If you’re a long-time reader of this site or my work, you’ve probably picked up that I’m a pretty big Tottenham Hotspur fan. I’ve written a bit about it before, in fact back in 2023, I somehow connected Shohei Ohtani, fandom, and Tottenham in this piece here:

To re-hash that a little bit, my Tottenham fandom was born during the 2015-16 season and grew into fanaticism during the 2016-17 season. Spurs are the one thing in my life that outside of work and family, I alter my schedule for. I do my best to watch every game live and I’m irrational, and perhaps most dangerously, believe in the team.

If you are familiar with the Premier League at all and the state of the team right now, it’s pretty easy to make fun of my Spurs fandom, which I actually welcome in good fun, if you’d like.

While it’s been a personal passion, watching a soccer team on the other side of the world like it’s a religion, it’s also been important to my growth and development as someone who writes about sports.

Sports are about passion and fandom, about that human connection, and as I like to say, without fandom and human stories, all of this is nothing more than organized exercise.

I love hockey, it’s my favorite sport, but I don’t have the passion for an individual team that many of you have. That’s a side effect, for better or worse, of the job, and when you look at hockey through that lens, it becomes easy to disservice readers who live and breathe with the results of one team.

Having my connection with Tottenham has better connected me with readers, I try to write for hockey fans the way I would want someone to write about soccer and the team I follow with a passion.

That’s why, when I found out back in August that I was going to Sweden for my work with Elite Prospects, and Tottenham happened to play Coventry the Monday after my last day in Sweden, I scheduled a two-day detour to London to see my favorite team.

The trip also worked out well to connect with an old friend from college, who lives in London, but the English leg of this trip was solely planned to go watch Tottenham and to watch them play live for the second time in my life, and the first time since August of 2017.

Since I was traveling alone, I was also able to find a single ticket in the south stand at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, 14 rows up behind the corner flag, and in the massive standing section, which is built to look like a wall of humanity.

I didn’t know anyone else going to the game, this was a completely solo trip. I took the train by myself to the game, explored the neighborhood where the team resides — I’d never been there before, when I attended a game in 2017, Spurs were playing at Wembley while the current stadium was being built to replace White Hart Lane. And did my best to kind of get lost in the moment, soaking in the atmosphere on my time, finding local murals of club legends Ledley King and Son Heung-min, before grabbing a pre-game meal at a tremendous kebab place that my pal Bob Sturm had suggested.

I went in when the gates opened at 6 pm, got a beer and walked around, finished the pint before finding my seat (in England, you can’t have beer within view of the field, old hooligan laws), and then allowed myself to become part of the mass of humanity, mostly season-ticket holders, that stand throughout each Tottenham game.

I yelled a bit and attempted to keep up with chants and songs that others around me delivered with full voice. I got irrationally happy watching James Maddison scoring a worldie of a goal in the first half, before getting irrationally distraught while Coventry tied the game early in the second half, and then got irrationally happy again (or maybe it was all rational?) when Spurs scored twice in the second half, right in front of me, to win their first league game of the season.

The vibe continued after the game, into the streets of Tottenham and eventually onto the train, where it felt pretty damn cool to be part of that moment. Spurs are still in a relegation battle, I’ll stress about it watching on TV next weekend, but yesterday for a couple hours, everything was perfect.

That moment, that feeling, is something I thought about it this morning while on the tube to Heathrow Airport for my flight back to Detroit. It makes you think about how much a single win can mean to someone, how much fun one game in the whole process can mean everything to someone, even if it’s fairly obvious to the outside world that a team isn’t going to win a championship that season.

In a weird way, this line of thinking, made me think a lot about what Calgary Flames goalie Devin Cooley said this week in a post-game interview. If you haven’t seen the clip, which seems unlikely because it’s one of those rare hockey moments that has virally transcended outside the sport, Cooley talks about his mindset during the game.

This part, in particular, stuck with me.

Every second that you spend thinking about yourself through your conscious brain, it distracts you from what’s happening out in front of you, and that’s what I’ve been doing.

Cooley is essentially describing one of my favorite parts about playing the position, which I still attempt to do on Wednesday evenings and Sunday morning. I’ve always referred to it as “blank brain,” where everything feels calm and right in the world, where if do I end up thinking about something, it comes with a sense of clarity as opposed to the normal messiness.

I’ve talked with my therapist quite a bit about trying to find ways to bring this into my every day life (therapy is very cool by the way, that’s another thing that’s really helped me in my life and being open about it has also helped), and it’s part of the approach I took watching Tottenham play on Monday night. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb, only took it out for a couple pictures, and just lived in the moment.

Finding a way to do this more often, in both my writing and every day life, has turned into more of a constant goal, and I think it’s helped me both better connect with people and myself, again through both a personal and writing perspective.

Thanks for reading. We will have more later this week from back in North America.

I’m a bit sleep deprived and at an airport, which honestly is where I do some of my best writing.

As you may have read earlier this week, I was headed to Sweden this week for some work with Elite Prospects. It’s been a whirlwind, I worked a few days in downtown Stockholm, diving through the final stages of a new magazine project for EP, went to multiple games at Hovet Arena, jumped into the Baltic Sea, and recorded my first-ever Gordie Howe hat trick in the EP company game on Saturday morning.

This was also my first extended trip to Sweden, so while I’ve worked with Swedes on a daily basis and have covered many in the NHL, this my first live snap shot into Swedish hockey culture.

Some day, hopefully, I’ll spend a bit more time in the country and travel further outside Stockholm, similar to what I did in Finland in 2019, when I visited more than 30 rinks in a week when I worked at my prior employer.

In the meantime, consider this my crash course in Swedish hockey and its culture, but also understand this is heavily with a Stockholm twist.

I went to two games, both at Hovet, an arena in Stockholm that is home to both Djurgården and AIK. AIK is currently in the HockeyAllsvenskan, the second tier of Swedish hockey, while Djurgården is playing in the SHL.

The two teams have shared an arena since Hovet was opened in 1955, the building didn’t have a roof until 1962. It’s a pretty heated rivalry, for policing issues there have been times when games played between Djurgården and AIK have only allowed fans of the home team for practical safety, including the 2025 HockeyAllsvenskan championship series where Djurgården won and gained promotion to the SHL at AIK’s expense.

It’s a pretty wild thing to see, on Friday we were at the game and AIK played Västerås IK. All the signage, including retired numbers and championships banners, represented AIK. The only evidence of Djurgården’s presence in the building was that both teams have their logos in the ice.

