Wait, is it weird that it's so hard to name the Eastern Conference's best player?

Who’s the best player in the NHL right now? What about the top five?

Connor McDavid is the most talented player in the world. You could argue that Nathan MacKinnon is best player this season, which is a slightly different category. Leon Draisaitl is right behind those two. Kirill Kaprizov has the biggest contract, and he’s mostly lived up to it so far. On the blueline, the eternal Cale Makar vs. Quinn Hughes debate rages on. And in goal, Connor Hellebuyck is the reigning Vezina winner, not to mention the MVP. Of course, all those guys are established veterans, but if you were building a team right now you might use your top pick on Connor Bedard or Macklin Celebrini instead.

Do you notice something odd about that paragraph?

It’s all Western Conference guys. Every one of them. And we didn’t even mention names like Jack Eichel, or Mikko Rantanen, or Leo Carlsson. The West is stacked. When you really think about it, there’s an embarrassment of riches stuffed into one conference.

And then you start to wonder: Wait, who is the best player in the East? And where would that player even rank leaguewide?

This came up last week on Puck Soup, where my beloved co-host Ryan Lambert had recently guested on a Canucks pod. They’d asked a seemingly simple question: If Quinn Hughes had gone to the Devils like we all expected, would he have instantly become the East’s best player?

We agreed that yeah, he probably would have. But instead, he stayed in the West, since that’s apparently where all the brightest stars have to be.

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NHL weekend rankings: A wild Friday shakes up the league, and our Top 5

December can be a boring month in the NHL. Opening night optimism is a faded memory, the deadline is still months away, the playoff picture is jumbled, and not much is happening.

And then, every once in a while, we get a day like Friday.

We got one of the biggest midseason blockbusters in years, with the Quinn Hughes trade to Minnesota. We got the long-awaited Oilers goalie trade, with Tristan Jarry coming over from the Penguins. Oh, and before those two deals dropped, we also found out that the Sabres might be on the verge of a front office shakeup.

Other than all that, pretty quiet day.

Let’s dig into those two big trades, with a few lingering thoughts…

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NHL 2023-24 prediction contest results (or how the Devils ruined everything)

July 1 has come and gone and we’re officially into a new year of the NHL calendar, which means it’s pencils down on the 2023-24 prediction contest. Let’s see how you did.

First, the background for any newcomers out there. This was year four of the contest, in which you answer 10 seemingly simple questions about the upcoming season with as much or as little confidence as you can muster. More answers means more points, but even one wrong answer means a zero for the question, so in theory there’s a balance to be found.

This year’s contest had a little over 2,000 entries. You can find the original contest post here. We went through those initial entries to figure out what they told us about the coming season. And we had a midseason check-in to see how you were doing.

As always, while the idea here is to get the highest possible score and win, the real fun is in looking back at the entries and seeing how smart (or dumb) the wisdom of the crowd really was. With that in mind, let’s look at each of the questions, and just how “simple” they turned out to be.

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The return of Cap Court, with a twist: Which NHL stars have great contracts?

We’re into late July, and with apologies to Vladimir Tarasenko and Matt Dumba, the free agent frenzy is pretty much done. And this year, I think we can all agree that it was… fine? That’s about it, right? There weren’t many big names available, and the flat cap meant that there weren’t as many big deals flying around as we’re used to seeing.

That’s probably good news for the 32 teams, who tend to make the worst mistakes when the UFA market opens. Looking back at this year’s deals, there were certainly a few overpays, but nothing that seems outrageous. Maybe GMs are finally learning. Or maybe the flat cap meant they just didn’t have enough to spend, and will be right back to setting piles of money on fire next summer.

Either way, this sudden burst of thriftiness feels like something worth recognizing. So this week, I’m breaking out an old gimmick with the return of Cap Court. That’s the feature where we pick five contracts and put them on trial, judging the deals based only on the years that are left and the cap hit they carry. We’ve done five of these over the years, meaning 25 verdicts have been handed down, and it’s fair to say that every reader agreed with 100% of them.

But this time, there’s a twist: We’re not looking for bad contracts. This time, we’re looking for great ones.

As always, we’re viewing this from a team’s perspective, meaning we want to know which contracts are “great” the way Nathan MacKinnon’s was for the Avalanche for all those years. MacKinnon himself might disagree with the idea that that was an especially great contract, since it ultimately cost him tens of millions of dollars. Or maybe not, and he’d tell you that he was happy to leave some cap room for his team to build a winner around him. Players always say that when their contract is tossed into the “great” pile. Some of them might even mean it.

