Edmonton fans show displeasure with their perpetually last-place team at a recent game. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

EDMONTON, Alberta — Stay away, Connor McDavid. Stay far, far away.

Because this is the place, young man, where fine young hockey players such as yourself come not to thrive but, rather, to throw away all their promise. It’s where first (overall draft pick) leads directly to worst (team in the NHL). It’s where, in three consecutive summers, the consensus premier amateur on the face of the globe arrived with all kinds of fanfare, but still the city awaits its first playoff game in eight excruciating years.

A bit harsh?

Maybe.

But here, look for yourself at the past drafting decade of these most moribund Edmonton Oilers, the Penguins’ opponent here tonight at Rexall Place, and attempt to explain being a combined 80 games under .500 the past six seasons, including 14-28-9 in the current one:

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Marc-Andre Fleury gives up one of seven goals in the second period of the All-Star Game Sunday. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

COLUMBUS, Ohio —  It’s genuinely impossible to tell when Jonathan Toews, the Blackhawks’ superlative two-way center they call Captain Serious, is joking. He might be the one participant in this NHL All-Star weekend who, when asked if he was having fun, had to pause a moment to fully consider the concept.

So take this remark from Toews in that context when the topic arose of a fellow All-Star, the Predators’ all-everything defenseman, Shea Weber: “He shoots the puck so hard that what we tell our guys in Chicago is, if you have a chance to keep him from taking it, go for it. But once he’s all teed up … man, get out of the way.”

I’ll assume, given Toews’ default mode and that Weber blistered a puck at 108.5 mph in the Skills Competition here Saturday, that no humor was intended. Because, really, there’s nothing remotely funny about going prone in front of frozen vulcanized rubber at that velocity.

Someday, one of those things will kill someone.

And no, I’m absolutely not kidding.

Nor am I kidding when I say that, even setting safety aside, blocked shots are killing the game.

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Ryan Johansen strips off his Blue Jackets sweater Saturday to pay homage to national champ Ohio State. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

COLUMBUS, Ohio —  It’s immensely ironic that Gary Bettman orders a news-free moratorium to all 30 NHL teams over the All-Star Weekend, aimed at keeping all eyes on the event itself, then each year takes to a podium to generate all kinds of independent headlines on his own. But there he was again Saturday at Nationwide Arena, dishing out a plate of new outdoor games, potential expansion to Las Vegas and, for the main course, the rebirth of the World Cup of Hockey.

Yeah, I know: Who realized it was gone?

Well, now it’s back, even if few want it, few will watch it outside the host city Toronto — where hockey already courses through the veins — and the format will be fantastically nonsensical: The teams will be the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, as well as two fictional entities, the North American YoungStars and Team Europe. Seriously. The former would combine Americans and Canadians, bitter rivals in this sport, because “some great players get left out of international tournaments,” per Bettman. And the European entry would be comprised of castoff countries such as Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany and Latvia.

Because that will go over well. And help grow the game globally.

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David Perron somehow shoots wide after dekeing his way around the Blackhawks’ Corey Crawford. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

The big idea, ever since Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle turned the Penguins upside down last summer and shook out all the remnants of playoffs past, has been to change the season’s final chapter. Not the introduction. Not all the various and sundry storylines in between. Just that part at the end where someone somewhere outside Pittsburgh picks up the Stanley Cup.

So it probably shouldn’t matter as much as it feels like it does that David Perron, with “the game on my stick” late in the third period Wednesday at Consol Energy Center, stunningly slipped it wide of a gaping net after stickhandling around Corey Crawford, the Blackhawks’ badly beaten goaltender.

“I’ve got to put that away,” Perron would say afterward. “Maybe 8 times out of 10, I put that away.”

I was thinking 11 times out of 10, but let’s go with his math.

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The Flyers’ Claude Giroux pounces on a rebound to beat the Penguins in overtime Tuesday. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

PHILADELPHIA — I’ll be honest here: I don’t care in the slightest that a puck slipped loose from Thomas Greiss‘ sweater after he’d just made a spectacular stop.

I don’t care that Claude Giroux then slammed it home in overtime to set off the Flyers’ latest put down of the Penguins, this by a 3-2 count Tuesday at Wells Fargo Center.

I don’t care that a fine power play converted a four-on-three, the NHL equivalent of a free throw.

I don’t even care, as Greiss and others in the visitors’ locker room maintained, that the puck should have been blown dead once in his sweater because there’s no human way the officials could have kept their eyes on it, per the rules.

“No way at all,” Greiss was telling, still seated at his stall several minutes afterward, still shaking his head. “When I have the puck, I have the puck.”

I won’t argue. But I also won’t care.

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The Rangers’ Rick Nash tees up his first goal, a short-side wrister 26 seconds after opening faceoff. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

Marc-Andre Fleury was scorched by yet another early short-side goal.

Marcel Goc declined to hit the deck for a block that would have prevented another.

Robert Bortuzzo was fed a puck in the slot for an easy shot but elected to stickhandle.

Paul Martin coasted back to the bench so casually he nearly conceded a two-on-none.

Kris Letang was absolutely abysmal.

Chris Kunitz … eh, I’ll stop there. It’s a family site.

The complete list of culprits for the Penguins’ 5-2 flattening by the Rangers on this when-does-the-football-start Sunday at Consol Energy Center should include the entire roster save for an inspired Evgeni Malkin and Thomas Greiss, summoned in relief after Fleury failed to stop four of the 17 shots he saw.

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The Wild’s Ryan Suter is stripped of the puck by David Perron, who scored twice Tuesday for the Penguins. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

What a sorry mess this was.

And it could have been all yours, Pittsburgh. It almost was.

The door to the visiting coaches’ room at Consol Energy Center was closed late Tuesday night, crammed with Minnesota front-office officials and the crumbling remains of Mike Yeo’s tenure as the Wild’s coach. If he wasn’t getting fired after this one, a 7-2 tapdance by the visibly bemused Penguins, then it surely will come soon. This wasn’t the first strike. The Wild have lost six in a row, 14 of 16 and are way out of the Western playoff race despite a seriously rich roster.

And by rich, I’m talking money, not talent or heart. More on that in a bit.

As the bigwigs filed out of the office one by one, only Yeo was paraded before the firing squad that was a handful of us reporter types. He was walked over to a sponsored screen in the hallway, and we gathered around to ask, in essence, why his team looked as if it would rather have been shoveling snow unclothed in a St. Paul blizzard than playing hockey.

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Mike Johnston gathers his players to explain the next drill at practice Monday at Consol. — DEJAN KOVACEVIC

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

There’s a reflexive response when examining the Penguins’ recently putrid power play to gloss right over the most glaring problem. Or, I should say, problems:

• Sidney Crosby has two power-play goals in his past 35 games, including that oasis of an overtime blast Saturday night in Montreal.

• Evgeni Malkin has one power-play goal in his past 20 games.

• Chris Kunitz has two in his past 23 games.

• Kris Letang has none in his past 27 games.

These four players make up the foundation of the Penguins’ power play. They have for years, actually. And if they don’t score — which, clearly, they haven’t in quite some time — the onus falls to that fifth player, whoever that might be. And unless that fifth player is a 25-year-old firebombing Brett Hull, it won’t matter.

“We’ve got to score,” Crosby was telling me Monday after practice at Consol. “That’s the bottom line. We’ve got people who can score, and we’ve got to score.”

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