Weekend wrap: Is this the year a goalie or defenseman wins the Hart?

A look back at the biggest games and emerging story lines of the NHL weekend.

Theme of the Week: Is This the Year a Goalie or Defenseman Wins MVP?

The midseason mark typically presents an opportunity to start narrowing down the various awards races, picking out the front-runners and shrinking the fields down to a handful of realistic contenders who voters can focus on for the rest of the season. But when it comes to the biggest award of them all — the Hart Memorial Trophy for league MVP — the first half hasn’t provided much clarity.

While a player’s value can be measured in many ways, the Hart Trophy often just ends up going to the league’s leading scorer — the Art Ross winner has also been named MVP in eight of the last 11 seasons. But this year’s tight scoring race clouds the picture, with 16 players within 10 points of Jakub Voracek’s league-leading 53. A look down the top 10 further complicates things. Alexander Ovechkin, who’s earned three of the last seven Harts, is nowhere to be found. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, who’ve combined to win three more, are both near the league lead, but two players from the same team posting similar totals could end up canceling each other out.

Meanwhile, two of the season’s breakout stars, Philadelphia’s Voracek and Dallas’s Tyler Seguin, play for teams that look likely to miss the playoffs, which still stands as a deal-breaker for many voters. And other top scorers like Vladimir Tarasenko and Tyler Johnson are relative newcomers who might find it difficult to garner much leaguewide support this early in their career.

All of this may open the door for a rare sight: a non-forward taking home the league’s top individual award. The Hart Trophy has evolved into the near-exclusive domain of centers and wingers, who’ve won 37 of the last 41 awards. Only six goaltenders have won the award in its 90-year history, and only two have done so since 1962 — Dominik Hasek, who became the only goalie to win the award twice when he took it home in 1997 and 1998, and Jose Theodore, who won a tiebreaker over Jarome Iginla in 2002.¹

Defensemen have had an even tougher time in the post–Original Six era. Since Bobby Orr’s three straight Hart Trophies from 1970 to 1972, only one defenseman has been named MVP. That was Chris Pronger in 2000, when he edged Jaromir Jagr by a single vote. Since then, a blueliner hasn’t so much as been a finalist for the award.

It’s an odd phenomenon. It’s not as if there’s some sort of belief that defenseman and goalies can’t be valuable — the Conn Smythe, awarded to the playoff MVP, has gone to a non-forward 10 times in the last 20 seasons. Perhaps goalies and defensemen just fall into the same trap that pitchers do in baseball, with enough voters figuring “they’ve got their own award” that non-forwards can’t win without a season for the ages.

In either case, there’s a growing consensus that this could be the year to avoid the forward logjam. Plenty of voters seemed willing to throw their support behind Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne before his recent injury. Some of that support now seems to be drifting toward Carey Price, and Roberto Luongo has earned some consideration. There hasn’t been quite the same level of support for defensemen, although Calgary’s Mark Giordano gets an occasional mention.

Only time will tell whether the current mood among Hart voters continues, or whether they retreat back to the more comfortable forward ranks as the season wears on. Of course, any of the top-scoring forwards could make the whole discussion moot with one long hot streak (and Crosby, with seven points in his last three games, may already be doing just that).

But for now, at least, there’s some momentum to mix things up. That alone could be enough to make this year’s voting a little less predictable.

Cup Watch: The League’s Five Best

The five teams that seem most likely to earn the league’s top prize: the Stanley Cup.

5. New York Islanders (30-14-1, plus-19 goals differential): They edge out the Lightning for the fifth spot after earning big wins over the Penguins and Rangers by a combined score of 9-3. (We’ll just pretend we didn’t see Saturday’s letdown game against the Canadiens.)

4. Chicago Blackhawks (28-15-2, plus-34): We’ve had them ranked no. 1 for six weeks, but there’s no denying that the Hawks just haven’t looked like themselves in the new year, going 3-5-0 against a schedule devoid of any top teams.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Grab bag: That time Gary Bettman made Wayne Gretzky a scrapbook

In this week's grab bag:
- Comedy stars
- All-star snubs
- A Selanne-inspired obscure player
- Stop telling me which scout are at which games
- And that time that Gary Bettman made the Canucks stand around and watch him give Wayne Gretzky a scrapbook.

