Grab bag: Good goals, Hamlet Death, and Martin St. Louis is Canada's batkid

In the grab bag: Good goals, polite videobombs, PK Subban's contract, Martin St. Louis is Canada's batkid, and the ballad of Eric Lindros, Hamlet Death and the worst shootout ever.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

At the midway mark: All the answers

The NHL season crossed the midway mark this week, with all 30 teams now officially into the second half of their schedules. And as always, the first half of the season has left us with more questions than answers.

We can fix that. The part about not having enough answers, I mean.

That's the beauty of modern sports, after all. There are plenty of different ways to look at any question, and if you don't like the answer you get, you can just click around until you find a better one. Why not save time by putting them all in one place?

So here are 10 key questions for the rest of the NHL season, each answered five different ways: through an old-school narrative; with modern fancy stats; by scrapping the analysis altogether and just focusing on the funniest thing that could happen; and through the eyes of a fan. Specifically, the worst hockey fan that you know. Man, do I ever hate that guy.

Oh, and then there's my answer. You know, the correct one. Make sure you skip those if you want to be surprised.

1. Which team sitting outside of a playoff spot today will find a way in?

The old-school narrative: The New Jersey Devils are a veteran group with a lot of pride and plenty of Cup rings. They'll find a way, because they always do. (Except when they don't.) Besides, do you really think a tried-and-tested winner like Martin Brodeur is going out like this?

The fancy stats: The Dallas Stars are stuck in 10th in the West, four points out of a playoff spot. But the advanced metrics say they've actually been one of the league's better teams — and they're trending upward.²

The worst hockey fan you know: The Carolina Hurricanes do it for their die-hard fans — all three of them! You know, because the rest of them like NASCAR. [Looks around for a high five.]

If the hockey gods had a sense of humor: The Senators edge out the Red Wings on the schedule's final day, after spending the season's second half ripping clothing off a cardboard cutout of Daniel Alfredsson.

My answer: I actually like Ottawa, Dallas, and maybe the Caps. You might even be able to talk me into the Devils, too, though they need to jump a lot of teams.

2. Who'll be the biggest trade-deadline acquisition?

The old-school narrative: Everyone knows that goaltending wins championships, and there's one goaltender available who could do that single-handedly. Whichever contender upgrades to Ryan Miller can go ahead and start designing its rings.

The fancy stats: Mike Cammalleri is a classic rental — a veteran on a bad team making lots of money on an expiring contract. He's having a pretty unremarkable year offensively, and his minus-20 rating is ugly. But he leads the Flames in CF% relative, which means they're much better with him on the ice than off, and his PDO of 93.8 suggests that his plus/minus is more a product of bad luck than anything he's doing. With the right situation and some better puck luck, he could be a difference-maker.

The worst hockey fan you know: Oh man, I have this great idea for a fake Twitter insider account on deadline day — dude, it's going to be hilarious.

If the hockey gods had a sense of humor: With Pascal Dupuis likely done for the season, the Penguins still need a right winger to play with Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz. Hey, I hear the Devils' leading scorer could make a nice rental …

My answer: As a Leaf fan, I've already resigned myself to James Reimer getting traded for a handful of magic beans. This guy's a great goalie who, for whatever reason, isn't getting a fair chance in Toronto; whoever winds up with him is going to get a steal.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

The 2014 Olympic trade deadline

Hello, fans around the world, and welcome to our coverage of the 2014 Olympic hockey trade deadline. With all national rosters due today, this is the last chance for countries to trade players before locking in their lineups.

Rumors have been swirling for months and the tension is high, so let's go live to our studios as we count down to the deadline …

***

OK, we'll stop right there. Clearly, the entire premise of this column is ridiculous. The Olympic hockey trade deadline doesn't exist, and never could. It wouldn't even make any sense. After all, player eligibility is determined based on a detailed set of rules; that's the whole point. If stars suddenly started suiting up for different countries at major international tournaments, hockey fans wouldn't stand for it. So clearly, there can be no such thing as an Olympic trade deadline.

But what if there were? You're telling me that a trade deadline wouldn't make an already fun tournament even more entertaining? You wouldn't spend weeks obsessing over possible moves as the deadline approached, then call in sick when the actual day arrived? At the very least, it would give the various general managers something to do besides picking an all-star roster, immediately apologizing for it, and then having a camera isolated on them during every game while they look like they're undergoing cardiac arrest.

