Remembering 8 NHL stars who were Hall-of-Fame locks, until they weren’t

Nicklas Backstrom stepped away from hockey last week, and it got me thinking about the Hall of Fame.

Granted, that doesn’t take all that much. As my readers know, I love a good HHOF debate. In fact, we’ll be having a few later this week, as the Hall gets set to welcome its class of 2023.

If Backstrom’s career is over, he won’t be eligible for three years. I don’t think he makes it, but I suppose it’s not a sure thing. (The committee occasionally surprises us, to put it kindly.) But there was a time when Backstrom absolutely seemed like he was on a Hall of Fame track. Back in 2009-10, he was just 22 and coming off a 100-point season when those were exceedingly rare. If you’d gone around the league back then and placed bets on future Hall odds, he would have been high on anyone’s list. Just not anymore.

That’s not a rare story in the NHL, where we’re often a little too quick to slap the “HHOF lock” label on a player, only to see their candidacy fade – sometimes slowly, sometimes dramatically.

So today, let’s look back at eight NHL stars who sure seemed like future Hall-of-Famers, right up until they weren’t. I’ll give you the details, you see if you can guess the name.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Let's get Wild

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- The Wild buy out Zach Parise and Ryan Suter and we're confused
- How many 10-year+ contracts actually worked?
- Remember that bonkers Chris Chelios threat to Gary Bettman
- Thoughts on the Senators' interesting new front office
- More on the Duncan Keith trade
- Jesse Granger on next year's Cup odds
- Cinderella teams, the days of coach/GMs, remembering the 1994 Mike Keenaan fiasco 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: Ranking that player survey, broken standings and Mike Keenan attacks a timekeeper

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Breaking down the answers in that ESPN player survey
- The standings were kind of broken all season and nobody noticed until a few days ago
- An obscure player with a brutal nickname
- The week's three comedy stars are swept by two teams
- And a YouTube look back at the pre-replay days, when coaches just ran across the ice to fight the timekeeper

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A guide to the fun but confusing world of watching decades-old NHL footage on YouTube

I spend way too much time watching clips of NHL action from decades past.

You probably already figured that out, especially if you’re a reader of the Friday Grab Bag and its weekly way-too-detailed delve into the archives. Maybe the book about NHL history tipped you off. If we’ve ever spoken in person, you may have noticed my ability to steer literally any given topic of conversation into a reference to a mid-80s NHL game within minutes. I’m told that my wife has.

The point is that I’ll often find myself making what I think will be a quick trip over to YouTube to grab a recent highlight or rewatch a play that’s in the news. Next thing I know, an hour has gone by, I’ve forgotten what I came there for in the first place, and I’m watching some dude’s grainy recording of a Jets/Oilers game from 1987. If you’ve got a rip of a novelty VHS blooper tape from 1991, I’m in. I’ve watched the “All Heart” montage so many times that I recently heard Hero of the Day on the radio and got legitimately confused when Bob Cole and Joe Bowen didn’t start calling goals during the guitar solo.

And I regret nothing. It’s great, and I highly recommend it. I’m not going to be some grumpy old guy who lectures you about how hockey was more fun back in the old days. I absolutely do believe that and I’m right, but I won’t lecture you about it. I’m simply going to suggest that you occasionally take the time to head over to YouTube, type “NHL” and a long-ago year into the search bar and start clicking through whatever random offerings come up.

But when you do, be prepared. If you’re not used to the old NHL, you’re going to see and hear some things that will be strange. So today, let me walk you through 10 differences you’ll notice when you watch old school NHL footage. And just for fun, let’s even try to figure out if there’s anything we should be bringing back.

The occasional epic coach meltdowns

What you’ll notice: NHL coaches have always been a disagreeable bunch. That’s still true today, with guys like John Tortorella, Joel Quenneville and Bruce Boudreau carrying on the tradition of hotheaded antics behind the bench.

Well … kind of. Because while today’s coaches will occasionally yell and flail their arms and (maybe) grab their crotch, they really can’t hold a candle to the old school. These guys did not hold back.

Oh, your coach threw a fit? Robbie Ftorek threw a bench. Your coach gave the other team a mean look? Herb Brooks and Jacques Demers started tossing haymakers. Your coach angrily demanded a replay review? How adorable. Here’s Mike Keenan jumping on the ice and trying to fight the timekeeper.

And we didn’t even mention the time Tom Webster punched Doug Gilmour, which wasn’t even the craziest thing he ever did. And if there wasn’t an opponent or a referee around, old school coaches would just attack their own players.

NHL coaches used to be completely insane, is what I’m trying to say.

Should we bring it back: Are you crazy? Of course we should. This stuff was amazing. I’m not sure how we could go about mandating at least one epic meltdown per season for every NHL coach, but let’s look into it. Or at least make somebody rehire Patrick Roy.

Faceoffs in random locations

What you’ll notice: These days, faceoffs can only happen in nine places on the ice – the two circles in either zone, the two dots outside either blueline or at center ice. But up until 2007, faceoffs could also be held elsewhere under certain circumstances. If a puck was shot out of play, for example, the faceoff would take place wherever it had last been touched (with some restrictions).

So when you’re watching an old game, you’ll occasionally see the teams line up for a faceoff at some seemingly random spot. And your modern-NHL-fan brain goes “Uh, that’s not right.”

Should we bring it back: Yes, if only for how much confusion it would cause among younger fans. I’ll go even further: I think we should bring this back, but limit it to one random faceoff location per game. Make it the linesmen’s choice. Consider it a small measure of payback for making their lives miserable with the stupid offside review.

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The Chiarelli Cup: Which GM can make the best starting roster from players they’ve traded away?

Last​ week we tried​ to​ figure​ out​ the​ identity​ of NHL​ history’s most entertaining​ trader by assembling​ starting​ lineups based on​​ players a single GM had traded for. Once we rigged the rules to keep Sam Pollock from rolling over the competition, it turned out to be a tight race.

But plenty of you had the same request: Now do it for players a GM had traded away. Or, as we took to calling it in the comment section, The Chiarelli Cup. OK, the customer is always right. You get your wish. Let’s do this.

A few notes before we get to the teams. First, we’re working with slightly different rules than last week. We’ll keep the Sam Pollock rule – the player himself has to be in the trade, not the draft pick used to select him. But last time, we were only giving GMs credit for what a player did on their team. Today, we’re giving credit for everything a player did in their career after the trade. So in theory, today’s rosters should be slightly better than last week’s.

It’s also worth pointing out that the easiest way to make the cut on a list like this is to have lots of trades to work from. Somebody who was only a GM for a few seasons just isn’t going to have the body of work to compete with somebody who was around for three decades (well, with one exception that we’ll get to). So this doesn’t actually end up being a list of history’s worst GMs like you might think. Guys who are widely considered to have been poor traders, like John Ferguson Jr., Réjean Houle or Mel Bridgman don’t show up here. They didn’t keep the job long enough and didn’t have enough talent to work with when they did.

