SB Nation's NHL Naughty & Nice List

The Nice List - Santa's On His Way

Martin Brodeur

Martin Brodeur has been an elite goaltender since he started in the league back during the 1991-92 season. He has now broken the record for all-time games played as a goaltender with 1,031 and has broken the career shutout record at 104. Brodeur has always been the goaltender that has taken the Devils and carried the team on his back. The Devils have made the playoffs 15 of the 17 seasons that he has been with the team and won three Stanley Cup championships.

Brodeur is continuing his hall of fame career by playing his high caliber type of performance again this season. He leads the league in wins with 22 and is fifth with a goals against average of 2.17. On top of playing his average workload of sixty games this season, Brodeur will most likely be Team Canada's number one goaltender in the Vancouver Olympics this season. The added pressure of winning in front of the nation will be great on the team but with Brodeur in the net, they know they have a quality goaltender that can handle the pressure.

The Winter Classic

With the first official Winter Classic in 2008 in Buffalo, NY, the NHL found the best marketing tool for their league. The game of hockey was taught on ponds and frozen surfaces across Canada and the United States and seeing the game played outside evokes that sense of nostalgia. With the 2008 game, the game appeared as if it was played in a snow globe and ended with the NHL's biggest star in Sidney Crosby winning the game in a shootout.

In 2009, the setting of Wrigley Field helped set a mood for the entire game and the league is hoping to repeat with the same formula with the 2010 game in Fenway Park. The league is looking to expand the classic by repeating the formula for the original Winter Classic in Canada for Hockey Day In Canada next year and trying to setup games for other iconic venues like Yankee Stadium. Everything the league does with the classic from the venues to the commercials and even the games themselves turns to gold for the league.

John Tavares and the New York Islanders

The Islander fanbase have not had much to celebrate about in the past decade between the mismanagement of players by the organization and the constant threat of the team moving due to an inadequate arena with the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. That is starting to change with the addition of John Tavares. Tavares was touted as the best player to come into the NHL since Wayne Gretzky and the comparisons were numerous after Tavares broke many of Gretzky's records in the OHL.

Since the Islanders drafted him with the first overall pick this past draft, the fanbase has seen a rejuvenation of sorts. Thousands of fans showed up to the team's news conference when they introduced Tavares and the team has started to play better this season. While there is still growth to be had with the team and the player, the Islander fanbase has a lot to look forward to in the next few seasons.

Phoenix Coyotes

After all of the issues that the Coyotes had this offseason, a season in Phoenix has to be a moral victory for this team. With the way the team is competing though, this team is exceeding all expectations. Led by captain Shane Doan and goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov, the Coyotes are holding the seventh spot in the Western Conference and have earned points in 64% of their games this season.

The first big step the Coyotes took this season was to hire former Stars coach Dave Tippett. He was the perfect fir for a young team, as he immediately instilled his sense of hard work, determination and discipline on a team that had grossly underachieved under Wayne Gretzky. They are on pace for 100 points this season and their first playoff berth since 2002. With the ownership situation starting to settle, fans should start coming back to Phoenix and the team should start producing.

NHL and Social Media

Where the NHL lacks in the some of their national and regional television coverage, they have more than made up for in their use of social media. The league's presence starts with their website in which it gives the user access to as much information as they can handle between a comprehensive and easy to use statistics database to the NHL Video Portal with highlights and features from the league and all thirty of its teams.

Along with the league's website, the league has been one of the few leagues that has effectively used Twitter to promote their players and their teams. The league itself engages fans with its own Twitter account and organizes Tweetups so that fans of specific teams and the NHL in general are able to gather for NHL sponsored events.

Finally, the league has embraced the use of social media with partnerships with two of the largest sports blog groups, SBNation and Bleacher Report. The use of the general fan in covering perspectives that a beat writer for a specific team or the league in general shows that the league can see the value in the alternative media when there is not enough coverage with the traditional media.

Los Angeles Kings and Anze Kopitar

The LA Kings and Dean Lombardi have been building the Kings through quality draft picks and smart free agent moves for the past few years. This year, the lineup is starting to come together with the Kings this season as they are currently tied with the San Jose Sharks for the Pacific Division lead and top player Anze Kopitar has 38 total points, good for a tie for ninth in the league.

