The Hockey PDOcast - Friday Mailbag: Do we need MORE regular season games?

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Sean Shapiro hops back on with Dimitri as they crack open the Friday Mailbag and answer your questions. The NHL is playing with the idea of adding more NHL games, but should they?This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipo. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Dimitri Philopovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Sean Schiore. Sean, what's going on, man. It's a good day over here. Before we got on here, I was, I was, it's going to be three days below freezing here.

So, and my backyard is flat enough. So I started laying out the sideboards. and I'll lay a liner off after we get this. And hopefully I can take the kids skating in the backyard on Monday. So it's a good day here. Nice. Well, this is the hockey pediocast,

not the home improvement pediocast. So let's focus on the stuff that we know, hopefully well enough to discuss here for the next hour. So here's a plan. We're going to do the Friday mailbag. Because it is Friday. We're going to take some listener questions, ease into the weekend and the week with some style.

and flare and fun. That's the hope at least. So here's what we're going to start with. It's not even a listener question, actually. So I totally just lied. We are going to get to the listener questions in a bit. But I want to talk about the NHL schedule with you because I know you wrote about this recently

and then we planned to talk about it. And then as I was prepping for the show, Greg Woshenski's tweet comes across my timeline with a link to an article discussing how the NHL is having conversations about expanding the regular season. and from 82 games to 84 games to quote unquote create more regional rivalry matchups

which is a real word salad and then it's because apparently teams are complaining that there is an imbalance of divisional games and to be fair I remember the start of the year I was like I thought it was very bizarre when I saw that like the flames and Oilers

were playing in like the first week of the season and then they were playing like one more time or something and then like again and then that was going to be it and they were like, we're not going to have any games between each other for the final, like three months of the season or something like that.

I think the Islanders and the Rangers have a similar setup as well this year. So it's very bizarre in that regard. And I understand that beyond people looking to make money, though, I don't know who is clamoring for more regular season games. And so I think that's kind of my first reaction and thought to the story. Yeah, I don't,

I mean, I'm not on team shorter season, but I'm on team like, like team eight. I'm on team like if we're going to do anything to the schedule, you go 80 games or 76 games. I'm not going the other way where you're adding more games to this, where you're putting more wear and tear and you're making your product even worse. Like I don't, I don't get it.

I mean, I really, I get where you're, I get people saying, oh, well, you add 84 games. So that's what. let's do simple math here. That's two more games per team. You're always playing someone else. So that's, I believe that's 64 more games you're adding to the schedule, roughly. And so that's if a game is worth, if a game averages out to $2 million in revenue per game, roughly, or just say $2.5 million.

I'm using a calculator. People here. I can't do this math in my own head. Where did you? Where did you pull out that? you're from, just off the top of your head? I know that. I know that an average NHL game is about $2.5 million in revenue.

I had a, at one point I worked somewhere where they employed me to, to understand the business of the sport. So when you put it that way, there should be at least 90 regular issues in games. More. Let's get, let's get more. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And like, but so it averages out to like 2.5 million per game. And so you're looking at roughly adding two more regular issues.

other season games per team is $160 million, roughly. Rough math here doing that. So that's, now, that's actually very interesting because $160 million would exactly cover the revenue deficit that's remaining for players

to be able to get rid of escrow for next season. So I wonder if that's, I wonder. I'm sure that's a coincidence and a number that they just randomly. Yes. I'm sure. I'm sure those two things have. Yeah, you know, Gary Betman, things randomly and coincidentally happening

to definitely benefit him in any way. No, yeah, yeah, exactly. And there's always a pull to make sure it's backed up. Always a poll. Always scientific research to back it up. Okay, so before we get into your schedule suggestion here, kind of a wrinkle, I have a question for you. So this year's regular season ends on Thursday, April 13th.

Now there is a game the following day on that Friday, which is a makeup game for The Predators and Avalanche because I forget. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they weren't able to play game earlier this. Yes. So for all intents of purposes, everyone else is going to wind up playing on that Thursday before. Now, the Saturday before, a couple days before that, all 32 teams play that one day.

Yeah. And it'll be hectic, right? There'll be 16 games going on. How many of those 16 games do you think are actually going to matter from a playoff seating slash you have to win to make it or? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think maybe zero, maybe one or two if the NHL is lucky, it's because these gains other than season for the most part don't matter. I understand there's money to make. I understand even if your team's out of it, you've got like young players.

