Puck Soup: Sabre rattling

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Sabres fire everyone
- The NHL's return-to-play plan pushes forward
- So does the NBA's, with some key differences
- Eugene Melnyk gets an apology
- Thoughts on next week's Hall of Fame vote
- A discussion about baseball and the DH for some reason?
- And a new quiz called 20 kess-tions

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>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

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The 12 types of fans you’ll meet when the NHL season resumes

The NHL is on the way back, and while there’s still no guarantee that the season will be able to resume, plans are in full swing with a date set for training camp and progress on other key elements.

Is this a good idea? That’s up for debate, especially with news leaking out of positive tests in other sports. There are still several ways this could all go badly, including scenarios where a resumed season had to be halted again or never got off the ground at all. But for now, the league is pushing forward, and we’re just weeks away from seeing NHL teams back on the ice.

As fans, we might as well start preparing ourselves for what’s to come. And that means an attempted conclusion to the season that will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. With 24 teams, a play-in round, hub cities and empty arenas, this might end up being the most unique few months in NHL history.

Whichever way you feel about the plan, it’s certainly going to be interesting. So today, let’s start getting ready for what’s to come by introducing a dozen types of hockey fans you can expect to meet when (or if) the NHL returns.

The Pessimist

We might as well start here, because you’ll be hearing from The Pessimist plenty. You already are. The Pessimist has a long list of reasons why resuming the season is a bad idea, can’t possibly work, and is going to end badly for everyone involved. Anywhere fans are starting to show some excitement over the season resuming, the Pessimist will swoop in with data, charts, and more than a few terrifying worst-case scenarios.

Here’s by far the biggest problem with The Pessimist: They’re almost definitely right. Maybe not about those worst-case scenarios – we hope – but about the level of risk we all seem way too comfortable accepting here. Are we bravely pushing forward in the face of adversity the way we might like to think, or just selfishly putting other people in danger so that we can enjoy some vague semblance of normalcy (that we’ll still just complain about anyway)? Should we even be doing this? Am I bad person for wanting any of this to happen? Are you?

The Pessimist will make you wonder, which means they’ll be one of your least favorite voices over the next few weeks and months. But look on the bright side: at least you’ll be able to blame them for ruining your fun, instead of your own nagging conscience.

The Format Proposer

Yes, it took months for the NHL and NHLPA to agree on a format for the rest of the season. Did they get it right? No they did not, and The Format Proposer is here to tell you all about it. In detail. So much detail.

As it turns out, this fan had a better idea all along. Against all odds, Gary Bettman doesn’t seem to have stumbled onto their Twitter feed, so he missed out on implementing the correct format. Or did he? The Format Proposer seems to be convinced that there’s still time for everyone to recognize the genius of their idea, and that will stay true even after the games have started. All they have to do is keep telling you about it, constantly, at all times.

It goes without saying that The Format Proposer’s idea is terrible, completely implausible, and clearly set up to benefit their personal favorite team. That doesn’t matter, because they’ll still be yammering on about it as the Stanley Cup is being lifted.

The Binger

This fan can’t wait to watch the games. No, not some of them – they plan to watch every game. They’re counting on limited rink availability in the hub cities to force an Olympic-style schedule with games spread out as much as possible. The Binger has multiple screens. They are willing to record games and watch them in the middle of the night. Time zones are their friend.

This fan has missed sports a little too much, is undoubtedly way too into that Korean baseball league, and has probably been gambling on their kids’ Fortnite games. They need this. Let them have it.

The Asterisk

Are you enjoying the playoffs? Are you starting to get emotionally invested in who’s going to win? You shouldn’t, because none of this counts, and The Asterisk will be there to remind you of that at every turn.

Like a few of the folks we’ll meet on this list, The Asterisk won’t necessarily be wrong. They’ll just be annoying, because you won’t even be able to express any sort of interest in how a series will turn out without them showing up to scold you about how none of this really matters. And if your team wins and you seem even mildly happy about that? The Asterisk will be there to put an end to that, you fool, you absolute imbecile.

