The Bruins have had a lot to celebrate lately despite some recent injuries. (Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Hey everyone, we here at Puck Daddy are doing real power rankings for teams Nos. 1-31. Here they are, based on only how I am feeling about these teams, meaning you can’t tell me I’m wrong because these are my feelings and feelings can’t be wrong. Please enjoy the Power Feelings.

31. Vancouver Canucks (Last week: 31)

Yeah they haven’t won a game since the deadline week, but the real issue here is all the Elliotte Friedman “this is a toxic town” stuff. Media and fans do indeed complain about how bad the team is a lot.

I seem to recall that when the Canucks were good like six or seven years ago, and even before that, the local media was all too happy to carry water for them, and their fans were huge pains in the ass to deal with if you didn’t think Alex Edler was an elite defenseman or whatever.

Things were going great. So how did it get so toxic?

Let’s take the toxicity analogy as far as it will go, but pretend the Canucks aren’t a hockey team, but rather a local nuclear power concern. In this scenario, the “good local actor” company that was producing all those good returns some time ago had an industrial accident brought on by the aging core and having no real plan for dealing with, and an owner whose lack of expertise in the industry but demand to continue pushing more profit led to unsafe conditions. Eventually there’s a meltdown, and the company is now kind of shuffling around with no real plan to fix the issue.

Now then, it is absolutely not the fault of the media for merely reporting, “Hey it’s kind of messed up that all our fish have three eyes,” nor the local residents for complaining that those three-eyed fish don’t taste very good and don’t want to buy them. Should we feel bad for the poor, set-upon stewards of this company? Should we ask for more capital-C Civility in complaining about those issues?

It’s a silly idea, right? The thought that Benning and Linden and Aquilini (who’s really the brains behind all this) should be able to walk down the street without being pelted with trash is fair enough, but if you think a little name-calling on local radio and Twitter is a bigger problem than that the Canucks are a directionless franchise that can’t figure out what the hell it’s supposed to be doing, that’s outlandish.

Last I checked, it’s a fan’s right to complain when their favorite team sucks, and few would disagree that Vancouver sucks. (Those people are afflicted freaks.) So it’s in poor taste to say that? Am I getting that argument right?

Absurd.

30. Detroit Red Wings (LW: 28)

29. Ottawa Senators (LW: 30)

But hey, at least the Canucks fans aren’t Senators fans. Eugene Melnyk sent out a letter late last week saying basically, “You know I’ve done all I can to make this team competitive, right?”

Can you even imagine having that kind of audacity?

28. Buffalo Sabres (LW: 29)

27. Arizona Coyotes (LW: 27)

26. Chicago Blackhawks (LW: 23)

I saw something last week where management hasn’t really begun looking too much at ways they can improve and be competitive again this summer. Pretty funny.

Unless they can Coagula Procedure the brains of some of their core guys into younger, better players’ bodies, the fact that they’re paying a combined $54 million (give or take) to Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Brandon Saad, Artem Anisimov, Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Connor Murphy, and Corey Crawford or each of the next three seasons kinda puts a damper on those plans.

They have seven players on their ELCs this year and need to re-sign three of them. This is a mess!

25. Montreal Canadiens (LW: 24)

24. New York Rangers (LW: 25)

Funny week. The Rangers sold most of their good players and then went 3-0-0 on the week, outscoring opponents 12-8. Sure, they gave up 50-plus shots in back-to-back games, but this is the opposite of what they’re supposed to be trying to do.

23. Edmonton Oilers (LW: 21)

The Oilers signed Colin Larkin, Dylan’s older brother, out of Div. 3 UMass Boston. He had 46 points in 27 games for the Beacons, putting him fifth in the nation in points per game at what is admittedly a pretty low-level quality of hockey.

It’s not unheard of for Div. 3 players to make the NHL, but it’s quite rare. The quality of these players is mostly pretty low, and it’s not uncommon for guys who couldn’t hack it in Div. 1 to transfer and become Div. 3 superstars.

Story continues