Elias Pettersson, Philipp Grubauer, and the rest of the NHL’s first month all-disappointment team

We’re well into the second month of the season, and it’s time to stay positive by talking about all the players having terrible seasons.

OK, that sounds weird. Picking 20 players from around the league and labelling them as early-season busts doesn’t sound especially positive, after all. But its not all bad, for two reasons. First, as we already highlighted a few weeks ago, bad starts by good players will often turn out to be meaningless, the sort of thing that all balances out by the end of a season. And maybe more importantly, it’s worth remembering that your favorite team isn’t the only one with underachievers. Almost every team has a few guys who aren’t living up to expectations; that’s just life in the NHL. We’re all in this together.

So today, we’re going to build a full roster of early-season letdowns. Twelve forwards, six defensemen and two goalies, with a max of one player per team so that it’s not all Canucks we maximize the positivity. Then we’ll shower them in good vibes for their inevitable turnaround. You’re going to do that part, right? Of course you are. The power of positive thinking!

On to the roster, where we’ll build from the net out.

Goaltenders

Philipp Grubauer, Kraken — You never really got the feeling that Grubauer was part of the Kraken plan as they assembled their first roster. We all kind of assumed he’d end up back in Colorado, even after he officially hit the UFA market. When that didn’t happen, Seattle swooped in and made the deal, seemingly setting up an excellent pairing with Grubauer and Chris Driedger. Instead, both guys have been mediocre at best, leaving Seattle with almost $10 million worth of not-great goaltending, and one eye on a Grubauer contract that runs through 2027.

it’s unfair to the kraken that goalies exist, IMO

— Sean Gentille (@seangentille) November 15, 2021

Linus Ullmark., Bruins — When Ullmark signed a surprising four-year, $20-million deal to become Boston’s new starter, he was positioned to be the long-term replacement for Tuukka Rask. A month in, he seems to have already lost the starting job to Jeremy Swayman, at least temporarily, and his numbers are barely so-so. Look, Rask never actually said that he wasn’t coming back for sure, right?

First pair

Jakob Chychrun, Coyotes — One thing you heard a lot heading into the season is that the Coyotes would be awful, but at least Chychrun would be good. So far, both predictions have turned out to be too optimistic. Arizona has been worse than awful, and Chychrun has just one goal on the year after scoring 30 over the last two seasons. That part won’t last — he’s still generating shots, and he’s not going to shoot 2 percent forever — but the year has been a worrying step back for a guy who seemed headed towards the Norris conversation.

Alex Pietrangelo, Golden Knights — This one is debatable. No, literally — we saw Jesse and Dom battle it out between the pro-Pietrangelo and anti-Pietrangelo sides. That was from the first week of November, and he’s had three multi-point game since then, so maybe the ledger is tipping. Still, when a Cup favorite is paying a guy nearly $9 million to carry the blueline, “debatable” probably isn’t what you’re hoping for.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Muzzin vs. Tkachuk

In this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Ian and I try to figure out what just happened in Pittsburgh
- My thoughts on Muzzin vs. Tkachuk
- The NFL has a marquee fin al matchup, why are they so rare in the NHL?
- Could any NHL team be a feel-good Buffalo Bills story everyone roots for?
- Granger Things checks in with betting talk
- This week in history, listener questions 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)

Weekend power rankings: It’s time to start getting excited about the trade deadline

Trades are the best.

I mean, not for the players, who have to pack up on short notice and move to new cities, severing friendships and disrupting family lives. And not for the GMs, some of whom are going to make a mistake that ultimately gets them fired over the next few weeks.

But for fans? Yeah, for us, trades are the best.

We all know the song-and-dance that goes on in the NHL. You can’t make trades after free agency, because everybody likes their roster. And you can’t make them in training camp, because everybody’s healthy. And you can’t make them early in the season, because we can’t overreact to a few weeks. And you can’t make them in the middle of the season, because the salary cap makes that too hard even though it doesn’t.

But the trade deadline? Yes, you can make trades at the deadline. It can be done. So get to wheeling and dealing, boys. Let’s see some moves.

