Should the NHL learn from the Olympics and switch to a 3-2-1-0 standings format?

With the Olympics in the rearview mirror, we’re back to… what was it again? That league with all the teams and the six-month season? Right, the NHL, that was it. The NHL is back. Feel the excitement.

But while the Olympic tournament is over and some of us might be eager to move on, now might be a good time to wonder about whether the NHL could learn something from how the tournament was structured.

No, I don’t mean using 3-on-3 overtime to settle championships – fans around the world seem to agree that that part was bad. And I don’t mean the smaller rules that we debated last week in Rules Court. I’m thinking of an element you may have already forgotten about, since it was only in place for the round robin: Should the NHL borrow a page from the Olympics and move to a 3-2-1-0 points system?

That’s where teams receive three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime/shootout win, one point for an overtime/shootout loss, and zero points for a regulation loss. Is that better than what we have now?

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A brief history of skate-in-crease reviews, an awful rule some of you seem to want to go back to

The NHL’s GMs are meeting this week, and one of the items expected to be discussed is the replay review system. It’s mostly working fine, the league’s powerbrokers seem to agree. But reviews are taking too long, and maybe we should learn from the NFL’s recent changes that allow replay officials to nudge referees over missed calls. And, of course, people are mad about goaltender interference reviews. As always.

This latest flare-up in the debate was prompted by a close call in a recent game between the Jets and Lightning. That one initially went against Winnipeg and was upheld after a coach’s challenge, much to the frustration of Jets’ goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. You wouldn’t think that “guy whose whole job is preventing goals thinks goal he allowed shouldn’t have counted” would be major news, but here we are.

It’s all led to another round of the usual “nobody knows how interference works” hysteria, the sort of performative confusion that certain fans, media and even coaches love to put on whenever a call goes against their team (but weirdly, never when it goes the other way). It’s also led to the latest appearance of what seems like a reasonable question: Why is this all so subjective? Why can’t we just have a black-and-white rule that works the same way every time, and that we don’t have to argue about?

It’s a fair question. And apparently, some of you are either too young or too new to the sport to know that there's an answer. So on behalf of us old-timers, here's the short version: We tried that, it was a disaster, and everyone hated it.

We also vowed never to do it again, but lately it feels like that might not last. If the “just get it right” crowd forms a coalition with the “just keep it simple” brigade, maybe we’re headed back to the cut-and-dried interference calls of the past. It’s might even be inevitable; if we really can’t stomach any ambiguity on these calls, then we don't really have any other options.

But if so, we should at least know what we’re getting into. And if you’re the sort of fan who’s found themselves wondering why we can’t just do this the easy way, you should know the history of how we got here.

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Which team should win the 2023 Conned Smythe for the worst Golden Knights trade?

About a year ago, I proposed a new NHL award: The Conned Smythe, earned by whichever team made the dumbest trade with the biggest impact on a Stanley Cup winner. We went through all the winners of the cap era, up to and including last year’s Avalanche, and retroactively awarded the Conned Smythe to whichever team they’d taken advantage of. Some of the calls were tougher than others, and a good time was had by all.

Which brings us to this year: the Vegas Golden Knights, and what might be the most fiercely contested Conned Smythe race of all-time.

Most winners have had at least a few candidates, but the Knights are stacked with them. That makes sense, since this team started from scratch just six years ago, has never really had any high picks, and has been notoriously aggressive on the trade front. So we’ve got a ton of options to choose from. Maybe too many.

So who wins? Let’s figure it out.

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Puck Soup: Oh good more Canucks talk

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Islanders land Bo Horvat
- 30 years of Gary Bettman
- An amateur goalie gets his shot with the Oilers
- The Rangers' pride night debacle
- Bobby Hull's legacy
- All-stars, post-game awards and more

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>> Subscribe on iTunes
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>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Don’t judge Gary Bettman’s 30 years on what he’s done, but on what could have been

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Gary Bettman becoming the NHL's first commissioner. It’s a big milestone, one that puts Bettman ahead legendary president Frank Calder's 26 years and within range of Clarence Campbell's 33.

Even that doesn't do his term justice – given the ever-expanding size of the league and the shifting landscape of today's pro sports world, Bettman's reign long ago surpassed any of his predecessors in terms of complexity. He's the most influential figure in the history of the NHL, and it's not close.

Influential, sure. But has that influence been a positive one for the league and its fans? That's a more complicated question.

