It’s been a week of returns in the NHL. On Monday, we saw Jonathan Toews’ first game back in Chicago, returning to the city where we won three Cups as a visitor for the very first time. The fans gave him a hero’s welcome, the sort of outpouring of emotion you rarely see in the sports world. It was a collective “thank you” to a player who meant so much to a franchise and its fan base.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJQTNxj0p3o
Tonight, Mitch Marner will return to Toronto, and the reception will be… not that.
We’re not quite sure what kind of welcome home Marner will get. No doubt, the team has prepared a sappy video for the first commercial break, because that’s the “classy” way to handle this stuff. Some fans will go along with the sentiment, others will be far more hostile, and manywill just want the whole thing to be over. When it comes to Marner’s exit, for some fans at least, it’s complicated.
Complicated, but not especially unique. So today, let’s remember six times that an NHL star returned home to a reception that was closer to Marner than Toews.
Some definitely deserved it, others maybe didn’t. But they all heard about it from their former fans, and it might give us some sense of what to expect in Toronto tonight. And we’ll even tack on the happy ending of reconciliation that most of these stories tend to get, if only to remind us that the Marners of the world are often welcomed back eventually. Often, but not always.
The holidays are done, and right now there’s a good chance that you’re looking around your home and thinking: Man, I paid way too much for stuff I didn’t really need.
If so, welcome to life as an NHL GM.
In most of the front offices around the league, there’s probably been a similar feeling, one that’s been growing as the season went on. It’s the classic buyer’s remorse, where a move that seemed to make sense in the summer now feels like a mistake.
Today, we’re going to build out our all-buyer’s remorse team, based on players who were acquired over the offseason via trade and free agency and aren’t working out for their new teams. We’ll do 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies, with a limit of three players per team so that it’s not all your favorite team fair.
(As a side note, tradition tells us that most of the players I choose for this piece will immediately heat up and play like MVP candidates for the rest of the year. If this happens, you are not allowed to send me “this aged poorly” jabs. Instead, you have to thank me for personally motivating the player to turn things around. These are the rules and you’ve legally agreed to them by reading this article.)
Great teams are built from the net out. But so are regrettable ones, so we’ll start there…
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.
On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We pick the next captain for the ten teams without one
- Thoughts on Brandon Hagel, Jonathan Toews and Evan Bouchard
- What are the Sabres getting ready to do with their cap space?
- RIP Rick Jeanneret and Rodion Amirov
- And more...
On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- We know the playoff teams, but that's about it
- The Hawks move on from Jonathan Toews
- Some weird playoff stats about President Trophy winners, the Leafs and more
- Is this is for Crosby and Ovechkin in the playoffs?
- Who was the most misleadingly named NHL player ever?
- Listener mail, this week in history and more...
The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)
On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The NHL apparently has some creative scheduling ideas
- It's not going great for Florida or Winnipeg
- Thoughts on The Athletic's week-long series on fighting
- The end may be nearing for Jonathan Toews
- Sens sale update, Chytil extension and more...
On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Thoughts on the Stanley Cup final, and how Tampa's mayor may have ruined everything
- The Matiss Kivlenieks tragedy
- Jonathan Toews says he's on the way back
- Duncan Keith to Edmonton?
- Ron MacLean whiffs on his Bettman interview
- We pass judgment on each of the cap era's Conn Smythe calls
- A new game show on the NHL's longest contracts, and more...
With no new NHL action these days, the league’s broadcast partners have been dipping into their archives to fill airtime with memorable games from the past. And it’s been pretty cool. We all miss live hockey, but getting to rewatch some old classics isn’t a bad way to spend an evening.
For example, over the weekend Canadian viewers were treated to replays of a pair of classic Canucks Game 7s: their showdown against the Flames in 2004 and their grudge match against the Blackhawks in 2011. A few days earlier, both Sportsnet and Fox Sports West showed the Kerry Fraser game between the Leafs and Kings from 1993.
All memorable games. But they had something else in common, and you may have noticed it. They all featured a very specific type of goal. They all had a Zelepukin.
OK, I’m guessing you don’t call it that, since that’s a label I’ve been using in my own head over the years. But you know the moment. A Zelepukin is when a team scores a dramatic goal to tie a crucial game at the end of regulation but then goes on to lose that game in overtime.
