The NHL’s trade deadline has come and gone with far more fanfare in the run up to the big day than on deadline day itself. What resulted was TSN’s six-minute deadline day recap which was equivalent to watching auto-fellatio. I’ve been using that word a lot… Probably because I sub-consciously think that the Power Rankings are slightly auto-fellatious. Anyway, the Western Conference gets a lot of mention up top this week in the PR and we have a repeat #1.

#1 Detroit Red Wings (Last Week #1)
I’m a regular reader of Midwest Sports Fans and usually like their take on the world of sports. But for once, I have to disagree with their take on the Red Wings. Even weirder, they like the Wings right now but I’m worried and think they’re wrong. Tyler Juranovich wrote that he liked the Jimmy Howard re-signing as the Wings’s only move at the deadline and that this is a team with no glaring needs. Jimmy signed his extension and then let in four goals to Los Angeles. This team needs another goalie. Fucking Garth Snow screwing us out of Nabakov.

#2 San Jose Sharks (LW #5)
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the Sharks have found their way near the top of the Western Conference. That’s just what the Sharks do. The only question this season was how would Antii Niemi fare as the unquestioned #1 goalie. It’s taken a bit but he’s really come around since the start of 2011. Now he’s been locked up for four years at a cap hit of $3.8 million per year. I think that’s going to be a bargain in a few seasons.

#3 Chicago Blackhawks (LW #17)
That brings us to Chicago which has Christobal Huet as its only goalie under contract next season. Their two NHL goalies, Turco and Crawford, combine for $2.1 million against the cap this year. What kills me is that they’re earning their keep now. Over their five game winning streak (I finish up on Wednesday night before most of the early games are done), they’ve allowed 10 goals against. A 2.00 GAA over any stretch is going to win you games. Those guys between the pipes are worth more than $12,200 a game right now.

#4 Philadelphia Flyers (LW #3)
I can’t really let the top team in the Eastern Conference drop out of the top five, can I? Besides, I think that this team might be the most underrated in the league right now. I realize they’re leading the Eastern Conference but do we ever hear about the Flyers? They’re third in the league in goals for and goal differential and fifth in goals against. And when you exclude shootout wins, the Flyers have one more win than the Canuckleheads. I think they’ve got a damn good chance to win the Cup this year.

#5 Vancouver Canucks (LW #2)
Sure, I dropped them three spots in the Power Rankings but I still think they’re in reasonably good shape. They have the Sedins and Kesler which is enough for the regular season. It’s that Bobby Lu guy that the Canuckleheads have to worry about. Re-watching all of the Olympic highlights over the last couple of weeks makes me think that Luongo doesn’t handle pressure particularly well. Their Stanley Cup chances are based solely on the man between the pipes.

#6 Phoenix Coyotes (LW #4)
I feel bad for Paul Bissonette. BizNasty lost his two running mates at the deadline. The Yotes moved Sami Lepisto and Scottie Upshall to Columbus for defenseman Rosti Klesla and a left-wing prospect. I know that the Coyotes need a blueliner in case Jovonoski goes packing in the off-season. But I can’t help but think that they off-ice antics of BizNasty, Lepisto and Upshall played a part in this trade. Their adventures have been chronicled on Twitter and even TSN. I can’t imagine that would go over too well with management.

#7 Boston Bruins (LW #7)
I probably should have the Bruins ranked higher in this week’s Power Rankings but I have a decent reason for having them all the way down in 7th. Life in the Western Conference is more exciting. Sure, the B’s are dominant right now. They’ve won six in a row. But the West is a battleground. Every win in the West has a massive effect on the standings. We’re some five weeks from the playoffs but every team has to play like it’s game seven. The Bruins can just coast to a division title right now. No pressure makes for easy results.

#8 Tampa Bay Lightning (LW #8)
Heading into last night’s game, the Lightning have achieved a milestone that I’ve been tracking all season. They’re finally on the positive side of goal differential. Heading into last night, they were +1 in goal differential. When you’re 7th in the league in goals for, I would think that would a bit worrying. But they do have a proven playoff goalie. Rollie the Goalie carried Edmonton in 2006. Imagine what he can do in 2011 with a better team in front of him.

#9 Los Angeles Kings (LW #10)
What do the Los Angeles Kings and Charlie Sheen have in common? Winning! Okay, this would have been a much more apt assessment of the Kings if I said this last week but “winning” wasn’t as big last week as it is this week. The Kings have to bring it every night to have a shot at a playoff spot. The Western Conference is a craps shoot right now. Five points separate 4th from 11th. Looks like winning is all Los Angeles can afford to do.

#10 Washington Capitals (LW #13)
Does a serious trade prediction count when my reason given for it happening is a joke. I predicted that Jason Arnott would end up in Washington but my reason was essentially that he’s an older guy that’s won some playoff games and has a big arse to screen the goalie with. Basically, he’d fill in for Mike Knuble who has been anything but Mike Knuble this season. And if Arnott can smack some sense into that locker room, maybe they can get out of the first round this year.

