NY Rangers, Carey Price and ‘haters’ (Puck Daddy Countdown)

(In which Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

8 – Packing for a long trip

Remember a while ago when the Vancouver Canucks sent Jake Virtanen down because he wasn’t scoring? But first they said they would limit his ice time until he scored, which is a self-defeating talent management strategy. But once that shockingly didn’t work either, they sent him to the AHL.

Well, in two games he finished with six shots on goal. No goals, no points, but six shots. And that was in his second game. He didn’t do anything to get on the scoresheet in the first game.

And okay yeah six shots is a lot to take in a single regulation game. And scoring or not-scoring is not necessarily the sign of success for a player. So it makes sense that the Canucks would call him up again. Did he learn his lesson? Well, that’s tough to say, because his recall to the NHL was not performance-based. It was I-should-have-brought-a-bigger-suitcase-based.

The thing is this is a player who could probably use like half a season in the AHL to get up to NHL speed. If not more. So the fact that they sent him there so temporarily that no one even checked to make sure he had more than four changes of clothes is, frankly, weird. Especially because Virtanen makes a decent amount of money and I bet they have stores where you can buy clothes in Utica.

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Hockey contest now]

And even if they don’t, maybe spring for an Amazon Prime membership and get that sweet two-day shipping.

The Canucks are the league’s most beautiful and perfect organization. I won’t hear otherwise.

7 – Arizona’s taxpayers

Not content to give a failing franchise a sweet arena deal that costs a broke-ass nearby city millions, Tempe residents are now lined up screaming, “Bilk us too!”

The Coyotes have committed to paying about $100 million for the construction of their new rink in conjunction with Arizona State’s smaller 4,000-seat arena. The other $750 million is coming from the taxpayers.

This rules and is very good. Especially because we can assume a pretty healthy chunk of that $100 million is revenue-sharing money they get from the league’s actually successful franchises. That’s dope, that’s dope.

6 – Anecdotal evidence

Is it just me or does it seem like there are more highlight reel-quality goals season than there were the past few years? Maybe all that stuff about opening the game up is working. Or maybe I’m imagining it. But it seems like a lot of good stuff is happening league-wide, and it’s not something I’m used to having to countenance.

5 – The Haters

You want to read a coach who capital-G capital-I “Gets It” your first stop should be Bill West breaking down the real ish from Mike Sullivan. Yeah, the Penguins value shot metrics, for sure, but Sullivan’s takes on what constitutes shot quality are extremely good.

I said last week I wouldn’t be surprised to see another Sharks/Penguins Cup Final and this is a big reason why. Sullivan is almost unfairly smart about this. And yeah, I want to talk for hours about the rest of the criteria here.

4 – Next year’s Hall of Fame class

Good lord the talent level of the guys who will probably go in next year is bananas.

Teemu Selanne and Mark Recchi seem like tap-ins, but when you’re also considering Dave Andreychuk and Paul Kariya, that’s crazy. Oh and Daniel Alfredsson. And Jeremy Roenick. And Alexander Mogilny and Sergei Zubov.

If only half those guys get in, it’s a little bit of a snub to be honest. But you know they’ll go with Chris Osgood first and foremost.

3 – Mark Scheifele

Yo shout out to this dude. No one on earth had him leading the league in scoring a month into the season. He has 20 damn points already. What a beautiful young man playing on a beautiful young line that’s so good to watch.

I can’t imagine he’s still there by the end of the season but 75 points seems very much within his reach by now. He put up 61 in 71 last season, and adding Patrik Laine to his line seems to have really sparked something.

Watch a Jets game sometime if you haven’t yet, because they’re extremely fun.

2 – Carey Price

I think we all had some pretty understandable reservations about just how good Carey Price would be this season. “Yeah, he’s the best goalie alive but he just missed a whole season,” was a common and logical refrain.

But right now he’s breaking hockey. No other way to say it. There have been at least a few guys who posted .957 over 10 appearances. That’s hockey, as they say. But one cannot imagine ever watching a player do that and saying, “This seems normal.” With Price, it looks normal. He legitimately looks this damn good. Obviously he won’t run .950-plus for a full season (WILL HE?) but even if he takes a huge step back, he’s still a .930 goalie.

Why wait until June? Can we just give him the Vezina and Hart and Lindsay now?

1 – The Rangers

I did a story on them recently but it really bears repeating: The Rangers are playing fun, beautiful, winning hockey. Amazing what going with “four lines that can skate” does for your numbers. Not-playing Tanner Glass is working out for them, hey?

(Not ranked this week: MS.

This Bryan Bickell news is just flat-out awful, and certainly helps to explain the sudden decline of a player who was previously a pretty useful middle-six forward. This is so much bigger than hockey for him and his family.)

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

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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