And here’s one final note: There shouldn’t actually be any suspense here, since the answer is actually kind of obvious. Or at least, it should be. But maybe it isn’t, because of all the names I saw thrown around last week, almost nobody mentioned the actual frontrunner. So let’s see if you can figure it out before we get to the end of the list.

But we’ll begin at the beginning, with the man this exercise was named after.

Team Peter Chiarelli

Goalie: Tim Thomas

Defensemen: Johnny Boychuk, Justin Schultz

Forwards: Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin, Phil Kessel

It’s a solid group. That forward line is a killer and we could follow it up with a second unit that includes Jordan Eberle and Blake Wheeler. There’s depth all up and down the roster, to be honest, and the Pollock rule means we’re not even giving credit for the Mathew Barzal pick here. But the starting blueliners are just OK and the goaltending isn’t great – Thomas should barely even count, since he was traded to the Islanders, never played and then left as a free agent before playing one more decent NHL season.

So Chiarelli’s not bad. But we can definitely do better. Let’s try the other name that probably popped into your head as soon as you heard the concept.

Team Mike Milbury

Goalie: Roberto Luongo

Defensemen: Zdeno Chara, Darius Kasparaitis

Forwards: Ziggy Palffy, Olli Jokinen, Todd Bertuzzi

Even without quite as much star power up front, this team beats Chiarelli’s pretty easily. It’s more balanced, with first-ballot Hall of Famers in goal and on the blueline. And it’s deep too, with names like Chris Osgood, Mathieu Schneider, Bryan McCabe, Bryan Berard, Michael Peca and Wendel Clark available.

Maybe even more impressively, it’s not like Milbury builds this roster by swinging high-profile but well-balanced blockbusters like some of his colleagues – he lost pretty much every trade that leads to that starting six. And you could make a strong case that we should waive the Pollock rule for Jason Spezza, since Milbury traded the second-overall pick on draft day and it was well-known at the time who the Senators would be using it on. We won’t do that here – rules are rules – but we all know what’s up.

So with apologies to its namesake, it’s Milbury who stakes out the early leader status for the Chiarelli Cup. But the competition is about to heat up.

Team David Poile

Goalie: Devan Dubnyk

Defensemen: Larry Murphy, Seth Jones

Forwards: Mike Gartner, Dino Ciccarelli, Jason Allison

Yikes. This loaded lineup is basically the anti-Milbury team; Poile did well on several of these trades, but has always been willing to give up something to get something. Still, that’s three Hall of Famers from his Washington days, plus two current all-stars – not to mention Shea Weber, who you could swap in on the blueline if you wanted. The third forward is really the only iffy spot, as Allison edges out a three-way Matt Duchene deal that only kind of counts.

The Dubnyk deal is a little bit of a sneaky addition, since he was barely considered an NHLer at that point and was basically given away to Montreal for nothing in return. Still, it counts, and based on his career resurgence in Minnesota it gives Team Poile a potential goaltending controversy with guys like Byron Dafoe and Tomas Vokoun. And as a side note, the Pollock Rule comes into play yet again, and it keeps a couple of big-name draft picks out of the Team Poile lineup: Joe Sakic and Erik Karlsson.

And just like that, I think we’ve got Milbury beat. With the two early favorites already out of the running, let’s see if we can find someone to challenge Poile.

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What’s the best starting lineup you could make from a single GM’s trade history?

With​ less than a week​ to​ go​ until​ the​ 2019​ trade deadline,​ all eyes are​ on NHL general​ managers.​ Within minutes of​​ Monday’s 3:00 p.m. ET deadline, everyone will be coming up with their lists of winners and losers. Some GMs will be found wanting, while others will be declared the champions of the day.

But we like to think a little bigger around here. So instead of wondering about who’ll be the best NHL GM of the 2019 deadline, let’s aim higher by trying to determine the best big-game hunter in history. Which GM holds the all-time crown when it comes to going and swinging big deals?

A few months ago, I tried to tackle a similar sort of question from a slightly different angle by following a chain of lopsided trades. I thought it was pretty much perfect methodology, but a few readers didn’t seem to agree with where it ended up. OK, fair enough. So let’s try something else.

Today, we’re going to see which NHL GM from the modern era lets us put together the best six-man starting lineup made up entirely of players that they traded for. We’re looking for a goalie, two defensemen and three forwards, all of them acquired by the same GM in various trades.

We can mix and match between teams for those GMs who’ve held multiple jobs. But we’re looking for trades and trades only – drafting, free agency and other kind of transactions won’t help you here. We’re not really looking for the “best” GM here, and we don’t even really care if they won or lost the deal. One way or another, we’re looking to crown the guy who landed the biggest names.

A couple of key ground rules:

– The GM only gets credit for what the player did with the team that acquired them. Trading for a Hall of Famer at the very end of his career doesn’t get your credit for his entire body of work. But you do get credit for whatever they did with the team, even if you weren’t around to see all of it.

– We’re only counting players who were acquired directly, not picks that were eventually used on star players.

That last rule is important for a couple of reasons. First, it prevents GMs from getting credit for players they lucked into thanks to their scouting department nailing some fourth-round pick. But more importantly, we need this rule to make this any sort of a contest instead of a coronation of Sam Pollock. If we’re counting picks, Pollock gets to start his team with names like Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Steve Shutt and Bob Gainey, and the whole thing is over before it starts. Sam’s too good, so we need a rule to hold him back.

But it’s a tribute to Pollock that while we’re intentionally stacking the deck against him, he still comes through with a solid roster. Let’s make him our starting point.

(GM trading records are via NHLtradetracker.com.)

Team Sam Pollock

Goalie: Ken Dryden

Defensemen: Don Awrey, Jimmy Roberts

Forwards: Frank Mahovlich, Pete Mahovlich, Dick Duff

Team Pollock can’t use Lafleur, Robinson or the other draft pick heists, but still comes out looking pretty good. They start with a Hall of Famer in Dryden, whose rights Pollock stole from the Bruins in one of his very first trades back in 1964. They also get the Mahovlich brothers, plus six years of Duff’s Hall of Fame career. The defense is weak and that’s even after we’re cheating a bit with Roberts, who played more on the wing than the blueline in Montreal, but we kind of have to – even though he made a ton of trades, most of Pollock’s deals were for picks or cash, not established players.

So all in all, Team Pollock is pretty good. But will it hold up as the best? Let’s usher in a new challenger.

Team Harry Sinden

Goalie: Gilles Gilbert

Defensemen: Brad Park, Mike O’Connell

Forwards: Cam Neely, Rick Middleton, Adam Oates

Sinden’s team is just OK in goal – as you’ll see, that ends up being a bit of a theme for a few of his colleagues too. But the rest of his roster is pretty darn good. And he’s got some depth to draw on, as we’ve left off names like Jean Ratelle. The only real weak point is that second defenseman slot, which would look a lot better if our draft pick rule wasn’t keeping Ray Bourque off the team. But having future Sinden protégé Mike O’Connell on the squad makes a certain kind of sense, so let’s go with that.

Sinden’s Bruins didn’t beat Pollock’s Habs all that much when it mattered back in the 1970s, but I think he has the edge here. But he’ll need to get past some other strong contenders.