I’ve picked five contracts that I think you could argue are great ones from a team perspective, but could also fall into the range of merely good. That doesn’t mean that I think these are the only five deals on the league that could qualify, and in fact I’ve left some off the list that are pretty obviously huge bargains. Leon Draisaitl, Cale Makar, Brad Marchand and Jason Robertson are all underpaid, relative to what they bring to the table. So is Connor McDavid, even though he carries the second highest cap hit in the league. Jack Hughes might be one more big season away from becoming the new MacKinnon as far bargains go. I’m not sure anyone would argue any of those, which means we don’t need to waste time putting them on the docket.

The five names I’ve chosen should be at least a little tougher. So court is now in session: Are these good contracts, are do any of them rise to the level of being great ones?

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Weekend rankings: All-star weekend wrap, those missing Maple Leafs, Bettman fails again and more

We’ve made it through another all-star weekend. It was fun, right? Sure, let’s go with that. Everyone fist-bump.

Friday’s skills competition was pretty much what we should have expected, with a few new wrinkles, one of which was that it was secretly also Thursday’s skills competition, with the two new outdoor events being pre-taped. (The league didn’t mention that, although having it go from dark to dusk in an hour might have been a hint). Let’s be honest, the skills event always ends up being the sort of thing that looks better in a two-minute highlight package than it does when you spend a few hours watching it in real time. As always, there was too much standing around, nobody seemed quite sure of the rules, the crowd was mostly confused and quiet, and for some reason there seemed to be more people running around doing interviews than actual players to talk to. The two new Vegas-themed events worked well enough, despite that sort of awkward “Do I have to do this?” vibe that pretty much anything involving hockey players is destined to have. We’ll at least give the league credit for trying something new, and getting it to mostly work.

The highlight came in the return of the breakaway challenge, which hadn’t been seen since 2016. It’s more of a dress-up contest than a hockey event now, but that’s fine because there are only so many Forsbergs you can see in one night. This year’s show was stolen by Trevor Zegras, doing a Dodge Ball-inspired blindfolded Jedi move. Jack Hughes followed that with a full-on magic trick.

Then they both lost to Alex Pietrangelo, who… uh, pointed at Carrot Top? Look, it’s still all-star weekend, the local team has to win something whether they deserve it or not. The point is that the kids had some fun. Did it feel like everyone was trying a little bit too hard? Sure, but it’s all-star weekend, and we’ll always take that over not trying at all.

Speaking of which… the game itself. Or games, since there are three of these things now, all played 3-on-3. This year’s edition was an opportunity for the league to show off its most entertaining and important stars, which is to say the guys who do replay reviews for offside calls. We got two of those, but somehow missed out on a five-minutes officials huddle to figure out where a puck had gone over the glass. Maybe next year.

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Puck Soup: Buy, sell or hold

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Oilers get pissy
- The Habs find a new GM
- The Bruins finally honor Willie O'Ree
- Should O'Ree's number be retired leaguewide?
- We play "buy sell or hold" for all 32 teams

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

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

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

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Rating the biggest stories and moments from draft weekend on the Surprise Scale

The best kind of NHL Draft is one that surprises us. We spend weeks and months figuring out exactly what should happen, and who’s going to wind up where and it’s always more fun to be wrong. Whether it’s a big trade, an off-the-board pick, or some unexpected breaking news, the best draft weekend moments are the ones that leave you wondering what just happened.

How did the 2019 edition do? The short answer: Not bad. For the longer answer, let’s break out the surprise scale and see just how good a job this year’s draft did of delivering the unexpected.

Gary Bettman gets booed

Fans booing is part of the fun of the first round. There are even parts of the evening that seem specifically designed to encourage it, like the traditional roll call that seems to be there just so the local fans can boo the teams they hate the most. (This year’s winners: Toronto and Boston, with honorable mention to Chicago, Edmonton and Calgary.)

But the main event is always Gary Bettman, who continues to insist on appearing in front of fans who clearly don’t want to see him. This year’s reception was especially bad, as we all knew it would be. The fans gave it to him with both barrels when he first appeared; while you could hear him on TV, he was completely drowned out in the arena. The boos continued all Friday night as he did that weird thing where he shows up between every pick to tell us who’s next even though we can all see the giant logo on the scoreboard.

Surprise scale: 0/100. Only because the scale doesn’t go any lower.

Bettman brings backup

In an admittedly funny bit, Bettman responded to the initial wave of boos by acting flustered, trying to talk over them and eventually wandering away from the podium. The crowd loved that, thinking that they’d actually driven him off the stage, only to see him return with reinforcements: Henrik and Daniel Sedin.

I mean, there’s really no way to sugarcoat this. This was a full-fledged heel turn by the Sedins, right? They just aligned themselves with the sworn enemy of their fan base. This is the NHL equivalent of Stone Cold shaking hands with Vince McMahon. Sorry, Canucks fans, the Sedins hate you now. That’s just how this works.