These are valuable reps for them. There's guys who are looking to put good film on tape so that they can stay in the league and get jobs elsewhere in the offseason. Like there's there's obviously something to gain for everyone involved. But for us as viewers, and this is an entertainment product, which is what NHL is trying to provide, it's like we want to see games that ultimately matter and there's stakes and consequences involved. And if you're just basically playing out the string of the regular season,

that really seems to kind of defeat the purpose of what they're trying to provide us with. I agree with that. I mean, you're going to look at that. And I'm sure maybe there'll be a game or two or whatever. But it's like it's so many games. the regular season just becomes, there's a couple parts in the season where the regular season just becomes mundane

in many parts. And you want to add more to that, like, you want to add another game, by adding two more games to this, right, just kind of connecting this, where you got to stretch,

adding two more games, that's two more games where it's probably going to be another back-to-back. Let's just be honest. With, with, with, with,

with, with, you're adding another back-to-back somewhere, which basically, instead of adding, by adding another, by adding two back-to-backs,

you're basically, taking four more games now where you got one team on junk legs, one team playing a backup goalie, one team more banged up. By doing this, by adding two additional games to each team schedule, you're ruining four additional games to each team's schedule. Like, it's, I'm a big believer in that it's kind of hilarious that the NHL always talks about our game has never been better. Our talent has never been better. Our game is the best. I think I hit all the talking points. Well, those are true. I think all of those.

Those are true. Those are true. So let your product be the best possible product. Don't use your schedule to make it worse. And I know the justification will be, oh, well, they're regional games, so it'll be close. Okay. That's what that works fine. If, okay, we're going to add another devil's rangers game where they just literally,

where they take a morning skate at their own rink. But for every devil's rangers game, for every rivalry that you get for the Battle of Alberta, the California faceoff or whatever, the Ducks Kings, like, who's going to get cramped playing the coyotes two more times? Who's going to get cramped? Who are Dallas and Nashville going to play two more times? Like, it's, you're talking about these games where these rivalries, these regional rivalries where by having, by trying to facilitate more of the natural ones, we get more of these forest ones where it becomes like, why do I want to see eight Carolina Florida games or something like that? Like just if you're a hockey team and you're trying to sell tickets too, like I would bet the team's pushing for these quote-unquote regional games.

All of them are either in Canada or an original six team and those teams have the most power. Like the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Arizona Coyotes, the Nashville Predators, they want to play as many teams as possible because such, I know this, so much of their ticket structures built on getting as many different teams in and selling these different packs where you can. say, oh, come see Chicago, come see this team. Like, they don't care about their regional rival. Like, it's, this is, I'm full stop against 84 games, if I've made that clear.

Yeah, I do. One thing I really did, like, they kind of like stumbled into it during that bubble season, right, where the teams were playing each other over and over again. And then they carried it over last year as well, these, like, scheduled home and homes between teams sometimes, where it's like, and we just saw the other day, right? I'm or I guess last week Pittsburgh and Buffalo like they played on Friday night in Buffalo and they played on Saturday night in Pittsburgh and I really enjoyed that

like I actually think there is something to I think there is something to like not then not necessarily like oh you play one game and then you're going to get this animosity and then the second game is going to be so much more intense but I kind of like the seeing those two games so close in the schedule because you kind of see how the teams potentially do adjustments or how they match up against each other and you kind of file it away for later on, especially if they're going to meet in the playoffs. And I think that that wrinkle is cool, and I'd like to see some more of that.

So, like, when they talk about these kind of rivalry matchups, like, I think if you're talking about that specifically in terms of scheduling proximity, I like that, but I think the NHL trying to, like, force down our throat is like, I mean, their justification for the current playoff seating system, right? It's like, oh, we want to see these rivalries in the playoffs. And it's like, no, we kind of want to just see, like,

the best matchups. We just want to see the best matchups. Yeah, we want to see, like, competitive fun and games. We don't care about the fact that these two teams are geographically close to each other. Like I understand it might help from travel, but I don't think your average NHL fan is like particularly bothered by that. They want to see their team win, but they also want to see their team play against other fond of players because that's what this is all about.

Well, it even like, like I know this, for example, like I've got a friend who is, he's a Red Wings season, like mini season ticket holder plan, right? And like every he does like, I think he does like either the 10 or 12 game or whatever. and he gets to pick his tickets. He's intentionally picking 10 different teams to see. Like he's going out of his way to be like, oh, I want to see this team, this team, this team, this team. It's not something where like, oh, well, I want to see the,

because you know it'll be the, like, geographically would be kind of hilarious about this, because we know Pittsburgh and Philly would be like grouped together. All of a sudden it's going to be like Detroit Columbus seven times a year. Like you're going to be like, you're going to get that. And it's going to be like, oh, yay, this is fun. like this is like it's I no it's don't do it okay well you know

give us an alternative what should we do let the listeners oh yes yes yes this is this is what we call it's a it's a natural segue in the broadcasting business so if I have an idea of because everyone is this is my solution

to try to bring something I've always wanted to hockey, which people will never accept promotion and relegation, and to kind of appease the, well, we don't have anything to play for and get rid of the, get rid of the tanking, partial tanking completely. So under this plan that I completely made it up and is now getting a wonderful platform here on SportsNet, thank you. The, everyone plays every, you play a 60,

you have an 82 game schedule. Everyone plays everyone for 62 games. Home and home. You play everyone. Similar to what you see in the English Premier League where you play every single team. And that way you get every team, gets every fan base gets to see every other team

at least once in their building. And then the 62 game mark of the season where we take a pause and the top 21 teams in the standings go into one league, basically one grouping. And those 21 teams, only play the other 20 teams in that group. They actually play each other once.