Team Bill Torrey

Goalie: Chico Resch

Defensemen: Jean Potvin, Uwe Krupp

Forwards: Butch Goring, Pierre Turgeon, Bob Bourne

As with Sinden, goalie isn’t a strong suit, although it’s not bad; Resch basically wins by default, since Billy Smith was an expansion pick and not a trade. Torrey also suffers a bit on the blueline, partly because he was pretty good at drafting them and didn’t need to trade for them as often as other guys. Jean Potvin might not be the best Potvin brother the Islanders ever had, but he put in a solid 400 games for them, and Krupp was decent too. Torrey’s best position is up front, where he could also lay claim to guys like Ray Ferraro and Stumpy Thomas.

Sinden, Torrey and Pollock represent the classic franchise-defining GMs of the 1970s. There’s one more we need to get to, although this one is sometimes better remembered for the work he did in another market.

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The 10 types of mid-season coaching changes (and how they usually work out)

It’s​ been a rough few​ weeks​ for​ NHL​ coaches.​ After​ going all​ of 2017-18 without​ a single coach losing​ their​ job until the​​ final day of the season, we’ve already seen four pink slips this year, including two this week. And we’re only a quarter of the way through the schedule.

Typically, NHL teams don’t want to make coaching changes while the season is going on. It’s virtually always a sign that something has gone horribly wrong, and a major change is needed to try to salvage the season. But at the same time, plenty of GMs around the league are under pressure to do exactly that. And that pressure will only mount as other teams make changes and potential candidates get snapped up.

So today, let’s look at 10 types of midseason coach firings, and some examples of each from the last 25 years of NHL history. Maybe they can teach us something about this year’s firings – from the four we’ve already seen and the ones that might still be to come.

And we’ll start with what is, unfortunately, probably the most common kind of midseason coaching change…

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The Deck-Chair Reshuffling

The scenario: The season isn’t going well. The team fires its coach and hires a replacement. The season continues to not go well. Maybe it wasn’t the coach, you guys.

Recent examples: The Leafs go from Ron Wilson to Randy Carlyle in 2012. The Senators trying to stop a tailspin by replacing John Paddock with GM Bryan Murray in 2008. The Canadiens firing Alain Vigneault for Michel Therrien in 2000. The Canucks going from Tom Renney to Mike Keenan in 1998, and then again from Keenan to Marc Crawford the year after. The Wild replace Mike Yeo with John Torchetti in 2016. Panthers’ coach/GM Rick Dudley stepping aside for John Torchetti in 2004. The Kings replace Andy Murray with John Torchetti in 2006. Uh, maybe we should just call this one “The John Torchetti”.

Does it work?: Nope. Although in most of these cases, you get the feeling that nothing would have.

Potential 2018-19 cases: We’ll have to wait and see what the new guys can do. But the Kings are already giving off that vibe.

The Too-Little-Too-Late

The scenario: The old coach was bad. The new coach is good, at least for a while, and the team starts playing up to expectations. But the GM waits too long to make the switch, so they miss the playoffs anyway.

Recent examples: The Blues firing Andy Murray for Davis Payne in 2010. The Senators going from Craig Hartsburg to Cory Clouston in 2009. The Islanders making the switch from Jack Capuano to Doug Weight in 2017.

Does it work?: Yes and no. In a way, this has to almost feel like the worst-case scenario for a GM. It’s one thing to make the wrong move. It’s another to make the right one, but realize you pulled the trigger too late for it to make a difference.

Potential 2018-19 cases: None of the firings we’ve seen so far will fall into this category, because at least the four teams acted with enough time left to right the ship. But will we look back at some other team that hasn’t made a move yet and wonder if they should have joined the early-season crowd? Maybe not, but every Flyers fan is angrily clenching their fists right now just in case.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Making the case for four passed-over Hall of Fame candidates

I​ have to admit,​ I​ love​ Hockey​ Hall​ of​ Fame debates.​ That makes this​ a good week for​ me,​ because it’s one​​ of two times during the year that the Hall’s choices are front and center. The first comes in the summer, when the inductees are announced, and the second comes now, as we get ready for induction weekend.

And I can’t get enough. I love arguing over who’s already in. I love arguing over players who aren’t eligible. And I especially love arguing over guys who haven’t made it yet, but maybe should have. Those are the really fun ones, because we can keep revisiting and refining the case for years – maybe even decades.

Over the years, I’ve written plenty of pieces on HHOF candidates. And you’ve probably read plenty just like them, because just about everyone breaks out a list from time to time. But if there’s a criticism of those pieces, mine included, it’s that they can be a bit wishy-washy. We end up listing a bunch of names and talking about the pros and cons of each, and maybe get into why some cases are stronger than others. But most of us try not to be too definitive. After all, you never know when the Hall will prove you wrong.

So today, I’m going to go one further. I’m going to break down the case for four names that have been eligible for a while, and that I’m willing to say should be in the Hall of Fame. No maybes or could-bes or “he has a solid case.” I’m planting my flag in the ground. These four guys should be in. Period.

Will the HHOF prove me right by eventually inducting all four? Maybe, but I don’t like my odds – as you’ll see, some of my picks have been waiting a while. But you never know. I remember going through candidates a few years ago and slowly but surely realizing that Paul Kariya’s case was a lot stronger than I thought. It took a few years, but eventually, the Hall agreed. Can I take all the credit for that? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. But most of the credit? Yes, I think that’s reasonable.

So let’s see if I can work that magic again. Here are the four names I’m willing to get behind as deserving a Hall of Fame plaque someday soon.

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Curtis Joseph

Eligible since: 2012

The case for: The big number is 454. That’s Joseph’s career win total, which ranks fifth all-time.

Granted, wins aren’t a great stat for measuring a goalie’s worth, because they’re so team dependent. The wins leaders from a single season tell us close to nothing about true talent. But when you’re looking at career totals, there’s at least some value in the wins column, if only because it highlights guys who were able to hold down jobs as starters on competitive teams for a long time.

And it’s not like Joseph spent his career racking up wins behind loaded rosters. He spent the first 13 years of his career with the Blues, Oilers and Maple Leafs, three teams that were decidedly average (or worse) when he arrived, then got significantly better once he took over. Not all goalies are difference-makers; Joseph clearly was.

The case against: I think we can all agree that the biggest problem with Curtis Joseph is that when he writes a book it shoots straight to number one on the bestseller list and takes over entire walls of bookstores without leaving any room for lesser-known authors, right? Yes, I thought so. Stop doing that, Curtis.

(I’m kidding, of course. I’m not bitter. Joseph’s book is great, and I encourage you to learn more about it right here.)

Beyond that, his wins total is at least partly a factor of longevity over success – he also ranks third in career losses, after all. His career goals-against average and save percentage aren’t all that impressive, and even when you adjust for era they’re good but not amazing. He never won a Vezina or was a first-team all-star.

But the big knock on Joseph seems to be that he never won a Stanley Cup. Is it possible to rank in the top five for all-time wins and still not be “a winner”? That sounds silly, but apparently, it makes sense to somebody.

