Ville Leino has been the butt-end of every overpaid free agent joke that doesn't involve Scott Gomez. He had one good season and he got $27 million. One reason for this would be that Leino benefitted from lots of offensive zone starts against weak competition. This year it's more of the same, but it's been pretty apparent that he was being carried by his linemates- namely Danny Briere.

That got me to thinking about Leino's former linemate, Scott Hartnell. Last year he played with Briere and Leino and put up some pretty respectable numbers (24 G, 25 A)and did pretty well for himself at even strength. This year, he's playing on a line with Claude Giroux, which is a bit of a 180 from his role last year with the Flyers- less protection and tougher competition on the other team (i.e. tough minute forwards like Patrik Elias and top defensemen like Zdeno Chara vs 3rd liners and bottom pairing D). Hartnell's managed to succed in this role, even improving his scoring rate at evens this year. He's also on pace for career highs in goals, assists, points and falls. And earning every penny of his salary.

As someone who doesn't follow the Flyers that much, I'm not sure whether or not to attribute the improvements to Hartnell playing better this year (he's got a lot of praise for his play) or to playing alongside one of the best players in the league. I just find it interesting that Hartnell was able to transition from protected scorer to top line winger so easily.

Welcome to Hockey Heaven and Hell - a power ranking of NHL hockey teams. Teams will fall into one of three groups of ten - Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell. You’ll find this ranking to be different than most of the other power rankings out there, in that it’s based on where teams are currently projected to finish in overall points at the end of the regular season. Factored into the projections are such stats as goals scored/allowed both home and away, strength of schedule to date, strength of schedule remaining, and quality of recent play.

I'm a bit late to the party on the Scott Arniel firing- i've had absolutely no time to say anything when it happened because of school work. The Jackets have been miserable, yes. Something had to happen. And unfortunately for Scott Arniel, he was the scapegoat in all of this. The problem is firing Arniel isn't the solution here. Arniel did make some questionable decisions- like treating rookies like Ryan Johansen like Veterans and trying to hold them accountable for the team's struggles, rather than holding the underperforming veterans (i.e. Steve Mason) accountable. The Jackets aren't very lucky either- they lost their top Defenseman and Center for significant amounts of time and they've been a good possession team, indicating that they should be better than they are right now.

My problem with the Arniel firing is that he's getting canned for another man's incompetence- Scott Howson's. If anything, Howson should've been fired.

            In a Maple Leafs season that's been plagued by injuries, a call up from the Marlies has seemed like a weekly occurence. So with that the case, what took so long to bring up Nazem Kadri? Speculation has swirled but the real reason came straight from GM Brian Burke, "We want his next call up to be his last." So when the Leafs finally did recall Kadri prior to their December 22nd game vs Buffalo the discussion began as to just what we would see from the London, Ontario native. After all, most players don’t receive the speculation and critical analysis in a full career that Kadri's seen at the age of 21. The moment Nazem Kadri's name left Brian Burke's mouth at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft the second guessing begun. And it hasn’t stopped since. Joining Luke Schenn as the only players taken in the top 10 by Toronto since 1998 there was never any doubt the pressure that would be thrust upon Kadri, but the Leafs top prospect has become somewhat of a polarizing figure in Toronto.

            After putting up 78 points in 56 games with his hometown London Knights of the OHL in 2008-09, Kadri seemed to be a good fit for a Toronto team that was not only in the midst of a rebuild, but also one that struggled mightily putting the puck in the net. The optimism grew when he scored 3 goals and added 2 assists in the following NHL preseason, but was sent back to Junior for another year of conditioning. In that season he put up 93 points in 56 games and added 27 in 12 playoff games. The scoring touch was certainly there, but whether or not he could bring that game to the NHL amidst criticism of his small frame and offensive mindset was the big question mark heading into the 2010-11 season. Things began to spiral downwards for Kadri in that campaign, where after going goalless in 17 games he was sent down to the Marlies just after Christmas. While with the Leafs AHL affiliate he notched 41 points in 44 games but for every person pointing out his nearly point a game pace there were 3 pointing out his lack of defensive awareness and propensity to turn over the puck at the worst possible times. He was recalled in mid-march to play out the remaining 12 games of the Leafs schedule and fared a little better, scoring his first NHL goal, along with two others and finished the year with 3 goals and 9 points with a -3 plus/minus rating. Kadri’s critics suggested he was still much too fragile to play in the NHL and rumours swirled all summer about the youngster being dealt, most notably linking him and Nikolai Kulemin in a deal for Mike Richards that was ultimately beat out by LA’s offer of Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds and a 2^nd round pick. Regardless, Kadri seemed determined to work on his game and arguably more importantly his frame, putting on nearly 20 pounds over the summer and heading into training camp ready for a breakout season in 2011-12.

Okay, so Canada lost last night against the Russians, preventing them from going to the finals in the World Juniors tournament and instead making them go for Bronze. Considering Canada more or less played like Tim Tebow that game (not showing up until the last 15 minutes), there's a good reason that they lost. Some people would just accept the fact that they lost and get over it. Eric Francis on the other hand, seems a bit bitter. Instead of praising Russia's captain Evgeny Kuznetsov for a dominant performance last night, he instead goes on attacking Kuznetsov talking about how he was too pre-occupied with being a one man show and how he's a bad teammate. All in all, the article is incredibly embarassing to read. But what really bugs me is how ambiguous it is. Take out Evgeny Kuznetsov and instead replace it with another team's top player. Take Petr Mrazek, the Czech goalie who was remembered for his enthusiasm as well as his superb play. Instead of focusing on his performance, he'd probably be talking about how classless Mrazek is because he's too busy showboating. Or maybe if Jon Merrill made a difference against the Canadians, talk about how the defenseman will get to underachieve for years alongside Ilya Kovalchuk in New Jersey.

