The Athletic Hockey Show - Who are the NHL’s elite goalies?

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

With the 2026-27 NHL season set to begin tomorrow night, the guys deep dive into Jesse’s annual ranking of the top 45 goalies in the league, including the four who’ve separated themselves from the rest to land in the top tier. Plus, the guys have a great, in-depth conversation about Blackhawks head coach Jeff Blashill’s critique of defensive analytics in hockey, where hockey analytics are heading, and what it truly takes to build a premier front office.And, don’t forget to join us on YouTube tomorrow at 3:00pm ET for our LIVE NHL opening night preview: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowHosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusWith: Jesse GrangerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlannerySubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody, Max Boldman here alongside the athletics, Mark Lazarus and Jesse Granger for another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. We got a lot to get to. The season is starting this week, guys, and we've got some good topics to ramp us into it. First, I did just want to tell everybody, I'll be going live on YouTube tomorrow with Sean Gentilly and Shana Goldman. We're going to be doing that a little bit more often this season. Actually, quite often. The goal is to do it at least every week.

The first of those is going to be actually tomorrow on Tuesday. So make sure to join us for that. Have questions ready. We'll be in the chat and hope to interact with you guys a lot on these live shows. So something we're looking to do more of. And first one tomorrow 3 p.m. Eastern. But we're going to start today, Jesse, with a story that you had coming out on Monday morning. That is your goalie to your story.

It's an annual favorite of mine. And I know of many other people's, it's a great way to start the year. And yes, it's got some fantasy hockey tie in for people who want to know. But I think goalie is just the position. that is becoming, it's always been extremely valuable, but especially as the league keeps getting bigger, it seems like the true number of workhorses, the true number of elites is getting smaller and smaller. And that is absolutely reflected on this year's goalie tiers. Yeah, it's getting harder and harder to find a guy who can be good for 60 games. And I think that's the

skill and speed of hockey, just increasing seemingly year by year. It seems like it's tough to do it. I mean, there are guys that can do it for 40 games and there are a lot of them. And if you can get two of those guys, you're good, but the elite of the elite are harder to find. And we saw that this year in goalie tiers for anyone out there listening who hasn't seen a goalie tiers. I poll a anonymous panel of goalie coaches and retired goalies. It's mostly NHL goalie coaches. And I asked them to grade every goalie. This year, we did 45 goalies. So it used to be 32 goalies. I used to do one for every starter for the teams. But now that there are so many tundoms, it's like impossible to choose for some teams. So we're all the way up to 45

goalies this year. And I got a score of one through five for every goalie, and then I average them out and create the ranking. And this year, we've got four guys in Tier 1, which is, it's a tough club to get into at this point. I see seven truly elite goalies that I could believe in and have faith in Night and Night and I see your top four, your tier one guys are Igor Shestirkin, Andre Vasselowski, Ilya Salofsky, Ilya, Conor Helibuck. Sure, absolutely. after that you start tier two with Jeremy Swayman, Logan Thompson, Jake Ottinger. After that, I don't really think any of these guys is a true, like, Sergey Bavrovsky is next. He was awful last year.

He is 37 years old or something, 38 years old, and he was awful last year. And he's the eighth best goalie on the planet right now. Is that how I'm supposed to interpret this? Well, okay, so the one thing I do tell these coaches is I want this to be a list of pure goaltending talent. Do not use what you think statistically is going to happen. So if you think the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to be a disaster and Bobrovsky's going to have bad stats, I don't want you to count him poorly. I want you to tell me what you saw on the ice and what you think this goal is going to be.

And yes, Sergei Bobrovsky's stats were not good last year. The Florida Panthers were a disaster. They had a bunch of injuries. They were tired from three playoff runs. Sergei Bobrovsky was tired from three runs to the Stanley Cup final. And the numbers weren't good. but every single coach I talk to basically said when I watch him on a nightly basis, rarely is he the problem.

Rarely is he having a bad night and he's getting lit up because he's letting up bad goals. They still believe, and of course, like in anything, coaches are going to give some loyalty to guys that have proven it. So Sergei Babrovsky, even if they think he's dropping off a little bit, he's still going to get a tier one from a few guys. It feels a little bit like a legacy honor here. Yeah. It certainly is.

And then there are the other guys that like right below. him. You mentioned like Lukash Dostal, UC Saros, Spencer Knight, Yesper Walsstett, Karel Vamelka. Those are guys who I think all of them can play 60 games and can have big seasons, but it's not, you don't feel as confident that they will, like an Igor Shosturkin. Like Igor Shosturkin is assuming health, is going to play 60 games this year, and he's going to be awesome for 60 games, and we know that for sure. And that's that top tier. I think Jeremy Swamen is kind of the, does he belong in the top tier? And I'll be honest. One of the, one of the hardest things about this project is breaking up the tiers because I get all these scores

and now I've got averages and it's kind of up to me at the end to decide where is the cutting off point from tier one to tier two, tier two to tier three. And it's it's it was difficult. Honestly, every single cutoff I made this year, I, I thought about it a long time. And then I would go back and forth, back and forth. The reason I ended up not putting Jeremy Swamen up with the top four is because the majority of his votes were not tier one. He was getting, it was like there were were three, four, five panelists that believed in Jeremy Swayman as a tier one, but not everyone. Whereas, to me, it felt like Shisterkin, Vasilevsky, Sorokin and Hellebuck. It was almost like, they would laugh when I'd ask, like, like, coaches would laugh when I'd ask, okay, so what do you give

Andre Vaselowski? And they're like, a five. What do you think I'm giving him? Of course he's a one. And that's how it felt for most of those top four, whereas Jeremy Swamen would get tier one votes, but then there are some people who still need to see more from him. He's done it for one year, basically. And to me, that was why it just felt like in the conversations, to me, he felt like he was in a different tier talking with these coaches. And that's why I ended up putting him the top goalie in the second tier. But there is certainly an argument. And there are plenty of people who believe he belongs in that top tier. So that's one of Laz's. Las gave you seven. You've got a top tier of four. Laz had seven. Let's talk about Ottinger and let's talk about Logan Thompson.

