With 2014 winding down, we take a look back at your favourite NHL stories from the year that was. From the sinking ship of the Edmonton Oilers, to Mike Babcock speculation, goal song rankings and more – here are our top 20 most-read NHL stories from the past year.
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Ron MacLean: Babcock watching Leafs “carefully”
Mike Babcock, the current coach of the Detroit Red Wings, has been a hot topic this season because of his expiring contract. Will he stay with the Wings, or will he seek a new challenge? Naturally, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been mentioned as a potential fit for Babcock and Ron MacLean shared his thoughts on the matter with Brady & Walker on Sportsnet 590 The Fan.
“I think he’s probably watching Toronto as carefully as anything. Not his own team, but Toronto, to decide if he wants to come here.”
30 Thoughts: Analytics say Oilers luck should turn
In early December, the struggling Edmonton Oilers were the focus of Elliotte Friedman’s “30 Thoughts” column. According to analytics, the Oilers were an extremely unlucky team with a league-low .961 PDO, 11 points lower than the next worst team, Columbus.
From Friedman: “The last team to finish that low for a full season? Atlanta, who posted a .957 back in 1999-2000. Someone in the Edmonton organization did something awful to a black cat.”
Oilers coach Dallas Eakins didn’t survive the month and Edmonton has just one win in its past 20 games.
30 Thoughts: Possible trade fits for Oilers
On Dec. 19, Friedman looked at potential trade options for not just the Oilers, but also Boston, Vancouver and others. But with the Oilers’ problems hitting an all-time low point, Taylor Hall was again a focal point.
From Friedman: “Taylor Hall? Craig MacTavish has been trying to make trades for almost two years. Can something as complex as a Hall deal really get done now? Part of me wonders if Hall’s name is out there to see how he responds. Does he get to a higher level, showing a desire to stay? Lots of other questions, such as: who is making this decision? We know there is a “forensic audit” of the organization being done, with Bob Nicholson playing a major role.”
Spector: Everything needs to change in Oilers organization
At the beginning of December, before the Eakins firing, Mark Spector took aim at a frustrated Oilers team falling apart. It isn’t just the culture in the dressing room that has to change, he argued, but the way the organization operates. Problems persist from the top of management, through the scouting department, and down to the players that have kept the Oilers in the same miserable holding pattern for years.
“It’s a joke.”
Andrew Ference, captain of the Edmonton Oilers, could have stopped right there. Instead, however, he went on to speak of the many things his team still does wrong. The catastrophic giveaways, two short-handed goals against in one power play (“a joke,” he said again), the absurd line changes… The lessons he has been trying to hammer home in his nearly season-and-a-half as Edmonton’s captain, simply are not taking with this group.
“We’re still hammering the same nail,” Ference admits.
Are the Bruins and Oilers involved in trade talks?
Again with the Oilers, as their season was spiralling out of control, Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos took to Twitter to report strong speculation that the Bruins and Oilers were revisiting trade talks and that Jordan Eberle could potentially be a target of the Bruins. Boston reporter Joe Haggerty followed up by tweeting “Oilers management covets Milan Lucic on Bruins roster.”
The one summer deal Leafs’ Nonis would do again
Toronto general manager Dave Nonis joined the Jeff Blair Show and revisited some of the summer acquisitions he made. And when he was asked which pickup was the most important, it wasn’t Leo Komarov or Mike Santorelli – it was veteran defenceman Stephane Robidas.
“If we had to go back and do one signing last summer, it would be bringing [Stephane Robidas] in,” Nonis said Monday on The Jeff Blair Show. “We brought in Robidas for two reasons. One is we believe he can still play at a high level, or we wouldn’t have signed him, and I think he’s rounding out into form.
“The second reason is because of his character and leadership qualities. If you speak to anyone who’s had him as a coach or a manager around the league, they’ll talk about his play, but they’ll talk glowing about him as a person, as a leader and how he can have an affect on younger players.”
Jay Feaster has “fun,” burns Oilers on Twitter
When you’re as bad as the Oilers have been this season, you’re an easy target. Former Calgary GM Jay Feaster even got in on the action, calling out the Oilers’ lack of development in an early-December Tweet.
“I was just having fun. Obviously, people get very wound up and upset about things. But it wasn’t done in a hurtful or spiteful way. I’m just having some fun with it.”
The Jean Beliveau-Elise Couture love story
After the death of all-time great Jean Beliveau, stories of Le Gros Bill were being told everywhere. On Dec. 9, Montreal’s first home game since the passing of their captain, Beliveau was honoured by the team and his wife, Elise, was in attendance. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman shared this great love story about Jean and Elise.
In his autobiography, My Life in Hockey, Jean Beliveau describes the night he met the former Elise Couture. He was still playing for the Quebec Citadelles, and joked that his friends “despaired of a tall, young man whose only pursuits seemed to be hockey and books.”
As he tells it, the Gagnon family, who lived not far from him, invited Beliveau out because, “We have a nice girl we’d like you to meet.”
NHL Rumour Roundup: Trade freeze edition
Just ahead of the NHL’s holiday roster freeze, we looked at some transaction rumours that were being talked about around the league. Only one of these came to pass before Christmas, but could more come to fruition in the New Year?
