Sports is perfect for people who see everything as black or white. The factors of competition are complex, but it always comes down to winning or losing.
That's certainly true in the NHL. No ties in hockey.You can earn an extra point for forcing a game into overtime, but ultimately your team either wins or loses.
That's the way we like it. When two teams make a trade, fans want to know who won the trade. After 37 years of writing about the NHL, I can tell you that many folks don't want to hear general managers prattle on about how both teams were winners because they got the players they wanted.
Fans don't want hear journalists or team officials say it will be a few years before we can properly analyze a deal.
That's not good enough for us. We want to know who won a trade five minutes after it happened. That's why even came up with a simplistic formula, just in case we can't get anyone to declare a winner.
The team that ends up with the best player wins the trade.
That's not always true, but you hear folks blurt it out like it is gospel. Mostly, fans just want to have a winner or loser.
Thought about all of this last night when I realized that three different teams made decisions about three different goalies. Those decisions loosely connect the three teams, even though only one trade was made.
Under most circumstances, we would expect to be able to determine winners or losers from those decisions. But in this case, even though it goes against how we want to see the sports world, every team is pleased with their decision.
We have no losers that I can determine.
If you haven't figured it out year, I'm talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs, Carolina Hurricanes and Detroit Red Wings
The Maple Leafs were ready to move on from Freddie Andersen in net, believing they needed to give Jack Campbell a shot to show what he could do.
Campbell has responded by a posting a 13-4-1 record with a 1.72 goals-against average and .943 save percentage.
Freddie Who?
Meanwhile, the Hurricanes felt they had to improve their goaltending if they wanted to win the Stanley Cup. Thy traded away Alex Nedeljkovic, 25, because they weren't sure he was the answer, particularly at the contract he could command. They also didn't make a strong effort to re-sign Petr Mrazek who signed with Toronto as Campbell insurance.
To improve their netminding, they signed Andersen.
Andersen has responded by posting an 11-5-0 record with 2.05 goals-against-average and .928 save percentage
Alex Who?
Detroit Red Wings Steve Yzerman was looking to upgrade his goaltending, preferably with a goalie who was young enough to be there when the team's rebuilding is complete. He gave up a third-round pick to get Nedeljkovic who had his permanent home in the Detroit area.
Nedeljkovic is 7-3 with a 2.53 goals-against average and 9.23 save for one of the NHL's worst teams a year ago. He is 6-1-1 in last eight decisions. His last four game save percentages are .976, .929, .946 and .931.
What goaltending problem?
Three teams, tied together by their goaltending moves, all feeling successful in their decisions.
No losers.
But we all know it doesn't work that way. There are many fans out there who won't have work hard to come up with a couple of reasons why each of three teams made poor decisions in goal.
History. Intangibles. Mental toughness. Should have taken someone else. Gut feeling. Maybe the NHL is always black and white. Maybe it's always gray. No matter how good it seems, we can foresee it going wrong.