#11 Calgary Flames (LW #6)
The Flames are in a tough spot right now. All their pursuers have games in hand which is a decided disadvantage in the tightly packed Western Conference. Also going against them is their seven shootout wins. The new first tiebreaker is wins excluding shootout wins. So while Calgary has 33 wins right now, if they were in a tiebreaker for a playoff spot, they’d effectively have 26 wins. That’s tied with Nashville for worst among Western Conference teams ranked 4th through 12th.

#12 Pittsburgh Penguins (LW #9)
Is Sidney Crosby really dead and the Penguins are telling us it’s just a concussion to prevent a mass suicide in Pittsburgh? That’s the only plausible explanation for why he’s been out so long from a concussion and why no one has seen him since the beginning of January. He could be this generation’s Paul McCartney. There were scads of rumours about Paul actually being dead and the Paul touring now isn’t the real Paul. If Crosby doesn’t come back at better than 1.00 PPG, I say we start that rumour.

#13 Anaheim Ducks (LW #11)
With Jonas Hiller a bit banged up, the Ducks’ crease has turned into a bit of a revolving door. With Curtis McElhinney shipped out before the deadline, the Ducks are left with Hiller, Dan Ellis (who McElhinney was traded for) and Ray Emery. The quality of goaltending does fall off a cliff pretty fast after the Swiss netminder. Mind you, that’s the sort of thing that happens when you have an All-Star as a starter. They’re still a good team at forward and okay on the blueline. It’s just those two other guys between the pipes that should worry Gordon Bombay.

#14 Minnesota Wild (LW #12)
Later today, I debut fantasy racing advice for the fantasy racing crowd that is looking for advice from a halfway decent fantasy player. Fantasy hockey, however, is definitely not one of my strong points. Mostly, I have bad luck with fantasy hockey. Case in point, my office pool pays out prizes for winning a month. I was tied for the lead heading into February 28th and had a guy playing while the guy I’m tied with had no one playing. Easy win, right? Well, the guy that was third for the month came from five points back with eight points from four players to pass me for the win. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

#15 Columbus Blue Jackets (LW #16)
Yesterday, I linked to a story about NASCAR freelance writer Tom Bowles getting fired for applauding Trevor Bayne’s Daytona 500 win while in the press box. While it’s technically a media faux-pas, I think applauding historic moments at any sporting event is perfectly alright. Appreciating the history and significance of a moment through applause is completely different from applauding a big play or a team winning. Cheering out of fandom should be a fireable offense. Cheering out of love for the sport is a completely different beast.

#16 Montreal Canadiens (LW #15)
Before anyone talks to me about context, I’ve worked in press boxes covering the Western Mustangs. I always applauded national anthems, players recognized on senior day and players helped off the field after an injury. I was never reprimanded for that. No one pulled me aside to talk to me about “my conduct.” I take that as a sign that there are certain things that you can applaud as a member of the media. The idea that there’s absolutely no cheering the press box is not entirely accurate. You can applaud but you can’t do so as a fan. Tom Bowles was not acting as a Trevor Bayne fan at the Daytona 500.

#17 New Jersey Devils (LW #18)
They traded Arnott but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re the hottest team in the NHL right now and I’m not sure that moving one player could change that fact. They’re only at 17th because they don’t have a hope in hell of becoming a playoff team. But that doesn’t mean that Jacques Lemaire shouldn’t get consideration for coach of the year. With the Devils’ turnaround, I think you’d be hard-pressed to argue that he doesn’t merit some consideration.

#18 Buffalo Sabres (LW #20)
Speaking of hot teams, the Sabres have been on the uptick since Miller came back from injury. They were always going to be a playoff team as long as Miller played half as well as he did last year. Now that he is back up to speed, they’ve been clawing their way back into the playoff hunt. They’re two points back of the Hurricanes for 8th in the East with two games in hand. It’ll have been a hard road to the playoffs for this season for the Sabres but they’ll earn it when they lock up that spot.

#19 Nashville Predators (LW #14)
Also linked to yesterday was a CNN story about NFL owners being ready financially for a two-year lockout. How ready are the players for any length of lockout? One unnamed NFL player was just reported as having his pregnant wife induce labour so it would be covered by the league’s health insurance. But it’s not like the health insurance is cancelled when the lockout starts. The player could have just paid the bill himself. That says to me that financial planning isn’t exactly high on the priority list of some NFL stars.

#20  Dallas Stars (LW #19)
The Stars held onto their party piece in Brad Richards but I’m not sure that it’ll do them any good. Granted, Richards has been out the last few games but the Stars were on a skid before then. This team just can’t hang for a full season. They’re in a playoff spot right now but the Western Conference is so tightly packed that the Stars can’t play sub-0.500 hockey to stay in the race. They need to turn it around hard and fast to manage even 8th place.

