Various countries announced their Olympic Rosters this past week before we could get to talking about our predictions, however, we still have a lot of thoughts. Before we dug into them, we first chatted extensively about Expected Goals and modeling problems.

We're back after an unplanned Holiday break, and we all really felt like talking. We spent the first half discussing The Holidays, geography, and The Red Wings. Later we discussed the Blue Jackets and Zach Werenski, ancient YouTube videos, and standardized tests for some reason. 

The Sabres are 0-3, Josh is 0-1 in fantasy, and Shawn is in Florida; we embraced all of these issues and powered through it all. We did actually have numerous technical issues, but we rolled with the punches. Week 1 is in the books, and we spent the whole episode talking about it. 

We're about 3 weeks away from the 2023 NHL playoffs, which means we're all wondering why they haven't started yet. In the first half, we chat about the current playoff picture (among various random topics). We then move on to a quite long but very fun mailbag segment! 

As hinted at in past episodes, we've finally done it. All three of us, individually, scouted  a game from rookie sensation Jack Quinn of the Buffalo Sabres. We spent the entire hour discussing our process, reviewing our notes (which can be found on https://evolving-hockey.com/), debating our evaluation, and pondering scouting in general. This was a blast. 

We're quickly approaching the end of the '22-23 NHL season. With the trade deadline behind us, we discussed recent league occurrences, the current state of the playoff race, Chychrun's diet, our NHL awards picks, state fairs, and the philosophy around player evaluation. 

The NHL trade deadline is now behind us! We cover the rest of the deals that happened since last episode, evaluate teams and how they did, ponder whether Pennsylvania as a state is in trouble, and consider what it would be like if we were scouts.

That's it. That's the whole episode. We spent nearly 80 minutes going through @CapFriendly's trade history page,  chronologically, covering everything that's happened in the past week. This trade deadline has been insane. And there are 3 days left. 

While we're a few weeks out from the trade deadline, there have been plenty of speculated and actual moves. We first cover a few All Star Game bits, then focus on recent league news, Jakob Chychrun rumors, the recent Tarasenko trade, Bo Horvat's new contract, and "good" teams. And of course, Tage enters the conversation as well. 

It's an Emergency Podcast! Not really, but Bo Horvat happened to be traded 20 minutes before we started recording, so it's an emergency. We chat about the trade, cover a few league happenings, and combine All Star Rosters and Awards analysis in the second half. 

The past week was a lot of not good news. We cover a few of the items in question in the first half, along with some general good old fashioned trivia to start. In the second half we revisit our predictions from last week, and spend some time discussing shot data in general. 

We're halfway through the season, which means it's time for a full midseason recap episode! In the first half we discuss struggling teams (Canucks, Senators), the Kraken's recent success, and Matt Boldy. In the second half we dig into the playoff landscape. 

We're back after a short break! While things are heating up in the NHL, we're focused on the continuing tank efforts from teams across the league. We also spent quite a bit of time trying to diagnose the Panthers issues, and discussed the Hughes brothers. 

The '25-26 NHL season begins today, which means our team projections are out! We released our initial preseason projections on Sunday (there's an article on the site for those interested), and we spent the entire episode discussing the projections and our thoughts on each division. 

Our last episode of 2022 is here! In the first half, we discuss the Rise of Hronek, pronunciation, and the impacts of systems on players. After the break, we banter about Michigan attempts, run through Josh's 2022 year in review, and ponder future contracts. 

We're very excited to have Corey Sznajder, the premier hockey-tracking analyst, on the podcast! Corey has been in the field longer than any other public analyst, which is saying quite a bit. We spent an hour covering his work, trends in the past decade, what he finds interesting in hockey, and the most unique skaters in the league. This was a blast. 

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We have a guest episode scheduled in a few days (!), and with the holidays approaching we kept this one a bit shorter. That said, we discussed the impacts of screen time on sleep, historic games, Columbus, and our new point of focus: scorekeeper bias in the NHL. 

Tage Thompson is at it again. This time, we tried to find comparable players based on his career (so far). In the second half we discussed Ovechkin's pursuit of the all-time empty-net goal record, point streaks, Luongo's bathroom break, and tanking teams. 

All three of us just got back from SEAHAC 2022. We spent the first half recapping the conference, presentations, festivities, and all things related to one of the best conferences any of us have attended. In the second half, we chat about our favorite topic: our early-season NHL awards picks. 

