Puck Daddy Power Rankings: NHL expansion, slagging Ovechkin and Canada’s worst contract

[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. Setting odds

It's been said in this space before that when it comes to setting odds, the big betting houses seem to really struggle with hockey.

This year, it seems, has been no exception.

You'll remember that last season the Leafs' over/under was somewhere in the neighborhood of 96 points, and any reasonable observer who had access to sufficient data and chose to put some money on it could have — and really should have — made a lot of money on what was essentially a suckers' bet. There was no actual way the Toronto Maple Leafs of last season would ever get anywhere near 96 points, and let's please also recall that the 84 they did get was buoyed by some of the most incredible goaltending in the league last season from Jonathan Bernier.

On Tuesday morning Bovada released its annual over/under lines on NHL teams' point totals for the coming season, and most seemed pretty reasonable, as you might expect. But there were a few outliers that savvy bettors could exploit.

For instance, the New York Islanders began Tuesday with an over/under of 81.5 points, meaning that all the positive changes they've made from last season would basically amount to about one extra win. This is hogwash. It was also apparently obvious to gamblers, because that line was hiked to 83.5 within just a few hours. And it's still a huge value, because this is a playoff team, just based on the addition of a goaltender who's not going to stop just 89 percent of the shots he faces.

Other teams that offered considerable initial value: Dallas at 89.5 (will be higher), New Jersey at 83.5 (will be much higher), and Colorado at 98.5 (will be lower).

By the way, you shouldn't gamble on sports. But if you're going to anyway, don't be a sucker.

5. Getting in line for an undervalued defenseman

When you can't even get guys to your training camp for an invite, you might be in a little bit of trouble.

It seems that Raphael Diaz, a right-shot mobile defenseman who's a legitimate NHL player, was invited to Detroit's camp, but declined, instead choosing to go with a similar offer from the Calgary Flames. This left the Wings, still, with no right-shooting D on their roster. That's obviously a problem.

(And it should be obvious why Diaz chose Calgary over Detroit: the Wings have seven defensemen on one-way contracts, pending Danny DeKeyser's new deal. Calgary, meanwhile, has six, and just about anyone should be able to beat out Ladislav Smid for a job these days.)

Meanwhile, this is the second defenseman the Flames have pulled to their camp just on the prospect of making the team (Sheldon Brookbank is the other, and he accepted about two weeks ago). They also signed Corey Potter to a two-way deal that could land him with Calgary as well. Add in at least one young defenseman (Tyler Wotherspoon) looking for a job with the big club, and you have to say that Brad Treliving has done well to make sure the bottom pairing on his NHL club isn't total garbage.

You have to like Diaz's chances to make the team, because he can push possession and score a little bit, even if he is teeny-tiny and not even close to the “Brian Burke” type you'd expect for a bottom-pairing guy. The guy is very useful, and Calgary needs more young-ish (Dias is 28), useful players who won't actually help them win anything this season. He fits that mold perfectly.

4. The Darcy Kuemper situation

Contract talks are ongoing in Minnesota to bring back the only goalie who might be able to provide them with stability for next season.

Darcy Kuemper still doesn't have a deal, and the sticking point is one that he shouldn't have to deal with (it's actually not dissimilar to what Diaz went through when not-choosing Detroit): The Wild currently have two goaltenders on one-way deals, and they consequently want him to take a two-way.

That's good business on the team's part in theory. The reality is that Niklas Backstrom almost certainly will get hurt at some point this season, or Josh Harding will have his MS unfortunately flare up again and prevent him from playing. At that point, having the ability to recall someone who posted a .915 save percentage last season would probably be really helpful.

But it is ridiculous to ask him to take that deal, given his performance last year when the team needed him in dire circumstances. Kuemper is 24, and posted solid enough stats in the NHL and AHL the last few seasons that a team should just say, “Yup, this is an NHL-ready player,” even if he has only gotten into 32 career games. But the Wild can't, because they have to stick with two goalies who present major risks.

So Kuemper is reportedly considering the KHL instead, and good on him for doing so. There's no reason at all that he shouldn't be making seven figures to play hockey somewhere. Even if it's just leverage against Minnesota, you can't really blame him. Why would he deny himself the ability to make money?

3. Expansion talk

That got put to a rest pretty quickly.

A week ago we were talking about the league adding as many as four teams, then Gary Bettman had to go out and say all those teams would cost like a billion dollars and ruin all our fun.

It's great to speculate about this kind of thing, and you have to think that where there's smoke, there's fire. Reporters don't hear “there could be four new expansion teams in the next three seasons” and publish it out of nowhere, for no reason. This isn't a “Sidney Crosby is rotting in an Ottawa jail” rumor here. Multiple reports from independent sources at the same time? And then some pretty detailed comments on them from the commissioner himself? Come on.

