That Eugene Melnyk video: The top-secret transcript

It’s​ almost 24​ hours later, and​ hockey​ fans around​ the league are still talking​​ about The Video.

You know the one. Late Monday night, the Ottawa Senators unveiled a video featuring owner Eugene Melnyk being interviewed by defenceman Mark Borowiecki. It was meant as an opportunity for Melnyk to finally lay out a long-term vision for the team’s future. But not everyone was impressed, partly due to Melnyk’s message and partly because the video struck many as, in the words of colleague James Gordon, “deeply weird”.

One element that’s come in for some criticism is the choice to have Borowiecki handle the interview duties. But while it may surprise some of the team’s more cynical fans, the Senators actually put a lot of thought into that decision. In fact, we’ve been told that the club even held auditions to make sure they nailed the best choice possible for the role. And as luck would have, DGB spies were there to record the top-secret transcript.

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Director: And… CUT!

Mark Borowiecki: Whew. Was that OK?

Director: That was great, Mark. You did fantastic. But Eugene and I were talking, and we’d like to bring in a few other folks from around the hockey world to audition for the interviewer’s role.

Eugene Melnyk: Yeah, we’re just not sure that having an actual Senator do the interview is going to look good. Might seem a little softball-y, you know?

Borowiecki: Sure, I guess that makes sense.

Director: Thanks for understanding. Feel free to stick around while we run through a few more auditions. OK, first up is, let’s see … Henrik Zetterberg.

Zetterberg: Hi everyone.

Melnyk: Wow, thanks for coming out Henrik.

Zetterberg: Hey, my pleasure. I always wanted to try out this whole interviewing thing. Gives me something to do in retirement, you know.

Melnyk: You’re retired?

Zetterberg: Uh…

[Ken Holland appears in the window, making a throat-slash gesture.]

Zetterberg: Something to do while I’m injured. You know, as I work my way back from injury so that I can resume my playing duties under my contract without triggering any cap penalties. Which is totally what I’m doing.

[Holland does the eye-point move.]

Zetterberg [under his breath]: Yzerman’s totally replacing you.

Melnyk: What was that?

Zetterberg: Nothing. You know what, this may have been a bad idea.

Marc Bergevin: Did I hear somebody say “bad idea”?

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

2017 Trade Grades: Western Conference

Our annual trade grades post continues today, as we look back at every deal from 2017 that involved at least one player. Yesterday, we went through the Eastern Conference. Today, it’s the West’s turn.

Anaheim Ducks

Best deal: It’s early, but so far the Sami Vatanen-for-Adam Henrique seems like a classic case of two teams both using an area of strength to patch holes in the lineup.

Worst deal: Giving up Shea Theodore for expansion draft considerations. On its own, the move works, since it allowed the team to keep Vatanen and Josh Manson. But it highlights the fact that the Ducks were as poorly positioned for expansion as just about anyone, and couldn’t find a way to avoid paying a price for it.

To be determined: Just how much the first-rounder they gave up for Patrick Eaves comes back to bite them; the fact that he re-signed eases the pain a bit.

Total trades: Seven.

Overall grade: B-. Bob Murray worked hard, and probably salvaged as much as he could from a brutal expansion situation.

Arizona Coyotes

Best deal: John Chayka managed to turn Martin Hanzal into one of the deadline’s biggest names, and reaped a windfall for doing so.

Worst deal: The Derek Stepan/Antti Raanta deal signalled that the Coyotes were ready to move into win-now mode. Their start to this season signalled that they were not.

To be determined: Whether Niklas Hjalmarsson can get back on track; that deal looked like a steal for the Coyotes at the time.

Total trades: Fourteen, tying the Canadiens for the league high.

Overall grade: B. Chayka made lots of deals, several of them big – we didn’t even mention Mike Smith – and he’s clearly not intimidated despite his relative youth and lack of experience. But the disastrous start to the season calls into question whether the Coyotes were addressing the right areas.

Calgary Flames

Best deal: Getting Mike Smith from the Coyotes. I was skeptical at the time, but so far Smith has been exactly what they hoped they were getting.

Worst deal: As mentioned yesterday, giving up a second for Curtis Lazar seemed like a major overpayment on a longshot gamble.

To be determined: Whether Travis Hamonic can settle in; they’d better hope so, given the price they paid to get him.

Total trades: Six.

Overall grade: B. But if Hamonic gets back to his Islanders level, this could move into the A- territority.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Weekend wrap: Sens of urgency

So it’s probably time to talk about the Senators again.

The first time we led with Ottawa, it was two weeks into the season and they’d just rolled through western Canada, looking an awful lot like a team that was picking up where last year’s conference finalist had left off. A few weeks later, they were bringing in reinforcements, pulling off a blockbuster three-way deal for Matt Duchene. Both times, optimism was the word of the day in Ottawa.

