Down Goes Brown's Weekend Review: Datsyuk, an Untradeable Contract, and the Analytics War

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

(Editor's note: Sean McIndoe looks back at recent play in the NHL and the league's biggest storylines in his weekend review. You can follow him on Twitter.)

The 2015-16 season is over. The final buzzer has sounded, the Stanley Cup has been presented, the parade route has been cleaned up, and the two voters who inexplicably left Phil Kessel completely off of their Conn Smythe ballots have been found, tried, and thrown into a dungeon, never to be seen again. It's offseason time.

And that means that things are about to get busy, because the NHL offseason is a bit of a weird beast. We've got an entire summer to work with before anyone steps on the ice again, but almost all the action will be squished into the next week or two, at which point everyone will disappear to a cottage and nothing will happen for two months. Here are a few of the key dates to keep in mind:

Right now: The window for buyouts is already open, and teams have until June 30 to burn their worst contracts (and eat a long-term cap hit in return). We already know two victims, Philadelphia's R.J. Umberger and Toronto's Jared Cowen, and there will be more to come. Remember that players need to pass through waivers before they can be bought out, which is why your Twitter feed will light up every day at 12:01 with updates about who's on and who cleared.

Some day soon(?): The NHL still hasn't formally set the salary cap limit for next season, in part because it needs the NHLPA to decide if its going to use its 5 percent escalator. That would, uh, be good information for teams to have.

Wednesday: The NHL Awards show, live from Las Vegas. Hey, remember a few months ago when we all wanted to fight each other over whether Drew Doughty was better than Erik Karlsson? We're two days from finding out which side won. And it will probably be overshadowed, because this is also the day we're all expecting the league to finally announce that its adding an expansion team in Vegas for the 2017-18 season.

Friday and Saturday: Buffalo hosts the NHL entry draft. The first round goes on Friday night, with everything else getting squeezed into roughly six minutes on Saturday morning because everyone has a flight to catch.

Saturday: The opening of the week-long window for teams to begin talking to unrestricted free agents. No deals can be signed until July 1 (and in theory, firm offers aren't even allowed), but teams and players can use the days before to figure out the market. Any teams that want to talk to specific players before the window opens will need to trade for their rights, and we usually see a handful of deals like that. We've already had one this year, with the Coyotes targeting Alex Goligoski.

July 1: Free agency officially begins. Expect a flood of deals to be signed on the first day; with the salary cap looking tight, most players don't want to wait around and risk being shut out. But don't be shocked if the bigger names, like Lightning star Steven Stamkos, take their time.

This is also the first day that teams can try to poach restricted free agents with offer sheets. If it's anything like most years, nobody will.

July 20: First day that salary arbitration hearings can begin. Like most years, expect plenty of cases to be filed, but very few to actually make it to a hearing.

August 15: The day that drafted but unsigned NCAA players become unrestricted free agents. Harvard's Jimmy Vesey will likely be the biggest name available, unless his rights have already been traded to his preferred destination by then.

September 17: Start of the World Cup of Hockey preliminary rounds, with camps opening shortly before. NHL rookie tournaments will be taking place around this time, with full training camps shortly after. We all wonder where the summer went.

Celebrating those who've had the best week.

5. Carolina Hurricanes (front office edition)—The Hurricanes were a sneaky-decent team last year, staying on the fringe of the playoff race for most of the season despite being written off as Auston Matthews contenders by most of the experts. And they did it while trading veterans like Eric Staal and stockpiling picks and prospects, sticking to the rebuild plan even as the results on the ice probably tempted them towards fast-tracking.

Last week, they cashed in a few of those future chips in a strange deal with the Blackhawks that saw them acquire Teuvo Teravainen and Bryan Bickell for second- and third-round picks. In other words, they agreed to pay $4.5 million and eat Bickell's cap hit in exchange for getting a very talented young player at a steep discount. That's some flat out smart asset management for a team that's below the cap floor and was going to have to spend that money somewhere.

Granted, that Cam Ward extension looks iffy, and looks more like a loyalty move than a defensible hockey decision. But at least it sounds like the team may not make the same mistake with Staal. So on balance, the Hurricanes still had a good week. And they're slowly but surely developing a reputation for being one of the more underrated front offices out there.

(Bonus points to the team's marketing department, which tortured Oilers fans by doing this all last night.)

4. Anaheim Ducks—Scratch one big name restricted free agent off the list. The Ducks locked up Sami Vatanen on Saturday, signing the blueliner to a four-year deal that will carry a cap hit just under $5 million. That's solid value for a player of Vatanen's age and ability.

The Ducks still have a challenging offseason ahead of them, with plenty of big decisions left to be made. But Saturday's signing has them off to a good start.

3. Glen Gulutzan—The former Stars head coach and Canucks assistant landed the top job in Calgary, which we'll consider a good thing even though he had to do some really weird stuff to get it.

Gulutzan's hiring fills the last remaining head coaching vacancy, closing the book on another season of comings and goings behind NHL benches. Somewhat surprisingly, after a year in which three rookie head coaches had significant success, no newcomers joined the ranks this season. That includes Canucks AHL coach Travis Green, who had been considered a favorite to land an NHL job somewhere. With a lower-than-usual four openings this year, that put the squeeze on the rookies, who'll now have to wait for the next round of openings. (In other words, the first three-game losing streak in Montreal next year.)

2. Colorado Avalanche—Let's put this as politely as we can: In a league where front offices are getting smarter and smarter, the Avalanche have always stood out as being… different. They're old school, relying on the eye test over analytics and often appearing to be basing their decisions purely on the gut reactions of the former star players who run the show. It's been a questionable approach, and the results on the ice have reflected that. And let's just say that if you heard a rumor that your favorite team was in trade talks with the Avs, you got excited.

So it's been a pleasant surprise to see the Avalanche head into the offseason looking like they might be ready to make some smart decisions. First there was the Tyson Barrie situation, which had all the makings of another Colorado head-scratcher. Barrie is a very good player, but Avs coach Patrick Roy has never seemed satisfied with him, and there was plenty of talk that the team would be looking to trade the restricted free agent.

But this week, GM Joe Sakic shot that speculation down, saying the team would hold onto Barrie and try to sign him to a long-term deal. Days later, Sakic suggested that the team would largely sit out free agency. For a team with a history of signing veterans to questionable deals on July 1, a conservative approach sounds like the right idea.

Of course, Sakic and the Avs could always reverse course, trading Barrie for a handful of magic beans and then using that cap space to sign a 30-something player who peaked in 2007. But for now, they're saying the right things, which suggests there may be one less easy mark at this summer's poker table.

1. Las Vegas Black Aces—OK, we don't actually know what they're going to be called. But we do know that Vegas is getting a team, despite the league's continued insistence on keeping the worst-kept secret in sports under wraps.

Will it work? That's hard to say, and there are plenty of reasons for pessimism. Will the team be any good? Not really, based on the early mock drafts. Can you even build a long-term fan base in a town where most of the ticket-buying population at any given moment are tourists? I guess we'll see.

But those are all problems for another day. For now, it's enough for Las Vegas hockey fans, assuming there are some, to just be happy to have a team. Welcome to the league, guys. Just remember to act surprised when the league finally gets around to announcing it.

A look at the week's underachievers.

5. Carolina Hurricanes (ownership edition)—It wouldn't be an NHL offseason without rumors that at least one team was on the verge of moving. This year's candidate appears to be the Hurricanes, with rumors continuing to surface that the team could be eying other destinations.

Some of this is to be expected—whenever a southern US market is struggling, there's a certain segment of the hockey world that can't resist jumping to relocation conclusions. (That segment is called "Canada.") And while some initial reports suggested the Hurricanes could move to Las Vegas, the expansion news ends that speculation. But there's at least a little more smoke here than usual, including an ugly rift between owner Peter Karmanos and his sons that led to a $100-million lawsuit that could jeopardize his ability to maintain his grip on the team. And even if Las Vegas is no longer an option, there's still Quebec City, a scenario that's come up before.

Hurricanes GM Ron Francis has denied the speculation, as has Gary Bettman, who called it "completely unfounded." But it's also worth remembering that Bettman said something very similar about the Thrashers just days before they announced their move to Winnipeg. The league doesn't have a ton of credibility here, which means that even if there's nothing to it, this story will likely linger through the summer and beyond. (At least until next year, when we pick some other team and do the whole thing all over again.)

4. Anyone still fighting the great analytics war—It's over now, right? I know we've said this for the past few years, ever since all of the number-crunchers we made fun of on Twitter started getting hired by NHL teams, and then we find ourselves reliving the same old battles all over again. But after yet another year in which the possession numbers predicted the eventual champion, surely we can all agree that the war is well and truly over, and the numbers won decisively.

Cool, good talk. Look forward to another year of doing it all over again, anyway. Watch the games, nerds!

3. Dustin Brown—Only three active players in the NHL have lifted the Stanley Cup as team captains more than once. Sidney Crosby joined the club last weekend. Jonathan Toews is another. And the third, well, he's having a rough summer.

This week, the Kings stripped Brown of his captaincy, handing the honor to Anze Kopitar. That sort of move would typically make a player's future with the team seem dicey. But the team has reportedly told Brown that he won't be dealt—not because they want to keep him, but because his contract is viewed as "untradeable." Given that Bryan Bickell just got traded, being told that you can't be has to sting a little.

Dean Lombardi has also ruled out a buyout, so barring something surprising it sounds like Brown and his awful contract will stick around for one more year before potentially being expansion bait next summer.

2. The NHL still hates you—Now that players are being signed to extensions again, it's time for your semi-regular reminder that this league and its teams have no intention of providing you, the paying customer, with the basic information you need to enjoy their product.

Player signings mean team press releases announcing those signings, and most of those releases won't include the actual dollar value of the deal. Instead, they'll give us some nonsense about how "as per club policy, financial terms were not disclosed," like the Ducks did with Vatanen. Then the financial information leaks to the media, anyway, usually within minutes and often coming directly from the same team that just said it has a policy against releasing it.

The entire thing is stupid and always has been, and it reveals a disturbing contempt for fans. In a cap world, fans need to know dollar values for deals, period. Leaving the information out is a small but unmistakable middle finger to those fans. And there's no reason for it—when I wrote about the issue last year, I spoke to an agent and a team PR head, and neither had any idea what teams are supposed to be gaining from this.

Not all teams engage in this nonsense—the Hurricanes happily included all the necessary information in their release about the Ward signing—and the number of offenders is slowly but surely dropping every year. But plenty of teams still do this, and there's no good reason for it. Except that, you know, they hate you.

1. Detroit Red Wings (and us too)—Pavel Datsyuk made it official on Saturday: He's leaving the NHL and heading home to Russia to play in the KHL. The move had been rumored for weeks, but until the official announcement there'd been a sliver of hope that the 37-year-old star would change his mind.

It goes without saying that this is a major blow to the Wings. Despite his age, Datsyuk was still among the league's best centers, the type of player that teams can't easily replace. And his absence won't just be felt by fans in Detroit. Datsyuk was one of the league's most entertaining players to watch, a guy who was capable of summoning magic out of nowhere, and any fan of the NHL has to be disappointed to see him leave.

But while we're on the topic, let's calm down with the hand-wringing over Datsyuk's contract. It's true that the last year of his deal will result in the Red Wings getting stuck with a $7.5 million cap hit. But it's also true that that cap hit would be a valuable asset for a team looking to reach the NHL's floor, and that should make it relatively easy to trade. This isn't a Bickell or Brown situation, where a team would be stuck paying millions in addition to the cap hit. Datsyuk won't be paid, so any team that took on his deal would just be artificially inflating their cap number without having to spend a dollar or real money.

The Red Wings will likely have to give up something to make that happen, most likely a pick or a prospect. But it shouldn't be all that much, and the odds of the Wings actually being stuck with Datsyuk's hit when the season starts are essentially zero. The expected early posturing aside, Wings fans depressed over Datsyuk's exit shouldn't feel the need to double-down by worrying about his cap hit.