It works out perfectly. We've got 62 games. There's 20 remaining. The top 21 teams, you play each of one of the other playoff teams in the top 20, 21, for one game for the remainder of the season. And from that top 21,

that builds your 16 team playoff field. 1 through 16 under this plan, 1 through 16 would be the, we're kind of getting rid of the conference set up here. And you have a completely equal schedule. You have everyone has played. every team that's in the playoffs will have played the exact same strength of schedule across the league. The bottom 11, because we still have them to worry about too, the bottom 11, they go into their own pool where essentially for that group of 11, we cut from that point on, we start a new standings.

And I know standings are very confusing, but you've dealt with OTW and O'TL for years or whatever. So whatever, you can deal with another line in the standings. Those 11 teams play each other. There's since 11 teams, if you're one team, you play each of the other teams twice. Once again, complete strength of schedule. You've played everyone in the bottom 11, just played the exact same teams. And so you go through that and the team with the best record of that bottom 11 gets the number one pick. Second best record, second overall pick.

Third best team record, third overall pick and so on and so forth. logic behind this for me, equal schedule, strength. You have games that mean something throughout the season because all of a sudden you have ducks, coyotes, at the end of the season, and the winner of that team, the winner of that game is probably going to get a better pick.

I realize there's some flaws in this. I don't care, but I'm willing to hear your criticisms here. But I, it's everyone, everyone's allowed to throw out crazy ideas. This is mine. And let's go. Let's do it. Oh, okay, so do you want to take it first? What side do you want to take it from?

Do you want to take it from the, like the winners bracket or the, or if you want to call it the losers bracket? You're the host. I'll let you pick. Well, I think, I think it's, I think the loser's bracket or the bottom 11 teams component of it is interesting to me, right? Because this kind of, this is sort of like a totally modified version of the gold system essentially, right? Yeah. Yes. And I know there's some flaws in.

the installation of that plan in terms of like things would come up and I think there'd need to be tweaking and there's honestly like there's stuff that you probably can't even account for that would just happen and you'd be like okay now we have to like figure out what we do here as we integrate this plan I got to say though like so this year I started a or our pal Thomas Drand started like a big like keeper of fantasy football league and we put in the gold system after the trade deadline, the teams that don't make the playoffs, the team that finishes with the most points

from the end of the, from the trade deadline to the end of the regular season, gets the first overall pick in next year's draft. And it was really fun because it gave those teams something to actually not only care about for the stretch run, but also like strategically,

there was a lot of planning in place where if you realize halfway through the year, even before you start tabulating these points, that you're headed in this direction, all of a sudden you can start trying to like kind of align things to work out from a timing perspective so that once you get to that point, you're actually firing on all cylinders and can potentially field your strongest team so that you can get that high draft pick. And so it added all of this kind of additional strategy that wouldn't have been involved and really made these games matter for every single team. And that's, I think, a huge failing in terms of the

current structure where not only are you incentivizing teams to lose essentially, no matter what you do with the draft lottery at the moment. But for a lot of the times, like, it just, the fans don't really care. Like, yeah, I guess maybe they're cheering for their team to lose actually to improve their draft lottery odds, but like there's, there's no real interest to actually be motivated, incentivized care at all. And so anything you can do to make, if you're actually going to insist, especially on having more regular season games essentially as well, Like you got to make sure those they actually matter beyond just oh this is a geographical rival that's why you should care like there needs to be actually something in place to incentivize you to win those games yes yes yeah so I I like it um you know it's funny it's it's way too uh it's way too exotic for the NHL so in terms of actual actual it'll never it'll never it'll never happen but yes dare to dream though yeah I like it yeah no it's really cool what's um what's kind of what's the what's the feedback you've gotten

from the uh from the ader suggestion from people like it seems like people are generally pretty yeah it's i've got the obviously kind of one of the biggest detractors is sometimes people will be like well how this system will just keep bad teams bad is kind of the whole thing but then i would also argue even in the current system where bad teams get the first overall pick they don't necessarily become good. So I would, I would, I would, I would, I would argue that. The other, the other thing that was just kind of logistically people were like, oh, how could you make this work?

And I actually have an answer for that where basically before the season started, you would have each team would block out 15 dates for, would block out 15 dates on their schedule that they're, that blocked their billing out for 15 days. And then you would have already those built in, just like NHL playoff dates are built in, kind of sort of. of built in and penciled in so that the NHL schedule makers could go and make it work. Obviously, the big hurdle we would run into.

