Showing posts with label benn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label benn. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Re-evaluating the HHOF cases for John Tavares, Jamie Benn, Corey Perry and more

It’s Hall of Fame induction week, and the class of 2025 is an interesting one. Of the four players on the men’s side, we had two absolute locks (Zdeno Chara and Joe Thornton), plus one guy who was very close (Duncan Keith) and another who should have been (Alexander Mogilny). While you never quite know how the committee will judge a candidate, all four players absolutely felt like future Hall-of-Famers midway through their careers.

Many eventual HHOFers fit that pattern. That said, it’s possible for a player to feel like a borderline candidate in their prime, only to have the sort of finishing kick that flips them to a sure thing. We saw that with Marc-Andre Fleury, who I had as “not there yet” back in 2019 when he was already well into his mid-30s, but who added a Vezina to his trophy case two years later to seal the deal. Fellow goalie Sergei Bobrovsky was “very” close as recently as early 2024, then won back-to-back Cups and is essentially a lock. And in 2019, Shea Weber was a strong candidate who felt like he just needed to close the case – which he emphatically did with the Habs 2021 playoff run, leading to his induction last year.

Then again, some players start off looking like they’re on the HHOF fast track but then fade before the finish line. You never really know until a player’s career is over. And sometimes, we’re not even sure then.

That’s why it’s worthwhile checking in on a star player as their career is still going on. You won’t get a definitive answer, obviously, but there’s still value in a quick temperature check. We’ve been doing that for years, on this site and others. And a few years ago, we went back for another look at some veterans who’d been borderline calls before.

We’re going to do that again today, as we revisit the HHOF cases of six active players who might make for tricky calls.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Friday, November 10, 2023

Debating the Hall of Fame case for Joe Pavelksi, John Tavares and other active stars

The Hockey Hall of Fame will welcome its class of 2023 tomorrow. That’s always fun, but I prefer to look ahead. In this case, several years ahead, because we’re going to study the candidacies of a half dozen players who are still active. The question is simple: Are they on a Hall of Fame track?

This is something I like to poke around with every so often, usually around HHOF time. Here are the columns I did during the 2019 offseason, another from later that year, and one from 2021, plus one that reevaluated a few of those cases last year. (If you’re going to hit me with a “I can’t believe you didn’t mention…” comment, know that there’s a decent chance the guy you’re thinking of was already covered in one of those pieces.)

This time, it’s six brand new names, some based on your suggestions over the years. And just to make sure I’m not too far off track with my own judgements, I’ll be checking in with Paul Pidutti's Adjusted Hockey, the excellent system that boils a player’s Hall qualifications down to a single number. Paul’s formula is hardly an argument-ender – nor should it be, because the argument is most of the fun – but it helps ground the discussion in some historical reality.

Let’s do this. Six names, starting with a fan favorite…

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Thursday, February 9, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: Ranking the rankings

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Julian McKenzie steps in for Ian, who is still too sad about the 49ers
- We talk NHL99, and Julian has some questions about my ballot
- Jesse weights in on where the goalies ranked
- My attempt to make a movie reference fails miserably
- A listener wants to know about Jamie Benn's HHOF case
- This week in history and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Do these five stars have bad contracts? Welcome to Salary Cap Court

There was a time when fans could get away with not caring about player salaries. Except in an indirect way, it wasn’t their money, so who really cared if some rich owner was paying a bit too much for a third-line center? Maybe he missed a payment on one of his yachts, but otherwise, no harm no foul.

Then the NHL became a hard cap league. Today, salaries – or more specifically, cap hits – are absolutely crucial. Squeezing as much value as possible into an artificially limited salary structure is the key to building and maintaining a contender, and even one big mistake can derail a roster. In today’s NHL, as I’ve phrased it before, a good player with a bad contract isn’t a good player.

We’ve had some fun over the years with some of the league’s worst signings, even building an entire cap-compliant roster out of them. But for the most part, those were the contracts nobody argues about. We all know that Brent Seabrook’s deal is bad. Nobody’s calling Bobby Ryan a value contract these days. We’ve beaten Milan Lucic’s deal into the ground, picked it up and dusted it off, then beaten it down again. With very few exceptions, even the most diehard fans aren’t defending those kind of deals anymore.