Granted, we’re still three weeks away from deadline day, and in a typical year, we might be getting ahead of ourselves. But the trend in recent seasons has been away from the do-it-all-on-one-day approach, and more toward spreading out the action over the days and weeks before. That’s not good if you’re a TV producer with a 10-hour deadline day show to fill, but it works for the rest of us. And we’ve already seen two fairly big deals in the last week, so it’s possible that the deadline crunch is already here.

The first of those deals came on Monday, with the Leafs adding Jake Muzzin from the Kings. The Penguins and Panthers got into the act over the weekend, with Pittsburgh landing Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann in exchange for Derick Brassard, Riley Sheahan and three picks. That one was really the best kind of pre-deadline deal, in that it gave us plenty to talk about without actually taking a big name out of play since the Panthers are expected to flip Brassard again in the coming weeks.

We’ve still got plenty of big names on the board, including perhaps the biggest we’ve seen out there at deadline time in years. Artemi Panarin sure sounds like he’s going to be moved, even if there are arguments to be made that the Blue Jackets should keep him. Columbus has lost five straight and are in danger of falling out of a wild-card spot, so the situation there is getting to the critical stage. Patiently waiting three more weeks to see how everything shakes out may not be an option.

The Senators aren’t under quite the same pressure, but their decisions over the next few weeks will be just as important. There’s still no extensions in place for Mark Stone or Matt Duchene, or even really all that much buzz that they’re close. The latest word is that it may be trending towards both players being traded, which makes the Senators one of the key teams to watch.

We’re all still waiting for the Rangers to start making moves, with the Jets apparently a leading contender for Kevin Hayes. The Kings still have Jeff Carter and Alec Martinez. The Flyers will move Wayne Simmonds, if and when they stop winning every game they play. Micheal Ferland has becomes this year’s annual “guy that everyone is treating as a superstar so you just kind of go with it even though you didn’t think he was that good” deadline name. The Blackhawks might be open to moving Duncan Keith. And then there’s Jimmy Howard, Dougie Hamilton, Jay Bouwmeester and whatever hijinks the Oilers might get up to.

Not all of those guys will get moved, but it’s shaping up to be a fun few weeks. And now that it’s February, we can stop treating the deadline like some far-off destination and start talking about it in the present tense. It’s here. Or at least, it’s close enough. Let’s get crazy.

Road to the Cup

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

Good news, hockey fans: We’ve made it past the bye weeks. Group high-five.

This was the first year that the NHL grouped everyone’s byes into the two weeks surrounding the all-star game. It resulted in huge chunks of the league being off at the same time, but it made a certain amount of sense. And it had the advantage of making it easier to ensure that we wouldn’t get those matchups where one team is coming off of their bye while the other has already been back in action.

Except that, well, it didn’t do that after all. Almost half the league still got those type of matchups. That seems odd and is further evidence that none of us will ever understand how the NHL schedule works.

5. Nashville Predators (31-19-4, +27 true goals differential*) – Their next five are against the Coyotes, Stars, the Blues twice and then the Red Wings. Arizona’s playing well and they lost to Dallas just a few days ago, but that’s a stretch where a team like the Predators should pick up some serious points. If they can’t, we might be getting close to the point where we can call the race in the Central.

4. San Jose Sharks (30-16-7, +24) – Brent Burns scored a nifty OT winner on Saturday to help the Sharks keep pace with/gain ground on the Flames. But the bigger news in the Pacific these days is the Knights, who’ve lost four straight. We spent the last month watching these three teams pull away from the pack, and wondering which one would blink first. Now we know, and the question becomes whether the Knights get an opportunity to regain that ground, or whether we pencil them in for third spot and a road opener in the playoffs.

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A brief history of the Maple Leafs trading for defensemen

The Maple Leafs pulled off a major trade on Monday, acquiring Jake Muzzin from the Kings for a first-round pick and two prospects. For the most part, early reactions were positive for Toronto and the deal undeniably makes them better in the short term.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the move will work out in the long run. That’s the funny thing about trades; you can never be quite sure how they’ll be viewed in hindsight. That can be especially true when you’re dealing for help on the blueline, where finding the right fit for the right player can be tricky even if the price tag makes sense.

Luckily, the Leafs have plenty of experience in this area. Today, let’s crack open the history books and look back on the last 30 years of the Toronto Maple Leafs trading for blueline help. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list of each and every defenceman the team has acquired during that span (as much as I’m looking forward to all the comments along the lines of “Ummm, no Gord Kruppke?”), but we’ll cover off most of the bigger names.