And what is it that, you know, talking to these sources around the league and people in the kind of goaltending world, what's keeping them from tier one? Logan Thompson, just people just don't want to believe in this guy. I mean, it's, and he was tier three last year coming off of an amazing season. And then he did it again last season. And now, obviously, people are buying in a little more. He's all the way up to tier two and he's at the top of tier two. But they're still not ready to crown him an elite goalie in this league. And I think it's partially his path. He's an undrafted guy who played U-sports in Canada. It's, he, he isn't this high pedigree goalie that has been one of the best goalie, his whole life, basically. He's, he's a late bloomer who has turned into this later in

life. I think that counts against him. I also think that he looks a little different. There are a lot of coaches that have probably tried to change the way Logan Thompson plays because he does things in a different way. He's got a lot of forward bend in his hips. His chest is super low. He does a lot of things that the typical goalie coach would say probably shouldn't do it that way, but it works for him. So I think that the unorthodox style, the unordinary path that he took there is still holding him back. However, I will say that the buy-in is getting there with him. The people are coming around. And if he's awesome again this year in Washington, which that team looks good, they added a bunch of pieces. They project to be a good team. If he has another big year,

I think he'll be in Tier 1 next year. Like, I think this is the tipping point for him. And then Jake Ottinger is the opposite. Jake Ottinger is a high pedigree goalie. When he was 16 years old, he was the best goalie in the world. It was 16. When he gets to college, he is the best goalie in college. He comes into the NHL. He gets to start right away. He's 23 years old. We basically said this guy's going to be a Veson. a contender for the rest of his life at 23. And then he's kind of just plateaued. These last two years, he has disappointed. And I think there is certainly, almost every coach I talk to is like, Jake is a victim of his own talent. We all know he's a tier one goalie. Like the talent is there,

but he just isn't doing it. And he needs to do it. And last year, he got outplayed by his backup, Casey DeSmith, who is an excellent backup. But if you're a goalie of Jake Ottinger's caliber, you should not be getting outplayed by your backup. And yeah, so I think they're kind of in opposite directions. Like, Ottinger is trending down for the first time in his life. Like, this is a guy who has been on a rocket ship to the moon from as far back as you can go in his career. And everyone, including me, I picked him to win the Vesina last year. I said Dallas is going to be a great team. Ottinger's a great goalie. He's going to play a ton. He'll probably lead the league in wins. He's going to win the Vesina. And then he had his worst safe percentage of his career. It was a bad year for him.

I don't think anyone doesn't think Ottinger has the talent, but he just hasn't done it yet. And it feels like people are kind of starting to wonder, will he become that Vesina goli? I almost see some parallels. And I know that the pedigree level is different with Ottinger and Dostal, but both of those guys are guys that you're right. We've kind of crowned. And I think for Ottinger, it goes back to the Calgary series and he had that unbelievable game seven where I don't know how many saves he had, Jesse.

You probably know it off the top of your head. It was like 50 some saves in like a double overtime game. You remember this? Yes. Yeah. I mean, that was when you tell me like what are the last in the last 10 years, what are the best series, playoff series by a goalie, that one comes to mind immediately. He was amazing in that series, even in a loss.

Right. And so I feel like Dostal got a little bit of that, too. The same kind of like, oh, my gosh, this young guy has come in. He's taken John Gibson's net. And then last year I felt like, I think Dostal was solid enough last year. But because the hype got to this level of this is one of the next ones, the bar is at a level that is just really, really hard for them to ever clear in a way that even when the numbers are, and I'm not saying Ottinger's or Dostal's numbers last year were where we expect them to be.

But even when they're like 907 or whatever, we're like, well, we thought this was a 913. You know what I'm saying? Yep. Yeah. And Dostal is, his numbers have never been great. And I think part of that is playing behind an Anaheim team. And these coaches, they give him a break on the numbers. They basically say flat out, like this Anaheim team doesn't play defense.

And they're not trying to learn how to play defense. They're like, we'll outscore you. Joel Quinville is perfectly fine letting these young, talented forwards and Jackson Lecombe on the back end trade chances with teams. and they basically say to Dostal, you're, now, he's not Grant Fuhr, but I'll use the, I'll use the comparison. You're Grant Fuhr. Stop one more than the other goalie, and we'll win a bunch of games and we'll win Stanley Cups.

I think that's the Ducks recipe. That's what they're hoping for. And I think he gets a break based on the team he plays behind for the statistics. He's one of those guys where these goalie coaches just, they adore the film. They watch his techniques. They watch the way he reads plays. They, when you slow plays down frame by frame and you see how quickly he, He's anticipating passes across.

He's just a dream. And these goalie coaches just adore what they see. And they all believe that eventually that's going to lead to an elite statistical goalie. And it just hasn't happened yet. And maybe the ducks need to get a little better defensively in order for that to happen. But I also think Dostal needs to improve some too. It's not just on the ducks. Dostal had a down year.

He wasn't good in the playoffs. He needs to be better. But when these coaches watch him, they see all the tools to do that eventually. There is so much projection happening here. When you say these coaches, you're like, deep in my soul, I believe Lukash Dostal is going to be the greatest goalie that's ever lived. I know how deeply you feel this one. I do believe that, but part of my belief is because I talk to goalie people all the time. Like, I'm talking to scouts.

I'm talking to coaches. And they all believe. And I watch and I like it. So it's like they're only feeding my love for Lukash Dostal when I talk to these coaches. Like every once in a while, you'll have, like, some of these coaches are more like prove it for me. Like they're like a jet grieves is a good example. There are some coaches that one season of Jet Grieves in Columbus, they're ready to say he's a tier three. He's a tier two goalie.

Other coaches are like, you know what? I'm not ready for that yet. I need to see him do it multiple years and then I'm ready to do it. And there are coaches that feel that way about Lukash Dostal that are like, I just, I need to see it. That's what I wanted to ask you next. I'm looking at this list and like, you know, Jordan Binnington is where Jordan Binnington is going to be. Freddie Anderson is where he's going to be. Who are the guys toward the bottom of this list that could become tier one goalie?

Like, can Yaroslav Ascarov become a Tier 1? Or Jet 3rd. I want to know who the next great boys. Tier 1 is four players long. Yeah, but they started out. I'm talking about these young guys. Is there anyone in the NHL right now that UC has that trajectory where they could crash that party sooner rather than later? Ascarov is a great name to use because, I mean, and I've watched him, he played Vegas twice in the preseason.