In related news, how great would it have been if Bettman had come back out with Mark Messier instead?

Surprise scale: 22.33/100

The top two picks

There wasn’t much intrigue around the top two picks, beyond some mild (and mostly forced) speculation over whether the Devils might throw a curveball and go with Kaapo Kakko over Jack Hughes. They didn’t, making the expected pick with Hughes and the Rangers grabbed Kakko. So far, so good.

Surprise scale: 10/100

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Which of the 15 draft lottery teams should consider trading their picks?

There are two annual traditions when it comes to the lottery picks in the NHL draft. The first is that fans and media get very excited about the possibility of at least a few of those picks being traded, either in the weeks leading up to the big day or (even better) in dramatic draft floor blockbusters. Trade rumors are catnip for all of us, so we come up with all sorts of scenarios and possibilities and argue back and forth over which ones are the most likely to turn into reality.

The second tradition is that just about none of those rumored trades ever actually happen.

That’s the reality of the modern NHL, where trading is a dying art at the best of times and teams have been taught to treat picks in the top half of the first round like gold. This is a league where young talent is more important than ever before, and the best way to get it is to hold onto those precious picks.

But while it’s exceedingly rare to see a high pick get traded in between the lottery and the draft, it’s not unheard of. It happened in 2017, when the Rangers got the Coyotes’ seventh-overall pick for Antti Raanta and Derek Stepan. The Bruins acquired the 13th and 15th pick back in 2015 in separate deals involving Milan Lucic and Dougie Hamilton, although that didn’t work out great for them in the end. And there was the big draft floor deal in 2013 that sent Cory Schneider to the Devils for the ninth-overall pick, leading to the best Gary Bettman trade announcement ever.

But high picks being traded in advance remains a rarity, and trades involving the very top picks are all but extinct. We hear the rumors every year, but they almost never come true.

Well, maybe that’s because NHL teams just need a little bit of encouragement. So today, let’s make the case for each of the 15 lottery teams to trade their pick for immediate help. We’re not interested in seeing teams shuffle picks around to move up or down a few spots – we want to see a bold move by a team looking to get better right now by swapping their choice for veteran reinforcements. And since most of these teams have plenty of room for improvement, that should give us at least a chance to make a decent case.

Can we pull it off? It’s going to be easier for some teams than others, but let’s see what we can do. We’ll work our way down from the worst of the lottery picks to the top of the draft.

#15 – Montreal Canadiens

The case for a trade: We’ll start with what should be, in theory, the easiest trade to sell you on, if only because it would involve the least valuable of the lottery picks. And the case here is a relatively straightforward one: The Habs are pretty good, and should be focused on getting better right now instead of waiting around for some middling first-rounder to make his NHL debut a few years down the road. After all, you don’t swallow big-dollar contracts for 30-something stars like Shea Weber and Carey Price without taking on at least some sense of urgency.

If you prefer a more positive spin, we could remind you that the 2017 Lightning barely missed the playoffs with 94 points and then went to the conference final in 2018, while the 2018 Blues barely missed the playoffs with 94 points and are in the conference final right now. Well, the 2019 Habs barely missed the playoffs with 96 points. They may not be as far from contending as you think they are.

Is it convincing?: It’s not a bad start. (And fair warning, if you’re already rolling your eyes at the thought of a team like Montreal even considering this sort of deal, you may just want to bail on the rest of this piece.)

The pessimist view is that Montreal isn’t as close to contending as their 2018-19 season suggests, and still have to get past Tampa Bay, Boston and Toronto, plus a potentially improved Florida team. But assuming that Marc Bergevin thinks he already has a solid foundation in place here, it might be worth it for him to find out what he could get if he dangled that 15th pick.

#14 – Arizona Coyotes

The case for a trade: It looks a lot like the Canadiens – good team, already close, so worry about making the leap right now instead of stockpiling another prospect you won’t see for a few years.

Is it convincing?: If anything, it’s a better case than Montreal’s. The Coyotes haven’t been to the playoffs since 2012, and you’d have to imagine that ownership is watching what’s happening in Carolina these days and thinking “Why not us?”

On top of that, remember that the Coyotes are one of the few teams that’s actually pulled off this sort of move before, having dealt that seventh-overall pick for veteran help a few years ago. I’m not sure if that makes a move more likely (because they’ve shown they’re willing to do it) or less likely (because it didn’t necessarily work last time). But the idea is at least in play.

#13 – Florida Panthers

The case for a trade: And here’s the third of our three “decent teams that might want to win right now” entries. Except this time, we know that there’s no “might” about it. Dale Tallon has all but called his shot for this offseason, and you have to figure that Joel Quenneville didn’t choose the Panthers because he was in the mood for a lengthy rebuild. The Panthers want to get better right now, and anything that gets them there should be on the table.

