Puck Daddy Power Rankings: 3-on-3 OT, Tanner Glass and Travis Zajac

[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.]

7. Travis Zajac

The idea that anyone should want to take on Travis Zajac's contract has been kicked around a lot in the last week or so, but it's all rubbish. This is an oft-injured player in decline on an awful contract, which would be fine for the Toronto Maple Leafs to take aboard with Dave Nonis at the wheel.

But this is the New Smart Maple Leafs, not the Old Dumb Ones who could be bilked into giving just about any bad player who had a good season four years ago big money because hey you never know he might do that thing that's impossible to reproduce again at some point over the next five years, so let's just give him $5-plus million and let the chips fall where they may.

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Remember, though, this rumor started with a whisper from Elliotte Friedman — a reputable source if ever there was one — saying that other NHL executives had heard Lou Lamoriello might be interested in acquiring the player. This was particularly believable because, a) He gave away this awful deal in the first place, and b) He has built up a credible legacy over the years as being a really bad GM.

The exact kind, you might say, who would think acquiring Travis Zajac in 2015 is a good idea.

Now, I've seen it floated that this might be something New Jersey is putting out there to drum up interest, because perhaps Ray Shero has no want or use for Zajac in the first place. That's also very believable. But in any event, the number of teams who should be clamoring to acquire a player like this, and more specifically one with a contract like this, is roughly zero. Unless you're really desperate to make the cap floor or something.

Does Zajac have some positives to his game? Sure. But you're paying him first-line dollars — and the Devils have been playing him first-line minutes — to an unforgivable end. He doesn't even fit the standards of a middling second-line center based on his statistical output, so his ability to push the puck in the right direction might not be enough to even justify putting him there.

So what do you want teams to do? Acquire a third-line center with a contract that awful and say, “Well at least they sent a second-round pick back our way?” or, “At least we got rid of our own bad contract?” Because here's the thing: The Devils are rebuilding so their excitement to offload a pick good enough to make the contract worth someone's while (if such a pick even exists, which I doubt) is going to be nil. Likewise, this is possibly one of the two or three worst deals in the league, so teams have no incentive for taking it on even if they get rid of a bad contract of their own (David Clarkson, Tyler Bozak, etc.).

This is as close to an untradeable contract as you're ever going to see in this league. So please, let's not talk about the prospects of trading it.

(Though, I guess you never know with Lou...)

6. Being on a PTO

At this point teams are starting to release a number of guys who signed to tryout deals, and so far only two have gotten contracts out of it.

Brad Boyes got one from Toronto, and that makes sense because while the production hasn't really been there for the former 40-goalscorer (can you believe that?), the underlying numbers basically always have been. If this is part of Toronto's Rebuild Plan — get guys cheap, put them in a position to succeed on one-year deals, get them plenty of TV exposure, then trade them at the deadline for middling picks — then you could do a lot worse than Boyes.

Meanwhile, Toronto also released Mark Fraser, who is bad, but the Senators immediately signed him to a two-way deal, because of course they did.

Everyone else, well, there's still some value out there. Lee Stempniak, Curtis Glencross (released by the Leafs but immediately PTO'ed by the Avs), and maybe one or two others seem like a new contract out of a tryout is very much within reason.

However, one can't imagine that, of the 40-plus guys who got PTO deals, we're going to see more than five or six actual contracts out of it. It seems very likely that this is then end of the line for guys like Devin Setoguchi, Dan Paille, and Douglas Murray. How could it not be?

5. Tanner Glass

You may remember that last week right here in the Power Rankings (RIPending), there was some discussion about the further decline of the fighter's role in this league, with only those who have a vested interest — Paul Bissonnette (another PTO casualty) and Tanner Glass — defending their ongoing use.

Well, looks like Glass is going to be out of a job on Broadway after all. Because he's going to lose his fighting role to....... wait a minute, this says “Chris Kreider.”

No I mean it. The actual headline is, “Has fiery Chris Kreider made Tanner Glass expendable?”

Okay so this is a very very very legitimate question here from your good pal RL: Do you think this means the Rangers are going to let Chris Kreider — a skilled former first-round pick who scored 21 goals last season — go around fighting people?