So I've watched most of his preseason. And he has looked excellent in the preseason. and he's got all the physical tools. I mean, he... Another guy playing behind a team that doesn't believe in defense, too. Right, exactly. But you talk about like just physical specimen,

like his flexibility, his athleticism, his ability to make the hardest safe possible. Like if you drew up a play that this is going to be the most difficult save, we can possibly give a goalie. And you told me you need a goalie to make that save. I think I might take Ascaroff over Vasilevsky. Like he's that good.

Now, he lets in three under his armpit a game and that can't happen. Like so, but, but when you, when you think about it, it's like, okay, well, like, but what's more likely to teach a goalie who doesn't give those up to be able to do what Ascaroff does or to just teach Ascarov to not give up those softies? It's obviously easier to do that. So he certainly has the potential. I will say that people have cooled on him a little bit.

Like there is a little more concern of will he reach that potential. No one questions the potential. They all say this guy could be the best goal in the league someday. But I think the belief that he will be the best goal in the league someday is certainly not as high after watching him a full season in the NHL like they did last year. Another guy that is coming in, and he's another young Russian goalie with insane athleticism, is I think he's going to take over the Pittsburgh net this year. Sergei Murashev, he got into a couple games last year.

He played four or five, but he has been dominating the HL. He dominated in the KHL. He's come over two seasons, just completely shutting teams down in the HAL. I think he's going to get a chance to be on Pittsburgh for basically the whole season. I'd be surprised if he's not their number one goalie. He's competing right now with Archer Shilovs for that number one spot. And I think he's going to be their number one goalie by the end of the year. And he's a little more refined in his game.

He's still, I mean, he's only 22. So he's actually the youngest goalie on the list of 45 that I gave these panelists. But he's got a little more refined to his game. He's a little quieter. He's not kind of opening up holes by using his athleticism in situations he doesn't need to. There's a lot of optimism around him. Another guy that I don't know. if he quite has tier one, but Joel Hofer, like, I would ask these coaches at the end and retired

goleys, there are a few panelists that are retired goalies. I would ask them in the end, who's a guy who's going to be a tier higher than this, or two tiers higher than this when I ask you next year? And Joel Hofer was the most common response on that. They think he kind of took the net from Bittington down the stretch last year, and they think he's just going to take that next step. I even had one coach say, I think he's probably going to be Team Canada's goalie at some point, like the number one goalie for Team Canada. Hofer is a giant goalie who most. moves really fluidly. He stays over the puck really well. Like he's, his positioning, he's, is very good. He plays the puck really well. Like, I think he's right up there with,

with Joey DeCourt in Seattle for like the best puck moving goalies in the league. He does a lot. There's a lot to like in Joel Hofer, and they really do think he's going to take a big step, too. You know, I'm looking around, like, I'm watching the NFL the last couple of weeks, and Caleb Williams gets hurt, and he's being replaced by Tyson Baygent and Case Keenham. Jackson Dart gets hurt, and James Winston can't throw a forward pass. Baker may feel like, All these number one quarterbacks get hurt, and then the replacement is just so unspeakably terrible at football. You wonder why they can't find more than 32 quarterbacks. I look at goalies the same way.

You look at this list. And, you know, like, look at the penguins. Archer C-laws and the other guy, Marisha, that you mentioned that nobody's heard of. Like these are, why aren't there more go-to goalies? I feel like there's fewer and fewer than there used to be like when I think back, maybe I'm delusional and I'm remembering it wrong, but I feel like in the 90s and the 2000s, everybody has. had a goalie that could at least hang. And then he got teams now like the Oilers who just haven't been able to find one for

years. Why are there only 11 or 12 true number one goalies in the NHL now? See, I think it's kind of the opposite. I feel like they're all so equal. Like I feel like the now, there are the elite guys like we've talked about, the four or five that are at the very top. And then to me, what's happened is the floor has risen. I think these goalies, back in the day, there was more variance with the goalies.

because they didn't have goalie coaches from when they were five years old. So they kind of taught themselves. And I think that because of that, the greats were able to like separate themselves more from the pack. And when I say the great, like, I mean like even like the 15th best goal in the league is significantly better than like the 70th best goal in the world. Whereas now I think these goalies have been trained to be goalies. And they've been trained very specifically since they were super young. And I just think that now when you bring a back. up in, and he's the 70th best goal in the world, I think that he's comparable to the guy who's

the 15th best goal in the world. And I just think, I think it's tougher to separate yourself from the pack because there is a tighter dispersion of talent. Like, I really do think that. Is the elite better now? I mean, are the Chesterkint here? Is that the best goldendings ever been? Is that better than Wabr-Brodor-Hashik era? Just in terms of sheer ability? Oh, no question. I mean, no question. Like, if you were to just take them in their body and put it back, but you could do that with every sport. And like, that's a, that's such a tough thing. And like the training back then, like, if you gave Patrick Waugh, the training that Shisterkin has had since he was a kid, like, that's, that's a really tough argument. But it is harder to score on these goalies in a one-on-one

situation. It's why all the goals are scored by tips and screens and deflections, because you just can't beat them with a shot. Whereas, like, go watch highlights from the late 90s, and they're beating the goalies with shots all the time. So, like, there's no question, if you just watch the goalie, like, is he harder to beat than the goalies 20 years ago were no question. They're, they're definitely harder. But it's harder to separate yourself. I think the waas and the bradours and the hajiks, they were able to separate themselves in a, in a bigger way where like they led the league and safe percentage every single year. And now it's harder to do that. But I don't think that's the top going down. I think that's the bottom being raised to where there are just so

many guys that can do it. Here's my thing about that top group is I'm looking at these names. And I agree, they are the elites, Shisterkin, Vasselowski, Sorokin, Hellebuk. Why is only one? one of these teams that has these four guys, particularly any good. I mean, when I compare it to like the quarterback rankings and Mike Sando for us as a very similar product every year with the quarterback tiers, you're looking at Patrick Mahomes, elite team, Josh Allen, elite team, Joe Burrow, okay, I guess that'd be an exception. Matthew Stafford, elite team. It's very strange to me.

