Making the HHOF case against Pekka Rinne, P.K. Subban and even Alexander Mogilny

The Hockey Hall of Fame will welcome seven new members this weekend, including three players from the men’s side. That’s one fewer than the committee is allowed to induct, meaning they didn’t run out of room; they just decided that some of the bigger names weren’t worthy.

Good.  The Hall is supposed to be tough to get into, and we should be slamming the door on some of the names that just don’t deserve a spot.

At least, that’s the angle we’re taking today. I’m not necessarily a Small Hall guy, and I’ve spent plenty of time over the years making the cases for various stars. But I think there’s value in trying the other side sometimes, if only to force the supporters of certain stars to sharpen their arguments. So today, I’m going to make the case against 10 names that could be front and center when the HHOF committee holds their next meeting.

We tried this a while ago, with a list 15 players. That was two years’ worth of inductions ago, and four names from that piece have got the call: Mike Vernon and Tom Barrasso in 2023, then Jeremy Roenick and Pierre Turgeon this year. Apparently my other 11 arguments were just more convincing.

We won’t be doing any repeats this time around, so check that older post if you want to see my case against names like Rod Brind’Amour, Patrik Elias, Ryan Miller or anyone else you're expecting to see today but don't. This time, the group of 10 will be made up of some names that I left off last time, as well as a few new that are new to the mix. I won’t bother with a few players I think are easy slam dunks, including Zdeno Chara, Joe Thornton and Patrice Bergeron, and we’re not tackling anyone who isn’t eligible until 2027 or beyond, including anyone who's still active.

That still leaves us with plenty of names to consider, including several who’d probably have my vote. Here’s why none of them should make it – just for argument’s sake.

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Puck Soup: Kane, Klingberg, Rask, and the debut of Gordle

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- More Evander Kane drama, and why the NHLPA needs to fight this
- We try to figure out which team might give him another chance
- The John Klingberg trade watch has arrived
- We get into just how bad this Coyotes rebuild could get
- Running down the various weird Atlantic goalie situations, including Tuukka Rask
- Plus Marc Bergevin, Bob Saget, and the debut of a new game called Gordle

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

The Athletic Hockey Show: Tuukka Rask's brain cramp, Ron Hextall becomes Penguins GM, drama in Columbus and more

In this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Tuukka Rask forgets the score
- What's the NHL's all time worst in-game brain cramp?
- Ron Hextall and Brian Burke arrive in Pittsburgh
- What should the Penguins do with Evgeni Malkin?
- More drama in Columbus
- Granger Things on the teams that are consistently landing one side of the over/under lines
- Remembering a record-breaking night for Theo Fleury and the Flames - 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)

Puck Soup: Who is this guy playing for?

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We break down what the NHLPA got right and wrong in their player poll
- Our thoughts on The Athletic's Top 100 sports movie ranking
- How this year's draft might work
- Zdeno Chara overshares about Tuukka Rask
- A new quiz called "Who is this guy playing for?"
- And more...

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Building a roster of all-time Maple Leaf trade regrets

With a few days to go until the trade deadline, Kyle Dubas and the Maple Leafs still haven’t pulled off their big move. Or maybe they have, and Jack Campbell was it. But most of the fan base seems to be expecting something bigger, preferably a top-four defenseman. And while Dubas doesn’t have much in the way of picks to work with, he could surely work a blockbuster using guys off of the current roster, or from the prospect pipeline. Do it Kyle! Swing for the fences!

Just one thing: Do not under any circumstances trade away somebody we’re all going to regret losing.

That’s the tricky part of making trades. Fans love the short-term adrenaline rush of seeing a big deal cross the wire. But something has to go the other way, and that will often be a player or two or more. And sometimes, those players can turn out to be pretty good.

That’s where the regret comes in, along with that sense of disbelief that anyone ever thought it would be a good idea to give up that guy in the first place. It’s a feeling that Maple Leaf fans know well.

How well? How about well enough to fill out a full roster, which is what we’re going to do today. Just in case there were any Leaf fans out there with a little bit of hope and optimism still clinging to this rollercoaster of a season, let’s wring that right out with a full 20-man roster of guys that the Leafs probably wish they hadn’t traded away.

A few quick ground rules. First, we’re only worried about what the player did over the course of his career after being traded away by the Leafs. We’re looking at trades only, not guys lost to free agency or waivers or various drafts. And finally, we’re only considering players, not draft picks.

That last one is important because it removes a few names you might be expecting to see. Scott Niedermayer was never Maple Leafs’ property. Neither were Tyler Seguin or Roberto Luongo, or John Gibson or Roman Josi, or any number of good players who were drafted with picks that teams acquired from Toronto. The Leafs have certainly had a bad habit of trading high picks over the years, and it almost always works out great for the team on the other side. But trading a pick isn’t the same as trading a player, and you never know who your team might have taken if they’d stayed in that spot. While it costs us some star power, we’re going to stick to players who actually belonged to the Leafs.

The good news is that we still have plenty of candidates to choose from. And by good news, I mean let’s all hold hands and feel sad together. We’ll build this team the way all those Dubas critics insist on, from the net out …

Goaltenders

Bernie Parent

The trade: Parent bounced around a bit early in his career, going from the Bruins to the Flyers to the Leafs before flirting with the WHA. That led to the Leafs sending his rights back to Philadelphia in 1973.