The next day, when Djurgården played Malmo, the same thing could be said about AIK. All of the signage, retired numbers and banners from the night before were gone and replaced by Djurgården.

The respective levels of the two teams right now is pretty apparent, even if AIK is one of the top contenders this season in the HockeyAllsvenskan to win promotion back to the SHL.

The AIK game felt like it was about 60 percent full, there were only 19 visiting fans from Västerås, and while there was a group of supporters that were lively all game, it lacked some punch because of the attendance.

As multiple Swedes told me on the trip, AIK has had a somewhat sadder fall when it comes to popularity right now, there are some old wounds that haven’t healed from missing out on potential promotion a few years back.

Djurgården on the other hand, well, I’ll let some videos tell more of the story here to start.

And that’s pretty reflective of the atmosphere throughout the game, flags waving fans singing and chanting the entire time, and all of it in Swedish, so I’m not sure what was being said beyond hearing “Djurgården” and other select English words.

European sports, from a fan perspective are so much better. It’s participatory and lively, I’ve seen hockey games in Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands now, and all of them have had better crowd atmospheres than any game I’ve been to in North America. (I’ve been told by Europeans that German hockey fans actually raise that another notch, which I’m hoping to see at some point later this season.)

Both games turned out pretty well, too. Both the AIK and Djurgården games went past regulation, with AIK winning in overtime and Djurgården winning in a shootout against Malmo (another note, in the SHL, both teams shoot at the same end, with goalies rotating in and out of the net, similar to soccer).

It was a ton of fun, like I’ve written about before, if you get the chance, go find hockey in other parts of the world, take it in and enjoy the universal language.

Again, this is only a snapshot of hockey in Sweden, but I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up what happened on Saturday morning, where I played in the annual Elite Prospects company game, over at a place called the Ice Academy.

The Ice Academy features two smaller rinks, they have mini zambonis, and it’s owned by Christian "Fimpen" Eklund, the dad of NHLers William and Viktor.

Another related European hockey crowd note, Djurgården fans apparently have a song/chant where they plead with Fimpen Eklund to procreate more after the impact his lineage has had on Djurgården between his first two sons.

As for this company hockey game, for a company that’s dedicated to hockey like Elite Prospects, there aren’t too many people in the office that play regularly. That was one of the interesting parts of my week in Stockholm actually working in the offices, there are so many smart people in the tech and data space that ended up in hockey through Elite Prospects, and I learned a ton from them.

For that reason, the level of play was middling at best, but it also gave me a chance to skate out instead of playing goalie, where, for the first time in my life, I recorded my own Gordie Howe hat trick with a goal, an assist, and a fight before the final buzzer.

The goal was actually one of the prettier goals I’ve ever scored, and the fact that it came wearing fully borrowed gear, with skates that I needed to quickly sharpen after they clearly had no edge on my first shift, while on another continent makes it an even better story.

Don’t really care about the bad form on the skating or the stick handling here, I’m going to be telling the story about that shot, going top shelf for the rest of my life.

I also had an assist although it wasn’t impressive enough for our Elite Prospects scouting team to pull a clip from, like they did with the goal for me.

And then at the end of the game, with things kind of out of hand — our team lost — there was a bit of a kerfuffle with both goalies fighting, and leaving me an opportunity to square off with my pal Mitch Brown, who happens to be Elite Prospects director of scouting.

There were no words spoken about it, but we made sure to properly drop the gloves and the remove the helmets, and had the informal nod that we would be following Anchormen rules, no touching of the hair or face.

It was a blast, I think I won with the takedown, but Mitch got a couple good shots in. Because Elite Prospects is a media company, we had a photographer there capture the chaos, of both the kerfuffle and my over-the-top celebration of my goal in front of the opposing bench.

OK, I’m off to London for a couple days. Going pivot from hockey to soccer, so I’ll probably write something from that as well.

I know the NHL season has been going on, I actually watched an NHL game on my phone on the way to the airport, and there will be more on that coming later this week.

Well, technically, greetings from the Schiphol Airport. I’m not leaving the airport and currently waiting for my connecting flight to Stockholm, where I'll be spending the rest of this week connecting with colleagues from Elite Prospects and also watching some Swedish hockey in person.

I will have more on Swedish hockey later this week, I’ll probably write about this trip at length, and now that another big project is behind me, I have the time to give Shap Shots a bit more of the quantity it deserves.

Anyways, my layover here in Amsterdam reminded me, naturally, of my trip to Amsterdam back in March, when my wife and I were here for vacation, and I somehow convinced her to go watch a hockey game with me.

You can go back and read that whole story above, but reading back through it myself, this part stuck with me.

But this story is about the human experience, the fact that close to 2,000 people on a Saturday night in Amsterdam jammed themselves into an arena to watch ice hockey. It’s about the universal language of sticks clattering, pucks booming off the boards, and that beautiful kssh, kssh of skates cutting through ice, interjected with fans “oohing” and the apparent universal language of “ref you suck!” after a call was made against the Tigers.

Hockey has become my universal connector. It’s allowed me to see the world a bit, introduced me to some great people, and given me an easy entry into conversations with strangers.

In fact, on my flight to Detroit to Amsterdam, I sat next to a Swede who is a die-hard fan of HV71. He happens to live in Gothenburg now, where Frölunda plays, but even while he was in the United States for two weeks, he was living and dying with the results for HV71, even if the results had been more distressing than positive lately.

It’s also a funny day to fly to Europe as a North American hockey writer, because today, Tuesday is a “Frozen Frenzy” day with all 32 NHL teams playing and with staggered start times from 6 ET to 11 pm ET. Here in Central Europe, games will be starting at midnight and running through roughly 7 am, so maybe I'll find a place where I can enjoy breakfast and the third period of the game between the Boston Bruins and San Jose Sharks.

The Frozen Frenzy is also a bit of a tease.

It’s the league thinking outside of the box to stagger the start times, and it’s setup to create some national attention and coverage through ESPN, which helped engineer the idea. But it always leaves me wanting a bit more, and wondering why this has to happen on a Tuesday in October, and why it has to feature every game starting in the evening.

If the league is going to embrace occasional day-time games, like it will this season on select Mondays, why isn’t that happening with Frozen Frenzy? Why aren’t we getting wall-to-wall coverage starting at lunch time and taking us through midnight?

(Just some food for thought, which I’m primarily putting out there because I know there are people from both the league and ESPN that read this publication.)

OK, that’s the quick entry from Amsterdam, where I’m enjoying a stroopwafel and a double espresso. We will talk again from Sweden.

As always, thanks for reading.