To get to an answer, let's begin at the beginning. On Bettman's first official day on the job back on February 1, 1993, the league was unsteadily lurching its way into a new era. Many teams were struggling financially, the games were needlessly violent and often uncompetitive, and the league had just been through a brief but jarring midseason players' strike. In America at least, hockey was a decidedly niche sport that often seemed in danger of being left behind.

There's no two ways about it – Bettman inherited a mess. Compared to what the NHL was when Bettman walked through the door, the state of today's league makes his tenure looks like an unqualified success.

But that hardly seems like the right way to judge his work. By the early 90s, the bar for NHL leadership had been set so low that virtually any halfway competent executive could have stepped over it. If representing an upgrade on Gil Stein is good enough, then sure, hand Bettman his A+ and be done with it. Most of us would like to aim a little higher.

So instead of comparing Bettman to what had come before, let's take the admittedly trickier approach of measuring him against what might have been. Is the NHL that we have now the best we could do? Have hockey fans been well-served by the Bettman era?

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Puck Soup: Tanks for nothing

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Gary Bettman swears that nobody is tanking
- The Canucks finally fire Bruce Boudreau. Now what?
- Updating our all-star tiers
- What's happening with the Yzerplan in Detroit?
- Oilers up, Islanders down
- Barry Trotz media tour, and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Grab Bag: Gary Bettman’s surveys, renaming awards, and Rod Brind’Amour’s workout

Gary Bettman made headlines this week when he defended the league’s foray into digital board ads. While many fans have complained that the animated ads are distracting and often glitchy, Bettman pushed back on the subject, calling it a “non-issue” and insisting that the league’s internal polling proves that fans actually find games more watchable with the new ads.

That struck many of us as odd. Sure, some fans don’t mind the board ads and everyone understands the desire for more revenue, but it’s hard to imagine how they’d made the game-watching experience better. But Bettman says he has the polling to back it up. Will he show us the numbers? No he will not, but when has he ever given you a reason not to trust him?

In an effort to turn this controversy into a teachable moment, I had my spies at the NHL head office infiltrate the market research department. They were able to smuggle out a list of Gary Bettman’s tips for keeping your finger on the pulse of your fan base.

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Puck Soup: The Great Eight (Hundred)

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Alexander Ovechkin hits 800
- It's Board of Governors time and Gary Bettman is making stuff up again
- You won't believe what penalty Colin Campbell wants to fix
- Bettman does not want a play-in round
- The Canucks have to make a decision on Bo Horvat
- Let's rename some awards
- An ugly brawl in the stands
- Tage Thompson, Jaromir Jagr and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic >> Subscribe on iTunes.

>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Rating the biggest NHL draft moments from draft weekend on the Surprise Scale

For the first time in three years, the NHL held its annual entry draft in person. While the league did what it had to do in Zoom era, it’s probably fair to say that those drafts won’t stand out as being especially memorable. This one will, and as always with a good draft week, it’s at least partly because of how it surprised us.

That seems like a good excuse to break out the Surprise Scale for the first time since those distant days of 2019. This is the gimmick where we look at the draft through the lens of how much it was able to deliver on the unexpected. Whether it’s a surprising pick, a big trade, or just something weird, it’s always great when an event that gets previewed and mocked and hyper-analyzed as much as the draft can still surprise us.

As always, surprises are rated on a scale of 0 to 100 based on a scientific model of me just making it up as I go along. We’ll start in the hours leading up to the draft, when the Blackhawks decided to throw a wrench into everyone’s afternoon off…

The Alex DeBrincat Trade

We knew the deal was coming, because the Hawks kept telling us it was even though it didn’t make all that much sense. Chicago is rebuilding, but that feels like all the more reason to hold onto a 24-year-old who scores 40 goals. The one argument in favor of a deal was that DeBrincat was easily the team’s top trade chip, so maybe somebody would step up with an offer that was just too good to say no to.

Then the deal went down with the Senators and… well, it’s fair to say the return wasn’t overwhelming. Two draft picks, including the seventh overall and an early second-rounder, and that was it. No prospects, no picks in future drafts to file away, just two picks in a decent draft in exchange for your best player.

As far as surprises go, this deal shouldn’t have ranked all that high, if only because we knew it was coming. But given how uninspiring the return was for Chicago and what a potential steal this looks like for Ottawa, we can bump it up a few points.

Surprise scale: 60/100. Seriously, the Hawks know that Ottawa has like a dozen solid prospects, right?

With no other major moves breaking in the leadup to the big night, let’s move on to the draft itself…

The Crowd in Montreal

They were amazing. An absolute A+. Being in the building on Thursday night was one of the highlights of my life as a hockey writer. I can’t pump their tires enough.

For the first few decades of the amateur and entry draft, the event was always held in Montreal. Honestly, at this point I think I’m willing to support going back to that. You rock, Montreal fans.

Surprise scale: 90/100. Look, I know Montreal fans are great, and my expectations were high. You blew them away.

And of course, we can’t talk about the crowd without a mention of…

Gary Bettman gets booed

It was brutal. We’re talking a 1995 Devils fans level of heat. And as always, Bettman seemed completely thrown off. He came with the same condescending jokes he always tries, and even worked in a new angle by speaking some truly awful French (although we’ll give him credit at least memorizing it this time, instead of reading it off a gum wrapper). But within a few seconds it was clear that this was going to be ugly.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Happy birthday to you

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Ian tells me who's birthday it is today, and gets a very emotional reaction from me
- I think I was wrong and the NHL was right about that offside review
- Offside review is still terrible, though
- Jesse Granger has Conn Smythe odds, including one big name with wildly high odds
- Devils fans tells us how many Cups they'd give up to beat the Rangers
- The all-disappointment team, goalie injuries, 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)

The Athletic Hockey Show: The year of the third-string goalie

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Gary Bettman shuts down talk of the changing the playoff format
- The pros and cons of adding a play-in round
- The early story of the playoffs: Goalie injuries, and some unlikely wins
- Jesse Granger on why Pete DeBoer hasn't been fired (yet)
- How oddsmakers overreact to early playoff games
- My thoughts on the Leafs and Lightning after two games
- Listener mail, 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)

Puck Soup: NHLFTs

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- What worked and what didn't from all-star weekend
- The Ducks get their new GM
- The Hawks don't, but they're interviewing lots of people and telling us all about it
- Could a baseball guy be a good NHL GM?
- Gary Bettman's weak answers on Arizona, Wirtz and COVID
- Plus Oscars, Olympics and a new quiz about NHL NFTs

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Weekend rankings: All-star weekend wrap, those missing Maple Leafs, Bettman fails again and more

We’ve made it through another all-star weekend. It was fun, right? Sure, let’s go with that. Everyone fist-bump.

Friday’s skills competition was pretty much what we should have expected, with a few new wrinkles, one of which was that it was secretly also Thursday’s skills competition, with the two new outdoor events being pre-taped. (The league didn’t mention that, although having it go from dark to dusk in an hour might have been a hint). Let’s be honest, the skills event always ends up being the sort of thing that looks better in a two-minute highlight package than it does when you spend a few hours watching it in real time. As always, there was too much standing around, nobody seemed quite sure of the rules, the crowd was mostly confused and quiet, and for some reason there seemed to be more people running around doing interviews than actual players to talk to. The two new Vegas-themed events worked well enough, despite that sort of awkward “Do I have to do this?” vibe that pretty much anything involving hockey players is destined to have. We’ll at least give the league credit for trying something new, and getting it to mostly work.

The highlight came in the return of the breakaway challenge, which hadn’t been seen since 2016. It’s more of a dress-up contest than a hockey event now, but that’s fine because there are only so many Forsbergs you can see in one night. This year’s show was stolen by Trevor Zegras, doing a Dodge Ball-inspired blindfolded Jedi move. Jack Hughes followed that with a full-on magic trick.

Then they both lost to Alex Pietrangelo, who… uh, pointed at Carrot Top? Look, it’s still all-star weekend, the local team has to win something whether they deserve it or not. The point is that the kids had some fun. Did it feel like everyone was trying a little bit too hard? Sure, but it’s all-star weekend, and we’ll always take that over not trying at all.

Speaking of which… the game itself. Or games, since there are three of these things now, all played 3-on-3. This year’s edition was an opportunity for the league to show off its most entertaining and important stars, which is to say the guys who do replay reviews for offside calls. We got two of those, but somehow missed out on a five-minutes officials huddle to figure out where a puck had gone over the glass. Maybe next year.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Let's get Wild

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- The Wild buy out Zach Parise and Ryan Suter and we're confused
- How many 10-year+ contracts actually worked?
- Remember that bonkers Chris Chelios threat to Gary Bettman
- Thoughts on the Senators' interesting new front office
- More on the Duncan Keith trade
- Jesse Granger on next year's Cup odds
- Cinderella teams, the days of coach/GMs, remembering the 1994 Mike Keenaan fiasco 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)

Puck Soup: Conne Smythe or con job?