And once again, this is just the NH, this is an NHL thing, trying to apply the NHL to this is this, of course, gets rid of conferences. This gets rid of their eastern, western playoff. And it goes one through 16, which all of a sudden you run into some drawbacks on that, which I understand. But in general, in general, pretty good feedback. Yeah, well, you know, the one wrinkle that I like to, like, Micah, I don't know how long ago, maybe a year or two ago, put together his own kind of version of the goal plan in terms of like adding interesting little dynamics to it as well. And the one that I really liked was the teams could essentially announce the date that you are qualifying yourself for like accruing points for it towards a draft lottery, which would obviously give.

the worst teams an actual advantage because in theory you'd be like we're not eligible for it right so you'd be you'd be accruing those points ahead of time as opposed to teams that are going to finish ninth in their conference where they're actually you know they're they're in playoff contention for much longer right before they're finally mathematically eliminated and i i love the i was thinking of it like a team like the flyers this year for example right they start out the year carter heart's hot they're winning all of these games and like people are somehow like talking themselves into like oh john tortarella has these guys playing good hockey look at this and then of course obviously they come crashing back down they're like 27 the

point percentage now or something last i check predictably but i love the idea of like how upset their fans would be like the ones that know that the team was going to be bad um like seeing the team wasting these points early in the year because the team didn't like didn't just accept their fate and say we're just going to go all in for the draft lottery right out of the gate instead. They're like playing it out and then all of a sudden there's winning these games and they're setting themselves back even further. I love those dynamics.

It's so hilarious. That's like a very recent example that I think would apply perfectly to this. But yeah, I just, anything, anything that you can experiment with that not only makes these games matter for all these teams, but also like incentivize a strategy especially, I think for me is a much of cool dynamic that I think we really need. need to explore with with these games. It's too much the way it's currently structured.

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of one of the inspirations when I was looking at this kind of my idea. Part of it also came for there's a couple European soccer leagues like the Scottish Premier League does this where for they play, there's a natural schedule for the first two, three fourths of the season.

The last fourth of the season, the six teams, the top six teams in the league, they only play the other top six teams in the league. So you have a title chase. Now that's That's a league where it's the title. There's no playoff. So it's just that it's basically kind of creating a natural. But then the bottom six teams who are fighting for relegation only play them.

So it becomes against your peer group. And that's the other thing where I like about this, about my plan, from the perspective of, you're talking about selling games, and you're selling playoffs and you're selling tickets. Okay. Every single, if you're in that top 21, every single game, you're playing, A, another good team, and B, another team that you, if you win against them, you are. closer to the playoffs than they are and vice versa. And then the same thing with the bottom, with the bottom third, where it's your peers and you're

like, okay, well, we're playing for this. And the other thing that I heard from people's counter people gave was like, oh, well, players won't play for a draft pick. Players don't tank. Like I know, players don't tank, coaches don't tank. As much as GMs and owners pull plugs on things, players continue to play. They continue to mess up tanking plans because they're playing for another job. they're playing for pride they're playing for all this and so as much as as you maybe don't maybe

maybe you don't consume in nature you don't play as hard when you're out as you for a playoffs but players and teams still try to win even when they're tanking it's just a natch it's it's it's it's just the people putting the chess pieces down that are trying to put down the least desirable chess pieces to lose than than more so than the pieces themselves so well also you're really talking about a 20 game sprint. Yeah, yeah. I would, if you were thinking about this year's bottom 11 teams or what they'll realistically be at end of the year,

I wouldn't bet on them, but I would be scared to just totally shut the door on like the Arizona coyotes finishing those 20 games as the number one team. Oh, yeah. And grouping, because Keral Bamalka just gets hot all of a sudden, wins you a bunch of games, and you're right up there.

anything can happen in a small sample size, right? Like it's like it's especially involving like relatively equally bad teams. There's going to be yeah. Yeah. Anything could happen. And you know what? Those lower games are going to be, would be fascinated because it would be kind of,

it would be kind of that stretch where some teams at the same time would be trying to get in some other younger guys here and there and there would be mistake. Like it would be. They'd be exciting. Like. Yeah. Well, I think from the top, top of the spectrum,

We kind of have lost over that, but I think getting to see all these teams that are going to be playing each other when it truly matters most in the playoffs, you get to see that kind of how they line up with each other. And then each of those games gains added importance as well because it factors in so much to deceding. So, yeah, I think it's a really cool way to sort of make these games matter for everyone and also match, match these teams up in like in peer groups, basically, right? And then you can see because there's always this like one fan base that has like a diluted perception of how good their team is. And so the team's out of the playoff race. But they're like, oh, we don't belong with all these other bad teams. We're actually better than we've just been a bit unlucky or whatever. And it's like, all right, well, this is a great chance for you to prove it.

And and reap the rewards of getting a potentially top pick as well by doing so. So it's like it's a win-win for you if that truly is the case. And then if it's not, well, then we'll also see that as well. And then that'll get you to kind of reassess where your team's at in terms of how good they actually are. Yeah. All right. I love it.

All right. This is good, man. We're going to take a break here. And then when we come back, we're finally going to get into the listener questions. I started out. I'm like, oh, this is going to be a mailbag. Halfway through the show, I have done zero listener questions. But we've got some really fun ones on the go here.