Like we did last year, I’m getting together my Stars media friends to rank the roster.

The prompt was simple, “rank the Stars roster by best player from 23 to 1.”

Each panelist could then use their own criteria for what best meant. I collected the results, averaged them out, to come to our consensus ranking. I did not reveal individual ballots, it’s up to the panelists themselves to do that.

The panel was as follows:

Lia Assimakopoulos, Stars beat writer, Dallas Morning News

Sam Nestler, Stars beat writer, DLLS

Owen Newkirk, host of the DLLS Stars Podcast

Sean Shapiro, myself

Gavin Spittle, host of the Spits & Suds podcast

Bob Sturm, publisher/writer at Sturm Stack

Robert Tiffin, Stars beat writer at Stars Thoughts

OK, let’s get into the ranking before the Stars open the season tonight.

23. Colin Blackwell, C

Average ranking: 22.25

Highest rank: 19

Lowest rank: NR

My rank: 23

Blackwell is on the Stars opening-night roster, but was also the cap casualty and sent down on waivers earlier in the week when the Stars had do some roster juggling to make the numbers work. He’ll probably spend more time in Dallas than the AHL this season, especially with the Stars age/health, but he’s becoming more and more of a 4-A player at this point in his career.

22. Kyle Capobianco, LHD

Average ranking: 22

Highest rank: 20

Lowest rank: 23

My rank: 22

The Stars seventh defenseman, and it’s a pretty big gap between him and No. 8 at this point, even if Trey Taylor, I believe, will be a viable NHLer sooner than later. Capobianco is an unflashy, but reliable depth piece that will probably play more games than people will expect him to because of the Stars durability on the blue line.

T-20. Tyler Myers, RHD

Average ranking: 19.75

Highest rank: 17

Lowest rank: 21

My rank: 20

Myers is a veteran depth defenseman at a reasonable rate for the Stars at $1.5 million per season (he’s making $3 million, but the Canucks retained 50 percent of the salary in the trade last season). If he can be used in that role, as at third-line defender and can provide a little bit more stability to a pairing with Lian Bichsel, he’s probably in the perfect spot for this spot of his career. If he’s too chaotic, which is highly possible, he could be replaced in the lineup rather soon by Capobianco.

T-20. Oscar Back, C/LW

Average ranking: 19.75

Highest rank: 18

Lowest rank: 21

My rank: 21

A big, reliable center that’s carved out a surprising NHL role the past couple seasons as a bottom-six forward. It’s not that Back wasn’t expected to an NHLer in my view, but I didn’t think he’d find his way into the league as more of a defensive-first player, especially after his playmaking was one of the reasons the Stars drafted him in the third round back in 2018. Perhaps he flirts with 20 points this season, but either way for his cap hit he’s an ideal fit for this roster.

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The podcast will also be live on all audio platforms later today.

Per usual, thank you for listening/watching, this has been a fun project with Robert.

It was a disastrous offseason for the Detroit Red Wings.

Their captain, Dylan Larkin, requested a trade, a request that may or may not still stand, and eventually had his captaincy stripped away. The Red Wings most iconic captain, and then general manager, Steve Yzerman, left his post on July 15 after seven seasons without a playoff appearance.

The search for Yzerman’s replacement was shrouded in mystery, and on the eve of training camp, without a full-time GM in place, the Red Wings named Shawn Horcoff the interim general manager.

On top of that, Simon Edvinsson, a restricted free agent without a contract that attended training camp on a PTO to make sure he was part of the team, has returned to Sweden without a contract and is skating with Frolunda while the Red Wings prepare for opening night on Friday.

It’s a mess. Plain and simple.

So how did we get here? How did we get to a spot where the Red Wings, one of the NHL’s iconic franchises, are a bit of a laughing stock right now?

People around the league have been willing to talk more since Yzerman stepped down, so I’ve had conversations with other NHL executives, agents, and players over the past few months to try and get a read on why things didn’t work for Yzerman in Detroit.

And based off my conversations, there are two key takeaways.

1. Yzerman was too much of a safety net for Chris Ilitch, too much of a public shield.

2. Yzerman didn’t have his Detroit version of Julien BriseBois.

These things are related, but I think the best way to explain what failed in Detroit for Yzerman is to explain what worked for him when he was in the same role for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In Tampa, Yzerman had a very public-facing owner in Jeffrey Vinik. Vinik isn’t afraid to be a public-facing figure, I’ve spoken to him on the phone multiple times for stories, and he’s a big believer public accountability, including for himself.

While there was an air of secrecy about things in Tampa from Yzerman’s demeanor, which is fine, there was still a public trust in the community when the owner is willing to be more of a “man of the people.”

Chris Ilitch has been the complete opposite, his public-facing comments have been carefully chosen, and he hasn’t been subject to an actual media interview since he attended Derek Lalonde’s introductory press conference in 2022 and spoke with reporters from a podium

Since then Ilitch has been a ghost, even when he’s been part of public-facing comments, like the PWHL events that Detroit has hosted, any requests to speak with him, which I’ve made through Red Wings PR, have been denied.

Ilitch is also making money, the business is still booming, winning and losing aren’t impacting the bottom line enough. Ilitch has happily allowed Yzerman to be the front of the Red Wings organization, for better or worse.

This is where Yzerman’s lack of his Detroit-version of BriseBois became even more detrimental.

In Tampa, BriseBois pushed and internally battled Yzerman. As one source put it, BriseBois wasn’t afraid to battle Yzerman and that attitude led to mutual respect, where the Lightning GM had a right-hand man he trusted to protect him and advise him.

Yzerman never had that in Detroit.

Yzerman arrived as a larger-than-life figure, someone who’s playing career overshadowed anything and everyone in the organization, and with so many former players, that Yzerman captained, on staff, no one ever challenged the general manager.

Yzerman didn’t ask for advice, and he tried to do so many things himself. It’s too big of a job for one person, and without someone on staff, like he had in BriseBois in Tampa, pushing and challenging for a bigger piece of the pie, Yzerman was basically acting alone in many factors.

One agent told me that when Yzerman was in Tampa, there was mutual respect for contract negotiations between both Yzerman and BriseBois. In Detroit, the agent said he never spoke to anyone other than Yzerman, no matter how big or small the deal was.

In fact, Yzerman’s demeanor and downfall in Detroit, is something I’ve been told that other GMs have taken notice of and learned lessons from. Mathieu Darche, the New York Islanders GM, for example, hired Evan Gold, one source said, because he wanted an assistant GM that wasn’t afraid to push him and challenge him.