Today, not so much. The Senators followed the Duchene trade with a trip to Sweden, where they swept two against the Avalanche. But since returning to North America, they’ve been a disaster, losing six straight and picking up just a single point in the process. It’s their worst stretch by far of the Guy Boucher era, and it’s dropped them into the ranks of the Eastern Conference also-rans, nestled in between the Hurricanes and Flyers. Today, the Sens are sitting three points out of an Atlantic playoff spot, and six back of a wild-card berth.

Even worse, the Duchene trade seems to have thrown a wrench into the offence, which hasn’t scored more than twice during the losing streak after scoring three or more in seven of eight games before the deal. And Duchene himself certainly hasn’t helped the cause, contributing just a single point since arriving while posting an ugly -10 rating.

The good news is that Duchene is coming off his best game as a Senator, which came during Saturday’s loss to the Islanders. He had a power-play goal late in the game, and didn’t post a minus rating for the first time (he was even):

That’s not exactly a breakthrough, but at this point you start with baby steps.

More important, the underlying numbers suggest that Duchene’s lack of production is more due to a swing of bad luck than anything in particular that he is or isn’t doing. He’s putting almost twice as many shots on net as a Senator than he was in Colorado, but he’s getting PDO’d to death at both ends of the ice. That kind of stuff can happen to anyone over the course of a year, and if it’s buried in the middle of a season we may not even notice it. But when it comes in a player’s first few games after a monster trade, it gets people talking. (Kyle Turris has six points in eight games in Nashville, in case you were wondering.)

But while you might be able to shrug off Duchene’s struggles as a temporary blip, there’s at least some reason for concern with the Senators as a group. Their record is already inflated by loser points, with just eight actual wins to show for 22 games. That’s a stat that can go both ways, since some better luck in overtime and shootout coin flips would mean a few extra points. But they’re already well back of just about everyone else in the ROW tie-breaker, which could come into play if the playoff race is close.

So what’s wrong? It’s not about injuries; with the exception of Erik Karlsson‘s delayed start to the season, they’ve been reasonably healthy. They are getting hurt by goaltending, with Craig Anderson posting a .895 save percentage. Normally we might write that off as a slump by a guy who’s usually among the league’s best, and it probably is, but you get a little nervous when a guy who’s 36 starts to stumble.

No team is ever as bad as they look during a losing streak, so we have to go bigger picture when trying to figure out the Senators. And there’s a good chance that Anderson settles in, Duchene adjusts to his new home, Karlsson wins a few games singlehandedly and everything turns out OK. But it’s also possible that the Senators we’ve seen so far this season are an accurate reflection of what this team should be — in other words, one that loses more than they win, keeps it relatively close in the process, and hangs around the outside of the playoff picture.

And of course, they’ve already played most of their trade chips, at least in terms of future assets. We often hear about how crucial it is for Ottawa’s bottom line that the team always at least make the post-season. If things don’t turn around soon, we might be about to find out just how crucial.

Road to the Cup

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

5. Nashville Predators (14-6-3, +7 true goals differential*): Last year’s conference champs had won nine of 10 before yesterday’s shootout loss in Carolina.

4. Winnipeg Jets (14-6-3, +10): They didn’t impress during Saturday’s showcase game in San Jose, but two of three in California ain’t bad.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Duchene vs. Turris

We’ve got a dozen games on the schedule Saturday, including a pair of afternoon games, one of which is being played in Sweden. Let’s dive in.

HNIC Game of the Night: Maple Leafs at Bruins

We’re going with the Leafs and Bruins as Saturday night’s featured game, for a couple of reasons. First, by using it here we don’t have to worry about having it show up in the “From the Archives” section, meaning we don’t have to revisit this or this. Honestly, that’s kind of the main one. Whoever said “time heals all wounds” was never a Maple Leafs fan.

But even putting all that unpleasantness aside, Saturday night’s game looms as an intriguing one. It’s the back half of an old school home-and-home series played over consecutive nights. Last night, the Leafs beat the Bruins in overtime. Now the Bruins get their chance at revenge.

Both teams have steered through an up-and-down first month of the schedule. The Leafs have more to show for it, thanks to a hot start and a solid last week that balance out a rocky two-week stretch in late October. They’re sitting at 11-7-0, and while even their wins tend to feature uneven performances, holding down second spot in the Atlantic behind only the powerhouse Lightning seems like a reasonable result.