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A look at the Pacific, which may or may not be any good

The Pacific Division had a weird 2013-14 season. The three California teams were excellent. The two Alberta teams were awful. The Coyotes and Canucks were stuck in the middle. By the end of things, the division featured the eventual Stanley Cup winner, plus a team that missed winning the Presidents’ Trophy by a single point. But it also had two of the league’s four worst teams and was the only division to send just three teams to the postseason.

That made it hard to get a consensus heading into this year. The general thinking seemed to be that the California teams would still be good, of course, unless the Sharks imploded. The Alberta teams would still be bad, obviously, unless the Oilers finally improved. The Canucks and/or Coyotes were on the way up, or maybe heading for a crash-and-burn, and it was all somehow Radim Vrbata’s fault.

Halfway through the season, the picture isn’t all that much clearer. So let’s take a deeper look into a division that may (or may not) be among the NHL’s best.

Let’s start at the top: Are the Anaheim Ducks the NHL’s best team?

The standings say they might be. They’ve spent most of the season holding down first place overall and currently sit tied for first. So if you’re one of the “you are what your record says you are” crowd, you know all you need to know and can pretty much skip down to the next section.

Of course, sometimes a win-loss record can deceive, and there’s plenty of reason to think that’s the case with the Ducks. You’re probably familiar with the case by now: They’re not an especially good possession team, their plus-7 goals differential suggests they’re closer to .500 than to the league’s elite, and their ridiculous 21-0-6 record in one-goal games — that’s right, zero regulation losses in 27 one-goal contests — is the sort of thing that can’t possibly be sustainable.¹

Or can it? There’s an argument out there that the Ducks keep coming out on top of tight games because they just know how to win. It’s an old-school narrative, and stats guys will roll their eyes, but it’s hard to watch this team and not start to wonder if there must be something going on beyond mere coincidence. Coaching? Veteran savvy? Big-game experience? Blessings of good fortune from Saint Teemu?

You may not believe it, but the Ducks themselves sure seem to. And at some point, that alone might start to make a difference.

The Canucks looked good early; can they still catch Anaheim?

No, they can’t. That probably sounds too definitive, but it reflects the reality that the Canucks are already 11 points back, which is a lot to make up unless the Ducks suddenly collapse. And while that scenario isn’t impossible, it seems unlikely that the Canucks would be the team to take advantage.

A better angle might be whether the Canucks can even make the playoffs. That question would have seemed silly even a month ago, after Vancouver’s hot start had them in the running for first place in the conference. But they’ve been fading lately, and their fall has revealed some significant flaws. They’re not a great possession team. Their goaltending, led by high-priced free agent Ryan Miller, has been mildly disappointing. Their two franchise players, the Sedin twins, are well on the wrong side of 30 and don’t put up the sort of numbers they used to.

Add it all up and lately the team has been inspiring articles in the local media with headlines like “Are the Canucks bad?” That’s not exactly what you want to see from a division title contender.

The good news is that the answer is probably no, the Canucks aren’t bad; they’re just not as good as they looked early on. And while that hot start may have been a mirage, it still banked enough points that they’re in decent shape to at least hold on to a wild card. After all, the teams they need to beat out aren’t exactly scary; we’re basically talking about shaky Central teams like the Stars, Avalanche, and Wild, plus one Pacific team we’ll get to right now.

Speaking of fading Canadian teams, is there hope for the Flames?

The Flames were the league’s best story over the first few months, going from being a consensus preseason pick to being among the league’s worst teams to fighting for first place in the division. They made that happen, the narrative went, with a big dose of hard work, grit, and heart.

They also made it happen with plenty of luck, and that good fortune has mostly deserted them lately. Stats fans were waiting patiently for the Flames to sputter, and they have, dropping out of a playoff spot and down to fifth in the division.

All that said, the Flames haven’t dropped all that far — they’re just two points back of a wild card. They’d probably only need to catch the Canucks to claw back into the playoffs, and with almost 40 games to go that’s far from impossible.