What he did once he left: Parent returned to the NHL for the 1973-74 season and immediately won the Vezina, Conn Smythe and Stanley Cup. Then he did it all again the next year. He was inducted into the Hall-of-Fame in 1984.

But it’s OK because the Leafs got: The 10th overall pick in the 1973 draft, which they used on Bob Neely. He played five NHL seasons and scored 36 career goals as a Leaf.

Tuukka Rask

The trade: Heading into the 2006 offseason, Maple Leafs GM John Ferguson Jr. found himself with two can’t miss goaltending prospects, but nobody to hold down the starting job at the NHL level. He kept Justin Pogge and sent Rask to the Bruins.

What he did once he left: Rask is in his 11th season in Boston, most of those as a starter. He’s won a Vezina, is closing in on the 300-win club and was part of a Cup winner in 2011.

But it’s OK because the Leafs got: Andrew Raycroft, in a straight-up deal. He lasted one season as the starter in Toronto, leading the league in goals against and then lost his job to Vesa Toskala. That may be the most depressing sentence I’ve ever written.

But remember, the Leafs also got to keep Pogge, who played (checks notes) seven NHL games. A lot of people forget that part.

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Grab Bag: Why Paul Fenton was fired, the uniform number controversy and a 1979 helping of Puck Soup

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Paul Fenton was fired after just one year and my spies found out why
- Thoughts on players taking famous numbers
- The comedy stars return
- An obscure player who was once traded straight-up for Fenton
- And a YouTube look back at a very weird piece of 1979 hockey comedy

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Seven reasons why the Blues are definitely winning tonight (and also seven why the Bruins are)

We’re hours away from the first Game 7 of a Stanley Cup final in eight years. Are you pumped? I’m a little pumped. This is going to be fun.

So who’s going to win? I have no idea. Really, none at all. I could pretend that I do, but anyone who’s been following my predictions so far won’t be buying it for a second. And can you blame me? The 2019 playoffs have been total chaos. Anyone who tells you that they’ve got it all figured out now, with one game to go, is full of it. I’m not even going to try, because I’ve been trying to predict Game 7s for decades now and I’ve only ever been right once.

So no, I’m not going to be right. But could I get you to settle for half-right? I can come up with seven reasons why the Bruins are definitely going to win Game 7. I can also come up with seven more why the Blues are an absolute lock. If you’re an optimist, pick the team you like best and only read their entries. If you prefer feeling sick heading into a big game, only read the other team. Read all of them, and come away feeling just as confused as when you started. Or just wait until tomorrow, read the entries of the team that won, and then head to the comments to call me a genius.

Your call. There are no wrong answers here. Well, there are – seven out of 14, to be exact. But that’s a better batting average than I normally have, so let’s get to them.

The Bruins will win because: The first line is finally waking up.

The Patrice Bergeron/Brad Marchand/David Pastrnak line – and no, we’re not calling them the Perfection Line, knock that off – has been hit-and-miss for a lot of the postseason. They were broken up against Toronto, reunited, and certainly had their moments. But they never really rolled for long stretches the way we’ve seen in the past. It’s a credit to the rest of the Bruins forwards that they had the depth to keep winning in spite of their top line struggling.

For most of the final, it’s been the same story, with Brayden Schenn’s line winning the matchup. The Bergeron line’s struggles have been so noticeable that there’s been plenty of speculation that some or all of them may be playing through serious injuries.

But on Sunday, for the first time in the series, the Bergeron line looked dominant, while Schenn’s looked outclassed. That’s just about the best news you could get as a Bruins fan. Maybe they’ve made an adjustment, or maybe they’re healthy again, or maybe they’re just heating up. You don’t really care about the why right now. You just know that if the top line can dominate, every other matchup falls into place really nicely.

The Blues will win because: The stats tell us that Jordan Binnington can’t lose in this situation.

We’ve heard about it all postseason. Overall, Binnington’s playoff numbers aren’t all that great, and he’s had a few games in this series alone where he’s looked very ordinary. But after a loss, he gains some sort of weird superpowers where he becomes unbeatable.

In the playoffs, he’s 7-2 with a 1.83 GAA after a loss, which plays into the narrative that the kid has ice in his veins. And it is a narrative to some extent – every goalie who makes it deep into the playoffs has a good record after a loss, because the ones that don’t get eliminated early. But sometimes even a narrative can have value as long as everyone believes it. Under normal circumstances, a team heading into Game 7 with a young goalie who just got shelled in Game 6 might be worried. The Blues don’t have to be.

The Bruins will win because: The stats also tell us that Tuukka Rask can’t lose in this situation.

Wait, did you say Binnington is a 1.83 GAA in these types of games? Rask has that beat.

Tuukka Rask in an elimination game this postseason: 3-0, 1.33 GAA, .953 save pct (82 saves, 86 shots). Four goals allowed in 179.81 minutes.

— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) June 10, 2019

Can both goalies be unbeatable in the same game? Huh. We may be here a while.

