Weekend rankings: A Kings slump, a Penguins dilemma, and all-star weekend

Welcome to the all-star break. Almost. We’ve technically still got three nights to go, but the schedule for the rest of the week is very light, with only six games over the next three nights before we all head to Toronto. With all due respect to marquee matchups like Sens/Preds, Blue Jackets/Blues and Sharks/Ducks, it feels like we can start shifting our attention to the break.

As you know by now, the NHL has shifted things around this year. Will it work? That’s to be determined, but here’s five things I’m looking forward to when I head down to Toronto to take it all in.

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Which teams have the best (and worst) odds of winning a Cup by 2028? Part 2

Welcome the second of half of this week’s two-parter, in which we’re trying to figure out which NHL teams have the best and worst odds of winning a Stanley Cup in the next five years.

Yesterday was the league’s bottom half. If you didn’t see your team then, the good news is I think their odds are better than any of those teams. The bad news is I’m bad at this, so take it all for what it’s worth.

If you didn’t see yesterday’s post, go check it out so that you’re familiar with what’s happening here. Remember, the numbers will all seem low, because that’s the reality of the parity era. If you think your team’s number should be higher, cool, but let me know which teams I should be subtracting from.

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Which teams have the best (and worst) odds of winning a Cup by 2028? Part 1

The question is simple enough: Which teams have the best and worst odds of winning at least one Stanley Cup over the next five years?

The answer isn’t simple at all. I know, because I’ve tried to figure it out three times now. The first was way back in 2015, when there were only 30 teams and some kid named Connor McDavid was about to debut. More recently, I tried again in 2018, in an effort I revisited a few weeks ago.

Did I get those lists right? No, and that’s part of the problem – you can’t, really, when you’re dealing with probabilities. Was I wrong to say that the Devils had just a measly 1% chance to win a Cup back in 2015, dead last in the league? They didn’t win, so in that sense I was right, but the actual correct answer would have been zero. Was I right to have Tampa in the top spot back in 2018? Yes, since they won twice in the next three years, but that means the 40% odds I gave them were way too low.

It's impossible. It’s futile. So needless to say, I’m trying again this week.

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Weekend rankings: Second-half storylines, Patrick Roy, and a new number one

The NHL hit an important milestone over the weekend, as the Ottawa Senators became the last team to hit the halfway mark. Nobody’s quite sure why Ottawa has had 14 games in hand on every other team all season long, but here we are.

Great. So now what?

A typical second half of an NHL season has certain built-in storylines. There’s the playoff push, of course. There’s the tank battle in the other direction. There’s plenty of speculation about the trade deadline. This year is no different. But today, let’s use our bonus five to list five specific stories that I’m looking forward to tracking.

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Ray Bourque’s Stanley Cup win was bad, actually: It’s the return of The Contrarian

It’s Friday, and it’s a good time to have some fun. Except it isn’t. Unless it is. Which it isn’t. But really, you moron, it clearly is.

Yes, it’s time for another round of The Contrarian, the feature where you send me your most obviously correct hockey takes, and I tell you that you’re wrong. We tried this back in October, when you forced me to make the case that Mark Messier was a great Canuck, the puck-over-glass penalty works, and Kerry Fraser wasn’t to blame for missing that high stick in 1993. And I succeeded, because I’m a sportswriter, and our most important skill is to make loud and convincing cases arguments for things we don’t actually believe.

If you have a statement you’d like to submit for a future edition of The Contrarian, you can do that here. But fair warning, the bar has been set high, as you’re about to see. Or not see. As always, feel free to try to figure out which of these I actually believe.

The Stanley Cup handoff to Ray Bourque was a great moment in hockey. – Adam S.

On the contrary, Adam, you blockhead.

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