The Los Angeles Kings have become the team they are mainly due to the good work they do drafting talent. Players like Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Alexander Frolov, Drew Doughty, and Jonathan Quick are all starting to play up to the potential that the team saw in them when they were drafted and Dean Lombardi and his scouting staff deserve all of the credit in finding the players that have made the Kings who they are now. Add to that the veteran presence that Ryan Smyth is bringing to the team, and you have a ripe formula for a team to contend not just this season but in the foreseeable future as well. 

With the Anaheim Ducks on the decline, the Kings stepped up at the perfect time. Teams in the south, especially in California, will constantly come under fire if they struggle. With the San Jose Sharks once again on top of the West and the Kings threatening, it's once again proven that hockey can thrive anywhere in North America as long as the team wins.

Ryan Miller

The Buffalo Sabres would not be the team they are without the play of Ryan Miller. Miller currently leads the league in goals against average and save percentage and the Sabres currently sit with the Northeast Division lead. Miller has been the lifeblood of the Sabres organization and much of their success hinges on how well he plays. While Martin Brodeur is expected to be the number one goaltender for Team Canada, Miller is expected to be announced as the top goaltender for Team USA. While he was not apart of the 2006 team due to a broken wrist he suffered in the beginning of that season, Miller is expected to be a key reason if Team USA competes for a medal in the Olympics.

Marion Gaborik

After dealing with injury issues in his eight seasons in Minnesota, Gaborik found a change of scenery on Broadway. While the Rangers are dealing with their own issues, Gaborik has been one of the lone bright spots for New York this season. Gaborik has 24 goals in 33 games this season which leads the league. Gaborik has always had the scoring touch in his career as he has scored in 45% of games in his career. This season though, Gaborik is showing that his $37.5 million contract that he signed in the offseason was no fluke.

You've Been Naughty - Nothing But Coal For You

Colin Campbell and the NHL Wheel of Justice

The NHL and its head disciplinarian Colin Campbell have always come under fire for their arbitrary ways of handing out punishments, especially to star players, but never before have the inconsistencies been as prevalent as this season. What's caused the most debate has been how seemingly similar and nearly identical hits have been treated differently by the NHL, whether it was because of past behavior, injuries occurred from the hits or some other unknown circumstance used by the league to determine punishment.

Unfortunately for the NHL, there have been a much higher number of questionable hits this season with most coming in bunches; this has led to increased debate about the nature of the violence in hockey and has made comparison between hits that much easier. One of the more interesting incidents this season came when Alex Ovechkin escaped punishment for a boarding call on Patrick Kaleta; Kaleta was then suspended later that week for a strikingly similar hit. 

While the NHL chooses not to publicly address suspensions and fines, it's become clear that the immediate outcome of the hit determines the punishment and not the actual illegal hit itself. The suspensions this season have come when a player is injured from the hit in question; if a player is able to get up and walk off fine then the NHL decides to allow the in-game punishment to suffice. Rob Scuderi escaped suspension with an extremely low 'submarine' check, while Steve Ott was suspended for a similar hit. The NHL flat out stated that Scuderi was not suspended based on the fact that injuries were not sustained. Yet even this formula falls apart when you consider the latest batch of boarding calls: David Koci and Jarko Ruutu were both fined for hits that bore resemblance to the hits that landed James Neal and Tuomo Ruuto suspensions, and both hits caused injuries.

Many suggest that the NHL take the arbitration out of the equation and clearly define punishment for illegal hits. Boarding penalties and hits to the head have garnered the most attention this season, and it's debatable whether a league-mandated policy on the specifics of these types of hits would could down on the dangerous nature of the sport. Some claim that the sport is so fast and so violent, each individual hit should be judged on its own merit and not compared to others.

Yet when a star player like Alex Ovechkin escapes punishment after a number of questionable incidents, while 'role players' are used as an example, the NHL loses face among the media and its fans. Ovechkin was eventually suspended for a knee-check on Tim Gleason, but the suspension came after heavy pressure from the public and didn't affect Ovechkin at all; he was out two games with a knee injury as it was. 

Don't expect the debate of NHL punishments to cease anytime soon. In the meantime, please refer to this top secret copy of the NHL's policy for suspensions:

Martin Havlat

Havlat made news over the summer when he was brutally honest about his feelings over not being extended by Chicago on his Twitter feed.

