It isn't working. Calgary has been spectacularly bad and will almost certainly be out the playoff picture by the All Star break.

As long as they keep losing, the Flames are the NHL's most fragile franchise. Every loss discourages ticket buyers, which adds to the red ink, which pushes the team another step closer to death's door. That's why Button, who will soon fire coach Greg Gilbert, will likely face the axe himself this summer.

They began the season in high gear, inspiring much talk about the tactical genius and motivational wizardry of their new coach, Ken Hitchcock. But around Halloween the Philadelphia Flyers began an alarming tailspin, raising frightful visions of last spring's disastrous playoff (two goals in five games). Hitchcock, who prides himself on being a teacher, has walked into a serious blackboard jungle in Philadelphia. In the coming month we'll find out what he and his charges are made of.

Some players join the NHL so early and with such great expectations that it is tempting to write them off before they are old enough to rent a car. Consider the Sedin twins in Vancouver, who seem to have been around for ages. They just turned 22.

Or consider Olli Jokinen of the Florida Panthers. Jokinen arrived with a splash when Los Angeles picked him third overall in the 1997 entry draft. He bounced from the Kings to the Islanders to the Panthers, scoring 35 goals in four NHL seasons. Yawn.

It's a new Olli this year. Jokinen has 12 goals and 27 points in 25 games. Suddenly he's Florida's best centre and a top ten NHL scorer. You could call him a late bloomer, except he's only 23.

Another player with a dozen goals in the first quarter is Jaromir Jagr. Of course, Jagr could score 12 goals in his sleep, an all too apt description of his season so far. Everyone likes picking on the Rangers, but the Washington Capitals are the most expensive bad team in the NHL. They are lazy on the attack and indifferent on defense. Jagr often looks like a man who lost interest in hockey a long time ago. For $11-million you think he would fight through a check once in a while.

"How about those Columbus Blue Jackets" is a phrase that takes some getting used to. But Columbus is casting a line to respectability, thanks to the reunion of two old Hartford Whalers.

Geoff Sanderson and Andrew Cassels have combined for 18 goals and 45 points and Sanderson recently ended a seven-game goal scoring streak. The last time the two played together was in Hartford in the early '90s, where each had his most productive season.

Sanderson and Cassels are among a small band of veterans (team mate Ray Whitney is another) who seem to save their best hockey for their worst teams. The good news, if you have them in your pool, is that the Jackets have stalled of late, with just two wins in 10 games. So Sanderson and Cassels will likely keep racking up the points.

Best team in the NHL today? Take the Vancouver Canucks in a narrow decision over Dallas and Boston. The Canucks are on a ten-game winning streak and have the league's best record since last Christmas: 43-14-7-6.

And we cannot close without some mention of the Minnesota Wild, led by the scoring heroics of Marian Gaborik, the coaching genius of Jacques Lemaire and astute management of Doug Risebrough.

Sounds good so far. But did anyone notice they had a losing record in November?

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