After 50 years and no Cups, whose fans have had it worse: Sabres or Canucks?

One of my favorite movie characters is Count Rugen from The Princess Bride. He’s the creepy bad guy who’s trying to write the definitive work on the subject of pain. He’s fascinated by how much can be endured, and just how bad it can get. The sports fan side of me kind of gets where he’s coming from. Misery is interesting to me.

I’m also a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. These two facts may be related.

With three decades of Maple Leafs pain under my belt, I’m getting close to self-appointed expert status on the subject. But these days, there isn’t a ton of Leafs-related agony to be found. Toronto is leading the North division, and has a shot at the first Presidents’ Trophy in franchise history. They’ve been mostly… what’s the word for it? The one that’s the opposite of bad. It will come to me eventually, I’m a little rusty here.

But while my own team might be pain-deprived these days, at least temporarily, there’s still plenty to go around. And it’s possible that no two teams have experienced worse than the Vancouver Canucks and Buffalo Sabres.

The two franchises are forever linked, expansion cousins who entered the league together in 1970 and have been experiencing the ups and downs of NHL existence ever since. Both have come agonizingly close to Stanley Cups without ever winning one. Both have seen stars come and go. They’ve both made some, uh, questionable fashion choices.

And right now, both teams are terrible. Despite the season opening with significant optimism in Vancouver and at least a little in Buffalo, both teams are already all but out of the playoff hunt. And last Friday, on what was for both franchises their 18,721st day of existence, the two teams that started together found themselves arriving in the exact same spot at the same moment: With a GM facing the media, offering answers and asking forgiveness for a season going down the drain.

Players are frustrated. Jobs are in jeopardy. Vultures are circling. And fans are miserable.

But which fan base is most miserable? And which one should be?

Like my pal Count Rugen, I had a deep and abiding interest in finding out. But I couldn’t do it on my own, because true NHL misery is the sort of thing you need to see up close to really understand. So I asked two of our beat writers, John Vogl of the Sabres and Thomas Drance of the Canucks, to help me understand. I came up with ten categories of NHL suffering, and asked Vogl and Drance to make the case that their fan base has it worst.

Remember, this is for posterity, so be honest. Sabres fans, Canucks fans… how do you feel?

Stanley Cup final scars

Let’s start with the big one. Both teams have had near-misses but no championships. Whose close call(s) hurt most?

Vogl’s case for the Sabres

It’s June 1999. With more than 20,000 fans gathered at the foot of City Hall, Lindy Ruff steps to the microphone with the final two words of the season.

“No goal!”

Those words still echo around town. Brett Hull put his skate in the crease and can’t show his face in Buffalo. His controversial triple-overtime goal in Game 6 ended the Cup final but merely started the misery. Sabres fans will forever believe they were cheated. Making it worse is Hull, Mike Modano and other Stars were so injured they might not have skated in a Game 7, giving Dominik Hasek and Company a real chance to celebrate.

Drance’s case for the Canucks

If you think Stanley Cup Final pain is your ally in a misery duel with Vancouver Canucks fans, you’re wrong. Canucks fans were born in the darkness.

Fun fact: no franchise in NHL history that hasn’t previously won a Stanley Cup has ever lost in the Stanley Cup Final more than twice. Except the Canucks.

Fun fact #2: No franchise in NHL history that hasn’t previously won a Stanley Cup has ever lost in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Except the Canucks. And the Canucks have done that twice. Twice!

Sean says: This one really comes down to what type of pain hurts worse. The Canucks have come closer to the Cup, getting within one win in both 1994 and 2011. But the Sabres have that single defining play that they can probably still see when they close their eyes at night. This one’s too close to call, and also I’m already sad. This may have been a bad idea.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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The Athletic Hockey Show: When stars get benched

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Zach Parise becomes the latest star to get benched
- Was this the right time for Dean Evason to play it tough?
- We both agree on the worst benching of all-time
- The Habs fire a coach during a game; did Carey Price know?
- The timing of a potential Jack Eichel trade
- The Leafs are running away with the North
- This week in history, featuring the night that Teemu's record-breaker was only the second best highlight
- Listener questions and lots 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)

Which surviving playoff teams should Canadian fans root for?

