Puck Soup: Cherry bomb

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We react to the Don Cherry story
- Greg's list of his top ten candidates to replace Cherry
- Sidney Crosby is out for six weeks
- The Leafs are bad now
- The Devils are worse
- The Islanders are good, again
- The Ilya Kovalchuk era in L.A. appears to be over
- Greg and Ryan nerd out about Star Wars stuff
- The top ten TV shows of the decade
- and lots more...

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Grab Bag: The pros and cons of Brian Burke replacing Don Cherry

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The pros and cons of Brian Burke replacing Don Cherry
- The new way we're apparently doing HHOF debates from now on
- An obscure player who played a game behind a rookie defenseman
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube breakdown of the days when disagreeing with a call meant every one just attacked the goal judge

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Six more active players who’ll make for tricky Hall of Fame debates someday

It’s Hall of Fame Induction weekend, one of my favorite times on the hockey calendar. I love the HHOF, partly because of the history and reverence and celebration of the game’s history. But mostly, because it gives me an excuse to do one of my very favorite things: Argue with strangers about questions that don’t actually have a correct answer.

Hey you, do you feel like arguing? No? Wrong! Of course you do, you dummy. See, it’s fun. We’re having fun right now.

Hall of Fame debates are great fun when they involve the players who are up for induction, or even the ones who are about to be honored. (Guy Carbonneau? Really? OK, as long as we’re sure.) But I’ve never been good at waiting around for an argument to be fully formed, so I also like to occasionally take a swing at some of the active players who’ve been around long enough to establish a career trajectory that may or may not be tracking toward the sport’s ultimate honor.

We did this earlier in the year, when we looked at names like Phil Kessel, Shea Weber and Marc-Andre Fleury. As part of the discussion that followed, plenty of other names were thrown out as equally worthy of consideration. So today, let’s take a look at six more names that are trending toward a tough Hall of Fame call, and where I think they’ll end up.

Brent Burns

Why it’s a tough one: He’s got some pretty decent numbers for a defenseman, although he racked up at least some of them as a forward. He was good in his own end, but probably not great. He was among the very best in the league in his prime, but his prime didn’t kick in until he was almost 30. Also, the beard is either a major plus or a dealbreaker depending on how it looks on any given day.

The case for: Let’s start with the Norris Trophy. Burns has one, from 2017, and the list of players who’ve won the award is almost entirely HHOF guys. And it’s not like he just had one crazy outlier award year – the technical term for that is “a Theodore” – and then went back to being just OK. He’s been a finalist two other times and a postseason all-star three times in all. If your first question for a Hall of Fame candidate is “Were you ever in the conversation for being the best at your position?” Burns is a definite yes.

Beyond that, he’s the leading scorer among defensemen in the cap era, and we all know that offense sells when it comes to the Hall of Fame.

The case against: Those three Norris-caliber seasons all came within a four-year period, so while his peak is high it may not stretch for as long as you’d like. He could extend that this year, and he’s off to a decent start, so we’ll wait and see.

Moreover, he’s an offensive defenseman whose offensive numbers are in the ballpark of the Hall, but only just. If he retired today, a) that would be weird timing, and b) he’d still be 150-200 points behind modern guys like Sergei Zubov, Rob Blake and Scott Niedermayer. That’s fine – he’s got time to bank those points. But he’s not there yet.

Worth remembering: Burns will be remembered as one of the most entertaining characters of his era, which won’t hurt his cause. (It won’t hurt, right? Please tell me we’re not going to hold the occasional smile or joke or naked photoshoot against him.)

Should he get in? I think he’s on track with another Norris-caliber season or two, or with three or four good-but-not-great years to pad his numbers. So at this point, it may be a race against Father Time.

Will he get in? I’d say he needs about 750 points from the blueline to feel like a safe pick, and he’s on pace to get to that mark and maybe even blow by it. But he turns 35 this year, so injury or a major drop in production loom. If I had to bet, I’d say he gets in.

Ilya Kovalchuk

Why it’s a tough one: Because first, based on recent news we may be stretching the definition of “active” here. And more importantly in the big picture, as we’re so often reminded, it’s the Hockey Hall of Fame, not the NHL Hall of Fame. Except that in the era where European players have free access to come over to North America for their pro careers, it’s pretty much been the NHL Hall of Fame.

