Down Goes Brown

A brief history of the playoff penalty shot, suddenly the NHL's hottest new trend

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Fri, 01 May 2026 12:44:00 +0000

Something weird happened in the NHL last week. And for a change, it was something fun.

Specifically, it happened four times: In Game 2 between the Flyers and Penguins last Monday, later that same night in Game 2 between Carolina and Ottawa, the next night in Game 2 between the Kings and Avalanche, and then again two nights later in Game 3 between the Sabres and Bruins.

Each of those games featured a penalty shot. That’s relatively rare in the playoffs. There have been only 94 postseason penalty shots in NHL history, an average of less than one per season. To have four in the same week? Almost unprecedented.

For you kids out there, a penalty shot used to be a big deal. Back in the days before the shootout came long and ~~ruined everything~~ diminished the play's novelty somewhat, a penalty shot would be big news. I still remember Peter Ing stopping Wayne Gretzky at Maple Leaf Gardens, which was the Leaf fan equivalent of Buster Douglas KOing Mike Tyson. If you’d ever held a stick, you knew what your penalty shot move would be. And you only had one, because they were so rare that that’s probably all you’d ever need.

To get the chance in the playoffs, with the eyes of the hockey world focused on you? Almost (but not quite) unheard of. So today, since NHL referees have apparently decided to revive the concept for this year’s postseason, let’s celebrate with a brief history of the playoff penalty shot.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Your team is the best! (At this one very specific stat from the 2025-26 season)

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:53:00 +0000

Everybody’s good at something. It’s just a case of figuring out what.

Or at least, that’s how it was explained to me growing up. Granted, those explanations often came from coaches who were cutting me from the team, or concerned teachers whispering to my parents, or over the shoulder of horrified potential prom dates as they sprinted away from me. But the lesson stuck.

And it turns out that it applies to the NHL. Even in a league with 32 teams that range from model franchises to, um, not that, everyone is good at something. In fact, every team in the league is the very best at something. You just have to be willing to dig deep enough to find it.

Digging deep is kind of my whole schtick. So today, let’s go through each team and find at least one positive stat in which they led the entire league during the 2025-26 season.

Your team is the best… in this one extremely specific thing.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Let's find three positive thoughts for each of the NHL’s 16 most hopeless teams

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:38:00 +0000

You think your team had a bad year. Are you positive?

You should be, because it’s time for our annual exercise in positivity. While half the league enjoys the playoffs, we’re going to look at the other half. For each team that missed the postseason, we’ll come up with three reasons to think positively.

It goes without saying that this is easier for some teams that for others. So we’ll do this countdown style, starting with the easiest team to feel good about and working our way down to the toughest sell of the bunch.

That means our first team should be easy. And as it turns out, it absolutely is.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

MLB's new ABS replay system is an apparent success. Could the NHL learn from it?

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Here’s a sentence you’ve never seen me write before: Replay review is good.

It works. It’s doing what it’s supposed to do. I’m glad it’s there, because it’s making the game better.

Just not in the NHL.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Playoff pressure rankings: Everyone wants to win, but who can’t afford to lose?

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:06:00 +0000

It’s the postseason, and the pressure is intense. But pressure comes in different forms for different teams in different circumstances. Some teams have regular pressure, while others have capital-P pressure. Some teams go all caps and break out the fancy fonts.

You get the picture. It’s time for our annual Playoff Pressure Rankings, where we count down from the teams that would prefer to win to those that have no other option.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Old Guy Without a Cup rankings, 2026 edition: Narrowing down a stacked field

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:55:00 +0000

It’s OGWAC time, as we celebrate one of the best running subplots of any NHL postseason: The Old Guy Without a Cup. That grizzled veteran who's done it all over a long career, but has yet to get their name on the sport’s most hallowed trophy. Can they finally win the big one? Will they run out of time? Will they get the first pass from the team captain, and if so, will they cry? Will we all cry?