It’s​ another year without​ a Stanley​ Cup​ for​ Canada but​ at​ least the​ hockey gods didn’t​ toy with us​ for​ too long this​​ time. Four of the country’s seven teams didn’t make the playoffs at all and the three that did all made first-round exits. When the Maple Leafs are your longest surviving team, it hasn’t been a great year.

And if we’re being honest, most Canadian fans are probably fine with that. The whole national Cup drought thing has always been the sort of narrative that seems to be more important to the media than to most of the fans. Let’s face it, most of the country’s fans don’t want to see any Canadian team other than their own win a Cup. When our team is out, we don’t jump on the bandwagon of the Leafs or Jets or whoever. We want everyone else in the country to be miserable too.

But now everyone is miserable and we’ve still got three rounds to get through. And that’s had some fans wondering what comes next:

Would love to see a guide from @DownGoesBrown for which remaining team Canadians should adopt for the rest of the playoffs.

— Dan Greenberg (@dmgreenberg340) April 24, 2019

That’s a great question. We’ve already done the annual guide for bandwagon-hopping, but that was a league-wide initiative. Today, we’re looking for the best remaining bandwagon for fans of each Canadian team. We’ll consider a few factors, like rivalries and history, hometown players on the roster and any popular former figures who might show up in another team’s story.

And since Canadian fans don’t do unity, let’s make sure that each fan base gets a team of its own, with no duplicates. We’ll go through all seven teams, starting with the easiest pairing we’re going to find …

Ottawa Senators

The Senators give us a couple of obvious options to consider. The first is in Columbus, which is writing the kind of underdog success story that Ottawa will be shooting for over the next few years. More importantly, they’re doing it with a pair of former Sens in Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel. Granted, there may be some mixed feelings towards Duchene given how his tenure in Ottawa played out. But if he’s happy in Columbus, he’s more likely to re-sign there, which would deliver another first-round pick to the Senators. That makes the Blue Jackets a decent choice.

But there’s an even better one and it’s one of Pierre Dorion’s other key trading partners. That would be San Jose, where former captain Erik Karlsson is chasing the Cup he never managed to bring to Ottawa. Karlsson remains universally beloved among Senator fans, so it shouldn’t be tough to convince them to cheer him on. Let’s face it, most of them already are.

Mix in Logan Couture being a former 67s star and we’re all set. And if you’re a Sens fan who still somehow needs just a little extra incentive, remember that Ottawa can get the Sharks’ 2021 first-round pick if they make the final.

That covers Ottawa and it takes the Sharks off the board. That’s the easiest pick we’re going to able to find, but let’s see if we can pair up a few more Canadian fans with a temporary team that makes sense.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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When teams trade away top-five picks

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

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

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

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

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

A word about arbitrary endpoints

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

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

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

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

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

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

1984 – Montreal and Hartford

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

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

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

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

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

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

1987 – Bruins and Canucks

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

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

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

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

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

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

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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

Grab Bag: The offer sheet that won't happen, but should

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Offer sheets are usually a waste of time. But this year, one specific one wouldn't be.
- Something that's been bugging me for years about how penalties are announced
- An obscure player who made played in three Olympics for Team Canada
- The week's three comedy stars, featuring an NHL vs NFL matchup that goes about as well as you would expect
- And we travel back to 1990 for some blooper tape fun in the weekly YouTube breakdown

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

When playoff streaks end

The Red Wings’ playoff streak is in serious danger. At 24 consecutive seasons and counting, the Wings’ stretch of post-season appearances is the longest active streak in the big four North American pro sports leagues. But for the third year in a row, the Red Wings will have to go down to the wire to keep it alive, fending off a late challenge by the Philadelphia Flyers that threatens to finally snap the streak.

There’s an argument to be made that the Wings’ streak is the most impressive in NHL history, given the size of the league and the relentless push toward parity. But it’s not the only such streak the league has seen, or even the longest. Five other NHL teams have had playoff streaks longer than 20 consecutive seasons.

Let’s take a look back at those five teams, and how their streaks eventually ended.

1969-70 Montreal Canadiens

The streak: From 1949 to 1969, a 21-year span that included ten Stanley Cup championships.

How it ended: After winning four Cups in five years, including the 1969 title, the Habs finished the 1969-70 season with a 38-22-16 record. That left them tied with the Rangers for the final spot, leading to a wild and controversial final day of the season in which New York passed the Canadiens amid accusations of the Red Wings tanking to knock out Montreal.