Some of these moves worked. Some of them didn’t. Some of them were just confusing. And someday down the road, we’ll be able to look back and know which category the Muzzin deal belongs in.

The blockbusters

“Blockbuster” is admittedly subjective, and there may be other deals on this list that you’d argue belong in this category. But in the modern history of Leafs’ blueline deals, these three stand out. And maybe somewhat surprisingly, from a Leafs’ perspective, they mostly hold up well in hindsight.

The trade: On January 31, 2010, the Leafs sent Matt Stajan, Niklas Hagman, Ian White and Jamal Mayers to Calgary for Dion Phaneuf, Fredrik Sjostrom and Keith Aulie.

The situation: This was the first full season of the Brian Burke era and it was not going well. With the Leafs near the bottom of the league and without their own first-round pick, Burke pulled off a seven-player swap with the Flames that was built around Phaneuf, a 24-year-old who was less than two years removed from being the Norris Trophy runner-up.

The verdict: At the time, the consensus was that the Leafs had pulled off a robbery. In hindsight, not so much, as Phaneuf never lived up to the franchise-savior hype that greeted him in Toronto. Still, he was the Leafs’ captain and top defenceman for most of the next seven years and none of the players they gave up for him amounted to major losses. This trade still looks like a win on balance, even if it never came close to matching expectations.

The trade: On March 3, 2004, the Leafs acquired Brian Leetch and a fourth-round pick from the Rangers for prospects Maxim Kondratiev and Jarkko Immonen, plus a first and a second.

The situation: This was John Ferguson Jr.’s first major trade as Leafs GM and it was an all-in move at the deadline. The 2003-04 Leafs were very good and very old and with the lockout looming they represented what looked like the last chance to win a Cup during the Pat Quinn era. With his window open for a big move, Ferguson went out and landed the biggest name available in the 36-year-old Leetch.

The verdict: Leetch debuted with a three-assist night and instantly looked like the team’s best blueliner. But the Leafs didn’t win the Cup that year, falling in the second round to the Flyers. And while Leetch had a year left on his contract, it was wiped out by the lockout, so this became an expensive short-term rental. Still, none of the picks or prospects amounted to much of anything, so it’s best viewed as a smart gamble that just didn’t pay off.

The trade: On November 10, 1990, the Leafs sent forwards Ed Olczyk and Mark Osborne to the Jets for Paul Fenton and Dave Ellett.

The situation: This was the Leafs hitting the detonate button on a disastrous start to the season. A year after generating some optimism with a .500 finish, the Leafs were a 2-15-1 laughingstock when they pulled the trigger on a four-player blockbuster.

The verdict: Ellett didn’t come cheap, as Olczyk had been the Leafs best forward during his three seasons in Toronto and had only just turned 24. But while he’d play well in Winnipeg and for another decade around the NHL, the deal still worked out well enough for the Leafs as Ellett became their top blueliner for most of the next seven years and was a key piece of the Fletcher/Burns/Gilmour-era resurgence.

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Grab bag: What your Stanley Cup pick says about you

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- What your pick to win the Stanley Cup says about you
- An appreciation of the Muzzin Spot
- An obscure player who did what Connor McDavid and Alexander Ovechkin did this week
- The week's three comedy stars teach us that math is hard
- And our YouTube clip helps us get caught up on all the big offseason moves... from 1986.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Weekend report: The calm before the storm

We're just hours away from the puck dropping on the Stanley Cup Final. We've made it through the long offseason, and the useless preseason, and the only slightly less useless regular season. We've made it past three rounds of the postseason, most of which were hard-fought and entertaining. We've run through all the storylines, made our predictions and clichéd our way through media day. Now it's time to settle this thing on the ice.

The matchup between the Penguins and Sharks (which we broke down in detail in yesterday's preview) is a good one. It doesn't bring much in the way of history, and after a few years of the league lucking into having at least one giant TV market in every final, this one may not draw the sort of numbers it deserves. But it will be fun. And if you're a neutral fan, one whose team is already long gone, that's all you can ask for.