Other contracts aren’t as simple, and those are the ones we’re going to focus on here. Welcome to Salary Cap Court, where we’ll weigh the pros and cons of five contracts that might be bad, but maybe might not.

To be clear, every contract that makes its way to cap court will be questionable; there won’t be any good deals here. But we want to know if they’re outright bad, or merely not great. We’ll make the case for both sides of the argument, and then we’ll render a verdict, passing judgment on whatever’s left of a deal and deciding once and for all whether it really deserves to have the dreaded “bad contract” label slapped on it.

Make sense? Then be seated, because Salary Cap Court is in session. Let’s bring out our first defendant.


Erik Karlsson, Sharks

The details: Eight years and a cap hit of $11.5 million, thanks to an extension signed days before he would have become an unrestricted free agent last summer.

The case that it’s a bad contract: Karlsson has two Norris Trophies, should maybe have more, and might have been the very best defenseman of the 2010s. But everything in that sentence is in the past tense, and with his new contract only kicking in this year, the present and future are all that matters. The reality is that he didn’t play at a truly elite level in his last year in Ottawa, he didn’t live up to the hype in his first year in San Jose, and he hasn’t been especially great this year.

If you’re trying to figure out why, it’s not hard to round up the usual suspects: injury and age. He had a groin injury last year that resulted in surgery, and a heel problem before that. Mix in the fact that he turns 30 at the end of this season, and it’s not hard to wonder if his recent decline is permanent. That doesn’t mean he can’t still be a solid player, or even a very good one. But he’s being paid like he’s the very best defenseman in the league, and it sure looks like he isn’t that player anymore.

The case that it might be OK: Injuries heal, and we’ve already seen Karlsson overcome a more serious scare in 2013, when he missed most of the season with a sliced Achilles. He came back from that just fine, posting three straight first-team all-star seasons. As for age, we’ve seen plenty of superstar blueliners play into their late-30s and beyond, including Ray Bourque, Al MacInnis, Chris Chelios and Nicklas Lidstrom. Karlsson’s always been a great skater, but his most important talent is his vision and instinct, and that won’t fade even if he loses a half-step.

Sure, he’s been disappointing this season. So has everyone on the Sharks. The year has been a disaster. We can’t just throw out the whole season, but we shouldn’t lean on it too much either. Last year might be a better example of what Karlsson’s floor could be, and it’s worth remembering that even in an off-year his underlying numbers were decent and he still played well enough to show up on a handful of Norris ballots. If that’s the worst-case, it’s not bad. And his best-case looks a lot like his 2017 playoff run, when he almost managed to drag a very average Senators team all the way to the final. That wasn’t that long ago, and he was fighting through injuries then too.

The bottom line is that Karlsson is a generational talent, and when he’s fully healthy he’s basically been unstoppable. Every long-term deal is a gamble in some sense, but if you’re going to roll the dice, this is exactly the sort of player you do it on.

Key comparisons: Drew Doughty is the obvious one, with a similar eight-year deal that carries an $11 million hit. We’d also want to look at Roman Josi (8 x $9 million) and teammate Brent Burns (8 x $8 million). There’s also John Carlson, who signed his 8-year, $8 million cap hit deal at a similar age and is delivering the sort of dynamic Norris-caliber season Karlsson used to, but for a lot less money.

The verdict: The case against the Karlsson deal is a strong one, but I’m not sure it goes beyond a reasonable doubt. The Sharks are in cap hell, and we’ll watch Karlsson closely over the next season or so, but for now we’ll tentatively say: not a bad contract. Yet.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Friday, January 4, 2019

DGB Grab Bag: An idea to save the All-Star game, Jim Lites’ bleeping tirade and the story of the Saska-Who Blues

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Stars like Alexander Ovechkin skipping the all-star game is a problem, but there's a simple solution
- Dallas Stars CEO Jim Lites had a bit of a meltdown, but I have an idea for how he can make it up to us
- An obscure player with a famous name and a monster rookie season
- The week's three comedy stars, plus the last member of the Hall of Fame class of 2019
- And a YouTube breakdown of the time that a dog food company tried to move the St. Louis Blues to Saskatoon

>> Read the full post at The Athletic




Monday, December 31, 2018

DGB weekend power rankings: The Oilers retool, the Predators fade, and the Stars do whatever the #### that was

The​ rankings took last​ week​ off,​ so​ with​ two​ weeks of​ action to account​ for we should​ expect​ to see a higher-than-usual​​ level of turnover in both the top and bottom five to the extent that blah blah blah let’s talk about how the Dallas Stars have gone looney tunes.

Seriously, I realize that this is a power rankings piece and I should stay focused on which teams go where. But I have a few rules in life, and one of them is that if a team’s CEO kicks off the weekend by going on an expletive-laden rant that would make the corpse of Harold Ballard blush, it gets to be the lead story.

If you haven’t read the rundown in Sean Shapiro’s piece yet, you must do so immediately. And if you have read it, you need to read it again to convince yourself that you didn’t dream it. Go do that now, then come back.

Done? Cool. Now that you’ve read the story, learned some new curse words, and your screen is covered with the singed hair that used to be your eyebrows, let’s figure out what all of this means.

Point one: I don’t think Dallas Stars CEO Jim Lites is super-happy with Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn, you guys. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Is he right? Well, no, not really – Seguin and Benn don’t seem to be the problem in Dallas. But that hardly matters now, since it’s not like these are the sort of comments you can walk back.

Point two: Man, the timing is weird here. The rant came the night after the Stars went into Nashville and shut out the defending Presidents’ Trophy winners. That win was their third in five games, and moved them back into a wild-card spot. You’d think you might want to build on that, not use it as a starting point to go scorched earth on your two franchise players.

And finally, the biggest point of all: It’s hard to imagine any way in which this helps the Stars, either now or in the future. Benn and Seguin didn’t sound happy on Saturday, as you’d expect, and while neither poured any additional gas on the fire the NHLPA is now getting involved. Both players are signed to long-term deals, and even if the Stars wanted to trade them – ownership denies that they do – it would be hard to pull it off in a way that made the team better. And which players are going to be lining up to replace them at the top of the lineup, now that the entire league knows that the Stars are an organization that will publicly humiliate its top players when things are going well?

And it wasn’t just about Benn and Seguin. Lites’ comments didn’t just bury his two stars; they sure seemed to imply that GM Jim Nill could be under the gun too. He probably should be, given the teams’ recent record, but having management advertise the fact publicly can’t make his job any easier.

Maybe the biggest problem with Friday’s meltdown is that it wasn’t spontaneous or off-the-cuff, meaning it appears to reflect the agreed-upon thinking of the organization from the top down. And when you strip away the profanity and the hyperbole, that thinking seems to boil down to: We’re already good enough – “too good”, in fact – and we just need to try harder. Not scoring enough goals? Just “get a little bit closer to the action”, as Lites put it, and the problem is solved.

It sure sounds easy when you put it that way. Unfortunately, that’s not the sort of thing that a struggling team comes up with after any sort of serious self-reflection. It’s wishful thinking, the sort of feel-good story you tell yourself when you don’t have the guts to admit that there are bigger flaws in play.

Maybe it works, and Lites’ tirade ends up inspiring the team. Maybe it doesn’t but ends up coinciding with a win streak and we all decide to pretend it somehow helped. Or maybe the boss just torpedoed a season, or even more than that. We’ll find out. At the very least, we can say the Stars are interesting again. For three years they’ve been that team you forget about when you’re going through the Central in your head and get stuck at six teams. Not anymore.

On to the power rankings. We have two weeks to work with, which should shake up our rankings. Let’s find out just how much.

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they’re headed toward a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.

Saturday was the rare case of the league breaking out the maximum 15-game schedule. Then they went and played just one game last night. That’s a bit weird for fans, but as someone who writes most of a weekend wrap column on Sunday afternoon, I’m all for it.

5. Winnipeg Jets (24-12-2, +22 true goals differential*) – They’re opening up some space on top of the Central. But the loss of Dustin Byfuglien will hurt, and the offence has only managed multiple goals in one of their last five games. This week’s schedule is a fun one, with the Oilers, Penguins and Stars on tap.

4. Calgary Flames (23-12-4, +28) – Flames or Sharks? That’s the tough call in the Pacific these days. The Flames hold a slight lead, but the Sharks are the hotter team right now. Some models like Calgary. Others prefer San Jose. We’ll get to see them head-to-head tonight, but for now I’m leaning toward the Flames. (Now they just need to avoid any unnecessary distractions…)

>> Read the full post at The Athletic




Friday, February 10, 2017

Grab bag: How to be an NHL goaltender

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The Bruins fire Claude Julien, and everyone's mad about a parade
- One of the most depressing quotes you'll ever read about scoring in the NHL
- An obscure player with an obscure record that can't be right
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube breakdown of Don Edwards' truly weird tips for young goalies in 1981

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports






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THE 100 GREATEST PLAYERS IN NHL HISTORY (AND OTHER STUFF): AN ARBITRARY COLLECTION OF ARBITRARY LISTS

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Monday, April 25, 2016

Weekend report: Meeting the moment

The playoffs are all about losing. Every year, 16 teams enter and 15 leave with their heads down, defeated and discarded. It's the cruel reality of the most unforgiving time of year.

But all losses are not created equal—some are far worse than others. And all teams aren't created equal. Some seem to take those bad losses a lot more often than the odds say they should. This year's opening round featured three of those teams in the Sharks, Capitals and Blues. All three have earned reputations for coming up small in big moments. All three saw the first round set them up to do it again, which, of course, also meant they had a chance to strike a blow against their demons.

The first team to stare down its past was San Jose, which finished off the Kings on Friday to become the first Western Conference team to punch a ticket to the second round. That doesn't exactly erase a reputation built over a decade-plus of postseason disappointment—remember, the Sharks had already been past the first round nine times since 2000, and that didn't stop anyone from deciding that they'd never gone far enough. But getting that win against Los Angeles certainly sends a message, and offers at least a small measure of payback for the epic 2014 collapse that saw San Jose blow a 3-0 series lead to the eventual Cup champion Kings. This year has always had a different vibe for the Sharks, with so many having written them off that they felt like plucky underdogs instead of pressure-weary favorites. They've still got a ways to go, but if knocking off the Kings doesn't count as getting it done when it matters, not much can.

Next up were the Capitals, facing down their history of taking big leads in playoff series and then watching them slip away. They'd never blown a 3-0 series lead, which is what they held heading into Game 4 against the Flyers. They lost that game, and then the next, outplaying the Flyers in both but being stoned by a red-hot Michal Neuvirth. That had Washington fans nearing panic mode for Sunday's Game 6, but the Capitals held on for a 1-0 nail-biter. They'll move on to face the Penguins, a team that factors heavily into that history of playoff misery, in a matchup that feels a lot like the unofficial Eastern Conference final.

And then you've got the Blues, a franchise with a nearly 50-year history of playing perfectly solid regular-season hockey, then fading out of the picture as soon as the playoffs get serious. They drew the worst-case scenario for their opening round matchup, facing the defending champion Blackhawks, and then responded with three wins in the opening four games. But everything changed once Game 5 arrived and Chicago's late-series super powers activated, and now we're headed to a Game 7 tonight.

Much like the Sharks and Capitals, the Blues can quiet all the history talk at least temporarily with a win. But heading into the game, they look an awful lot like a team in disarray. Ken Hitchcock is coaching for his job, and he's apparently decided to do it by picking a fight with his best player. Vladimir Tarasenko isn't playing anywhere near the minutes you'd expect, and he doesn't seem happy about it.

This all feels like the last thing the Blues need heading into a make-or-break game. And again, if they manage to earn a win, then we will forget all about the drama and start figuring out how well they match up against the Stars. But if not... well, sorry, Blues fan. The postseason narrative beast needs to be fed. And with only one team left to feed on, it won't be pretty.

Conn Smythe Watch

Celebrating those who are making the strongest case for postseason MVP honors.

5. Guys you've never heard of—It happens every year, and it's one of the best parts of the playoffs: The guy who gets to play the hero on the game's biggest stage, forcing the rest of us to pretend we have any clue who he is.

We saw it Friday in Florida, where the double-overtime marathon between the Islanders and Panthers was ended not by John Tavares or Jaromir Jagr or even Aleksander Barkov on the third sudden death penalty shot in playoff history. Instead, it was rookie Alan Quine, a former sixth-round pick who was playing in his seventh career NHL game. At around the same time Quine was playing the hero, it was San Jose rookie Joonas Donskoi who was scoring twice, including the winner, in the deciding game in Los Angeles. Many fans may not have even known Donskoi's name; now they even know his weird nickname.

Donskoi and Quine join other not-so-big names from this year's postseason spotlight like Jeff Zatkoff and Bryan Rust. Here's hoping a few can keep it up, and join the ranks of legendary unlikely playoff heroes like Steve Penney, Chris Kontos and Fernando Pisani.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports




Friday, April 22, 2016

Grab Bag: The beautiful madness of the first round

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- It's the first round and everyone's angry about something, so it's time for the Outrage Lightning Round
- An obscure player who might make Steve Mason feel a little better
- The worse way to argue about dirty hits
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a look back at wonderful insanity that were Fox's pre-game playoff montages

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports




Wednesday, December 2, 2015

We are all Dallas Stars fans now

As leaguewide scoring rates continue to drop and the NHL mulls yet another round of rule changes to boost offense, many fans are no doubt wondering: What can I do? What kind of steps could a typical fan take to help the league get back to the sort of exciting action it used to showcase a generation ago, before defense and goaltending took over?

The answer has always been: not much. Fans can complain all they want, but the issue is a complicated one and the league has shown precious little resolve to make the sort of drastic changes that might address it. You can vote with your eyeballs or your wallet, but that’s about it. There’s nothing you can do to help the league save itself.

Until now. This season, there really is a simple action we all could take that could make a difference.

This season, we all need to cheer for the Dallas Stars to win the Stanley Cup.

>> Read the full post on ESPN.com






Thursday, October 29, 2015

NHL stock watch - October edition

It’s the end of October, which means two things for NHL fans: Your Twitter feed is being overtaken by awkward photos of your favorite players in horrible Halloween costumes, and it’s time to take stock of the first month of regular-season action.

We’ve already covered most of the big trends — Canadiens good! Blue Jackets bad! Ducks maybe even worse! — so we won’t rehash those here. Instead, let’s drill down a bit to some of the league’s other moving parts. Here are some of the first month’s more interesting stories and the direction they’re headed.

Stock Rising: Max Pacioretty

It feels like it shouldn’t be possible for a player in the ravenous Montreal market to be underrated, and that’s especially true when that player is the captain. But I think there’s a good case to be made that Pacioretty has spent most of his career in that category. He probably won’t be there much longer.

Pacioretty sits tied for sixth in the NHL in scoring with 11 points through Montreal’s first 10 games. He’s unlikely to keep up that pace; he’s never topped 70 points or been a point-per-game scorer in his career. But he has been one of the league’s most consistent wingers, good for 30-plus goals and 60-plus points year after year. Since his breakout year in 2011, Pacioretty has more goals than any pure winger other than Alex Ovechkin — more than Patrick Kane, or Corey Perry, or Phil Kessel.

And yet you rarely hear him mentioned with those sorts of guys, despite playing in arguably the most rabid media market in the league. If anything, he’s often been underappreciated. Maybe that’s because the low-key Pacioretty can’t compete with the star power of a Carey Price or P.K. Subban. Maybe it’s a style thing; Pacioretty is more likely to score based on opportunism and his quick release than on highlight-friendly end-to-end rushes. Or maybe a city that’s used to cheering on legends like Rocket Richard and Guy Lafleur has trouble getting excited for a player who’s merely very good.

But in any case, Pacioretty deserves more credit than he gets. Of course, once he’s led the 81-1-0 Habs to a Stanley Cup, that should change.

Stock Falling: Goalies We Thought Were Good

Among goaltenders with at least five starts heading into last night’s action, just four had posted save percentages under .875. One of those is Jonas Hiller. The other three were expected to be good.

Nobody has had a strong start in Columbus, but no one there has been worse than Sergei Bobrovsky. He ranks last in save percentage and goals-against average and has already been quoted as having “zero confidence.” That’s not what you want to hear from a goaltender, especially one who’s just three years removed from a Vezina Trophy. His numbers have been trending in the wrong direction since then, but they were still solid enough last season that you’d assume this is just an early-season blip. The Blue Jackets better hope so; Bobrovsky is signed through 2019 on a deal that carries the second-biggest cap hit of any goaltender.