A Zelepukin goal is always a weird moment in hindsight. When the tying goal happens, it’s euphoric for one fan base and crushing for the other. But then the script gets flipped in overtime, and you realize that the Zelepukin just prolonged the misery. Sometimes, the tying goal itself is all but forgotten, replaced in the collective memory by the overtime goal it spawned.
And that’s where the paradox of the Zelepukin kicks in – if your team scored it, you might end up wondering if you’d rather it had never happened at all.
That question has always kind of fascinated me. So today, let’s look at those three Zelepukin goals we’ve been able to relive in recent days, as well as a few more famous ones from hockey history. We’ll start with the one that might have been the most memorable in NHL history. If you’re not sure which one that is, well, the name might give you a hint.
May 27, 1994: Devils vs. Rangers
The setup: It’s Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final, with the Rangers hosting the Devils at Madison Square Garden. New York has won the Presidents’ Trophy and is looking to punch a ticket to the final and a chance to end a 54-year Cup drought. But the underdog Devils are giving them all they can handle. The series is already legendary, having featured Mark Messier’s infamous Guarantee that kept the Rangers alive in Game 6. Now it all comes down to one winner-take-all showdown.
The situation: Game 7 turns into a fierce defensive battle, with Mike Richter and Martin Brodeur trading saves in a 0-0 tie until Brian Leetch gets the Rangers on the board midway through the second. As the third period ticks away, it starts to look like that goal will hold up as the winner.
The Zelepukin: With Brodeur on the bench and 18 seconds left, the teams line up for a faceoff in the Rangers’ end. Messier wins the draw but the Rangers can’t clear, and a goalmouth scramble leads to a golden scoring opportunity. Richter makes what seems like an impossible save, but a certain Devil is there to hack away at the rebound: Tom Chorske!
No, just kidding. It is, of course, Valeri Zelepukin.
And just like that, 18,000 delirious Rangers fans go dead quiet. For at least a little while.
But then: In arguably the most famous overtime of the era, the two teams don’t score through one period before Stephane Matteau’s harmless-looking wraparound attempt ends it. The goal isn’t especially pretty, but the call will live forever.
Do you wish it never happened? If you’re a Devils fan, it’s quite possible that Zelepukin’s goal, at the moment it happened, was the highlight of your entire life as a sports fan. But in hindsight, if you could wave a magic wand and make it disappear, I think you’d have to. Sure, losing 1-0 on a Brian Leetch goal would have been painful. But if you never had to hear Stephane Matteau’s name screamed at you ever again, I think it would be worth it.
April 26, 2011: Blackhawks vs. Canucks
The setup: By 2011, the Hawks and Canucks had managed to brew up a surprisingly heated inter-division rivalry, one that had seen Chicago eliminate very good Vancouver teams in both 2009 and 2010. The Hawks had gone on to win the Cup after that second series, but the Canucks were the favorites heading into their 2011 rematch after a franchise-record 117-point season. All they had to do was slay the dragon.
And through three games, they did. The Canucks built a 3-0 series lead, one that the history books said should be all but insurmountable. But then the Hawks fought back with a blowout win, and then another, and then an overtime win in Game 6 to tie the series. That set up a Game 7 in Vancouver where the Canucks would either fight back with one of the biggest wins in franchise history, or suffer a loss so devastating that they’d have no choice but to detonate the roster. No middle ground.
The situation: Alex Burrows opened the scoring early in the first, and it seemed like that might be enough as Roberto Luongo held off a surprisingly toothless Chicago attack. Late in the third, the Hawks’ chances went from bad to worse when Duncan Keith took a tripping penalty to leave them shorthanded. All the Canucks had to do was play keep away for two minutes, then take it home.
The Zelepukin: A neutral zone turnover led to a harmless looking 2-on-4 rush for the Hawks. But as it turns out, Jonathan Toews is pretty dangerous, even from all fours.
And just like that, the Canucks were headed to sudden death on the verge of what would have been viewed as one of the most epic chokes in NHL history.
Do you wish it never happened? Watch that overtime winner again. Do you see how happy Burrows is? It’s the highlight of his entire career. If you were a Hawks fans, would you want to take that away from him? Of course you would. It’s not even a hard question. This Zelepukin clearly needs to go.
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- What were the GMs doing all week? My spies found out
- I'm feeling old so now I'm going to make you feel old too
- An obscure player who played the most games in net without a loss
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube look back at the Blackhawks kind of maybe trying to sing
There was a time when fans could get away with not caring about player salaries. Except in an indirect way, it wasn’t their money, so who really cared if some rich owner was paying a bit too much for a third-line center? Maybe he missed a payment on one of his yachts, but otherwise, no harm no foul.
Then the NHL became a hard cap league. Today, salaries – or more specifically, cap hits – are absolutely crucial. Squeezing as much value as possible into an artificially limited salary structure is the key to building and maintaining a contender, and even one big mistake can derail a roster. In today’s NHL, as I’ve phrased it before, a good player with a bad contract isn’t a good player.
We’ve had some fun over the years with some of the league’s worst signings, even building an entire cap-compliant roster out of them. But for the most part, those were the contracts nobody argues about. We all know that Brent Seabrook’s deal is bad. Nobody’s calling Bobby Ryan a value contract these days. We’ve beaten Milan Lucic’s deal into the ground, picked it up and dusted it off, then beaten it down again. With very few exceptions, even the most diehard fans aren’t defending those kind of deals anymore.
Other contracts aren’t as simple, and those are the ones we’re going to focus on here. Welcome to Salary Cap Court, where we’ll weigh the pros and cons of five contracts that might be bad, but maybe might not.
To be clear, every contract that makes its way to cap court will be questionable; there won’t be any good deals here. But we want to know if they’re outright bad, or merely not great. We’ll make the case for both sides of the argument, and then we’ll render a verdict, passing judgment on whatever’s left of a deal and deciding once and for all whether it really deserves to have the dreaded “bad contract” label slapped on it.
Make sense? Then be seated, because Salary Cap Court is in session. Let’s bring out our first defendant.
Erik Karlsson, Sharks
The details: Eight years and a cap hit of $11.5 million, thanks to an extension signed days before he would have become an unrestricted free agent last summer.
The case that it’s a bad contract: Karlsson has two Norris Trophies, should maybe have more, and might have been the very best defenseman of the 2010s. But everything in that sentence is in the past tense, and with his new contract only kicking in this year, the present and future are all that matters. The reality is that he didn’t play at a truly elite level in his last year in Ottawa, he didn’t live up to the hype in his first year in San Jose, and he hasn’t been especially great this year.
If you’re trying to figure out why, it’s not hard to round up the usual suspects: injury and age. He had a groin injury last year that resulted in surgery, and a heel problem before that. Mix in the fact that he turns 30 at the end of this season, and it’s not hard to wonder if his recent decline is permanent. That doesn’t mean he can’t still be a solid player, or even a very good one. But he’s being paid like he’s the very best defenseman in the league, and it sure looks like he isn’t that player anymore.
The case that it might be OK: Injuries heal, and we’ve already seen Karlsson overcome a more serious scare in 2013, when he missed most of the season with a sliced Achilles. He came back from that just fine, posting three straight first-team all-star seasons. As for age, we’ve seen plenty of superstar blueliners play into their late-30s and beyond, including Ray Bourque, Al MacInnis, Chris Chelios and Nicklas Lidstrom. Karlsson’s always been a great skater, but his most important talent is his vision and instinct, and that won’t fade even if he loses a half-step.
Sure, he’s been disappointing this season. So has everyone on the Sharks. The year has been a disaster. We can’t just throw out the whole season, but we shouldn’t lean on it too much either. Last year might be a better example of what Karlsson’s floor could be, and it’s worth remembering that even in an off-year his underlying numbers were decent and he still played well enough to show up on a handful of Norris ballots. If that’s the worst-case, it’s not bad. And his best-case looks a lot like his 2017 playoff run, when he almost managed to drag a very average Senators team all the way to the final. That wasn’t that long ago, and he was fighting through injuries then too.
The bottom line is that Karlsson is a generational talent, and when he’s fully healthy he’s basically been unstoppable. Every long-term deal is a gamble in some sense, but if you’re going to roll the dice, this is exactly the sort of player you do it on.
Key comparisons: Drew Doughty is the obvious one, with a similar eight-year deal that carries an $11 million hit. We’d also want to look at Roman Josi (8 x $9 million) and teammate Brent Burns (8 x $8 million). There’s also John Carlson, who signed his 8-year, $8 million cap hit deal at a similar age and is delivering the sort of dynamic Norris-caliber season Karlsson used to, but for a lot less money.
The verdict: The case against the Karlsson deal is a strong one, but I’m not sure it goes beyond a reasonable doubt. The Sharks are in cap hell, and we’ll watch Karlsson closely over the next season or so, but for now we’ll tentatively say: not a bad contract. Yet.