What went wrong: The NHL couldn’t figure out how divisions should work in a post-expansion world.

That seems glib, but it’s hard to argue. The 1969-70 Canadiens finished the season with 92 points in 76 games. That was the fifth best record in the 12-team NHL. But it was also the fifth best record in the East Division, the one the league had put all the established Original Six teams into while giving the six expansion teams their own division. Because each division sent four teams to the playoffs, that left the 92-point Canadiens watching from home as teams like the 64-point Penguins, 60-point North Stars and 58-point Seals punched their tickets to the post-season.

The good news: The league finally began moving away from the ridiculous all-expansion division format after adding two more teams in 1970. The Canadiens immediately returned to the playoffs, won the Stanley Cup, and started a new streak.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Grab bag: Snubbed Leafs, benched stars, and the Rangers take over the ad world

In this week's Grab Bag:
- The snubbing of the Toronto Maple Leafs
- When stars get benched
- Comedy stars, featuring D-Boss and a bunny
- Introducing the concept of prebuilding
- And the New York Rangers show Madison Avenue how to do commercials right

>> Read the full post at Vice.com

Grab bag: Puppies, PEDs, Cam Newton, and when the all-star game was actually fun

In the Friday grab bag:
- Does the NHL have a PED problem?
- A modest proposal for this whole "free puppy" trend
- A look at the life and times of Cam Newton
- This week's comedy stars
- And a Classic YouTube Breakdown of a long-ago time when the all-star game was actually fun

>> Read the full post at Vice.com

Johansen for Jones, and the lost art of the one-for-one trade

On Wednesday, the Blue Jackets traded Ryan Johansen to the Predators for Seth Jones. The move was remarkable in a few different ways. For one, it was a trade – apparently, we still have those – and a blockbuster at that. It was also a good old-fashioned hockey deal, one inspired not by the salary cap or a trade demand or a tanking team's desire to bottom out, but two GMs simply getting together and betting that they could make their teams better by swapping assets.

But there was another unusual element of the move: It was a one-for-one trade. And it turns out that those are fairly rare creatures in the NHL.

I know this, because I thought "Hey, I should write a post about some of the great one-for-one deals in NHL history", and then found out that there weren't anywhere near as many as I remembered. It turns out that lots of trades that you may recall as one-for-one actually had some spare change thrown in on one or both sides. Savard for Chelios? Nope, that one included a draft pick. Nieuwendyk for Iginla? Don't forget Corey Millen. Heatley for Hossa? Greg de Vries. Turgeon for LaFontaine? Yeah, that one actually had like 14 pieces to it. Come to think of it, I may be the only one who thought that was a one-for-one. My bad.

But the point remains: True one-for-one deals don't happen often, which is all the more reason to love Johansen-for-Jones. But there have been a few, and I came up with ten of the most memorable. Please note that this isn't meant to be a definitive list, since due to recent events my research department currently consists of a magic eight ball I made myself by dropping a 20-sided die into an empty whiskey bottle. If I missed your favorite, please know that I did my best to… wait, you already skipped the intro, scanned the list, and went to Twitter to call me an idiot, didn’t you? Cool, cool.

For the rest of you, here are ten of the more interesting one-for-one trades from NHL history.

July 27, 1995 – Hartford trades Chris Pronger to St. Louis for Brendan Shanahan

This is probably the biggest one-for-one trade in NHL history, not to mention the best comparison for Johansen-for-Jones. It's also the one that might keep David Poile awake at night for the next few year, because it's the classic example of why you never want to give up on a young stud defenseman too early, no matter how rich the return.

That's not to say the deal was a bust for the Whalers. Just like the Predators, they got a first-line forward in his prime, and this one went on to become a Hall-of-Famer. But while Shanahan was very good, Pronger developed into an absolute beast, and remains the only defenseman to win the MVP since Bobby Orr. That's probably a little too high to set our targets for Jones, but it's a vivid illustration of the worst case scenario when you move a blueliner before you really know what you have.

(And no, the fact that Shanahan lasted just one full season in Hartford before demanding a trade probably doesn't help. And the whole franchise relocation thing that followed. Listen, Predators fans, let's just forget I ever mentioned any of this.)

