. Teemu Selanne went that route in 2012, as did Lidstrom, and there are rumors that Jaromir Jagr may have done the same for this year’s game (a charge he halfheartedly denied).

Everyone likes to get a little time off, so it’s hard to blame the players too much here. But fans who are expected to buy into the All-Star Game as some sort of prestigious event might find it hard not to notice that the actual players seem to view it as a mere annoyance.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Red Wings vs Maple Leafs in the Winter Classic: The pros and cons

This year's Winter Classic was by all accounts a rousing success, featuring another solid season of HBO's 24/7 series, an entertaining alumni game, and a riveting showdown between the Flyers and Rangers that included a last-minute penalty shot.

After so much excitement, it's only natural that fans have already started wondering about next year's game. The NHL hasn't made any official announcements so far, but according to reports that may simply be a formality. Media speculation has been all but unanimous that it's already a done deal: The Detroit Red Wings will be hosting the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Is that a smart matchup for what's quickly becoming the league's marquee event? It's tough to say. Here are some of the pros and cons of going with Detroit and Toronto at next year's Winter Classic.

Pro: The Maple Leafs would probably do great in the middle of a stadium, since their games at the ACC have given them extensive experience playing in rinks where there aren't any fans seated within 100 feet of the ice.

Con: For one night it would feel like both teams were back playing in the old Norris Division, which technically counts as realignment so Donald Fehr would just show up and ruin it.

Pro: Ron Wilson has indicated that he'd enjoy being part of the Winter Classic, so it's probably safe to assume that whoever is coaching the Leafs this time next year would feel the same way.

Read the rest of this post...

Maple Leafs Overtime Heroes: Mike Foligno vs. the Red Wings

This post kicks off a new series where we'll occasionally look back at memorable Leaf playoff overtime goals. Today's goal is Mike Foligno's winner against the Red Wings in game five of the 1993 playoffs, which gave the Leafs a 3-2 series lead.

Any Leaf fan over the age of 25 should remember Mike Foligno's overtime goal against the Red Wings. Probably the most famous goal of Foligno's long career, it served as turning point in the Leafs' eventual series win that launched the rebirth of the Leafs as quasi-contenders.

Heading into game five in Detroit, the series had been predictable: the heavily favored Wings had won two blowouts at home, while the underdog Leafs had won two squeakers at MLG. Mid-way through the game it seemed like the pattern would hold, as the Leafs were trailing 4-1.

Thanks to a furious comeback by the Leafs and some Toskalish goaltending by Tim Cheveldae, the two teams went to overtime for the first time in the series. And just two minutes in, this happened:

The video pretty much speaks for itself, and I could just end the post here. But I hope everyone realizes by now that that's not the way things work around these parts.

No, instead we're going to analyze the entire clip in ridiculous detail. Here are nine interesting things about this goal:

Probert's giveaway
The play starts with one of the worst overtime giveaways in recent memory. Bob Probert has an easy path out of the Wings zone, but sees a check coming from Foligno and throws the puck carelessly along the blueline instead.

Now a lot of people will criticize Probert for this one, but I'm going to defend him. Put yourself in his position. He's trying to make a play along the boards when out of the corner of his eye he sees somebody skating towards him wearing a Maple Leafs jersey with the numbers "1" and "7" on it.

Every other time this happened to Probert in his career, he spent the next few days trying to poop out shards of his own teeth. So I don't think you can blame him for going into full-on panic mode here. I think he actually showed a lot of restraint by not finding the nearest exit, sprinting down the hallway and pulling the first fire alarm he saw.

Anyways, the puck slides almost all the way across the ice before two players converge on it.

Clark vs. Lidstrom
Yes, that's a young Nik Lidstrom trying to stop Wendel Clark along the boards. Clark winds up with the puck. Lidstrom winds up with a nicely framed diploma, because he gets taken to school.