It’s Halloween tomorrow. Do you have a scary costume?
If not, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. If you want to frighten anyone this week, all you’ll need is an NHL jersey, a hockey stick and a stats sheet to point at. Other props are optional, although you might want to invest in accessories like hands of stone, a turnstile or a great big goose egg.
Yes, it’s time for our annual tribute to the league’s scariest starts, where we build an entire roster out of some of the biggest names having the ugliest Octobers we can find. Some of these are bad signs for the rest of the year. Most of them will be forgotten by mid-November. We’ll try to figure out which is which as we go, but in the meantime, you can get into the Halloween spirit by yelling “Boo!” at each guy. It probably won’t be the first time this year that they’ve heard it.
Forwards
The player: Jonathan Toews, Blackhawks
The start: On the heels of a career year at the age of 30, the Hawks’ captain has managed just two points on the season so far. We already had our first wave of “Is Toews breaking out of his slump?” stories two weeks ago; since then he’s been pointless in six.
Odds it ends well: Toews will get going offensively at some point. But for now, at least, last year’s 81-point season is looking like an aberration for a player who’d been in the 50-something range for the three years before that. That’s not good news for a Hawks team that needs all the help it can get these days.
The player: Sebastian Aho, Hurricanes
The start: Three goals and three assists through a dozen games, with only one of those goals coming against an actual goaltender. To put that in historical context, it’s the worst start in six years for a player who had just signed an offer sheet.
Odds it ends well: Aho’s been heating up lately, or at least getting back to lukewarm. He had that first real goal on Thursday and followed that up with his first multi-point game of the season on Saturday. He can be his own toughest critic, so once he gets a few more solid games under him, he could take off.
The player: Taylor Hall, Devils
The start: On the bright side, Hall is the only player on this roster who is also his team’s leading scorer. On the not-so-bright side, he has just seven points and, well, (gestures at the Devils’ entire season). We could just as easily go with fellow forwards like Jack Hughes or Nikita Gusev, since they’re underperforming Hall. But with apologies to the all-about-the-team narratives, the former MVP has a lot more on the line than his younger teammates. With an extension or unrestricted free agency on the horizon, this isn’t a great time to be sitting with just one goal in the first month.
Odds it ends well: Hall is still generating a ton of shots, and has somehow managed six assists, which doesn’t sound impressive until you realize the Devils are dead last in scoring with just 22 goals on the season. He’s doing his part, even if the numbers don’t look great. The question now is whether he’ll finish the season still doing it for the Devils.
The player: Kaapo Kakko, Rangers
The start: He has just two goals and an assist, is getting caved in on possession and has been on the ice for just one even-strength goal for vs. eleven against. Other than that, things are going great.
Odds it ends well: I think we’ve seen enough to know the kid is a bust. (He’s 18, he’ll be fine.)
The player: Joe Pavelski, Stars
The start: Six points in 14 games for one of the biggest UFA signings of the offseason, half of which came last night. Maybe more concerning, his shots rate has dropped by over a shot-per-game compared to his last few seasons.
Odds it ends well: The shots rate is a concern for sure. But I think we can give Pavelski a bit of a break here; after 16 years and thirteen NHL seasons with the same organization, a bit of an adjustment period after switching teams for the first time seems reasonable. Now if only he could play the Wild every night …
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Jonathan Toews has an idea for a new type of schedule and you'll either hate it or think it's brilliant
- What happens when you play an overtime game and nobody notices?
- The Vladimir Tarasenko injury is not good
- Some big names get the healthy scratch treatment
- What comes next for women's hockey?
- An interview with Ray Ratto
- Some pop culture crap I think, I wasn't listening
- And more...
That’s a phrase you hear a lot around the NHL, especially at this time of year. When a team’s window is closed, it means they’re no longer a real threat to win the Stanley Cup. Maybe they won a Cup or two, but now those days are gone for good, and it’s time to figure out what comes next.
It’s the sort of thing we say a lot. Probably too much. Over the last few years, there may not have been a team we said it about more than the Washington Capitals. Even as the team was winning back-to-back Presidents’ Trophies in 2016 and 2017, their constant playoff failures made it clear that something was wrong. After last year’s devastating loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, we wondered what they would do next and struggled to find a good option. There was talk of trading Alexander Ovechkin, and the Caps didn’t exactly deny that they were thinking about it.