June 23, 2012 – Toronto trades Luke Schenn to Philadelphia for James van Riemsdyk

This may have been the last true one-for-one NHL blockbuster before this week, although it doesn't look anywhere near as big as it once did. In 2012, Schenn was still considered a solid enough young defenseman with upside, and not the borderline depth guy he looks like today. In the years since, this deal looked like an absolute steal for Toronto as van Riemsdyk developed into a solid scorer. He seems to have settled into a 25-30 goal guy, which won't get him on many all-star teams, but isn't bad.

But still – Toronto won a trade! I don't get to write those words very often. I'm in a good mood now, let's see what's next on our list.

June 24, 2006 – Toronto trades Tuukka Rask to Boston for Andrew Raycroft

Dammit.

You know what? No. I'm still not ready to talk about this one. Let's just move on to some other team's terrible trade to make me feel better.

Read the rest of this post...

Grantland: A visual guide to four decades of Bruins/Penguins hatred

The Bruins and Penguins are three games into their conference finals matchup, and the series has already produced its share of bad blood. We’ve seen Matt Cooke ejected for hitting Andrew McQuaid from behind, a fight between Evgeni Malkin and Patrice Bergeron, and Sidney Crosby going nose-to-chest with Zdeno Chara. And that was just Game 1. As the series continues, it’s become clear that these two teams just don’t seem to like each other.

The animosity doesn’t come as much of a surprise, given which teams we're talking about. And we don’t just mean this year — Boston and Pittsburgh have a history that goes back decades, and it has featured some memorably nasty moments.

Here’s a visual guide to the history of the Penguins and Bruins hating each other.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

A brief history of the Conference Finals

Ever the sportsman, Chara decided he wouldn't hit the
guy until he’d given him a chance to stand up.

The Conference Finals are underway, and so far they haven't exactly been the most entertaining. The Penguins and Bruins may be headed for a sweep, and the Hawks and Kings have so far served up a predictable series of home team wins. While there's still time for some excitement, so far the two series haven't served up much.

That's unfortunate, and it's also at least somewhat rare. Over the years the Conference Finals have often proven to be the most interesting round of the NHL playoffs, and have featured some of hockey's most enduring moments.

Let's take a look back through the NHL history book at some memorable Conference Finals matchups.

1979 - Don Cherry's Bruins take a too-many-men penalty during game seven against the Habs, which must be some sort of call that they've since taken out of the rulebook according to current Penguins players who are pretty sure the Bruins have been using an extra guy this entire series.

1989 - Ron Hextall earns a 12-game suspension after charging from his net and viciously attacking Montreal's Chris Chelios. Or, as an entire generation of Philadelphia sports fans will grow to refer to it, "the most sensible thing a Flyers goalie has ever done in my lifetime".

1993 - While it's normal to want to celebrate taking a 3-2 series lead with a little bit of music, the Maple Leafs will later regret asking Wayne Gretzky if they could borrow that piano he's been carrying around on his back.

2000 - Scott Stevens cements his status as the league's hardest hitter on a devastating open ice check on Eric Lindros, and by "status" we mean "shoulder pad" and by "cements" we mean "fills with actual cement".

Read the rest of this post...

Grantland: Eight Great NHL Trade Breakouts

If you’re an NHL general manager pulling the trigger on a trade, there are a few ways the move can blow up in your face. Maybe the star player you get back has nothing left. Maybe the deal messes up your team chemistry. Maybe somebody gets hurt. Maybe your owner panics and forces you to overpay.

Or every once in a while, maybe you get what has to be a GM’s worst nightmare: when an established player you’ve traded away suddenly takes his game to the next level.

We’re not talking about the long shot prospect who develops into a star down the road. We mean the guy you had on your roster and thought you knew pretty well, who almost immediately transforms into one of the league’s elite players. Suddenly, a deal that might look defensible or even downright smart at the time it's made ends up haunting a franchise for a generation.

Here are eight deals that saw teams give up on a player who turned out to be a year or less away from making the leap to superstardom...

>> Read the full post at Grantland

A Jets fan's guide to how the NHL has changed since 1996

Of course back then, you just held
down the "neutral zone trap" button
until the game ended 0-0.

The Jets have apparently been cleared for take off. While nobody can seem to agree on exactly when the formal announcement will take place, it's all but certain that NHL hockey will be returning to Winnipeg next season when the Atlanta Thrashers move north.

No matter what you think about the viability of hockey in Atlanta, you have to be happy for long-suffering Winnipeg hockey fans. They never gave up on the NHL, even after the devastation of losing their beloved Jets at the end of the 1995-96 season. Fifteen long years later, their loyalty is about to be rewarded.

But while Winnipeg hockey fans have every reason to be excited, they may be in for a shock. After all, the NHL is a very different league today than it was the last time the Jets were on the ice. Winnipeg fans are in for a major adjustment.

I want to help. So as a service to Winnipeg-based readers, here's a handy guide to the various ways the league has changed since the last time you pulled on your Jets jersey and went to a game.

1996 - The Atlanta Thrashers don't exist yet.
2011 - The Atlanta Thrashers don't exist any more.

1996 - Claude Lemieux earns the contempt of the entire hockey world after driving Kris Draper face first into the boards during the Western Conference Finals.
2011 - Since the play didn't involve a leaping elbow to the head or somebody eating a metal stanchion, it would probably result in Lemieux winning the Lady Byng.

1996 - Goaltender Grant Fuhr sets a new league record by playing in a total of 79 games.
2011 - Goaltender Rick DiPietro sets a new personal record by playing for a total of 79 minutes.

Read the rest of this post...

Other NHL superstars who wound up in the doghouse

The press box is way up there, huh?

After dominating headlines during the offseason, Ilya Kovalchuk was back in the news over the weekend. In a shocking move, rookie Devils' coach John MacLean made his $100 million winger a healthy scratch for the team's game against the Sabres.

The move has been debated heavily in recent days, with many observers questioning the strategy's effectiveness. General manager Lou Lamoriello has offered his support for MacLean's decision, although he refused to say whether he'd consider a similar move next week once he's head coach.

But while Kovalchuk may be the highest paid healthy scratch of all-time, he's far from the first elite player to be singled out by management. Below are a few examples of other NHL superstars who found themselves in their team's doghouse at some point in their careers.

January, 1996 - In an effort to get him to take on more of a leadership role, Bruins head coach Steve Kasper humiliates Cam Neely by benching him during a nationally televised game. To his credit, Neely responds positively the very next day by delivering a moving eulogy at the funeral of Steve Kasper.

March, 1998 - Canucks coach Mike Keenan calls captain Mark Messier into his office to explain that, while the league's policy on gambling may be open to interpretation, he still needs to stop constantly trying to bet his teammates that they can't eat just one.

January, 2004 - Enraged by Jason Spezza's inability to adhere to his defensive system, Jacques Martin is quickly restrained by his assistants after briefly displaying a facial expression.

February, 2009 - After becoming upset that his team isn't listening to him in practice, Mike Babcock's attempt at sarcasm fails when the team responds to his taunt of "maybe you all need to turn up your hearing aids" by agreeing that that's a pretty good idea and turning up their hearing aids.

December, 1987 - After chewing out franchise player Wayne Gretzky during a practice, Oilers' coach Glen Sather is accused by local media of doing the dumbest thing he could possibly do. He immediately vows to spend the rest of his managerial career proving them wrong.

January, 2006 - Penguins coach Michel Therrien grows frustrated when star player Mario Lemieux repeatedly responds to criticism by saying "Hey, good point, maybe you should call up the owner and let him know."

March, 1993 - Pat Burns shows that he doesn't play favourites when he briefly removes a slumping Doug Gilmour from the team's first line, although Gilmour does remain on the second, third, and fourth lines, both power play units, and the penalty kill.

September, 2010 - Outraged by his off-ice behaviour, Edmonton Oiler management informs a devastated Nikolai Khabibulin that effective immediately he will be forced to be their starting goaltender.

April, 1988 - Tired of his young franchise player's constant complaints about the quality of the roster, Red Wings general manager Jim Devellano angrily informs Steve Yzerman that being an NHL general manager isn't easy since it's not like other teams just call up and offer you star players for nothing.

July, 1995 - In an effort to "send a message" to the rest of the team, you briefly demote Jeremy Roenick from the first line during a game of NHL 95 even though it makes your big brother call you a spaz while punching you in the shoulder.

October, 2010 - The Islanders attempts to emulate the Devils by scratching their highest paid player prove fruitless when they are unable to figure out how to bench Alexei Yashin's buyout.