So we're going to do that. When we come back, you are listening to the HockeyPedio guest on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back on the Hockeyo cast here with Sean Shapiro. Sean, let's get into somebody's listening to questions. So Nate Britton here asks, do we all know what possession and control actually is? This is obviously in reference to the Oilers being jobed last night

by an offside review and overtime that called back Leon Dre Seidel's winner after McDavid was ruled to have crossed the blue line before the puck did essentially and they went and they reviewed it. They deemed it was offside. They go back to play. they wind up losing i i'm curious i'm curious do you remember the mccar dump and play of course also against the oilers yeah yeah yeah also against the oilers uh what are the most stunning things about me after that one and i haven't spoken to anyone since this one that happened

last night but one of the most stunning thing i i talked to an hl video coach after that mccar one and he said he's like actually we all knew that was like video coaches we all knew that was going to be the call because we have gone over that scenario with the league of whether to challenge it or not. So, so the whole, the whole thing about it is in someone, like, I would love to be a fly on the wall for like the annual like meeting of video coaches because apparently they all know. And like they all tend to other, they all tend to have an idea of what this is. And it would love, I would love to be a fly on the wall for that meeting because it's, I mean, it's good that they're doing their jobs figured out, but it would be nice that they explain it to the rest of us.

Yeah. I think there's far too much. I get what you're saying in terms of like they feel like, you know, based on them. Anecdotally, of course. No, no, no. And listen, like there's, I think there's two different things that play here, right? There's one, there's like the literal letter of the law in terms of you look at the rulebook and what it says or what's been explained to the teams in the preseason when they have all these meetings with officials and kind of what they're looking for. and then there's like the spirit of the thing

spirit of the thing and when you're watching it what you see right yeah and then there's too much like interpretation or gray or between the two and subjectivity and I think the spirit of the rule is really important here because the logic for installing the offside challenge and review in the first place was because of what happened with mat duchet years ago where he was so blatantly offside and in the zone before the puck wound up scoring it was like embarrassing that the officials missed that and so they wanted to prevent that from happening especially in a meaningful playoff game, let's say. Now, I'm all for that.

I think that's the spirit of the rule, though, right? It's not to go back and frame by frame, dissect where the puck was in relation to the skate and whether that effect, especially or like 40 seconds before a goal was scored, and then where do you draw the line in terms of timing of how far back you can go. I think all of that is very easily eliminated clearly by just abolishing off sides, which I'm all for. and I think the pros heavily outweigh the cons. But beyond that, I think we need to get real here

in terms of what we're trying to accomplish and what we're looking for and all of these debates are just so ridiculous, in my opinion. I mean, it would only lead to more debates at the end, but I think this, personally, if I have to accept that we're going to have these reviews and we're going to not abolish off sides and such, I think you need to put a,

reasonable time frame on it. Like I think that's, and obviously we continue to have a debate afterwards, but if you can't, if you can't make a proper decision in a minute, like you're the league office. How many times you've reviewed it already before the review already comes in? If you can't make the proper, you're saying a time limit in terms of how long you get to actually review it or in terms of how far, how far before the infraction happened to the goal or both. Both that you bring it up. Both that you bring up.

I think because otherwise you could just start adding, like, the amount of other random things you can like go back and you could try to like go back. Like how many, I look forward to the day where like a coach is like, and I'm surprised we haven't had a coach do this yet where it's like a close game and his guy takes a penalty. But like two minutes earlier before the puck went into the zone, it was offside. So if we go back and review that offside entry, that guy was never there to take the penalty.

Like someday, like, I don't want, like we're allowed to do that. I don't want that. Like, like there needs to be. The rule that always gets me is that, you can, you can review a double minor for high sticking. Your blood is drawn. So if it's, if it's bad enough.

Yeah. But if it's just two minutes and it's just a regular high stick, it doesn't matter. it feels correctly called or if it was a teammate on teammate crime or or what have you you can't review it's like this is where we arbitrarily draw the line of getting the call right it's like it's it's it's ridiculous to me i i i'm all for getting the call right especially like in a playoff game right like you never want to see a team necessarily lose because uh the officials it was a ref show and and and and they messed up but i i really think like it reminds me of

how the NFL is like trying to determine what is and isn't a catch it's like this isn't the most scientific method, but I think if you, if everyone looks at a play and it's like, yeah, that guy caught the baller. Like, yeah,

that guy had the puck on a stick and walked into the zone. And the puck may have not technically been on his stick for that very second. But it's Connor McDavid and he pretty clearly had possession of that puck. I don't think we need to like go frame by frame here. And, you know, it's a pruder film style, try to figure out what happened in this great neat footage where they're looking on their iPads.

It's like, I think we can just accept that it was a goal. And I know Blue's fans are probably like, oh, well, no, well, maybe he shouldn't have got offside. But I really like, thank you. The Dushin thing was like he clearly got an illegal advantage if you accept that offside should be a thing. And it was a mistake. Yes, it was a mistake. But also, in that sense, he broke a rule to get a competitive advantage that led to a goal.