You know the drill. The greatest OGWAC story ever told was Ray Bourque back in 2001. Teemu Selanne’s was pretty great. So was Lanny McDonald way back in 1989. Then again, we’ve spent years pumping the tires of OGWAC legends like Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski, and they never got their happy endings. Nothing is promised in OGWAC world.

Our criteria for being “old” remains the same as past years: An old player will be at least 33 years old when the Cup is awarded, and must have at least ten seasons of NHL experience. The older the better, and that’s especially true if the player has had some agonizing near-misses in their history. Ideally, our candidates will be playing an important role for a team with a legitimate shot at winning it all.

We’ll try to work in a candidate for as many teams as we can, and we’ll limit ourselves to a max of three picks from any individual team. We’ll start at 20 and work our way down to year’s best OGWAC.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

The 2026 NHL playoff bandwagon guide to all 15 teams that aren't the Sabres

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 15:14:00 +0000

It’s playoff time. For half the league’s fan bases, that means you already know what to do: Lay on the floor, rocking in the fetal position and hating everything in the world. Rinse and repeat, for roughly two to eight weeks.

The other half of us are jealous of you. That’s why some of us might be thinking about crossing a very controversial line, and hopping on the bandwagon of one of the playoff teams. Just a temporary fling, you know how it goes. Some of you would never consider it, of course. But if you would, you should at least choose wisely.

This year, it’s an easy choice: You should bandwagon the Buffalo Sabres.

Seriously, we’ve already been through this. The Sabres might be the single best bandwagon story of all-time, and when we asked their fans if they’d be OK with some outside support, they gave us an enthusiastic thumbs up. So it’s settled. This year’s bandwagon team is the Sabre, and we don’t need the annual guide to everyone else.

Unless… I mean, if everyone is bandwagoning the Sabres, isn’t that a reason to maybe look elsewhere? After all, we’re hockey fans – we can’t ever agree on anything. Not unanimously. That’s just not how this works.

So be it resolved: This year’s best bandwagon team is the Sabres. But we’re still going to do the annual guide, just in case anyone out there is feeling a bit contrarian. Buffalo takes top spot, for all the reason we laid out a few weeks ago. Today’s list is for the other 15 slots on the list.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Enter the world's easiest NHL playoff prediction contest, with just one question

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:44:00 +0000

It’s playoff time, almost. The time of year when the best of the best rise to the top and prove that they have what it takes to win it all. The rest? They lose, sometimes dramatically and sometimes meekly, but either way they end up wondering what might have been.

I’m referring to you guys.

Yes, it’s time for our annual playoff contest, in which I ask you one simple question, and you send in your one-line answer. Then we wait. Then almost all of you get it wrong. Then I make fun of you.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

NHL weekend rankings: The top 16, Gold Plan standings, and my five worst calls

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:27:00 +0000

We made it. This is the final Weekend Rankings of the season. There’s still a couple of games left, and a few things still left to figure out over the next few days, but we’ll leave the final cleanup to the Friday guys. For our purposes, we’ve reached the finish line.

And if you’ve followed this feature over the years, you know what that means: Today’s the day you get an expanded Top 16, plus the Gold Plan standings down in the bottom five section.

But first, I’m going to be honest with you – I thought it would be a fun gimmick to use the Bonus Five section to go back and find my five dumbest rankings of the year. Nobody’s perfect, and you have to be able to laugh at yourself, or so I’ve been told. And sure enough, a quick look at the archives turns up more than a few weird calls. But when I dug a little deeper, I’m not sure I can really blame myself for some of those misfires. This season was just really, really weird.

Or at least, that’s the story I’m going to tell myself. You can decide if it sounds reasonable, as we did through the five rankings from the season that stand out with the full benefit of hindsight as being, um, not completely accurate.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

The Utah Mammoth are just five games away from making modern NHL history

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:27:00 +0000

I want to write this post, but I’m not sure I should.