Why I think he should be in: At least part of my argument in favor of Joseph is that the Hall of Fame, in general, has been too stingy with goaltenders. If you became a hockey fan in 1973 – 45 long years ago – you’ve only seen the debuts of five goalies that made the Hall of Fame. That’s kind of ridiculous, and Joseph seems like a nice opportunity to start a course correction.

But beyond that, Joseph checks both boxes you want in a Hall of Famer: Big numbers over a long career, and a peak period where he was clearly among the very best in the league. He never won that Vezina, but he was a finalist three times and finished in the top five on two other occasions. Remember, his peak overlaps with Dominik Hasek’s; that should be a factor, just like how we don’t penalize guys for not winning Hart Trophies over Wayne Gretzky in the 80s or the Norris over Bobby Orr in the 70s.

Joseph wasn’t Hasek, nor was he Martin Brodeur or Patrick Roy. But that can’t be where the bar is, because if it is then we might as well padlock the Hall doors for goalies right now. We can debate whether a Hall of Fame should be reserved for the very best of the best, but right now hockey is using different standards for different positions. Let’s fix that.

One sentence that will convince you: Everyone else in the top twelve in wins who’s eligible is already in, and the three active players in the group – Roberto Luongo, Henrik Lundqvist and Marc-André Fleury – range from slam dunks to very likely inductees.

Odds he gets in: I like his chances, if only because when Luongo and Lundqvist arrive in front of voters with similar resumes – lots of wins and individual success, no Cup wins – they’re both getting in. That’s going to make Joseph’s exclusion a lot harder to defend. The question is whether he has to wait for those guys, or if the Hall decides to get its goalie house in order first.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

When coaches quit

The NHL off-season got a jolt Monday with a surprise out of Washington: Head coach Barry Trotz will be heading elsewhere after handing in his resignation.

That’s surprising on several fronts, not least of which is that we didn’t know Trotz could resign in the first place – we’d been led to believe that his contract was about to expire. As it turns out, his old deal included an automatic extension that kicked in when the Capitals won the Stanley Cup. That new deal wasn’t to Trotz’s liking, and attempts to negotiate a new deal were unsuccessful, so Trotz walked away.

That’s a relatively rare occurrence in a league where coaches are far more likely to be relieved of their duties, often with a footprint on their behind. But it’s been a bit of a theme this off-season, as Trotz becomes the third NHL head coach to voluntarily leave his job. In April, Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock announced his retirement. And a week later, Bill Peters resigned as coach of the Hurricanes.

Peters landed on his feet, taking the Calgary job within days. It seems safe to assume that Trotz will also find new work quickly. If so, he’ll become the first coach in 24 years to leave a team he just won the Stanley Cup and take a job somewhere else.

Making the choice to quit an NHL job is rare. But it’s not completely unheard of. So today, let’s look back on 10 other head coaches who walked away from a job, and how that worked out for them. We’ll start with that last Cup winner to do it, since it involves one of the great off-season soap operas in modern NHL history.

Mike Keenan, 1994

Imagine you’d just led an Original Six team to its first championship in 54 years. You’re the toast of the town. What’s your next move?

If you said “Find a loophole in your contract, declare yourself a free agent and announce you’ve just signed a five-year contract with a different team,” then you and Mike Keenan would probably get along great.

The whole mess started in July 1994, just days after Keenan had led the Rangers to a Game 7 victory over the Canucks to finally put an end the “1940” chants once and for all. Rather than rest on his laurels, Keenan got to work checking the fine print on his contract. When he realized the Rangers had been a day late on a bonus payment, he publicly declared that his contract was null and void. Two days later, he’d signed a five-year deal to become the coach and GM in St. Louis.

Needless to say, the Rangers weren’t thrilled. GM Neil Smith acknowledged the late payment, but called it a “clerical error” and the team went to court to try to prevent Keenan’s jump. (The court filing referred to Keenan as a “faithless employee,” and you have to admit they kind of had a point.) Gary Bettman became involved, in what was viewed as the first major crisis of his relatively young stint as commissioner.

Eventually, the Blues and Rangers agreed to a trade that sent Petr Nedved to New York in exchange for Esa Tikkanen, Doug Lidster and the rights to Keenan. Bettman approved the deal, but fined just about everyone (including the Red Wings, who’d also been negotiating with Keenan). He also suspended Keenan for 60 days.

Keenan got to work in St. Louis, assembling one of the most interesting teams in modern history. He also traded for Wayne Gretzky. Hey, speaking of which…

Wayne Gretzky, 2009

It would be hard to call Gretzky’s resignation as Coyotes coach a major surprise, since there had been subtle signs that he was unhappy in Phoenix. Like, for example, the fact the Coyotes were weeks into training camp and Gretzky hadn’t shown up yet.

The backstory here isn’t all that complicated. The Coyotes had filed for bankruptcy earlier in the year, and an ownership battle was being waged in court between the league and Jim Balsillie. With Gretzky making a reported league-high $8.5 million as the team’s coach (among other roles), the numbers didn’t add up – especially given that he’d missed the playoffs in all four years behind the bench. When it became apparent that neither Balsillie or the league intended to retain his services, Gretzky stayed home and eventually announced his decision to walk away.

The Coyotes announced the hiring of Dave Tippett and moved on. Gretzky ended up in an extended battle with the league over money he was owed that dragged on for years. He never coached again, and at this point everyone has politely agreed to forget all this ever happened.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Grab Bag: Come on down

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Since everyone liked last week's Cliff Hanger idea, let's assign some Price is Right games to more NHL announcements
- I have an incredibly trivial complaint about the Sedins
- An obscure player who once made Patrick Roy very angry
- The week's three comedy stars
- And we travel back to 1994 for a story about Mike Keenan and the greatest shift in hockey history

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

The five nights in NHL history with three (or more) Game Sevens

Hockey fans are going to get a rare treat Wednesday night, as the NHL serves up a pair of Game 7s. It will be the first time in a little over three years that we've had more than one in a night, and having a pair of Game 7s on the same date is relatively uncommon; it's happened just ten times in the last two decades.

But if you want to get into the really rare stuff, you have to look for the nights where there were three or more. That's only happened five times in NHL history, probably because hockey fans' hearts couldn't take much more than that.

So today, as we get ready for a Game 7 doubleheader, let's look back at those five times that we've had three. We'll start with the most recent, which came three years ago.

April 30, 2014

Before Wednesday night, this was the most recent case of even two Game 7s falling in the same night, as the opening round of the 2014 playoffs closed out with a trio of do-or-die games.

At Madison Square Garden, the Rangers and Flyers played a tight game to cap off a back-and-forth series. Despite some decent star power on hand, the goals came from some unlikely sources, with Daniel Carcillo and Benoit Pouliot scoring for the Rangers while Jason Akeson replied for the Flyers. Henrik Lundqvist outdueled Steve Mason in a 2-1 Rangers win.

We got another close one in Colorado, where the Avalanche faced the underdog Wild. A late goal by Minnesota's Jared Spurgeon pushed the game into overtime, where Nino Niederreiter finished off the upset.