I mean, if you can't get excited for a final that pits Joe Thornton against Phil Kessel, then I don't know what to tell you. Over the years, those two have become the poster boys for hockey's growing obsession with the "just can't win with him" narrative, constantly hammered for being the sort of player that wilts in the big moment no matter what the numbers actually say. Now they're both here, both playing great, and one of them is a few days away from a skate with the Stanley Cup. Will that be the moment that finally kills the narrative off? Of course not. But it will shut up it up, if only for a moment or two, and we'll all be thankful for it.

Get ready for hot takes if the next trophy Crosby raises isn't the Cup. –Photo by Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

This is also a matchup between two captains who couldn't have taken more different paths to this moment. Sidney Crosby has been the chosen one since his early teens in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia—the kid who was tagged as the next Gretzky or Lemieux before he could get a driver's license. And for the most part he's lived up to it, establishing himself as the best player of a generation. But he'll be facing the playoffs' leading goal-scorer in Joe Pavelski, a seventh-round pick who was too small and couldn't skate.

It's a matchup between two goaltenders who'd never started a playoff game before this year. San Jose's Martin Jones is in his third NHL season, the first two spent as a little-used backup. And he's the experienced one in this series, facing a kid named Matt Murray who's trying to turn his Steve Penney story into a Ken Dryden one.

It's the blessed franchise that always seems to have the next big thing fall into its lap vs. the cursed one with the history of heartbreak. It's two coaches who've both been on the job for less than a year. It's Malkin vs Marleau, Letang vs. Burns, and Metallica vs. D-Generation X.

And maybe most importantly of all, it's a matchup between two teams that aren't afraid to show off a bit of speed and skill and personality and yes, even fun. It really is still possible to win that way in today's game, even in an era where scoring stagnates and everyone seems to want to look and play the same. We're constantly told that the NHL is a copycat league; with these two teams in the final, we should probably hope it's true.

It's going to be fun. If we're lucky, it will be fun for seven games. As a fan, that's just about all you can ask for.

Top Five

Celebrating those who've had the best week.

5. World Cup rosters—Friday was the deadline for the eight World Cup teams to fill out their rosters for this September's tournament. And, of course, that means that hockey fans get to play our favorite game: Find The Snub. There were plenty to choose from.

Team USA didn't pick Phil Kessel or Kevin Shattenkirk. Team Sweden made some perplexing blueline choices, including leaving John Klingberg off the roster. Team North America (i.e. The Young Guns) didn't invite Alexander Galchenyuk. And as always, Team Canada left the most talent at home, as you'd expect given that it had the most to choose from. But some of those names are still surprises, including Corey Perry, Taylor Hall, Kris Letang and P.K. Subban.

The stacked Canadians will always have snubs, but it was still surprising to see this guy left off the roster. –Photo by Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Those last two are especially perplexing, since Team Canada found room for Jake Muzzin, a reasonably good defenseman who's certainly never been considered a Norris contender. But there's a reason for that, as we'll see in the next section.

4. Handedness—Which side did Bobby Orr play? Paul Coffey? Ray Bourque? There's a good chance you're not sure, or at least had to think about it for a minute. Because for a long time, hockey fans never worried about which side a defenseman played, or which hand he shot with. They were just defensemen, two on the ice at a time, and dividing them up any further seemed unnecessary.

But in recent years, the distinction between left-handed defensemen and right-handed defensemen has become almost as important as that between left and right wingers. And at some point, Team Canada decided that splitting the blueline between left and right shots was absolutely crucial. It's why it found a spot for Muzzin, who shoots left, but not Subban or Letang, who shoot right. Team Canada is not alone; any roster discussions around NHL teams these days always seems to touch on who shoots from where.

If you feel like a defenseman's handedness was something we went from never mentioning to obsessing over, well, you're not wrong. One study indicates that this has only really been a concern for NHL teams over the last few years. Many trace its rise to Mike Babcock, who makes it a point of emphasis for any roster he fills out, including in his gold medal-winning stints with Team Canada. Chalk it up as just one more evolution of the game.

Still, it seems odd to think that a balance between lefties and righties would be enough to make up for the gap in talent between Muzzin and Letang or Subban, especially since defensemen used to be expected to be able to switch sides as easily as centers switch over to the wing for these tournaments. Team Canada has smart people running the show, and if it wins gold, then none of this will matter. But if not, Muzzin will join the club with guys like Rob Zamuner and Lyle Odelein as odd picks on teams that didn't get it done.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports