Hockey narratives we’re sick of hearing about
We’ve turned over the calendar to 2025. It’s time to embrace the new – and flush away some of the old.
With that, Roundtable members: What’s one hockey storyline, narrative or debate you’re sick to death of? What makes your eyes roll or blood boil?
MATT LARKIN: Mine is head contact, and the misunderstanding of it. Fans are up in arms almost every time they see a bodycheck that involves incidental contact with the head – when 95% of the hits are clean, delivered through the chest or shoulder. What people don’t understand is that the NHL Department of Player Safety is beholden to the rulebook, and incidental head contact is allowed. The problem is with the rulebook, then, not the DOPS. Remember Matt Cooke’s head shot that ruined Marc Savard’s career in 2010? Cooke wasn’t suspended at the time, because the play was legal at the time. Only a rulebook amendment changed the enforcement of illegal checks to the head. I support Ken Dryden in that I’m all for eliminating all head contact – but that can’t happen without a rulebook change.
SCOTT MAXWELL: Maybe I’m biased as a stats guy, but I find the fact that we are still having the debate about analytics and their usefulness in the game in 2025 extremely exhausting. This was barely a debate 10 years ago, and people still continue to find any sticking point they use to go against it. A team like the Florida Panthers wins the Stanley Cup and has a few bruisers on it, and that’s all some people want to give credit for, and not the elite defensive shutdown work of players like Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, and Gustav Forsling. At the end of the day, there’s a place for both sides of the coin, and it’s still strange to see this battle go on between the two parties when it’s been apparent for a while that a lot of NHL teams utilize analytics on top of their own expertise, and it’s still the teams that keep the numbers in mind in their decision making that find themselves going deep in the playoffs every year.
PAUL PIDUTTI: The timing is great for this topic. I’m frustrated this time of year with the exaggerated response to Team Canada’s World Junior results. Is it an exciting, fantastic tournament that’s perfectly timed? Absolutely. Should fans be engaged and passionate? I’d hope so. Did Team Canada barely show up and disappoint again? No question. But they play without their best players… Connor Bedard had more than THREE points per game two years ago in the event. Macklin Celebrini is nearly a point-per-game NHL player as an 18-year-old. And Zach Benson has 100+ NHL games to his credit. How dominant would this team be with them? The only other eligible player left on an NHL roster is USA’s Will Smith. For Canada, it’s like Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, and Brayden Point being ineligible for an Olympics and then calling for a national overhaul of the program after the remaining group falls short. Being disappointed in Canada’s last two finishes is understandable. I get it. But without three NHL players on the roster — including two weapons that might singlehandedly win the event — is the end result that revealing?
STEVEN ELLIS: Maybe this is niche to just me, but I absolutely hate making, and hearing, about player comparables for the draft. All it does is give fans unrealistic expectations about players. There might be some traits that translate between players, but no two players are the same, and expecting one player to be similar to an NHL star just feels unfair. More often than not, you’re finding players that closer resemble Adam Pelech or Ross Colton – not exciting names or players that’ll make fans scream at their team for not selecting those guys. But do you know which guys have good, solid NHL careers and will continue to play decent roles for years? Adam Pelech and Ross Colton. You still need hard-working bottom-six forwards and reliable, steady blueliners who just get the job done. You’re not going to simply win by having 12 Connor McDavids and six Cale Makars – you need the guys that help you out in other ways. So if Macklin Celebrini doesn’t become Sidney Crosby, that’s fine – he’s going to be one heck of a special player, even if he doesn’t ultimately become the next face of Mount Rushmore.
FRANK SERAVALLI: This is hyper specific for me as an insider, but my eyes glaze over a bit whenever I’m asked about Mitch Marner. I know – it’s a humongous story, he’s one of the Top 10 forwards in the game, and he plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I get all of the reasons why it’s such a big deal. Here’s the thing: There’s nothing new! To my knowledge, there’s been no progress, no update, no real conversation between the two sides other than that communication has remained cordial. Marner holds all of the cards. The Leafs are in a mostly powerless position and in this all-important season, they also happen to have been missing their captain in Auston Matthews for a huge chunk of the season, further highlighting the importance and/or reliance on Marner and others. Everyone wants a tidbit or an update, but the two sides want to keep this story – which hinges on playoff success – out of the headlines as much as possible. In the meantime, it feels like there’s only so many ways you can say the same thing?
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