This site, admittedly, has been a bit hollow lately. Part of that has been some personal struggles I’ve had the past few months. There’s been some grief, which I’ve written about here, and some other extenuating circumstances that I’ll keep to myself for now.

But for whatever reason, I’ve been in a bit of a funk creatively. I’ve struggled to deliver on some ideas that I’ve thought would be pretty good in the offseason, and I’ve struggled with some other things when it’s come to the nature of this site. There’s been indecisiveness that's been crippling at times, and I think the lack of stories/posts here is a pretty good reflection of that.

It’s been one of those things that, unfortunately, I’ve told myself over and over would get better tomorrow, and it unfortunately hasn’t, mainly because I’ve refused to do some of the work internally on myself.

Now, this isn’t meant to be a mopey thing — although it is reading like that — but rather a positive, change-inducing piece. One that, I need to write get out of the rut, to remind myself how much fun this is supposed to be.

While I take this website seriously, this at its core is supposed to be fun. It’s a site about hockey, and occasionally other things, where I get to be myself, share a bit with the world, and talk about a sport I’ve loved since I started playing street hockey in elementary school.

I think there have been times recently I’ve forgotten about that, gotten too worried about finding the perfect angle, getting too caught up in finding something “unique” and letting the imposter syndrome take over, which I think everyone in this business deals with at some point.

Not to get too sappy, but my 8-year-old, whether she knows this or not, recently realized I was getting too far away from the point of it all recently. While I was thinking and overthinking here, letting it become crippling to the lack of production, I’ve been watching her own hockey fandom create itself right in front of me.

She’s not really a team-sports kid, so playing ice hockey wasn’t her thing, she’s a pretty good figure skater, but each day she skateboards to school and typically three or four days a week she’s wearing a hockey jersey. She wore a Kelowna Rockets jersey yesterday, and I can only imagine that’s the first time a WHL jersey has been worn inside her school by anyone.

She also will grab a stick from the garage and play street hockey with her brother and the neighbor who lives behind us. She’s never cared about how or why anyone defines how she enjoys the sports, she’s only cared about finding the fun and finding her own definition of passion for it.

So, on NHL opening night, I’m taking the moment to remind myself why and how I got into this. To be more like my 8-year-old, to embrace the fun and ridiculous ways you can love this sport, no matter which way, and to not be afraid to write about it like I have before.

Thanks for reading, and let’s have some fun this season.

It’s a Friday night, you probably have better things to do, but I’m killing time and wanted to drop in some quick notes here while they were fresh in mind after spending the past two days in Chicago covering the USHL Fall Classic.

• On a USHL front, I spoke with USHL President Glenn Hefferan today about the state of the league and other various things. The league announced expansion to the West Coast back in the spring, with six new markets. At this point Hefferan said it’s “too soon to tell,” if those markets will be ready for the 2027-28 season, but they are working on those details every day.

• The USHL is also working on expansion in its current midwest footprint, Hefferan said. That includes a locked in plan, he said, in Middletown, Ohio and another market he wouldn’t unveil. He also said they are the drawing board for two other locations.

• This was my first trip to the upgraded facility the Blackhawks practice out of, which added the USHL’s Chicago Steel has a tenant after Blackhawks ownership bought the USHL franchise. If you are the type of person that likes hockey trips, a trip to Chicago for a back-to-back between the NHL and USHL team seems like it could be a good time.

• I ran into Connor Carrick in the lobby in the rink in Chicago. I covered Carrick during his time with Dallas and he’s had the definition of a journeyman career. He’s currently looking for a spot to play this season after playing in Switzerland last season. He also recently had his second kid last week, so that’s been his main focus the past week or so.

• One NHL assistant GM, who was in attendance scouting the Fall Classic, was curios on whether I thought Dylan Larkin would end the season in Detroit or not. It’s funny talking to people around the hockey world, because there is some real curiosity, almost soap-opera esque, for others when it comes to observing what’s happening in Detroit.

• Larkin refused to say on Thursday whether he rescinded his trade request or not. Other NHL executives I spoke to in Chicago said they are still acting in their respective organizations like that request is still on the table.

• I had one person bring up Larkin and the Quinn Hughes situation in Minnesota in our conversations, and their feeling on it was that both would end the season with their respective clubs, albeit one situation would be much more awkward than the other.

• I also had a couple hockey people ask about the comments Glen Gulutzan made this week in Dallas where the Stars did a deep dive on their own analytics and realized they weren’t an elite, contending offensive team. (You should read Robert Tiffin here on that.) One NHL executive opined that the Stars really lived, and died, on the power play last season, and it was something that went into their team’s prep against the Stars. Another said they bet the Stars deep dive revealed they needed to be much better at getting to high-leverage areas, like the inner slot, at even strength.

• Not confirmed, but it appears that Gulutzan brought up the analytics deep dive in his press availability as a reason to hold the Stars, and himself, accountable this season. I spoke to someone who’s worked closely with Gulutzan in the past and they brought up that the coach sometimes like pointing out his own challenges/shortcomings from the past publicly because it forces him to address them.

• On the ice, I really liked the foundation I saw with Tri-City storm goalie Quinn Beumer. He let up four goals on 30 shots, but I really like the foundation and he seems like a goalie to watch for the 2028 NHL Draft.

And that should do it for the brain dump. Here’s a photo I took from behind the net while watching one of the USHL games with my phone that I thought came out pretty cool.

For full disclosure, I wasn’t at Dylan Larkin’s media availability Thursday.

I was en route to Chicago, where I am right now, for some work with Elite Prospects covering the 2026 USHL Fall Classic. So I missed Larkin’s first in-person media availability since his trade request, and like many of you, had to take it via video or audio from other sources.

That’s why I kind of waited a bit, and slept on it, before figuring out what to write on what transpired, especially with Larkin’s unwillingness in that availability to give much clarity on anything.

So let me unpack that a bit, because my thoughts on this space and Larkin, have greatly evolved in the past few months.

Back in June, which you can read about here, I called the request a brave thing, maybe the bravest thing Larkin had ever done in his career. That sentiment was fueled by what it takes to request the trade away from his childhood team and city he’d grown to represent, but I also thought that at some point Larkin would at least own that sentiment.

Larkin’s answers to the media haven’t always been great, but I’d always believed that was based more in some uncomfortableness with the public part of the captaincy, he at least showed up and was very human about everything. The crying after the Tyler Bertuzzi trade might have been awkward, but it was at least a truthful human experience.

This, though, has become cowardice.

Larkin said he wanted to be truthful, that he wanted to give some explanation, which he immediately followed up with zero explanation at all.

