Puck Daddy Power Rankings: Calgary taxpayers; Bob Murray's summer

[Author's note: Power rankings are usually three things: Bad, wrong, and boring. You typically know just as well as the authors which teams won what games against who and what it all means, so our moving the Red Wings up four spots or whatever really doesn't tell you anything you didn't know. Who's hot, who's not, who cares? For this reason, we're doing a power ranking of things that are usually not teams. You'll see what I mean.]

6. The First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of USA Hockey

Jeremy Jacobs has done a lot for the sport, it's true. Like greedily stop it from happening as scheduled twice in the last decade, probably planning to stop it again in another six years or so, and trying to block out the sun.

It therefore makes a lot of sense that USA Hockey would be like, “This is the guy we like the most.”

But guys what if, and bear with me here, but what if Jeremy Jacobs is actually …................... bad?

5. Retirements

Happy trails to Sami Salo and Danny Briere, who called it a career this week.

Salo's retirement comes as little surprise, given that he missed all of last season with an injury and will be 41 in two weeks and his contract with Tampa was up. He never piled up the points or anything (career high of 37), but he had an absolutely terrifying slap shot for a minute there. Hell, this is him even after losing his fastball:

Monday came Danny Briere, a nice boy for whom the media was almost never a nuisance. And therefore all news of and reactions to his announcements was legally required to contain at least three derivations of the word “class.” (Bonus points if you could squeeze “personified” in there.) Which is funny, because Danny Briere picked up three suspensions in his career for some pretty cheap stickwork, and isn't it interesting how that doesn't get brought up, but when Steve Ott (four suspensions) retires, the hockey world will breathe a collective “good riddance.”

Ah but Briere was just a little fellow and little fellows have to occasionally throw a spear out there or crosscheck someone in the head. Gotta let 'em know you won't let them check you. But hey, Briere is the same size as dirty cheater Brad Marchand and boy did Marchand never once get the benefit of the doubt for his tactics (as well he shouldn't have, by the way).

So let this be a lesson to all you kids out there: Play as dirty as you want but be sure to give every media member a nice little kiss on the forehead, and you will be bulletproof.

(And P.S. I actually like Danny Briere a lot. Monday morning was more than a bit over the top.)

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4. All Day I Dream About Sweaters

Oh no in just a few years Adidas is going to fundamentally change all the great Reebok jerseys we know and love!

All the classics like Anaheim and Colorado and Florida! Does this mean Buffalo and Calgary will no longer have that great piping all up and down the jerseys? God the NHL is so stupid.

Ugh this is really gonna bug me for the next three seasons. Then I won't care any more.

3. Different viewpoints

Toronto hired Lou Lamoriello earlier this month. To be their general manager. People were like, “Whaaaat?” and some people were like, “No way.” But some people were like, “Huh?” It was crazy.

And then they went out and hired — probably at Lamoriello's request — Jacques Lemaire, who seems to have always been a pretty damn good coach and probably has a lot of wisdom to impart to everyone in the organization. While Lemaire and Lamoriello are as old-school as it gets in this sport, and the Leafs had seemed like the most forward-thinking organization on a lot of fronts for most of the last year or so, the way they see the game probably has some value.

You don't want Lamoriello making player personnel decisions in 2015, of course. The last team to do that ended up going from “really good” to “really bad” pretty quickly. And okay, sure, the Leafs are already really bad, but Lamoriello has exhibited next to no talent for bringing young players into the fold either, and that's basically all the Leafs have. But he does have the viewpoint that guys like Brendan Shanahan, who's running the ship in Toronto now, support or at least supported. For all his hires in the last year, most of which have seemed quite ahead of the curve (or at least keeping up with the curve, which is a huge improvement for Toronto), those for Lamoriello and Lemaire seem at least a little regressive.

But if old-school hockey ideals can be merged with the new-school of using actual useful statistics to evaluate player performance, then that's probably a good thing. It appeals to what is probably Shanahan's inherent belief that grit and leadership are good and useful and worth paying for, while also taking a skeptical look at it. In fact, there's skepticism all around, and that's what's most important in any pursuit.

If there's no one saying, “Hey, this might be wrong,” then you get a situation like what you had in New Jersey, where a singularity of vision drove the franchise into the ground. No one could question Lou, and Lou stopped knowing what he was doing in the free agent market some time ago, so: Disaster. We're not yet at the point — and perhaps never will be — where front offices won't be an old boys' network where former hockey players run teams like the people who ran them when they played ran them; we don't know when or if The Nerds will be wholly in charge of a team.

But in the meantime, if someone has to make Lou Lamoriello sit there and look at a chart showing forward regression by age for wins above replacement, and he doesn't think it's a total BS waste of time, then maybe this is what progress looks like. Having more than one type of voice in the room remains important.

2. Taxpayer money

Memo to Calgary residents: Don't give the Flames a penny. Thanks in advance. Love, your children.

Yes it's time once again to discuss the importance of not giving billionaires a bunch of public money to build stadiums, because you never get any sort of actual return on investment. If you did, team owners would do it themselves instead of trying to hold cities hostage for hundreds of millions, because they'd get to pocket everything.

Why pay for something when you can get someone else to pay for it instead? Makes sense. But I'm not going to explain to you why doing this is stupid as well as John Oliver did a month ago. So just watch that instead.

(Warning: I am required to tell you there are bleeped-out swears!!!!):

1. Bob Murray's summer

As if things weren't going well enough for the Ducks this summer, getting a quality third-line puck-moving option in Mike Santorelli for just $875,000 was a pretty good addition this late in the offseason.

Add that to the pile with acquiring and then extending Carl Hagelin, trading for Anton Khudobin, extending Jakob Silfverberg, and getting a few cheap might-work-out/might-not UFAs, and it's hard to say that any general manager has enjoyed a better offseason. Now all they need is Cody Franson on a one-year show-me contract.

(Not ranked this week: Everyone who has made a public statement about the Patrick Kane case.

Hey remember that dirtbag bar owner who claimed he had no financial interest in whether a guy who was planning to have a huge Stanley Cup party at his bar was innocent, then went on a nice little victim-blaming rant that got published in the Buffalo News?

Now he's been joined by a cop whom Patrick Kane employs in his off time, and therefore likewise has a vested interest in telling the side of the story that's most beneficial to helping his employer beat the accusations.

And then Kane's lawyer took to Facebook to essentially say, “Hey, what these very interested parties have to say on the subject is totally relevant and good especially because it's very helpful for my client's case.”

Anyway, all these people are garbage. Have a good one.)

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via War On Ice unless otherwise noted.

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