Weekend power rankings: Counting down the best and worst from All-Star weekend

I’ll get the spoiler out of the way early: the rankings aren’t changing this week. It wouldn’t make sense since over half of the league’s teams didn’t play at all last week and most of the ones that did only had one game. There just wasn’t much meaningful NHL action to pay attention to.

Instead, all eyes were on All-Star weekend. With that in mind, let’s offer up a special All-Star themed top and bottom five from St. Louis before we get to the week’s regular rankings.

The good

5. The “Shooting Stars” contest, in theory: I’m constantly criticizing the NHL for being too conservative and afraid to try new things, so I have to give them credit for at least giving this a shot. These types of Dude Perfect-style trick shots are huge with young fans, and there was the potential for some fun viral moments. No risk, no reward, so here’s to the league for giving it a try.

4. All those Blues cameos: It was cool to see Wayne Gretzky and Bernie Federko, the Brett Hull appearance was well done, and I was even on board with the Al MacInnis thing. Does anyone believe that a 50-something retiree taking half a windup with a wooden stick could hit 101.4 on a radar gun that wasn’t even turned on? Of course not. (And how funny was it when they forgot to turn them back on for Seth Jones?) But we can embrace a little kayfabe on that one, and it was fun to see all these old faces. The only piece missing was Mike Keenan showing up and trading everyone.

3. Matthew Tkachuk: He was a local story, he kind of backchecked once or twice, he tried some crazy moves and just seemed to be enjoying himself. And the running subplot with him and Leon Draisaitl was fun too.

I gotta say, it is extremely satisfying that they’re not chumming it up. https://t.co/yDAYR6wGe9

— Justin Bourne (@jtbourne) January 26, 2020

2. The women’s 3-on-3: It was an important moment, giving fans (especially young girls) a chance to see some of the best women on the planet in a showcase game. But even beyond that, it was just good hockey, with the players going hard and generating plenty of chances while the goalies kept the score from getting silly. And more importantly, they reminded us that it is possible to take the ice on All-Star weekend and try.

1. Laila: You rock, kid. And you’re a better announcer than half the full-time guys.

ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR LAILA ANDERSON. 👏👏👏

Awesome, awesome, AWESOME job! 💙 #NHLAllStar pic.twitter.com/7atGtvnVVe

— NHL (@NHL) January 26, 2020

Honorable mentions: Blues fans trying to figure out what to do with Patrick Kane, Dom going 9-0, Alex Letang, Quinn Hughes, the Tomas Hertl/Justin Bieber thing that at least tried to be funny, all the mascot stuff except for this, a final that was close down to the end and even looked vaguely competitive for a shift or two.

The bad

5. The “Shooting Stars” contest, in execution: Way too complicated, way too many targets and too many cases of players seeming to hit the 10-pointer only to find out that it didn’t count for reasons that were never explained. The fact that players got together and decided not to bother trying for the best scores didn’t help. There’s something here worth keeping, so here’s hoping the league finds a way to make this work better and tries again next year.

4. Mic’d up goalies: We try this every year, and it never, ever works. This time around, we had Jacob Markstrom ignoring (or not hearing) the questions, then dropping an f-bomb on live TV. The player interviews between events are always awkward enough, let’s not push our luck with the goalies.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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What happens when one team has two elite defensemen?

The Erik Karlsson watch continues. After rumours swirled all weekend that a deal to send Karlsson to Tampa was imminent, we’ve made it into the week without a trade. The Lightning still seem like the frontrunner, but for now, nothing is official.

That’s good news for everyone who isn’t a Lightning fan, because it means there’s still a chance that the two-time Norris winner won’t end up playing on the same team as this year’s recipient – Victor Hedman — and maybe even on the same pairing. That’s vaguely terrifying for the rest of the league, since we’re told that defence wins championships and the Lightning would have two of the very best in the league.

That kind of star power sharing the same blue line is rare, but not unheard of. So today, let’s run through some of the times over the past 30 years or so that one team could run out a pair of Hall of Fame defencemen. Note that we’re talking about a pair here, not necessarily a pairing – in most cases, these players weren’t used on the same unit, and we don’t know whether Karlsson and Hedman would be. But even if they’re deployed separately, having two Norris-caliber defencemen gives a coach all sorts of opportunity to dominate matchups.

It also virtually guarantees a Stanley Cup… most of the time. As we’ll see, there are no sure things in the NHL, although having an all-star blue line comes awfully close.

Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer, Anaheim Ducks

There’s a good chance that when you saw the subject for this post, this is the first pair that came to mind. They land right in that sweet spot where they’re recent enough that everyone remembers them, but long enough ago that we can start to build a mythology around them.