But while we’re on the subject of goaltending, let’s point out that Rask has been the better of the two, both in the series and in the playoffs. I’m not sure I’m willing to give him the Conn Smythe even in a losing cause, but there’s a case to be made. He’s been that good. The Blues have already survived having one goaltender stand on his head in a Game 7 against them, but I don’t like their odds if it happens again.

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Grab Bag: Remembering history’s second most awkward Gary Bettman Cup handoff

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- OK, fine, I'm on board with letting coaches challenge anything they want -- on one condition.
- Debating NHL playoff game broadcasts
- An obscure player who went to John Cena's high school
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube look back at Gary Bettman trying to present the Cup in front of a very hostile crowd

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Grab Bag: Not another replay review

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Oh god we have to talk about expanded replay again don't we?
- The best way to react to a waved-off goal
- The week's three comedy stars introduce a new culinary term
- An obscure player who committed mid-game murder
- And a look back at the immediate aftermath of the craziest brawl in NHL history

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Celebrating Halloween with the all-scary-start team

It’s​ Halloween, so it’s​ time​ to​ think​ of​ something​ scary. You​ could go with​ zombies or vampires​ or​ werewolves, but that’s​​ amateur hour. Let’s get really frightening. How about some big-name hockey stars who came into the year with high expectations but are off to disappointing starts?

OK, maybe my version of scary is different than yours. And some of these guys shouldn’t worry us too much. After all, there’s still five months to go, and even the scariest horror story usually wraps up with some sort of happy ending. But for now, let’s get into the Halloween spirit by putting together a full roster of scary starts and attempt to figure out which players should have us huddled in genuine fear.

Like a parent rationing out Halloween candy, we’ll limit our picks to one player per team so that nobody hogs all the good stuff. (Looking at you, kid dressed up as a King.) Also, with 21 roster sports available, some teams won’t be represented. If that’s your team, assume they’re either doing really well, or were already expected to be bad enough that failure doesn’t even rank as disappointment. It’s either a mortal insult or a compliment, you get to choose.

On to the house of early-season horrors …

---

Forwards

The player: Patrik Laine, Jets

The start: Through 12 games, Laine is stuck at just three goals and five points. He’s been held pointless in his last five, and has only had one multi-point game on the season, which came on opening night. Even more concerning, his assist in that first game remains his only even-strength point all year.

Odds it ends well: Very good. The key thing you look for when a goal-scorer is slumping is his shot volume – if that’s dropping, there’s reason for concern. But Laine is actually outdoing his career average when it comes to getting pucks on net. Consistency is an issue for Laine — like it is for most young players — and this early slump could ultimately cost him the Rocket Richard Trophy we all had him penciled in for. But this still feels like more of a percentage thing that will even out over time.

Paul Maurice comes to defence of Patrik Laine, who has just one even-strength point so far:

“He’s 20. He’s going to keep getting better.”

Something you need to see more of?

“Not more. We need him to continue. He’s 20 & just learning the game.”https://t.co/QdJMIugC71

— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) October 27, 2018

The player: Steven Stamkos, Lightning

The start: While the Lightning have been winning, Stamkos is out of the gate with just two goals through eleven games.

Odds it ends well: His shots-per-game are steady with last year, although that was down from his career average. Stamkos is 28, and in today’s NHL that might mean his peak is already behind him; he’s looked more like a 30-goal guy over his last few full seasons more than the 50+ sniper we still think of him as.

All that said, let’s not oversell this like we did when we all decided Alexander Ovechkin was done a few years ago just because his coaches were making him play backup goalie. Besides, if the Lightning are already this good without their captain chipping in at his normal rate, maybe the story here is how scary they might be when everyone is rolling.

The player: Anze Kopitar, Kings

The start: Last year’s Hart Trophy finalist has struggled offensively, with just four points in ten games. He’s good enough in his own end that, unlike most of the forwards on this list, he doesn’t have to score to help his team win. But the Kings aren’t winning, and as their captain and highest-paid player, Kopitar has to wear some of that.

Odds it ends well: At 31 years old and with five more years left on a deal that carries a $10-million cap hit, we don’t even want to think about what it would mean if he’s already starting a decline. But Kopitar has been good enough for long enough that he’s earned some benefit of the doubt. Last year’s 92 points already seems out of reach, but the Kings have bigger worries right now.

The player: Sean Couturier, Flyers

The start: After last year’s breakout, this was supposed to be the year that the 25-year-old Couturier locked in his status as an elite, two-way forward. Instead, he’s managed just four points (all goals) while the Flyers can’t keep the puck out of their own net.

Odds it ends well: Couturier himself says it’s “not time to panic here.” But it sure is getting close in Philadelphia, where Couturier is far from the only one off to a slow start.

The player: Casey Mittelstadt, Sabres

The start: The 19-year-old rookie was pegged by some for the Calder Trophy, including myself. But he’s limped out of the gate with just a goal and three points in his first 12 games.

Odds it ends well: The Calder hype may have been asking too much from a teenager who’s never played a full NHL-style schedule. Still, his October was a disappointment, as even he admits. The good news is that the Sabres are off to a decent start, so he’ll get a chance to play out of it without dealing with all the doom and gloom that usually descends on Buffalo by November.

