Scary mascots, World Cup injuries, Jacob Trouba (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.)

8 – More World Cup injuries

Matt Murray out six weeks. Marian Gaborik out eight. Add that to the pile, and someone figure out how many man-games teams are losing to injury because of this tournament. It’s gotta be pushing 50.

7 – Edmonton children who need to fall asleep at some point

Whenever a bad and scary mascot gets put out into the world, I wonder how many people had to sign off on it before the press release and photoshoot.

Like, at least a dozen here, right?

At least a dozen people saw the concept art and pushed it forward. At least a dozen people saw the finished product and pushed it forward.

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That’s incredible to me. It’s not quite the New Orleans pelican, but it’s pretty damn close. Hunter isn’t grotesque, he is just too realistic. Lynxes are scary as hell, man.

But you gotta give this to ol’ Hunter: That cat can dance his little butt off.

6 – Clarke MacArthur

Good lord, I just wish this guy could be healthy for a little while. He played just four games last year and only 62 the year before that. And now he’s concussed again. Yikes.

5 – Blaming Ovechkin

There were like half a dozen KHL players on this team and we’re sitting here acting like Ovechkin, who got the full brunt of Canada’s masterful shutdown checking players, somehow let his team down? Canada could have triple-covered him and not had to worry too much about what that meant for the Russian offense.

I know we love to act like Ovechkin is a bum because he won the Calder over Sidney Crosby that one time, a decade ago. And because his team has never been good enough to get to a Cup Final, let alone win one. But like, grow up. Honestly, what’s he supposed to do? That Russian team was really not very good, and the gulf between Canada and everyone else in the tournament was massive.

4 – Team Europe

Pretty crazy that they’re through to the World Cup finals, given that they aren’t very good.

What this really provides, then, is an object lesson in the whole “Hot goalies can make weird things happen in short tournaments.” And it should surprise you not at all to learn that the only goalie with a better save percentage in multiple games than Halak is this fellow called Carey Price.

And Halak has faced 54 percent more shots than Carey Price. Expect that to continue.

The odds Canada puts up 50-plus shots a game against Europe really ought to be 1-to-1. That’s how much better they are than a defense whose best player is Andrej Sekera. Team Europe is only so low on the list this week because Canada is going to brutally eviscerate them in two straight games.

3 – Jacob Trouba

While I really doubt that he will get traded (see yesterday’s Puck List), one imagines this ends in much the same way the PK Subban holdout did with the Habs: Trouba gets a short-term deal for minor dollars and then cashes in big-time down the road. Then he gets blamed for organizational and coaching failures two or three years after that, and is traded for a considerably worse defenseman who’s a few years older and almost as expensive even after he basically gave more than a year’s salary to a local children’s hospital and gets shivved like some sort of super-villain on the way out of town.

Ah, maybe not that last part.

But I would be worried about what this means for the whole, “Is anyone going to want to actually play in Winnipeg?” thing. Because that seems like it’s becoming a lot realer.

2 – Brad Marchand

My initial reaction to this contract was that it is very good. It’s probably a little too long, but that’s the cost of doing business if you’re keeping the AAV this low. Marchand’s actual value right now is probably in the $8 million range, so Don Sweeney bought himself a significant cap hit discount by going long-term.

On the other hand, the handful of reporters who said this is a deal to lock up Marchand when he’s sliding into his prime are flatly wrong. This is a contract that will employ him until he’s 37, which is extremely old, and Marchand’s prime is effectively over at this point. He’s a player I love to watch and will defend unto the ends of the earth, but the odds he scores nearly 40 goals again are pretty small.

And with that in mind, let’s just say that $6.125 million is a lot of money to be paying someone into their mid- and late-30s. To be fair, that’s nine seasons and a lockout (probably) from now, so the cap could be significantly higher than it is now. If it’s north of $100 million by then — not impossible — a $6.125 million cap hit would be roughly equivalent to a $4.5 million cap hit today. That’s not unreasonable. But it’s still more than I would want to pay the average 36- or 37-year-old player.

However, the way I think about player contracts is this: What is the delivered value over the course of the deal? If Marchand can put up significantly positive seasons as a 29-, 30-, 31-, and 32-year old — very possible — before he starts to decline on the back four years, that probably averages out to being “worth it” for Boston. That is to say that every dollar on a big-money contract is technically paying a guy to be “x” amount better than a replacement player over the life of that deal. Doesn’t matter if you front-load it, which Boston did. In much the same way as the AAV is the average, as long as the total number of goals he contributes above a replacement player over the life of the deal matches or exceeds the value of $6.125 million, then it was a good deal.

Given the years for which Marchand will be paid a lot of money, though, it also seems a little dicey that he’ll meet or exceed his expected value for the eight-year period ending in 2025.

But what were the Bruins supposed to do? Not-sign their third-best player?

1 – The great North America debate

It’s tough to blame Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, and Auston Matthews for not wanting to be on Team North America at the next World Cup. If there is a Team North America. Which there might not be. Because the NHL had a good idea and they feel as though they’d be wise not to double down on it.

You grow up wanting to play for USA Hockey or Hockey Canada, not Team North America. So if they want to be able to opt out due to their service on this year’s TNA team, I say let ’em. But if they do, they should also have to cut heel wrestling promos against North America so we really have a few villains in the tournament.

Y’know, since John Tortorella won’t be around to catch all the heat.

(Not ranked this week: Evander Kane.

I don’t know, maybe just, like, shut the [expletive] up, trashman.)

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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