A look inside the NHL's 50-goal club

We don't know where most of the NHL's awards will go when the hardware is handed out in June, but we can probably go ahead and engrave Steven Stamkos's name onto the Rocket Richard Trophy for the league's leading goal scorer. Stamkos recorded his 50th goal of the season earlier this week, reaching the magic number before any other player could even get to 40.

Stamkos may end up being the only player to score 50 this season, but he'll have plenty of company in the history books. Although the feat has become less common in the current era, 90 different NHL players have managed the reach the 50-goal milestone at least once in their careers.

Here's a look at some of the past and present stars who've managed to join the prestigious 50-goal club.

1993 - Brendan Shanahan scores his 50th goal of the season, then quietly admits to himself that he's not sure that was really the right number and resolves to start randomly scoring less or more without any explanation.

1991 - Brett Hull scores 86 goals and marks the start of a decade in which he's so unstoppable that he sometimes seems to be playing under a completely different set of rules, Sabres fans will later notice in hindsight.

1989 - A career-high 70-goal season from Bernie Nicholls results in the league reluctantly rescinding its controversial "Just to make it fair for everyone else, from now on Wayne Gretzky assists only count if he ricochets the shot off of Bernie Nicholls' head" rule.

1998 - Traded to the Flyers following several disappointing seasons in Montreal, John LeClair records three straight 50-goal seasons after finally being able to explain to an English-speaking equipment manager that he would actually prefer to use left-handed sticks.

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The great eight: A look at the most likely Stanley Cup winners

We're heading down the homestretch of the NHL season. Every team is down to their final fifteen games or less, the playoff races are tight, and we're starting to see some separation between the contenders and the pretenders.

While most of the league is either battling for the bottom playoff seeds or already looking toward the offseason, a handful of teams have begun to separate themselves from the pack. And while it's always possible that we'll see a Cinderella run from an underdog, history tells us that when the Stanley Cup is eventually handed out in a few months it will go to a team from the top of the regular season standings.

So let's get to know a few of those teams. Here's a closer look at the eight teams that look like they'll be heading into the postseason as the Stanley Cup favorites.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Greatest strength: The returning Sidney Crosby won't need to worry about being reinjured by an opponent's body check this time, says Gary Bettman while sitting calmly in the rafters holding a sniper rifle.
Potential weakness: Opposing penalty killers can expect an easy time of it when facing the combination of Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, since the powerplay will only ever last six or seven seconds max.

Boston Bruins

Greatest strength: Lead the league in goal differential with a +58, although in fairness that does go down to +3 if you take away their five games against the Maple Leafs.
Potential weakness: Are starting to get a bad feeling that they misunderstood Tim Thomas when he personally assured them that he'd make sure the whole "refuse to go to the White House after winning a championship" incident would never happen again.

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Other NHL coach problems

"I started telling Kassian we'd traded
him to Vancouver, and he ran me
over on his way to the nearest exit."

It’s been a tough few weeks for NHL coaches.

Ron Wilson, of course, lost his job after failing to pull the Maple Leafs out of their recent tailspin. Wilson brought the season’s total for coaching casualties to eight, which would be bad enough. But lately it seems like any coach who isn’t being sent to the unemployment line is winding up the injured reserve instead.

San Jose coach Todd McLellan missed several games with a concussion after being hit in the head with a stick. He finally returned to the Shark’s bench on Tuesday for a matchup against Edmonton Oilers coach Tom Renney, who is coming off his own recent concussion thanks to an errant puck. And let’s not forget Sabres’ coach Lindy Ruff, who suffered broken ribs in a collision during practice.

It would be tempting to say that any coach who’s managed to avoid getting injured or fired must be doing pretty well. But apparently not, since according to my sources plenty of other coaches are also having a rough time of it. Here’s a sampling of some other recent coaching complaints.

Mike Yeo, Minnesota – Now realizes that when he spent all that time teaching the forwards how to properly slide along the ice in an attempt to block a shot, he apparently should have also told Devin Setoguchi that he didn’t need to do it on his own shootout attempts.