The player: Milan Lucic, Oilers

The start: One scary number: Just a single goal in 11 games. Another scary number: Four more years after this one at a $6-million cap hit.

Odds it ends well: The Lucic free agent deal has been criticized from pretty much the moment it was signed, and no doubt Oiler fans are sick of hearing about it. After seeing his production fall off a cliff in the second half last year, at some point we may have to accept that this is just what Lucic is now – a guy who can contribute physically and as a leader, but whose days as a 30 or even a 20-goal force are over.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Five reasons the Maple Leafs are definitely winning tonight (and also five reasons the Bruins definitely are)

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins face off tonight in the only Game 7 showdown of the opening round. It’s been a roller-coaster series, one that started with a pair of blowouts and then transformed into a nail-biter, with a key suspension, a surprise injury and more than a few subplots along the way.

Now it comes down to one game, and you’re looking for a prediction. Well, we’ve got you covered. Here goes: One of these teams will win.

Oh, you were looking for something more specific. But here’s the thing: In the salary cap era NHL, any one game is pretty much a coin flip. A slightly weighted coin, maybe, but still a coin flip. Either one of these teams could win, by a lot or a little, and it wouldn’t come as much of a shock.

But that’s not what fans of either team are looking for, so here’s a compromise. Today, we’ll look at five reasons why Bruins are definitely going to win tonight. And we’ll also offer up five more reasons why the Maple Leafs are an absolute lock. Pick the ones you like best, and then ignore the others. Or even better, wait until the game is over and then come back and only read the ones from the winning team.

Either way, we’re guaranteed to be right. And also wrong. But mostly right.

The Bruins will win because: They’ve been the better team in the series

We’ll start with the simplest factor: Through six games, the Bruins have been the better team.

Not from start to finish, and not necessarily for every game. But overall, it’s fairly clear that the Bruins are outplaying the Maple Leafs. Pick any measure, from goals scored to shots to possession to expected goals, and the Bruins have the edge. It’s not always a big edge, and the Maple Leafs have certainly had their moments. But on balance, the Bruins have been better.

That may not mean much in a seventh game. Hockey isn’t fair, and we’ve seen plenty of series where the best team didn’t win, often in cases where the margin was much bigger than in this one. But if you’re trying to figure out who’s going to win a single game, the easiest question to ask is “Who’s been better so far?”

In this series, the answer is Boston.

The Maple Leafs will win because: They’re getting stronger as they go

The Bruins have been the better team in the series, sure. But that includes the first two games, which Boston dominated. Since then, things have been far more even. Granted, those first two wins count just as much as any others, but the trend in the series is clear – Toronto’s been getting better, while Boston peaked early.

That’s not to say that the scales have tipped in Toronto’s favour, because they haven’t – even in losing the last two, the Bruins controlled play for long stretches, and there hasn’t been a single game in this series where you could say the Leafs were clearly the better team. But they’re headed in the right direction, and the third period of Monday’s Game 6 was probably their best of the series so far.

Momentum is overrated in pro sports, and it would take one early Bruins goal to put the Leafs right back on their heels. But if you’re trying to predict what will happen tonight, a pair of blowouts from almost two weeks ago doesn’t tell you all that much. You want to let some recency bias creep in, and the gap between these two teams has been getting smaller as we go. If the trend continues, tonight might be the night that the pendulum finally swings over to the Leafs’ side.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Weekend wrap: Planting seeds

With two weeks left in the regular season, there’s good news and bad news for anyone hoping for a frantic sprint to the finish line.

The bad news: This year’s playoff bubble has been kind of a bust. In the East, we’ve got four teams fighting for two spots, and one of those teams, the Maple Leafs, was starting to look like a lock before Frederik Andersen got hurt on Saturday. That puts the Leafs back in the mix with the Bruins, Lightning and Islanders; that race should be fun, and we’ll look at it in more detail a few sections down, but right now isn’t exactly a high-drama free-for-all. And in the West, we’re basically done; only the Kings are still in the chase, and their odds are on life support.

Add it all up, and 13 of the 16 playoff spots are already spoken for, and that number could be 14 or even 15 within another few days. So much for the season of parity.

But here's the good news: The battle to figure out which playoff teams will slot in where is still wide open. The Rangers have been locked into the East's first wild-card spot for a while now, and it seems safe to pencil the Blackhawks in as the top seed out West. Beyond that, it's chaos.

That chaos may not make or break anyone's chances – being the home team in a playoff matchup is less important in today's NHL than in just about any other pro sport. Still, seeding does matter, and all else being equal teams will want to finish in the best spot they can.

Nowhere is that fact more important than at the top of the Metro, where three of the league's best teams are fighting for first place. The stakes really couldn't be any higher; take the top seed, and you get to play a wild-card team you'll have finished about 25 points ahead of during the season. But the teams that finish second and third are stuck playing each other, guaranteeing that one of the league's very best teams will be out in the first round. The Capitals would seem to have the edge here, holding a lead and facing a schedule that includes the sad-sack Coyotes and Avalanche. But there's also a matchup in there with the Blue Jackets, who also face the Penguins, so this one isn't over yet.

