Puck Soup: The NHL misses its moment

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- On the night that sports stopped, the NHL goes ahead with the games
- What we think of that, and what might come next
- Why I don't want to hear about how you don't politics mixed with your sports
- Plus the Marc-Andre Fleury story, a Leafs trade, a coach firing, a quiz and lots more

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Weekend power rankings: It’s way too early but we’re doing this anyway

Welcome back to the Weekend Power Rankings. I hope you all had a great summer and came back well-rested and ready to debate some NHL rankings. Grab a seat and get comfortable, and we’ll get started by … OK, I see a lot of hands waving out there. Is there a question you’d like to ask?

Why yes, it is way too early for this. Thanks for pointing that out.

It’s admittedly kind of silly to be doing power rankings when the season is less than a week old and some teams have only played one game. That’s part of the fun. The first few days of the season are chaos, and there are always plenty of results that, in hindsight, mean absolutely nothing. Last year, the Bruins lost their first game 7-0, then came within a win of the Stanley Cup. The year before that, the Blackhawks flexed on everyone by crushing the defending champs 10-1, then missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade while finishing dead last in their division. October likes to lie to us.

In fact, it can be tempting to say that we should just ignore all of it. But that’s not quite right, because even in the very earliest days of a season, certain truths are starting to emerge. For example, the first two weeks of last year suggested that the Knights were bad and the Ducks were good, which was wrong. But it also told us that the Panthers and Coyotes could be in trouble and that the Hurricanes might finally be for real. There’s always a little bit of signal buried in all the noise. We just have to find it.

But first, an important reminder about what exactly these rankings are trying to do. Unlike most power rankings you might read, the idea here is not to capture a snapshot of who’s playing well right now. Instead, we’re looking at the big picture and trying to predict who’s ultimately going to win the Stanley Cup, and which teams will finish in the running for dead last. If your favorite team beat the Lightning last week, that’s great, but it doesn’t mean they automatically move past them in the rankings. The question here isn’t “Who had the best week?” or even “Who would be the favorite if the playoffs started right now?” We’re thinking long term.

For our purposes this week, that long-term view means a few things. We won’t see the sort of wild swings you might see from other rankings, where a surprise hot start can vault a team straight to the top of the list. This week’s rankings will look an awful lot like the preseason projections since a few games shouldn’t change our views of the top (and bottom) teams all that much.

While you won’t see any overreactions, that doesn’t mean no reactions at all, because even with only a few games to work with, we already know a little bit more about the 2019-20 season than we did a week ago. Let’s get started on trying to figure this out.

Road to the Cup

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

Goal of the week honors goes to Blake Coleman, who turned a rough night into a spot on the highlight reels.

That also gives us a chance to talk about the Jets, who roared back to win that game. It always feels a little bit silly to try to spin October games as must-wins or crucial moments or whatever, but with the Jets losing again last night and narrowly avoiding a winless start that we’d all overreact to, Friday’s turnaround did feel a bit like the sort of thing we look back on months later as being important.

5. Toronto Maple Leafs (2-0-1, +5 true goals differential*) – Regular readers will know that last year’s rankings fought a season-long battle over the Atlantic Division heavyweights and whether it made sense to include three teams from the same division as elite Cup contenders when only two could even make the second round. You may be wondering if I managed to solve that problem over the offseason. The answer: No, I did not. Sorry. I had all summer to think of it.

Anyway, through three games the Leafs have looked a lot like what we all expected: A ridiculously talented offensive force that can blow opponents out of the water with skill but will also occasionally cost themselves points by forgetting how to play defense. Saturday’s third-period collapse against the Canadiens was maybe somewhat understandable – the old tired team traveling to play a rested one trap – but it was still comical. Let’s all point and laugh at Kasperi Kapanen’s brain cramp:

4. St. Louis Blues (1-0-1, even) – Here’s a fun fact: The 2019 champs never appeared in the top five of last year’s rankings, but did show up in the bottom five on a few occasions. OK, maybe that’s less “fun” and more “embarrassing.”

Or is it? After all, as we’ve all heard a hundred times by now, the Blues were in dead last in January. And even after their excellent second half, they were hardly considered sure-thing contenders; heading into the playoffs, the oddsmakers had them tied with two other teams for the sixth-best Cup chances, so in that sense, they weren’t a top-five team at any point during the season. The system worked!

