Steve Laidlaw Podcast

Picture this, Bill Daly steps to the podium, he’s handed the stack of cards placed in order of the draft lottery outcome. He raises the first card, blank on the back facing the camera, he flips it over revealing the Buffalo Sabres. They did not win the lottery. Jack Eichel, watching from home, breaks a stick and starts doing burpees. Kevyn Adams, milling about the empty Sabres facilities, looking for someone to share his disappointment with, eventually calls up the Pegulas. “Can we hire some scouting staff? We’re picking outside the top-5, I’ll need some help!” “Where exactly do we pick?” “Well… we don’t know yet.” Yes, the NHL is unveiling their draft order, but they haven’t given us any indication of the pick numbers, rather they are offering us suspense. How many play-in slots moved up into the top three? Stay tuned to find out. Daly flips another card, New Jersey. Another, Anaheim. So far, no changes… that we know of. Ottawa’s card is flipped next, the...

The time has come. Members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association received their official ballots in the mail this week so it’s time to debate the NHL’s year-end awards, or at least the ones that matter the most. I had Michael Clifford on my podcast last week to dive into these so make sure you check out that conversation. Before we dive in, I just wanted to highlight that these are awards voted on by hockey writers so that alone makes the process flawed. Writers are people, and people are biased. It’s impossible to be completely objective. Writers also love narratives. LOVE them. It’s what makes these conversations fun. I rue the day that NHL analysts come up with an all-encompassing stat that really works like baseball’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR). These days, MLB MVP ballots look like a carbon copy of FanGraphs’ WAR page. It isn’t long into a debate about someone’s MVP candidacy that their WAR comes up. And at that point, the conversation basically ends. The ...