Playing hardball with Franson will cost Leafs
Toronto defenceman Cody Franson makes $3.3 million against the cap this season and has signed three one-year deals in a row with the team. But since he’s UFA-eligible this summer, he’s likely to get term from someone. Should the Maple Leafs invest in him? Steve Burtch took an analytical look at Franson’s impact on the Maple Leafs and explained why playing hardball with him on a new contract wouldn’t help at all.
Five coaches ready for another NHL job
Dallas Eakins and Pete DeBoer were the first two NHL coaches fired this season, but surely won’t be the last. In November, we took a look at five coaching candidates who would be ready to jump back behind an NHL bench. None of these five guys have been hired yet, but could they find NHL work in 2015?
30 Thoughts: “Babwatch” reaching new heights
In mid-December, there was a report that Babcock was nearing a contract extension with the Detroit Red Wings, but he quickly dismissed it as being from a “fantasy world.” In 30 Thoughts, Elliotte Friedman looked at Babcock’s situation and explained what he might be looking for, and where the Red Wings are at as a franchise. Friedman also looked at Las Vegas and much more.
Oilers fire coach Eakins; Nelson to take over
After such a monumentally terrible start, it was a foregone conclusion that Dallas Eakins was going to take the fall in Edmonton. And, finally, on Dec. 15, the axe fell and Eakins was pushed out. In Eakins’ place, GM Craig MacTavish announced he would go behind the bench during a “transition” period until Todd Nelson, promoted from AHL Oklahoma City, was ready to take on the interim job himself.
“I had no reason to do this outside of performance,” general manager Craig MacTavish told reporters at a press conference Monday. “There’s blood all over my hands, too. I’m not here to absolve myself of responsibility for the situation we’re in.”
22 NHL players have been warned about diving
On Hockey Night in Canada’s second intermission “Headlines” segment, Damien Cox and Elliotte Friedman discussed the new diving punishments to try and eliminate the scourge from hockey. While Nashville Predators forward James Neal was the first fined for diving in 2014-15, 22 other NHLers were warned about it and were in line to be named and fined if they dove again.
Hall: It wouldn’t feel right to leave Oilers now
In the aftermath of the Dallas Eakins firing, Sportsnet’s Mark Spector wanted to gauge the temperature among the players in Edmonton’s dressing room. Were these guys still prepared to ride out the storm, or was the losing draining them of their will to compete? Taylor Hall answered by saying he was committed to the city and this team.
“I’ve said this off-camera to many people: It would be a shame to leave the group now. It wouldn’t feel right. It wouldn’t be a good feeling to leave the group in the stage we’re at. We want to make it to the final stage; we want to be a contending team in this league.”
Is former enforcer Laraque the Oilers’ answer?
Former Oilers Georges Laraque paid a visit to Rexall Place in December and took a photo next to the Wayne Gretzky statue. He shared it on Twitter and joked that he was ready to lace ‘em up once more. So, we had a little fun with the post and pondered if Laraque was the piece the struggling Oilers were missing. Laraque answered himself on Twitter: lol let me answer this huh no! Lol but if you trade for Crosby, Malkin, Kane, Subban, Weber, and Price, maybe then! Haha
Tim Stapleton talks about his KHL experience
As the Russian ruble sharply declines in value, there have been legitimate questions concerning the future of the KHL. Would teams continue to be able to afford players? Would the league have to contract teams? Would fringe NHLers who left for Russia return to North America, or leave Russia for European leagues?
Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston talked to former NHLer Tim Stapleton about his experience playing in Russia during this tumultuous time. He talked about being traded, why his teammates were asking if he was on strike, and what thoughts are going through his mind as uncertainty looms.
“You’re waking up every day and you’re feeling like someone’s stealing money out of your pocket,” said Stapleton. “But then again, we’re in Russia and we make rubles, you can’t really kill yourself over it. It’s out of your control.”
Remembering hockey legend Jean Beliveau
After news broke that hockey legend Jean Béliveau had passed away at the age of 83, Gare Joyce wrote an excellent remembrance piece of Le Gros Bill.
Béliveau could have had almost unimaginable wealth if he had possessed a huckster’s streak, but he had never been comfortable selling. He was never a pitchman. Money wasn’t enough to get him in front of a camera or to sign his name over to a business other than the one that had employed him all his adult life, the Montreal Canadiens. It wasn’t that he was a particularly private man, just an unassuming one.
Eakins was doomed in Edmonton since Day 1
After the Oilers finally dismissed Dallas Eakins in mid-December, Sportsnet’s Mark Spector wrote that he never really stood a chance. From the day he was hired as Edmonton’s head coach, Eakins was destined to fail with that roster run by that management team.
It was a sucker hire to begin with — a rookie GM schmoozed into hiring a rookie coach to work with a bunch of rookies — and made even worse by the Swiss cheese roster MacTavish handed the prodigal Eakins.
Ranking the top goal songs in the NHL
Finally, we took a look at each goal song in the NHL and ranked them 30 down to 1. The link above is for the bottom 15 in the league, but if you also want to see who cracked the top 15 – and which team has the best goal song – you can click here.