The night's third Game 7 wasn't as close, but it made some history. The Kings went into San Jose and stomped the Sharks by a 5-1 final, finishing off just the fourth comeback from a 3-0 series deficit in NHL history. After dropping the first three games, the Kings won the next four by a combined score of 18-5, and went on to capture the franchise's second Stanley Cup.

April 22, 2003

We have to go back over a decade to find our next triple-header, and it starts off feeling a bit familiar: With the Wild knocking off the favored Avalanche in overtime. This time it's Andrew Brunette pulling off the move of a lifetime to send the Avs home – and end the career of Patrick Roy.

The night's other two Game 7s didn't pack quite as much drama. In Philadelphia, the Flyers pounded the Leafs 6-1, sending Toronto home in the first round for the only time during the Pat Quinn era. And in St. Louis, the Canucks finished off a rally from down 3-1 in the series to knock off the Blues by a 4-1 final; the Blues went on to win just one playoff game over the next seven seasons.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Remembering the Wayne Gretzky trade. No, the other one.

On Saturday, the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks will face off in a Winter Classic alumni game that will be played outdoors, at a baseball stadium, and will include Wayne Gretzky.

It's kind of strange that Gretzky is the most surprising part of that sentence.

But it is. Outdoor games at eccentric locations are old hat now, but Gretzky wasn't supposed to play in this one, having hinted that an alumni appearance for the Oilers earlier in the year was his last game ever. But he apparently changed his mind, and will suit up for St. Louis. And that's fun, because it gives an entire generation of young hockey fans a chance to go: "Wait, Wayne Gretzky played for the St. Louis Blues?"

He did indeed, although it didn't last long and it didn't go especially well. You kind of had to be there.

But some of you weren't. So today, let's look back at the events the led up to the deal and some of the weirdness that followed, as we walk through the five stages of the (other) Wayne Gretzky trade.

The Build Up

We all kind of assume that Wayne Gretzky was a Los Angeles King for life.

Well, not for his whole life, since he'd already spent a good chunk of that shattering records with the Edmonton Oilers. But for the rest of his career, sure. Gretzky was going to be the guy who broke in as a flashy youngster in Edmonton before moving down south to redefine the way an entire country viewed the sport, and then he'd ride off into the SoCal sunset.

Still, we knew there was a chance that a move could happen someday. As the old saying went, "If Wayne Gretzky can be traded, then anyone can be traded," which is a group that technically would include Wayne Gretzky again. But if it did, it would be a blockbuster, and it would probably take months to put together and go down in the offseason. That's what had happened in 1988, when the trade that sent Gretzky from Edmonton to L.A. was considered the biggest in the history of pro sports and had Canadian politicians demanding legislation to stop the deal. Another Gretzky deal could happen, but it would be a monster.

Gretzky in a Blues jersey will always look weird. Photo by Sam Mircovic/Reuters

Wayne Gretzky, a hastily thrown together trade deadline rental? No way.

That's why it was stunning, and more than a little confusing, when reports started to emerge in early 1996 that Gretzky could be on the block. But the Kings weren't contending, and Gretzky was reported to be unhappy. With free agency looming and the Kings struggling financially in the wake of one-time owner Bruce McNall's legal scandals, what had seemed unthinkable suddenly looked very real.

Wayne Gretzky was getting traded, and the deal was going to go down quickly. This was really happening.

The Bidding

By February 1996, it was clear that a deal was imminent, probably even in advance of that year's March 20 trade deadline. As far as a destination, the usual suspects were floated. The Canucks, who'd missed out on Gretzky in 1988 (and turned out to be a year away from landing a big-name veteran of their own, although they'd rather not talk about it). The Blackhawks, who always seemed to be in on the big names. The Maple Leafs, because you can't have a good trade rumor without the Leafs being mentioned. And, yes, the Blues, although initially as a long shot.

But the clear favorite was what seemed like the obvious choice: the Rangers. Every star player of the 90s made a stop in New York at some point, and they seemed like a natural fit. The Rangers were contenders, they had plenty of money, and they could even reunite Gretzky with Mark Messier. As the rumors grew from plentiful smoke to outright fire, the hockey world waited for Gretzky to make his inevitable move to Broadway.

And that's where Mike Keenan came in.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Five stories from the last ever Canada Cup

As we finally say goodbye to hockey’s least interesting month, fans are turning their attention toward next month’s World Cup. We’re just a few weeks away from players hitting the ice for a rare best-on-best international tournament (kind of). It’s going to be lots of fun.

The World Cup, of course, is a direct descendent of the Canada Cup, a tournament that started in 1976 and ran every three-to-five years until being rebranded in 1996. The last tournament to carry the Canada Cup name came in 1991 – and it kicked off with the opening of the round robin games 25 years ago Wednesday.

The 1991 Canada Cup had an almost impossible act to follow, coming four years after the 1987 edition that many consider the greatest international tournament ever played. So maybe it’s not surprising that 1991, while entertaining, never really resonated with hockey fans in the same way that previous versions had. We all remember Gretzky-to-Lemieux, but 1991 sort of blends into the background with other tournaments.

So today, in honor of the 25^th anniversary of the opening games, let’s refresh our memories by looking back at five of the biggest stories from the 1991 Canada Cup.

Spoiler alert: Canada wins

We might as well cut through the suspense and begin at the end. This edition of the Canada Cup ended the way almost all of them did: with Canada taking home the title. The home team swept Team USA in a two-game final to win the tournament for the third straight time and fourth out of five overall (the Soviets won in 1981).

That win wasn’t exactly an upset, given the strength of the Canadian roster. They were missing some big names, with Mario Lemieux out with a back injury, Steve Yzerman cut by Mike Keenan yet again, and Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy, Ray Bourque and Cam Neely also absent. But the roster was still stacked, featuring in-their-prime stars like Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Scott Stevens.

Canada got off to a slow start, managing just a 2-2 tie against Finland in the opening game. But they heated up from there, finishing the round robin undefeated and then knocking off Sweden in the semi-final to set up a showdown with the Americans. More on that in a second.

The biggest story on the Canadian roster was a rookie

Given how much talent was packed onto Team Canada, it seems odd to say that the roster’s biggest attraction may have been a teenager who’d never played an NHL game. But when you’re talking about Eric Lindros in 1991, all the usual rules kind of go out the window.

Lindros was fresh off of being taken by the Nordiques with the first overall pick in the draft. He refused to sign with the team, and was adamant that he’d never do so. There was still some skepticism lingering over whether he’d actually follow through on that threat, but it’s fair to say that he was already a controversial figure by the time the tournament rolled around.

That didn’t stop Keenan from putting him on the team, and the hockey world got their first look at Lindros against NHL-caliber talent. He didn’t disappoint, making an impact early on – literally. He crushed Swedish defenseman Ulf Samuelsson and Czechoslovakian winger Martin Rucinsky with clean hits, knocking both out of the tournament.