The Bruins are off to a slower start, having lost more games than they’ve won. At 6-5-4, they look like a playoff bubble team, which is essentially what they were last year. But given their injury troubles so far, they’ll probably take it. They’ve been without David Krejci, Tuukka Rask and David Backes among others; Brad Marchand returned Friday night after missing two games with an upper-body injury.

(The Maple Leafs are dealing with an injury issue of their own, of course, with Auston Matthews missing time this week. He’s not expected to play Saturday.)

So it’s the beaten-up Bruins against the still-figuring-it-out Maple Leafs in a matchup between longtime rivals fighting for the same playoff spot. And that fight may have gotten tougher over the last week, since one of their fellow Atlantic contenders just made a few headlines of their own…

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Grab bag: We have a trade to announce

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Holy crap the NHL actually had a major trade
- Canada is torn apart by a political controversy involving a Bob Probert fight
- An obscure player from the biggest three-way trade ever
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a classic YouTube clip of the time David Poile turned down the Maple Leafs GM job

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Biscuits podcast: We're back

Good news... after a long offseason that stretched through October, the Vice Sports Biscuits podcast is back. Dave and I will be doing the show weekly through to the end of the season, with new episodes appearing late Tuesday/early Wednesday most weeks.

In this week's episode:
- We break down the Matt Duchene trade
- Were we wrong about Joe Sakic?
- Why Pierre Dorion should get some credit for making this move
- We play "real or fake" with the first month's biggest surprises
- Which two teams would you combine to make each conference's best dream team?
- They kick us out early because somebody else needs the studio, because some things never change

>> Stream it now on Vice Sports

>> Subscribe on iTunes. (Or find us and subscribe on your other favorite podcast platforms.)

Weekend wrap: The Duchene trade finally lands

The big NHL news from the weekend came off the ice, when the Senators, Predators and Avalanche combined to make a blockbuster three-way trade that finally ends our long national Matt Duchene sweepstakes nightmare.

Well, the news came off the ice for the Senators and Predators. The Avalanche were actually in the middle of a game when the news broke, which lead to the somewhat-bizarre scene of Duchene sneaking away from the action. You don’t see that often in the NHL, but given how long he’s had to wait for this move to go down, it’s amazing Duchene didn’t cartwheel off the bench and down the hallway as soon as it was announced.

The trade sees Duchene head to the Senators, Kyle Turris go to the Predators, and a haul of seven picks and players go to the Avalanche. Nashville then signed Turris to a six-year, $36-million extension, which will keep him from his scheduled date with free agency next summer.

The trade itself was hardly a surprise, given that the key details being discussed had leaked out on Friday. At the time, we were told the deal was dead, and maybe it was. But it’s one thing for there to be rumours about a deal, and another for actual names to spill out. Once that happened, it felt inevitable that the teams would come back to the table. As it turns out, it didn’t take long.

So who wins? From the Avalanche perspective, there has to be a certain relief at finally getting something done at all. The situation had been dragging for over a year, and GM Joe Sakic had received plenty of criticism over that time for his lack of action. According to reports, his asking price had been high – maybe too high – and he didn’t get any established NHL help in this move. That seems like a disappointment, especially with the Avs off to a strong start. But it may also buy the beleaguered GM some time before anyone can really declare him a winner or loser here.

As for the Predators, this ends up being fairly straightforward: They get better right now. After last year’s near-miss, Nashville is clearly looking to win it all, and are willing to sacrifice a bit of the future to do it (including giving up the best young player in the deal, Samuel Girard). The Turris extension wasn’t cheap, but was a reasonable cap hit that they didn’t have to go to seven or eight years to get. Like most contenders, the Predators are focused on getting better today and will worry about the rest of it down the road.

That brings us to Ottawa — and here’s where things get interesting. On one level, your thoughts about this deal from a Senators’ perspective will come down to whether you see Duchene as a significant upgrade over Turris. Clearly, the Ottawa organization does, since they gave up a decent premium to swap the two players, including a first-round pick (albeit one with top-10 protection). The hockey world would seem to agree; remember, Duchene was viewed as good enough to play for Team Canada at the Olympics just a few years ago. Then again, the numbers suggest the two players are closer than you might think.

2014 to present:
– Duchene: 248 GP, 165 PTS (0.67 PPG)
– Turris: 228 GP, 158 PTS (0.69 PPG)
Age isn't all that different, either.

— Jonathan Willis (@JonathanWillis) November 6, 2017

The other factor here is financial. The Senators apparently didn’t like their odds of getting a deal done with Turris, for whatever reason. But Duchene will be in the same situation a year from now, and if he really is a better player then he should cost them even more. An extra year of team control is certainly worth something, especially to a budget team like Ottawa. But you wonder if they won’t be right back here this time next year, looking to move a guy they don’t want to pay.