Or do you think it means that the improved physicality in his game means that Tanner Glass doesn't have to hit an opponent with a phone book next time someone tries to kill Mats Zuccarello?

Because both of those things are wrong. The reason the Rangers don't need Tanner Glass is Tanner Glass is bad at hockey. That is the reason. That is why the Rangers should send him and his hilarious contract to the AHL posthaste. You can sign a better forward who helps your team more from the PTO scrapheap in a week's time. No question about it.

I'm not saying that's the Rangers' decision-making process, but if you look at the situation and that's your takeaway, well. I can't imagine how you see the game this way in 2015.

4. Predictions

Here they come! You can't stop them! And I agree with you, the Puck Daddy reader who has my infinite love, respect, and gratitude: They're all bad and stupid except the ones that say your team is the best!

3. Over-unders

Well if you're the betting type and you're a hockey fan, have I got some good news for you: Bovada released its latest lines and prop bets for the NHL season. This is always a way to make easy money because they still don't do a very good job of predicting team performance in reality.

Carolina winning more than 30 games? Yup. Columbus winning 45-plus? Nope. Rangers winning 47 or more? Pass.

But it's the prop bets that look real nice here. Phil Kessel as a sleeper Rocket Richard winner (he's well back of Steven Stamkos and Alex Ovechkin, who are tied for first), or Vladimir Tarasenko or Tyler Seguin all look like good values. I'd feel real good about putting some money down on Ryan Getzlaf to take home the Hart (18/1) and Art Ross (25/1), because he'll be the best player on what is likely the best team. Braden Holtby at 10/1 to win the Vezina? Hoo buddy.

And while I wouldn't personally advise picking anyone but Connor McDavid to win the Calder, going with someone from the field might work out in your favor if something awful were to happen.

This is, again, all for entertainment purposes. And it's also worth noting that these are odds as of yesterday afternoon, rather than when they were released, when you can be sure they were even more absurd.

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2. The “Luck is real!” sayers

You know that thing where stats people have long dismissed guys being on a run of success as just being a thing related to good luck over a short period of time, and nothing more? Well, new research shows that the "hot hand" in sports is real.

It's real you guys. You were right all along and all the nerds and dorks were wrong idiots on this one! We have been collectively humiliated (although, it was nerds who humiliated us, so I don't know how that works for your well-being).

However, this comes with a litany of "Howevers."

First, this only proves true when it comes to coin flips — that is, in any given set of flips, the odds that it lands on the opposite side immediately after is 60 percent, not the 50 previously assumed — and might not have practical application when it comes to sports. In hockey, specifically, it's not a 50-50 chance that a given shot goes in. It's more like 8-92 against the better goalies in the league, so...

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Second, all this does is really open up the possibility of further research which may further prove or disprove the hypothesis.

Third, even if true, it took 4 million coin flips for the people to find this fact. There were fewer than 79,000 shots in the NHL last season, meaning that it probably takes about 12.5 full seasons for 30 teams' worth of NHLers to take 4 million shots.

On the "average player" level, it would probably take about 30,400 seasons to record 4 million shots personally, roughly 2.5 million games. That's a little more than 1,400 Gordie Howe careers.

So the impact of this principle on, say, an individual set of, say, 10 games in which a guy is on a tear, well, you can still call that luck.

But the stat-dislikers are, I guess, technically right.

1. 3-on-3

Not counting last night's games, there had been just four shootouts in the preseason. Out of 18 that went to overtime. That doesn't include games where they played a 3-on-3 for the hell of it, but it gives you an idea that this is very likely to eradicate the shootout altogether. That may be especially true as more teams shift to using zero defensemen in their shootout schemes (though one supposes PK Subban and Erik Karlsson, among others, help just as much as forwards here).

And man, it sure makes for good up-and-down hockey that gets over in a hurry.

Still a gimmick? Sure it is, but at least it's not the [expletive]ing shootout.

(Not ranked this week: Hoaxes.

The Patrick Kane case now officially has more twists and turns than an Elmore Leonard novel. It's ridiculous. The whole thing. I cannot wait for it to be over so misogynists stop airing their monstrous opinions on every development.)

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

(All statistics via War On Ice unless otherwise noted.)