Is it convincing?: Sure. The only question is whether trading a first is the Panthers’ best path to immediate help. They may prefer to wait and see how free agency shakes out, and if so then this year’s pick will be out of play (and next year’s probably goes in). But the Panthers have a history of at least talking about moving much higher picks than this one, so this is a situation worth watching.

#12 – Minnesota Wild

The case for a trade: They looked good at times during the season and only missed the playoffs by 10 points, which isn’t insurmountable. With a veteran roster and a new-ish GM who hasn’t really put his stamp on the team just yet, they might decide that immediate help would get them back to the postseason.

Is it convincing?: Lord no. The Wild desperately need to start restocking the system and looking down the road. We can scratch this one off the list.

#11 – Philadelphia Flyers

The case for a trade: Are the Flyers rebuilding? They’ve never had that bottom-out season, but they also haven’t been to the second round in seven years. They seemed to buying into the patient approach, right up until their patient GM was fired for being too patient. They’ve changed coaches twice and remade the front office in the last year, and teams don’t usually do that if they’re planning to stay the course.

Is it convincing?: There has to be at least a part of the Flyers’ brain trust that sees division rivals like the Hurricanes, Blue Jackets and Islanders having success and thinks “on paper, we’re at least close to those guys.” Still, this feels like a team that would be better off just banking a solid prospect and then seeing where the Carter Hart era takes them.

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Finding positive thoughts for the non-playoff teams

The​ first round is​ a weird​ time​ to​ be​ a fan​ of a non-playoff​ team.

On the one​ hand, it’s like​ being​ the kid who’s​​ sick at home, watching with your nose pressed up against your bedroom window while everyone else frolics outside. On the other hand, sometimes the playoffs are more fun when you don’t have a rooting interest, or at least less stressful. And more importantly, as all those playoff teams get eliminated, their fans get to be sad too. Welcome to the pity party, losers.

Therefore, I can understand if you non-playoff fans have some mixed feelings these days. But today, let’s try to tilt the scale to the bright side. Let’s go through all 15 teams that didn’t make the postseason and come up with at least three positive thoughts as we head into the offseason. And since that will admittedly be more difficult for some teams than others, we’ll work our way down from the easiest to the most challenging case.

Positive thoughts, everyone. Let’s find our happy place. Starting with the easiest non-playoff team to feel good about …

---

Florida Panthers

The negative: Despite plenty of young talent, they missed the playoffs yet again and still haven’t won a single playoff round since 1996.

Positive thought No. 1: All that young talent is still there and most of it should still be getting better. Sasha Barkov is still just 23 and is already considered one of the league’s elite young players (not to mention among the very best cap values). Mix in a breakout year from Jonathan Huberdeau and some of the pieces are already in place.

Positive thought No. 2: They just hired one of the best coaches ever in Joel Quenneville. Will all due respect to Bob Boughner, that should be a massive upgrade behind the bench.

Positive thought No. 3: They’ve made it clear that they’re going to spend a ton in the offseason, which we all assume includes signing two-time Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky. Goaltending sunk them this year, so adding a star there changes the team’s entire outlook even if they don’t make any other moves.

See? Optimism is easy. Granted, the Panthers are the tutorial level. Let’s up the difficulty just a bit.

Arizona Coyotes

The negative: The Coyotes missed the playoffs for the seventh straight year, the longest streak in a Western Conference where only one other team has missed for more than two.

Positive thought No. 1: The Coyotes finished the year with more wins than they’ve had since their last trip to the postseason. They won ten more games and had 16 more points than last year, so there was very clear progress. That obviously doesn’t guarantee anything, but it’s better than the alternative.

Positive thought No. 2: That progress came despite a season marred by plenty of injuries to key players. That included their starting goalie, a loss that would have derailed most teams. Every team has injuries, but give the Coyotes slightly better luck in the health department and they make the playoffs. And even with all those injuries, they still won more games than the Avalanche, who are already on to the second round.

Positive thought No. 3: Speaking of goaltending, the Coyotes head into 2019-20 with two potential starters in Antti Raanta and Darcy Kuemper, which is two more than some of the other teams on this list have. That could lock down an important position, or it could open the door to a trade. Either way, the Coyotes are in solid shape heading into next season and most of us probably already have them penciled into the playoff race.

New York Rangers

The negative: You know how sometimes you think a team will be bad and even they seem to think they’ll be bad, but then miraculously they’re actually really good? That happened to a New York team this year, but it wasn’t the Rangers.

Positive thought No. 1: It’s a rebuild. Jeff Gorton has made that clear. This season had its ups and downs, but it was basically all part of the plan. If anything, they won a few more than most of us expected.