So yes, this whole thing is silly, will probably result in the majority of the world's population hating me, and risks turning into the worst HFBoards thread ever. But that doesn't mean we can't waste a few thousand words on it. Who's with me? That's what I thought. We now return you to our trade desk …

***

And we're back. There could be plenty of action today, as the top contenders are all looking to load up. Russia is under tremendous pressure to win gold on home ice. Team Canada, as always, will either win gold or be considered a national disgrace. Team USA will be looking to build on a surprising 2010 run that saw them fall just one goal shy of winning it all, while Sweden's aging core wants to get back to the top of the medal stand one last time. And what about the quasi-contenders? Will they try to compete with the big boys, or look to rebuild for the future?

Anything can happen. Remember, everyone is eligible to be moved, including players who didn't make their country's final roster. And based on the flurry of cell-phone checking that's currently going on behind me, we appear to have our first deal of the day. Cue the overly elaborate, swooshing "breaking trade" graphic.

Canada trades forward Logan Couture to Finland for goaltender Kari Lehtonen

On the surface, this one-for-one swap makes a lot of sense. Canada's roster is stacked as always, but goaltending is still an area of concern. Carey Price has looked fine and Roberto Luongo won gold four years ago, but the country has been falling behind the rest of the world in goal for years, and the days when it could bank on an obvious choice like Martin Brodeur or Patrick Roy are long gone. With Luongo's health status suddenly in question, it's not surprising that it wants to add some depth at the position.

Lehtonen will give Canada a safety net and could push for the starter's job if Price falters. He's far from a sure thing, but he's arguably the best goalie who'd be available. And Finland can certainly afford to move him, with Tuukka Rask already firmly established as the starter and Antti Niemi backing up.

The move doesn't come cheap for Canada, as Couture has already emerged as an excellent two-way player at the age of 24. But for whatever reason, Team Canada didn't seem high on him, and he was a somewhat surprising omission from the roster announced today. So he goes to Finland, which is considered a long shot to win a medal this year, where he can step in and play on its top six right now as well as in 2018 and beyond.

Canada has made an early blockbuster move. Which will be the next teams to pull the trigger? Apparently we won't have to wait long to find out, because we have another deal coming across the wire.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Weekend wrap: Blues, Wild, Senators and more

Each Monday, we’ll wrap up three of the biggest stories from the weekend and how they’ll play into the coming week.

Blues May Be the Best

The St. Louis Blues are the NHL’s hottest team, and right now you could make a good case that they are the league’s best, period. They’ve won five straight and collected 15 points over their last eight games. And as we’ve come to expect, they’re doing it with defense, giving up 2.27 goals per game, the third-best mark in the league. They give up fewer shots than any team outside of New Jersey, and they have received dependable goaltending from the Jaroslav Halak–Brian Elliott combo.

In a typical season, this would be the part of our St. Louis Blues summary when we’d point out that all that defense is compensating for a lack of scoring. After all, the Blues have only finished in the top 10 in goals per game once since the 2005 lockout (they were 10th in 2010-11). But that caveat doesn’t apply this year; the Blues are scoring 3.56 goals per game, good for second-best in the league. They lead the league in shooting percentage by a wide margin, and their power play is top five. If anything, their offense has been even better than their defense.

Add it all up, and you’ve got a team whose plus-55 goal differential leads the league by 12 over second-place Chicago, with no other team even cracking the plus-40 mark. The Blues have padded those numbers in January with a pair of blowout home wins, blanking the Kings 5-0 on Thursday and following that up with a 6-2 stomping of the Blue Jackets on Saturday. They were kind enough to spot Columbus a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes in that one, before pulling away in the second period on the way to scoring six unanswered. Patrik Berglund had a pair of goals, and Vladimir Sobotka added a goal and an assist.

Despite the hot streak, the Blues are still just tied for third overall, four points back of the Hawks and Ducks. But they have four games in hand on Chicago and three on Anaheim, and the Blues get the woeful Flames and Oilers in their next two matchups. And while leading scorer Alexander Steen remains out with a concussion, they did get David Backes and Jordan Leopold back in the lineup over the weekend.

So are the Blues the league’s best team right now? Maybe, though there’s some evidence that they’ve also benefitted from above-average luck. They lead the league in PDO by almost a full point, powered largely by that 12-plus percentage team shooting that’s likely to drop as the season continues. And while the team’s overall goaltending numbers have been decent, that’s been driven largely by Elliott; Halak’s .907 save percentage ranks him outside the NHL’s top 30.

Still, even if their luck starts to even out, the Blues are still going to be very good. And if they don’t think their goaltending is championship-caliber, well, let’s just say there are options available. It feels wrong to anoint anyone else in the West as the Stanley Cup favorite as long as the defending champs are still on top of the conference, but the Blues may not give us much choice.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Grab bag: In which I find myself on Brian Burke's side on something

In the grab bag: Defending Brian Burke, a very Don Cherry Christmas, your handy Team Canada Panic checklist, the butt goal, and a fight in a Las Vegas parking lot.

>> Read the full post on Grantland