That’s for down the road, though. In the meantime, Duchene and the Senators head to Sweden to face the Avalanche on the weekend, which makes that whole expedition a lot more interesting. The Predators should have Turris in the lineup tomorrow in Columbus. And seeing Duchene go off the market could put extra pressure on teams like the Hurricanes, Islanders and Canadiens who were rumoured to be in on him.

For now, these three teams have given the whole league plenty to chew on. On to the power rankings…

Road to the Cup

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

5. San Jose Sharks (8-5-0, +5 true goals differential*): They’ve won four straight and haven’t allowed more than two goals in six. Next up: a showdown with the Lightning on Wednesday.

4. Columbus Blue Jackets (9-4-1, +10): John Tortorella finding out what his Lightning players were up to in 2004 may be the highlight of the weekend.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Let's make a deal: A look back at this season's biggest trades

After sending the overpaid underacheiver
to Ottawa, the Coyotes understood what
it felt like to be a Canadian voter

The Phoenix Coyotes finally made the long-awaited Kyle Turris trade over the weekend, dealing the disgruntled center to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for young defenceman David Rundblad and a draft pick.

The trade was a rare early-season blockbuster in a league where most trades seem to happen at the trade deadline or in the offseason. It will also be the last NHL deal for a while, since the league-wide holiday trade freeze went into effect on Monday.

So while NHL general managers step away from the negotiating table for a well-deserved break, let's take a look back at some of the significant trades the league has seen since the end of training camp.

The trade: The Devils send David Steckel to the Leafs for a fourth-round draft pick.
The view from Toronto: Steckel gives the team a faceoff specialist who can take the first draw after a Maple Leaf penalty, which is always in the defensive zone, as well as the second draw after a Maple Leaf penalty, which is always at center ice.
The view from New Jersey: Steckel's main role last year with the Capitals was being the guy who'd go up to Alexander Ovechkin before every game and remind him to occasionally score a goal or two, although I'm sure someone else will remember to do that.
Final verdict: The deal saw the Leafs acquire an above-average fourth line center, which I think we all agree was their only major weakness heading into the season.

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Potential issues in the next NHL CBA

After several awkward minutes, Fehr realized that
"high five me if you love escrow" was a bad idea.

So it turns out that the NBA won't be challenging the NHL's status as the only league to lose a full season to work stoppage after all. Despite dire predictions that the year would be lost, the NBA and its players managed to reach an agreement that will save most of the season.

That comes on the heels of recent agreements that saw both the NFL and MLB sign new deals without missing any games. So with three of North America's big four sports leagues having found labour peace, all eyes now shift back to the NHL. With the league's current collective bargaining agreement set to expire before next season, hockey fans are hoping that negotiations go more smoothly than they did the last time around.

So what will be the major issues in the next NHL CBA? That depends on who you talk to. As it turns out, everyone seems to have a different opinion on which issues should be top priorities. Here's a look at what various stakeholders around the NHL say they'd like to see changed in the league's next CBA:

Brendan Shanahan - Would like to increase the maximum player fine from the current $2,500; failing that, would at least like the players to stop paying it by grabbing a fistful of spare change, throwing it at me from their car window, then laughing and speeding off.

Alexander Ovechkin - I've repeatedly argued that the NHL give Russian players the chance to compete in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, although to be honest you should probably also check with some of the guys who will make the team.

Kyle Turris - Pass a rule banning pointless holdouts where the player misses two months and doesn't get anything he was asking for, or at least have someone tell my agent that you did.

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Tips for dominating your fantasy hockey draft

With the start of the regular season just nine days away, hockey fans will be gathering in basements, pubs and boardrooms across North America this week for their annual fantasy hockey drafts.

No doubt thousands of fans are tweaking their cheat sheets at this very moment, most likely while they're supposed to be working. But while a spreadsheet full of stats and projections may be nice, it won't help you take home the winner's prize money unless you back it up with a top-notch draft night strategy.

If your fantasy league is drafting this week, here are some tips to keep in mind to help you come away with your best roster ever:

• When forecasting year-end point totals, don't forget to factor in that every player in the league is expected to miss at least 20 games this season due to suspensions from Brendan Shanahan.
  
  
• Just because a player has never had more than 25 points in a season is no reason not to draft him just as highly as players who regularly score twice that, according to Kyle Turris's agent.
  
  
• Make sure you understand your league's structure and are clear on terminology. A head-to-head league is a lot of fun and is run by fans who enjoy direct competition with fellow owners. An elbow-to-head league is less fun and is run by Matt Cooke.
  
  
• When it's time to collect everyone's $20 for the prize pool, ask Terry Pegula if he'd be willing to kick in an extra $10 million up front for no reason. He usually agrees to that.
  

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