Let's find three positive thoughts for each of the NHL's 15 most hopeless teams

The theme of this post is kindness.

As in, let’s be kind to the fans of the league’s worst teams. It’s easy to forget these days, as some fans watch their teams fight for a playoff spot and others are already thinking about the Stanley Cup, that not all of us are having fun right now. Some of us cheer for teams that are already out of the playoff hunt, and in some cases might have been for months now.

That’s where the kindness comes in. Let’s show empathy and basic human decency to those fans, the ones who have the misfortune of rooting for one of those horrible, embarrassing, miserable loser teams.

I’ll admit that that last sentence could have gone better. Kindness isn’t easy. But it can be instructive.

For example, we did this post last year, featuring 11 teams. Of those 11 teams who were in bad shape, two – the Devils and Senators – have already clinched playoff spots this year. Another, the Canadiens, are about to join them. Optimism can be real.

Um, also one of those 11 teams ceased to exist a few days after the column ran. So sure, a mixed bag. Let’s stay focused on the positive. Kindness, remember.

According to Dom’s model, there are 15 teams that are either eliminated from playoff contention, or that have odds of less than 1%. In other words, they’re done. And they could probably use a kind word or two. Well, we’re going to give them three, as in three positive thoughts in a season of despair.

As always, we’ll do this in order, starting form the easiest team to find positivity for and working our way down to the most challenging.

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With Gretzky's goal mark gone, how many NHL records are truly unbreakable?

And just like that, Wayne Gretzky’s unbreakable record has been broken.

Well, one of them. Gretzky had more than his share. But for hockey fans of my generation, it really is hard to believe that Alexander Ovechkin actually did it. He broke Gretzky’s career goals record. That wasn’t supposed to be possible.

For decades, old-timers like me figured there was just no way that anyone could get to 894. Not in the Dead Puck Era, which eventually gave way to the Only Comatose Puck Era. Not when it meant scoring at a 45-goal pace for 20 consecutive seasons. Not in an era where players were bigger and stronger, meaning just staying healthy was a challenge. Not in a league where forwards were supposed to peak in their mid-20s and then give way to the next generation.

But here we are. So now we have to ask: What other “unbreakable” records could we be wrong about?

We’ve had some fun in the past with unbreakable records, as well as a few breakable ones. But today, let’s look at some of the sport’s marks that have at some point seemed unreachable, and try to figure out if they could actually be in play.

Jesse already took a look at Gretzky’s other records, and I’m mostly on the same page. I’d argue that the nine Hart Trophies is probably unbreakable, given how much modern sportswriters seem to value the novelty of getting new names on their ballots. But I’d agree that the career points and assists records are untouchable, and I like Jesse stopping just short of taking the 92-goal regular season record off the table.

What about the records that aren’t Gretzky’s? Let’s have a look at 15 of the most imposing, and see if we can imagine them being broken someday.

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NHL weekend rankings: Ovechkin breaks the goals record, plus my worst rankings

We’re down to two editions of the Weekend Rankings left, before we run out of regular season runway. Next week is the season finale, which is always fun, because it's when we ditch the Top 5 for a Top 16 (or more), check in on the Gold Plan standings, and make some oddly specific predictions.

This week is not so fun. At least for me – some of you seem to enjoy it. It’s time for our annual look back at the very worst Top 5 and Bottom 5 picks I made over the course of the season.

Look, I never said I was perfect. I also never said I wasn’t, and it’s possible that all of these “bad picks” were really just made ironically, or to see if you were paying attention, or as occasional intentional mistakes that I made in tribute to watching too much Astro Boy as a kid. But whatever went wrong, these picks have not aged well, and I have to take my medicine.

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A goalie and a goalie-hater debate equipment, interference, bigger nets and more

Let us acknowledge the noble goaltender. The last line of defense, tirelessly doing the thankless work of keeping pucks out of the net, sacrificing their own bodies to block vulcanized rubber fired at upward of 100 miles per hour, all the while knowing that they’ll take the blame for the bad and rarely get the glory for the good. They’re hockey’s unsung heroes, doing the hardest job in all of sports without credit or complaint.

Well… unless they’re just big weird oafs in oversized equipment who are ruining the game we love, robotically sucking the excitement out of the sport in between bouts of flopping and crying about somebody barely brushing up against them in what's supposed to be a contact sport.

That’s the debate. Or at least, it will be today, as two of The Athletic’s hockey writers have decided to go back and forth on various topics from the goaltending world. Jesse Granger is our goaltending expert, who both plays the position himself and breaks down its intricacies for the rest of us. Sean McIndoe is an old man who sits on his couch and complains about things, and he loves the very offense that goalies are there to prevent.

Like Patrick Roy in his prime, they’ve decided that the best way to handle a dispute is to skate out to center ice and duke it out. They got together for five mini-debates, presented below.

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A brief history of the second-team all-star goalie being the NHL’s weirdest award

With a just few weeks left before awards ballots go out, we already know how one of the races will go. Connor Hellebuyck will win the Vezina. And if there’s any justice, the GMs who vote on the award will make it unanimous.

Cool. Now let’s talk about the best goaltending award.

Not the award for best goaltender – I mean the award for goaltending that is the best. The best award, as in the most fun, the most interesting, and also the weirdest.

I’m talking about the second all-star team honors.

Yes, this might be something only I’m interested in. But today, I’m going to try to get you onboard.

Each year, PHWA writers vote to create two all-star teams, which are not to be confused with the (far inferior) teams from the actual all-star game in seasons where the NHL forces us to endure one. These postseason all-star awards are a genuine honor, proof that a player was considered among the very best at his position during that season.

Each of the two teams consist of two defensemen, a center, a left and right winger, and a goalie. The highest vote-getters earn first-team honors, which is the very best of the best of any given year. Then comes the second-team, which is… sometimes interesting.

That’s true at all positions, at least occasionally. Sometimes you’ll see a good-but-not-great player earn second-team honors up front, like Thomas Vanek in 2007 or a 39-year-old Ray Whitney in 2012. Sometimes a lesser-known defenseman will earn the honors, like Lubomir Visnovsky in 2011 or Francois Beauchemin in 2013. But for the most part, a look at the second-team all-star squads are pretty much the names you’d expect – the best of the best, with the occasional exception that proves the rule.

Second-team goalie honors? Those get weird. Or at least, they serve up some names that you might generously call unexpected.

It could happen again this year, with Logan Thompson battling Andrei Vasilevskiy for second-team honors. One of those guys has a Vezina, a Conn Smythe and multiple Cup rings. The other is Logan Thompson, who got traded in the offseason for midround draft picks. He’s probably the favorite.

Why? Because goaltending is weird. And apparently, being the league’s second-best goaltender is especially weird. Let’s remember some guys, who had one year where they were very nearly The Guy.

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