Expected by Whom? is back
For your listening pleasure.
Good news, Expected by Whom? is back on the air.
The podcast I co-host with Prashanth Iyer had been on hiatus since October for personal reasons, but we are back this week and plan to have more regularly scheduled episodes going forward.
It’s available right here on YouTube, and on your preferred podcast platform.
This week we were joined by John Matisz from The Score, who wrote a fantastic piece last week about how the NHL’s view of data has evolved in the past decade.
You should read John’s entire piece, but one of my favorite anecdotes is how trusting the data improved Travis Konecny’s game.
Here is an excerpt:
Briere and director of hockey analytics Ian Anderson identified troubling patterns: Konecny was too frequently firing pucks from the perimeter, and wasn't funneling the puck to the interior enough as a passer. He needed to overhaul his offensive-zone habits to increase Philly's odds of scoring.
"It wasn't that I wasn't working hard. It was just that I was going to the wrong areas of the ice," Konecny said of what he learned.
It ultimately helped Konecny, a 2015 first-round pick, get back on track. He recorded 31 goals in 60 games in 2022-23 and earned an All-Star nod this season. "It kind of turned me into a different player," the 27-year-old said.
In addition to our guest, Prashanth and I discussed the recent NHL GM meetings, where a rule has been proposed that teams can now challenge a high-stick for “friendly fire” and the puck-over-glass penalty.
If a team loses that challenge, they will now face a 5-on-3 power play for two minutes, pending approval.
It puts more onus on the coach to be certain of a challenge. That’s always been the case, as Matt Cane explored in 2017, but a potential 5-on-3 makes it even riskier. If a team gets two minutes of 5-on-3, they typically score.
We also discussed the PWHL’s time in Detroit and other potential rule changes we’d like to see.
Thanks for reading/listening, have a great Friday.