Nail Yakupov channeled Theo Fleury in his tying goal against the Kings back in January. (Andy Devlin/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

I always have the best intentions at the beginning of each season to make a running tab of the moments most worth remembering. And, much like my determination to get back into game shape, it hasn’t happened yet.

Still, it wasn’t too hard to come up with a list now that we’re at season’s end. The games offered enough highlights–and lowlights–to fill a full-length schedule. Here are my favorites:

The Yakupov Slide: With the goalie pulled and Edmonton trailing Los Angeles by one back in January, Nail Yakupov crafted the signature moment of his rookie season: batting a Taylor Hall rebound out of midair and putting it behind Kings goalie Jonathan Quick with just 4.7 seconds left on the clock. He took a lot of grief for his spontaneous Theo Fleury impression, but it was a beautiful tally at a key moment. That’s exactly the kind of goal that calls for an over-the-top celly (yep, celly). You want to follow a sport that’s had all the life sucked out of it? Watch the NFL.

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Marian Hossa got the game-winner in OT as the Blackhawks stayed perfect. (Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)

By Allan Muir

• Win, lose or draw, the big story in Dallas was going to be the signing of restricted free agent Jamie Benn. More accurately, his agreement to sign. That’s an important distinction because the actual papers won’t be inked until today, and that poses a bit of a problem. Benn is expected to practice with the team, but he’s unlikely to be available for Saturday’s home game against the Blues. The reason? He can’t obtain his work visa until the contract is official and a same-day turnaround on a Friday isn’t likely.

• The contract itself — five years, $26.25 million — is a win/win. Benn wanted shorter term and more money, but he had no real leverage to get both. So this isn’t the deal he wanted, but he won a commitment that sets him up for life … and he’ll still be in his prime (28) when it is finished, an ideal point at which to break the bank. The Stars have to be thrilled with both the term, which keeps him locked in for the rebuild, and the cap hit, which is lower than several recent deals for roughly comparable players like Jeff Skinner and Travis Zajac.

• The fans at the AAC were so excited by the news when it was announced midway through the second period that they probably didn’t notice the odd wording that credited Tom Gagliardi and Joe Nieuwendyk with signing Benn. Obviously it’s Gagliardi’s money, so yes, he did the deal…but when have you ever heard put that way? It’s almost always the team or the GM that gets credited with the deal. Maybe this is Gagliardi’s way of trying to prop up his image in a sports landscape dominated by celebu-owners Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban.

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One to watch: hot blueline prospect Justin Schultz may dodge the Ducks by not signing with them and could be grabbed by another team without having to make a trade for him. (Brace Hemmelgarn/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

We wrote late last week that the trade and free agent rumor mill was heating up. Today it is starting to boil.

There’s always talk about who might be on the move when the calendar hits June, but this gumbo of gossip has some unique ingredients. For starters, the Entry Draft starts on Friday and this year’s draft class is not considered to be particularly strong. With a number of teams holding high picks and wanting to change their fortunes sooner rather than later, dealing them for established talent might be the way to go. Throw in a few disgruntled big name players who desire new addresses and teams facing salary cap issues while trying to re-sign some of their unrestricted free agents before they hit the market on July 1, and you’ve got a buffet of  buzz.

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Alex Semin of the Washington Capitals is a supremely talented player, but maddeningly inconsistent. (Russell Lansford/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

One of hockey’s most breathtaking plays has nearly vanished from the NHL: the goal scored by a player who zips down the wing and blows a slap shot past the goaltender.

“You can’t do that kind of shot today,” Avalanche forward Matt Duchene​ told my SI.com cohort Adrian Dater at his regular Denver Post gig. “It’s not going to work. The goalies are going to make the save, and you can’t even take the time to wind up like that off the rush. The (defenseman) is going to get to you and take away the puck or block the shot in the time it takes you to wind the stick back.”

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Darryl Sutter has salvaged struggling teams as a coach, but his firebreathing approach takes a toll. (David E. Klutho/SI)

By Stu Hackel

UPDATED, DEC. 24: It appears that former Flames coach and GM Darryl Sutter has now decided to join the Kings as their new bench boss, according to Rich Hammond, who is the club’s official blogger. All that is preventing Sutter from taking over is immigration issues that are expected to be ironed out early this week, when it will become official. Is this a good hire?

Not according to Eric Francis of The Calgary Sun. Francis notes that when Sutter took over coaching the Sharks in the late ’90s under then-GM Dean Lombardi, the team’s record improved for five consecutive seasons. Then, when Sutter took over as the Flames’ coach, he turned that franchise around as well, “pushing a rag-tag bunch of muckers to within one game of the Stanley Cup Final in 2004.”

