Puck Daddy Power Rankings: Hockey baby names, Vegas tickets, Mike Milbury

[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. Jared Cowen, and his thinking abilities

Over the weekend Jared Cowen really creamed Jussi Jokinen about an hour after he got rid of the puck, and he wound up getting suspended — rightly — for three games. This hit was just like any of the other predatory headshots that the league has been trying to get out of the sport for the last few years. No excuse for it, and frankly the fact that he only got three games was the Department of Player Safety doing him a favor he in no way earned, especially because he's a repeat offender.

So how did Cowen respond? By saying he was “disappointed” and that three games was “a bit much.” This kind of thing happens all the time. Guy gets suspended for doing dumb thing, guy loses thousands of dollars and a few games' worth of playing time, guy doesn't like it. Easy to understand. And to be fair, his argument is that he has to hit people or else he's not going to be in the league, which is more or less true. You or I might see that as an indictment of his game, or the fact that the Senators continue to employ him, but it's not hard to see his side of things to an extent. Doesn't change the fact that he had time to get in a quick nap before he hit Jokinen right in the head with his shoulder. Oh well.

What happens less frequently, though, is that suspended players say something as dumb as this, which is a real thing Cowen said in real life to other humans, who presumably worked very hard to restrain themselves from laughing immediately thereafter:

“Goal scorers score goals and there’s no repercussions for that, but if I make hits sometimes I get suspended, lose money and don’t play for my team.”

See if you can follow the logic there.

A goal scorer's job is, as the title implies, is to score goals. Cowen's job as a physical defenseman, is to hit people. We are still on the same page.

Cowen feels he has been suspended for doing his job. Cowen therefore also feels that goal scorers should also sometimes be suspended for their jobs. I think? If he's trying to make a different point, then I'm sorry that I don't know how else to interpret that. “Goalscorers score goals and there’s no repercussions for that.” Like, there might be if they scored a goal by trying to give someone a concussion, I guess?

I guess the point is that quote really reads like it came from a guy who thinks hitting an opposing forward in the head a full second after he releases the puck is “his job.”

6. Malkin Crosby Long

A family in the greater Pittsburgh area recently got a new addition: Malkin Crosby Long, which is a nice name for a cat.

The problem is, that is the name of a human baby. And to stay true to the baby's namesakes, the parents reportedly plan to spend $5 million on the 53rd-best babysitter in town.

5. That ticket drive

So after a flurry of interest right at the outset, when people coughed up the money for 5,000 deposits on season tickets for a team that may or may not ever exist, it seems the greater Las Vegas area has settled into a funk of thoroughly not-caring about getting an NHL team. In two weeks, they're up to fewer than 7,000 deposits, which doesn't seem like a good enough amount if you're trying to find 10,000 deposits total.

“We're more than two-thirds of the way there,” is one way to spin it. But you're also about 3,000 away, and oh yeah the league would really like that number to be more like 13,000, so you're only a little more than halfway if you really think about it.

Hmm, a lack of interest in an NHL franchise in a major Southwestern city? At least they didn't wait for the team to actually show up before they didn't care this time around.

(Of note: Expansion would be great for the league — in some ways — and so too would relocation of some struggling franchises. This has just never felt like the market for it no matter how much money people want it.)

4. The Canucks' chances

Ryan Miller is out for at least a month with a concussion after a collision with Jannik Hansen, and that might just about do it for the Canucks' chances of making the playoffs. They entered last night's games sitting second in the Pacific with 71 points, and three teams (Los Angeles, Calgary, and San Jose were within three points of them).

He's having a solid season in Vancouver, and while we've been given some reason to think highly of Eddie Lack overall, the way he played last season after the Roberto Luongo drama started kicking into high gear — .905 from January through the end of the season, though admittedly behind a poorly coached team that was short circuiting at every opportunity — makes you wonder just how much he can do to keep things going, especially given how tough it's been for anyone in that division not named the Ducks to hold onto a playoff spot for very long.

Then again, the opposite is true in terms of how hard it might be to hold off the Flames and Sharks. The Kings are passing them, no question about that, and it's looking increasingly less likely that the Pacific is going to get any more than three playoff teams this year, given that it's the worst division in hockey.

That three-point cushion could stand up, or it could not. Neither would really be a surprise. Doesn't matter though. None of the three teams fighting for that last playoff spot in the division deserves to make it in the first place.

3. The Kings' push

Speaking of that division, it looks like we've finally gotten to the point in the season when the Kings look around, say to themselves, “Oh, we probably shouldn't be this bad, hey?” and start destroying everyone.