More specifically, I’m not sure I should hit “publish” after I’m done. As I’m writing it, I’m not sure that I will. But since you’re reading this, apparently I talked myself into it. That might have been a terrible mistake.

I want to write about this, because I think it’s interesting, and finding interesting stuff in the hockey world and then sharing it with you is pretty much my entire job. But I feel like I shouldn’t, because I don’t want to jinx it. The psychological scars of my youth, spent watching way too many Dave Stieb near-miss no-hitters, still loom large.

Screw it, let’s do this.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

The best season a player on your favorite team ever had while missing the playoffs

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:56:00 +0000

If you’re team misses the playoffs, the season was a failure and there’s nothing to celebrate.

Or at least, that’s typically what fans are told, especially at this time of year. And often, it’s true enough. But not always, because even a season that doesn’t lead to a playoff run can still have its highlights. Like, for example, a player who puts together a season for the ages, despite all the losing.

That sort of success seems worth recognizing. So today’s assignment is simple: Let’s go through all 32 teams and highlight the single best season any player has ever had in a year where they still didn’t make the playoffs.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

NHL weekend rankings: Another coaching shocker rocks the East's pillow fight

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 14:51:00 +0000

The big news, for the second week in a row, is a shock coaching change. This time it’s the Islanders, with Patrick Roy being shown the door and Pete BeBoer taking over.

This kind of move needs its own section, so we’ll cover the Islanders in more depth down below. But first, three quick thoughts, which might be the same three thoughts you had when you first heard the news:

- Damn, Mathieu Darche is not messing around.

- This was tough news to hear for a whole lot of teams that thought DeBoer would be on their radar in a few weeks.

- ~~Matthew Schaeffer, COACH KILLER?~~

- The latest “next coach fired odds” list sent to the media came out on Wednesday, and it had 13 names ahead of Roy. In other words, lots of coaches probably don’t want their phone to ring right now.

Way more on this to come down below. But first…

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

How to make sense of a nonsensical NHL season? Just follow the chain of blowouts

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:55:00 +0000

How do you know if one NHL team is better than another?

We used to thank that that was a relatively simple question. You could just look at the standings, and they’d tell you who was good and who wasn’t. That was kind of the standings page’s whole job. But that was before the league started handing out points for losing (or did they?), encouraging everyone to play for overtime during the regular season and basically making a team’s won-loss record all but useless on its own.

And that’s in a good year. This one? It’s chaos. One division is terrible, another how arguably the three best teams in the league, and a bunch of teams are going to get screwed by the playoff format. We’ve got teams we thought would be bad winning divisions, and teams we thought would win their division who are completely unwatchable, the two-time defending Cup champs are terrible, the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winner is even worse, and a contender just fired their coach with eight games left. The Blue Jackets are good, the Blues might still make the playoffs, and the Sabres are doing whatever it is they’re doing. And we’re supposed to be able to figure out which teams are better than others?

Well, yeah. And I think it’s simpler than we’re making it out to be.

We’re overthinking this. Because while the standings page might lie, the results on the ice don’t. Or at least, they don’t as long as you know where to look.

Here’s my proposal: Forget about the won-loss records, and just ask your self what happens when two teams take the ice.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Eight critical questions the Leafs should ask the candidates to be their next GM

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:46:00 +0000

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the market for a new GM, and probably a president too. I’m offering my services.

No, not for the jobs themselves. But I’m willing to act as a consultant for the interview process. Specifically, I’ve got a few questions that I’d love to see Keith Pelley and his hiring committee ask potential candidates before making a decision on who’ll lead this franchise into the future.

Normally I’d charge a hefty fee to a corporate client for this sort of insight, but given the critical importance hanging over the coming decisions, I’ll make it a freebie. As my gift to the team that’s brought me so much joy over the years, here’s are the eight questions I wouldn’t let a candidate leave an interview without asking.