Luckily, they won’t be able to do any of that without running into their own adversary…

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Do these stars have bad contracts? Cap Court is back in session

Welcome back to Cap Court, where we take some of the NHL’s most questionable long-term deals and ask the seemingly simple question: Is this a bad contract?

As always, we’re looking at this from the teams’ perspective, so “bad” means too much money and/or too many years. Remember, we’re only worried about how the deal looks from this point forward. If it made sense when it was signed but has turned bad now, it’s a bad contract. If it’s going to be terrible in five years but still makes sense today, it might be OK.

Past sessions have seen us rule against players like Carey Price and Jamie Benn. We’ve got five new names on the docket this time, and we’ll start with the one that came up often when I asked for suggestions …

Nicklas Backstrom, Washington Capitals

The details: He signed a five-year extension in January, which kicks in next season and carries a cap hit of $9.2 million (and that he negotiated himself).

The case that it’s a bad contract: You saw the part about the $9.2 million cap hit, right? That’s a pretty big ticket for a guy who’s never been the best forward on his own team and has only cracked 25 goals or 100 points once in his career. Those both came in 2009-10 when he was 22 years old. He is no longer 22 years old.

In fact, Backstrom is 32 and will be 37 when this deal expires. There have been skill guys who maintained something close to a high level of production into their late 30s, but the list is a short one and most of those careers came before the league shifted to being dominated by 20-somethings. Furthermore, Backstrom has shown some decline in production; he hasn’t even been a point-per-game player since 2016-17. These days, he’s basically a 70-point guy in a league where elite forwards are consistently cracking 100 points. That’s not worth $9.2 million now, let alone when he’s got a few more years of mileage on him.

The case that it might be OK: The contract represented a big raise in dollars from his previous $6.7 million hit, but in terms of percentage of the cap, he basically signed the same deal he did back in 2010. Not only did he live up to that contract, but Backstrom seemed underpaid for a lot of it. He’s evolved as a player since then, and while he may have lost a fraction of a step, he’s a smarter two-way player.

Sure, maybe the cap hit is a bit high. But the Capitals probably faced a choice between that or offering more years to keep the hit lower. That would have been a mistake and Brian MacLellan deserves some credit for avoiding that route, even knowing he’d probably be leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. And the cap hit isn’t that bad for a No. 1 center; it’s only the eighth highest for a pivot next year.

Besides, what’s the worst-case scenario here? A beloved star who was underpaid for years and played a key role in the team finally winning a Stanley Cup makes a little bit too much in his final seasons before retiring as a lifetime Capital? I feel like Washington fans can live with that.

Key witnesses: Of those centers with higher cap hits, two are around Backstrom’s age (Jonathan Toews and Anze Kopitar) and one is a year older (Evgeni Malkin). Of course, Sidney Crosby makes less, but Crosby’s contract is a bad comparable for pretty much everyone.

The verdict: Watch me thread a needle here. This contract is going to be bad — there’s a very good chance that in those last few years, with Alexander Ovechkin either retired or in decline, the Caps are going to be trying to rebuild or reload and wishing they hadn’t overpaid for the past. If we check back two years from now, we probably get a guilty verdict. But it’s not two years from now, and the Caps are still Cup contenders. Signing a deal you know will end badly is a mistake for most teams, but for an aging contender with a championship core and a closing window, it can make sense. There’s no time like the present and flags fly forever, so this isn’t a bad deal … yet.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Puck Soup: And now we wait

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The NHL officially has a target date for training camp; will they hit it?
- We react to that tone-deaf Tyler Seguin BLM video
- John Tortorella shifts his stance on anthem protests, kind of
- We try to figure out where our award votes should go
- Yet another Eugene Melnyk soap opera
- And a quiz: Tik-Tok star or 2019 fifth-round draft pick?