The trade request he said was for personal reasons, but then refused to give any further explanation of what that meant. We didn’t need the full list of reasons, maybe there is something truly personal about this, but you can’t simply state media reports are wrong about it then refuse to give anything of substance back (I thought Nick Cotsonika voiced this extremely well in his question to Larkin about the situation, when he said I don’t care what’s been reported, I just want the truth.)

Larkin also said he didn’t want this to get out, which I struggle with how neither he nor someone in his close circle, his agent maybe?, didn’t stop at some point and make him realize that was impossible.

He’s a top-six center, American gold medal winner, and captain of the Detroit Red Wings, still one of the NHL’s iconic franchises. There was no way it was going to stay secret, whether he liked or not.

So Larkin is lying here, but I guess the deeper question is whether he’s lying to us or lying to himself. And if it’s the latter, you kind of have to question how his agency, Pat Brisson and CAA, somehow haven’t stepped in to save their client from himself during this public self-immolation of any good will Larkin ever had in Detroit.

There are many ways Larkin could have handled this yesterday, and while some paths still would have left a bit to be desired, he somehow found the route that pushed this all into a more awkward and frustrating purgatory that is going to hover over the Red Wings all season. Especially after Larkin refused to be open, at all, on whether reconciliation was even possible when sitting right next to the interim GM that has to figure it out.

I’m a nobody, a media member that happens to cover hockey, so my opinion doesn’t really matter much here. But I used to have a higher opinion of Larkin, I thought he was someone that owned up to his actions, was awkward in public, but still showed up and understood the dynamics of accountability. Part of me, I believe, expected that to happen at some point in this process, that at some point there would at least be some public accountability and understanding on something that, at it’s core, could never be truly private.

So, I don’t know what Larkin’s reasons are. Maybe it really is deeply personal. Maybe there are things happening behind the scenes that none of us will ever understand.

And I know, and will repeat, that he doesn’t owe us every detail of his life.

But he does own how he handles the situation once it becomes public.

I used to believe Larkin understood that. I believed the awkwardness was part of what made him human, and that beneath it was someone who understood accountability.

After Thursday, I’m not sure I believe that anymore.

I’m at the airport right now, headed to Chicago for a quick work trip, so we should have more up on Shap Shots later today or tomorrow.

As always thanks for reading/watching/listening.

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There are going to be lots of Shawn Horcoff stories today.

The new Detroit Red Wings interim general manager met the media on Wednesday, making his first public comments since officially getting the title on Tuesday.

Horcoff showed up to the presser buttoned up and handled things about as well as one could in his situation, he stuck to his talking points, referred back to his notes multiple times, and showed a commitment to doing the best possible job in an interim role so he could potentially earn the full-time gig.

Those stories matter, they do, but I’ll probably leave that to the other local media outlets that cover the Red Wings in a more traditional manner.

I instead want to talk about Horcoff’s history, the end of his playing career, when he played two of his final three seasons for the Dallas Stars, an organization I covered at the time.

Horcoff was acquired on July 5, 2013 by Dallas, the day after the Stars acquired Tyler Seguin, as part of a rebuilding effort by Jim Nill and an attempt to bolster Jamie Benn’s leadership abilities.

The Stars viewed Horcoff, the former Edmonton Oilers captain, as one of the new sounding boards for Benn, someone that would immediately step into that room as a louder, bolder lieutenant to Benn.

It worked to an extent, and while Horcoff’s on-ice play had diminished, there are people in the Stars organization, including Nill who have told me he left a positive lasting impact on Benn and the team in general.

Benn, rather famously, doesn’t open up about much, but I can tell you a few seasons back, the Stars captain told me that Horcoff, Rich Peverley, and Vernon Fiddler were amongst some of his better influences on him as a captain.

In many ways, that’s the situation Horcoff is now stepping into in his management career. He’s a guiding light of sorts, maybe not the final light, but perhaps the one that’s needed right now for an organization that is basically rolling back the same staff and plan from the past decade outside of Steve Yzerman.

There are parts of the new era already in place, Dylan Larkin may still be here, but his leadership authority, especially publicly, has been torched and it feels like a foregone conclusion that Moritz Seider will eventually be named captain. But outside of that, Horcoff is tasked with polishing things as best he can, trying to figure out a deal with Simon Edvinsson and Alex DeBrincat, while also balancing trying to compete, somehow, in a loaded Eastern Conference.

It’s a very tall task, almost an impossible one, but it’s probably the best job interview anyone will ever get for this job.

Horcoff avoided disclosing any of the internal visions, deferring to the world salad that’s been served lately by Red Wings owner Chris Ilitch, but did acknowledge he’s been informally in this role for a few weeks now, making a minor-league trade, for example. He also, almost adamantly, said there was no appetite for a rebuild, which is what he probably has to say, and prove, to keep this job.

Will it work?

I have no idea, but Horcoff has done strong job with the Grand Rapids Griffins, his team-building skills are well regarded others in AHL circles. He’s also had a history of living through and attempting to help facilitate a rebuild at the end of his playing career.

Now we all get to watch and find out.

Enjoy!

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The Detroit Red Wings don’t have a general manager yet. Shawn Horcoff is handling things in an interim-role, but even that is a loose title. The seat has remained vacant since Steve Yzerman’s departure, even with NHL training camp scheduled to open on Thursday.

The Red Wings have also hired a consulting group ZRG Partners, to run the GM search, and that search has, at some point, involved interviewing current Detroit Tigers GM Jeff Greenberg, who took his name out of the running for the NHL job last week.

We also know the Red Wings/ZRG Partners have asked other NHL teams for permission to interview people, but we don’t know exactly who or how many people they have officially interviewed.

Stars assistant general manager Scott White, who has been mentioned as a candidate for the job, has been in Detroit this weekend for the NHL prospects tournament, which leads to some curiosity on whether he’ll get Yzerman’s old post at some point.

Those are facts, as I understand them at this point. It’s a limited list of facts, however, because Red Wings ownership, particularly Chris Ilitch, have effectively hidden from the media or answering public questions for a long, long time.

All of that being said, I figured it’s probably a good idea to lay out things I’ve learned and been able to establish this when it comes to the Red Wings, Scott White, and his potential candidacy.

To be clear, this is based on my reporting in the past, and conversations I’ve had, including with White, this past weekend.

• White has interviewed for other NHL jobs this summer, including the opening with the Nashville Predators, while he was also linked to the opening in Toronto.

• Stars GM Jim Nill has a pretty open policy about allowing Stars employees to interview for roles with other NHL teams if it means career advancement.