Positive thought No. 2: They won the lottery and will pick second, meaning they’ll almost certainly get a blue-chip prospect in Jack Hughes or (more likely) Kaapo Kakko. They overachieved expectations and still got a potential franchise player. It was the best of both worlds.

Positive thought No. 3: In addition to their own pick, they also have Winnipeg’s first and Tampa’s second. And don’t look now, but they might still get the Stars’ first too, if Dallas makes it to the third round.

Montreal Canadiens

The negative: They came into the season’s final week in good shape to snag a wild card, but stumbled and missed the playoffs. That makes this just the second time since the 1920s that they’ve missed in consecutive years.

Wait, that’s can’t be right.

(Double checks the numbers.)

Wow.

Positive thought No. 1: They missed the playoffs by two points in a year when just about everyone thought they’d be terrible. And they did it while racking up more points than three Western playoff teams. That might be a sign that the format is unfair, but it reinforces how strong a season Montreal just had.

Positive thought No. 2: Goaltending is crucial for every team, but when you’re paying your starter a league-high $10.5 million against the cap, you absolutely have to be getting All-Star level play out of the position. In recent years, Carey Price hadn’t always provided that. But this year, the old Price was back. Wait, Habs fans probably want us to avoid the word “old” here.

Positive thought No. 3: Remember when everyone thought Marc Bergevin was a terrible GM who’d surely be fired any day now? You should since it was less than a year ago. But this year’s moves largely worked out and Bergevin’s reputation has at least been given a polish. That’s good news for Habs fans, seeing as how Geoff Molson has apparently decided that Bergevin will be around forever.

OK, this hasn’t been too bad, but I’m pretty sure that’s the last 96-point team we’re going to find on our list. Let’s bear down and think positive.

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The 2019 draft lottery power rankings

It’s​ draft lottery night​ in​ the​ NHL,​ and​ if​ it feels​ a little early to​ be saying that,​ well,​ that’s because it​​ is. The league has moved the drawing up this year, abandoning the usual slot as pre-game entertainment during the first round to give the ping pong balls a night to themselves in the spotlight.

There are 15 teams in the running, with odds ranging from the Avalanche (via Ottawa) at 18.5 percent to the Canadiens at just one percent; you can find the odds for all 15 teams right here. We’ve spent most of the year looking at this as the Jack Hughes draft, and it still seems headed that way even as Kaapo Kakko has pushed his way into the conversation. If you count Kakko as a second can’t-miss prospect at the top of the draft, that just makes tonight’s lottery all the more important. Remember, the top three spots are all up for grabs under the new format introduced in 2016.

With that much on the line, we’re going to need more than a list of percentages to get prepared. So as we count down the hours until the big reveal, let’s take a look at the contenders from various angles with the annual Draft Lottery Power Rankings.

The “Which Team Needs It Most?” Ranking

Every team needs a Jack Hughes or a Kaapo Kakko. But some teams need them more than others.

Not ranked: Ottawa Senators – I mean, they clearly need a top prospect. It’s just that … yeah … about that…

5. Buffalo Sabres – This team needs help pretty much anywhere, not to mention some reason for optimism, and adding Hughes or Kakko to Jack Eichel and Rasmus Dahlin would provide both. Besides, who better to take advantage of multiple lottery wins than reported next head coach Todd McLellan?

4. Los Angeles Kings – They’re old and bad and don’t have much going for them beyond California winters.

3. Anaheim Ducks – They’re old and bad and don’t have much going for them beyond California winters and not being the Kings.

2. Edmonton Oilers – They could certainly use a winger, which would make Kakko a viable option even if they land the top pick. But more importantly, they need some good news in a town where fans, media, and even the franchise player are all sick of losing. Besides, it would be the first time that the Oilers winning a draft lottery made Connor McDavid happy.

1. Detroit Red Wings – They have a new arena to fill and might be looking to attract a new GM – potentially one who suddenly has his eye on some other job. And while they’ve got Dylan Larkin and some solid youth on the way, it’s been a long time since they’ve drafted a sure-thing prospect, especially at center.

Add it all up, and no team would see their outlook shoot up more with a lottery win. Luckily they’ve had a bad year so their odds are great, according to fans who stopped watching with three weeks to go in the season.

The “Who Actually Deserves It?” Rankings

Nobody deserves it, because we continue to rely on random ping pong balls instead of the vastly superior Gold Plan, under which teams would actually have to earn the top pick. But since that would be fun and cool and therefore out of the question for today’s NHL, let’s do our best to figure out if there’s anyone we should be rooting for more than anyone else.

Not ranked: Edmonton Oilers – We’re all on the same page here? Cool, just making sure.

5. Los Angeles Kings – The point of the draft is to help bad teams, and the worst of the teams that still have their pick.