Here's an approximate transcript of Nik Lidstrom's thought process on this play:

"Here comes the puck, I should probably go and... oh god almighty, here comes Wendel. OK, stay calm. Hook him. Hook him again. Don't make eye contact. Hook him a third time. He's not stopping. Dear god why isn't anybody helping me? Now he just slammed on the brakes and left me standing here by myself. Good, I'm going to just aimlessly skate backwards and let somebody else deal with this. Hey, did somebody just pull a fire alarm?"

After Clark is done shrugging off a terrified Lidstrom he spins back and executes a backhanded saucer pass to a streaking Foligno, who Clark was no doubt able to spot because of...

Foligno's helmet
Three things you need to know about Mike Foligno's helmet.

• He made it himself out of an old salad bowl.
  
• It had a white stripe around it for absolutely no reason.
  
• For his entire Leafs career, it was always a slightly different shade of blue than everyone else's

And yes, I listed those in increasing order of how much they annoyed me. And still do.

The goal
Not much to say about this one, except to point out that Cheveldae executes one of the great overtime "losing goaltender sprint off the ice" moves of all-time. I love those.

There are only two types of athletes who are allowed to react to crushing defeat by storming away as quickly as they can: sobbing five-year-olds whose parents signed them up for sports against their will, and NHL goaltenders. And when they build a hall of fame for losing goalie sprints, the first inductee will be Ed Belfour.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh right. Moving on...

The Foligno Leap
Every Leaf fan knows the Foligno Leap, and at least 25% have suffered a serious ACL injury trying to replicate it.

But here's a question: why did Mike Foligno have his own patented goal celebration? Has any other player in NHL history had a specific goal celebration that was unique ot them? I don't mean one-time deals like Ovechkin's hot stick or Selanne's air rifle, I mean specific celebrations that they did every single time they scored. I can't think of any.

Doesn't that seem odd to you? Journeyman grinder Mike Foligno somehow became the only player to get his own patented celebration. This would be like if the only NFL wide receiver to ever do an endzone celebration was Waybe Chrebet. And yet everyone in the hockey world was fine with this.

So Foligno does his leap, the Leafs pile onto the ice, and we get a rare sighting of...

Darren Puppa
Is it me, or is Puppa a little bit too involved in the post-goal celebration? He's only been on the team for a few weeks, but he's right in there, aggressively looking for somebody to hug but not finding any takers.

True story: I was once at a wedding reception with Darren Puppa. A friend and I decided to play a game called "how many reception pictures can you take that have Darren Puppa somewhere in the background?" After a few drinks, we were basically posing for pictures in his lap.

He probably hates me.

Alright then, moving on...

Todd Gill's celebration
This was an important goal scored by the Leafs during the 1990s, so you're no doubt assuming that Todd Gill was on the ice. And he was, as you can see on the right-side of the screen during the replay at the 0:50 mark.

Watch his reaction. When the goal goes in, Gill raises his arms in the air and appears to do a 360-degree twirl. He doesn't head for Foligno, or towards another teammate. He just stays where he is and spins around by himself.

It's a bizarre was to react to a goal, but it felt vaguely familiar to me. And then it hit me: arms raised... random spinning... no interaction with teammates...

Todd Gill is doing the goal celebration from NHL '93!

The only thing missing is an occasional fist pump, an annoying siren, and my college roommate desperately trying to check him headfirst into the boards from behind and then making me watch the replay of that seven hundred times.

Pat Burns' reaction
This is the single greatest "holy crap, I can not believe we actually won" reaction of all time. Burns doesn't even try to contain it. He can not believe the Maple Leafs actually won this game.

He's still smiling a minute later as the players are coming off the ice. He's in such a good mood that we get to see a series of awkward high five attempts, even though Burns is holding either a pen or a Virginia Slim cigarette. I think you can tell which players on the team were cool by how they react to the high-five. Doug Gilmour handles it smoothly, while Mike Krushelnyski has no idea what to do.

Also, Burns is wearing suspenders. I don't know why this makes it so much better, but it does.

