Dying Hard: NHL Reverse Standings Update – It’s the Final Countdown

The good news about being one of the worst teams in the NHL this year is you get your shot at picking near the top of an incredibly loaded draft where players like Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli, Matvei Michkov and Leo Carlsson could help change the fortune of your entire franchise in an instant.

Going into this season, the plan was for the Chicago Blackhawks to be one of the worst teams in the league. Let’s check in on the teams that make up the bottom five and hope to get their shot at drafting Connor Bedard this summer.

Montreal Canadiens

• Current Record: 31-43-6, 68 points
• Last 10 games: 4-6-0
• Odds at winning the draft lottery: 8.5%

The Blue, blance et rouge went 1-2 this past week. They were shutout by Detroit, they made the Capitals officially say, “Au revoir” to their playoffs hopes by beating them 6-2 in Montreal, then they lost big in Toronto, 7-1, and Canadiens’ defenseman Chris Wideman turned into a giant diaper baby because the Maple Leafs had the audacity to give an awesome, lifelong memory to an EBUG.

Montreal made their first appearance a few weeks back and being in the illustrious bottom five hasn’t really helped them at all. They were never really a threat to move up that much more (and Arizona could still theoretically drop below them) and, as of right now, Florida (remember, Montreal owns their first-round pick this year because of that absolutely inexcusable Ben Chiarot trade last season) is in the first Wild Card slot in the East and is the second hottest team in the league, having won their last six games in a row.

You could make the argument that, of all the teams here, the Canadiens will already be in the best shape moving forward next year just by getting everyone healthy. By simply adding back Cole Caulfield, 2022 No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky, possibly the most intimidating presence (who also has the coolest nickname) in the entire league in Arber Xhekaj, plus (barf) Kirby Dach (barf) – as well as highly-touted prospects like Lane Hutson and Sean Farrell – Montreal will be vastly improved, and that’s regardless of where their two first-round picks this summer end up.

Upcoming Schedule

The Canadiens have two games left: at the Islanders then their season ends at home against Boston.

San Jose Sharks

• Current Record: 22-41-16, 60 points
• Last 10 games: 3-5-2
• Odds at winning the draft lottery: 9.5%

After their ill-timed, abbreviated winning streak, the Sharks have dropped their last three. They lost both home games to Colorado – one in OT and one in regulation – then got lit up all historical-style by Connor McDavid and the Oilers.

Erik Karlsson had a goal and two assists last week, bringing his season total up to 98 points (23 G, 75 A) as his chase to be the first defenseman to break 100 points in 21 years winds down. It’s not all high fives and super luxurious Swedish hair, however.

For as incredible as Karlsson has been this year – and yes, San Jose is abjectly horrible – he’s still sporting a minus-19 overall, which feels like it shouldn’t even be possible when you’re scoring that many points. But Karlsson has never really been known for his defensive prowess even though he’s (checks notes) a defenseman.

The Sharks need to capitalize on Karlsson’s career revitalization and trade him as soon as they can, for as much as they can. They have the lowest ranked prospect pool (17th) of all the teams in the bottom five and pretty much all of the major contributors on their NHL roster are on the wrong side of 30. They’ll have an additional first-round pick from New Jersey as part of the Timo Meier deal but with the Devils looking poised to make some noise in the playoffs, it probably won’t be until well into the 20s anyway.

Due to the Sharks weird/bad luck of losing a ton of games in overtime, they could still move to the top of the list if they lose out and the Blackhawks and Blue Jackets both win two of their remaining games, but I really don’t see that happening.

Upcoming Schedule

San Jose has three games left, all on the road, that could go a long way toward determining the final Wild Card seed in the West: they’ll travel to Winnipeg (who currently has it), then Calgary (who is one point behind the Jets), before finishing up their season in Edmonton.

Anaheim Ducks

• Current Record: 23-45-12, 58 points
• Last 10 games: 0-8-2
• Odds at winning the draft lottery: 11.5%

Even though Anaheim is still in the midst of an 11-game losing streak, they did pick up two loser points! They started off last week by losing 3-1 in Edmonton, then they lost to the Coyotes in overtime (Arizona pulled their goalie and scored a desperation goal with 35 seconds left to force OT, which just feels like one of those bizarre sports footnotes that will drastically affect this draft somehow), and they took a 4-2 lead into the final minutes of the third period against the Avalanche on Sunday night but couldn’t hold on and lost again in overtime.

The Ducks goal differential is currently minus-126 (and don’t look now, but here comes Columbus at minus-113), which ranks them 20th on the list of all-time worst differentials in a season. They’re being outscored by 2.45 goals per game during their 11-game losing streak, so, assuming they lose their final two games this year at that rate, they’ll secure the worst differential since the Y2K inaugural season of the Atlanta Thrashers.

Also not good, Anaheim only has 13 regulation wins, which is the lowest of any of the teams in the bottom five (the Sharks have 16, the Hawks have 17, and Columbus has 15). Regulation wins is the first tiebreaker should the Ducks, Blackhawks and Blue Jackets all end up with identical points.

If Anaheim loses out, which would mean a season-ending losing streak of 13 games (15 percent of the entire season), they might still finish ahead of both the Blackhawks and Blue Jackets simply because of the two loser points they gained over the weekend. What an incredibly horrible time to be a fan of any of these teams.