4. New York Rangers – They’re rebuilding, but doing it with a Hall of Fame goalie, so it’s not like you can say that they’re tanking. They haven’t picked in the top three in over 50 years, and have also never won a lottery. In fact, the only time they show up in the story of lottery history is to note that they once traded for a winning pick and then used it to select Pavel Brendl. That alone should probably entitle them to a little bit of karma.

3. Montreal Canadiens – They weren’t just the last team eliminated, they actually finished ahead of three Western playoff teams. That has to warrant a little bit of luck, right?

2. Detroit Red Wings – In an alternate universe where we do use the Gold Plan, the Red Wings’ hot streak to end the season means they would have held off the Kings for top spot.

1. Colorado Avalanche – This is usually a tough category to crown a winner in, but not this year. The Avalanche are the only team that can claim that they’ve earned their shot at the top pick not by losing, but by outsmarting another team. They didn’t tank, because they didn’t have to. They outsourced the job to somebody who could do it better.

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The Tank Index: Which of the league’s struggling teams are in the best position to get a lot worse down the stretch?

NHL teams don’t tank.

We know this, because Gary Bettman has told us so. Oh, sure. Fans everywhere insist on thinking that it happens because we have eyes and common sense, but Bettman has assured us that’s only because the media makes it all up. Nobody tanks in the NHL. Nope, nothing to see here.

But just for fun, let’s pretend that they did. Not the players, mind you; even a cynic would admit that those guys are wired to go as hard as they can in any game that counts. But let’s imagine that the decision-makers in the front office and behind the bench occasionally realized that there was nothing left to play for apart from lottery odds, and decided to do the logical thing and try to increase their chances of landing a franchise player in the draft.

In that strange alternate universe in which tanking was an obvious and undeniable part of the NHL, which of this year’s worst teams would be in the best position to pull it off? Call it the power tankings if you’d like. Who has the advantage when the time comes to Choose to Lose for Hughes?

Let’s find out. Today, we’re going to take the 10 teams that are within a half-dozen points of dead last in the league and rank them based on how successfully they could tank if they chose to. For each of those teams, we’ll look at where they stand in three key categories that are crucial to a good midseason tank:

Seller status: The easiest way to tank at this time of year is to start trading anyone who might help you win a few games down the stretch. A well-executed deadline selloff kills two birds with one stone, stocking the cupboard with picks and prospects while also making the team significantly worse down the stretch. But not every team is positioned to pull this off, especially if their veterans are tied up on long-term deals that will scare off teams looking for rentals.

Goaltending problems: The gold standard for modern NHL tanking is the Buffalo Sabres’ performance during the Connor McDavid tank battle of 2015, which included them pulling off a brilliant move: They traded away both of their goaltenders with a month left in the season, and finished the season by giving starts to guys like Matt Hackett and Andrey Makarov, who were never seen in the NHL again. Not every team is willing to go that far, but shaky goaltending gives a tanking team a big edge.

Motivation: Put simply, how bad do they want it? At this time of year, some teams are more than happy to hit rock bottom and then grab a shovel. Others might still be holding out hope of a late playoff run. Still others might have GMs whose jobs could be in danger if they don’t finish strong. And, uh, other teams might have already traded away their first-round pick. We’re not naming any names here; we’re just saying that might also be a thing that could happen.

Each of our 10 teams will get a score in each category, which will be based on a complex calculation that involves me pulling it out of the air. Then, we’ll add them up and determine the 2018-19 season’s potential tank king.

Again, NHL teams don’t tank, because Gary Bettman says so. But if they did, here’s who could be in the best position to make a big push in this year’s race to the bottom.

10. Edmonton Oilers

Seller status: 5/10. Cam Talbot’s really the only pending UFA who’d get much traction as a rental, and even that’s doubtful. They could trade somebody like Jess Puljujarvi, but for the most part the current Oilers roster seems to be a few untouchables and then a bunch of guys nobody else would want, without much in between.

Goaltending problems: 9/10. The good news for the Oilers, at least as far as a potential tank job goes, is that both of their goaltenders have looked shaky. The even better news is that both are UFAs this summer, so they’re not committed to … (checks earpiece) … they what? Oh. Oh, no.

Motivation: 3/10. The Oilers know a thing or two about tanking. But right now, what they know is that they don’t want to tank. They’ve got an interim GM auditioning for the full-time job and a season-long insistence that it’s playoffs or bust. If anything, they’re probably buyers.

Tank potential total: 17/30. If things got really bad, sure, maybe they take a knee. But right now, they’re looking to get better, not worse. (And besides, they’re the Oilers – they don’t need the odds to be in their favor to win a draft lottery.)

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Weekend power rankings: The Leafs move up, the Sabres make their case and the Battle of Alberta rages on

I’m​ still not quite​ sure​ what​ to​ make​ of​ Alberta.

Their hockey​ teams, I mean.​ The province seems​ nice,​ although I admit​​ to still being confused by the whole “no rats” thing. But let’s focus on the hockey teams, who just delivered the game of the weekend with Saturday’s slugfest in Calgary. Are either of them any good?

I’m not sure. The Oilers’ record suggests that they’re not; they’ve lost six of seven and dropped back under .500 after looking good in late October. They’re not great at home, slightly worse on the road, and have a negative goals differential. They got lit up by Vegas last night and at some point you figure that big changes have to be on the way.

But their underlying numbers aren’t awful, and they’ve played the toughest schedule in the league according to hockey-reference.com’s SOS metric. And the reason their schedule has been so hard is that, until Saturday, they weren’t playing the Pacific Division, which is terrible. It’s also the division they need to climb to make the playoffs, so maybe they’ll somehow be OK after all. But again … I’m not sure.

The Flames’ picture isn’t all that much clearer, even though their record is better. They’re two points back of the Sharks for top spot in the division and they’ve already made an appearance in our top five a few weeks back. That didn’t last, and aside from a four-game win streak at the start of the month, they’ve basically been win-a-few, lose-a-few all season long.

The goaltending has been the issue, with veteran Mike Smith struggling and unproven backup David Rittich making a case for the starter’s job. Do you trust your season to a guy who came into the year with 22 career appearances? Hope that Smith can rebound even though he’s 36? Start looking for a trade? Once more, I’m not sure.

One thing I am sure about: We need to get these two teams into a playoff series somehow. There’s still a chance of it happening, given the weird way that the Pacific is playing out, although it doesn’t seem likely. But if Saturday’s matchup was any indication, the first postseason Battle of Alberta since 1991 would be ridiculous. Please, hockey gods, make it happen.

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Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.

Let’s start with a spoiler: This week’s top five features the same teams as last week, albeit in a different order. That’s the first time that’s happened all season and might signal that we’re finally settling into a bit of stability near the top of the league. I might also mean that I’m being too conservative. Time will tell, but for now let’s figure out who goes where.

5. Winnipeg Jets (11-5-2, +11) – With points in four straight, I’m going to keep the Jets in the top five for at least one more week, even though they still don’t look like they’re firing on all cylinders and it maintains our ongoing “too many Central teams” problem.

Is it the right call? There’s a case to be made to slot the Sharks back in, or to give a new team like the Blue Jackets a shot. And there’s one more quasi-contender that we’ll get to down below. But for now, inertia wins out and the Jets keep their spot for another week.

4. Minnesota Wild (12-7-2, +9) – Here’s my question about the Wild’s early-season success: How does Chuck Fletcher feel about all this?

On the one hand, this is basically Fletcher’s team – he built pretty much the entire roster, and watched it grow into one he believed could be a contender. And now, he’s being proven right.

On the other hand, it’s not actually his team, because of that whole “getting fired” thing. So now Fletcher gets to watch Paul Fenton carry the baton, even though Fenton didn’t do much of anything to change the roster over the summer and is mostly getting credit for not messing up what Fletcher built.

Fletcher’s presumably a little busy these days helping his new team, the Devils, figure out how to salvage the season. But you know he’s at least checking in on the Wild every now and then and there has to be some serious mixed feelings over what he sees.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

When teams trade away top-five picks

The​ Ottawa Senators are coming​ off​ one​ of​ the​ worst​ stretches in​ recent pro sports​ memory, including an​ offseason​ that brought one​​ negative story after another. At this point, you’d like to think that they’ve hit rock bottom. But that might not be true, because there’s a nightmare scenario looming.

It goes something like this: The Senators have the kind of season everyone seems to think they will, finishing at or near the bottom of the league. That earns them one of the top picks in the Jack Hughes draft. But they’ve already traded that pick to Colorado in last year’s Matt Duchene deal, so they get to cap off their season by watching the Avalanche draft a potential franchise player instead.

It would be an undeniably awful way to end a miserable season, and it makes a rebuild a much tougher sell to an exhausted fan base. After all, how do you squeeze any optimism out of a losing season if you don’t even have your own first-round pick to look forward to?

If it’s any comfort, the situation the Senators could be facing isn’t unheard of in recent NHL history, although it is relatively rare. In the last 35 years, eight teams have traded away a future first-round pick, only to suffer through a season that placed that choice in the top five of the draft. (To be clear, we’re not counting teams that traded away a pick they already knew would be a top-five; no trade deadline moves or draft floor wheeling and dealing here. We’re looking for teams that traded their pick in the previous calendar year or earlier, meaning that like Ottawa, they didn’t know their pick would be so high when they moved it.)

The Senators will be hoping not to expand that club to nine. But if they do, a look back at those previous cases might give us a sense of what to expect.

A word about arbitrary endpoints

But first: Wait, why are we going back 35 years?

It’s admittedly a bit of a weird place for a cutoff. But when it comes to teams trading away top five picks, there’s actually an interesting reason to draw the line right around 1983.

In the 35 years since, the scenario plays out just those eight times (one of which probably shouldn’t even count, as we’ll see). But from 1980 through 1983, it happened ten times in just four years. That’s kind of crazy, and the list includes the picks used on future Hall of Famers like Denis Savard, Larry Murphy and Pat LaFontaine, not to mention three out of four first overall picks.

What happened? That’s probably a topic for a bigger piece, but we can call it the Sam Pollock influence. Pollock, the legendary Canadiens GM who built the last great Habs dynasty in the 70s, was constantly trading veterans for future draft picks that he turned into stars like Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson. It was his signature move, and it worked so well that you wondered why other GMs weren’t catching on. They eventually did, and you can pretty much divide the history of trading for future draft picks into three distinct eras: The Pollock era, spanning the late 60s to late 70s, in which he was the undisputed king of the move; 1980 through 1983, in which a few other GMs caught on and started pulling off that kind of deal; and 1984 through to today, in which everyone smartened up and realized that trading a future first-round pick is a dangerous move and the deals became an endangered species.

Endangered, but not extinct, as Senator fans are well aware. So today, let’s draw that line at 1983 and look back at the eight times since then that a team has traded away what turned out to be a top-five pick in advance. It’s a club that Ottawa’s front office is really hoping it isn’t about to join, although as we’ll see, sometimes the results are more disastrous than others.

Pierre Larouche (L). (Photo by Denis Brodeur/NHLI via Getty Images)

1984 – Montreal and Hartford

The circumstances: We have to go way back to December of 1981 for the actual trade here. Back then, the Habs and Whalers had only been division rivals for a few months. Hartford had failed to win a playoff game in two seasons since arriving in the WHA merger, and on December 20, they lost 8-2 to the Sabres to fall to 7-16-9 on the year, dead last in the division. New Whalers’ GM Larry Pleau figured they could use some help.

The trade: The Whalers and Canadiens hooked up on a Pollock-style trade that saw Pierre Larouche head to Hartford. Larouche had just turned 26, was a year removed from a 91-point season, and had 21 points through 22 games that season, so he was a decent pickup. He did fine in Hartford for a few years before leaving as a free agent.

But the rest of the deal was unusual, with the teams swapping a total of five picks – all of them coming in 1984 and 1985.

The pick: The two teams exchanged first-rounders in 1984, three years down the line. By then, the Canadiens weren’t very good, finishing with just 75 points. But the Whalers were even worse, and their pick ended up being fifth overall. The Canadiens used it to take defenceman Petr Svoboda.

The aftermath: Svoboda was a decent player. But the Whalers used Montreal’s pick to take Sylvain Cote, who was basically the same guy, so we can call this one even. If you’re a Senators fan looking for assurance that these deals can work out OK, this one helps.

That said, the deal could have been a history-altering debacle for Hartford. The top prospect in that 1984 draft was a French kid who turned out to be pretty good, and it’s safe to assume Montreal had him in mind when they made the deal way back in 1981. If the Whalers had been even worse than they were, this could have been the trade that put Mario Lemieux in Montreal.

1987 – Bruins and Canucks

The circumstances: By the 1986 offseason, the Canucks hadn’t won a playoff round since their surprise trip to the 1982 final, and were getting tired of being also-rans to Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers. So they decided to trade their 1987 first to the Bruins for somebody who could make an impact right away.

The trade: In June 1986, the Canucks landed two-time 100-point center Barry Pederson from Boston in exchange for their 1987 first rounder, plus a young winger who’d been kind of a disappointment through three seasons.

The pick: Thanks in parts to Pederson, the Canucks actually improved in 1986-87. But so did a few of the league’s other bottom-feeders, and Vancouver’s pick ended up being third overall. The Bruins used it to take defenseman Glen Wesley.

The aftermath: Wesley was a good player, and played in the 1989 all-star game. He’d spend seven years in Boston, many of them alongside Ray Bourque, and was eventually traded to Hartford for a stunning haul of three first-round picks, all of which ended up in the top ten.

Still, it could have been worse. The Canucks finished the season with three straight wins; take a few of those away, and the Bruins could have been using a top-two pick on Pierre Turgeon or Brendan Shanahan.

So even though Pederson didn’t stick around very long in Vancouver, trading away the pick to get him wasn’t a total disaster. Well, not on its own. As every Canuck and Bruin fan well knows, that disappointing young winger was a kid named Cam Neely. He exploded in Boston, quickly turning the Wesley pick into an afterthought and making this one of the worst trades of all time.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic