Sidney Crosby, players’ rights and Olympics (Puck Daddy Countdown)

(Ed. Note: The column formerly known as the Puck Daddy Power Rankings. Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

9 – RFA rights

Turns out all that credit we were giving Steve Yzerman for being able to stare down his various players-to-be-extended was a little unnecessary.

Turns out, in fact, anyone can do it.

When you’re a general manager in the National Hockey League, the decks are so heavily stacked in your favor that you basically have no chance of losing a stare-down with an RFA. It’s like saying, “Boy the casino did a really good job of staring down that guy who played slots for 12 hours straight.”

Because not only did Yzerman do it with Nikita Kucherov this week — signing the forward to a bargain-bridge deal significantly below his actual value — but Brad Treliving did it to Johnny Gaudreau, and well, maybe Tim Murray didn’t have things go his way in re-signing Rasmus Ristolainen.

Point being, though, that if you’re an RFA in the league, and you feel like your team’s low-balling you, your options are as follows:

• Sign anyway.

• Go to the KHL or something.

• Cry about it.

Kucherov was forced to take well below what he’d have commanded on the open market, but can console himself with the knowledge that when his contract ends he’ll… what do you mean, “he’ll still be an RFA?” Come on!

Meanwhile, Gaudreau got broken by the Flames’ unwillingness to go north of $7 million, which is the kind of money he plainly deserves. Now, technically, Johnny Gaudreau wasn’t even an RFA. Which, hey, doesn’t that seem messed up given that he has 160 games played and has been an All-Star? Sure does!

Players have basically no ability to earn the money they’re due because other NHL GMs refuse to sign offer sheets. I mean, we all know that’s what’s going on here. It just doesn’t happen, and when it does the other team matches in almost every case ever anyway. It’s really stupid.

If the NHLPA goes on strike for the next work stoppage, I think you have to say their gripes will be more than legitimate. These kids are getting screwed so a bunch of 32-year-olds who can’t play any more pull $5.5 million.

8 – Radko Gudas

Boy I wonder if he had done anything in the previous week before he tried to hospitalize Austin Czarnik that maybe should have gotten him suspended. I mean, if something like that had happened — and obviously it didn’t because the Department of Player Safety didn’t even warn him as far as we know — he probably wouldn’t have been in a position to hurt Czarnik in the first place.

But hey I dunno, folks! It’s a fast game and so on. Sometimes the guys who are repeat offenders are just caught up in unfortunate circumstances four or five times a year!

7 – Another Crosby concussion

Probably best to be as cagey as possible about how this happened. Maybe the Penguins shouldn’t have acknowledged that it happened at all!

Because when I hear, “Sidney Crosby has another concussion,” my immediate reaction is that it doesn’t seem like a big deal at all. No worries.

6 – Vets on waivers

Tough bounce for guys like Brooks Laich, Rob Scuderi, and Ondrej Pavelec, but what can you really do at the end of the day? Their teams were right to waive them.

In the case of Laich and Scuderi, it’s because they have been in the league for a million years and play a style that really wears on the body. They just physically broke down. Tough luck, I guess, but they earned good livings in the sport and at some point even their “leadership” qualities weren’t enough to keep them around.

As for Pavelec, well, let’s just chalk this up as an unfortunate four-year learning experience. Hey, he should have been out of the league years ago, and he’s still gonna pull his big ol’ salary even from the minors. And more to the point, because the Jets’ AHL franchise plays in the same building as the big club, his life really doesn’t change that much. Not a bad way to get sent down, all things being equal.

5 – Bad takes

A little surprising that Barry Trotz and Brian MacLellan just got off a bus from 2009 and complained about guys taking shots from the red line to help their shot attempt numbers.

No joke, I think they’re funning with us here. Making all the nerdos mad by saying stuff they know isn’t true. Because unless you’re Patrick Roy-level behind the times — and god held you if you are! — you know that’s just not a thing that happens.

4 – Retiring Marty’s number

Man, there sure are a lot of guys whose numbers the Bolts should retire all of a sudden. (Given the events of this summer, one of ’em is probably Steve Yzerman.)

Marty St. Louis is a slam dunk number-retirement guy. No doubt about it. Probably throw in Vinny Lecavalier and Brad Richards while you’re at it, right? Maybe not Richards since he only played six and a half seasons there, but he’s a borderline case.

3 – Waiver claims

As teams made final roster cuts on Monday, that led to a flurry of waiver activity, and by extension, plenty of claims.

People flipped out when Parenteau and Pulkkinen went on waivers, for fairly obvious reasons. Pulkkinen is 24 and has a million AHL goals. Parenteau had 20 goals on one of the worst teams in the league last year. That both were claimed isn’t surprising. The same is true of Martin Frk getting claimed by Carolina after Detroit put him on waivers on Sunday.

It’s worth noting that there are various reasons all these guys were put on waivers in the first place. A lot of the reaction to a guy like Pulkkinen being put on waivers in the first place was a bit overblown, but here’s the general idea: You are giving a guy away for free (or, if you’re the team putting in the claim, getting him for free).

This might be the result of an over-packed roster or simply talent misevaluation. The stats-friendly guys like Pulkkinen or Frk stand out and lead to outcry as apparently foolish teams like Detroit opt to sign and keep Steve Ott and Drew Miller than a player who routinely drives possession.

So if you’re a team like Carolina or Minnesota, you pick ’em up and see where that gets you. If it turns out Detroit was right and the guy can’t hack it in the NHL, well, you just put him on waivers again and, in a worst-case scenario, he ends up tearing up the AHL for your club instead.

Again, people overstate these issues, but they do highlight how badly things have gone for Ken Holland of late. Exposing guys like this on waivers just shows that you’re not thinking as clearly as you probably should be.

2 – Connor Hellebuyck

Circling back to the Pavelec thing for a second, shout out to the Jets for apparently making Hellebuyck their guy. He has a career .921 in the AHL over 88 games, and .918 in 26 games in the bigs. Looks like he might just be a roughly .920 goalie forever. Which is certainly better than what Pavelec provides, or for that matter, Michael Hutchinson (.912 in 71 NHL games).

Hutchinson looks like a capable backup. Hellebuyck looks like a long-term starter.

I wonder which smart and cool and so nice hockey writer happened to pick up Hellebuyck in the Puck Daddy fantasy league and isn’t he so intelligent for doing it?

1 – Olympics dislikers

Not that there are too many people out there who don’t like NHL players in the Olympics, but it looks like you might get your wish. On Tuesday morning, Jeremy Jacobs came out against participation in the 2018 games in PeyongChang. No surprise there. Jacobs is Mr. Burns without the charming propensity to break into song about his gorilla-chest vest.

The deadline to make a decision on whether to go is set for Jan. 15, about three months from now. Expect much hand-wringing between now and then.

(Not ranked this week: Kessel dislikers.

Barack Obama is now best friends with Phil Kessel, the beautiful boy we all love.)

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.)