Right. Some of these plays where they're, when they're challenging the offside, it's like, I get that the guy technically. broke the rule in terms of he might have been in the zone before. But he didn't get an advantage on the play. A goal was scored eventually, but not because the guy was into the zone a millisecond before the puck was. It didn't affect it.

It's like, okay, it's almost like, let's see, what's the good comparison? It's almost like a speeding ticket. It would almost be like, if every single time you drove and the speed limit it is 50 insert metric used in your nation

per hour and every single time they reviewed your driving after every single drive to see well you know what you got 51 on that time you technically broke the rule so we're going to go back and we're going to give you a ticket for that like it's the equivalent of that like that sounds terrible

and that's what off-size is and that's what the NHL does willingly yeah yeah you're right okay here's a here's actually a really thoughtful i don't have necessarily an answer for it and i don't think it's kind of like a rhetorical question but i it was it was it was interesting enough that i wanted to give them a shout out so austin says obviously the whole quote unquote not wanting to trade in division is dumb but is it plausible for it to actually be a preferred move to trade in your

division if you're essentially if you feel like you are saddling your divisional rival with a potential contract that you think is going to hamper them in the long run. And so it generally would apply to like, let's say a team like the Canucks right now, right? A big topic conversation is Bo Horvad, who's going to be 28 in April and up for a new UFA deal. What are they going to do with him? Who are they going to trade them to? It's like, I think the conventional thinking or conventional wisdom would be, oh, well, you can't trade them to the flames or the oilers or whoever the kings or whoever because well it's going to make you

you look really bad if you have to play them a bunch of times and they're playing really well for them and then they're beating you and it's making you look extra stupid and obviously that's like such flawed logic you should just there's 32 teams you should worry about you're one of the 32 you should you should worry about improving your team the most and let the chips fall where they may but in this sense if you're like wow this player who's 28 is certainly going to get a seven-year deal this summer for probably too much money while they're in their early to mid-30s, we're not going to be the ones to pay that because we realize that's going to be a bad, bad contractual decision.

Wouldn't you want what of your division rivals to, especially if you're a rebuilding team and you're not going to be good for the next couple years, so it doesn't matter how good that player is right now. But in three years, when you're ready to be good, it's a competitive advantage for one of your division rivals to be basically sinking a bunch of their future cap and a player that you don't think is going to be a difference maker. I think you're 100% right. I also think the whole don't trade within your division is such a loser mentality.

Like if you're making a trade, you are in theory making the trade because it is better for your team's future, whether that's this season, next season or whatever it is. So you in theory only make a trade if you're in your mind, you're winning it. So who cares who the loser of the deal is? You in your mind are the winner. So just embrace that you're winning a trade. Just like, if you can't, like, it's just the, I won't trade in my own division just shows a lack of confidence that you actually think you're winning your trades to me. Like that's, that's all that is. Well, I think it applies especially in these examples, like the like a Horvatt one, for example.

Yeah. Like, I think he's going to suddenly fall off the map. But any player that's getting into their late 20s, early 30s, it's up for a new deal. If you, you realize that and smartly, you don't want to be the one picking up the tab on it. I would want one of my biggest rivals to be the one making that mistake then. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want him going to the other conference because that ultimately doesn't affect me at all. It's like I would, I want my rival to make a mistake.

And like, you know what? The Minnesota Wild are thrilled Ryan Suter signed to the Dallas Stars. They are thrilled. They are thrilled. They are so happy that they are. I mean, obviously they're spending their own chunk of change on them as well still. But, but, but the fact of the matter is like someone else, okay, we discarded something since someone else took it. And now we get to go against the thing we wanted to get rid of.

Okay. Like it's, that's, yeah, I don't. That's a good question, though. That's a really good thing. It is. It is. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, Austin brought that up.

And then bubble, bubble Ollie at six minute Ollie. Follow it up on it. Okay. Bradford Sonnenberg asks about Jonathan Hubbardo here, which I think, I have some fun stats for you, which is why I mostly want to do. Okay.

So Radford says, I'm curious what your stance is on Jonathan Hubido's absurd defensive metrics this season. Has Darrell Sutter just completely changed it as a player or is this some sort of bizarre statistic collaboration? Now, it's under 30 games for a player who has been in the league for like a decade or so. So take everything with a grain of salt here. But here's the stat for you. There's been 552 skaters this season with at least 200 515 minutes. Okay. Jonathan Huberto has been on the ice for the fifth lowest rate out of those 500.

of expect the goals against and the third fewest high danger chances against. He's been, when he's been on the ice, the flames have been the stingiest team in the league defensively, which I think would be startling to people, especially where last year, when we were having all these debates

about whether he's an MVP candidate, whether his point totals should be kind of taken with a bit of a grain of salt because he's giving backs up so much defensively that it's not as valuable. It's kind of been the opposite. story for him this season in under 30 games. It's all clearly an entirely different team, different playing environment. But I think it's so fascinating because it totally kind of

throws a wrench in what we expected heading in. And also, I think the flames are so much worse off because of it, right? I think right now they would be so, maybe Daryl Sutter wouldn't because it might be too rich for his blood. But I think they would much prefer that he was playing the way he was last season and dealing with the defense awards because they desperately need that playmaking that Johnny Goddrow left when he departed this past summer and that Jonathan Hubert O has not been able to replace himself. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on Hubert O or the flames?

