The Olympics, Jaromir Jagr and the Pittsburgh Penguins (Puck Daddy Countdown)

(In which Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

7. You maniacs!

Well the Olympics thing isn’t happening, and I obviously get why.

The NHL hates shutting down the schedule for three weeks, the risk of injury, the fact that they’re not going to make any money off it (especially the fact that they’re not going to make any money off it).

Also: The Olympics are morally kinda not-good and it’s all graft and all that kind of thing, so for the league to not want to participate on those grounds would also be fine.

And frankly, I’m sort of relieved I’m not going to have to wake up at 3 in the morning to watch a South Korea/Slovenia game or whatever.

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But still: The fact that everyone who’s not a team owner or NHL propagandist hates it really tells you who’s on the right side of the issue. Like I said, I get it, but if your take on this is, “Actually it’s insanely good that the NHL isn’t going this time,” that’s being a water-carrier.

Now, to the point Greg made about “Hate the IOC, not Bettman,” I get that too. The IOC is, again, morally bad. They decided to stop paying for the league to go, and the IIHF’s plan to help cover those costs wasn’t good. But here’s what you can do, and in fact should do: “Hate the IOC, AND Bettman.”

And frankly, don’t even really hate Bettman. Bettman is the guy who takes the bullets for the greedy owners so you don’t hate the guy who pockets the revenue from the tickets and jerseys and beer you buy. If you don’t like the Olympic decision, it’s probably because your owner, who is one of Bettman’s 31 bosses, told Bettman to be the bad guy who says the stuff you don’t like.

If you don’t like the Olympic decision, don’t buy tickets and jerseys and beer, and make sure ownership knows that’s why.

6. The Ovechkin takes

The other incredibly bad thing that’s worth hating about the Olympics decision is the fact that Alex Ovechkin and probably several other European players — and maybe even a few Americans and Canadians — are gonna go anyway. Maybe.

Because Ovechkin has been saying that he would be in PyeongChang regardless of the league’s decision literally for years, the only thing that’s changed is the league making it official, right? And yet, that hasn’t stopped plenty of meatheads from calling Ovechkin, who already has his owner’s blessing to leave for the Olympics, a selfish jerk who is abandoning his team and if he likes Russia so much why doesn’t he marry it but not, like, in a gay way because we all know how Russia is with homophobia?

And here’s the reason those takes are really stupid and we all know they’re stupid but we let people say them anyway: If Jonathan Toews or Sidney Crosby or Joe Pavelski or Phil Kessel said the same exact thing — “Screw the league! I’m going to represent my country!” — all those same the hockey media goons would burst a blood vessel in their eyes trying to well up reverential tears as they praised those guys. (Well, okay, not for Kessel. He’d still be selfish. Hmm, is Kessel the only North American who gets treated like a Euro? Worth considering.)

Gotta tell ya: I’m kinda glad Toews offered that mealy-mouthed “Well I’m disappointed but it’s a tough bounce and that’s how things go sometimes” defense — ya gotta hear both sides! — because it means he’s too much of a company man to go anyway. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate those takes.

5. The Senators

The Ottawa Senators are in an amazing slide that might just prevent them from making the playoffs. All that seemed so assured, what, two weeks ago?

They were four points up on the Tampa Bay Lightning ahead of Tuesday night’s pivotal matchups (Tampa/Boston and Detroit/Ottawa) with a game in hand, so things weren’t, like, dire or anything. But still, for things to be going so wrong now is the opposite of desirable; they had two wins since March 14 headed into Tuesday’s games. One of them was in a shootout.

Wonder what people are gonna blame here. Can’t be Erik Karlsson; he has 15 points in his last 14 games playing an average of almost 28 minutes a night.

Maybe Craig Anderson? He’s .909 since the start of March, including .897 with just one win in his last seven appearances.

Maybe the whole mediocre roster? They only have 21 goals in their last 11 games, which is bad.

Regardless of who’s to blame, it’s not-great times in Ottawa, to be sure.

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Plus there’s the whole lawsuit against the Senators that got filed last week, which alleges Eugene Melnyk used to berate team employees and call management incompetent. No way for me to know if it’s true, but if so: Sounds like Melnyk was finally right about something.

4. Jagr coming back

Hell yeah, this is what I want!

But one thing we’re not talking about much is that he’s old as hell and still really damn effective:

Moreover, he’s still a WOWY monster. Basically everyone on the Florida Panthers is better with him than without. It’s incredible. This dude is like 68 years old and he’s making everyone on his team a whole hell of a lot better. And he still scored 40-plus points this year.

I hope Jagr does the Ichiro thing and says, “I’ll die before I retire.” He rules.

3. That wide-open Pacific

After Tuesday night’s games, four points separates first from third in the Pacific, but more to the point I don’t see any real disparity in quality between any of the four best teams in the division, all of whom are playoff locks at this point.

Hell, as I said last week, the Flames just might be the best team in the division at this point, and if you’re Edmonton or San Jose (even with the Sharks sliding right out of contention for the top spot), that’s not a card you want to flip over in Round 1.

Now that Washington all but has the Metro all but won, and Columbus is crashing down a little bit here, even that previously intriguing race is no longer all that interesting. Everyone else seems fairly locked-in. But there’s just about no combination of matchups in the Pacific that would end up being surprising.

So that’s cool I guess.

2. The damn Penguins, still doin’ it somehow

Even without getting into how long all these guys has been out (some of them for quite a while), let’s just run down the list of banged-up Penguins right now:

Evegeni Malkin. Carl Hagelin. Chris Kunitz. Kris Letang. Trevor Daley. Olli Maatta.

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That’s an entire second line, basically, and a half a D corps. They’re 10-4-3 since the beginning of March.

I know having Crosby and Kessel and a bunch of other good players helps, but like, come on. How’s this fair to anyone?

1. Auston Matthews

Loved watching beautiful American boy who is so nice Auston Matthews pull away from cowardly Finn who is mean Patrik Laine in the Calder race in, what, the last week?

The argument against Matthews, who has been having an inarguably better season process-wise (better underlying numbers, tougher minutes, worse linemates, similar scoreline, etc.) has been the fact that Laine had a concussion earlier this year and missed a few games, but still scored enough to be in the conversation. “If Laine finishes with more goals and points than Matthews in fewer games played…”

Since March 18, Matthews has 8-4-12 in nine games as the Leafs went 7-1-1 and locked themselves into a favorable playoff spot.

And what about Laine’s stretch run, with his team donezo? At a time many pundits would say, “Ah this is when games don’t mean anything and skill guys on bad teams rack up points,” the kid is only 2-1-3 over nine games.

Can’t knock Laine too much. He still scored 34 goals as a rookie, which almost no one does. But Matthews is closing in on 40 in much tougher situations. It’s almost like… and boy I hate to say this but, it’s almost like…. well maybe I shouldn’t, but…. it’s almost like putting up reliably good numbers all year is a better indicator of long-term success.

Nah, that can’t be it.

(Not ranked this week: Strong genius Shawn Thornton, who in no way sucks.

Some people might say he’s Too Good Of A Quote To Criticize For Being A Total Hypocrite Who Shouldn’t Be In The League Any More.)

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

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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