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Puck Daddy Power Rankings: Trading Patrick Kane, Trashing Tyler Seguin

Puck Daddy Power Rankings: Trading Patrick Kane, Trashing Tyler Seguin

[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.]

6. Sticking around

On some level, I think we all fundamentally understood that even though they traded for him in June, there wasn't all that much of a chance that Milan Lucic would be sticking around Los Angeles long-term.

Too many guys to sign, too little cap room, and maybe even the fact that he might be in decline already at his age. Throw in Lucic likely being expensive because he's going to spend the year playing with some real good players, and all that made it look like this is a one-and-done, mercenary situation to some extent.

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Despite the fact that he was signed by another team and then traded there, this really doesn't feel all that different from the Christian Ehrhoff signing: A guy going to a potentially great team to maybe get another big contract elsewhere and a Stanley Cup at the same time.

But you wouldn't actually expect anyone to come out and say that this is the case. Not here, two weeks before training camps even open. Well, Milan Lucic isn't just anyone.

If you don't want to listen to the TSN Radio link, I'll summarize:

“Yeah it would be great to play for the Canucks. I grew up in Vancouver and I kissed my Trevor Linden poster lovingly every night before bed and also I'd try to knock Tuukka Rask's goddamn head into the fifth row given the slightest chance please love me Vancouver and please sign me Jim Benning because I know you'll pay me a ridiculous amount of money because look what you're paying Derek Dorsett anyway Vancouver is No. 1 I love you Vancouver. But, uhhhhhhhhhh, right now I'm focused on playing in LA and winning a Cup.”

A very convincing addendum the last thought was not.

5. Trashman Tyler

Speaking of former Bruins stars, we must extend many blessings to former Maple Leafs CEO Richard Peddie — and also to you, the beloved Puck Daddy reader! — for the joy brought to us all by this little tweet.

We all remember, of course, the hilarious story — which may or may not be true!!! — of Tyler Seguin basically living like Oscar the Grouch when he was on his own in Switzerland during the 2014 lockout. Ever since, I have thought of Seguin — and hopefully always will — of being perpetually followed around by a large dust cloud, not unlike the popular Peanuts character Pigpen, and maybe a few seagulls hoping a french fry will shake loose from the trail of refuse Seguin leaves in his wake.

He's going to win scoring titles in this league and he will be up there accepting his Hart trophy one day, and all I will think about will be how he will take that trophy home and place it carefully atop a stack of TV Guides from 1993.

4. That much for Cody Eakin?

And speaking of current Dallas Stars, are we seriously saying, a) Cody Eakin is worth $4 million a season?, and b) He's part of the Stars' core?

He may get roughly second-line minutes, but the production, possession, and so on all scream “third line.” He also has a slight negative impact on his teammates when it comes to those things, which would be an issue if you consider him to be worth this much money. He does play a largely defensive role against reasonably tough competition — which is obviously what allows the team's two more offensive-minded centers, Seguin and Jason Spezza — to get forward, but like... that clearly makes him a third-liner, doesn't it?

And the thing is, it's not like Jim Nill went out and bought a ton of UFA years with this deal. He, in fact, bought one.

This is a fifth-year player who looks like he's a 40-point guy at his all-time peak? Not that 40 points is a bad number to get to, but given his role, doesn't that feel like the ceiling? And really, that's not to say he can't improve on that number or anything like that in a lucky season, because he's still “just” 24 and put up two big seasons in the WHL during his draft-plus-1 and -plus-2 years (although, who doesn't?). But it is to say, “This very realistically might be it.”

So I just don't see how that's worth $16 million over four years. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

3. Signing Kopitar

In furtherance of that whole, “The Kings probably can't re-sign Lucic,” thing, they're trying to get a new contract done with Anze Kopitar, who is amazing and great and deserves to be one of the highest-paid players in the league. It is, however, not going well specifically because it seems the Kings can't make that “one of the highest-paid players in the league” aspect of negotiations work:

The Kings and Kopitar are are 'not even in the ballpark' in their discussions, Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi told LA Kings Insider over email when asked whether the two sides were 'close' to reaching an agreement.”

Whether the Kings like it or not (good guess here: “Not”), Kopitar should get as much as Jonathan Toews. He only has the two Stanley Cups instead of three, but regardless, he's on that level. Not that Toews is necessarily worth $10.5 million, but if that's what he's getting paid, so too should Kopitar.

Again, it's easy to acknowledge the Kings are in a real tough cap crunch here — the Dustin Brown contract isn't helping — and there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding their payroll regardless of some of the iffier deals handed out in the last few years. But you have to pay him. Letting Kopitar walk effectively ends your chances of being a perennial Cup contender, because he really is that good. So Lombardi has to figure out a way to make whatever he wants work with the Kings' budget.

All of which might be affected by, among other things...

2. Mike Richards' charges

So now we know the reason Mike Richards got arrested at the border: Trying to bring a small bottle of pain killers, which were clearly intended for personal use, across the border. Hey, he got caught, no excuses there, and it's apparently unclear whether he had a prescription for them.

But if the Kings are gonna raise a stink about it and try to get his (bad) contract voided, well, that raises a significant question for the NHL. Specifically: “Do we really want to start looking under every rock to figure out which guys are taking pain pills across borders, prescription or no?” Because I think it's pretty fair, in that case, to make guesses about how high the percentage of “guys who rely on OCs and other prescription medications to get through their daily lives as a direct result of their NHL jobs” really is in this league. You'd have to guess the number is significant.

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And besides, didn't that whole horrible Derek Boogaard situation do enough to scare everyone straight on the subject of “giving NHLers pain pills they may or may not need?”

This doesn't seem like a rock teams should want to turn over.

1. Trading Kane

Finally we come to the subject that yesterday raised a lot of eyebrows: The potential necessity of Chicago trading Patrick Kane.

Apparently five teams more or less immediately called Chicago and indicated they'd take him off Stan Bowman's hands. It's easy to see why to some extent, but to most of the rest of the extents you could consider here, it's unconscionable.

Yes, Kane is a dazzling talent, but the crime of which he stands accused is so despicable that adding him now, when he hasn't been charged with anything, is still something you really can't do in good conscience.

Moreover, that it isn't so much the rape accusation, but the rather fact that Kane is being categorized as a habitual troublemaker for a "model franchise" shows just another grim aspect of the sporting world's willingness to forgive and forget just about any crime that isn't caught on video, as long as the player in question is Really Good.

"As one team source put it, he 'disrespected' the team and his teammates by once again putting himself in a bad situation."

This is gross for a whole lot of reasons.

But anyway, the idea that a team — any team, let alone five of them  — would fall all over itself to trade for a player with a $10.5 million cap hit and these accusations hanging over him tells you how much more they value the kind of player who demands a salary that high than what he is accused of having done at his Buffalo-area home.

I mean, yeah, Chicago's already over the cap and this might be seen as a convenient way for them to get out from under those problems (THINK OF THE RETURN!!!, etc.) but there are such bigger issues at stake here than how this affects another potential Cup run that the way this has all been framed is obviously vomitous.

And if you don't see the big deal, then so are you.

Also: Read this. In fact, do it twice.

(Not ranked this week: Anyone who would trade for Kane.

Well, then again, the Predators have already shown a willingness to not-care about this kind of thing, and you have to think they won't be the only ones.)

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.)

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