That win in the Stadium Series game was their seventh in a row, and it followed a run in which they didn't win two games straight from Dec. 20 to Feb. 5. Seven wins in a row may not be a particularly sustainable pace, but neither is a team as good as the Kings going 4-7-6 in any given 17-game period.

So seven in a row, and what a seven-game run they've been on. All won in regulation (no tricky “giving points away to opponents”), all but the outdoor game featuring them scoring three goals or more. All but two seeing them allow two goals or fewer.

They scored 24 goals at 5-on-5 during that time, and allowed just nine. Their corsi number was an absurd 57.4 percent. Their goaltending was actually better than league-average. They allowed just 275 shot attempts, and took 95 more than that. In short, they did literally everything right at evens.

And again, this isn't what the Kings are. But this is closer to it than just about anything we've seen all year. If they can keep it up, or bolster themselves at the deadline, this might be another nightmare scenario for the Western Conference.

We've seen it too many times before to not be afraid.

2. Delusion

Late last week, someone had the bright idea to ask Mike Milbury about who should coach the Bruins in what has to be considered the extraordinarily unlikely event that Claude Julien gets fired. And, being Mike Milbury, he didn't-not offer himself up for the job.

Don't bother clicking that link, it's there for posterity. But if you do, marvel at the video in question, of Milbury screaming at officials on and off the ice, slamming a stick on the glass, and so on. You know, the kind of behavior you'd expect from a guy who had to say things like, “I don't smack kids around,” after being charged with doing just that.

The idea that Milbury has any cachet in this league beyond being a screaming head on TV who dips into Europhobia and misogyny on the regular is a very funny one indeed, and how many people down the list do you think he'd be if Julien does get fired? Has to be in the triple digits, right?

But the thing with the Bruins is that they're probably starting to get desperate right about now. The way they're gripping onto that playoff spot looks like a poster for “Cliffhanger,” and David Krejci being out four to six weeks helps matters not at all. The Bruins really shouldn't think they're going to be in a particularly good position even if they do make the playoffs — which they probably will — apart from the slight chance that Tuukka Rask can go on a nice run of .950 goaltending for a month or two. Certainly, he's more capable than most goalies in the league.

There's been a bit of an existential crisis in the last few weeks about guys who are or are not conducive to playing Bruins Hockey, which is defined as being defensively sound and physical. The Bruins don't have a ton of players who can do both any more, and that means a lot of people in town want them to double down on the latter as a means of getting to the former... somehow. Trade Loui Eriksson, trade Zdeno Chara, and so on. No one wants to be to enthusiastic about bringing up the sad fact that Milan Lucic is basically a $6 million second-line guy at best, or that Dennis Seidenberg deserved the fate that befell Johnny Boychuk (those two second-round picks are likely little consolation at this point).

Identity, right? The Bruins' Identity. Big Bad Bruins. That's What The Fans Want.

Except it's not 2011 any more. It might only be a few short years, but the league isn't the same now. And all anyone really cares about is winning; if the Bruins traded every tough guy and replaced them with diving 30-goal-scorers and defensemen who never ever even considered fighting, and swept their way through the playoffs, The Bruins' Identity would change tomorrow. What The Fans Want would be more Stanley Cups, and every one of their heart-framed oil paintings of Shawn Thornton would be out by the curb.

The Bruins followed toughness down a long track and it's getting to be just about the end of the line. It brought them great success, but they invested too much in the wrong guys. And now this is what they pay for the missteps (and all the bad drafting).

Peter Chiarelli and Claude Julien deserve the chance to work their way out of this, but becoming beholden to something other than just putting the best possible team on the ice — because that's what leads you to trade Phil Kessel and Tyler Seguin, but keep Milan Lucic — is definitely a mistake for which they're now suffering greatly.

1. Extending Nick Leddy

The trend in the league is locking up good young defensemen for moderate term and low dollar value. A lot of players in the 23- to 25-years-old range have recently signed four-year deals in the $4-4.5 million area, and most of those contracts are probably going to prove to be bargains.

The Islanders took that a step further yesterday, giving Nick Leddy seven years and just $5.5 million per. That's about $1 million a year over what other good, young D have gotten and it buys Garth Snow five years of unrestricted free agency. Just an excellent deal.

And for all those Isles fans bemoaning the deal because they got to Leddy before Boychuk, well, you might want to check the WOWYs. One of those two guys is making that pairing work, and it's not the guy they haven't signed yet.

(Not ranked this week: Thaumatodryinus tuukkaraski.

And you thought Milbury and the local media were the only WASP-y pest associated with the Bruins.)

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