Ovechkin was well into his 30s. Nicklas Backstrom was almost there, and Braden Holtby wasn’t far off. The expensive core that had been so dominant in the regular season but always come up small in the playoffs was old enough that we knew what we were getting. They’d tried, they’ve come close, but they failed. And now some fans figured it might be time to burn it all down. The window was well and truly closed.
Except, of course, that it wasn’t. As the Caps’ summer-long Stanley Cup celebration wears on, it’s fair to wonder if some of us are a little too eager to declare that a team’s window has slammed shut. Maybe they stay open longer than we thought. Maybe they can even be reopened.
And if that’s true, then what other NHL teams might we be wrong about? Today, let’s look at eight teams around the league that, to at least some extent, have received the “your window is closed” treatment from the hockey world. If we were wrong about the Caps, could we be wrong about these teams too?
Why their window seems closed: The Blackhawks may be the best team of the salary cap era, winning three titles in six seasons. But the last of those came in 2015, and they haven’t won a playoff round since. Even worse, the trend in the wrong direction is hard to miss: They dropped a seventh game to the Blues in 2016, were swept in 2017, and didn’t even make the playoffs this year.
What’s worse, the three-year stumble coincides with the matching $10.5-million extensions for Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane kicking in.
Combined with Duncan Keith and (especially) Brent Seabrook, that suggests that the Hawks just have too much money tied up in an aging core, and even Stan Bowman won’t be able to find enough cheap depth to get this team back into the title picture. Even getting back to the playoffs seems like a long road right now.
Why it might not be: As bad as this season was, this is still the same core that won three titles. They’re older, sure, and in today’s NHL that can matter a lot. But the veteran talent is there, and younger pieces like Brandon Saad, Alex DeBrincat and Nick Schmaltz are on hand to support and maybe even eventually supplant the old-timers.
And remember, the 2017-18 season really went off the rails when two-time Cup winner Corey Crawford was out of the lineup. If he’s back and healthy, this team doesn’t look all that different from the one that finished first in the Central in 2017.
Bottom line: The Blackhawks seem like they’ve got a long way to go, especially now that the Jets and Predators have emerged as Central juggernauts. But would anybody be surprised to see them rebound into the playoffs next year? And if so, are we sure we want to count them out as legitimate contenders?
Why their window seems closed: A lot of what we just said about the Blackhawks could apply to the Kings too. They won multiple titles, but the last of those came years ago, and they haven’t won a playoff round since. In fact, in four years since their 2014 championship, the Kings have only won a single playoff game. Their core is getting older and more expensive, including a Toews-like extension for Anze Kopitar. Oh, and there’s at least a chance that Drew Doughty could be leaving in 2019.
Why it might not be: Let’s assume that Doughty sticks around, since all signs point in that direction. His new deal will be expensive, and will tighten the screws on the Kings’ cap even more than it already is. But it will keep the core together, and unlike in Chicago, this team is at least coming off a decent season. They made the playoffs, Kopitar played at an MVP level, Dustin Brown rediscovered his game, and Jonathan Quick still looks like a guy who can steal a series or two.
Bottom line: Another advantage the Kings hold over the Blackhawks: the Pacific Division doesn’t seem all that scary, so a return trip to the playoffs seems like a good bet. Once they’re there, some of that old Quick magic could take them a long way. All the way to another Cup? That seems unlikely, but it seemed that way in Washington too.
But as is usually the case, the really big names aren’t in play. There was a time when it wasn’t unusual to see elite players moved near the deadline, with stars like Ron Francis, Rob Blake and Marian Hossa switching teams. But in recent years, most teams prefer to fall back on the old standby that you can only trade big stars during the off-season — or, more often, not at all.
Sometimes that makes sense. But not always. So today, let’s challenge the conventional wisdom by imagining an alternate universe where NHL teams aggressively reshaped their rosters to put themselves in the best possible position to win — and didn’t just instinctively revert to kicking the can down the road.
What would the landscape look like then? Here are a half-dozen names that reportedly aren’t in play heading towards the 2018 deadline, but maybe should be.
Price probably makes sense, since he recently signed a massive extension that starts next season. Whether you like that deal or not, it would be unusual to make that kind of commitment to a player and then trade him before it even has a chance to kick in.
But Weber? On paper, he’d be among a rebuilding team’s best bait. He’s old enough that he’s likely to be a declining asset by the time the team is ready to contend again, but not so old that a contender wouldn’t want him around for the new few seasons. His contract is an issue, but as Montreal fans constantly remind me, maybe not quite as big a problem as you might think given that the actual salary dives in a few years and the Predators would absorb any cap-recapture penalties. And whatever you think of the P.K. Subban trade that brought him to Montreal, there are tons of people in the hockey world who absolutely love Weber’s game, even today.