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Thoughts on the Stanley Cup final, and how Tampa's mayor may have ruined everything
- The Matiss Kivlenieks tragedy
- Jonathan Toews says he's on the way back
- Duncan Keith to Edmonton?
- Ron MacLean whiffs on his Bettman interview
- We pass judgment on each of the cap era's Conn Smythe calls
- A new game show on the NHL's longest contracts, and more...

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

The Athletic Hockey Show: The NHL changes the channel

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- The NHL returns to ESPN for $400 million/year
- Does Gary Bettman deserve credit for saving the league's bottom line?
- We wonder if the trade deadline will end up being a bust
- Buffalo vs. Vancouver for hockey heartache, and which other fan bases are in the running
- How much does home-ice advantage matter when you have a few thousand fans?
- Marc-Andre Fleury, listener questions, 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)

Puck Soup: This is not a renegotiation (it is)

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Gary Bettman and the owners think the players should renegotiate. They might be right.
- The 25h anniversary of the Patrick Roy trade
- An argument about which sports are sports
- OUFL Christma movies
- A new round of the $25,000 Pierre-amid
- And more...

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Mailbag: No Bettman boos, history's most heart-breaking posts, and 20 Haseks vs. 20 Hextalls

It’s mailbag time again. The last time we did this, we argued about whether you could win a championship with 20 Connor McDavids and which Stanley Cup final we should reverse the results of. Was that last month? Last week? Five years ago? (Tries to remember what day it is today.) There’s really no way of knowing. But I’m like 90% sure it was before the Lightning won the Cup, so let’s check in with what the readers have come up with since then.

Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity.

When the Stanley Cup is awarded this year, will the NHL play crowd noise booing Bettman, or will they get it wrong? How loud should the booing crowd be?
– Dan G.

Dan obviously sent this question before the Lightning won, so now we know the answer: No, the NHL didn’t pipe in any booing. Or cheering, or anything else. They just had Bettman go out there and start talking, with no attempt whatsoever to get creative.

And you know what? Good! That was the right approach. My timeline was filled with people who apparently though it would be funny to hear fake boos, so maybe I’m in the minority here, but I can’t imagine anything more cringe-inducing that Bettman playing along to prerecorded scorn to show that he’s a good-natured guy who can take a joke. It would have been painfully awkward, and totally wrong for the moment. The NHL made the right call.

(Although to be honest, this idea was pretty hilarious.)

While we’re on the topic, can we address the new Cup presentation approach, where Bettman called the whole team over for a group pose while he did his rambling speech?

This was apparently something that the Lightning requested, but it was… not great. Whether it was the players giving him awkward why-are-you-still-here looks, or him yelling “What? No not yet!” into a live microphone, the whole thing just didn’t work for me, a self-appointed expert on Bettman’s Cup handoffs. But I did love how the team immediately got together for a new photo as soon as they saw that he’d left. I always assume that’s what all my friends do whenever we take a group shot.

Ovechkin gets teleported to 1967 to play for the Habs and all the team’s other skaters get lost on the way to the Cup final against the Leafs. Could him and Rogie Vachon win it by themselves?
– Taylor H.

If you listen to the podcast, you know that I have a standing theory that if you teleported Ovechkin back to the Rocket Richard 50-in-50 era, he’d score 50 goals in roughly 50 minutes. I don’t say that out of disrespect to the Original Six era legends – I’m the guy who wrote a history book, remember – but the advances in skill, strategy and conditioning in seven decades has just been enormous. That’s why it’s so hard to compare athletes across eras, especially in hockey. You have to assume everyone is being judged relative to the peers they played against, because otherwise you have to acknowledge that every player on a roster today is “better” than Howie Morenz ever was.

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Grab Bag: Awards thoughts, MLB lessons and the 1994 Rangers visit David Letterman

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- My spies have the scoop on what the voters really thought about all your favorite awards candidates
- A lesson hockey can learn from this MLB mess
- An obscure player who could have been an off-brand all-star
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube look back at the 1994 Rangers celebrating their Cup win in a David Letterman top ten

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Grab Bag: A request for a June draft, roster puzzle answers and a donut delay

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The one thing the NHL better not to do for their June draft
- Answers and explanations to this week's puzzle challenge
- An obscure player who was the NHL's first X-rated player
- This month's comedy stars
- And a YouTube look back at Yellow Sunday's donut delay, with Bob Cole and Harry Neale

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