Puck Soup: NHLFTs

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- What worked and what didn't from all-star weekend
- The Ducks get their new GM
- The Hawks don't, but they're interviewing lots of people and telling us all about it
- Could a baseball guy be a good NHL GM?
- Gary Bettman's weak answers on Arizona, Wirtz and COVID
- Plus Oscars, Olympics and a new quiz about NHL NFTs

>> 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.

Remembering the biggest stars who never played for Team Canada in a best-on-best tournament

The Winter Olympics are here, but if you’re an NHL fan you may not have noticed. This was supposed to be the big showdown, a rare best-on-best international tournament that would determine the world’s top hockey nation. Instead, COVID delays gave Gary Bettman his opening to withdraw NHL players. What we’re left with is… well, some decent stories and some solid hockey, sure. But it’s certainly not a best-on-best on the men’s side, because the best aren’t there.

We might have to wait until 2026 for our next chance, or maybe we’ll get that World Cup in 2024. Either way, it will mean a long gap between opportunities for most of today’s stars. Connor McDavid, the best player in the world, has still never had a chance to represent his country in a true best-on-best – the NHL didn’t go to the Olympics in 2018 or 2022, and he was forced onto a hybrid Team North America in the 2016 World Cup. Now he’ll be closing in on 30 by the time he gets to put on a red maple leaf when the spotlight is brightest.

If it’s any consolation, McDavid isn’t alone. As it turns out, you can build a reasonably decent roster out of Canadian NHL stars who never got the chance to represent their country in a best-on-best tournament. So that’s what we’re going to do, with 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies worth of snubs and/or missed opportunities.

The ground rules here are that we’re looking for players who starred in the era of big best-on-best tournaments, which is to say nobody before the 1970s. “Best on best” means the Summit Series, the Canada Cup/World Cup, and the Olympics in the years that NHL players went, but not things like the World Championships or World Juniors, or the various all-star exhibitions that were played from time-to-time. And active players are allowed, but only if we’re pretty sure that they won’t be on a Canadian roster in the future, so no McDavid.

(Full discloser, I was originally going to include all of the major hockey counties in this roster, before realizing that pretty much all the selections would end up being from Canada. Apologies to my many American friends out there. If it’s any consolation, you’ve at least got that women’s hockey silver medal to look forward to.)

As always, we build a great adequate team from the net out…

Goaltenders

We’ll start off with what might be a controversial question: What do we do with goalies who were taken as back2ps or third strings but never saw the ice? On the one hand, they didn’t actually play in a best-on-best, which is what we said we were looking for. On the other, unlike skaters who never got into a game, the goalies would have at least pulled on the uniform, sat on the bench, and been (kind of) part of the game.

When in doubt, I usually lean towards the side that’s going to make things more difficult for me, so I’m going to say that goalies who suited up but didn’t play aren’t eligible here. That means no Eddie Belfour, (who was the third goalie at the 2002 Olympics), Marc-Andre Fleury (third string at the 2010 Olympics) or Ron Hextall (who was the backup at the 1987 Canada Cup but watched Grant Fuhr get all the action).

As it turns out, we can still get a Hall-of-Famer into the mix, although we have to go back a few decades to do it. Let’s start with Bernie Parent, who managed to win back-to-back Vezinas and even finish as Hart Trophy runner-up in the mid-70s, but was never invited to play for Team Canada. That includes the 1976 Canada Cup, where Gerry Cheevers, Glenn Resch, Rogatien Vachon and Dan Bouchard got the call. That sounds like a snub, but the reality is that Parent had a neck injury and was advised not to play. Bad luck for him, but good news for us, as he’ll be our starter.

I thought about trying to slip in Billy Smith as the backup, since he was hurt before he could get into the 1981 Canada Cup tournament and was snubbed in 1984. But his injury came in warmup, which means he was actually in uniform, so it feels a little dicey. Instead, I’ll make Eric Duhatschek happy by going with Mike Vernon, who was good enough to win a pair of Stanley Cups but couldn’t find his way onto a Canada Cup team.

If we need a third-string option, we could look to guys like Chris Osgood, Kirk McLean, Braden Holtby and J.S. Giguere. But with Parent and Vernon, we should be pretty well set. Let’s see if we can build a decent blueline for them.

Defensemen

Hey, here’s a fun thing I learned while doing this exercise: Defense is by far the hardest position to fill.<2p>

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Weekend rankings: All-star weekend wrap, those missing Maple Leafs, Bettman fails again and more

We’ve made it through another all-star weekend. It was fun, right? Sure, let’s go with that. Everyone fist-bump.

Friday’s skills competition was pretty much what we should have expected, with a few new wrinkles, one of which was that it was secretly also Thursday’s skills competition, with the two new outdoor events being pre-taped. (The league didn’t mention that, although having it go from dark to dusk in an hour might have been a hint). Let’s be honest, the skills event always ends up being the sort of thing that looks better in a two-minute highlight package than it does when you spend a few hours watching it in real time. As always, there was too much standing around, nobody seemed quite sure of the rules, the crowd was mostly confused and quiet, and for some reason there seemed to be more people running around doing interviews than actual players to talk to. The two new Vegas-themed events worked well enough, despite that sort of awkward “Do I have to do this?” vibe that pretty much anything involving hockey players is destined to have. We’ll at least give the league credit for trying something new, and getting it to mostly work.