But Francis adds, “In Calgary, his act as a miserable taskmaster who couldn’t differentiate between winning and being a human being, wore thin with the players who were thrilled he finally booted himself upstairs to be GM.

“The question is, can his ball-breaking, reign-of-terror approach work in today’s NHL?

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The Bruins’ traditional post-Thanksgiving Day game, this year against the Red Wings, will launch NBC’s national coverage of the NHL five weeks earlier than usual. (Damian Strohmeyer/Sports Illustrated)

By Stu Hackel

On Nov. 29, 1991, the Bruins hosted the Canadiens in an afternoon game. It was the day after Thanksgiving and Boston defeated its fierce Montreal rivals 5-4 in overtime. Whether it was superstition, a strong fan response or smart marketing, the B’s repeated the post-Turkey Day match the following season, this time against the Hartford Whalers (again an OT victory for the home side) and this Friday afternoon game has been a fixture on Boston’s calendar ever since.

Now, 20 years later, the NHL and NBC are turning this tradition into a special event, one that is emblematic of an innovative new era for a league historically considered second-rate in the areas of marketing and promotion.
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If the NHL really wants to rid itself of dangerous hits, going light on repeat offenders like Daniel “Carbomb” Carcillo of the Blackhawks is not the way to go about it. (Chris Seward/ZUMAPRESS.com)

By Stu Hackel

As we turn the calendar page to November, it’s as good a time as any to review and assess  things in the NHL, and while we have lots of surprises with teams exceeding or falling short of expectations, no performance is more intriguing than the league’s Department of Player Safety (a name we can’t write without thinking it sounds like a government branch that oversees highway construction or traffic enforcement — if not the French Revolution’s Committee on Public Safety from 1793, which protected the new republic from internal and external enemies by using the guillotine as its preferred instrument of deterrence).
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The young Rangers are up and coming, but Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews has had considerably less support to work with this season and it shows in his team’s play. (Scott Levy/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Their seasons on the line, two Original Six teams found themselves in the eighth and final playoff spots in their respective conferences as the week began. The New York Rangers had only a two-point advantage on hard-charging Carolina in the East and needed a win on Monday night at home against Boston. By now, you probably know the Rangers trailed 3-0 before clawing their way back to victory and jumping into seventh. It was a game that had coach John Tortorella praising his team’s desire and fortitude, which he attributed in some measure to its youth and innocence (video).

The defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks, on the other hand, are trying to hang on to their one-point advantage over Calgary in the West, and they skate tonight in Montreal. A year ago, the Hawks were a young, fresh club set to embark on the strong run that would culminate in the franchise’s first Cup in 49 years. Now, the rigors of salary cap management and significant injuries have shorn them of their innocence, not to mention the depth that served them so well last spring.

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Goaltender Carey Price is surely a longshot, but it’s hard to imagine where the offensively challenged Montreal Canadiens would be without him. (Scott Cunningham/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

After our usual Tuesday night skate, my teammates and I repaired to the Grill where the TV had highlights of all the NHL action. I noticed the Canadiens had won 3-1 in Atlanta and Carey Price had made 40 saves. Maybe it was the unusually large amount of lime that Eddie O. the bartender put in my club soda, but it crossed my mind that Carey Price certainly could be a legitimate candidate for the Hart Trophy. And then I started to think about who else might be considered. Compared to some of them, Price — who has almost single-handedly saved Montreal from a disastrous season — might be a longshot.

With the regular season entering its final stages — no team has more than 20 games left, the trade deadline has passed and playoff-race ferocity saturates the competition — the time is right to examine the NHLers who have been so crucial that the their teams might well have been a level or two below, if not complete train wrecks, without them.
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Bring back the Cold War! This year’s schoolyard pickup team format pales by comparison to Rendez-Vous ’87′s Wayne Gretzky and the NHL All-Stars vs. the Soviets format. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

The NHL announced the rest of the All-Star rosters today and while that might have some people excited, we haven’t written a word about the game. Why? Because in the last 20 years, the NHL All-Star Game has become nothing more than a glorified pond hockey match that does nothing to showcase what makes the sport great.

Hockey is speed and skill vs. resistance, and if you remove one half of that equation, you kill the appeal. In the All-Star Game, there’s no resistance, so there’s no intensity. That’s been true regardless of the format changes over the years and there’s absolutely no reason to think that this forthcoming choose-up-sides format is going to produce a different result.
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