Lindros finished the tournament with three goals and five points in eight games, before heading back to junior to make good on his promise to never play for Quebec.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Five more blockbusters that apparently almost happened

The 2016 offseason began with a bang, as two of the biggest trades in recent NHL history went down within minutes of each other on June 29. But since then, apart from the occasional move, the trade talk around the league has gone largely quiet.

Or has it? After all, just because blockbuster deals aren’t being made doesn’t mean they’re not being discussed. Hockey history is filled with monster trades that almost happened and that we only find out about after the fact. We covered five of the biggest near-misses a year ago, with names like Steve Yzerman, Corey Perry, Pavel Datsyuk, and even P.K. Subban and Carey Price (in the same deal). Today, let’s look back at a few more.

But first, the obvious disclaimer. While all of these deals were reported by reasonably trustworthy sources, we’ll never know how close they actually came to happening. When it comes to the “near” in near-miss, mileage may vary.

But with that out of the way, let’s get to the fun stuff. Here are five NHL blockbusters that apparently really did almost happen.

Steven Stamkos to the Rangers

Until the one-for-one trades started flying, Stamkos had been the focus of the 2016 off-season. His stay-or-go decision with the Lightning had dragged on all season, and he was reportedly the top target for several teams if he’d made it to free agency. He’s widely considered one of the best players in hockey. So it’s easy to forget that, at one point early on in his career, Stamkos was viewed as a bit of a bust.

The top pick in the 2008 draft, Stamkos arrived in Tampa with plenty of hype. But he got off to a slow start, scoring just twice in his first 21 games. He struggled under Lightning coach Barry Melrose, at one point seeing as little as six minutes of ice time. He just didn’t look ready for NHL action. And within weeks, according to Larry Brooks of the NY Post, the Lightning had decided to trade him.

The deal was struck with Glen Sather and the Rangers, and according to Brooks would have seen the future all-star sent to New York in exchange for “two or three from a wish list that featured Michael Del Zotto, Evgeny Grachev, Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky and Dan Girardi.”

According to Sather, the deal was done and sealed with a handshake. The problem: That handshake was with Lightning co-owner Len Barrie. When general manager Brian Lawton found out about the discussion, he wanted no part of the deal. Barrie still wanted to go forward, according to the report, but co-owner Oren Koules refused, and the deal died.

Melrose was fired, Stamkos was a 50-goal scorer by his second year in the league, and the rest is history.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Grab Bag: The greatest shot in NHL history

In a special Thursday edition of the Grab Bag:
- Alexander heads to the World Championships, and gets ripped for it
- A look at the puck-over-glass rule
- Three comedy stars
- A Washington Capitals obscure OT hero
- And a classic clip we can only do today, because Blues fans are so happy we can't possibly ruin their day...

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Coaches on the hot seat

It took less than three weeks for the NHL season to claim its first coaching casualty. Yesterday, the Blue Jackets announced they’d fired Todd Richards after a disastrous 0-7-0 start, one that threatens to all but eliminate Columbus from the playoff race before the calendar has even flipped to November.

Richards will be replaced by John Tortorella, which is … interesting. Tortorella has a Cup ring, although you have to go back to the pre-cap era to find it, and he had some success with the Rangers. But he wore out his welcome in New York, and his one-year stint with the Canucks was a disaster. At the very least, his temperamental style could be a tough fit for a dressing room that was already miserable.

So now that the Richards watch is over, who’s next? The reality of life as an NHL coach is that you always seem to be just one bad slump away from hearing whispers about a pink slip with your name on it. It’s not a fun part of the business, but it’s part of the job that these guys sign up for. Here are a half-dozen other coaches whose seats are getting warm.

Claude Julien, Boston Bruins

Why he’s in trouble: The Bruins went into the year as a tough team to figure out. They’re still icing essentially the same core that went to a Cup final just three years ago, so the talent is there for at least a playoff run, if not more. But after a disappointing playoff miss in 2014-15 was followed by a confusing offseason under new GM Don Sweeney, this felt like a team headed in the wrong direction.

So far, the results have been mixed. An 0-3-0 start had the makings of a disaster, but they’ve clawed back to 2-3-1. That’s at least respectable, if not playoff-worthy.

But Julien has bigger problems than the Bruins’ record. He was very nearly fired in the offseason, as the team fired Peter Chiarelli and left the coach’s fate up to the new GM amid rumors that Bruins president Cam Neely wanted him gone. And while Sweeney ultimately spared Julien, it was a decidedly lukewarm vote of confidence, and Julien is still the dreaded “holdover that the new GM didn’t hire.” It may be only a matter of time before Sweeney decides to bring in his own guy, and a skeptic might even suggest that the rookie GM is only keeping Julien around to give himself an extra card to play if the season goes bad.

What could save him: The obvious answer is winning, and that will be the case for every coach on this list. But while Julien will continue to buy time if he keeps the Bruins in the playoff race, it’s possible that even that won’t be enough. If he’s going to be the long-term answer in Boston, Julien will need to make sure he’s on the same page as Neely and Sweeney as far as their vision for the team’s future. Failing that, he’d better take the Bruins on a deep playoff run — and he probably hasn’t been given a good enough roster to make that happen.

How hot is it? 9/10. Sweeney and Neely have said all the right things, but it’s not hard to read between the lines.

Who could replace him: The usual suspects will be mentioned, but here’s a long shot to consider: former Devils coach Adam Oates. He’s a former Bruin and ex-teammate of both Sweeney and Neely (the latter scored 50 goals playing on a line with him). He even thanked both guys in his Hall of Fame speech. Being old pals with someone doesn’t necessarily make you the best candidate for the job, but it’s funny how often it works out that way in the hockey world.

Prediction: Julien hangs on longer than expected, but he gets the pink slip late in the year as the Bruins fall out of the race. Sweeney names an interim coach to close out the season, then chases a big name in the spring.

Bruce Boudreau, Anaheim Ducks

Why he’s in trouble: The Ducks are firmly in win-now mode, and they came into the season looking like they’d do just that, with many of the so-called experts (including me) picking them as Western Conference champs.

But while there was plenty of optimism around the Ducks, it always came with a “but” attached — as in, “but wait until we see what they do in the playoffs.” The Ducks have won three straight division titles, but they have seen each of those years end in a disappointing Game 7 loss. That includes last year’s conference final loss to the Hawks, one in which they blew a 3-2 series lead with a pair of bad losses.

Fair or not, a lot of that disappointment has come to rest at the feet of Boudreau, who had some similarly dominant regular-season teams in Washington that never got over the hump in the playoffs. He’s now firmly saddled with the reputation of a guy who can’t win the big one. Those raps are almost always arbitrary and unfair, and it only takes one successful run to erase them forever. But Boudreau hasn’t had that run yet, and with so many chips already in the middle of the table, the Ducks could be running out of patience.

To make matters worse, the Ducks stumbled out of the gate with an 0-3-1 record, managing just a single goal in the process. That switched the narrative from “Boudreau needs to win in the playoffs” to “Boudreau might not even make it that far.” An impressive win over the Wild on Sunday relieved some pressure, but now the Ducks have a brutal five-game road trip against Central heavyweights.

What could save him: In the short term, a few wins would do the trick. Long-term, Boudreau may need at least a trip to the final to keep his job.

How hot is it? 6/10. Let’s all take a breath. Boudreau has the best regular-season points percentage of any coach with at least 500 games — better than Bowman, Arbour, Quenneville, anyone. Firing him because he’s had some bad luck in Game 7s would be questionable; doing it after a few tough games in October would be madness.

Who could replace him: Speaking of madness, the rumor mill churned out a fun name this week: Randy Carlyle. That would be the same Carlyle the Ducks fired in 2011 to bring in Boudreau. He was last seen presiding over several disastrous Maple Leafs seasons, so he’d seem to be an odd choice for a second stint in Anaheim. And if you’re an analytics fan, replacing Boudreau with Carlyle would seem like utter insanity. But Carlyle is apparently still very well respected around the league, and it’s worth remembering that former Leafs GM Dave Nonis is now a consultant in Anaheim. Could it happen? It would be mind-boggling.

Prediction: If the Ducks fire Boudreau and bring in Carlyle, it ends in disaster. But I think Bob Murray is too smart for that, and that Boudreau gets at least one more playoff run behind the Anaheim bench.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Five weirdly unbreakable NHL records

Hockey fans love records. Whether it’s goals or saves or penalty minutes, we can all recite a handful of league marks and argue over which current star is most likely to break them.

Unfortunately, the shifting nature of the pro game has left many of the league’s most famous records all but out of reach. Nobody’s ever going to get close to Wayne Gretzky’s 2,857 career points, or Teemu Selanne’s 76 goals as a rookie, or Glenn Hall’s 502 complete games. The same can probably be said for Bobby Orr’s +124 rating, and Dave Schultz’s 472 penalty minutes in a season, and any number of other longstanding records that were set in eras when the game was played differently.

But those are the ones that most fans know. Today, let’s dig a little deeper to find five obscure records that are virtually unbreakable, at least anytime soon. You may not have heard of at least a few, but that’s OK. Read on, and they might even win you a few bar bets.

1. Most Goals Scored in One Game (in Which the Player Did Not Play)

It’s a relatively common refrain among hockey fans. “Right up until he scored that goal, I didn’t even notice him out there,” we’ll say about some notoriously enigmatic sniper. “He was invisible. I didn’t even realize he was playing.”

But late in the 2013-14 season, Nathan Horton took it one step further: He managed to get credit for scoring a goal in a game in which he quite literally did not play.

This one ends up being kind of complicated, as the “game” actually spans across two different matchups. On March 10, 2014, the Stars and Blue Jackets met in Dallas. At about 2:44 into the first period, Horton scored to give Columbus a 1-0 lead. Minutes later, the goal was all but forgotten when Stars forward Rich Peverley suffered a cardiac event and collapsed on the bench. Peverley survived, but the disturbing scene led to the game being postponed.

A makeup game was scheduled for one month later. But in the meantime, the NHL had to figure out how to handle the six minutes played in the first game. On the one hand, the league wanted to play a full 60-minute game, since fans were being asked to pay full price for tickets. On the other, it wouldn’t be fair to the Blue Jackets to start over from scratch, since they’d been leading when the original game was postponed.

The compromise: Horton’s goal would count, going into the official box score as being scored at the 0:00 mark of the first period, and the Jackets would start the game with a 1-0 lead.

But in the month between games, Horton was injured and couldn’t play in the rescheduled game. It all led to Horton getting credit for one of the strangest official stat lines in NHL history: no shots on goal taken, 0:00 of ice time, and one goal scored.

(This remained the most confusing and unimaginable accomplishment of Horton’s career right up until the following season, when he was traded for David Clarkson.)

2. Most Consecutive Stanley Cup Final Appearances by an Expansion Team

With the NHL starting down the path to adding teams for the first time in over a decade, it’s worth looking back at how past expansion teams have done. The record isn’t pretty. Some teams, like the Sharks, Senators, and Capitals, were embarrassingly bad for years before finally gaining respectability. Others, like the Ducks and Lightning, were merely below average. And some, like the Thrashers, Scouts, and Golden Seals, never found success in their new homes at all.

And then there were the St. Louis Blues, inarguably the most successful franchise team in the history of the league, if not in all of pro sports. In their very first season, they won their division and went to the final. In the next two, they were even better, appearing in the final twice more. From the moment they stepped foot on the ice, the Blues were the undisputed class of the West Division for three straight years.

That sounds impressive. And it is … just as long as you stop reading right about here.

The NHL’s expansion in 1967 spelled the end of the Original Six era, doubling the size of the league by adding six new franchises, including teams like the Kings, Flyers, Blues, and Penguins that are still around today. That was a good thing. But because this was still the NHL, they had to find a way to make the whole thing completely ridiculous. And that’s exactly what they did by coming up with the brainstorm of putting all six expansion teams in the same division.

That left the league with two divisions: the East, featuring the established six teams, and the West, featuring all of the terrible expansion teams. In that first expansion season in 1967-68, the Flyers finished first in the West with just 73 points, which would have been good for sixth in the East. That imbalance continued through the 1968-69 and 1969-70 seasons, with even the East’s very worst teams finishing ahead of almost everyone in the West.

But the playoff system was based on divisions, guaranteeing both the East and West the same four spots and assuring that each division would send one team to the Final. In each of the first three years, the West’s representative would end up being the Blues, who’d dutifully show up to face one of the East’s powerhouses. Not surprisingly, the Blues got creamed all three years, racking up a combined final record of 0-12.

It wasn’t until another round of expansion in 1971 that the league finally mixed the divisions and restored some competitive balance to the Final. The Blues lost in the first round that year, and they haven’t been back to the final since. At a lifetime 0-12, it’s hard to blame them.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

10 Fact About a Fun Team: The 1995-95 Blues

Ten Facts About a Fun Team is a new feature in which we’ll take a look back at a notable team and season from NHL history. That team may have been good. It may have been bad. But it was definitely interesting, and as such it deserves to be remembered.

When the St. Louis Blues signed Martin Brodeur last week, something about the move seemed vaguely … familiar.

The signing seemed like a curious decision, and one that was somewhat out of character for a Blues front office that’s spent years patiently building a legitimate Cup contender. The last time they tried to get fancy was the Ryan Miller trade and that didn’t work out well, so you figured the Blues would go back to being, well, the Blues.

But there was a time almost two decades ago when this kind of move — bringing in an aging, Hall of Fame–caliber veteran with a big name that he made elsewhere — was pretty much the Blues’ trademark. And during the 1995-96 season, it led to the creation of one of the most fascinating teams we’ve ever seen.

Of course, that year’s team had what we could politely call a “unique” vision at the top of the org chart. We might as well start there.

1. The 1995-96 Blues: From the mind of Mike Keenan

We need to start here, because all the madness that follows springs directly from Iron Mike.

