Jim Kelley

Jim Kelley writes regularly on the NHL for Sportsnet.ca and can be heard on Primetime Sports on the FAN590.

How can you possibly separate these two when it comes to best player?

Here's a look at the 2009-10 NHL season so far, at the only "break" the players get.

Breaks come at strange times in the National Hockey League and sometimes not at all.

Halfway through the season there should be a midseason break but there isn't, the teams just acknowledge Game 41 is in the books and carry on.

There is a break at all-star time, but because of television commitments, it's seldom at the halfway point of the season and simply comes at a time when it fits the scheduling of the league and its television (largely U.S. television) partners.

And every four years since 1998, there has been the Olympic break, a break that isn't a break at all for the participants in the Winter Games and a break that usually comes so late in the season that it tends to interrupt momentum for teams looking to make the playoffs or solidify their spots. It often has an unfavourable impact on the way the rest of the season is played out (this is due in large part to the compression of the schedule that makes the Olympic break possible in the first place).

That said, a break is at hand and so keeping with a personal pledge not to stick my nose in an Olympics I am not attending, I present one man's opinions of the 2009-10 season at the only "break" it will take this season.

Best Player: Call it a cop-out if you like, but to me it's Alex Ovechkin AND Sidney Crosby and not just because they are tied with 42 goals. I like Ovechkin simply because he is the most exciting and dynamic player in the game today and when he's not doing a little head hunting or knee hunting (something he's reined in since being criticized and being named captain of the Capitals) he's been outrageously good.

I like Crosby because of his superb talents and his unwavering dedication to being the best player he can be every time he steps out onto the ice. I would even argue that Crosby is the more complete player given the way he carried the Penguins to the Stanley Cup last spring and the way he does virtually everything right in the games he's played this season, but then completeness isn't the same as wildly entertaining and Ovechkin has a flair that makes him impossible to overlook.

There's a nod to the Sedin twins in Vancouver in the runner-up category and to Joe Thornton because of his staggering number of assists with San Jose, but they aren't in the Crosby-Ovechkin class.

Best Goaltender: The stats say it's Tomas Vokoun in the save percentage category and Tuukka Rask in the goals-against column (how's that working for you Leafs fans out there?). But then a week before it was Ryan Miller and Antti Niemi so one could argue that those are the breaks. Me, I'm looking for something more and it's Martin Brodeur, who at 38 has shown the kids a thing or two about consistency and along the way blasted through the overall wins mark and Terry Sawchuk's long-standing shutout mark.

Best Teams: No real surprises here, San Jose and Chicago in the West, Washington and Pittsburgh (grudgingly) in the East.

Best Surprises: Los Angeles Kings (37-20-4) in the West along with Colorado (35-20-6). You can throw in Phoenix if you like, but I figured Phoenix to be a playoff team this season so I'm not overly surprised by their play. In the East, well I've got to give it up to the Ottawa Senators (36-23-4)and their legitimate coach-of-the-year candidate Cory Clouston and the Buffalo Sabres (33-18-9), who despite a six-game losing streak just prior to the break, have virtually clinched a playoff berth after being out the previous two seasons.

Biggest Disappointments: In the West and in order: Edmonton, St. Louis, Columbus and the Anaheim Ducks. In the East and in order: Toronto (I expected bad, but not this bad), New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes.

Edmonton has reached the point where you pine for a mercy rule like in "mercy me they are awful, can't they just concede the remainder of the season." St. Louis has failed to build on the promise of last season and the same can be said of Columbus. The Ducks are playing better of late but they haven't reached their potential and there is no excuse given the roster.

Toronto may have been a stretch for the playoffs, but a horrific start and a failure to improve caused the flurry of changes general manager Brian Burke unleashed just before the break. The Rangers shouldn't be here, but they keep making the same mistakes over and over again so, thanks to GM Glen Sather, they are. Carolina is in one of their polar opposite years, but you can't help but wonder if it isn't because they simply don't apply themselves as hard as they should.

Best Under the Radar Player: I could make a case for L.A.'s Jonathan Quick, especially since he made the U.S. Olympic team (though he likely won't see action), but I'm going with Colorado's Craig Anderson, who is one of the primary reasons the Avs are playing like contenders in the West. Anderson has 31 wins and though his individual numbers have started to slip a bit, he has carried a monster load to this point and likely will rebound strongly off the break. An honourable mention here to Detroit's Jimmy Howard and to Rask. Quick's only mistake was that, well, he was touted as being this good and hasn't disappointed.

Most Overrated Acquisition: Many are called this given the vagaries of free-agent spending each year, but the hands-down winner is Edmonton goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, who capped a non-performance season with a back problem that required season-ending surgery and a speeding and DUI arrest in Arizona.

Honourable mention goes to Montreal goalie Carey Price (largely in the eyes of departing GM Bob Gainey) and Minnesota's Martin Havlat.

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Is it just me, or has there been a decided lack of presence regarding the closing on the sale of the Phoenix Coyotes to Ice Edge Holdings. The group said back in January that it was close to completing a new lease deal with the city of Glendale. Back on Jan. 22 Ice Edge participants were talking of having things worked out in a matter of weeks, but there has been no announcement and there is speculation in financial circles that the group hasn't come to an agreement with Glendale or the NHL regarding its proposal to play some home games off-site and that it has already exceeded its limits in regards having exclusive rights to negotiate terms of the sale.

Perhaps more importantly, there has been no indication from the league that it will sign off on playing some games off-site (notably Winnipeg) and there has been no timetable from the league as to when it would hand off the franchise to its only remaining suitor.

Ice Edge still doesn't list a working phone number on its extremely limited web site, nor has it set up an office in Phoenix.

Of great concern to the NHL is that fact that one of the company's principals, Anthony LeBlanc, was seen entertaining former Tampa Bay owner Len Barrie at a suite in Jobing.com Arena just before the Olympic break. Barrie is not likely to be on any NHL list of prospective minority owners given his short shelf life in Tampa Bay.

A source who requested anonymity also said there are concerns that Ice Edge doesn't yet have the requisite funding to complete the estimated $140-million purchase price, a primary reason for the apparent lack of progress regards closing the sale.