Can they do it? Probably not. Their underlying numbers are still poor, and on paper there’s just not enough talent here to make a real push. They could always go out and try to add pieces at the deadline, but the organization wants to build patiently, and sacrificing the future to make a run today seems unwise. That leaves them needing another dose of good luck, or the second-half collapse of a rival, or maybe both.

The Flames were a great story. It would be nice to see it continue, but don’t get your hopes up.

And what about the San Jose Sharks?

Pass.

I’m pretty sure that’s not an option.

Fine, but don’t expect much insight. To this day, I have no idea what the Sharks are. On paper, they should be a very good team. And on many nights, that’s exactly what they look like. They’ve already beaten the Ducks three times, and they won nine of 10 in late November and early December. But as soon as you start to get onboard with the Sharks, something embarrassing inevitably happens. They lost to the Blues by a final of 7-2 twice in the last few weeks. They’ve lost to the Sabres twice, and to the Coyotes, and even to the Oilers.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

A history of ridiculous NHL all-star selections

The NHL All-Star rosters were announced on Saturday, and everyone is mad because that’s the whole point.

Some guys were undeserving, several more were snubbed, and at the end of the day none of it really mattered because All-Star games are kind of pointless when you think about it. But it’s all in good fun, and considering the entire Blackhawks roster had already been voted in, the league did the best it could with the few spots it had to work with.

Besides, if you think some of this year’s choices were odd, none of them come close to matching some of history’s strangest All-Star choices. After all, the league has been doing this for decades. The odds say that every once in a while, things are going to get truly weird.

So today, let’s take a look back at some of the oddest All-Star picks from over the years. Maybe by the end of this post, Justin Faulk won’t seem so bad.

John Garrett and the Case of the Disappearing Car

If John Garrett’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably because he went on to a very successful broadcasting career after his playing days were over. He’s been in that business for more than 25 years, working for properties like Hockey Night in Canada and Sportsnet. He’s a really good TV guy.

What he never was, though, was an especially good NHL goaltender. He spent six years in the league, mostly backing up, while posting a career goals-against well north of 4.00 and never winning more than 16 games in a season. Given all that, it sounds strange to describe Garrett as a former All-Star. But the story of how he got there is even stranger, and there’s a good case to be made that he’s the most unlikely NHL All-Star pick of all time.

Here’s how it happened. In February 1983, Vancouver’s starting goalie was Richard Brodeur, a pretty good player who’d just been chosen as the Canucks’ lone representative at the All-Star Game. The team traded for Garrett on February 4 to add a veteran backup. The next night, Brodeur suffered a serious ear injury that took him out of the lineup just days before the All-Star Game would be held.

That left the league with a problem. Brodeur was the Canucks’ only All-Star selection, and the rules said that each team had to be represented. And since he was a goalie, his replacement would need to be one too. That left Garrett as the only possible choice, even though he’d won only six games all year. At the time, the whole thing was viewed as “kind of a mockery of the sport,” according to, uh, John Garrett himself.

Old-time fans may remember what happened next. Garrett came in midway through the All-Star Game and stood on his head, making several spectacular saves. He played so well that when MVP voting was done during the third period, he was chosen as the winner of the award, and the new car that went with it.

Then Wayne Gretzky scored four goals, all in the third period. There was a hasty revote, Gretzky won, and Garrett presumably had to hitch a ride home. He still earned the win, though.

The Senators Double Down

You might assume that Garrett’s six wins would be an unbreakable record for the fewest by an All-Star goaltender. And if the NHL All-Star Game were really about honoring the best of the best, you’d be right.

But here comes that tricky “at least one player per team” rule again. In a normal year, that can result in some odd picks. But when you enforce that rule during an era of historically awful expansion teams, things can get downright silly.

It’s how we wound up with forgettable early-’90s All-Stars like Bob Kudelski, Brian Bradley, and Kelly Kisio. And it’s how we ended up with the owner of perhaps the worst stat line to ever be honored with a selection: Ottawa Senators goaltender Peter Sidorkiewicz.

Sidorkiewicz was a decent goalie who’d had some success in Hartford before heading to Ottawa in the 1992 expansion draft. That Senators team would turn out to be awful, and poor Sidorkiewicz had to bear the brunt of it. He played 64 games and led the league in losses and goals against.