#21 Carolina Hurricanes (LW #22)
That crack about 0.500 hockey reminded me of something that a stats-minded associate told me once. (Full disclosure, he now writes for MLB Trade Rumours.) He crunched the numbers and found out that the average NHL game hands out 2.2 points. Therefore, each team in a game gets an average of 1.1 points per game over the course of a season. So to play true 0.500 hockey, the Stars need 21 points over their last 19 games or the equivalent to 10-8-1, 9-6-3, etc. That’s why I like the 3-point games.

#22 New York Islanders (LW #23)
Joffrey Lupul has a pretty good sense of humour. A twitter prank was played on Lupul when scads of people tweeted him wishing him luck with the New York Islanders. The prank was organized by Sean McIndoe of Down Goes Brown. Lupul thought the prank was pretty funny and even played along by tweeting something to the effect of “I guess I’m off to Long Island.” That led the mainstream media to report the trade while completely unaware of a very publicly organized prank by McIndoe. Looks like Lupul wasn’t the only one pranked.

#23 New York Rangers (LW #25)
I know I’ve talked about all the Carmelodrama that the Knicks have gone through but that was just talking about the trade. Since then, it looks like the Knicks are a hot commodity again. Melo’s jersey is sold out for the next month. Tickets are on the secondary market for season-high amounts. Press credentials are being claimed at playoff levels. Even stocks of Knicks owner MSG are up. Oh, and there was that big win over the Heat. I don’t like the way the NBA is going with grouping up superstars but it sure is nice to talk about someone other than Miami’s two and a half men.

#24 St. Louis Blues (LW #21)
Whether you call him Four-Time or Big Daddy, Jeff Gordon is back. A strong showing at Daytona followed by a win at Phoenix despite getting caught up in Carl Edwards’s wreck shows that the Hendrick Motorsports crew chief swap was just what Gordon needed. I know Alan Gustafsson is one of the best minds in the garage but you have to think the pairing is the big boost in confidence that Gordon needed. And Dale Junior is still shit despite getting all of Gordon’s old equipment. All is well at Hendrick.

#25 Toronto Maple Leafs (LW #26)
Brian Burke is looking reasonably smart right about now. His trade of Kaberle for Boston’s first-rounder and Joe Colborne has Leafs fans giddy with excitement. Colborne has four goals in six games with the Marlies of the AHL. Leafs fans seem to have already forgotten about Optimus Reim as their saviour and are looking to Colborne as the second coming. You gotta love the haphazard optimism of Leafs fans. I hope they enjoy the next 44 years of futility.

#26 Florida Panthers (LW #24)
Did anyone really expect that the most active team on deadline day would be the Panthers? They made four trades on a day that only sixteen were made. Granted, it wasn’t like GM Dale Tallon grenaded the team completely with those moves. He still has Vokoun, Stillman and Weiss on the roster, though he no guarantee that he’ll re-sign any of them. And he did get Nic Bergfors, Patrick Rissmiller, Sergei Samsonov, and some prospects I’ve never heard of before. Still, it could be worse. They could be the Oilers.

#27 Ottawa Senators (LW #30)
According to TSN, the Sens traded six players over the three weeks running up to the trade deadline. That’s what I call a “Tank and Tavares” strategy. But what I don’t understand is how the rebuild of the Senators could be entrusted to a man who oversaw the speedy collapse of a team that made the 2007 Stanley Cup final. Most owners would clean out the front office when their team is subjected to such an unceremonious collapse. Where the hell is Eugene Melnyk when Sens fans need him?

#28 Edmonton Oilers (LW #29)
How do you rebuild a franchise? By trading away your best pieces with long-term upside for draft picks and guys who aren’t really as sure of a thing? In the last five or so years, the Oilers have dealt away Ryan Smyth, Ladislav Smid and Dustin Penner over the last five deadlines. What do they have to show for it? Ryan Whitney, some prospects that haven’t amounted to anything yet and some draft picks. Oh, and not one playoff game to show for their troubles. I’m not exactly an expert on franchise rebuilding but I’d say that the Oil have it completely wrong.

#29 Atlanta Thrashers (LW #27)
Even with one more spot still to sink on the Power Rankings, I think the Thrashers have cemented the title for biggest swing of fortunes during the season. We all sort of knew that a Southeast division title was asking too much for a team consisting of discarded Chicago Blackhawks. A playoff spot seemed to be entirely within reach, though. Now, it looks like there’s a top five pick in their future. At least Byfuglien cashed in while the cashing was still good.

#30 Colorado Avalanche (LW #29)
First Forsberg retires, then Anderson gets traded to Ottawa and they send Stewart and Shattenkirk packing to St. Louis. You can’t question how the Avs end up buried at the bottom of the Power Rankings. They’re the second half’s Devils. They’ve lost 14 of their last 15 games. They’ve scored 25 goals for and allowed 59 goals against over the last 15. They can’t score goals and they can’t keep them out. They’re doing a better job of tanking than the Leafs ever did.

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