The Atlantic got some clarity on Saturday, with the Canadiens beating the Senators for the third time in eight nights. That put Montreal up by three, and while Ottawa still holds a game in hand, the Habs will probably own the ROW tie-breaker. Of course, we're not sure whether finishing first in the Atlantic is a good thing, with the Rangers waiting for the winner. For most of the last few months, it's seemed like it might be better to drop down to second and face someone like Toronto or Boston. But with New York suddenly stumbling, that matchup (and guaranteed home ice through at least the first two rounds) suddenly doesn't seem so bad.

Then there's the Pacific, where the Sharks have seen a lead that had grown as large as nine points on March 14 shrink to nothing/a deficit after six straight losses, with the Ducks, Oilers and even the Flames all in the mix to take the top seed. Top spot in the Western divisions isn't looming quite as large as in the East because the wild cards aren't all that far behind, but home ice will help.

Then there are those potential rivalry matchups, like Ottawa/Toronto, Calgary/Edmonton, Anaheim/San Jose or Montreal/Boston. We flagged that possibility a few weeks back, and they've grown more likely since. You've also got a good battle for third in the Central between the Predators and Blues, one that seems even more important as the second-place Wild continue to freefall.

Add it all up, and there's still an awful lot at stake over the next few weeks. You just have to look above the bubble to find it.

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they're headed towards Stanley Cup–favourite status.

5. Montreal Canadiens (42-24-9, +16 true goals differential*): They return to the top five after a two-month absence. Do I feel good about this pick? Not remotely, as we'll discuss down below.

4. Columbus Blue Jackets (48-19-7, +61): Sergei Bobrovsky has given up three goals in his last four starts. This week brings the Sabres and Hurricanes, but then comes three straight against the top three teams in our rankings.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

The goalie reaction power rankings

Being a goalie is a tough life. When your team scores, you’re standing all by yourself 200 feet away from the action. When your team gives up a goal, you’re right there in the middle of it. Your entire job revolves around preventing bad things, and no matter how well you play, those bad things will happen eventually. A lot. And when they do, you’ve suddenly got 18,000 fans and who knows how many TV viewers staring at you.

It can all be pretty stressful. Which is why it’s always been vaguely fascinating to see how goalies react when they allow a goal. It’s an important decision because there’s a wide range of options available and not all of them are positive.

In an effort to help out my goaltending friends, I figured we should break this down in more detail. So here are the official power rankings of goaltender reactions, based on a rigid, scientific methodology of this is my post so I can make it up as I go along.

10. The Water Bottle Chug

A timeless classic, the water bottle chug has been the go-to move of sad goalies for decades. It’s just about the most clichéd thing a goalie can do, to the point where longtime fans barely even notice it anymore. I guess red lights just make these guys really thirsty.

While it seems like a relatively sportsmanlike gesture, at its heart, the water bottle chug is actually a solid bit of passive aggressive posturing. It’s the goalie’s way of saying “So what, you scored, who even cares. I’m more interested in my tasty beverage.”

It also has the added advantage of being just about impossible to screw up. Well, almost. Luckily, the NHL has been working on enhancing water bottle security.

Fun historical note: The Flyers were the first team to introduce water bottles on top of the net, back during the 1985 Stanley Cup Final. In response, the Oilers threatened to boycott the series, and Glen Sather suggested putting hamburgers on the nets in case the goalies got hungry.

Honorable Mention: The Puck Fish-out

Another classic. It's 50 per cent helpful, and 50 per cent "get this stupid thing away from me." Bonus point if the goalie wings the puck all the way down the ice, into the stands, or directly at the other team's celebration pile.

9. The Corner Skate

Almost as common as the water bottle chug, the Corner Skate is the default move of choice for the more active goaltender. It goes something like this:

1. Skate purposefully towards a corner.

2. Arrive at corner; pivot confidently.

3. Watch the inevitable fan flip out and start two-fisting the glass because they realize they might be on TV.

4. Realize you’re not actually sure what to do next; wander around aimlessly for a few seconds like someone who just stumbled into the wrong restroom.

5. Sheepishly retreat to the net and execute the Water Bottle Chug.

By the way, the corner can be to the left or the right but it’s always in the goalie’s own end. I’d like to see a guy mix it up and start corner-skating into the other team’s zone after every goal, just to confuse people. This feels like something Dominik Hasek would have done if he'd ever given up a goal.

Honorable Mention: The Post Tap

This is another one that just about every goaltender has mastered and involves an intricate series of behind-the-back taps to his posts and crossbars. It’s the goalie’s way of informing his best friends that he forgives them, even though they’ve just utterly failed him. There’s at least a 90 per cent chance that he’s also talking to them, by the way. Hell, he probably has names for them. “Chin up, Posty. We’ll get ‘em next time, Big Red.”

The Post Tap is often executed in combination with the Water Bottle Chug. Sometimes the water comes first. Sometimes it’s the posts. Sometimes a goalie will go back and forth between the two and get caught in an endless loop that only ends when the trainer comes out and hits CTRL+ALT+DEL to reset them. Goalies are weird.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Team Canada's WJC entry has no Maple Leaf prospects. That's probably for the best.

The world junior championship will officially get underway on Monday, and Team Canada has been playing exhibition games all week as they look to rebound from a disappointing showing last year.

