Advertisement

Vancouver Canucks, Boston's power play and Kadri's hit (Puck Daddy Countdown)

Winnipeg Jets' Jacob Trouba (8) in action against the San Jose Sharks during an NHL hockey game on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Winnipeg Jets’ Jacob Trouba (8) in action against the San Jose Sharks during an NHL hockey game on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

(Ed. Note: The column formerly known as the Puck Daddy Power Rankings. Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

8. Being a good young player in the NHL

Poor Jacob Trouba. The result this week was the only way his contract drama was ever going to end. As I’ve said before, the deck is stacked against young players, both by the owners and their older counterparts, who clearly feel like entry-level rights aren’t worth fighting for.

It’s unfortunate, really, that restricted free agency even exists. Hope the NHLPA strikes when the CBA expires, and that’s a plank in their platform. Not that the league would agree to getting rid of it completely, but rolling back even a few of the controls players deal with before they’re 25 would be hugely beneficial for players who often deserve to be paid more than they are.

7. The Canucks

Before Tuesday’s win against the New York Rangers, their losing streak was at nine games.

This after starting the season 4-0-0. The speed with which people went from “Where are the critics of Jim Benning’s offseason moves now?” to “Benning is clueless” has been pretty amazing. But as anyone who’s paid the slightest attention the past few years knows, this was always coming.

What’s amazing, though, is seeing how the front office and coaching staff are reacting. They legitimately thought this was a playoff team. And because it’s all fallen apart for them so quickly and spectacularly, they’re now making absolutely incredible decisions that don’t make any sense at all. Like this one:

What? I mean, Jake Virtanen just isn’t that good, but doling out ice time based on having scored goals is crazy, right? Like, Loui Eriksson shouldn’t get any TOI based on that, because he had zero goals in 13 games before Tuesday night. It’s fine to keep playing him, of course, because he’s a good player and was bound to score eventually.

But even still, Benning is looking for ways to improve his team via trade, and that’s not something he should be allowed to do. He’s going to fire his coach in short order here, and if things go well for the Canucks (broadly speaking) Benning will follow him out the door this summer.

What a disaster.

6. Raffi Torres

Don’t let the door hit ya.

5. John Tortorella

It is pretty amazing that a coach can go from his team winning 10-0 to calling out all of his players literally one night later. Leaving aside the ghastly “He called a black player an animal” thing for a second, the guy is just straight up unpleasant. Professionally, he just never seems happy.

4. The Bruins’ power play

On Monday night, the Bruins’ power play scored three times in a 4-0 win over a banged-up Buffalo Sabres team. This was notable not just because three power play goals in a single game is a lot, but also because it doubled the output the Boston PP had posted in its previous 11 games.

Worse, the Bruins had not only scored just three times on the power play through 11 games, but they’d also conceded three shorthanded goals. Rendering their man advantage “even” in goal differential. That’s a hell of a hard thing to do over just about any small sample size, but 11 games is pushing it.

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Hockey contest now]

That would seem to be physically impossible, but here we are. Now all they need is a few more games against Buffalo and they’ll be off and running.

3. The Kadri non-suspension

I give the Department of Player Safety a lot of stick on here, but this was a call they pretty obviously got right.

Nazem Kadri hit Daniel Sedin in the head, absolutely. But he clearly made contact with the shoulder first before exploding up and into Sedin’s noggin. And by the NHL’s rules, that’s not a suspendable play.

However, there are those who have beef with the fact that any head contact like that in the first place, myself included. It shouldn’t be allowed. This isn’t a “get checking out of the game” thing, it’s a “don’t sit idly by while guys get concussed” thing. If a player makes contact with another player’s head on an east-west hit like that, it should be suspendable. Not to say it would be in all cases, or should be. But it should at least be written into the rulebook that this is a thing for which you can be suspended. I would have liked to see Kadri suspended for that hit because while he didn’t pick the head, he came as close as he could without going over the line.

It’s impossible to read intent, etc. etc., but the league should always be on the lookout for ways to protect its players, and this would be a good place to start.

2. Needing a Cup

What is it with old-school hockey writers’ fascination with winning a Stanley Cup being the ultimate arbiter of whether a player is worthy of the Hall of Fame? A bunch of third-line guys from the Montreal Canadiens dynasty teams made it with like 500 career points because they happened to be on a team with half a dozen legitimate HOFers.

Alex Ovechkin has the opposite problem. He’s one legitimate HOFer on a team with a few guys who might end up in the Hall of Very Good. Or Jarome Iginla, who doesn’t even get that far. People act like these guys are bums only because they’re surrounded by them.

Reporters (especially those in Boston) love saying the era’s greatest players aren’t Hall of Famers. I don’t know why. In my opinion 10 percent of the damn league should be in because the standard set by letting Grant Fuhr and Glenn Anderson get in.

1. Leaving in Al Montoya

This rules.

Montoya became just the second player since the turn of the century to give up 10 goals in a game. Steve Valiquette is the other one.

Here’s something, though: Rollie Melanson did it THREE TIMES in the late ’80s. Two of them were within three weeks of each other in 1987-88. The next season he gave up 11 in a game! How is that possible? How did someone who gave up 10-plus goals on three separate occasions get almost 300 NHL games? Amazing. I love hockey.

(Not ranked this week: John Tavares.

It seems like John Tavares has gone forever without steady linemates. It’s been a thing for a long time now, and we all got used to it, to some extent.

However, now it seems like Jack Capuano is just picking names out of a hat for every game. On Monday night against the Canucks, Tavares lined up between Josh Bailey and Cal Clutterbuck. They’re Tavares’s ninth and 10th different linemates this year. Not a typo, I looked it up.

In his career, Tavares has played with 32 different forwards for at least 20 minutes at 5-on-5. The Islanders know his contract is up next summer, right? It’s almost as if they want him to leave, like Moulson and Okposo and… wait a second. Hmm.)

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

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)