FanHouse Coyotes

Darren Dreger of TSN reported today that the Tampa Bay Lightning have alerted center Brad Richards they're trying to deal him. Richards has given management a list of teams for which he'd be willing to waive his NTC; GM Jay Feaster will take the offers he's received -- allegedly from Vancouver, Columbus and Dallas -- to ownership, and a former Conn Smythe winner making $7.8 million per season until 2011 could be gonzo by the trade deadline.

If you go by the hockey rumoristas, Richards has been on the block longer than a septuagenarian prostitute. But this time could be different, if Dreger's on point with this line from his TSN.ca piece: "Tampa Bay's incoming owner Oren Koules is said to be heavily involved." Koules has taken over a losing team with the gross national product of Guyana tied up into three players; snipping a valuable but under-performing Richards would, I imagine, be something he might be interested in.

There are several teams rumored to be in the hunt for Richards. But would he improve any of them in the short term or the long run?

Last Wednesday, a game between the Florida Panthers and the Washington Capitals ended when a defenseman who had one goal on the season, and hadn't scored another in his next 17 games, was asked to beat Tomas Vokoun on a breakaway in an overtime skills competition. Washington's Brian Pothier was the 22nd shooter of the shootout, following offensive aristocracy like Jay Bouwmeester, Dave Steckel and Boyd Gordon; as expected, he failed to score, and the Panthers earned two points in the standings.

That the Panthers -- or any team in this painfully familiar scenario in today's NHL -- were rewarded for their shootout victory with the same number of points they would have earned with a victory in 60 minutes of regulation hockey is a crime. That said, the fact that the Capitals earned anything in the standings for losing the game, the 4-on-4 overtime and 11 rounds of a shootout is, by comparison, a federal offense.

Raising the possibility that the NHL could alter its current points system in the standings is nothing new; but what separates the revisionists (like Gary Bettman) from the revolutionaries is that the latter group understands the fundamental dogma of athletic competition, which is that you don't reward losers -- well, unless Sidney Crosby is at stake. Even if the shootout is never repealed, the overtime "charity point" has to go. To that end, I've taken two of the most popular alternative point-system proposals and applied them to the current NHL standings through Sunday, Dec. 2, to see how things might change. The results bring good news to teams like the Sabres, Lightning, Flyers and Wild; not-so-good news to the Rangers, Leafs and the Stanley Cup champions.

Drop the balloons, strike up the band and raise a glass: The countdown is over, and Jacques Martin is the all-time winningest coach in Florida Panthers team history after the 'Cats defeated the Caps in a painfully boring shootout on Wednesday night. Yes, indeed, Martin has set the benchmark for success behind the Florida bench ... with just 84 regular season wins.

This is a franchise that's been in the NHL since 1993, right? Anaheim came in during the same season, and Ron Wilson won 120 games for the Ducks. Nashville and Minnesota have both only had one head coach, so they're well over 100 victories. The San Jose Sharks, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Ottawa Senators each have two head coaches who have won over 100 games with the franchises. Here's some perspective: The Columbus Blue Jackets -- the personification of futility until Ken Hitchcock came to town -- also have a franchise coaching record of 84 wins, held by the esteemed Gerard Gallant. Hell, Glen Hanlon managed to scare up 78 wins during his tenure with the Capitals.

It's not like the Panthers haven't had some significant names behind the bench through the years, yet Martin told the Miami Herald that setting the coaching mark was "irrelevant" to him. Can you blame him? This record is the ultimate reminder that the Panthers are less the franchise that stunned the hockey world with a run to the Stanley Cup Finals and more the franchise that's averaged only 78.75 points per season (minus the 1994-95 lockout campaign) since its first year. Perhaps the inability to keep the same coach in town for more than three seasons is a big reason for that pathetic lack of success. Florida makes Phoenix look like a model of stability by comparison.