He’s injured right now, which complicates things (although reports were saying he wasn’t on the block even before he got hurt). Still, he’s expected back before the playoffs. Why not trade him this year, reap a windfall, and give the rebuild a major kickstart?
Potential destination: Edmonton. It’s almost too perfect. The Oilers need blue-line help, Peter Chiarelli needs to pull off a big deal to keep some of the heat off, and Edmonton would be thinking ahead to next year and beyond, so Weber’s current health status wouldn’t be a hurdle. Sure, the cap hit is an issue, but a little retained salary and maybe another injured star going the other way could largely even that out.
The weekend featured 26 games, many with critical playoff implications. But the one that everyone seems to be talking about took place on Saturday night, and featured a first-place team earning a win over an also-ran.
Subban and the Predators were visiting Montreal for the second time since last summer’s blockbuster trade. The day began with a visit to a children’s hospital, and ended with the Predators claiming a 3–2 shootout win. Subban wasn’t much of a factor in the game; he didn’t even play all that well. But that hardly mattered. Saturday’s meeting came just as the GM who traded him away prepares to pull the trigger on his next wave of wheeling and dealing, so this visit took on an extra sense of symbolism.
Subban remains, to put it mildly, a divisive figure in the hockey world these days, both in Montreal and beyond. Many fans love him; many don’t.
And apparently, some of his one-time teammates have mixed views of their own. After the game, Brendan Gallagher couldn’t seem to figure out why he was being asked about Subban.
Well, let’s see if we can crack this mystery. When you take a big run at an opponent and end up injuring yourself instead, you might be asked about that guy. When you score a goal and them make a point of seeking out an opponent on their bench for some extra trash talk, you might be asked about that guy. If both of those things happen in the same game, you’re definitely going to be asked about it, and feigning confusion about why anybody would bring it up isn’t an especially good look.
For his part, Subban got in a relatively mild chirp of his own at Gallagher’s expense. That was no surprise – the two clearly don’t like each other, with a history that dates back to when Subban was still in Montreal. But no doubt, somebody somewhere is already filing that soundbite away as further evidence in the ongoing case against Subban. Even when he’s playing at a Norris Trophy level, he’s always been guilty of the cardinal hockey sin of not minding the spotlight, and occasionally even seeking it out. Never mind that a league full of dull, mumbling players should be desperate for exactly that sort of star – for whatever reason, it rubs some people the wrong way.
If Subban cares, he didn’t show it on Saturday, just like he hasn’t shown it since the trade that sent him to Nashville. Hockey fans love to debate winners and losers in blockbuster trades, and maybe you can argue that it’s still too soon to know whether the Predators or Canadiens truly got the best of this one. But one thing seems clear: P.K. Subban won. He has a bigger spotlight than ever before. More importantly, he’s been to one Stanley Cup final and may be headed for another while the Canadiens crash and burn without him. All the boos, trash talk and moronic tweets that come his way won’t change that.
When you think of it that way, maybe you can understand why the Brendan Gallaghers of the world would rather talk about just about anything else. They don’t have to like Subban, and plenty of people still don’t. But that won’t change the fact that he’s winning and they’re not.
Road to the Cup
The five teams that look like they’re headed towards Stanley Cup–favourite status.
5. Pittsburgh Penguins (31-22-4, +5 true goals differential*): The record is still pedestrian, and they remain outside the top 10 in the overall standings. But they’ve been looking scary for the last month, and sure seem like a team that’s waking up just in time to make a deep run.
4. Vegas Golden Knights (36-15-4, +35): They’re no longer dominating, winning seven of their last 14. But 10 of those came on the road and the schedule served up some tough opponents; during the most challenging section of their season, the Knights bent but didn’t break.
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The new offside review rule isn't perfect, but it's a good step
- Thoughts on the NHL's Declaration of Principles
- A Duchesne trade... in the obscure player section
- The week's three comedy stars feature bread shoes
- And an old (old, old, old) school debate over Wayne Gretzky's million-dollar salary.
With Sunday night’s win over the Nashville Predators, the Pittsburgh Penguins captured their second-straight Stanley Cup, becoming the first team to repeat as champions since the 1997-98 Detroit Red Wings. That’s an impressive feat, especially in today’s parity-driven age.