In the case of the Ducks, the mythology goes something like this: Anaheim was a good team coming out of the lockout, and they became a very good one when they signed Niedermayer as a free agent in 2005. But it was the acquisition of Pronger in 2006, thanks to some aggressive maneuvering by GM Brian Burke, that gave Anaheim one of the greatest pair of blueliners in modern NHL history, and they rolled to the Stanley Cup the very next year.

Most of that mythology is pretty much true, although it leaves out a few details, like Pronger forcing his way out of Edmonton and Niedermayer choosing the Ducks at least partly because he could play with his brother.

Those minor details aside, it’s hard to deny how overpowering the pair were. Randy Carlyle often used them on the same unit; other times he’d split them up and basically play the entire game with a Norris winner on the ice. During Anaheim’s Cup run, both players averaged roughly 30 minutes a game, miles ahead of any other Ducks.

When you think of a potential Karlsson/Hedman combo, this is the scenario you’re dreaming of if you’re a Lightning fan and dreading if you’re anyone else. But the story ending with a Cup parade isn’t quite inevitable, as Pronger himself can remind us…

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Defensemen don't win the Hart

Brent Burns is on fire. The Sharks' defenseman is enjoying one of the best goal-scoring seasons by a blueliner in recent memory while leading his team to first place in the Pacific. He's emerged as the runaway favorite for the Norris Trophy. And now, he's even starting to get some Hart Trophy buzz.

He almost certainly won't win – this year's MVP vote has been shaping up as the first of many Sidney Crosby vs. Connor McDavid referendums. Barring an injury or something entirely unexpected, that won't change. It's Crosby vs. McDavid, and everyone else is gunning for third place.

But third place would still be a historic achievement for Burns. A defenseman hasn't been a serious Hart Trophy candidate since 2000, when Chris Pronger won. For whatever reason, blueliners just don't get much respect from Hart voters. Pronger remains the only defenseman to win MVP honors since Bobby Orr in the early 70s, and nobody since 2000 has even finished as a finalist.

That's kind of weird when you think about it. Ask any NHL GM about how to build a championship contender, and they'll rave about the importance of a blueline stud. But when it comes to naming the league's most valuable player, the entire position ends up being an afterthought at best.

So even if Burns won't win, just being in the conversation is impressive. As we watch his record-breaking season unfold, let's look back at the five defensemen who came closest to cracking the Hart Trophy puzzle in the years since Pronger took the trophy home.

(All award vote data via hockey-reference.com.)

Nicklas Lidstrom

No surprise here. Lidstrom was the runner-up to Pronger for the Norris Trophy as best defenseman in 2000, then dominated the voting for that award for most of the next decade, winning seven times.

What's somewhat surprising is that Lidstrom never came especially close to contending for a Hart Trophy, and he was only the top vote-getter among blueliners four times. In two of his Norris-winning years (2003 and 2011), MVP voters showed more love to someone else at the position. And one time, in 2002, nobody cast so much as a single Hart ballot for any defensemen at all.

Lidstrom's closest call to finalist status came in 2008, when he finished fourth. It wasn't an especially near miss – Lidstrom finished well back of Evgeni Malkin and Jarome Iginla, neither of whom were close to threatening Alex Ovechkin's near-unanimous win. But Lidstrom did receive two first-place votes, tied for the most since Pronger's 25, and that fourth-place finish remains the only time since Pronger's win that a defenseman has even finished in the top five.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

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What if the NHL gave out two of every award like MLB?

It’s awards week in Major League Baseball. The sport doesn’t handle their honours the way hockey does; there’s no cheesy Vegas ceremony, with B-list celebrities and awkward acceptance speeches. Instead, we just get a series of announcements throughout the week, with each day bringing new winners.

That’s winners, plural, which is the other key difference from the NHL. Baseball gives out separate awards to both the American and National Leagues, meaning that twice as many players get to win an MVP, Cy Young, or Rookie of the Year every season.

That seems like a small difference, but it’s really not. Post-season awards (or a lack thereof) can change our entire perception of a player’s legacy, so baseball having twice as many as other sports is a big deal. It’s why Alex Rodriquez and Albert Pujols can both claim to be three-time MVPs – voters didn’t have to choose between them in 2005, when they both won. Instead of voters having to choose between Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson at their peak, they could just both win the Cy Young. Same with Bryce Harper and Mike Trout for the Rookie of the Year in 2012.

Baseball has its reasons for handling awards that way. But what if the NHL did the same? How would hockey history look different if the sport gave out awards to the top vote-getter in each conference?

We'll never know for sure, but we can dig into the voting history (via hockey-reference.com) to figure out which players might have more hardware on their shelves in an alternate universe where hockey had decided to follow baseball's lead. For sake of argument, we'll assume that the leading vote-getter from each conference would have won. That's probably not entirely true, since voters would have been looking at their ballots differently, but it gives us a guide.

So how does hockey history look different if we split the awards based on conference? Nothing changes until the Original Six era ends in 1967, of course, but then things start to get weird.

The Calder

For obvious reasons, this is the one award that doesn't produce any multiple-time winners. But we do get to add "Rookie of the Year" to the resumes of a long list of players, including current names like Shayne Gostisbehere, Johnny Gaudreau, Logan Couture and Dion Phaneuf. A few of today's most-respected veterans pick up some extra hardware as well, including Marian Hossa (1999), Jarome Iginla (1997), and the technically still-active Pavel Datsyuk (2002).

Digging a little deeper, a few of today's borderline Hall of Fame cases would get some help, as Mark Recchi (1990) and Paul Kariya (1995) both earn Calders. So do a few players who are already enshrined at the Hall, like Phil Housley (1983) and Steve Yzerman (1984).

Some team histories start to look different, too. In the real world, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander are all trying to become the first Maple Leaf to win a Calder Trophy since Brit Selby in 1966. But split the award by conference and the Leafs add two more wins – Wendel Clark in 1985 and Mike Palmateer in 1977.

And we even get to honour a current coach and GM, as Darryl Sutter (1981) and Ron Hextall (1987) earn trophies. That news would surely put a smile on their faces, if either of them were capable of that.

But with all due respect to our various new Calder winners, things don't start to get truly strange until we move on to some of the other awards.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

A look back at the superstar careers cut short by the last NHL lockout

How YOU doin'? Oh, right, I knocked you unconscious.

As the lockout continues to drag on, some pessimistic fans have already started wondering which players may not return if the 2012-13 season is cancelled. If the NHL and NHLPA can't figure out a way to make a deal and save the season, we may have seen the last of popular veterans like Teemu Selanne, Martin Brodeur, and Daniel Alfredsson.

Hockey fans have been through this before. When the 2004-05 season was cancelled, it cost fans the chance to see one more year from several hockey legends. Here's a look back at some of star players whose careers were cut short the last time the NHL scrapped an entire season.

Adam Oates - Retired after the lockout but attempted a brief comeback in 2009, we assume, since that's the only logical way to explain a guy with 1,400 career points not making the Hall of Fame until this year.

Al MacInnis - Decided to use some downtime during the last lockout to try out his slapshot with one of those fancy modern superfelx sticks, at which point he was immediately kidnapped by government scientists who used him to power the Large Hadron Collider.

Ron Francis - Was so well-respected during his long career with the Whalers, Penguins and Hurricanes that some fans paid tribute to him upon retirement by creating bizarre Photoshops of him wearing a Maple Leafs uniform for some reason.

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Nine lives: A look at the playoff bubble teams

Last week we took a look at the eight teams that had established themselves as the presumptive Stanley Cup favorites. But while it's always fun to look ahead to who'll be left standing after four rounds, some teams have more immediate concerns. As the season winds down, it appears that we have nine teams fighting for the four final playoff spots.

The Western Conference features six teams fighting for three spots, including the third seed that will go to whoever wins the turtle derby in the Pacific Division. And in the East, we're essentially looking at three teams fighting for the eighth and final spot.

So which four teams will find a way to claim the final spots and sneak into the post-season, and which five will fall just short? Here's a look at the teams that find themselves on the playoff bubble in the season's final weeks.

Calgary Flames

Reason for optimism: Junior sensation Sven Baertschi could potentially return to the roster if a veteran player happened to be injured, if the over-sized anvil dangling from a frayed rope over Lee Stempniak's locker is any indication.
Possible bad sign: They'd be overwhelming underdogs in a first-round matchup with the St. Louis Blues, at least if you believe that old hockey adage that "When in doubt, always pick the team that actually retired Al MacInnis's number instead of just honouring it".

Washington Capitals

Reason for optimism: As the current eighth seed will have to find a way to make sure that an opponent doesn't sneak up and get them from behind, meaning they've finally found a subject where they can learn something from Dale Hunter.
Possible bad sign: Alexander Ovechkin has admitted that while he initially didn't mind hearing Jets fans chant "Crosby's better" at him on Saturday, it did kind of hurt when we found out afterwards that the Crosby they were referring to was Bing.

Phoenix Coyotes

Reason for optimism: Ownership is so confident in the team's chances that they've already got a detailed parade route hanging in the board room at team headquarters.
Possible bad sign: Well, we're assuming it was a parade route, although come to think of it maybe it was kind of odd that it starts in Glendale and winds up in Seattle.

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