The highlight came in the return of the breakaway challenge, which hadn’t been seen since 2016. It’s more of a dress-up contest than a hockey event now, but that’s fine because there are only so many Forsbergs you can see in one night. This year’s show was stolen by Trevor Zegras, doing a Dodge Ball-inspired blindfolded Jedi move. Jack Hughes followed that with a full-on magic trick.

Then they both lost to Alex Pietrangelo, who… uh, pointed at Carrot Top? Look, it’s still all-star weekend, the local team has to win something whether they deserve it or not. The point is that the kids had some fun. Did it feel like everyone was trying a little bit too hard? Sure, but it’s all-star weekend, and we’ll always take that over not trying at all.

Speaking of which… the game itself. Or games, since there are three of these things now, all played 3-on-3. This year’s edition was an opportunity for the league to show off its most entertaining and important stars, which is to say the guys who do replay reviews for offside calls. We got two of those, but somehow missed out on a five-minutes officials huddle to figure out where a puck had gone over the glass. Maybe next year.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

The Athletic Hockey Show: Rocky sucks

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- We react to Rocky Wirtz's incomprehensible rant
- What should happen next, and what probably will instead
- It's all-star weekend, and the NHL is trying some new things
- Ian has a theory on what ruined the all-star game
- How we'd fix the Islanders
- This week in history, and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)

Every team’s retired numbers, ranked

The NHL saw two legendary players have their numbers retired over the weekend, as Henrik Lundqvist’s 30 went to the rafters in New York and Sergei Zubov’s 56 went up in Dallas. Both players were obviously worthy of the moment, one that ranks as just about the highest honor a team can bestow on a former star. It’s one of the few things in the hockey world that everyone can enjoy.

So, needless to say, I’m going to take this opportunity to make a lot of you mad about it.

Today, we’re going to rank all 32 NHL teams based on their retired numbers. But this isn’t just a list of which teams have honored the best players, because that would be too easy. No, we want to look at the whole picture. Who’s been honored? Who hasn’t? Has the team been weird about who they choose and when? Do they just retire numbers like a normal team, or do they insist on complicating things with some weird team-specific rules that nobody likes? And most importantly of all: Given what they have to work with, are they getting it right?

A few quick notes. We’re not counting the leaguewide retirement of 99, but will count upcoming retirements as long as they’ve already been announced. We’re ranking based on numbers that have formally been retired and removed from circulation, although we’ll make note of numbers that have been honored in other ways. And we’ll be going by the list on Wikipedia, because this right here is a professional operation.

Is there an objective, quantifiable way to rank something like this? Of course there is. Will we be using that method? No we will not. Will you agree with my ranking of your team’s most beloved players? (Checks to see if I ranked all 32 teams as tied for first.) No, I’m guessing you won’t, but that’s half the fun.

Worst to first, all 32 teams but you’re just going to CTRL+F for your own, let’s do this…

32. Seattle Kraken

Numbers retired: 32, for their fans

No.

Look, call me cold-hearted if you want, but retiring a number for your fans is just lame. And it’s especially lame if you choose the number based on how many ticket deposits you sold. Also, the banner that they retired for their fans doesn’t even mention their fans – it just says “Kraken”.

The @SeattleKraken's first-ever home game started with No. 32 being officially retired by the NHL's 32nd team. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/Dmh4YQZOS5

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) October 24, 2021

There’s no shame in being a new team without any banners hanging. You don’t need to force it. If your fans wanted to watch a number ascend up to the heavens, they could just look at Phillip Grubauer’s goals against average.

31. Florida Panthers

Numbers retired: Roberto Luongo’s 1, plus the number 37 for Wayne Huizenga and 93 for Bill Torrey

They get one point for retiring Luongo, who was awesome. We’ll be neutral on Torrey, who wasn’t a player and was better associated with another franchise but was still a legitimate legend. And we’ll subtract roughly one million points for honoring an owner, a move that no other NHL team has tried. I’m sure Huizenga was a lovely guy and he had a distinguished career in the waste management/Florida Marlins business, but come on. Even Harold Ballard didn’t think to retire a number for himself, so this is awful.

30. Calgary Flames

Numbers retired: Lanny McDonald’s 9, Jarome Iginla’s 12, Mike Vernon’s 30

There’s nothing wrong with the three numbers the Flames have retired. But you’ll notice that there are some big names from the team’s history that are missing, including Al MacInnis, Joe Nieuwendyk, Theo Fleury and Miikka Kiprusoff. That’s where things get messy, because the Calgary Flames apparently can’t decide what they’re supposed to be doing with their numbers.

Here’s the thing: The Flames are the first of several teams we’ll meet that also have “honored” numbers. In their case, that’s MacInnis and Nieuwendyk, both of whose numbers hang in the rafters in Calgary under a new “Forever a Flame” system. But they’re not retired… sort of. It’s been almost 20 years since anyone wore MacInnis’s number 2 for the Flames, and given that it’s an extremely common number for defenseman, we can consider it unofficially retired. So is Fleury’s 14 and Kiprusoff’s 34, neither of which was never given to anyone after those players left. So we have a pattern… except that Nieuwendyk’s 25 has been in circulation pretty much constantly, including being worn by Jacob Markstrom right now.

What the hell?

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)