• White has not been interested in pushing any of this himself, both publicly or privately. When we spoke this weekend, he was pretty adamant that he’s both very happy and focused on his role with the Stars. For example, when we chatted about the October 31 NCAA game in Texas between North Dakota and Michigan State, he was already mapping out his plan to attend another college hockey game on the Friday before.

• Nill declined to comment whether he specifically gave the Red Wings permission or not to interview White, noting that he lets people handle their own situations on that publicly. But Nill did say he’s spoken to the Red Wings consulting firm about some of his people and the open job. Nill has also said that he believes that White is ready and has been ready for a GM job.

• Again, no one, including White has been willing to say whether he actually has officially interviewed for the Red Wings job. There have been conversations on the matter, I know, but I don’t feel comfortable calling anything an official interview because I don’t have that confirmation.

That’s what I have right now. When or if I have something more, I will report it.

In the meantime, for more on White, here is something I wrote about him back in April.

Greetings from Detroit.

Today we are combining the 20/20 from two games at the prospect tournament, where the Dallas Stars beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1 and the Pittsburgh Penguins prospects beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-3.

1. I’m going to open this 20/20 with some notes from a conversation with Stars general manager Jim Nill, who took time to chat with Robert Tiffin and I during the second intermission of the first game, since some of it seems news worthy.

For starters, on the future of this tournament, these four teams have agreed to a plan for the next three years according to Nill, with Pittsburgh hosting in 2027, Columbus hosting in 2028 and Dallas hosting in 2029.

Nill, who was part of the initial founding of the old Traverse City Tournament (RIP), also said he believes a four-team tournament, with three games per team has turned into an ideal fit.

2. The Stars have picked their full-time emergency back-up goalie that will travel with the team this year, former Notre Dame back-up goalie Jack Williams.

Read more

The game might not have mattered, but we finally had some live NHL-affiliated hockey on Saturday when the Detroit Red Wings prospects and the Dallas Stars prospects played.

The Red Wings won 4-3, but more importantly we started to get some baseline readings on prospects for both organizations before training camp.

1. It’s important to keep that intro thought in mind for this 20/20.

I treated this game more as a scouting venture than game coverage, and will do the same for the remainder of the prospect tournament, which goes through Tuesday.

2. Off the ice, it was the first live Red Wings event we’ve had since Steve Yzerman was relieved/quit his duties as general manager.

The Red Wings also still don’t have a GM and Shawn Horcoff is filling in on an interim basis, so there’s a really weird vibe of uncertainty around the organization.

3. One NHL scout in attendance, for a team not at this tournament, jokingly asked if he could get the job before walking into the scout lounge.

Read more

It’s only 28 days, four weeks exactly, until NHL opening night and roughly two weeks, give or take a few days, from when NHL teams report for training camp.

Nothing groundbreaking here today, in fact this is more of a meandering of thoughts, but I wanted to open some conversations about how and why things happen within the sport.

So first, the impetus for this line of thinking. Earlier today I was at the library working on a different project and started looking through the magazines, where I picked up the most recent edition of Sports Illustrated, which had a story about Brentford in the Premier League and how the club’s data-usage. In particular, the story dives into Brentford’s data-driven approach to set pieces, and how in the Premier League, much larger clubs are now using similar models to add to their success.

It’s a good piece, I encourage you to read it, even if you don’t like soccer.

But reading it reminded me of a story that I was told by former Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland, who is now the GM of the Los Angeles Kings.

This must have been 10 years ago or so, and I was the NHL Prospect Tournament in Traverse City (R.I.P.) and I was talking with Holland and a couple other reporters about the Red Wings drafting history and how they dynastic years were built.

Holland compared the past Red Wings drafting success, finding Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, for example, to an ice fishing expedition.

I’m paraphrasing here, but Holland got pretty animated relaying the tale.

We were the only ones looking in the right places, and it’s like ice fishing, you pull something out of a hole, like ‘hey we got a Datsyuk!’ or ‘Hey we got a Zetterberg!’ and all of a sudden you see more fishing lines in your hole.

Basically you can’t go sit by yourself at the ice fishing hole anymore, because you’ve brought back too much fish and everyone wants a piece.

Again, I’m paraphrasing, but the point here is near the end of his time in Detroit, Holland was talking about how best practices for his team led to best practices for other teams and therefore created slimmer margins in drafting.

That’s what’s happened in the Premier League and for Brentford, while a set-piece heavy data-driven approach is still good, it’s no longer unique with other teams putting just as much work into something.

It’s kind of how the standard rises in sport, something works, everyone steals and then we have a new base for what is the norm.

Kind of wanted to open the conversation here in the comments and pick some reader brains as we go into the 2026-27 hockey season. What ideas/approaches, in your mind have evolved in this way? What makes you curious about it?

Again, not ground breaking piece, in fact I’m giving you the work, but wanted to open the conversation.

Thanks for reading.

All though August has had some high points — including seeing some of you in person two weeks ago — it is always a bit of a slow march toward hockey season.

“Is Zach Benson good hockey?” arguments can only keep us so occupied. Videos of Daniel Sprong, seemingly taunting his own bench in the KHL are a fun distraction, but also a reminder it’s about a month until the NHL season really kicks off.

I’ve been lucky to already watch some high-level hockey this season at the Hlinka Gretzky Tournament, but for many of you, it’s still a couple weeks till you can be greeted by a cool rink and sub-par arena coffee.

That’s a very poetic way of telling you, it’s time for a mailbag.

Let’s get into it.

I’m planning on traveling to Detroit for the prospect tournament this September, who are a few players you are excited to see showcased for the Stars? Also do you have any tips for a journalist on their first “work” trip? Local food recs are appreciated 😅

Emil Hemming is intriguing to me, I’m looking forward to see his starting block for this season after he struggled to start last season in the AHL, but then popped off in his return to the OHL.

The prospects tournament, for me, can be a telling sign of where a player should or shouldn’t be going into camp. Hemming is at the spot where he should look like one of the best players on the ice, he should enter with confidence, and that type of performance could parlay him into a stronger AHL season, and potentially, eventually an NHL call-up this season.

Cameron Schmidt also highly intrigues me.

As far as the journalist on their first work trip, and I’m assuming you are footing the bill yourself based on the quote usage, enjoy it. Taking a risk on yourself, in this case financially to pay for a trip, is worth celebrating and soaking it all in. One of the best pieces of advice I got from someone in this field came from Jim Vertuno, who works for the Associated Press in Austin and would higher me for freelance gigs.