If you’re a Maple Leafs fan with an eye on the future, there’s not all that much to get excited about at this year’s tournament. Nikita Korostelev will be there for Team Russia, as will Jeremy Bracco for Team USA. But with eligible players like Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner already lightning it up in the NHL, there won’t be much of the Leafs’ future on display. And there won’t be any Leaf prospects at all on Team Canada.

Honestly, that might be a good thing. While Team Canada has had its ups and downs over the years at the WJC, it’s rarely had anything in the way of good news for Leaf fans. In a good year, the team wouldn’t carry any Toronto prospects at all. In a bad year, they’d find a creative way to punch Leaf fans in the gut.

Today, let’s relive some of that trauma with a look back at the various ways that Team Canada has made Leaf fans sad.

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1991

We’ll start our history lesson back in the 90s, since before then it was relatively rare to find Leafs property at the world juniors. That’s because back then, most Leaf prospects were rushed into the NHL lineup right away, which is why players like Wendel Clark and Luke Richardson only made appearances before they were Maple Leaf property. We did get an early peak at names like Russ Courtnall and Gary Leeman in the early 80s, but not many Canadians were paying attention then.

They were by 1991, though, and for most of the nation that year’s tournament stands as a classic. It came down to a final-game gold medal showdown with the Soviets, one that Canada won on a late goal by the immortal John Slaney. It marked the first time in Canadian history that they’d won back-to-back gold medal.

But if you were a Leafs fan, the tournament was… well, let’s say bittersweet. For one, this was the year that Eric Lindros truly arrived as the most dominant prospect in the world, living up to his status as the presumed top pick in the 1991 draft. That should have been good news for the Leafs, given that they were terrible. But they’d already traded that pick in a disastrous trade that would leave them scrambling to claw their way out of last place overall. They eventually would, just barely, and ended up missing out on another Canadian star from this tournament in Scott Niedermayer.

The Leafs did have a prospect of their own on Team Canada. That would be Scott Thornton, taken third overall in the infamous 1989 draft that saw Toronto load up on Belleville Bulls. He was on loan from the big club after scoring just one goal in 23 games; it would be the only goal he’d ever score for the Leafs, as he was part of the Grant Fuhr trade package a few months later.

Meanwhile, the Leafs came away impressed by another Canadian prospect, one who tied with Lindros for the team lead in goals. That was Mike Craig, who’d they pluck away from the Stars a few years later in a terrible RFA signing.

There was one bright side to the tournament, although you’d have to look hard to find it at the time. While Trevor Kidd got six of the seven starts in goal, a Leafs prospect did manage to earn the back-up job and get into a single game. That was a kid named Felix Potvin, who ended up being pretty important in a few years.

>> Read the full post at TheAthletic

Handing out some quarter-mark awards

Teams around the NHL have started hitting the 20-game mark, with most of the league reaching that milestone over the next few days.

That means that this is the week when we’re officially a quarter of the way into the season.

And that means three things.

First, we can stop prefacing every observation with “It’s still early, but…”

Second, it will be fun to spend the next few days making repeated references to this being the "quarter pole" just to annoy the sort of pedants who get worked up over that that kind of thing.

And third, sports writing bylaws dictate that we have to hand out some awards.

Let's take care of that last one today. We'll do the standard NHL awards, plus a few more to keep it interesting.

And we'll start with the big one.

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MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

MVP awards are always fun because we get to argue over what "value" actually means.

Is it just the best player? The guy who's most important to his team? The player with the biggest impact on the standings? Luckily, through the first quarter this year, we can go with all of the above.

Names worth considering: Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Mark Scheifele.

But the winner is… Carey Price.

The Montreal Canadiens seem like two different teams these days. There's the non-Price version, which is fine – they're 3-3-1 in games that Al Montoya starts, and other than that one disaster in Columbus, they've been competitive in all of them. The Montoya version of the Habs is OK.

But the Carey Price version is darn near unbeatable, picking up 23 of a possible 24 points in his dozen starts.

His numbers are ridiculous – his .950 save percentage is the best among full-time starters – and he hasn't shown any signs of lingering problems from last year's injury.

Mix in his dominant performance at the World Cup of Hockey, and he's entering that Dominik Hasek zone where teams feel like they'll need a shutout from their own goalie just to have a chance.

Hart voters tend to like to cast their ballots for players who put up big scoring numbers. But anyone who can single-handedly transform a team from merely mediocre to Cup favorite is an easy MVP call, so Price gets the nod here.

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BEST GOALTENDER

It goes without saying that if Price wins MVP, he'll almost certainly also take home the Vezina, too.

But for sake of argument — and to avoid just writing the same thing two sections in a row — let's pretend that he has to make room for somebody else to take the goaltending honours.

Names worth considering: Corey Crawford, Sergei Bobrovsky, Devan Dubnyk.

But the winner is… Tuukka Rask.

This one's a much closer call, and you could make a case for any of the guys listed above and probably a few more.