Excited to be in Minny where I was welcomed and appreciated by management. The real story about what happened in Chicago to come out.

There's something to be said for loyalty and honor.

Lot's of people are telling me to stay quiet but shouldn't the fans know the truth? It's your loyalty, season ticket money and emotions here

At the time it was a refreshing (if somewhat controversial) look at a player's perspective when their team decides to move on without them. Havlat had enjoyed a career year with Chicago in 2008-09, and was named the team's MVP as the Blackhawks progressed to the Western Conference finals. Yet with the team facing salary cap hell and the prospect of having to try an sign a number of it's top young talent, the team decided to move on without the veteran. Havlat's public outcry over the move was entertaining to watch, but one has to understand why the move was made.

Havlat would immediately sign with the Minnesota Wild for six years and $30 million, the richest contract in franchise history.

What's made this story so much more interesting is how Havlat has completely fallen out of the public eye three months into the season; he's on pace for a career low in goals and points and is a team low minus-11, and has not been seen on Twitter since early November. For a player that was so open about how wronged he was by Chicago, it's unfortunate that he won't stand up and take his lumps as he comes nowhere near earning his exorbitant contract.

Television Broadcasts or, How No One Can See Every Game

When the NHL came out of the lockout in 2006, they announced a new television partnership with the Outdoor Life Network, which would eventually become Versus. It was a questionable move for a league looking to rebuild it's public image and expand viewership; the network the NHL's 'exclusive' games would be on was carried in a small percentage of homes across the United States.

A few years later and Versus has significantly grown as sports network and it's NHL broadcasts and actually watchable now. They've also been able to expand the number of homes that carry the network and it seemed that the NHL had finally started to approach the national broadcasts it had enjoyed with ESPN, especially with NBC on board as a partner.

Then word comes that DirecTV and Versus were in a contract dispute, and the satellite company would be dropping the network on October 1st. So far this season, negotiations have gone nowhere and hockey fans with DTV are unable to view nationally broadcast games on Versus. The satellite company claims it's no big deal since their subscribers can still see 96% of the games. Yet this is still bad for a league fighting to gain viewers for it's television broadcasts.

Outside of the DTV vs. Versus battle, other teams are having issues with local broadcasts. The Los Angeles Kings and Carolina Hurricanes have had games not broadcast at all locally, which is astounding for a supposedly major-sports league in this age. Dallas Stars fans are dealing with extraordinary frustration, as Dish Network has decided not to air 20 games this season and most fans are unable to see games that are broadcast on the "FSN+" network.

Carolina Hurricanes

Last season the Carolina Hurricanes put together a magical run in the playoffs, propelled by stellar goaltending and some big goals by Jussi Jokinen. They surprised everyone with their resolve on their way to the Eastern Conference Finals, but couldn't carry the same momentum past Pittsburgh. Still, it was a great finish to the season for the Hurricanes and built optimism for the team headed into the 2009-10 season.

Nearing the midway point, the Carolina Hurricanes have emerged as the worst team in the NHL. They struggle in all aspects of the game, and are worst in the NHL in goals scored and goals allowed. The team has had to deal with a number of injuries, including a near-devastating cut to the thigh of goaltender Cam Ward.

Whatever magic that was built last season has been lost just a few months later, and it's painful to see a franchise fall so far and so quickly.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Brian Burke

When Brian Burke took over as the General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, he promised a rebuild that would return the franchise back to it's glory days. Burke was the ultimate salesman, doing his best to convince fans and the hockey world that he had what it took to immediately turn around what had become a laughing-stock of a franchise.

Three months in, mission not accomplished. Not anywhere close.

The same issues that plagued the team in seasons past, goaltending, defense and inconsistent scoring, have been their downfall so far this season. The off-season acquisitions that were meant to be an immediate boost to the team have not panned out as planned, and have proven that a team cannot completely rebuild through free agency in just one summer.

Teams that have grown into perennial successes have been able to do so through drafting and scouting as well as calculated additions through free agency. Some claim that Detroit buys their good teams, but in reality their nucleus of talent was obtained through the the draft.

The Maple Leafs have started to improve lately and have a winning record over their past ten games. But through the first half of the season, the big change we were all promised just looked like the same present that had been re-gifted three years in a row.

This article was written in collaboration with Zachary Zielonka.