I was covering an event at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, I believe it was a MotoGP race, and Jim asked me I’d taken the time to go just watch a couple laps outside of the media center. Take some time, enjoy the moment, realize where you get to be right now, and soak it all in.

So that’s my best advice, soak it all in, don’t be afraid to be yourself and don’t be afraid to talk to as many people as possible.

When it comes to food, assuming you are coming up from Dallas, it’s a cop out, but get some Detroit-style pizza at Buddy’s.

(Detroit-based readers, feel free to tell me in the comments whether you agree or not, or what would be a better option.)

Do people in Dallas care if the next TX franchise is in Houston or Austin, and if so is there a favorite?

I’m not sure what people would prefer, but the Stars, I believe would prefer Houston. It’s less of an infringement for them, and causes less headaches with potential territory/rights.

Who is your dream candidate for Detroit Red Wings GM/PoHO? (can be one or both)

First on the Red Wings’ hockey leadership search.

The team is currently conducting interviews, and from my understanding in the hockey world Florida AGM Brett Peterson, San Jose AGM Jeff Kealty, and Dallas AGM Scott White have all been looked at by the Red Wings/TurnkeyZRG.

We also have pretty strong indications that Jeff Greenberg, the Tigers GM, is in the running for the job.

On a personal level, my job would be much easier if Scott White got the job, but that’s selfishly a note, for me, where I’d already have a working precessional relationship with the new Red Wings GM.

I don’t know Peterson personally, but based off people I’ve spoken with and my impression of how he handles things/views the game, he would probably be my top candidate right now to run the Red Wings hockey operations.

What is your ideal red wings timeline/series of events from now up until 31 December? (Ie if you thought all pieces feel into place, what would it look like to you?)

Well it starts with hiring a GM before we get to September, which then quickly parlays into signing Simon Edvinsson to an extension.

But let’s put some dates on things to have some fun.

Sept. 1 — Red Wings hire a new GM, let’s go with Peterson for this thought exercise.

Sept. 2 — Red Wings sign Simon Edvinsson to an extension in the $8 million AAV range.

Sept. 10 — The Red Wings trade Dylan Larkin, avoiding the awkward training camp and then announced Moritz Seider as the new captain.

I think, from there, you see what happens. There’s too much right now that can shuffle, in my view, for us to feasibly see what happens into late December.

If you had a single use time machine and could go back and undo one NHL decision/rule/change that you think did the most damage (besides the 05 lockout), what would you fix?

The lockout is a good one, that’s probably the easiest answer.

I would like us to go back to home teams wearing white at home, but that’s not worth a trip in the time machine.

Let’s go with going back to Matt Duchene’s infamous offside goal, where he scored when he was about 10 feet offside and it counted, let’s go back and help the officials catch that play in the moment.

Look, I don’t mind video replay, but I think that moment was such a flash point that led to the overreaction and frustrations we have today with replay. Maybe if they got that call right in the moment, maybe we have a better replay system today instead of an over-reaction to on egregious miss.

Have you spoken with anyone from the organization about Tyler Seguin’s rehab progress? And do you expect a contract extension for him after his current deal ends?

The contract extension I’m gonna wait on, but I do think we could see something if he comes back healthy and is now eligible for a 35-plus deal next season.

Having spoken to some people from the Stars, including Stars coach Glen Gulutzan, there is a lot of enthusiasm about Seguin’s progress and where he’ll fit in this season. Obviously, you have to take that with a grain of salt, but there is excitement there.

Is the ability to “force” posts/crossbars a repeatable skill for a goalie?

I love this question, I’m going to ask goalies and goalie coaches about it throughout the season.

My initial thought is technically yes, because ideal positioning should, in theory, create more opportunities for players to try and pick corners and thus hitting more bars/posts.

But let me research it and get back to this.

I think the best words I can use to describe the feeling are positively overwhelmed.

Last night, in Allen, Texas on a Tuesday, we packed a bar and restaurant for a hockey podcast. Add in the fact that this was in one of DFW’s more northern suburbs, so many people had to fight rush hour traffic to get there. There also weren’t any associated hockey events going on anywhere nearby to boost attendance.

But people showed up, one person even drove in from Arkansas from the event, and you could see how happy the restaurant manager was, on a Tuesday, to have business buzzing with people talking about hockey after my pal Gavin Spittle organized and delivered with a live-recording of Spits & Suds.

I’m not typically great in large gatherings, I’m a very quiet person who likes to sit back and watch the world, a very shy person by nature, who gets more talkative in smaller settings (or in written/work form). In fact, I’ve always said, I got into the business of storytelling because I find others more interesting.

And last night, it was humbling and thankful to hear others tell me their stories, that I was somehow included in.

I met many people who I’d only interacted with before on Twitter/X, some showed me messages we’d exchanged years ago, and I was able to re-live memories of various stories or moments that connected away from the ice. The fact that my voice, in some capacity, is part of someone’s daily drive, is both horrifying and humbling at the same time, and I don’t really know what to say other than, ‘thank you,’ when someone tells me they started listening or reading a certain outlet because of me.

I finally got to meet the man, better the legend, behind Sportstoons. Steve is one of those people who I’ve even done work with before, he did the cartoon for this site, and he’s awesome. You should commission him or buy one of his prints or books if you can.

One person had to leave early because they had a beer league game later that night, but they still wanted to make it to the event, again a tremendous honor. Another told me how their beer league team had watched The Late Game, getting together to project it onto a garage and in their view the movie captured the spirit of the thing.

I signed a copy of my book, 100 Things Stars Fans Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, for one kid who’s dad bought him a second clean copy of the book because the original copy had been taken with him to camp. I’ll tell you there’s no higher honor for a book than seeing a copy of it being well-worn and beat up a bit.

I was also so happy to see so many people thrilled and excited to meet my pal Stephen Meserve, who I co-wrote We Win Here as we went through a receiving line signing books at the end. We Win Here was born as a passion project, Stephen and I sharing stories and ideas over beers that we eventually decided to write down, and to see that it’s provided at least some semblance of entertainment to readers means the world to me.

I don’t even know what I am anymore, I’m a weird hybrid writer/reporter/etc., even this site has become hard to define at times, but at one point I was a Dallas Stars beat writer, and Matt DeFranks was one of my best friends and rivals. We fought daily to get the best of each other, and I think I’m so much better today in this business because of Matt.

It’s cool for me to sit back and watch that now with Robert Tiffin and Lia Assimakopoulos, who despite some shortcomings compared to the budget that Matt and I had (the Dallas Morning News used to give their beat writer a proper travel budget), are consistently, and respectfully, pushing each other to be better in their coverage. They both got some of the love they deserved last night at the event, and I highly encourage you to read them, daily.