Yeah. As you said, the sample size is weird. It's a guy's been around. He's in a new space and all that stuff. So, um, okay. Well, here's a thing for you. Yeah. A follow up on that.

That's kind of more league-wide. So yesterday I had Thomas Drans who's getting a second second shout out on today's show. I had him on yesterday. And we were in, uh, we were in Seattle together. Yeah. Went to go watch a Seahawks game. And so we, uh, we were doing our sports night radio shows on on the road on the road from a hotel room, uh, sitting across from each other on, on two separate queen size beds.

And it was, it was great. It was intimate. It was nice. It was a lot of fun. While we were doing it, a question came up about, where I brought up the fact that, you know,

scoring is up around the league so far this season. And that's been a hot topic. And it's kind of a continuation of the trends we've seen in the past. Yeah. But also expected goals have really caught up as well. Like last year, there was a massive imbalance in terms of goals were way up,

but the expected goals models weren't really catching up to it. And it just like, it seemed like everyone was overperforming in terms of shooting percentages and such. Yeah. This year, there's actually a 5-1-5 league-wide been more expected goals than actual goals. And part of my working theory was not only are the players more skilled, but teams have tried to optimize their offensive approach so much. Like it's really taken from advancements we've seen in other sports in football

where you throw the ball more instead of running it, especially on early downs. In basketball, where you're getting rid of that long to it, instead you're either shooting threes or trying to get layups. And we're seeing so much more of that in hockey. When you see a team that's just peppering point shots or taking these low percentage looks from the offensive zone, it really kind of sticks out like a sore thumb because for the most part, most teams,

especially when they have their top lines out there, are trying to get the puck into these such specific areas of the ice. And now it becomes that cat mouse game of the defense trying to prevent them from doing so. But teams are getting a lot better at actually accomplishing that, right? And they're seeing it pay immediate dividends. And so the flames have specifically very like very much so struggled with exactly that. Their shot volume as a team is exactly where it was last year when they were one of the best

offensive teams in the league. But they're not getting the puck into those dangerous areas of the ice. They miss Matthew Kuchukh around the net. They miss. Oh, yeah. And Johnny Goodro's passing. And Jonathan Huberto has not been able to replicate that. And so that's why I think it's so interesting because you're seeing how how much that

team has changed the way they play offensively with this new personnel. and it's been kind of like completely night and day between one year to the next basically. Yeah. I mean, and when you go from, if you're like Uber to go and you go from being a guy who is having the offensive success he had in Florida last year to you're having this year and you're not creating the same like a mental switch goes through as a player too where well,

you got to be doing something. Like that's the other thing too. Like your attitude starts to change too. And that's something where I don't know if that's a, micro or macro thing for Huberto. I don't know if I'd say like, well, I'm busting back a bit more than being better defensively now because the puck's not going in or if I don't know if there's a natural pendulum to that or not, but I do think there's always an element to that where you become a

as a player, you're like, oh, well, this isn't going well, and I can either dig in and worry about it or I try to find something else as well. And I think you see a little bit of that too on a mental and individual playing scale too for Hubertoe as well. I mean, I don't know. I haven't talked to Eberdow about it, but I'd be curious to ask him that question. And I'd be curious if,

and I'd be curious to what he should. I think you should reach out to him. I'm curious what the honest answer would be before, but not the, I mean, I know what the, I know what the answer would be. Well, it's, I'm working my game.

It's, it'll get there. It's slow. Slow. It's okay. I know what the answer would be. I, I, I want the honest answer of what he, what he thinks about once he, once I walk away and he's, then he's telling me to F off behind my back.

so. Okay, let's do one final quick one here. So at Wheat Went Blues asks, are Robert Thomas and Jordan Cairo one of the most underappreciated duos in the league? By whom is the question. I assume not by blues fans. I think kind of like league-wide nationally people that aren't just covering the blues or watching them on a full-time basis.

I would have to start making a list of my list. head, but I do think that that's, that's fair. I mean, I would assume, I covered, in proximity, I covered St. Louis enough being in Dallas and good. I think that was, that was kind of before they really took this next step, right? No, but where I'm going with that is just like, and I've talked to some of the people who cover the blues and good palomine is about to become the new blues. Beat writer, shout out to Matt. Shout out to Matt to Franks. Good. The Franks. Yes, yes. You're getting a good one blues fans. And, but I think they're appreciated in St. Louis, but I think it's fair.

I think, I think that's a fair assessment to say they're one of the more underappreciated duos in the league on a league scale. I think if you ask someone to go make a list of quote unquote dynamic duos or whatever, like I don't think they would come up for somebody outside of St. Louis, but they're good. Yeah. Yeah, well, certainly not underappreciated amongst P.D. guest listeners because I spent like all of last year talking about Jordan Kairu. Now I will say a both guys are they're each making 2.8 million this year.