Of course, what really bothers me is what Francis wouldn't have said anything like this if say... Sidney Crosby had done what Kuznetsov did. Would we be hearing about how Crosby's a bad teammate because he wanted to win? Would we be hearing about how he's a punk? No, we'd be hearing about how he had a valiant effort and how he was the decisive factor in the victory. Francis didn't bother to praise Kuznetsov one bit. He keeps glossing over every little action as if it was a dirty play, like Brett Connolly's FALCON PUNCH on a russian defender.

What happened with this article was Francis thought everyone would agree on him because the loss was fresh in everyone's mind and Kuznetsov was the catalyst for it. Unfortunately, everyone was already over the loss and he looked like a butthurt moron.

Seeing as we're ending the year, lets look back at one of the most famous failures in hockey in 2011: Scott Gomez the NHL Guardian Project. Basically, it was expected to be a cool project which involved Marvel Comics and the NHL combining forces to make kids interested in the NHL. Unfortunately, everyone over the age of 14 thought it was incredibly stupid. You had a Canadien who looked like Cobra Commander, a Black Panther wannabe as the Panther and some sap bomb throwing tree dude who was the Maple Leaf.

So what does Marvel comics do to follow this up? Plan something even worse... a Tim Tebow superhero comic.

You know, at times it makes me wonder how Tebow can get a comic yet Ilya Bryzgalov doesn't have his own cartoon. SMH world.

In a couple of days, the 2012 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships will be starting up. Otherwise known as two weeks of fans bickering with each other about who's country is better (Spoiler: Canada). Of course, there will be two weeks of excellent hockey featuring lots of potential stars in the making. Here's a couple of storylines for this year's WJCs.

Mark Visentin and Redemption

Hey, remember the epic meltdown Canada had last WJCs against Russia? No matter how much alcohol I consume, I cannot seem to forget that. One person who shouldn't forget it is Mark Visentin, the goalie who was in net for the epic meltdown. Guess what? He's back. And so far, in the exhibition games, he hasn't exactly been the best goaltender. The question i've got involving him is whether or not Don Hay continues to stick with Visentin. Scott Wedgewood is capable of providing solid goaltending, so it's up to Hay whether or not to stick with the reigning OHL goalie of the year or decides to ride the hot hand.

So after years of being owned by the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan (Majority owners to be exact, 79.23% of all shares), the OTPP is selling the majority of their stake in MLSE to communications giants Rogers Communication and Bell Communications for a whopping $1.2 billion. With this Transaction, Rogers, who already owns the Toronto Blue Jays, will now own the Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC (MLS), the Air Canada center and the Toronto Maple Leafs as well as their AHL affiliate the Toronto Marlies.

After the Jump- The Panthers' Early season Success and The Canadiens' Curious Moves

Welcome to the first edition of Hockey Heaven and Hell - a weekly ranking of NHL hockey teams. Teams will fall into one of three groups of ten - Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell. You’ll find this ranking to be different than most of the other power rankings out there, in that it’s based on where teams are currently projected to finish in overall points at the end of the regular season. Factored into the projections are such stats as goals scored/allowed both home and away, strength of schedule to date, strength of schedule remaining, and quality of recent play.

Call it lucky, call it too early to tell, call it whatever you want, but there’s simply no denying the changing of the guard so far this season in the NHL. Whether it’s on an individual basis or in the standings, things are certainly looking different.

The struggles of Alexander Ovechkin, Eric Staal and Jarome Iginla to name a few, have been well documented but they aren’t the only ones that have failed to continue their pace from last season. Of the top 10-point getters from 2010-11, only 2 of them are in that same company this year (D. Sedin & S. Stamkos), while 5 of them have fallen outside the top 40 and 2 outside the top 100 (Jarome Iginla and Henrik Zetterberg).  The same goes for the top 10 goal scorers from last season, with only 4 of them in the top 50. On the flip side, most of the players that ARE doing well this year would be considered somewhat of a surprise, 4 of the top 10 weren’t even in the top 85 in scoring last year. Every hockey expert at the beginning of the year would have predicted Claude Giroux, Daniel Sedin and Steven Stamkos to be near the top of the points list, and to their credit they are, but who would have predicted Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul to be 1, 3 in scoring at this point of the season (let’s be honest Leafs fans).  Who would have thought Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the 18-year old, baby faced kid that wasn’t even supposed to make the roster past the 9 game mark would be 5^th in scoring after 26 games.  Hindsight may be 20/20 but you just can’t predict things like that. He’s not the only youngster ripping it up though. Of the top 30-point getters at the moment, 15 of them are under 25 years old.  A lot has been made of the ridiculous money being handed out to young guys on their second contracts (ie Drew Doughty, Tyler Myers etc.) but with the current state of the game and the emphasis on speed, size and conditioning, the young guns are getting it done better then anyone else in the league right now and GM’s are well aware of this. Hell, 3 of the top 25 in the league right now aren’t even of legal drinking age in the U.S. (RNH, Seguin, Skinner). Imagine Canada’s world junior squad if the NHL released those guys for the tournament. WOW. Obviously that won’t happen, but it’s a nice thought.

The team standings have had their fair share of surprises as well. In the Eastern Conference Florida, Toronto and Ottawa would have themselves in the playoffs if the season were to end today. The last time all three actually DID make it to the postseason: 1999-2000. no comments