Brien Rea stopped by, Brien and I have known each other for a long, long time. I bought him lunch in his first week as the Texas Stars broadcaster down in Austin, more than a decade later — we are all getting old — we were interrupting each other, and laughing about it, on a live panel.

Most importantly, or maybe most importantly, this event, again on a Tuesday in August, doesn’t happen without Gavin Spittle turning a passion project into so much more. I said it on the show last night, but Gavin has done this right, he’s never over-promised, but he’s always delivered on passion for building and producing a hockey podcast in DFW. For me, to see a restaurant full of people for his show, the work he’s put in, it’s pretty damn cool.

We live in a weird world, I don’t live in Texas anymore, but I’ve been able to stay connected to the DFW hockey community from afar, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

As always thanks for reading, and I’m sure Robert and I will talk about this more later today on Episode 20 of Algorithmically Incorrect Hockey.

According to multiple sources, who reached out this afternoon, the Red Wings are using turnkeyzrg for their job search to replace Steve Yzerman.

Turnkeyzrg specializes in executive placement for sports and entertainment, the client list includes at least a handful of NHL teams, including the Vegas Golden Knights who used turnkeyzrg to hire their team president Kerry Bubolz.

Of note the turnkeyzrg has the Detroit Tigers on their website as a recent client. Len Perna, the chairman, Founder and CEO of turnkeyzrg has previously served as the Executive Director, General Sales Manager for the Ilitch Sports and Entertainment.

I’m at airport today, Monday, because I’m headed to Dallas for a very cool hockey event tomorrow evening that’s been organized by my good buddy Gavin Spittle.

There will be a hockey meet-and-greet at 6 pm, followed by a live recording of the Spits & Suds podcast. It’s at BoomerJack’s Grill, I will be there along with some of my other hockey-loving friends and if you happen to be in DFW, you should join us.

My pal Robert Tiffin, has much more here, hope to see you there.

Stars Thoughts

Everything You Need to Know about the August 11th Dallas Hockey Meetup at BoomerJack's

I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about it by now, but I wanted to create a standalone announcement with all the information I have about the August 11 meetup Gavin Spittle is putting together. In fact, that Hockey Celebration is a week from today! So if you aren’t already planning to stop by and talk about hockey with a bu…

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3 months ago · 29 likes · 10 comments · Robert Tiffin

Since I last wrote in this space I spent about 50 hours in Edmonton for both the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and TCS Live, an annual coaches clinic I try to attend.

(I also played some Magic: The Gathering, with friends on Sunday afternoon in my brief stop at home, if you wanted to know that I am indeed a nerd even when it doesn’t come to hockey.)

Anywhom, I would highly suggest, if you want to be a hockey draft nerd this season, you catchup on the standouts from the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, which Hadi Kalakeche compiled here for Elite Prospects.

Personally, I'm very excited about watching Landon DuPont, the presumptive No. 1 pick for the 2027 NHL Draft up close this season at Michigan. I was able to watch him at the Memorial Cup back in the spring and he cooked against his own age group at this event. The CHL to NCAA pipeline is a fascinating one, and still evolving, and I’m curios to see what a high-profile draft-year defenseman looks like.

Speaking of DuPont, I caught up with new Michigan hockey GM Andrew Brewer during the event about his role and the evolving state of hockey management for NCAA teams. That story is going to be published at EP later this week, I believe on Wednesday.

It’s a fascinating role, and it’s something that I think is going to play a big part in success for NCAA teams moving forward. Teams that have good GMs, who are essentially there to allow the coaches to focus on coaching, are going to have better long-term success.

OK, let’s get to some other things I learned in the past week, I hope this all connects in some shape or form.

On the Dallas Stars and the challenge of this season

I spoke with a couple people at Hlinka Gretzky that work for the Stars, and there are a couple key takeaways I had from inside the organization.

1. The Stars didn’t get better this offseason on paper. They know that, but it’s something that’s worth mentioning, and some of the same concerns/challenges fans have are creeping up for those who work for the team.

2. Mavrik Bourque was never going to be back in Dallas this season. I had many people push back against the thought that Jason Roberton’s deal and timing of it cost the Stars Mavrik Bourque. There was an offer sheet being prepared, the money wasn’t adding up, and Bourque got his bag. Dallas was only going to have the space if Robertson was gone completely, there was no way the team was going to keep Bourque if the deal had been done earlier in the summer.

3. There’s a lot of hoping, maybe call it praying, from those in the Stars organization that this season features a fully healthy Tyler Seguin that has turned back the clock a bit.

On the Detroit Red Wings and their GM search

The Detroit Red Wings still don’t have a GM.

What we do know is that right now Shawn Horcoff is handling the day-to-day of the Red Wings, but isn’t allowed to make trades. As one scout joked with me, his job is probably just a daily check-in with Simon Edvinsson’s agent.

The Red Wings have hired an outside firm to run the search, the chatter amongst those in Edmonton was that Detroit is using the same firm that Toronto used when it hired John Chayka.

I have not been able to confirm that, but it tracks with what I’ve heard about Detroit looking at an analytic-based GM potentially, and why the Red Wings may hire Tigers general manager Jeff Greenberg.

OK, let’s hop into one quick on-ice thing before I have to catch this flight to Dallas.

On goalie positioning and the RVH

I watched a presentation this past weekend from Tampa Bay Lightning goalie coach Frantz Jean on how he works with goalies on when and when not to use the RVH, the reverse-vertical horizontal.

I have written a lot about the RVH, and I plan to write about it more in the future.

But for today, I wanted to provide some visual aides on how an NHL goalie coach instructs his players on when and when not to go into the RVH.

Here is the map:

And here is another, more specific to the RVH usage.

The blue area on the map, the pre-load area is when a goalie should be in the RVH. As in pre-loaded into the RVH for a save selection.

If the puck isn’t in that blue area, the goalie should not be in the RVH and they should be on their feet.

I caught up with a Jean a bit after his prevention too, and wanted to get his view on how the RVH has become a bad word and ripped consistently on broadcasts.

He compared it to golf club selection, who the RVH should be treated like a golfer uses a wedge. You can hit the best wedge shot in the world, but if you hit it when you should be hitting driver, it’s quite useless.

As Jean put it, we’ve seen such a ripping of the technique, and not the selection of when to use it.

OK, that’s what I’ve got for today, We will have more later this week. Hopefully see some of you at the event tomorrow night.