With that said, if the price tag for a new NHL franchise is indeed that high — and granted, this is Toronto we're talking about here, and not, say Seattle or Las Vegas — then there probably aren't too many people who can afford to buy. I think we can all accept the fact that it's going to happen at some point, just not right now, and probably not how we expect. At all.

So, I guess just hold your horses for a while?

On the other hand:

2. Continuing to slag Ovechkin

I'm not quite sure when this space became a one-stop shop for defending Alex Ovechkin from idiotic criticisms, but here we are anyway.

This time, the criticism comes from — who else? — Ken Campbell of The Hockey News, who says that Ovechkin, the two-time (two-time!) defending Rocket Richard winner is “on the hot seat” in Washington.

(And it's worth noting here that The Hockey News in particular seems to have a serious infatuation with bad-mouthing Ovechkin. Please recall Adam Proteau's ludicrous “The Caps would be better off without him” drivel from earlier this summer.)

“How does a 50-goal scorer end up on the list of players on the hot seat?”

A myopic fool puts him there to generate page views?

By piling up points on the power play, being an uninspired player 5-on-5 and not leading his team to the playoffs, that’s how.

Oh, see? I was right! As to this specific criticism: Did Ovechkin “pile up points on the power play? Yes. He had the second-most of anyone in the league, apart from teammate Nicklas Backstrom, at 39 in 78 games. This is, somehow, seen as a bad thing, I think?

As for the “uninspired” even-strength play, let's please not remember that Ovechkin scored the fifth-most goals in the league in such situations (27) en route to his second consecutive Rocket Richard, and would have probably had more even-strength assists than his paltry 12 if Adam Oates hadn't put Jay Beagle on his line for a good portion of the season.

As for not leading the team to the playoffs, I concede. It's easy to forget Ovechkin is responsible for the .906 on-ice even-strength save percentage behind him.

Ovechkin might be one of the least-feared 50-goal scorers in the history of the game...

This is like being unimpressed with the coloring of a particular albino endangered rhino is. “I've seen whiter.” Okay, sure you have, but, like, how many do you see around?

There are currently two guys in the league who are close to a sure thing to score 50 goals a season in the current iteration of the NHL: Ovechkin and, when healthy, Steven Stamkos. Ovechkin has an exceedingly rare talent, and even if he's not the best player with that talent, he's still one of two people alive.

So seriously, grow up.

1. Actually having the worst contract in Canada

Last Friday, the CBC put up a poll asking which contract given to an NHL player by a Canadian team is the worst of all of them. This is a fairly easy question, but we're going to save the answer for the end.

The choices presented included one option per team, with the exception of the Canucks. The poll posits that the following players have the worst deals on their teams:

• Max Pacioretty (164 points in his last 196 games)

• Clarke MacArthur (guaranteed 20 goals and 45 points, plus big possession numbers)

• Dion Phaneuf (a captain, and as good a No. 2 defenseman as there is in the league, especially if Randy Carlyle weren't his coach)

• Zach Bogosian (who's not Ondrej Pavelec)

• Matt Stajan (a decent No. 2 center with no help who's only making $3.625 million)

• Mark Fayne (a possession-driving defenseman on a team paying Nikita Nikitin and Andrew Ference)

• Daniel and Henrik Sedin (they're the Sedins, for god's sake!)

Is even one of these deals the worst contract on their own teams? Obviously, most of them aren't even bad. But how about Rene Bourque in Montreal? Chris Neil in Ottawa? The aforementioned Ondrej Pavelec in Winnipeg and Andrew Ference in Edmonton? Deryk Engelland in Calgary? Ryan Miller in Vancouver?

Or how about, easily, the worst contract in the entire NHL, let alone just Canada? How about David Clarkson in Toronto?

That's one hell of an editorial oversight.

(Not ranked this week: NHL15.

It really shouldn't be possible to screw up this hard, but here we are.

After years of effectively not doing much to change the gameplay or presentation of the NHL series, EA Sports had the opportunity to really wow players with the introduction of NHL15 for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 next-gen consoles.

Instead, they offered a game so stripped to the bones that it's laughable. The list of modes to which players have grown accustomed but were not included in the launch is available here, and boy is it lengthy.

But good news, deeply disappointed gamers: In the first-post launch update, the NHL15 team will add all the features you've been craving, like the ability to get your coach's useless feedback in Be A Pro mode (“You were out there for a goal against, that's a minus.”), and also see who the Three Stars of the Game were after every game you play (very important stuff there). There are other modes that will get minor tweaks too, like the ability to see when a player is injured in Hockey Ultimate Team.

Then, another month later, they'll let you play the game online with six people on a team, like you've been able to do for years. What a great opportunity for you, the consumer.

Meanwhile, most reviews of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 version of the game essentially call it a $60 roster update.

Good job all around from EA Sports. They shouldn't be embarrassed at all.)