But the Penguins also reached another important milestone: Three Stanley Cup wins since the 2005 lockout, which ties them with the Chicago Blackhawks for the most titles under the salary cap system.
Well, this is the NHL, and we’re not allowed to have ties. So today, let’s pit the last dozen years of the Blackhawks against the Penguins as we attempt to determine which team deserves to be called the best of its era.
Regular Season Success
While any comparison between the Penguins and Blackhawks will focus on their playoff success, the regular season matters too. In fact, because teams play so many more games during the season than in the playoffs, it can often tell us more about a team’s overall quality.
The case for the Penguins: Pittsburgh has racked up more regular-season points since 2005, out-pacing Chicago by an average of three points per season. It’s made the playoffs 11 times to Chicago’s nine, and also holds an edge in 100-point seasons, with nine to the Blackhawks’ eight.
The case for the Blackhawks: You could argue that the regular season gap between the two teams is more about timing than quality – the Blackhawks didn’t emerge as a true contender until 2008, giving the Penguins a two-year head start. Despite that disadvantage, the Hawks have matched the Penguins in division titles with three, and hold a 1-0 edge in Presidents’ Trophy seasons.
Edge: Penguins. We did say we were looking at the entire cap era, so those first few post-lockout years have to count – but only a little.
Playoff Success
The two teams may be tied in Cup wins, but that’s not the only way to measure post-season dominance.
The case for the Penguins: The Penguins have done more winning in the playoffs, and it’s not all that close. Pittsburgh has won 19 series in the cap era, well ahead of Chicago’s 13. The Penguins made it out of the first round seven times, while the Blackhawks have managed only five. They’ve been to one more Cup final and they hold a significant edge in playoff games won.
The case for the Blackhawks: They held the edge in this category in 2015, but that was a long time ago. There’s really no case to be made on the Chicago side here, unless you want to play the “Cups are all that matter” card.
Edge: Penguins. Pittsburgh jumps out to an early 2-0 lead, and this time it’s not even Pekka Rinne’s fault.
Peak Dominance
Consistency is nice. Long-term success is better. But when you’re evaluating a team, you also want to know what they could do when they were at their absolute best. We took a run at this question last week, when we ranked the ten best single-season teams of the cap era.
The case for the Penguins: This year’s Penguins took seventh spot on our ten-best list, and that was before they’d wrapped up the Cup. You could probably nudge them up a spot or two now that they’ve made it official. The other two Cup-winning teams were honorable mentions.
The case for the Blackhawks: The Blackhawks placed two teams on the list, including the team we called the best of the entire era. That was the 2012-13 Hawks, who started the year by going undefeated in 24 straight, won the Presidents’ Trophy and then took home the Cup. The 2009-10 team ranked fourth, while the 2014-15 team was an honorable mention.
Edge: Blackhawks. We’re looking at over a decade here, so the overall record is what should matter most, but there’s a good chance that the Hawks’ best team of the era could beat Pittsburgh’s, and that counts for something.
We’re well into the conference finals, which is great for fans of the four teams left standing. The Senators, Penguins, Predators and Ducks are filled with positive — and at times even inspiring — stories of perseverance and success.
It’s annoying. All of this saying-nice-things is getting exhausting.
So today, let’s get back to what hockey fans do best: Complaining about guys who didn’t meet our expectations. Yes, it’s time to name our annual playoff-bust team, in which we find a roster’s worth of players who’ve had a disappointing last few weeks.
We’ll fill out a complete lineup card, including a third-string goalie. For an extra challenge, we’ll do it all-star style, meaning we want at least one player from every team (including the four active ones). And like all great teams, we’ll build from the net out…
GOALTENDERS
Sergei Bobrovsky: We'll ease into things with one of the most straightforward picks on the roster. Bobrovsky will probably win his second Vezina this year, and deservedly so. But he never got going during the playoffs, giving up three or more goals in all five games and finishing as one of only two post-season starters with a sub-.900 save percentage.
Would a better performance have powered the Blue Jackets past the Penguins for their first-ever playoff series win? Maybe not, but without their star goalie in top form, Columbus never had a chance.
Brian Elliott: Elliott is the other starter to fall under the .900 mark, and he was actually a few points back of Bobrovsky. He made four starts, the Flames lost all four, and his 3.88 GAA tied with Bobrovsky for the post-season's worst. But unlike Bobrovsky, he almost certainly won't get a chance to redeem himself next year, at least not with the Flames.