But Rask is putting up some of the best numbers of his career, and he's doing it on a team that most of us didn't view as anything more than an also-ran. Maybe that's all the Boston Bruins are, and Rask is just papering over a flawed lineup. But that's what you want your star goalie to do, and Rask has been up to the task so far this year.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

World Cup Preview

The World Cup of Hockey gets underway Saturday, with the start of a round robin that will see each of the eight teams play three times. The two best records in each group move on to the single elimination semis before a best-of-three final. If that sounds like a quick tournament, it is—the whole thing will wrap up in two weeks, tops, which doesn't leave much room for slow starts or building chemistry.

In theory, that means that anything can happen. In reality, this isn't exactly an even field. There's a clear favorite, a handful of teams with a puncher's chance, and some serious long shots.

Oh, and even though it's an international tournament, a quarter of the teams aren't real countries. Don't ask.

Today, we break down the best and worst of each of the eight teams.

Group A

Let's be honest... this group exists in order to get Team Canada and Team USA into the semifinals, potentially setting up the NHL's dream matchup in the final. It would be a surprise if it didn't play out that way.

Team Canada

International history: There have been 12 true best-on-best tournaments played since the inaugural Canada Cup back in 1976. Canada has won eight of those, including four of five since the turn of the century.

Biggest NHL stars: The entire team is packed with them, so much so that P.K. Subban, Taylor Hall and Kris Letang aren't here even though they'd all be first-line players on most others team in the tournament. They've got the best player in hockey (Sidney Crosby), each of the last two Vezina winners (Carey Price and Braden Holtby) and the reigning Norris winner (Drew Doughty). They're good.

Coach: Mike Babcock, who gets to spend two weeks with this group of all-stars and then go back to coaching the Maple Leafs.

GM: Doug Armstrong, with help from pretty much every other NHL GM other than Steve Yzerman, who bailed after leading Canada to back-to-back Olympic gold medals.

Strength: As always when it comes to Team Canada, the depth up front is ridiculous, so much so that when Jeff Carter got hurt, they just swapped in a former MVP in Corey Perry, and when Tyler Seguin went down this week, they could turn to one of the league's best two-way centers in Ryan O'Reilly. Think of this way: Depending on how the lines shake out, superstars like John Tavares, Joe Thornton and Ryan Getzlaf will be asked to play supporting roles. That's scary.

Weakness: While the forward ranks are stacked, it's almost entirely with natural centers, which could create some issues with guys having to make quick adjustments to playing out of position. And the blueline, while good, is nowhere near as stacked as the rest of the roster.

Realistic best case: They run the table, going undefeated in front of the hometown crowd and winning yet another international title.

Realistic worst case: Pretty much anything short of that would be considered a disaster.

Most likely outcome: There are no sure things in international hockey, where every game can be crucial and one hot goaltender can singlehandedly stop a powerhouse. But it will be a surprise if Canada doesn't win it all.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

The five types of goalie-for-goalie trades

The Maple Leafs traded Jonathan Bernier to the Ducks last week. Toronto moving on from Bernier wasn’t a surprise, but the timing and destination was odd, coming just days after the Leafs and Ducks had hooked up on the Frederik Andersen deal. That’s led to speculation that Bernier was part of the original trade all along, but remained on the Leafs roster long enough for MLSE to pay his signing bonus on July 1.

If so, that would kind of make Bernier-for-Andersen the latest in a long line of goalie-for-goalie trades, albeit it one with some valuable draft picks heading Anaheim’s way. The NHL has a deep history of this sort of deal, and that makes sense; there are only so many goaltenders out there, so it’s understandable that a team trading one away would want to acquire one in return. And as it turns out, those goalie-for-goalie trades often end up falling into some familiar categories.

Today, let’s look back at some of those moves. Note that we’re not looking for trades that simply featured goalies on either side, which will come as a relief to Habs fans dreading another rehashing of the Patrick Roy trade. Instead, we’ll focus on trades in which the goaltenders were either traded for each other straight up, or at least were clearly the primary pieces in the deal.

Here are some of history’s best goalie-for-goalie trades, and the categories they fell into.

The category: The change-of-scenery trade that comes back to haunt one of the teams.

Recent example: Five years ago, the Avalanche and Senators hooked up on a trade that saw Ottawa acquire Craig Anderson in exchange for Brian Elliott. Anderson was just one year removed from a great season, but was struggling badly and seemed headed to unrestricted free agency. So the Avs flipped him for Elliott, who’d yet to impress in limited duty as Ottawa’s starter.

The deal worked out wonderfully for the Senators; Anderson regained his form, signed a new contract, and is still the team’s starter to this day. The Avalanche didn’t fare quite as well; Elliott didn’t do much in Colorado, and was allowed to hit free agency that summer. He signed with the Blues, won the Jennings the very next year, and has been one of the league’s most dependable goaltenders ever since.

(A near-miss in this category: The Capitals trading Michal Neuvirth for Jaroslav Halak in 2014, then almost seeing Neuvirth lead the Flyers to a miracle comeback against them in this year’s playoffs.)

Other examples: Sometimes, a team has no choice but to move on from a goaltender. That was the case in 1988, when Edmonton goalie Andy Moog held out from the team all season. The Oilers finally moved him at the deadline, sending the veteran to Boston for youngster Bill Ranford.