The case for: He was one of the best offensive wingers in the NHL for over a decade, racking up six straight 40-goal seasons in an era where those were really hard to come by. He won a Richard and had two All-Star nods that came eight years apart and three other years in the top three. So if you’re looking for a guy who was in the “best at his position” conversation, he passes the test. And through 2013, he was easily on pace to hit the major offensive milestones you need for a Hall career.

The case against: Kovalchuk’s departure for the KHL complicates things, because it means his NHL numbers won’t end up where they’d typically need to be. Based on his limited production since his comeback, it’s fair to say that he won’t get to 500 goals or 1,000 points even in the unlikely event he gets another NHL shot. You can take his KHL numbers into account, and you should, because again it’s the Hockey Hall. But how? What’s the conversion rate? It adds a layer of complexity that some voters won’t want to bother wading through for a one-dimensional goal scorer.

Worth remembering: The Hall will have to wrestle with the KHL question with Jaromir Jagr and Pavel Datsyuk before Kovalchuk comes up for a vote. Both of those guys would get in on their NHL years alone, but acknowledging the KHL on Hall of Fame resumes might crack the door ever so slightly for Kovalchuk.

Should he get in? When he left the NHL in 2013, he already had comparable numbers to guys like Pavel Bure and Cam Neely, so you could argue that if he’s blown out his knee instead of just taken a better job somewhere else, he’d be a cinch. I’d be on the fence if I had a vote, but I think I might lean toward yes because I’m more of a high-peak guy than a longevity one.

Will he get in? I don’t think he does. He made his name in a market that doesn’t exist anymore, left the league in a way that made him some enemies and hasn’t done much in a comeback that now seems to be over. Who’s going to stand up in the room on selection day and pound the table for him?

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I grew up on Coach’s Corner. Don Cherry’s fall has been hard to watch

I can’t believe they actually did it.

News broke Monday afternoon that Don Cherry had been fired from “Hockey Night in Canada,” after Saturday’s comments that singled out immigrants for a lecture on the importance of poppies and patriotism.

Fired. Not gently nudged out to pasture at the end of a season. Not allowed to resign at a time and place of his choosing. No mutual parting of the ways, with friendly well wishes for future endeavors. They actually canned him, after 39 years.

This time, Cherry went too far in a way that he hadn’t before, at least not so brazenly. Or maybe he had, and people like me just weren’t listening closely enough, to him or to the people he was targeting. But as more than a few people said in the aftermath of Saturday’s comments, this time felt different.

Whether his fans want to admit it or not, Saturday’s poppy rant was vintage Cherry. Bigoted and bullying, maybe without even realizing it, or maybe just without caring. Love him or hate him, you can’t say that he changed for the worse. The rest of us did, for the better. Or at least enough of us did that it finally tilted the scales toward the side that plenty of Canadians had been on all along, waiting for the rest of us to catch up. We’ll say that he finally crossed the line, but the truth is the line finally moved beneath him, far enough that he couldn’t get away with it anymore. For all the reasons laid out by Sunaya Sapurji, this was finally the moment where it had to end.

I said as much on Monday. Except I didn’t really. When it came to actually write the words – Don Cherry should be fired – I ducked and dodged. I’ve watched the guy for almost his entire run, and counted myself as a fan for most of it, and being a Cherry guy has always meant knowing when to avert your eyes. So instead, I wrote that it was going to be a tough call, and I was glad I didn’t have to make it.

They made it, and Cherry is gone. At 85 years old and midway through what was probably going to be his final season, he finally went too far.

There are going to be a ton of people, fans and media alike, who are thrilled at the news, because it’s what they’ve wanted for years, maybe decades. There will be others who never really watched Cherry and don’t understand why he ever mattered, but will weigh in anyways because these days that’s what you have to do.

I don’t fall into either category. I grew up watching Cherry, both on “Coach’s Corner” and through his various other outlets. I owned all the tapes. I listened to the radio segments and watched him interview people at his bar. He was the cornerstone of how I came to view the game. Something would happen – a big game, a fight, a trade – and my first instinct would be “I wonder what Grapes is going to say about this.” And then we’d all crowd around the TV and shush each other when it was time to find out.