And it's not to say that the goal tend, behind every great team is great goaltending. But it's weird to me that it's not the elite goaltenders. Do you get what I'm saying? Oh yeah. No, I think it's, I mean, I don't have the exact answer to this. I think it's partially the cap. And I will say, I don't think a goalie can carry a team the way a quarterback can in football. Like I'll, look, I'm the goalie guy. I'll tell you they're important. I'll say you need a good goalie. I am not going to pretend that adding an elite goalie to a bad team has the same impact that adding an elite quarterback does to a bad team in football. It's like, that's a different level of impact to me. The goalie does need a good team in front of him. I think, I I mean, I want to say it's just coincidence. Like, like, Vasilevsky was, he's the one. Like, yeah, and Bobrovsky before he got older, like, he's, he's been dominating in winning Stanley Cups.

So we have seen good teams with Hall of Fame goalies. I mean, what is it? Between Vasilevsky and Bobrovsky, like five of the last, what, however many cups, have been won by a Hall of Fame goalie behind an elite team. I just think with Shasturkin and Serochan and it's like, it's just coincidence that they just happened to be the best goalie and they just happen to be on a team that has made, they've made really bad decision. Now, Helibuck's in Winnipeg where I feel like it's impossible to build a team.

Like, it's not impossible, but it is, they have so many more hurdles to jump over than some other teams do where it's just really hard for that team to build a good team. And then you add in the salary cap aspect of it. Like, I think in football, it's the cap is softer. They can move money around. They can just change guys contracts whenever they want to be able to sign whoever they want. In hockey, it's much more rigid and it's tough. And I think that, like, New York pays Shestirk.

and he deserves to be the highest paid goalie of all time, but also you're now behind the eight ball and building the rest of the team around him. I do think it makes it harder. What do you expect from this group? Will the Vezina winner come from Tier 1 this year? Is that a fair conclusion to draw? I think so.

Shisurkin is my pick, and I just think he's the best goal in the world, and I think New York is going to be better. I don't think they're going to be a great team, but I like some of the defensive additions they made on the back end. Sean Dersie's not like shut down defensemen, but I think he's going to help them spend less time in their own end. And I just think that that team's going to be more buttoned up.

And I also think that prior to last season, I think that that team thought they were a high scoring team that's going to outscore teams. And then they got shut out like a hundred times at Madison Square Garden. And they've lost some of the high end offensive talent or like a guy like Lafranier hasn't become what they thought he could be. To me, an identity change on that team can make them good. Like I just think them changing their mind of saying, we're just going to be a tough team to play against and we're going to defend and we're going to rely on our superstar goalie.

And if we get a few a night, we're going to win. So to me, Shesarkens my pick just because he's the best goalie. Hellibuck's a fascinating one because the dude is won three. He's won three Vezinas and he's won two in a row before last year, which was derailed by like knee surgery and all kinds of stuff. And theoretically, I mean, on paper, he's going to be on a better team, right? Like the whole reason he's asking for a trade is because I want to be on a better team. so you're going to take that goalie who's already won three Vezina's, and if you do the math, he's going to be on a better team. So therefore, he should be right there to win a Vesina,

assuming that he can adjust to the new system in front of him and stuff. Like, that's a question mark. He's a goalie who relies so much on his reads. Like, right? He's not super athletic the way everyone else in that tier is. He relies on his reads. And now you put him behind a different system that's giving up different types of chances. Now he doesn't maybe know what plays his defensemen are going to take away quite as much, like he's thinking a little more. He's not able to react. That is a variable that could kind of mess up that thinking. But I mean, Hellebuck's not a bad pick to win the Vesina, even though we don't, we literally don't know what team he's going to be on. Spoiler alert, we did our prediction and staff predictions. I picked Buffalo to win the Cup. And I picked Connor

Helibuck to be the Conn Smythe winner. So revenge tour. I could see it. Oh, how much fun would that be? And Hellebuck, so like there are only, since the Vezina became a voting trophy, it used to be what the Jennings is now, whoever gives up the fewest goals. But since it became a voting trophy in the early 80s, there are four goalies with more than two Vezna's. And it's Patrick Waugh, Dominic Hachuk, Martin Brodur, Connor Hullabuck. Basically, the Mount Rushmore of goalies and Connor Hullabuck. If Halebuck does what even Hachick couldn't do and wins a Stanley Cup in Buffalo, put him on the Mount Rushmore with those guys.

It is amazing to me. You talked about it earlier of like, you know, talking to people and trying to tell them, you know, don't project forward, right? Hellebuck's score here is 1.4, which means there are people who are putting him in Tier 2. And I get that he didn't have a good year last year, but his last 15 months include an Olympic gold medal and a heart trophy. An Olympic gold medal that he won basically single-handedly. I can't believe that he wasn't a 1.0. But I get what happened last year, but I can't believe it's not a 1 point.

I'm curious to see. We talked about the Vesna voting and, you know, you're just Turk and you think the Rangers might not be quite so bad. We don't see that. Maybe it's because the GMs vote on it, not the, like, writers, we love like a Taylor Hall MVP. when a guy, the only guy dragging his team into the playoffs. You don't see that with the Vesna. You don't see a goalie who makes a bad team good enough win the Vesna because GMs are so hung up on the victory total.

Otherwise, Swamen would have won. Swain would have won last year. If that's how you do it, yeah. Yes. Because he carried that Boston team. I think if writers voted on it, you'd see that more often. Yeah, they love wins. You've got to have a lot of wins.

And that's why, like, part of me picking Shisterkin is like, the Rangers have to be way better because I know he's going to have a great season, but he needs to have some wins. He doesn't need to lead league and wins, but he needs to have a bunch of wins in order to do it. As for the Hella Buck not getting all Tier 1 votes, it's honestly not the down year last year. It's the lack of playoff success. That is what it is. Like, every panelist is going to have their different priorities. Some of them want elite athleticism and potential. Some of them want proven guys. There are some guys that are just like, I want the playoff performers. Like, give me Shasturkin who's been now. We haven't seen him in a couple years because the Ranger been so bad,

but he is absolutely nails in the playoffs. Like his stats are unbelievable in the postseason. Vasilevsky, obviously, has been great in the postseason over his career. Hellebuck hasn't. And they hold that against him. And like some people said, well, you know what? The gold medal game proved that narrative wrong to me. And then some people say, okay, the gold medal was great, but do it in the NHL.

Like, I need to see you be great. And like they, and they like one person brought up Brayden Holby. And they said, look, Braden Holby in Washington, he was kind of getting the reputation for being a goalie who hadn't won in the playoffs towards the end of his career in Washington. But they said, if you go back and watch his playoff failures, it was usually his team not scoring enough for him. Like he was playing good to great, and his team just didn't play well enough for him.

And then he lost, and he started getting that reputation. And they're like, I'm more willing to give that guy a break. Whereas Hellebuck, as great as he's been in the regular season, like the playoff failures, you can just put it on him. Like the goals are not good. He's giving up bad goals. It's not like they're losing two to one every night in the playoffs. Like he's giving up six.

He's getting pulled a couple games in a series. He's like that that is the people who do hesitate on Hellebuck, and there aren't many, but that is the hesitation is the lack of playoff success. All right. Jesse's contract stipulates we have to give him one breath in the goalie to your episode. We are going to take that opportunity right now. We'll be right back. How do you rank a 50 goal score against the shutdown defenseman? That is the type of fight at the heart of the Hockey 100, the Athletics New Book, ranking the 100 greatest modern NHL players. It is out October 27th.

We would love for you to go get it. argue about it with your group chat. Tell us what you decide. We are back. Las, something happened in your market last week in Chicago that really caught my attention. It was a debate about analytics. And it was centered around Jeff Blaschell talking about how he has yet to see a metric that really accurately captures defense. A fact that I think is just stone cold true. 100%. The reaction to it really surprised me because there was a lot of I felt kind of snarky like, yeah, of course, the guy whose team ranks badly in the defensive metric. would not believe in the defense.

Guys, Jeff Blaschell knows his team struggles to defend. I promise that. I think the point he was making is actually a lot more interesting than it got turned into. It got turned into one of these, like, it felt like like 2017-era analytics wars that, like, guys, those are over. Like the Carolina Hurricanes are the Stanley Cup champions. That war is done.

It's the haze in the barn. Every team in the league is going to be using analytics. It is using analytics to varying levels, obviously. but they are using them. And I think these conversations, the ones that Blaschel was actually getting at, if I'm interpreting it right, Lazz, are much more interesting and much more forward-looking about like, if you're looking at this as a player rating metric, you got the wrong goal. Coaches want actionable stats here.

And I think Blashele's point was like, we're still measuring defense in a way that's like, everything's about your on-ice impact. And it's the best we can do. And so we use it. But if you were a coach, like the players, got scored on or the player gave up the chances. Like, you can't just do a plus minus and a top hat for these guys. He's looking for something actionable that can make his guys better.

Am I interpreting that correctly? No, 100%. I think part of this is Jeff Blaschel is not like a marquee name among NHL hockey fans, right? Like, he doesn't get the credibility or the built-in, like, understanding that there's going to be some nuance here. I've been covering him for over a year now. And he is really, I mean, he is eyeballs deep in the analytics. He wants all the numbers he can get.

He will dispute things that I've written, that Ben Pope is written, that Scott Powers has written. If we use some analytics that he disagrees with, he will tell us that. And he'll, like, say, this is what our numbers say. And he talks about the difference between internal analytics where you have guys, you know, watching games and by hand marking down everything versus, you know, public models that are scraping the data that's from the, you know, the play-by-play, which is not terribly accurate and doesn't tell you who passed the puck and, you know, what,

But which players set it up and what area of the ice was it and all these things that, like, you can do by hand. And he's really, really thoughtful about this stuff. And I agree that you're right. There is not a good defensive metric. You know, Dom's model, his defensive rating is a really good one. I don't think it's perfect. I disagree with it a lot of times.

And I think we're still trying to figure out, like, you can, goals, we know you scored a goal. There was an impact. Killing a play is a little bit more of a gray area. And it's really hard to say, like, oh, that guy gapped up well. and because he gapped up, well, four seconds later on the other side of the ice, something else happened. It's really tough to put that into a metric. And you talk about plus minus. I was at the player tour.

We call it the car wash where they have 35 of the best players in the world come through and do interviews. And I asked like two dozen of them, is there a metric out there that you care about, that you want? Every single player said no. A couple of them mentioned plus minus. They care about that because they do care about that. And when you walk into a dressing room after a game, you'll see a guy with a stat sheet in his hand going, oh, hell, I didn't get that second minus. We got to go running to the PR guy to try to get it changed, right?

Because that's the number they care about. The coaches and GMs have all this data at their fingertips. And what's interesting to me is how much of that do they filter down to the players? Because the players don't want it in their head. They don't want to know most of this stuff. So I think as a coach, you're kind of on both sides of it, where you need to know it, but you need to apply it judiciously. And it's all about your usage.

I don't think there is a, this defenseman's better than this defenseman, who's better than this defenseman. Because so many variables, your partner, your structure, are you playing manner zone? You know, what is your usage? How many defensive zone starts you have? It's really hard to put that all

into one simple qualitative number. Yeah. And if you got something else out of what Blashe was saying there, then you weren't listening. I think like a core problem that we have in this conversation. One is that we're still treating it like it's a debate. Like it's analytics versus eye test. If you have, you know, I think every team in the league, but I'll say nearly every team in the league just to cover my ass, like is doing both.

The answer is both. You're blending the two. It would be crazy not to. But I think that the other core issue is that we want to treat players, I think in the public as like chess pieces. Like almost like they're like Pokemon or whatever. Like this is what their abilities are. And so this is what you should do with them. And I think a core focus of what coaches do.

And we'll get into the front office side of it because the front office element is a little different from both of them. But like coaches want to make guys better. That's the fundamental premise, right? So they're not, they're going to reject the idea that this guy who they see a clear skill set in and that they know can do things that they've seen do it with their eyes. They're going to reject that because there's this metric that says they haven't done it well, that they're going to, they're going to reject the idea that they will never do it well. There's not a way to use them or there's not a way to get. better at these things, right? And I think that's one of the big problems here is that I can go look up a guy's expected goal share and see that's 46%. And what comes to your mind is like, well, then

don't play that guy because he's getting, you know, caved. And the coach is like, well, no, I just want to know how I can get that 46% up to 48% or how I can make sure that it helps us win the game or when is the chance is coming. Expect the goals is the best we can do in a lot of ways. And so we use it. But it's different goals for us and for coaches. And I'll talk about the GM side of us after this, but I want to get your thoughts on this, Jesse. Yeah, I mean, it's just, I totally agree with everything you guys have said, and it's because of the sport that they play. Like, it's hockey is so fluid and so influent. Like, it's, it's not baseball. Like, we all, like, like, like, especially like us who are, I'm writing a story

and I want quantifiable numbers. Like, I would rather it be like baseball where I can say this number proves that this guy is good at this or bad at this or whatever. But like, Mark gave the perfect example of, like a gap on defense. Like, that is not ever going to be. shown in any quantifiable way that this guy's gap is good. But it could be the biggest reason that the goal happened four steps later down the chain. But it's like, to me, it's like maybe someday some team will figure out how to quantify it. And then they will just crush everyone for a decade. But it's so difficult. Like it like when you watch hockey, it almost feels impossible. Like even a sport like football, they at least put the football back in the same spot every time. They all have to line up

the same way. Like, it's basketball is kind of like hockey, but even it's not as fluid of a sport with as much chaos and as many factors happening. It just seems like this sport is not built for to be able to at least rely solely on the numbers the way the way some people want to, I guess. And look at baseball. Okay, baseball is the easiest sport to do this with because it's man against man. It's pitcher versus batter.

And it's a static sport in a lot of ways. Over the last 30 years of baseball, which has been at the van, of all this, the stat that matters most changes every few years, right? First, it was OPS, and then it was Babbip, and then it was war, and then it was F war, and then it was, you know, they keep moving the goalpost, because they keep finding a better model. Hockey is still, we're like 10 years away from Corsi being the only stat we knew, right? Like, hockey's still in the relatively early stages of this. We are going to fight, like, right now it's expected goals. That's not a thing we talked about in 2016. But in 2036, we're going to look at expected goals and kind of laugh at him and all. Look how naive we

were back then because now we have Schmigilicuddy or whatever the hell that's going to be called. And it's going to change every few years. And hockey is still in the early growing stages of this. Like, you know, you're still seeing teams that have two or three analytics people on the entire front office staff when they should have an army of these people. And some of them just don't. We're in the early stages still. But even even there, Leslie, what you're talking about is like those are player rating metrics.

And I guess what I'm trying to say is I think that where is going and what coaches are going to find most valuable. I do think we're going to quantify gaps. So the NHL as this partnership with Hawkeye that they're kind of expanding. And in Hawkeye are these super high speed cameras. And they're not going to be perfect, but they're going to give more than what they have now. And it'll go on and on and on, right? And I think what's going to happen is eventually you're going to have enough data to say when a player's gap is three and a half feet,

or there'll be a sweet spot, right, three feet to four feet. And his stick is in the passing lane. It reduces chance creations in the next 10 seconds by 40%. And we will optimize to that. And it will be a sure. short-lived edge because every team in the league is going to figure it out fairly quickly. But to Jesse's point, or to last point, I forget which one of you guys said this first? Whoever figures out is going to have a real run for a period of time when it's like, how are their defensemen never giving stuff up on the rush?

And it's because they figured out the gap sweet spot. Like a lot of these things are things that hockey people already intuitively know, but they don't know how to hone in on, right? And that's why coaches, coach, like you said, they see a guy like, he's doing it right. I don't care what your numbers say. I know that guy's got the skill set. he's got the stick work. He knows where to put his stick and how to angle his blade to properly deflect it, to create rushes in the other direction.

A coach sees this, he sees every single drill in every single practice, and he intuitively knows what the numbers aren't telling them. So when a coach sees numbers he disagrees with, he's going to push up against it. He's going to say, no, you're wrong because you're not watching him every day and I am. And that's, you know, I want to go to your story, Max. You have the story about what the Red Wings are doing here. Well, so really quick, we will do that. But, like, I think that the coaches are probably close, but the two sides need each other.

Right. Like, this is what I want to say. There was a quote in your story. You did the story about how the Red Wings are trying to find a, quote, innovative GM, right? Yeah. And we're trying to figure out what does that actually mean? And you talk to Zach Scott, who as a Mets fan I have a little bit of familiarity with. And he had a quote.

He said, it shouldn't be like, we want to hire an analytics guy versus a scouting guy. It should be these are the skills that we think are most important, and it should mostly be leadership skills. In other words, someone who can synthesize the information that's coming from data people and the information that's coming from scouting people, like that scene in Moneyball where Brad Pitt is just like telling these scouts to piss off, that doesn't work either. No, that's a caricature. Eric Tulsky doesn't do that.

Eric Tulsky knows hockey and he watches hockey and he listens to smart hockey people and he takes that intelligence that he gets and that he creates himself and he synthesizes it with the data. And that's why the Carolina Hurricanes are a freaking machine. Right. That's what you're looking for. You don't want like, oh, we want to, you know, John Chaka versus some, you know, former NHL player.

It doesn't matter. It's which of those guys can synthesize all that information without disrespecting or leaning too far to one side. And it's, that's why I keep coming back. Like it's not about the player rating metric. It's about things that are actionable, right? So in baseball, one of the things that I, you know, remember hearing when I was younger before kind of this era was, you know,

oh, oh, he got all of that one, right? Well, now we know what that actually means. It's a barrel. There's a specific bat speed or like launch angle, which is generally derived from, which could be created through bat speed or, and, you know, swing plane. Sorry, the exit velocity is created through the bat speed. And then the launch angle is kind of created through your swing plane. And that's what creates home runs.

That's what it means to get all of that one. And it's so fun, isn't it? It's so fun knowing all this math when I'm trying to watch sports, isn't it? I think yes. But like, I understand that it's not everything, right? And I think it's what derails people is that it's. Like I, you know, but if you just said like he got all that one, they'd be like, heck, yeah, he did. Except for like, we now know how to better create that.

We know how to help guys get all of that one. And it's going to be harder. We used to say a guy got his bell wrong. Now we know he had a traumatic brain injury. I mean, we get better at this. But my point is like, I just think in hockey that there are all these concepts that we all agree on. Like what this, again, I don't even want to call it a debate because the debate's over it.

Everyone's working together on this, except for the people arguing with themselves on the internet. But like there's these concepts that everyone agrees on. It's good to suppress chances. Guess who agrees with all of that? The analytics people and the people who insist that analytics are stupid, they agree on that, right? Now it's how do you best do that.

And so I mentioned Hawke, I don't know how much of an improvement it'll be, but it's the kind of thing that will help give you better information on body positioning, stick positioning. Did you get a good stick check? Yeah, you swung your stick at him, but did you get it where you needed to, right? Did your hit land right?

And I think these things are, it's all going to push us in the right direction. I'm not saying we're headed for some industrial revolution, but I just think there's so much more agreement here than ever gets credit for. You're right. But I also think that it's going to take a lot longer than people want it to take to. Of course. We've had player tracking data, you know, bio data and like, you know,

NHL edge data for a few years now, and we've learned nothing from it. Oh, Connor McDavid has fast speed bursts. Okay, yay. I know that now. It's like we have got absolutely no data. No, like you said, actionable data. And we're going to get more and more of the day, like you said. Well, that's just it.

The teams, I think have. That's just it. When you're on natural statric and look, I don't want to give away state secrets here, but when we're writing our stories and we're looking for data that backs it up, if evolving hockey has one that supports my thesis better than natural statric, I'm probably going to use the evolving hockey one, right? These public data ones are not gospel. Yeah.

They're just not. But the players, the teams inter, they all have these apps. Every coach on his phone has his team's app that has. that has all this information that is done by hand by people watching and re-watching every single shift their team takes. You look at someone like Cory Snyder on the internet who does great work with us. He hand-tracks these games. Those people are invaluable because their data is so much more reliable than just publicly scraped data.

We've all seen how the play-by-plays are done it. It's like six, 70-year-old retirees screaming at each other in a booth in the press box trying to figure out who put the hit on who. like it's the Keystone cops up there. So the data that we have is not flawless. The data that the coaches have is a lot closer to flawless. And it's still not. There's still so long.

Of course. But when they say something about when someone like Jeff Blashell says, we haven't figured this out yet, listen to him. He's not just blowing smoke. The other thing you said it is about getting it to players. And this came up too in Buffalo last week. I mean, there was a tweet that went out. And I think Matt Fairbore did a really good.

story about it, about how the Sabres analytics group had come up with this 50 to 60 page study on the power play and what they were doing wrong. And I saw, again, a lot of like derisive mocking of like, you need 50, 60 pages. Like, yeah, you want to be thorough. And they condensed it down to five or six. And is that still too long? Quite possibly, right? I think, like, a key thing that I took away from reporting that story that you're talking about, like, how forward-thinking teams do this. One of the things that, again, Zach Scott kind of talked about is, like, language is really important and the communication is really important. Like,

you want to kind of go through the coaches on this so that they can put it in terms that players care about. Because to your point, I think if you gave players a one pager with just a bunch of stats, they'd throw it in the trash. 100%. But if you told them, hey,

when you're sliding down the wall and the power play, get the guy this much lower, get him down to the hash marks before you send the pass up to the point. It'll increase our scoring chance. That's exactly right. They are being fed the data. without the numbers. They're being told this will work

because we have the data to back it up. You don't need to know that data, but this is what we're teaching you to do because it has been proven to work. So when players say they don't care about advanced analytics, they're wrong. They don't realize that they're getting in every pre-scout they get

in every power play meeting and every penalty kill meeting. We had one executive in your story who said that it's not about rating and ranking players. It's about contracts. It's about development. And it's about usage.

That's the biggest thing, his usage. This player is better in this situation than this player. Use him in this situation, no matter what his expected goals are, because in that situation, he's better. That's what the data is for. The players don't need to know this. They just need to be told where to go. Or maybe that's not a player that's going to work for us, right? Like, when you have baseball teams, like, they go looking for pitchers, like, they're going to look for guys who's like, hey, we're really good at fixing guys as sliders. So let's find a guy who's got a busted slider. We've got, The Mets for years had the deepest fences in baseball at old Shea Stadium.

So they always focused on pitchers because it was more important to be a good pitcher than a good hitter at Shea Stadium. That's exactly right. And so NHL teams are going to know, like, what works here? We need speed. We need shooters. Like we don't want guys who are kind of perimeter playmakers. They don't fit with what we do well here. They don't compliment us well.

It becomes about how you identify guys. And all these things work. You need your kind of coaches to, again, give you a little bit of feedback and point you in the right direction of what are we looking for? And it's just so much more harmonious. And further proof, it's like, you know, the Carolina Hurricanes get a certain type of player who can play in their unique system that is very difficult and demanding to play in and requires a certain amount of players.

So we always talk, they don't have any stars. They don't have any stars. Well, maybe they don't need stars because of the way it works. And, you know, Eric Tulski took a swing on Miko Renton, and he was wrong. It didn't work out. Miko Ranton did not work in that system. So he went and he traded, he didn't sit there and wait. He traded him and got Logan Stankovin, who does.

So the guys that are pure analytic guys make mistakes too. Like this is not a flawless thing, but you have to get guys who work in your system who work with your coach, who fit the brand. And that's what the data tells you as a general manager is who's going to work in Chicago, in Detroit, because I don't care what he did in San Jose or Anaheim.

He's got to be able to do it here. Spot on. We've talked a lot about how this, like using this stuff to evaluate like the players and the on-ice stuff. I read Max's story, and it was, I love the story, by the way. And to me, what I thought of the whole time was, like, our job and not just our job, but like fans, what do they do? They evaluate the evaluators. Like, we're constantly evaluating, like, which front offices are good, which

coaching staffs are good. Why are they good? And maybe we're kind of missing, like, what I thought of when we're reading the story is, like, are we missing the point in terms of like, we kind of do the same thing we do with players with these front offices where we say, okay, this front office is smart with numbers. This GM knows how to evaluate player talent. When in actuality, is that not what's making them successful? More so, it's how are they combining all of these things and how are they working together behind the scenes? Because that's something that is incredibly difficult for any of us, fans, media, anyone, the owner who's making these decisions, it's incredibly difficult to figure out which of these front offices are are getting along the best like that's to simplify it right because those

seem to be the teams that are winning and like that was my takeaway from that story is like so the way you win is not being good analytically or being good player uh just i test it's who can blend that the best and listen to each other the best and that's what leadership is right together that's what that's like that's leadership to me that's that was my takeaway is like it it means It means that finding the successful front office is more difficult maybe than we've even, like, and we know it's difficult. I think it might be even more difficult than we've given it credit for it. That doesn't mean like everyone has to be on the same page. There's a team of rivals aspect to this, too, where you want to bring in dissenting voices, but make them feel heard and respected. That's how you build a, like we talk about, you know,

you want to hire an innovative GM. I think Max's story, the point of it was you need an innovative front office, not just one guy. 100%. And, you know, if you're evaluating how a team drafted, for example, you might be like, this team sucks. None of their picks have turned out. Well, for all we know, they might have actually scouted great. And they might not have developed their guys well at all, right? Or, you know, there's just all kinds of ways that stuff like that can go wrong. And it's, we're working with inherently less information on the outside of things.

And in some ways, we have different goals than they do. I have different goals looking at numbers than a GM does, although they're closer. My goal is closer to a GM. They're often diametrically opposed to the goals of a coach. And so, like, when I hear Jeff Blash will say something, like that, it doesn't even register for me that it, that it's like denial of analytics. I was like, okay, so he, he doesn't think there's anything out that it's useful to him. There's, I think if you think that there's great defensive analytics out there, you're

probably fooling yourself a little bit, but there's ones that are way better than we had 10 years ago, and it's not going to stop me from using them. Because I got to assess with the best information I have what's happening, just like they do. They happen to have better information than I do, and they say it's not that good. I think that's relevant. We are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are equipped to evaluate hockey players than everybody right now. And we're still just miles and miles to go. Yeah. And, and both of those things that was like one of the most important things a hockey front office could do is know how to move money around, know the value of freeing up cap space, know what it should cost to create.

I don't know if that's going to be a problem again for a really long time because as if the cap hasn't been going up enough reports this week, both from SportsNets, Elliot Friedman and from our Chris Johnston, this cap is going to go up to like $127.5 million in the next two years. It's crazy. We're talking about like, oh my God, I can't believe you gave Cutter-Goti a 13.5 million. million dollars. That's a drop in the bucket two years or now. Every one of these deals is going to age like wine because the money, what I'm curious to see with this is, are we going to finally start seeing some separation in spending? Like not to baseball's level, but maybe to the way hockey used to be before the salary cap, where you have teams that are just, we'll have internal salary caps? Is our small market team is going to be able to spend $127 million? No, they're not,

not able, not, not able to. They're not able to. But are, are, are, are, are, the Carolina hurricane is going to be a cap team. If I gave you the over under. They've never historically shown they want to spend that kind of cash. If I gave you the over under like 18 and a half teams in the league in 2020, how many do you think are spending 100? Let's call it 120 million to be called a cap team. That's with $7 million.

I'd say under. I think so too. I think half the league is going to have things. I think early on, I think you're going to have teams that are just going to, and then they're going to like reassess after a company that we can't keep this up. I think it's going to go under because I think it's going to take a long time. Like right now there's contract. Dylan Larkin makes.

$8.7 million. And like that contract has five more years on it. Like Lucas Raymond, Mertsiter, both in the $8 million range. Like, I can't see a world how the Red Wings are going to get to $120 million. Getting to the floor is going to be an issue. Like, like here in Chicago the last few years, we always joke like Shea Weber was on the roster. And, you know, I think Ryan Ellis is, you know, the Hawks would take on these contracts,

like they were the old coyotes just to get to the cap floor. There's going to be a lot of that around the league. Somehow these teams are going to have to get to the cap floor because it's going to be really hard to get to what it will be like 90 million, $100 million. And if you're a rebuilding team that has 14 guys on entry level contracts on your roster, how are you supposed to get to $100 million? And there's no free agents to spend without signing horrific deals, right? Like that's, without just paying somebody in an absurd amount of money that everybody knows

they don't. It's going to be more like the 1990s when like the Rangers bought the Stanley Cup in 1994 because they could just do it. And the Red Wings would just like spend $30 million more than everybody else would. I'll producer Chris is mad at that one. That ranger's comment, that was from 14-year-old Islanders fan to be. Sorry about that one. But that's how it used to be.

The teams, it's not going to be like baseball where you have the Mets and the Dodgers versus the pirates. It's not going to be that big of disparity. But there's going to be $20, $30 million disparities in these rosters. And that's not something we've seen in the cap era. Yeah. The thing that Matt, sorry, that Max brought up in the beginning is interesting to me because I feel like this recent flat cap era has been, like the front offices who can manage

that the best have won. And I cover probably the best example here in Vegas. Like the Golden Knights invented the trade, the three-way trade where you trade a guy to a team and then the broker. The broker. They invented that. They like the Golden Knights made the first one ever and they just got in the league. And it was the right. They took on Ryan Reeves and a couple other. They were trying to avoid someone from Pittsburgh going to Winnipeg. I'm blanking on the exact details of it. But that was the first one ever. And then it became just that's how trades are made at the deadline. So you can they traded Max Pacharedi away for future considerations after he led the team in scoring. They traded Mark Andre Fleury away for absolutely nothing coming off of his Vez in a season.

They were super aggressive in clearing cap. And I honestly believe that is maybe the biggest advantage they've had. Like we talk a lot about players want to be in Vegas. Vegas, they can golf. The weather's great. No state tax. I think all of those played a factor. But maybe the front office is creativity.

And Andrew Lugarner deserves some credit. He is the cap guy. He is the numbers guy. That might be the thing that has made the Golden Knights what they are, the team with the most playoff wins since they came in the league. So what I'm curious is what is next? Like now, maybe if now that that's not the separator, what is? Is it talent evaluation?

Is it just the owner that's willing to spend it? Like what, what is going to be the decider of which teams dominate the next 10 years? And that's what everyone's looking at. The answer might be AI, to be honest with you. And then I'm very curious. as to what that's going to look like in hockey. I quit. I'm out of here. Hi, guys.

Have a good night. I'm not talking about chat GMPT or anything over here. But there will be usages for it. And it seems like an area of teams could get an edge. It may be something else I'm not thinking of. It could be some of the camera stuff that I was talking about earlier and how you kind of work with that data. But there are always edges to be found.

And typically if you're the one chasing it, like if the Red Wings read my story, for example. And they're like, we should go do all this stuff. They're building the best front office for 2022, basically, right? Is the tough part about it, right? By the time we know about it, you're already, now, you have to go get there because, like, you can't just let teams keep having that edge on you forever. But at some point, you also have to find the next edge that nobody's even kind of cracked

or nobody's really figured out yet. So maybe that will be Schmigilikuddy, Les. It could be. Don't knock it. What the hell was coursey? We didn't know what that was either. I think both of your Schmigilichutty scores will be very high. for today's episode. That is going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show.

You can go check out Jesse's goalie tiers on Theathletic.com. And once again, remember to join us at 3 p.m. Eastern tomorrow, Tuesday for our live NHL opening night preview. We'll talk to you soon.