Upcoming Schedule

The Ducks have two games left, both at home: they’ll welcome in Vancouver then finish their season with The Battle of the 405 (thoughts and prayers to anyone who ever has to drive on the 405) against the Kings.

Chicago Blackhawks

• Current Record: 25-48-6, 56 points
• Last 10 games: 1-9-0
• Odds at winning the draft lottery: 13.5%

They just had to do it, didn’t they.

The Blackhawks started off last week by beating the desperately trying to scratch and claw their way into the playoffs Calgary Flames (not only do I hope you don’t make it, but also that all of your TVs get stuck on Oilers’ highlights forever), before losing to the Canucks and the Kraken.

Good news for Hawks fans, in general, is that Jonathan Toews is going to play every game for the remainder of the season. There will be lots of time to wax poetic about him and his career at some point in the future but for now let’s just appreciate the chance to watch him do all of the things we’ve rooted for him to do for the last 15 seasons. He is my all-time favorite Blackhawk and I’ll be at the game on Thursday, just in case.

Good news for the Hawks’ tank brigade is that they’re sending Lukas Reichel – who may already be the best player on the team – back to Rockford to “help the IceHogs secure a playoff spot”, which after this season (mercifully) concludes is something I don’t want to hear ever again for the entire rest of my life.

Upcoming Schedule

The Blackhawks have three games to go. They’ll face the Wild at home on Monday night, travel to Pittsburgh to play the Penguinson Tuesday, then finish up at The UC on Thursday night against the Flyers, when I’ll hope that Jonathan Toews scores a hat trick and that Philadelphia’s game-winning goal deflects in (hard) off of the face of either Tony DeAngelo or Ivan Provorov.

Columbus Blue Jackets

• Current Record: 24-47-8, 56 points
• Last 10 games: 3-6-1
• Odds at winning the draft lottery: 25.5%

Columbus dropped all three games last week: it lost in Toronto, got obliterated by New Jersey, and was shut out by the Rangers.

Columbus has been shut out eight times so far this season – which is tied with the Blackhawks for the league lead – while also failing to register a single shutout of its own (I’m going to include a yet, while also conceding that that yet is doing a lot of heavy lifting).

The Blue Jackets have lost 47 times in regulation so far, which ties the 2001-02 club for the most regulation losses in franchise history. They’ve lost 530 man games due to injury this season, which easily bests their previous record of 508 from 2014-15. They’ve dressed 43 different players this season (24 forwards, 13 defenseman, 6 goalies), which ties the previous high mark set in 2003-04 – and those six different goaltenders are also the most they’ve ever used in a single season. At least the last one had a cool name though:

All of those statistics put together can only serve to convince any rational person of the same logical and inevitable conclusion: Nationwide Arena was built on the corner of Spook Central and their entire team is haunted and/or CURSED.

Hopefully one aspect of the CURSE continues for Columbus as well: they’ve never landed the No. 1 overall pick (in 2002, they traded up from No. 3 to No. 1 to select Rick Nash).

Upcoming Schedule

The Blue Jackets have three games left; at Philadelphia, then their final two games are at home (Spook Central!) against the Penguins and the Sabres.

This column has been an exercise in applauding futility for the back half of an NHL season. While I can definitely say I’ve had some fun writing it, it’s also not something I’ll ever feel compelled to do again. Losing isn’t fun. It can be informative, but there’s only so many times you can smile cynically while your favorite team gets the ever-loving shit beat out of them because that equates to them gaining two additional percentage points in their chance to draft a generational superstar.

Dave has made his thoughts about tanking pretty well known. Now ditto for Mark Lazerus. But here’s the thing: until the league does something about it, it’s going to continue to be a way for teams to feel like they’re cutting in line on the rebuild process. And also, in regard to securing the No. 1 overall pick, it actually kind of works! Nine of the last 17 lotteries have ended up with the team in dead last being award the first pick.

Sean McIndoe wrote a column last week that offered up a brilliant solution: tie the fates of the worst teams in the regular season to those of the best teams in the playoffs. Essentially, there would be a draft where each of the 16 teams eliminated from the playoffs are able to select one team that serves as their proxy in the playoffs, and if that (good) team were to win The Stanley Cup then the (bad) team that selected them is awarded the No. 1 pick.

I did a $50 playoff pool last year and, let me tell you: I was edge of my seat for the entire playoffs (I drew the Lightning) in a way I haven’t felt since 2017. Could you imagine if your favorite team’s draft pick was on the line? If the winner of a Game 7 were to determine where Connor Bedard would play for the next decade? What kind of spectacle that would be?

It’s fun and creative but there’s absolutely no way it will ever happen. But until something significant changes (starting with the Commisioner acknowledging that tanking even exists), it’s going to continue to feel like a viable solution for teams that are out of contention in a league that flat out discourages player movement.

Bruce Willis has officially retired from acting due to being diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer’s classified as Frontotemporal Degeneration. I’ve gladly used his image at the top of every single one of these so I felt like it was only fair to give a little something back.

I made a $50 donation to The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration and if you have a couple extra bucks that you feel like putting to good use they make it super easy to donate right here.

And lastly, my gift to you, dear reader. Did you know that there’s a (surprisingly clever) pop punk song about the first four DIE HARD movies? If you didn’t, then you do now.