That didn’t prevent him from being named to the 1993 All-Star team, even though he headed into the game with an almost unthinkable 4-32-3 record. Maybe it was pity. Maybe the Senators just didn’t have anyone else. Either way, Sidorkiewicz got the call.

Ironically, he didn’t end up being the lone Senators pick after all. This was back in the days when the league would honor players with a “commissioner’s selection,” allowing veteran players at the tail end of their career to get into the game. In 1993, one such pick went to Ottawa’s Brad Marsh, the journeyman defensive defenseman who’d plodded his way through a 15-year career with five different teams.

So the Senators actually sent two players to the All-Star Game that year: a goalie with four wins and a veteran with 23 career goals in more than 1,000 games. If there’s ever been a worse All-Star pairing from a single team, I’m glad I wasn’t around to see it.

Needless to say, Marsh scored a goal and Sidorkiewicz earned the win.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Weekend wrap: What should the Maple Leafs do now?

A look back at the biggest games and emerging story lines of the NHL weekend.

Theme of the Week: Decision Day Looming for Maple Leafs

We saw our fourth coaching casualty of the year last week, and it was the one everyone had been expecting for seven months. The Maple Leafs finally fired Randy Carlyle, replacing him on an interim basis with Peter Horachek.

It was a move everyone assumed was coming last offseason, when newly appointed Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan made the surprising decision to extend the beleaguered Carlyle instead. The move was widely panned at the time, and in the months since, I’d yet to find a single person in the hockey world who thought Carlyle would last past this season.

So yes, you can criticize the timing here. But Carlyle’s firing had become inevitable, and doing it now was a far better option than waiting until the offseason. That’s because Shanahan’s most important task over the next 40 games — more important than finding a new coach, more important even than making the playoffs — is to thoroughly evaluate the core of his roster. Can these players, properly supplemented with future acquisitions, form the foundation of a championship contender?

It’s a question that needs to be answered with clear eyes and none of the silly wishful thinking that’s pervaded the organization over the years. And it’s one that simply couldn’t be answered with Carlyle behind the bench, because there’s plenty of evidence the coach was a big part of the problem. In Carlyle’s nearly three years in Toronto, the phenomenon repeated itself over and over: players would arrive in Toronto and their performance would drop; they’d leave and their performance would improve. Maybe that was Carlyle’s fault, or maybe there’s some other factor at play. But Shanahan couldn’t move forward without knowing, and now he has half a season to find out.¹

Over the next three months, the Maple Leafs might discover that their core, led by Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf, really can grow into a winner — there have been encouraging sign over the first few games under Horachek, during which the team’s well-documented defensive woes haven’t been nearly as apparent. That would be good news for Toronto, considering that there’s little in the way of reinforcements coming from the team’s meager farm system and most of the roster’s top players (and a few beyond that) are locked into long-term contracts that have the Leafs straining the upper limits of the salary cap.

Of course, we’ve seen plenty of evidence over the years that the answer may be no; maybe it turns out that the core this franchise has spent several years and millions of dollars assembling just isn’t good enough and never will be. If that’s the case, then Shanahan has no choice but to tear it all down and start over. He’s preached patience since arriving in Toronto, and in some sense that’s been an admirable approach, but you can’t be patient with a wrecking ball. While it’s long been argued that Toronto fans would never accept a full-scale rebuild, Shanahan may have the résumé and the charisma to sell one. After a full decade without a playoff series win, he may not have much choice.

In either case, the good news is that this organization has finally given itself the chance to find out what it’s working with. The bad news is that it may not like the answer or what will have to come next.

Cup Watch: The League’s Five Best

The five teams that seem most likely to earn the league’s top prize: the Stanley Cup.

5. Anaheim Ducks (27-10-6, plus-3 goals differential): For weeks we’ve been saying “The Ducks’ numbers aren’t all that great,” while always having to add “but they’re still all alone in first place overall.” Now they’re merely tied for first place, so screw ’em.

4. Tampa Bay Lightning (27-12-4, plus-29): They return to our list after a three-week absence, thanks to winning seven of eight and moving into first in the East.

>> Read the full post on Grantland