Hockey

The worst part of success is that people always expect more of it to follow. That doesn’t always happen, especially if some of that success was because of good luck, the right conditions, and people who aren’t there anymore. Like, for instance, with the Vancouver Canucks in 2019-20. The team was faltering, dropping out of […]

This series will be tracking the top Norris Trophy candidates through numerous amounts of stats to monitor and analyze their progression, production, efficiency, and reliability as we progress through the abbreviated 2021 NHL season. You can find more on the introduction of this series here. Young Defencemen Are Gunning for the Norris Trophy The young […]

The Ottawa Senators have had a dreadful start to the season. At the time of writing, they are 1-7-1 and are about the play the Edmonton Oilers again. On Sunday, they lost to the Oilers 8-5. In that game, the Ottawa Senators penalty kill allowed four powerplay goals on five attempts. The Oilers also had […]

The 2021 NHL Draft does not pose the same excitement as the 2020 NHL Draft did. However, there are still plenty of players that teams can build around for the future. There’s another future star goaltender in this class, falling in line with goalies like Spencer Knight and Yaroslav Askarov before him. There are several […]

We all root for the underdog. Not only does it create storylines when there aren’t any to begin with, but it keeps things fun. And what is better than seeing a big underdog comeback from a huge deficit to snatch a win? That said, not all team victories are created equal. The Eagles beating the Giants […]

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin had his busiest offseason to date this year. He improved every single position by bringing in the likes of Josh Anderson, Jake Allen, and Joel Edmundson via trade. He also got top prospect Alexander Romanov to make the jump to North America as well. However, arguably the biggest addition […]

There are lots of Pittsburgh Penguins analysis this week as they have given us many storylines to talk about just a few weeks into this brand new season. Today, we examine three observations from the Penguins play thus far and how they will impact the future performances of this roster. What have we learned about […]

Last week NBC announced their plans to shut down NBCSN at the end of the year. In the deal, NBC announced it would be moving the NHL, NASCAR, EPL to the USA Network. In addition, other programs along with some sports programs will be moving to NBC’s new streaming service Peacock. The first question that […]

Everything was looking up for Mike Hoffman. Coming off of a 59 point, 29 goal campaign in 69 games with the Florida Panthers, Hoffman was in a great position to secure a home for the next few years. However, the free-agent period went completely awry. Despite the circulating rumours, a projected six to eight million dollar man went […]

It’s game night and the Toronto Maple Leafs lost again. Fans are angry and Twitter is on fire. Sure their overall record is alright, but this loss is unacceptable because “other teams just don’t lose like that”. Admittedly, the way they lose can be difficult to watch. Sometimes it honestly looks like half the team […]

The Tampa Bay Lightning enter this unique NHL season as the defending Stanley Cup champions. The Tampa Bay Lightning’s rise wasn’t something that happened overnight. 2020 Stanley Cup was a culmination of ten years of work and expert planning that could’ve gone wrong at any time. The remaining years of the 2000s, saw the Lightning […]

In this paper, we use the principles and equations used in the film and book Moneyball. Also, discussing the application of “Moneyball” management to the hockey industry while, following the review of Moneyball and the use of sabermetrics in other sports, we attempt to apply similar practices to the sport of hockey. More specifically, we’ll […]

Welcome to Puck Drop Preview 2020-21, where Last Word On Hockey gives you a detailed look at each team from around the NHL leading to the start of this hockey season and offers our insight and analysis. Make sure to stick around until the end of the series, where we’ll offer our full predictions for the standings […]

The Kyle Dubas vs Lou Lamoriello debate gets rehashed on Twitter every few weeks, and it seems like a big waste of time. That being said, one argument about Lou Lamoriello always sticks out. Conventional wisdom states that one benefit of tough old Lou is that he’s great at negotiating contracts. This is often presented […]

If there was a non-stop flight from San Jose to Sweden, a pair of former San Jose Sharks could have booked one-way tickets on it. The Sharks parted company with two Swedes in the offseason, Melker Karlsson and Tim Heed. One needed to go, the other, not so much. We’ll look back at their Sharks […]