Randy Cunneyworth, Montreal – Hasn’t had time to make much progress on learning French lately, which is too bad because it would have really come in handy next year when he’s coaching in Belgium.

Peter DeBoer, New Jersey – Feels like his first season with the Devils has gone pretty well all things considered, so not really sure why his desk calendar for the first week of April says “help new coach move in to office”.

Mike Babcock, Detroit – Now that he won’t be matched up against Wilson for next year’s HBO 24/7 series, will probably need to scrap his idea of answering every question by saying “Hey, refresh my memory, how did Ron do in the 2010 Olympics?”

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A brief history of Ron Wilson

After weeks of speculation, Ron Wilson was finally relieved of his duties as head coach of the Maple Leafs on Friday. The firing spelled the end to a mostly disappointing time in Toronto that was marked by poor special teams, sloppy defensive play, and a failure to get the team back to the playoffs. By the end, fans at the Air Canada Centre were chanting for him to go.

But was Wilson really the problem in Toronto? Based on his resume, it doesn’t seem likely. Many of his critics in Toronto seemed to forget that Wilson is one of the most successful coaches in NHL history, ranking in the top ten for career victories while coaching somewhere every season since 1993.

It’s too soon to say whether we’ll ever get another look at Wilson behind an NHL bench, but history suggests we may not want to count him out just yet. In the meantime, let’s take a fond look back at some of the notable moments from the long career of Ron Wilson.

September 14, 1973 - As a freshman at Providence College, Wilson begins to wonder why his annoying roommate spends all his spare time reading the thesaurus and practicing undoing his necktie.

June 3, 1975 – Wilson is picked by the Maple Leafs in the same draft that also sees Toronto select Bruce Boudreau and Ken Holland as part of the team’s patented strategy of focusing on players who have demonstrated keen intelligence and excellent leadership and zero ability to actually play hockey.

June 29, 1993 – The expansion Mighty Ducks of Anaheim make Wilson the first coach in franchise history, leading to a four year stint that he’ll later describe as enjoyable once you can get past every single kid you meet walking away muttering “Wow, Gordon Bombay did not age well”.

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The pros and cons of firing Ron Wilson

Even his patented motivational "double
karate chop the fourth-line center" move
no longer worked as well as it used to.

It’s getting ugly in Toronto. After a strong first half, the Maple Leafs have been in a tailspin lately, and will enter tonight’s game having won only one of their last 11 and fading from playoff contention. Fans are unhappy, chanting “Fire Wilson” at one recent home game and lighting up phone-in shows and web forums with demands for a change behind the bench.

Apparently, Brian Burke agreed. The Leafs general manager fired Wilson on Friday evening, ending weeks of speculation during which he’d repeatedly told reporters that he wasn’t contemplating a coaching change. On the one hand, Wilson is one of the most successful coaches in NHL history, and he was never given an elite roster to work with in Toronto. On the other hand, somebody had to take responsibility for the plunge in the standings, and Wilson turned out to be the guy.

Was it the right call? It’s tough to say. Here are some of the pros and cons Burke was no doubt considering this week while deciding where to pull the trigger on a coaching change.

Pro: A new coach would be given a honeymoon period by local fans and media where his every decision wouldn’t be immediately subjected to kneejerk criticism, and if he plays his cards right he could probably get it to last for almost the entire introductory press conference.

Con: It would be difficult to make a change now that the trade deadline has passed, since we’re pretty sure the league has a rule this year where any team that wants to fire its coach has to go out and acquire Tomas Kaberle first.

Pro: Don Cherry has been criticizing Wilson for years, and it would be nice to see a humble guy like that finally be able to take credit for being right about something.

Con: Wilson is a highly respected veteran who other coaches go out of their way to observe and learn from, we assume, since it would explain why Randy Carlyle has watched the last few Leaf games from the seats behind the bench while wearing a fake moustache and glasses.

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