Braden Holtby: Emergency backup duties on our all-disappointment roster is a little trickier call; you could make a case for Corey Crawford, or maybe even John Gibson. But we'll go with Holtby, who falls victim to sky-high expectations that he and his Capitals teammates carried into the playoffs. His shaky numbers were as much about bad bounces as any obvious flaw in his game, but given the stakes in Washington, Holtby's performance was a letdown. Spoiler alert: He won't be the only Capital on this team.
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The NHL eventually gets it right on the expansion draft
- The one hockey prank we can all stop pretending is funny
- An obscure player who once ended a season with a crazy hot streak
- The weeks three comedy stars
- And an uncomfortably shirtless Patrick Sharp repeatedly pranks an uncomfortably shirtless Jonathan Toews
The Edmonton Oilers are heading back to the playoffs for the first time in over a decade.
OK, sure, they haven't clinched a spot quite yet. But the math will work itself out. Barring some sort of epic late collapse, they're going to be back in the playoffs after a long absence. And they'll have some company. While nobody has an active playoff drought as long as Edmonton's, we're also going to see teams like the Blue Jackets, Bruins and maybe even the Maple Leafs return to the postseason after a few years away.
That's the good news, as far as those teams are concerned. The bad news is that when teams get back to the playoffs after several seasons on the sidelines, they typically make quick exits. That's just the nature of a league where we're constantly told that teams need to learn how to win. That first loss is a necessary step. You show up, you get your behind handed to you, and you regroup for a longer run next year. That's just how it works.
Well, most of the time. But every now and then, a team will skip the whole "just happy to be here" phase and returns to the playoffs with guns blazing. Maybe it's an all-time classic series, or maybe it's a deep playoff run. Maybe it's even both.
That's what Oiler fans will be hoping for. So today, as we get ready for Edmonton's long-awaited return to the post-season, let's look back at five teams that ended an extended playoff absence with a bang.
Edmonton Oilers, 1997
If we're going to pump the tires of Oilers fans, we may as well start with one of the most entertaining first-round series ever.
The 1996-97 edition of the Oilers made the playoffs for the first time since 1992, although they didn't exactly kick the door down to get there. They managed 81 points, good for the seventh seed in the West and a first round matchup with the Dallas Stars. The Oilers went in as heavy underdogs – the Stars had finished with 104 points and were on the verge of ascending into the league's elite tier of teams, including a Stanley Cup win in 1999.
But once the series arrived… well, even if you're not an Oiler fan, you probably remember this one. Curtis Joseph stood on his head while posting a pair of shutouts, and the series went to a deciding seventh game in Dallas. That's where Joseph made one of the most famous saves of a generation, diving across to rob Joe Nieuwendyk (and eliciting a classic "OH MY GOODNESS" from Bob Cole). Seconds later, Todd Marchant blew by Grant Ledyard to score the winner and complete the upset.
That's pretty much where the good news ends for the Oilers; they lost in the next round and then were knocked out by the Stars in five of the next six seasons. But you could argue it was all worth it, in exchange for what remains to this day one of the most famous sequences in sudden death history.
Calgary Flames, 2004
Sticking in Alberta, we can't talk about ending a playoff drought with an exclamation point without mentioning the 2003-04 Flames. Calgary hadn't made the playoffs since 1996, and they hadn't won a round since the 1989 final. But after new GM Darryl Sutter remade the roster, they finished with 94 points, good enough for third in the Northwest and a sixth seed in the Western Conference.
That drew a matchup with the Vancouver Canucks. And for the third straight time, that particular pairing produced a Game 7 overtime. This one came after Vancouver tied the deciding game with a dramatic goal in the dying seconds, and ended with Martin Gelinas scoring the winner to send the Flames into the second round.
The run didn't end there, as Gelinas scoring series winners became a bit of a thing. He knocked out the top-seeded Red Wings with another overtime goal, then had the winner against the Sharks in the conference final. Calgary fans would argue that he had the winner in the Cup final too, but the officials had other ideas, and the Flames' miracle run ended one game short of a championship.
Puck Soup is a podcast featuring me and Ryan Lambert. We release one free episode each week during the season, plus mailbags and other bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers.
"Biscuits" was the Vice Sports hockey podcast, hosted by DGB and Dave Lozo. It ran for two seasons; the final episode was in July, 2018. You can find the archives below:
