Evolving Hockey Podcast

Tomorrow, NHL Free Agency officially begins. We just released our comprehensive preview article on evolving-hockey.com, and we spend the entire (long) episode discussing what has happened so far, what might happen in the coming months, and what possibly should happen. 

Free agency is a week away! We spend the first half discussing the current free agency environment, some early signings, and Bobby Bonilla. In the second half, we cover our contract projection model, questions, and fumble around with CBA terminology. 

The '21-22 NHL season is now done. The Colorado Avalanche defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning. Which means the offseason has begun! We spend the first half discussing the final teams, the final series, and rivalries among other related things. In the second half, we cover our recently released GAR projections for the '22-23 season. 

The NHL Awards are now final. We spend the first half discussing the results among a host of other topics. The second half we check in on the in-progress Stanley Cup final, discuss other league topics, and ramble for a good 10 minutes at the end about dinosaurs, pronunciations, and explicit language. 

The Stanley Cup Final is upon us. We chat about the final series of the 2022 NHL playoffs, roster construction, depth players, analytical teams, and make a bet revolving around Shawn's favorite hockey player Riley Nash. 

Our favorite subject, skater defense, gets a highlight here as we discuss the Selke results and the imaginary defensemen award alternative. We also chat about issues with team colors in visualizations, Bruce Cassidy's recent termination, and spend the second half answering your mailbag questions! 

Other than the Playoffs, there really isn't much going on in the NHL. We chat about the recently concluded 2nd round and just started 3rd, debate the importance of playoff performance in player and team evaluation (among the other items on Luke's list), and once again talk about Valeri Nichushkin.

We're all a little burned out, but the burn out was not consistent between the three of us so we could still cover all the series. We chat about the Lighting's empire, general round 2 happenings, and spend the second half discussing the first contracts of the 2022 NHL offseason. 

The twins had a very long past week, and we are a day late. However, we still had some time to discuss the end of the first round, chat about the upcoming 2nd round, and talk about model results. In the second half, we covered our recently released NHL contract projections for the 2022 NHL offseason! 

We're midway through the first round of the NHL playoffs (at this point we know the Avalanche swept the Predators, but we didn't know this at the time of recording). We chat about every series, debate team names, talk about the "new" penalty environment, and follow a few rabbit holes like normal. 

Our full preview of the first round is live on the site  (check it out here: https://evolving-hockey.com/blog/evolving-hockey-2022-playoff-preview-round-1/), and we spent the whole episode covering each series. It was a little scatterbrained, but it's been a bit since we've had a "thing" to talk about. Just like the first round will be, this one was fun. 

There's not much to talk about given the playoffs start in a week, but we somehow managed to fill an hour with riveting discussion. We chat about the Golden Knights' struggles, names in general, robotic refs, good defensemen, and some recent additions to all-time hockey tweets.

One of our favorite people in hockey, Charlie O'Connor, joined us for another guest spot. We talked about Charlie's start in hockey stats and writing, covered hockey twitter history, discussed the unfortunate '21-22 Philadelphia Flyers, and saved a little time at the end for some musical debate. 

Just like last week, we're waiting for the playoffs to start. We needed some content, so we asked for your suggestions. On the way, we covered irritating statistical terms, preseason projection misses, Winnipeg's lack of an airport, a Quiz Show around unique defensive performances, and thrash metal.

We're in the dog days of the '21-22 NHL season. The playoff teams are almost all set with only a few teams vying for the remaining spots. With that in mind, we discussed pronunciations, hockey names, fighting, Patrice Bergeron, and jumped into an overview of the foundations of hockey stats. 

We spent the first part of the show bouncing around from one topic to another covering allergies, Gold drafting, playoff implications, and draft lottery ping pong ball conspiracies. The second half is devoted entirely to mailbag questions (with an early sidetrack  to Creed and early 2000s hard rock). 

The 2022 NHL trade deadline happened a few days ago, and we tried to cover every trade that we could fit in. Like this year's deadline, this episode is all over the place, chaotic, and of course fun. 

Josh Manson was traded just before we recorded, so we used this as a jumping off point. We chat about the trade, utility in position-switching, absurd rate statistics due to single-game seasons, bizarre minor league teams, and the Ristolainen signing among a host of other topics. 

In part 3 of our Glossary series, we dive headfirst into RAPM (Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus) and its use in hockey skater evaluation. When we say headfirst, we really do mean it. This part in the series has a lot packed into it. It's not required, but listening to parts 1 & 2 ahead of time will make things a bit smoother. Let's go.

The All Time Hockey Twitter bracket is live, and we had plenty to say about it. We spent the first half chatting about some all-time hockey tweets, social media, and how much older we are than Shawn. In the second half, we get to actual hockey talk regarding the struggling Wild, the Western conference, and a little trade talk. 

We tried to do some planning, but this one ended up as chaotic as ever. Luke coded the entire time while we chatted about the Leafs/Red Wings four-goalie extravaganza, covered obscure icing stats, and attempted to review 2021 free agency. Chaos is fun. 

We recorded this before the USA/Canada gold medal game not really realizing that we should've just waited a day. However, we did cover some fun topics while getting caught in our usual rabbit holes. Tyler Toffoli was traded, Claude Giroux might be traded, we checked in on the Sabres once again, and learned that the Philadelphia Spectrum's roof blew off in 1968. 

We're extremely excited to welcome one of our absolute favorite people in hockey, Alison Lukan (@AlisonL), to the podcast! We discuss Alison's background in hockey and stats, talk about numerous topics related to and regarding the Seattle Kraken, and reminisce about hockey analytics conferences. This was a great time! 

We're very excited to have one of our dearest friends Dom Luszczyszyn (@domluszczyszyn) on the podcast for a special episode. Burritos, Apple Numbers, Game Score, The Seattle Kraken, and Fortnite are the topics of conversation (among many others). This one was fun. 

We're a day later than usual (technical issues), but the extra day gave us time to be extra sharp. We spend the first segment discussing our favorite topics (Geography, the Sabres, and bad NHL teams), and then transition to our takes on potential trade deadline targets.