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

What's the worst roster that kind of looks like an amazing roster? Let's meet the Off-Brand All-Stars.

Remember when you were a kid and you’d see some cool cereal or treat at the grocery store and beg your parents to buy it for you, only to be told that you already had some waiting at home? Inevitably, you’d get back only to find that your parents had not, in fact, bought you the item of your dreams – they’d settled for the off-brand version, which had a similar name but was never anywhere near as good.

It was a universal experience. I’m told it’s even become a bit of a meme. And today, we’re going to bring the concept to hockey as we build the most off-brand roster in NHL history. It’s the Off-Brand All-Stars, a collection of names that will seem impressive if you scan them quickly, but will turn out to be… well, not impressive.

If you’re a regular Grab Bag reader, you may know some of these names from the Obscure Player section. For the other 99 percent of you, you may be meeting them for the first time. Or maybe you’ve stumbled across a few of them in your own travels around the hockey record books. Or maybe they are you, in which case hi there, this is going to be awkward for both of us.

Either way, we’re going to assemble the worst possible roster we can build that sort of vaguely looks like the best possible roster as long as you squint.

Another way to look at this: This is the roster your spouse who only occasionally pays attention to hockey would spit out if you asked them to name all those players you’ve been talking about over the years.

Another way to look at this: This is the roster you would get in a video game that had its license agreement fall through at the last moment.

Another way to look at this: We’re in the middle of a five-month offseason and I am well and truly out of ideas.

Here are three important ground rules to keep in mind:

• Preference will be given to players who actually played (or were at least drafted) in the NHL, although we reserve the right to round out the roster with a few names from other leagues.
• We want to avoid players who have recognizable names because they were relatives of famous players, since that seems to go against the spirit of the thing.
• This is a complete waste of time and you are right to be disappointed in me.

Let’s meet our Off-Brand All-Stars!

First line

Wayne Grotski

We have to start with the immortal Wayne Grotski. Unlike most of our roster, Grotski never made it past junior, but he still ranks as perhaps the greatest off-brand hockey superstar there ever was.

I mean, just the name alone is perfect. But amazingly, Grotski’s connection to the slightly more successful Wayne Gretzky doesn’t end there. Grotski’s junior years came with the Edmonton Crusaders and ended in 1978, meaning he was playing in Edmonton just a few months before Gretzky arrived.

Even better, look at the roster of that 1977-78 Edmonton Crusaders team. In addition to Wayne Grotski, they also feature a Tessier and Currie, and now I absolutely need to see a sci-fi movie where dynasty-era Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Jari Kurri have to time-travel back to 1978 and go undercover on an obscure local junior team to save the world.

Grotski’s hockey career appears to end once he leaves Edmonton, which is indisputable evidence that he and Gretzky are the same person an interesting coincidence. He appears to have gone on to become a firefighter who has no patience for morons, and to this day his hockeydb page is periodically discovered by delighted hockey fans.

Wayne Grotski is hereby named captain of the Off-Brand All-Stars.

Taylor Hall

Since we’re starting off our roster with an Edmonton theme, let’s add a name that put up big numbers with the Oilers. A name, but not a player, because this is the other Taylor Hall. This one played five NHL seasons back in the 80s, debuting with the Canucks and later appearing in a few games with the Bruins. All told, this Taylor Hall’s NHL career lasted 41 games and saw him score seven goals before he embarked on a career in coaching and management with, of course, the Oilers. No, the other Oilers. Please keep up.

And what the hell, we might as well finish off an all-Edmonton top line…

Conor McDavitt

Much like his near-namesake, McDavitt produced consistent offense and led his team in scoring. That team would be the Skidmore College Thoroughbreds. On February 22, 2003, McDavitt recorded a hat trick to account for all of his team’s offense in that game. Connor McDavid has accomplished that feat exactly once in his NHL career, meaning these two are pretty much the same player.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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