With Thanksgiving only a few days behind us, we took the opportunity to ramble about sleeping habits, league history, rink dimensions, Tage Thompson, some of the philosophical foundations of WAR, and vocabulary. 

The general state of the league was the topic for this episode: tanking teams, the unlikely ascension of the Devils and Bruins, the most "expected" teams/players, and Nick Seeler. In the second half, we had a great conversation about Shawn's recent tracking project and article on the site. 

Despite some technical issues, we all loved this episode. We discuss tracking, zone entries/exits, philosophical questions in modeling hockey, expected goals, over/under-performing teams and players, and Otto McAvoy's new dog food.

This one was all over the place (in a good way). We chat about early season trends, surprising results, particularly bad team and skater performances, Matthew Tkachuk, daylight saving time, SEAHAC, and coffee. 

It's Halloween. Spooky Season. We chat about the release of our EH player evaluation models for the '22-23 season, some (still) surprising teams and players, the history of analytics,  and Matthew McConaughey 

The '25-26 NHL season starts in two weeks and (not) surprisingly, there's still nothing happening. We spent the entire episode trying to evaluate teams based on our general feelings before the EH projections are finished. It went about as well as you would expect. It was a great time though!

We're a little late this week, but we've officially moved on to week three of the '22-23 NHL season. We chat about our initial impressions of the young season, discuss the surprise teams (among 7 games), cover some interesting teammate data, and try hard not to deride Shawn for his lack of Coen Brothers knowledge. 

The first week of the '22-23 NHL regular season is now complete, and I think we're all just a *little* bit excited. We discuss some very early trends around the league, rookies, cover seemingly every team in the league, and Josh and Luke convert back into premier Wild fans. Plus quite a bit of rambling and nonsense. 

The '22-23 NHL regular season technically began a few days ago, but for most people it starts today. With Shawn back in his host chair, we chat about the beginning of another regular season, our early off-the-board predictions, and spend too much time discussing liquid intake. 

Shawn is on vacation, so Josh and Luke decided they'd try an episode without our host. It went surprisingly well in our opinion (don't ask Shawn what he thinks). Our team point projections for the NHL season went live yesterday. We spent the episode discussing them along with other NHL regular season eve items. 

Again, there isn't much going on, but we found plenty to talk about. We chat about Hockey (in the abstract), pace of play, the "final" review of our contract projection model for the 2022 offseason, general grievances, and coffee. 

We released our our fantasy projections for the '22-23 NHL season yesterday, but we also made plenty of time to ramble about random nonsense, J.T. Miller and Tage Thompson, the MN State Fair, and Milk. We then spent the entire second half covering our newly released projections! 

It's the end of August, and absolutely nothing is going on. We spent 40 minutes rambling even more than usual about the very few remaining free agents, Jason Robertson, projections and early expectations for next season, and corn (it's a little complicated).

We're officially one month into NHL free agency. Not only that, but Josh wrote a review for the site covering the last month! We chat about the contents of said review, general salary trends, annoying contracts, month rankings (yes), and RStudio themes. 

Check out the article here: https://evolving-hockey.com/blog/2022-nhl-free-agency-a-review/

Mike Murphy, one of the absolute best people in hockey, joined us for a special guest episode.  We talked with Mike about women's hockey, the current evolving environment in the game, contracts, and of course stats among numerous other topics. This was easily one of our favorite episodes! 

We may not have had as many signings, but the second week of NHL free agency proved to be possibly more interesting. We spent 75 minutes discussing everything that's happened since our last episode: Laine/Bjorkstrand, Tkachuk, and shenanigans. 

We're getting back into the swing of things, even if there's only one of those things going on right now (see: title). We spent the first half rambling about our respective other favorite sports (bowling and golf, obviously). Later, we analyzed the Kaprizov "situation".

We're one week into NHL free agency for 2022. A lot has happened, and possibly even more hasn't. We spent the entire episode discussing the first week, the current free agency environment, and our contract projection model. 

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! 

As we continue to get back into the swing of things this summer, our Fantasy Projections came out last week. We spent the first half chatting about the MN State Fair and burning yards before moving on to the topic at hand. Later we covered our under-covered (our fault) GAR projections and good defensemen. 

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.