The NHL is too vast of a league to keep up with everything all at once. Hockey's landscape changes from week to week, and while it's impossible to watch every game unfold in its entirety over the course of a week, you can certainly read the most important narratives all in one place.
Trending the net: Blackhawks on the rise, John Scott fallout continues
Anze Kopitar made more bank than I ever will. Plus, what does the word “distraction” really mean?
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These are not your typical power rankings, but more of a trend of who's rising and who's falling, from players and teams to storylines and statistics. To get you ready for the week ahead, we'll catch you up on the week prior.
Trending Up
It's Chicago's turn on the win-streak train
As one streak ends in Florida, another blossoms in the bountiful city of Chicago. This winning streak, however, is a bit more believable this go around, with the reigning Stanley Cup champions taking the league by storm after 11 straight victories heading into Monday. While a franchise as deep as the Blackhawks can attribute their success to a total team effort, a lot of the heavy lifting has been done by their second line of Artemi Panarin, Artem Anisimov and Patrick Kane. The latter in particular has been driving Chicago's offense once more, and just this week, Kane recorded his first career regular season hat in eight seasons.
Like Florida, Chicago has also had some pretty spectacular goaltending to bolster them through their recent run. Corey Crawford has snuck his hand into Vezina Trophy contention thanks to his impressive few weeks between the pipes for the Blackhawks. And if this is his stat line through his last five games, it's easy to see why Chicago fans are clamoring over Crawford's All-Star snub.
Not to be outdone, but head coach Joel Quenneville not only locked up a three-year contract extension through 2020, Coach Q is now the second-winningest bench boss in NHL history with 784 victories.
Anze Kopitar has no need for the Powerball lottery
OK, over $1.5 billion is certainly a lot more money than $80 million, but a contract extension that puts you on the cusp of the league's highest paid players has to feel like winning the lottery in its own right. Saturday, the Los Angeles Kings locked up defensive forward Anze Kopitar for another eight years at $10 million per through the 2023-2024 season. Kopitar is now in lock-step with Alex Ovechkin's $10 million salary per season and just behind the Blackhawks' Jonathan Toews and Kane and their $10.5 million cap hit, according to General Fanager.
It’s what many expected and it’s what Kopitar deserves as a key piece of the Kings organization. The 28-year-old center will be in his late 30s when the deal expires, but locking up one of the best point producers from the 2005 draft was a must for the Kings this season. Kopitar’s 645 points in 725 games alongside his two nominations for the Selke Trophy that awards the league’s best defensive forward is absolutely worth the big pay day.
Report: #LAKings close to signing Anze Kopitar to extension. Sidney Crosby is only player from 2005 draft with more G, A & PTS than Kopitar.
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) January 13, 2016 It’s been a long time since the NHL has had a proper line brawl. Sure, there have been scraps. But not John Tortorella’s Canucks vs. the Flames kind of powder keg seen back in January 2014. The fight that ended the Panthers’ 12-game winning streak was also nowhere near that level of tomfoolery, but it is certainly the biggest -- and most talked about -- scrum since.
The Canucks were involved again on the shenanigans, as Daniel Sedin scored the overtime winner that seemingly sparked it all. The sides congregated after Derek Dorsett skated past the Panthers bench and mixed it up with backup netminder Al Montoya.
this went on for a while pic.twitter.com/0DQhJYr73f
— Stephanie (@myregularface) January 12, 2016 Panthers head coach Gerard Gallant got involved, too.
But that wasn’t the most talked about part of the brawl. Panthers broadcaster Denis Potvin had one of the more creative calls in hockey history involving peanut butter.
Can someone explain to me what this Sedin comment (insult?) means. I don't get it. LOL #FlaPanthers #FLAvsVAN pic.twitter.com/hS0cTvDuol
— Victoria Denault (@BooksbyVictoria) January 12, 2016 It’s OK, no one else knows what it means either. Potvin also called Daniel Sedin a “low life,” and has since apologized for that comment. No word though on where he got the inspiration for the peanut butter comment.
Trending Down
John Scott is no longer an All-Star, and we are all to blame
I could probably put all 800-plus words from this piece by our own Pat Iversen in this spot, but that’d be plagiarism and I do quite like this job. Still, take a few minutes to read that and absorb it into your soul.
Here are the bare bones facts: John Scott was named an NHL All-Star Captain after a fan vote to get him in succeeded. Scott was then demoted to the AHL just days ago, sparking debates on if he was eligible for the All-Star Game. Friday, Scott was then traded to the Montreal Canadiens in a three-team deal and has been sent to their AHL club in Newfoundland, where he will remain as festivities reign in Nashville in just a few weeks.
Want more facts? Scott and his wife are expecting twins any day now. The prize for winning the All-Star game was $1 million to be split among the competitors. Scott’s salary for the 2015-16 season? A mere $575,000.
If you’re still feeling any combination of angry, disappointed and embarrassed, it’s OK. Most of us probably still feel the same way even after a few days to cool down and digest the situation. For this league to take it upon itself and Charlie Brown us all -- but most of all to John Scott and his family -- is not just a betrayal that cuts across all levels, but it’s one that casts a shadow across the NHL with the message that it doesn’t care about its fans.
I think Pat’s piece summarizes this mess much better than I can ever do it justice:
Most importantly, the NHL failed Scott. They took a surprisingly heartwarming moment and story for the sport and obliterated it out of pettiness and pride for a fake hockey game, causing real-life consequences for a low-paid player and his growing family. Fans may have started this debacle, but the NHL made sure they looked like the villains by the end of it.
It’s callous. It’s humorless. It makes my head spin and my heart hurt.
And it was all over a stupid All-Star Game.
Analytics community to lose another website to the ether
War-On-Ice will be heading the way of Extra Skater come April of this year. What many consider the most dominant advanced analytics website in the hockey community in the post-Extra Skater era will be closing up shop around the time of this season’s playoffs. Unlike many sites that have gone dark thanks to bloggers be gettin’ paid, War-On-Ice is leaving due to “how convoluted [their] own back-end database system had become” and the lack of time and resources to solve said problems.
Alas, War-On-Ice is heading to the great old Internet archive in the sky. Until the NHL decides to have up-to-date and accurate advanced statistics on its website, we’ll have to resort to the remaining websites scattered across the hockey community.
For those scrambling to find more advanced stats sites, @CrzyCanucklehed put together a life saving list https://t.co/AUDjmRWOyk
— Mary Clarke (@marycclarke) January 16, 2016 Montreal’s Alex Galchenyuk the latest example of victim blaming
It’s not just women that can be subject to abuse. In fact, “one in seven men age 18+ in the U.S. has been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in his lifetime,” according to The National Domestic Violence Hotline. These, like the John Scott ones above, are facts.
Alex Galchenyuk’s girlfriend was arrested last week in a domestic incident. Since, Galchenyuk apologized for being “a distraction” to his teammates in a now deleted tweet from the Canadiens. The media has hounded Galchenyuk with questions that would draw the most furious ire if it were a woman on that side of the microphone. Whether he was forced to apologize or not, no one should have to apologize for being a victim in the first place.
The word “distractions” gets thrown about a lot when these things happen. Let’s finally sit down and talk about what it really means.
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