Sometimes, I’d nod along, or cheer him on. Other times, I’d shake my head, or worse. Occasionally, I’d know it was one of those times to avert my eyes. You get good at it after a while if you let yourself. You might not even realize you’re doing it.

As the years went by, the shake-your-head moments came more frequently. Even the biggest Cherry fan would admit that he’s been coasting on shtick for years. The costumes got sillier, the takes more rambling, the mispronunciations more embarrassing. Occasionally he’d say something especially dumb, and you’d have to figure out if you could come up with a reason why he should still have his platform. It got harder and harder as the years went by. Plenty of one-time fans stopped bothering.

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Weekend power rankings: Early-season surprises slow down, Caps and Blues stay hot and Don Cherry thoughts

If there was a theme to the first months of the season, it was “Wow, the top of the standings are crazy.” We always expect to see a few surprises over the first few weeks, but this year seemed extreme. The Hurricanes were in first place through two weeks, which made some sort of sense because we all figured they’d be decent. But right behind them, we had teams like the Sabres, Oilers and Ducks. Soon enough, the Canucks joined the party too.

Those four teams had missed the postseason by a combined 52 points in 2018-19. And yet here they were, all sporting the kind of records that said they weren’t just playoff teams, but actual contenders. The question was, could it last? Or maybe more accurately, who could it last for?

Well, not the Sabres. They’ve lost five straight (with the last four coming in regulation), including both games in Sweden against the Lightning. Since only the loss against the Caps was a blowout, we’ll hold off on any cliched “same old Sabres” storylines. But after an 8-1-1 start gave them a nice cushion, Buffalo has already dropped all the way out of a playoff spot.

Things aren’t much better for the Sabres’ expansion cousins in Vancouver, where four straight losses have derailed an impressive start. This week should have been an opportunity to bank points against opponents like the Hawks and Devils, but a dynamic offense has suddenly gone cold and left the Canucks teetering on the edge of the wildcard race. That’s not a terrible place for a young team to be; it’s just not where things seemed headed even a week ago.

Then there are the Oilers and Duck, who hooked up last night. Anaheim headed into that one having lost five of eight after a 6-2-0 start, while the Oilers came in having lost six of ten after coming out of the gate 7-1-0. The Oilers rolled in that one, earning a 6-2 win powered by a Connor McDavid hat trick. It was their second straight impressive win, while the Ducks have now lost three straight, and scored two or less in eight of ten.

The Oilers are still in first place in the Pacific, and the other teams mentioned are all still in the thick of the playoff race. You’d have to think that if you asked fans of all four teams before the season if they’d be happy with a first quarter that played out like this, they’d all take it. But it’s a reminder that this is a long season, and sometimes a hot streak to start the year is still just a hot streak. All four of these teams may be better than we thought, but it will take a while to figure it out for sure.

As for the Hurricanes, well, we’ll get to them down below. Let’s move on to this week’s rankings …

Road to the Cup

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

Fair warning: This week’s top five is getting a little East-heavy. That’s not the end of the world and will sort itself out over the course of the season, but it’s going to look a little weird. I’m sorry, but after two weeks the Predators are getting put into timeout because I can’t have anyone on the list in a week where this happens.

Should that mean the Avalanche take their place? Maybe, but after a five-game losing streak, we’ll want to see a bit more before they’re back in the circle of trust. Instead, we’ll welcome a new team to the top five.

5. New York Islanders (12-3-1, +13 true goals differential*) – We said they were close to the top five last week. Since then, the win streak came to an end, thanks to a third-period collapse against the Penguins. But they still got a point in that one and then rebounded nicely on Saturday against the Panthers, and with the Predators surrendering their spot that leaves the Islanders with a solid case to slip in. Now the question is whether they can get any higher, or whether they’ll top out right here just like they did last season.

Time will tell. Next up: John Tavares and the Maple Leafs are in town on Wednesday, which is always fun.

4. Tampa Bay Lightning (8-5-2, -1) – Two wins in Sweden means that for once, the Lightning are making it easier instead of harder for me to keep them in the top five. They get a bit of a break and then close out the week with the Rangers and Jets, so there’s some potential for a winning streak heading into a showdown with the Blues in a week. Hey, speaking of whom …

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