The 1995-96 season was Keenan’s second as the coach and general manager of the Blues. He’d jumped to St. Louis after winning the Stanley Cup with the Rangers in 1994, citing a technicality in his contract and kicking off a debacle that ended up getting him suspended for 60 days. That suspension, and the half-season lockout that followed, prevented Keenan from wreaking too much havoc on the Blues roster.

The next year was different. With a full offseason to play with, Keenan went to work. He traded Brendan Shanahan for Chris Pronger. He signed Grant Fuhr as a free agent. He signed Shayne Corson, too, losing Curtis Joseph to the Oilers as compensation in the process. And a few weeks into the season, he stripped Brett Hull of his captaincy and gave it to Corson.

Hull didn’t especially appreciate that last move, and it set off a feud with Keenan that would be one of the dominant subplots of the season. Hull was the best player in franchise history and would go on to record his seventh consecutive 40-plus-goal season (not counting the lockout year), but Keenan didn’t like the winger’s offense-first style of play. To this day, it’s fair to say Hull is not a fan.

As the season wore on, the crusty coach/GM decided the franchise needed a new face. And so he did what any of us would do: He went out and landed the biggest star the game has ever known.

2. They traded for Wayne Gretzky

Any hockey fan can picture Gretzky’s greatest moments: smashing records and lifting Stanley Cups as a kid in Edmonton; bringing the game to a whole new segment of fans as a slickly marketed star in Los Angeles; taking one last victory lap as a classy veteran in New York. But you could be forgiven for forgetting that The Great One was also, briefly, a St. Louis Blue. Lots of hockey fans have.

With the 1996 trade deadline approaching and Gretzky playing out the final year of his deal on a bad Kings club, it became apparent that Los Angeles could end up moving its captain. The Rangers emerged as the favorite, but couldn’t close. That opened the door for the Blues, and Keenan got the deal done: Gretzky for Craig Johnson, Patrice Tardif, Roman Vopat, and draft picks.

That doesn’t sound like much, and in hindsight it wasn’t. Vopat was the centerpiece, a 19-year-old rookie who’d played 25 games in St. Louis. Johnson and Tardif were both young forwards. Of the group, only Johnson went on to any sort of productive career, although even that was mostly as a depth guy, and none of the players the Kings chose with the draft picks ever played in the NHL.

Keenan might have been a tyrant in the dressing room, but he knew how to win a trade. Gretzky was immediately named captain, relieving Corson of his duties. The idea of the greatest setup man in history being paired with Hull was almost too good to be true. Gretzky even scored in his first game.

And besides, there was little doubt Gretzky would feel right at home in the St. Louis dressing room …

>> Read the full post on Grantland

When captaincies go bad

After months of speculation, the San Jose Sharks finally named their new captain last week: nobody. They won’t have one this year, going with four alternates instead.

That’s going to be a little bit awkward for Joe Thornton, who wore the “C” last year before having it taken away after the Sharks’ painful first-round loss to the Kings, and is still on the roster. And then there’s Patrick Marleau, who was San Jose’s captain for five years until he was stripped back in 2009, and is also still on the roster.

But while the Sharks’ situation was unusual, and probably handled about as poorly as it could have been, it wasn’t unprecedented. In fact, lots of star players have had a “C” taken away over the years,¹ and many times the whole thing has been handled quite amicably.

But “quite amicably” is boring. We want some bad blood. So for today’s history lesson, let’s look back at five cases of NHL captains who lost their “C” under less-than-ideal circumstances. You’re not alone, Joe — and some of these guys had it even worse.

Rick Vaive Hits the Snooze Button

Being the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs during the Harold Ballard era was a tough job. Ballard was essentially every stereotype of a rotten, greedy sports owner brought to life, except worse. He was a miserable crank, not to mention a convicted fraud, and legend has it that he once shut off the Maple Leaf Gardens drinking fountains and cranked up the thermostat on a hot day to force fans to buy soda (on which, it goes without saying, he’d raised the price).

So it was no surprise that Ballard didn’t get along with his captains — or just about anyone, for that matter. In 1979, Ballard and GM Punch Imlach started a feud with Leafs franchise player and captain Darryl Sittler that culminated in the future Hall of Famer slicing the “C” off his own jersey with a pair of scissors. Sittler was eventually given the captaincy back, and wore it for two more years before finally tiring of Ballard’s sideshow for good and requesting a trade.

Vaive took over the Leafs captaincy during the 1981-82 season, the first of a franchise record three straight in which he’d score 50 goals. He held the honor until a Saturday morning in Minnesota in February 1986. Vaive had gone out with former teammate John Anderson for what he called a “late-night bull session” and overslept the next day. He missed a scheduled practice, and Ballard responded by stripping him of the captaincy. He was traded to Chicago a year later.

After the Sittler and Vaive debacles, the Maple Leafs apparently decided that captains were more trouble than they were worth, going without one for three full seasons. That ended with two years of Rob Ramage, which gave way to the beloved Wendel Clark–Doug Gilmour–Mats Sundin era. With Ballard long gone, these days captains are finally treated with some respect in Toronto. (Until the team loses a few games in a row, in which case we ask Sittler if we can borrow his scissors.)

>> Read the full post on Grantland

A brief history of NHL coaches behaving badly

It’s been a rough week for coaches in the world of professional sports. In the NBA, one was fined $50,000 for spilling a drink on the court to get a free timeout. In the NFL, the league is investigating a coach for stepping onto the field and interfering with a play.

By contrast, the NHL hasn’t had to fine any coaches in months [everyone warily eyes Patrick Roy]. Then again, it’s not as if the league can exactly gloat about how well mannered its coaches are. In fact, the league has a long history of meltdowns, tantrums, assaults, and flat-out cheating behind the bench. Here are 10 such notable incidents from NHL history.

Iron Mike Tries to Fight the Timekeeper

So Mike Tomlin might get fined for briefly stepping onto the field? Big deal. In the NHL, coaches charge onto the ice to try to pummel the official timekeeper.

Well, OK, not all coaches. Actually, only one: Mike Keenan, who attempted the feat back in 1990.

Keenan was upset over a disallowed goal, or perhaps simply mesmerized by that red-sweatered fan with the mullet and parachute pants. In either case, I think we can all agree that when Stu Grimson and Eddie Belfour are trying to calm you down, you may have taken things too far.

Jacques Demers: Change We Can Believe In

Littering the playing surface to get a free timeout? Nice idea, Jason Kidd. But as @geoffdes78 reminded me, Jacques Demers beat you to it by roughly 27 years.

Back in the first round of the 1986 playoffs, Demers and his St. Louis Blues were facing Minnesota in a hard-fought series. Three games in, North Stars general manager Lou Nanne leveled a stunning accusation: In each game, Demers had thrown coins onto the ice in an attempt to create a delay and rest his players.

Demers, being a man of unflinching integrity, quickly set the record straight: He’d only done it in one of the games, not three. “I just happened to be an honest person who didn’t deny it,” he told reporters.

That’s a good quote, but not the best line to come out of the incident. That was from Nanne, who said he assumed Demers was throwing pennies because “nickels would cost him too much.”

Demers didn’t end up having to spend any of his nickels on a fine; the league let him off with a warning.

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