(In which Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

9 – Brandon Manning

So Brandon Manning apparently told Connor McDavid, who never says a bad thing about anyone for any reason because he’s not programmed to do so, that he tried to injure him on purpose. And Connor McDavid, who is so quiet you hardly even remember he’s there, was understandably mad about it.

And people’s reaction was, “Well we just don’t know!” Oh I think we do know. Connor McDavid, the kind young man who has never been anything but nice to anyone said it so we know. Why would he make that up now, and not, say, a year ago? Probably because Manning, a cruel boy, said it last week. Doesn’t mean Manning necessarily tried to hurt him at the time. Totally possible that it was just trash talk, and pretty effective trash talk at that, apparently.

But do I believe that Manning said it strictly on the basis that McDavid says he did? Yeah.

Connor McDavid, who is literally the basis for Gallant from Highlights Magazine, wouldn’t lie to you about this or anything else. May he find so much peace in his life. And may Brandon Manning who I definitely believe is a meanie feel bad about what he said and maybe did to McDavid forever.

8 – Doubting Henrik Lundqvist

After all this time Henrik Lundqvist has like two bad weeks and you’re like, “Enjoy the bench, idiot.” Imagine that?

Pretty amazing, honestly. You’d think it would be more important for the team to figure out what may or may not be wrong with this Hall of Famer (my guess: nothing!) than to try to wring four or five extra points out of a mid-December stretch. But then you’d also think a team wouldn’t healthy-scratch a Hall of Famer more often than they have Dan Girardi. So you’d think a lot of things that aren’t happening for some dumb reason.

There has to be something wrong, right? Even if they’re not saying it, his foot fell off or something? That’s the only reasonable explanation. Because no one in the Rangers organization watches Henrik Lundqvist have two bad weeks and say, “Well that’s it for him.” Right? RIGHT?

7 – Doubling down on your goaltending

Then there’s the other side of the goaltender evaluation coin. Jim Nill, whose team is below .500, says that goaltending isn’t the problem, and the performances from his better players is.

I understand his position, to be honest. He can’t say “Well literally everyone in the league knows goaltending is a problem for us and I didn’t do anything to address it this summer when I really should have.” Doesn’t reflect well on him.

To be fair, Nill is not wrong that his high-end players haven’t really delivered. Tyler Seguin’s almost a point a game. And well, that’s about it for acceptable performances. You can understand guys struggling from time to time, as Jamie Benn has, but it’s because his shot generation has been in the toilet this season. John Klingberg’s struggles are well-documented. Jason Spezza missed time, as has Patrick Sharp, and Ales Hemsky’s gonna be out for most of the season.

But with that said: The goaltending has been awful. Beyond it, in fact. Antti Niemi is .902 in 12 appearances, and that’s 50 percent fewer games played than even-worse Kari Lehtonen (.892). So yeah, the Stars aren’t scoring, but if they were getting even .910 goaltending — still below the league average — their goal differential goes from minus-21 (which, oh my god) to minus-11.

That difference is pretty consequential. Probably saves the Stars something like three points in the standings. And wouldn’t that be so nice to have?

6 – Not getting it

I’m a little surprised that saying “Looks like the Blue Jackets have gone from terrible to mediocre,” ended up being such a hot-button issue. But I guess when your team is so bad for so long you’re gonna overreact to everything.

So let’s clarify something from this week’s WWL: Saying they were bad when they were winning against good teams, but good when they’re winning against bad teams isn’t moving the goalposts.

It’s pretty simple: A huge PDO and unsustainably potent power play allowed them to outperform a horrible xGF% that you might expect against a slew of big teams when you aren’t yourself especially talented. Now they are whaling on bad teams and winning despite a normalized PDO, indicating what? That they are better than the bad teams.

Story continues