Months later, the two teams faced each other in the Stanley Cup final, with Moog seeing part-time duty while Ranford watched from the bench in an Oilers win. Two years later the teams met again, and this time it was Ranford and Moog going head-to-head. Ranford won the matchup and the Conn Smythe, avenging what he’d seen as poor treatment at the hands of the Bruins.

The lesson: If you’re going to make a goalie-for-goalie trade, make sure it’s with a team that isn’t going to show up in the Cup final any time soon. So, good work there, Ducks.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Five others ways that a goalie can get a referee's attention

Rangers’ goalie Henrik Lundqvist remains out of the lineup with a neck injury, telling reporters on Monday that he’s hoping he can return by the weekend. He suffered the injury in a collision with teammate Ryan McDonagh during a game against the Penguins last week.

But while the collision caused the injury, what happened next grabbed the headlines. Frustrated at the lack of a whistle, Lundqvist took matters into his own hands by flipping the net to cause a stoppage.

It was a controversial move, one that fellow goalie Marc-Andre Fleury referred to as “baby stuff”. And while Lundqvist is standing by his actions, we’d bet that deep down he’s probably second-guessing himself, wondering if there wasn’t a more productive way to get the official’s attention.

Luckily, we’re here to help. There’s a long history of goaltenders trying to get their point across to the men in stripes. Some of the methods have worked, and others have been less successful. But it’s important for Lundqvist and his brethren to know that they always have options. Here are five other ways they could get a referee’s attention.

Wailing away on the goal posts

If we’re being honest, Lundqvist’s net got off easy last week. It just got shoved over. The traditional angry goaltender move is to hack it death with your goal stick.

This move is such a classic that there’s no shortage of examples to pick from. Mike Smith is probably the modern day master, and Patrick Roy could do a number. But with all due respect to those guys, nobody ever did it better than Ed Belfour.

That goal knocked the Blackhawks out of the 1993 playoffs, completing a shocking sweep at the hands of the underdog Blues. Belfour didn’t appreciate being bumped on his way back to the crease, and he let referee Rob Shick know about it.

After destroying his stick and tossing it in Shick’s direction, Belfour then reportedly “destroyed everything in his path on the way to the dressing room”, including an unfortunate coffee maker. According to this article, the meltdown left behind a “mangled fan sticking out of the top of a garbage can.” I assume that meant a cooling device and not an actual spectator at the game, although with Belfour you could never quite be sure.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

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...

Panic Watch: Should we be worried about any of the NHL's slumping stars?

Don’t panic.

That phrase once appeared on the cover of a famous book. And it should probably appear on the cover of programs in NHL arenas, because it’s good advice for hockey fans who like to overreact to slow starts and small sample sizes. Most of the time, an early season slump is just a slump, and the right answer it to shrug it off and move on.

And yet… Sometimes a slump is more than that. Sometimes it’s the start of something bigger, the sort of long-term downturn that changes the way we view an NHL star. A seemingly minor slump might end up being that first blinking light on the dashboard, warning us that a player could struggle through the rest of a season, or even a career.

The problem, of course, is that we don’t really know when that’s the case; we have to wait and see how it all plays out. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take a wild guess carefully analyze the situation in an attempt to figure it out. So today, let’s look at eight names from around the NHL world who are off to a rough start, and try to answer the question: Is it time to panic?

Jakub Voracek, Flyers

The season so far: One year after enjoying a breakout season (and signing a $66 million extension), Voracek has no goals. That’s bad, right? I think that’s bad.

Panic time?: You could forgive Flyer fans for being nervous here – after all, no franchise has a longer track record of seeing big money contracts blow up in its face. And Voracek’s lack of goals isn’t exactly a new development – even during last year’s breakout, he had only six in the season’s second half. And while he’s never been a pure goal scorer, even his five assists on the year are well below expectations.

All that said, a look beyond Voracek’s boxcar stats shows some positive signs. He leads the team in shots on goal by a wide margin, and his possession numbers are as strong as ever. Voracek himself sounds like he’s getting frustrated, and guy carrying cap hits north of $8M don’t often get much benefit of the doubt. But Voracek deserves at least a little bit of patience here, because his numbers say he should get on track soon. So don’t throw any batteries at him, Flyer fans. Or at least, no more than usual.

Ryan Getzlaf, Ducks

The season so far: I’m not saying it’s been a tough year for the Ducks, but we also would have accepted “Corey Perry”. Also, “Jakob Silfverberg”. And “Ryan Kesler”. And also, “pretty much everyone who plays for Anaheim and isn’t a goalie”.

But Getzlaf gets the nod, based on a season-long goalless slump. Granted, he missed a few games due to an appendectomy. But he’s just looked off at times, and doing stuff like this doesn’t help.

Panic time?: Getzlaf is on the wrong side of 30, so anything approaching a long-term slump is cause of concern – age comes for everyone eventually, and when it does the downturn can often be sharp and brutal. But this slump hasn’t quite hit “long-term” status quite yet, and Getzlaf has looked good playing with Perry in recent games. The Ducks are slowly but surely shaking off their awful start, and since they’re in the Pacific, they haven’t exactly been left behind by the rest of the division. They should be OK, and their captain should too.

>> Read the full post on ESPN.com