I’ll skip the obvious ones, like “Rebuild or reload?” or “What should we do with Auston Matthews?” or “Who’s the coach?” Those are important, but even Pelley doesn’t need my help to come up with them. Let’s dig a little deeper.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

NHL weekend rankings: A stunning coaching change in Vegas shakes up the Pacific

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 12:56:00 +0000

Well, we didn’t see that one coming.

Maybe we should have, given that the Vegas Golden Knights don’t exactly have a reputation as a patient franchise. They’ve spent every year of their existence as aspiring Cup contenders, and they’ve made it clear that failure isn’t an option. Given how much failing they’ve been doing this year, maybe we should have expected yesterday’s bombshell, with John Tortorella replacing Bruce Cassidy as head coach with just eight games left to play.

What does it all mean? Let’s dig into it…

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Ranking the 10 best opening round matchups that are still realistically in play

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:37:00 +0000

Did you catch another subtle sign of spring from the last few days? The NHL standings page added an “If Playoffs Started Today” link at the top of the page. And it doesn’t just go to a page that says “… it would be way too early, calm down”.

That’s because we’re almost there. There are just three weeks left in the NHL season, and while that’s plenty of time for teams to shift around the standings, it’s close enough to the playoffs that we can start thinking ahead to potential matchups. And as always, some are better than others.

Today, let’s have a look at some of those first-round matchups that are realistically in play, with a ranking of the 10 best. We’ll use the numbers from hockeystats.com, and limit our list to matchups with at least a 10% chance of happening (heading into last night’s games).

We’ll count them down, working our way to the best possible matchups, most of which of course will not happen because we’ll have jinxed it. We’ll get there, but let’s take this from the top…

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

How to watch the Maple Leafs (when the Maple Leafs aren't remotely worth watching)

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:59:00 +0000

For the first time in a decade, the Maple Leafs are playing out a stretch run with no playoff implications. While they haven’t been mathematically eliminated quite yet, the Leafs have been a dead team skating since the week after the Olympic break, when they vowed to make a late playoff push and then immediately face-planted to the tune of eight straight losses.

It’s over. This team stinks. Hello darkness my old friend, and all that.

But that’s the twist this time, because it’s been ten years since we’ve seen this story play out. Until the season ends, the Leafs still technically hold the league’s longest active postseason streak. Their fans haven’t had to endure a stretch run like this since 2015-16, the year the team flipped into tank mode down the stretch and was rewarded with Auston Matthews.

That means that there’s an entire cohort of young and/or new Maple Leaf fans who are in uncharted territory here. And they may not be sure how to handle it.

If that’s you, I have good news: There are plenty of crusty veterans like me who’ve been through this before. Oh, have we ever. There was a time when this kind of season used to be the Maple Leafs' whole thing.

We might be going back to those days. So today, let me help you doe-eyed newbies with a few tips. Gather round, kids, grandpa's got some advice. Let’s see how it long he can last before he just ends up rambling about Wendel Clark.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

NHL weekend rankings: The Pacific stinks, and other emerging storylines

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 12:48:00 +0000

It was an unusually busy weekend in the NHL, with 25 games meaning the majority of the league was in action twice. That gives us plenty to dig into, including some storylines that are getting hard to ignore.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Buffalo might be the greatest bandwagon team ever. Sabres fans, do you want this?

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:22:00 +0000

Today’s column is based on a question that I’m genuinely curious about, and we’ll get to that in a minute. But let’s start with a few statements of fact, none of which should be in dispute.

Fact: The Sabres haven’t made the playoffs in 15 years.

Fact: That’s tied with the New York Jets for the longest streak in North American pro sports.

Fact: More impressively, it’s the longest drought in the 100+ year history of the NHL.

Fact: The drought is ending this year.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

NHL Cap Court: Do William Nylander or Adrian Kempe have bad contracts? Does anyone?

