NHL trades, Boston Bruins and cartoon violence (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.)

10 – Trade Season

Well it’s that time of year again: Rumor Town USA (or Canada depending upon your own personal address, I guess) and you know it’s that time of year because an NHL.com writer retweeted a fake Bob McKenzie account on Monday night. And for real, you can tell it’s Trade Season because even Yung Intelligence was briefly duped into thinking the Penguins would be trading Marc-Andre Fleury and Olli Maatta in a package deal for unspecified return.

Gotta work off that rust, folks. The fakes are coming for your timeline.

Speaking of trades, though…

9 – The Red Wings’ trade prospects

Being that it’s Trade Season one of the things we’re going to start to see a lot of is, “Is this [not-good old veteran] on the trade block?”

Another we’re going to see is, “What are the Red Wings gonna do?”

Because like we all know for sure there’s no way this weak-ass Wings team are gonna make the playoffs. They’d have to leapfrog more than half of the Eastern Conference’s non-playoff teams for a wild card spot and they’re a mile out of the Atlantic race (four points behind Toronto with three extra games played as I write this).

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Hockey contest now]

So here’s the best of both worlds: Thomas Vanek might get traded, baby! I mean yeah I guess. He’s relatively cheap and he’s close to a point a game this year. But would he be a good bet for a playoff team? He’s shooting more than 15 percent right now, and only has a little more than two shots on goal per game. Not an impressive rate, nor one that necessarily lends itself to a lot of scoring in the future.

I mean, the thing is the future in Detroit is bleak. None of their prospects really dazzle, do they? So many awful long-term contracts to guys on the wrong side of 30. Henrik Zetterberg making more than $6 million against the cap until he’s 40? Frans Nielsen at $5.25 million through age 37? Justin Abdelkader at $4.25 million until he’s 35? Good lord. And that doesn’t even include Danny DeKeyser at $5 million and Nik Kronwall at $4.75 million for another two years after this one, when he’ll be 38.

I don’t know how you maneuver out of this without taking back a series of horrible expiring deals, retaining salary, or LTIRing half your roster. And as a result it’s tough to see where Ken Holland gets to go around setting big asks for just about any vet. He’s gotta price these guys to move.

8 – Anyone trading for Shane Doan

Speaking of which, Shane Doan will finally let himself be moved out of Arizona and won’t that be so nice for the Shane “Dirt On The Dungarees Plays The Game The Right Way” Doan narrative when he accepts a trade to Chicago or something.

But again, what’s the ask? This guy’s not Vanek. He’s 40. And he has four goals and eight assists in 43 games this year. Shane Doan is flat-out not a difference-maker at this point in his career, and here’s a stat for you: He and Ryane Clowe have the same career points per game.

So why would a contender give up literally anything — and presumably bend over backwards to meet whatever needs he sets to waive that no-move — and also burn a roster spot on a guy most teams would have been healthy-scratching all year if he were 23 and not The Elder Statesman Who Isn’t Cheap Or Dirty At All?

Doesn’t follow. Let him finish his career in Arizona; he’d be little more than a mascot for any legitimate Cup contender.

7 – Whatever the Blues are getting up to

So the Blues might trade Kevin Shattenkirk after all, even though he’s arguably been the best defender on the team this year and the Blues are looking pretty comfortable in their playoff spot?

Well, yeah. And he might be going to the Oilers. Maybe for Jordan Eberle.

Now, this scans to me as “TSN is in Canada and here’s a big defenseman going to a Canadian team that looks like it’s going to the playoffs” and maybe just kinda connecting some dots. But you never know. It would be very weird, financial constraints aside, to see a team built on defensive quality take a step back on the blue line to upgrade the No. 2 right wing slot.

6 – A not-so-surprising stat

So here’s this:

I have a theory as to why this is. Namely baseball doesn’t have a salary cap and the NHL does. That makes it both more imperative to have low-cost younger players you drafted and developed on the roster. Baseball doesn’t have a salary cap and it has a huge wealth disparity between rich teams and poor teams. Some spend hundreds of millions of dollars on salary every year, while others spend a fraction of that. In the NHL you have to spend within a certain window and given teams’ level of familiarity and the prices in the UFA market, they’re far more likely to retain players than let them walk or even trade them.

5 – The Bruins?

Yo, what is going on with this team? Don Sweeney was talking last week about the exact reasons he would fire Claude Julien if he were to do so, and now after the team gets it handed to them by an awful Islanders team (more on them in a minute) so badly that the coach basically pity-cancels practice.

So here’s Sweeney also saying he doesn’t think they’ll turn around their shooting percentage because their attempts miss the net too much. I don’t think that’s necessarily true just because the Bruins remain the best attempt-driving team in the league (they also lead in expected-goal share). They have the second-lowest shooting percentage in the league.

This sounds more and more like a team bereft of hope, honestly. Tough to see where they go from here if there’s, say, one or two more losses, regardless of how good the team looks in them. Claude Julien is gonna get booted. Maybe a guy or two gets traded?

Maybe it wouldn’t be all bad, though. I hear Jack Capuano and Shane Doan are available.

4 – Winning streaks

Obviously there’s a big difference between winning nine games straight as a good team everyone thought would be good and winning 16 straight as a mediocre team everyone thought would be bad.

But boy did it not feel like anyone gave a rat’s ass about the Capitals winning nine straight. Very strange. Like, did people feel like they were Supposed To do that kind of thing every once in a while? Because nine-game winning streaks aren’t exactly common even if you’re really good.

So yay Capitals. I thought it was good. I extend my warmest regards and blessings to you.

3 – Cartoon violence

Honestly that Wild intermission entertainment was the best episode of Impy and Chimpy I’ve ever seen.

2 – Not having fun

Hey what’s the one big thing every fan universally enjoys about the All-Star skills competition? The trick shot contest. So it’s gotta go!

This league is amazing, man. Truly.

1 – PAVELECTRICITY, BABY!!!!!!!!!

So you’re not happy with Connor Hellebuyck in net. He’s .907. I get it. So you bring back the guy whose career save percentage is……………..

………….

…………………..

….

………….

……

Nine Oh Seven.

Yeah you gotta make that call. That’s what’s gonna save the Jets. Is Ondrej friggin Pavelec. Who is so bad, and has been so bad for years, that a budget team buried him in the A.

Here’s an idea: Fire the coach who clearly has no answers, and let your Goalie Of The Future get the rest of the games behind what we could reasonably consider a cogent defensive system.

Maybe Claude Julien will be available this time next week!

(Not ranked this week: Jack Capuano.

Maybe — hopefully — it’s not too late to convince John Tavares he’s not better off leaving a John Tavares-shaped hole in the side of Barclays Center.

It’s too late to fix anything for this season unless the players collectively get incredibly lucky. Like, top-to-bottom everyone starts shooting 10 percent. And obviously the team’s problems go a hell of a lot deeper than the problems Capuano, but this is a start. And it’s one that needed to be made.

Two months ago, sure. But better late than never. That’s a saying I just made up right now by myself.)

—

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

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

—

MORE FROM YAHOO SPORTS