The old man strut
At the very end of the clip, you can see Foligno leave the ice and walk into the dressing room. Except he doesn't walk. He lets out some sort of warrior scream, then proceeds to strut into the dressing room like he's Ric Flair fighting a stomach flu.

As an added bonus, Kent Manderville tries to leap into Foligno's arms but mistimes it and winds up awkwardly landing by himself.

Homework assignment: at some point this week, you must enter a room strutting like Mike Foligno. And that includes the pre-strut scream. I'd suggest a crowded elevator, a church service, or a conference room at work during a meeting you were not invited to. Report back here when done.

Update: Commenter kidkawartha adds a tenth moment: at 0:42, does Foligno seem to be... um... "getting to know" Bob Rouse?

Great Obscure Moments in Leafs History - That time Mike Foligno kicked Curtis Joseph in the face

Great Obscure Moments in Leafs History - An ongoing series to honor the greatest, completely meaningless moments in Toronto Maple Leaf history.

Curtis Joseph has had an up-and-down history with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

There was his amazing acrobatics against the Leafs in the 1993 playoffs. He was on the receiving end of the Gilmour spinarama and the Wendel waster. He signed with the Leafs in 1999 and lead them to ten playoff rounds in four years. He ripped out Leaf fans' hearts by defecting to the Red Wings in 2002. Then he returned this year for a final season.

And, of course, there was today's obscure moment: that time Mike Foligno kicked him in the face.

Now, if you're too young or didn't really follow the Leafs back then, you probably hear "Mike Foligno kicked Curtis Joseph" and think "Hm, Cujo must have been scrambling for a rebound, and Foligno skated in and accidentally nudged him with a skate."

Artist's conception

And you would be wrong. No, Mike Foligno skated in at full speed and round-house kicked Curtis Joseph. In the face. Chuck Norris style.

Here's the setup: It's the second round of the 1993 playoffs. Less than 48 hours after Borschevsky's goal to eliminate the Red Wings, the Leafs are hosting St. Louis at the Gardens.

The game turned out to be a classic, and was tied 1-1 after regulation. Felix Potvin was solid, but the story of the game was Blues goalie Curtis Joseph. He was unbelievable, seemingly robbing the Leafs on every shift with increasingly spectacular saves. The Leafs would end up taking over 60 shots in the game, but Joseph seemed unbeatable.

Midway through the first overtime, Gilmour cuts over the line and fires a wrist shot. Mike Foligno, who is playing on Gilmour's line because it's the playoffs and Gilmour is being quintuple-shifted, drives hard to the net as Garth Butcher reaches out an arm and twists him off-balance.

Foligno loses his balance, spins 360 degrees, and for some reason swings one foot out, squarely connecting upside Joseph's head. Joseph's mask pops straight up in the air, as Leaf fans hold their breath in hopes that his head might be in it. Joseph skates towards the bench with his gloves covering his face, possibly because the impact has temporarily allowed him to see into the future and read his 2008-09 stat line.

Some people forget this now, but a shaken up Joseph actually left the game for several minutes. That forced Blues backup Guy Hebert into the game, ice cold and mid-way through a playoff overtime. He ended up making an outstanding save on Mark Osborne to keep the game live until Joseph returned at the next stoppage.

Hebert is a footnote in the story now, but imagine the reaction if he'd lost that game. Blue fans still whine incessantly about the 1996 playoffs, just because Nick Kypreos intentionally snapped Grant Fuhr's ACL one little time. Imagine how mad they'd be in the Leafs had snuck one by Hebert while Joseph was having his head glued back on.

The game ended up going into a second overtime, where Doug Gilmour finally ended it on perhaps the greatest OT goal in NHL history. Joseph would go on to steal three games and nearly the series, before finally bowing out in a game seven blowout.

A few more thoughts on the moment:

• Fifteen years ago, a guy getting kicked in the face was pretty funny. If the same play happened today Pierre McGuire would demand a national inquiry, Damien Cox would insist that the NHL expand the crease to the size of the NBA's three point line, and Professor James Cullingham would call on the NHL to ban skates. Instead, we all made Street Fighter II jokes and moved on with our lives.
  