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:09:00 +0000

It’s been a while since we’ve broken out the Cap Court gimmick. The idea here is that we pick five players and try to figure out if they have bad contract from a team perspective. Too much money, too much term, that sort of thing. We make the case for and against, and find a few comparables to help us. Then we deliver a verdict.

Nice and simple. Or at least it’s supposed to be. But now that the salary cap’s upper limit is growing again, and growing quickly, does anyone have a bad contract anymore? Aside from the obvious misfires that nobody’s debating, just about every deal out there could be defended with a shrug and a mumbled “cap’s going up”.

It’s enough to make it tempting to hang a Sprit Halloween sign on the old cap courtroom. But this is still one of my favorite recurring bits, and we haven’t tried it all season. So let’s give it a shot. Five more names, five more contracts, and five more verdicts. Can we find a guilty verdict among them? We'll find out, and we'll start with one of the biggest names out there...

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

NHL weekend rankings: Which playoff bubble teams are facing the most pressure?

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:06:00 +0000

It’s mid-March, the Olympic break and trade deadline are in the rearview mirror, and the stretch run to the playoffs is well and truly on. Exactly on month from today, the NHL regular season will see its final night of action. Can you feel the pressure?

Probably. But how much pressure you feel might vary based on which teams you care about, because in the NHL, not all pressure is created equal. Every team wants to succeed. But there’s a difference between wanting and needing, and there’s a difference between playing with house money and going all-in with your last dollar.

So as we cross the threshold into the season’s final month, let’s have a look at the playoff bubble and rank the teams based purely on how much pressure they’re under to make it. We’re going to ignore the teams that are all but in, as well as the ones who’d need a miracle. That leaves about ten teams that are truly on fence. Here are the five that the most to lose if they, well, lose.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

NHL Tank Index: Which bad teams are best positioned to boost their draft lottery odds?

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 16:38:00 +0000

We’re entering the stretch drive of the NHL regular season, and about a third of the league’s teams are already playing mostly meaningless games. Some of these fan bases are actively rooting for losses, so their teams have the best possible draft lottery odds of landing the No. 1 pick.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Every first-round pick from this year’s draft that's changed hands, ranked by regret

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:20:00 +0000

The first round of this year’s draft is going to take some work to keep track of. Last week’s deadline saw three trades involving first-rounders in this year’s draft alone. That brings the total number of picks that have changed hands from just that round to an even dozen, potentially, although some will depend on conditions.

Of course, not all of the teams involved in those moves would make them over again. So today, let’s get you caught up on which picks have moved while also turning this into a ranking of regret. We’ll go through all 12 picks, ranked from the ones whose former teams have no regrets at all to those where a team might like a do-over.

We’ll start with the least-regrettable of them all, which turns out not to be a very tough choice…

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

NHL weekend rankings: The Caps, the Oilers, and a deadline of swings and misses

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:27:00 +0000

Well, that was a bit of a weird deadline. It wasn’t a bad one, although I’m not sure it will rank all that highly among the best of the best. It had some decent names, and at least one surprise that we’ll get to down below. It also had plenty of names that we were told to watch out for that didn’t end up going anywhere.

If you missed it over the week, you can get caught up here: Trade grades for all the big deals, the classic winners and losers, and grades for each team.

In theory, a deadline week’s worth of player movement should cause some churn in the rankings. In reality, the deadline was a reasonably quiet one. How does that all play out? We’ll find out in a bit, but first let’s lay the deadline to rest with a few final thoughts.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)

Lose-lose trades, potato GMs, gold medals vs. Stanley Cups, and more: DGB mailbag

noreply@blogger.com (Down Goes Brown) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 13:36:00 +0000

Today is a slow news day in the hockey world, so let’s do a mailbag.

All I ask from you with these questions is three things: Ask about trade deadline stuff, keep it fun, and don’t get all weird on me. Can you guys handle that for an entire mailbag? Let’s find out.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)