December, 1995 - In a strong statement that still resonates to this day, the Montreal Canadiens make it clear to Patrick Roy that the franchise will simply not tolerate championship-calibre goaltending.

Boston Bruins excuses

Everyone agreed his Marc Savard
impression was bang-on.

The Boston Bruins' recent loss to the Flyers has earned them a special place in history. By blowing a 3-0 lead in both the series and the decisive game seven, the Bruins have laid a legitimate claim to the title of the NHL's all-time greatest collapse -- and maybe even in all of sports.

What went wrong? Plenty, as it turns out. And since there's no question that devastated Bruins fans deserve an explanation, I set out to determine what happened. After several days of in-depth interviews with Bruins players and staff, I think I have a pretty good handle on why the Bruins fell apart the way they did.

And to be honest, after compiling this list I'm not sure I can blame them.

• Probably shouldn't have believed Daniel Carcillo when he swore to us that conference semifinal series were best-of-five.
  
  
• We were hoping to draw energy from home crowd, but instead they spent the entire game sitting in silence waiting for Bill Simmons to tell them what to chant.
  
  
• Were getting tired of seeing lazy media and bloggers refer to every blown second-period lead as an "epic collapse"; wanted to remind everyone what that phrase really means.
  
  
• Tricky Flyers play totally different indoors.
  
  
• Just weren't able to shut down opposition scorers during the four minutes a night that Zdeno Chara isn't on the ice.
  
  
• Some fans from Buffalo coughed on us in round one; may have picked up that "inevitable devastating soul-crushing defeat" virus that everyone in that city seems to have.
  
  
• Claude Julien would like to someday pursue a career in television, and blowing a game seven with an inexcusable too-many-men penalty seems to be a great way to do that.
  
  
• Didn't know how best to attack Flyers net, thanks to lazy scouts who only filed reports on the top ten goalies on the depth chart.
  
  
• Figured we could get away with it, since Boston sports fans aren't the type of people who would witness a a 3-0 series comeback and then go on and on about it non-stop for years until everyone else in the sports world wanted to set them on fire.
  
  
• It's probably wishful thinking, but can't help but wonder if having some sort of dynamic 22-year-old sniper on the first line would have come in handy.
  
  
• Younger players were distracted by the excitement of seeing Sea Bass from "Dumb and Dumber" wandering around the pressbox.
  
  
• Yeah, like you'd want to be anywhere near Montreal these days.
  
  
• Every time coach Julien tried to give a firey speech about how the Bruins franchise demands excellence from all players at all times, everyone would get distracted by Tim Thomas sitting at the back of the room noisily eating a bag of $100 bills.
  
  
• In hindsight, the "What Would Lebron Do?" bracelets may have been a mistake.
  

Your Christmas shopping guide to Maple Leafs collectibles

Christmas is just a week away, and you know what that means: Mats Sundin has almost finished picking out a Valentine's gift for his wife. But for the rest of us, it's time to get shopping.

Luckily, Leaf fans are easy to buy for. After all, pretty much every product imaginable has had a Maple Leaf slapped on it at some point. But why not go the extra mile for that special Leaf fan in your life? Why not get them a rare collectible that they'll cherish forever?

To help get you thinking creatively, here's my personal list of my Most Wanted Maple Leaf memorabilia. These are the gifts I'm hoping to find under my tree this year.

Deserted island up front,
party out back

An authentic Al Iafrate helmet - Just so I can have something to wear at all times once I eventually start going bald.

I'd also be interested in other Iafrate collectibles, such as the stick he used to set the slapshot record, a game-used pack of cigarettes, and one of Gary Leeman's old condom wrappers.

The paperwork from the agreed-on but never consummated Vincent Lecavlier trade - Apparently the Leafs were ready to fax in the paperwork when the Lightning ownership called the deal off. What happened to it? They couldn't have just thrown it out. Somebody must have it in a file folder somewhere in an office at MLSE.

I think I would have it framed in an impressive glass case, which I would smash my head through every morning on my way out the door.

A game-worn Jason Blake jersey - It's just like all the other game-worn jerseys, except without the sweat stains.

Andrew Raycroft's glove - I'd nail it to my garage door, and drive my car through it every day.

Marty McSorley's eyeball from Game One of the Kings series - Somebody must have it, since it flew into the stands at the Gardens about three seconds into this fight. If you worked at MLG as an usher and once found a human eyeball with a knuckle-sized divot in it, call me.