In Colorado, Semyon Varlamov has been nipping at Bobrovsky’s heels at the bottom of the stats page. Yet he’s just two years removed from finishing a close second in the 2014 Vezina race. And the guy who beat him out for that award, Boston’s Tuukka Rask, has been almost as bad. Rask posted a shutout Tuesday, and it still left him with the league’s third-worst goals-against average.

History tells us that all three guys will be fine — always rely more on the big sample size of a career’s worth of work than on a few shaky weeks, especially with goalies. But the position is a funny one, and a rough enough start really can torpedo a season if it burrows far enough into a guy’s head. Goaltending is voodoo, and right now the Blue Jackets, Avalanche, and Bruins are hoping it won’t end up being the evil kind.

Stock Rising: Jamie Benn

Benn was one of the league’s best stories last season, winning the Art Ross as the league’s top scorer with a four-point game on the season’s final night, including the clinching point with just 10 seconds left.

It was a cool moment, one that capped off a breakout season for the 26-year-old winger. But it wasn’t one that anyone expected him to have much chance of repeating. After all, his 87 points last season was the lowest total to lead the league in over 50 years, helped by some second-half injuries to Sidney Crosby. Benn had earned the title, but his reign was assumed to be a Jarome Iginla–style one-and-out, a case of a player having the good timing to enjoy a career year in a season when everyone else went cold.

But as the season’s first month draws to a close, there’s a familiar name right back on top of the league scoring race. After Tuesday’s three-point performance, Benn has 15 points through nine games, good for the league lead. He remains a key part of the high-flying Stars offense, one that’s made Dallas the most entertaining team in the league.

If he stays healthy, there’s no reason to think he can’t challenge for yet another Art Ross. And this time, nobody will be able to call it a fluke.

Stock Falling: The Islanders’ New Home

The Islanders finally moved out of Nassau Coliseum, generally considered the worst arena in the NHL, at the end of last season. Their new home is the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It’s fair to say reviews have been mixed.

The Barclays Center isn’t anyone’s idea of a classic hockey arena; in fact, it’s barely a hockey arena at all, depending on where you get stuck sitting. It also seats just 15,700 for hockey, the second-lowest capacity in the league. And so far, the Islanders are having trouble filling even that many seats, as many of their fans don’t seem to like the new building. Plus there’s that weird SUV parked in the corner that makes you think you accidentally tuned into a Spengler Cup game.

The good news is this doesn’t seem to be affecting the Islanders, who are icing one of the best teams in the league. And it’s not like the franchise had a ton of options. The Islanders desperately needed to get out of the Coliseum before it completely fell apart, and when they couldn’t make a deal to stay in Uniondale, they took what was available. The Barclays Center may be far from ideal, but it was almost certainly the best option.

As with most NHL problems, winning will fix some of this. If the Islanders keep playing like they have been, attendance should get a boost, and maybe some of those fans will realize they don’t mind the new rink so much after all. The flip side is that the seats stay empty and an Islanders team that could be a Cup contender finds itself heading down the stretch without any discernible home-ice advantage. We’ll see how it works out, but the early returns aren’t encouraging.

>> Read the full post on Grantland




Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Key details from today's NHL/MLB partnership agreement


Bruins. Flyers. Fenway. This image is the top Google result
for "things not involved in the 2015 postseason".

The NHL made some rare August news today, announcing a partnership with Major League Baseball that will see the latter’s MLBAM media division take over the NHL’s web, mobile and streaming services. It’s a big deal, one reportedly valued at around $1.2 billion, and as you would expect with an agreement of that size, it contains lots of fine print.

Luckily, DGB spies were able to get their hands on the deal, and reported back with some of the key details in today’s agreement between the two sports giants.

  • NHL.com will get to give “earned run average”, “strikeouts” and “home runs” confusing new names and then claim they just invented them this year.

  • Both sides agree to indefinitely continue playing that hilarious “Act like you’re actually going to bring a beloved former franchise back to the province of Quebec” joke.

  • The NHL grudgingly agrees that MLB can continue to call 40 fat dudes in flip flops half-heartedly hugging each other a “brawl”.

  • MLB officials clarify that the league’s new rules about having to remain in contact with the box at all times will continue to apply to baseball players only, so calm down, Jamie Benn.