Did that sound convincing? I’m not sure it did. Anyways, the Blues are the defending champs, so I’ll work them into the top five this week despite needing a third-period comeback against Dallas to avoid a winless start.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Making sense of the Phil Kessel trade

If the last few days of NHL transactions have reminded us of anything, it’s this: There’s a huge difference between the trade you choose to make and the one you need to make.

After a round of failed contract talks with Dougie Hamilton and a growing sense that he wanted out, the Boston Bruins felt like they needed to trade him. With a cap crunch and the threat, real or perceived, of an offer sheet looming, the Blackhawks felt like they needed to trade Brandon Saad. In both cases, the return was underwhelming and widely panned. That’s what happens when it’s a trade you need to make — you end up taking what you can get when you can get it, even if that means you’re selling at a discount.

On the surface, the Maple Leafs didn’t need to trade Phil Kessel. The 27-year-old sniper has seven years left on his contract, so he wasn’t hitting the open market anytime soon. At an $8 million cap hit, he certainly wasn’t cheap, but he also wasn’t especially overpaid based on his production. And he was easily the team’s best player, and among the very best in the league when it comes to what he does best; only Alexander Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, and Corey Perry have scored more goals over the last five years, and Kessel managed that while dragging Tyler Bozak around the ice as his center.

Now, the Leafs did need to trade someone — president Brendan Shanahan had said as much in April, acknowledging that “for whatever reason, the mix doesn’t work” — and after yet another disastrous season, nobody on the roster deserved to be untouchable. If the right offer came along, anyone was available. But if there was one guy among the team’s core that you’d be happy to keep, you’d think Kessel would be that guy. The Maple Leafs could certainly choose to trade him, but they didn’t need to.

Or did they? Yesterday, the Maple Leafs sent Kessel to the Penguins in a trade that would make sense only if it were one they thought they needed to make. The full deal has Toronto sending Kessel to Pittsburgh along with a second-round pick, Tyler Biggs, and Tim Erixon. In exchange, they get prospects Kasperi Kapanen and Scott Harrington, forward Nick Spaling, a first, and a third.

That’s a mouthful, but we can trim it down for evaluation purposes. Biggs and Erixon are minor pieces that were presumably included primarily to free up contract spots, and Spaling is a mildly useful player who’s mostly a salary dump. It’s not unfair to think of this trade as boiling down to Kessel for Kapanen, Harrington, and a first.

That’s not an awful return, but it’s not the sort of package that typically makes a team move its top player. Kapanen is a good prospect, a skilled winger who was the Penguins’ top pick in 2014 and still hasn’t turned 19. He projects as a top-six guy, maybe even a future first-liner if everything breaks just right. Harrington is a 22-year-old defenseman who could still top out as a solid second-pairing guy. Both have value; neither is a sure thing. As for the first-rounder, it’s actually a conditional pick that can’t fall into the lottery, and could revert down to a second-rounder if the Penguins miss the playoffs in each of the next two years.

Then there’s the not-so-small matter of salary retention. The Leafs will eat $1.2 million of Kessel’s salary and cap hit for all seven years left on his deal. Shanahan has (correctly) refused to put a timeline on the Maple Leafs’ rebuild, but it’s safe to say that it’s not “eight years or more.” At some point when the plan calls for them to be contending for a championship, the Leafs will still be sitting with $1.2 million in dead cap space on the books from this deal. That hurts.

So if that’s the best Toronto could do for Kessel, why trade him at all? Why not focus on moving out other players and hold on to the guy you can pencil in for 30 goals and 80 points most years? And in fact, the Leafs had spent the last few weeks assuring everyone that they were perfectly prepared to do just that. If the market wasn’t there, why not wait it out?

Today, the answer seems clear: They were bluffing. They were always going to move Kessel this summer. They didn’t think they had a choice.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

The Top 20 Maple Leaf moments of the decade - The top 10

This is the second half of the Top 20 Leaf Moments of the Decade list. If you missed it, the first part of the list can be found here.

10. Stumpy wins it - April 22, 2000

Game Five of the 2000 first round series between Ottawa and Toronto was a strange one. The first 55 minutes were deadly dull, with the Leafs mailing in a half-hearted effort and the Senators nursing a 1-0 lead by playing a perfect (i.e. boring) road game.

Then Steve Thomas scored with five minutes left to tie it. And then all hell broke loose. The two teams turned up the tempo to close out the third period, and then went on to play an end-to-end overtime period that featured a dozen scoring chances.

That's when the Leafs unveiled one of the most dastardly trick plays in recent sports history: Sergei Berezin passing.

As an added bonus, Thomas and Berezin reacted to the game winning goal by performing a WWE-style double clothesline on each other.

9. PING! - April 13, 2001

You already know what goal it is just from the headline, don't you?

In the four-pack of Leaf playoff wins over the Senators, the 2001 series was actually the only one where the Senators had home ice advantage. Well, not so much "home ice advantage", since that implies that you get to play some games in front of fans that are actually cheering for you. But the Senators were the #2 seed in the East that year, and were expected to beat the lowly #7 seed Leafs.

Didn't happen. In fact, it didn't come remotely close to happening, as Curtis Joseph shut out the Senators in each of the first two games and the Leafs completed a four-game sweep back in Toronto (giving the Senators the distinction of not scoring a single post-season goal in their own arena). And it all started with a tight Game One that was tied 0-0 midway through the first overtime.

Don't worry, Sens fans. There's brighter days ahead in this rivalry. (I'm sorry? What's that? Oh. I've just been informed that there are, in fact, not brighter days ahead.)

8. Tie Domi fights a Flyer fan in the penalty box - March 29, 2001

I wrote about this one back in September as part of the Top 10 Leaf Fights of All-Time post. I included a transcript of what's going through this Flyer fan's mind:

"Hey, Domi just sprayed water on me, which technically ends my month-long streak of not bathing! I think I'll bang on the glass and try to look tough when I know he can't reach me. Hm, I wonder if this glass can support 300 lbs of cheesesteak and loneliness? No, apparently it can not. Oh god, I'm going to die. Also, I just soiled myself on national television. Go Flyers!"

Domi never really got the credit he deserved here. While he did enough to defend himself, he somehow resisted the urge to go Rob Ray on the poor slob. And that should count for something, shouldn't it?

By the way, how perfect is the "Dunkin Donuts" ad placement in the penalty box?

7. Sundin's milestones - October 14, 2006 and October 11, 2007

Mats Sundin was so good that he actually broke Darryl Sittler's all-time Leafs scoring record twice in the same game. He was credited with a second period assist against the Islanders and held the record for about a half hour before officials revoked the point (Sundin hadn't actually touched the puck).

No problem. Sundin came out in third period and scored a goal of his own. That gave him 390 goals and 917 points as a Leaf -- breaking both of Sittler's franchise records with one shot.

While the moment was clearly important in terms of history, the goal came in the late stages of a blowout against the Islanders and was a fluke shot that wasn't really worthy of the moment. Then again, what's the guy supposed to do for a major milestone? Score a short-handed overtime hat trick goal on Hockey Night in Canada? Fine, if you insist:

(And in case you're wondering, I combined these two moments because they both represent similarly memorable milestones in Sundin's great career, and certainly not because I realized I still had 11 moments that needed to fit into a top 10 list. I don't know why you'd even think that. Look, why are we arguing? Let's change the subject: Hey, who wants to see a Finnish guy get his brains scrambled?)

6. Darcy Tucker destroys Sami Kapanen - May 4, 2004

This hit from the 2004 playoffs was undoubtedly the most vicious hit of the decade by a Maple Leaf, and quite possibly by any NHL player, period. Kapanen was so decimated by the impact that officials immediately whistled the play dead, and the rest of the shift never happened. Did you hear me? THE REST OF THE SHIFT NEVER HAPPENED!

No penalty was called on the play, although technically you could make a case for charging, boarding, and second degree manslaughter. The league reviewed the hit, and promptly suspended the Maple Leafs from ever participating in the playoffs again.

Um... is that guy in the front row wearing a bathing cap,a helmet, or amateur wrestling headgear?

5. Gary Roberts scores in triple overtime - May 4, 2002

Hey look, the Leafs and Senators seem to be involved in some sort of crucial post-season game. I wonder how this will turn out?

Wade Redden with his finger up his nose still makes me laugh every single time.

• Read more about this moment.

4. Sundin returns - October 14, 2008

Let's get this out of the way first: I wasn't a fan of the way Mats Sundin left Toronto. I stand by that. But that's history now.

But when Sundin made his return to Toronto as a member of the Canucks, everyone got it right. The Leafs, who honored their former-captain with a classy video. The fans, who gave him a loud and long ovation. The players, who refused to take the faceoff until Sundin had had his moment. And finally Sundin himself, who composed himself (barely) and then went on to score the shootout winner.

The only way this moment could have been better would have been if the fans had had the chance to thank Sundin when he was still wearing a Leafs uniform. Speaking of which...

3. Thank You Wendel - April 27, 2000

While you don't really associate Clark with the current decade, his last stint with the Leafs came at the end of the 1999-2000 season. He played 20 mostly forgettable regular season games and was scratched for the team's first playoff games. Pat Quinn inserted Clark into the lineup midway through the first round, and he scored the series-clinching goal against the Senators.

And then game one against the Devils:

• Read more about this moment.

2. Mats Sundin's last second goal against the Hurricanes - May 28, 2002

In the final minutes of Game Six of the 2002 Conference Finals, the Leafs found themselves trailing Carolina 1-0. For reasons nobody has ever been able to fully explain, Arturs Irbe was unbeatable in this series, and the Hurricanes were choking the life out of the Leafs on their home ice. As the seconds ticked down, the Leafs' miracle playoff run seemed doomed.

Well, not so fast.

This goal is notable for being the only known example of that horrible "behind-the-net" camera view that directors fell in love with in the first half of the decade actually working. It also gave us not only a memorable Bob Cole call ("... and the place goes crazy!") but also a legendary Joe Bowen meltdown that included him infamously screaming "You talk about heart and dedication!"

It all ended up being futile, of course. The Hurricanes won in overtime, eliminating the Leafs from a series they absolutely should have won. But for a few seconds at least, I doubt there was a goal during the decade that had Leaf fans screaming any louder.

1. Lalime's meltdown - April 20, 2004

It's probably fair to say that by the time the Leafs and Senators met in a 2004 first round series, the two teams hated each other. The Leafs were the corporate behemoth that kept kicking the smaller kids around the playground. The Senators were the small-market underdogs who were supposed to be scrappy and valiant but usually just wound up wiping snot from their noses while the sobbed about being picked on.

So with Daniel Alfredsson guaranteeing victory, Eugene Melnyk running his mouth, and the Senators vowing to finally "slay the dragon", the two teams met for the fourth time in five years. And with nothing settled through six games, it was on to Toronto for a final game seven showdown.

The hockey world was expecting a classic. Instead, they got a classic meltdown.

The Kilger goal was excusable. The first Nieuwendyk goal was awful. The third was almost impossibly bad, the kind of disaster you need to watch over and over again just to convince yourself it was real. And that's the goal we're going with as the #1 moment on the list.

There were probably more important goals scored this decade. There were certainly much better ones. But whether we like it or not, the Battle of Ontario defined the decade for both franchises, and no moment captured the rivalry more perfectly than this one: Leaf fans cheering; Leaf players celebrating; and a Senator slumped on his knees, defeated, and ready to quit.

Honorable mentions

There were a few on-ice moments that didn't make the final list, but deserve a mention. In no particular order:

• The Leafs/Islanders bloodbath in 2002 - This was perhaps the most vicious series of all-time, but it's hard to pick an actual moment that stands out. Maybe Tucker's low-bridge on Peca?
  
• The Leafs/Habs season finale in 2007 - Definitely one of the most memorable games of the decade, but it was rendered moot thanks the Devils laying down for the Islanders the next day. Besides, the only moment from the game that stands out was Andrew Raycroft giving up a horrible goal, getting pulled, and then not caring.
  
• Ricard Persson hits Tie Domi from behind - But if Domi had better balance, the Senators would have won.
  
• Alexander Mogilny scores his 1,000th point in the Leafs comeback against the Sabres in 2004 - Confession time: I have absolutely no recollection of this happening. Was I in a coma? This is bothering me. (Update: robviper to the rescue with a newly posted youtube video.)
  
• Mario Lemieux returns to the NHL and scores three points against the Leafs - Hard to pick a moment where the Leafs got lit up, but any hockey fan had to enjoy this game.

And I'm sure I missed a few. Let me hear about them in the comments.