Speaking of Wendel memorabilia, I would also accept Curtis Joseph's disintegrated mask, Cam Neely's dignity, or the corpse of Bruce Bell.

I'd nail one pad to either side of
my garage and then drive...
wait, did I do that one already?

Allan Bester game-worn goalie pads - My infant daughter would look adorable in them.

An officially licensed Mats Sundin weathervane - I could set it up outside and watch it flip back and forth whenever the wind changed. It would also be fun to watch all the journalists crowd around it to breathlessly report on its every move even though it never actually went anywhere.

A vial of water from Luke Schenn's water bottle - Just in case anyone I know is ever diagnosed with leprosy.

A John Kordic #27 jersey - Then I would go to an autograph show and ask Frank Mahovlich or Darryl Sittler to sign it, just to see how they reacted.

The pen that JFJ used to sign contracts with - I think it would be fun to have around, just for those moments when somebody needed to sign something that was going to turn out to be a terrible mistake.

Want to take out a sub-prime mortgage? Borrow my pen! Signing auto industry bailout legislation? Borrow my pen! Hey man, you're getting married? That's great, let me sign the guestbook...

Damien Cox's laptop keyboard - It's in pretty good shape, it's just that the 1, 9, 6 and 7 keys are worn out.

Brian Papineau, in one of his
dryer moments

The water bottle that Brian Papineau went crazy with after the Borschevsky goal - I don't even have a joke here. I'd pay hundreds of dollars for this. Then I'd fill it up with water, carry it with me at all-times, and then spray it all over every time something even remotely positive happened in my life. Winning pro-line tickets, moderately positive work reviews, daughter makes it through bath time without pooping in the tub... water bottle spray!

A Leafs series-winning goal puck from a Toronto/Ottawa series - Wait, scratch that. Collectibles are only valuable if they're rare.

And finally, the one Leafs collectable I would value above any other...

The stick that Wayne Gretzky high-sticked Doug Gilmour with - I would easily pay $1,000 for this. I mean, I wouldn't even hesitate at that price -- that money would be out of my daughter's RESP and into the hands of some shady e-bay collector within seconds. And I think I'd be willing to go much higher (remember, I'm the guy who once paid $50 just to deface Gretzky's hockey-reference.com page).

The big question would be, what to do with it? Do you display something like that in your basement? Destroy it in some sort of ceremony? Set it on fire to see if the choking black smoke formed into a giant Habs logo?

I think the first thing I'd do would be to get the stick autographed by Wayne Gretzky, then immediately write a confession directly above the signature. And by the way, if you think I wouldn't have that stick in a CSI lab for conclusive blood samples within hours, you don't know me well enough.

I think I might end up taking it to Kerry Fraser's house and using it smash out the windshields of his car, just so I could see him peer out of his window with a confused look on his face, unable to determine what was happening before looking around for some linesmen to throw under the bus.

What about you guys? What's on your most-wanted list?

Wendel Moment #11 - Clark vs. Neely

On November 22, Wendel Clark's #17 will be raised to the rafters as the team honours its former captain and arguably the most popular player in franchise history.

In the lead up to that night, Down Goes Brown will feature a countdown of Wendel's Top 17 Greatest Moments.

When I was a kid growing up, there were three hypothetical fights that everyone debated endlessly even though we knew they could never actually happen:

• Batman vs. Superman
  
• Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan
  
• Wendel Clark vs. Cam Neely

Remember a few months ago when they turned on the Large Hadron Collider and some people were genuinely worried that it could cause the universe to implode onto itself? That's what people thought might happen if Clark and Neely ever fought.

Cam Neely, of course, was a monster badass. He spent most of his career throwing crushing bodychecks, scoring whenever he wanted to, and destroying anyone foolish enough to drop the gloves with him. He was completely unstoppable.

In short, he was a poor man's Wendel Clark.

If Clark and Neely ever did meet, the theory went, the resulting fight would include so much pent-up awesomeness that it would blind anyone who looked directly at it, kill anyone on the ice at the time, and probably last until the earth was swallowed by the sun.

Or, you know, it could be a two punch fight that ended with Neely turtling for the first and only time in his career. One or the other.

Wendel Clark just kicked your ass, Seabass!