Yeah. They're both jumping up to 8.125 million next year in the matching eight year deals they signed. So that'll make them the 37th highest paid forwards which I'd have to make a list. It seems like they're they would probably be better than that. But they're going to be compensated much more fairly for for their production starting season. The other thing I would say is last year they played 34% of their minutes at 5-15 together this year, 43, which is still quite a bit, but they're not like full-time duos, you know, when you think of like center winger that play off each other all the time and

they're inextricable or even like Caprizov and Zuccarello who are both wingers, but they're like, you can't separate them at this point. They're like, they're two peas in a pod, right? These guys aren't necessarily playing every single minute together. So I think it is a bit, a bit different as well. But yeah, in terms of like how dynamic they are in complementary skill sets, like I love watching those guys play even though the blues have not had as easy of a go of it this season. They're still incredibly fun.

Yeah. I think it's probably the spot on answer here is that they are underappreciated across the league. It's something where you're not going to think about them as you might think of some other people. But if you pay attention to St. Louis, you pay attention to what they've done, they're fun to watch. And that's, it's, and hockey's supposed to be fun.

Hockey's a game. Yeah. Well, I think young players generally are unappreciated, right? Not only by their own coaches in the sense that it takes them probably longer than, than they should to get top flight usage. Yeah. But also like where I feel like in general, we're, unless you're watching guys on a day-to-day basis, like a casual fan out of market is

probably slow to adjust their own perception of players they're not watching all the time. It's like, you know, they have the household names that you're familiar with. that are probably already like in their 30s now. And it's like guys who have been around for a year or two, we're slow to kind of adapt to how quickly the game is changing in that regard and like the pecking order of who's the most fun. And it's also always funny too, how they promote the guys to on the national scale.

Because like it's like the other night, it was the Detroit Minnesota game the other night. Like in the, like I got the email from Turner for like, oh, hey, Detroit, Minnesota at Wednesday night. Like the headliner was Ryan Reeves. Like, Yeah.

Like that's the like I get you're going to talk to him before the game because that's what you do every time. But that's from a hockey perspective, the guy you're headlining in a game where Caprazov's playing. Well, and then him, him drilling Philopronick wound up being the main takeaway from the game. So maybe TNT was onto something in terms of what the talking points would be heading out of that one. Okay, Sean, this is a blast. Perfect way to end the week. I'll let you plug some stuff. where can people check your

check your workout. Yeah. I mean, we did this two days. That's right. Yeah. It hasn't changed since then. Much hasn't changed.

This is always the most nerve racky part of it. Plug your substack because we talked about the article about the NHL schedule adjustments. So that's where it is. So I want people to check that out. Yeah. You get check up the substack. It's Shapshots is the name of it.

It's, you follow me on Twitter at Sean Shapiro is where I share quite a bit of it. It's basically, we've talked about it before around here. But it's kind of the space where, I get to play around with some silly hockey ideas, write about the schedule. My idea to change the schedule today.

I had a really good feature there on Magnus Helberg earlier this week that people should check out just as a guy who's legitimately super interesting and has traveling around, has been traveling around the country and waived multiple times. And there's a good nugget in there about the fact of the matter is someone above Seattle tried to claim him the first time Seattle claimed. him and so they don't know which team that is but uh some some good nuggets there so check out the sub stack uh yeah and then always as always got the stuff over at ep rings side but this is always

you always make me feel like i do no work like you say like what do you got a plug like you then you're all of a sudden you get like all clammed up and you're and you start saying what you do and you're like oh man i do nothing i do nothing ever and then like that's what it feels like when you would you get to like to plug your stuff so but check out the sub stack and uh it's uh i think i think we do some I think we have some fun there. So yeah, man. All right. Well,

this is a blast. I will usually hear I say, oh, I'll be back. I'll be back tomorrow on Friday. As I say, I'll be back on Monday. In this case, I'm actually taking next week off for the holidays.

I am, I'm going, do you have any fun holiday plans for yourself with your family? Or are you guys just staying home and doing the regular day? Just kind of staying home. We'll do, we'll do Hanukkah on first night of Hanukkah Sunday night with the kids. It'll be fun.

and I don't know. I know you said not to make it a home improvement one, but fingers crossed if I get the water to freeze in the backyard by Monday, they have a nice holiday skate. I love it. All right. Well, I'm going to,

you know, for people here in Vancouver who listen there, they're familiar with Tafino. It's out on Vancouver Island. We're going out for a few days. They're looking forward to it. So I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday season. And we will be back here on Wednesday,

December 28th with a new episode. So the following week after that, So looking forward to that. I'm sure there's going to be plenty of stuff to catch up on and discuss then. So that'll be a blast. So in the meantime, thank you to everyone for listening to the HockeyPedio cast. Here, as always, on the Sportsnet Radio Network.