  
• Not really related to anything, but did you know that Guy Hebert was an American, and that his name was actually pronounced "Guy Hibbert"? People assumed he was french and called him "Gee Hee-bahr" for his entire career, and he just went with it. That cracks me up.
  
  
• I get a little too excited for Leafs/Sens games this year, just for the chance of some sort of encounter between Joseph and Nick Foligno. Would Foligno try to finish the job his dad started? Or even better, would Joseph be looking for revenge? Wouldn't you love to see Nick Foligno standing on the blueline during the national anthem, only to be super-kicked Shawn Michaels style by Joseph? What would the NHL do, suspend a guy who never plays anyways? Do it, Curtis!
  
  
• You know you're having a rough series when getting kicked by a hockey skate at full speed is only the second worst thing that happens to your face.
  
  
• When Nikolai Borschevsky gets his own talk show, and Pinky Finger sits next to the guests flipping them off, I want each interview to end with a flying Mike Foligno kick to the unsuspecting guest's head. Why is this show not on the air yet?
  

Here are ESPN's highlights of the game, the only footage I could find on youtube. The flying roundhouse comes at 1:20.

Only one team is a perfect fit for Mats Sundin

Unless Cliff pull the trigger early, Mats Sundin will play what could be his last game in Toronto on Saturday. Then on Monday, he'll play what could be his last game in front of a building full of Toronto fans, when the Leafs visit Ottawa.

It's fitting that the Leafs would play their Deadline Eve game in the nation's capital. Because right now, the Ottawa Senators are the best possible fit for a Mats Sundin trade.

Here are three simple reasons why:

• They have some decent young players to offer, such as Vermette, Meszaros, and Nick "Son of Mike" Foligno. (Come on, you want to see the headline "Fletcher acquires Foligno" just so Damien Cox's head will explode.) The story goes that Bryan Murray doesn't want to move the team's first round pick since the draft is in Ottawa this year, but that shouldn't be a deal-breaker considering it will be in the late-20s.
  
  
• Mats would almost certainly be willing to play there. Ottawa isn't far from Toronto, and he could play with his Olympic linemate Alfredsson. Unless he's decided that he's absolutely not going anywhere, it's hard to imagine him turning down a trade to Ottawa.
  
  
• They have a GM who is willing to overpay to make a major deal. Do not underestimate this one. As coach, Murray spent the last two years seething over Muckler's refusal to make a big deal at the deadline. It was the main factor in the rift between them that ended in Muckler being forced out. Now that he's the man in charge, Murray needs to back up his big talk. I think he knows it, and I think he's ready to push his chips into the middle of the table.

Some have argued that the Leafs wouldn't deal Sundin to a divisional rival. I don't buy it. For one, calling the Senators a "rival" at this point may be stretching things. The fabled "Battle of Ontario" rivalry was always over-rated, even at its peak. But right now, it's on life support. It may be revived some day, but only if the Leafs can get their act together and start contending again. And to do that, they need to take the best deal they can get for Mats and leave the politics behind.

(Side note to Sens fans: You may be wondering to yourself, "Hey, if we trade for Sundin and win a Cup, will bitter Leaf fans try to diminish our championship by claiming we needed their captain to help us do it?" Spoiler alert: Yes. Yes indeed we will.)

So let's say Ottawa does win the sweepstakes. With recent talk that Cliff wants to make the deal before Tuesday, that could lead us to a surreal sight on Monday night: Mats Sundin, making his Ottawa Senators debut against the Leafs. It would be a scene reminiscent of the 1990 Toronto/Winnipeg trade that saw Ed Olczyk making his Jets debut at Maple Leaf Gardens only hours after the deal -- except exponentially more important for both sides.

Imagine the ovation Sunin would get. Could this be the first time we see the fans in the stands for at Leafs/Senators game in Ottawa unified on anything?