Breakfast Salvos: What it means to grow the game, early analysis of the Central Division pretenders, and Mavrik Bourque

Growing hockey, and whether Minnesota and Winnipeg are for real.

Hockey isn’t actually for everyone.

And chances you are, you know why. Maybe you took family, or friends to a game, or watched it on television together. And their responses are as predictable as they are rational: the game moves too fast, goals are rare, perhaps the fighting and the hits are too brutal for their taste, and chances are, you — the hockey fan — are the only person they can talk to about it, which lowers the social incentive to watch it on their own time if there’s no watercooler for the day after.

And that’s fine. Not everyone has to like hockey, especially in Texas. But no one should ever be made to feel like they can’t like it. I can’t speak to the experience of being a woman, but someone assuming there’s a level of thirst that exists for someone to watch hockey night in, and night out, just because Tyler Seguin is good looking guy would make me feel like I can’t like hockey (this is a reference to something that happened on Twitter recently and not a reference to it, since we’ve been here before). If I were black, anyone making excuses for Bill Peters repeatedly calling Akim Aliu the n-word, would make me feel like I don’t belong, and therefore can’t like hockey.¹

When I was in high school, Nolan Catholic announced in 1997 that they were making preparations to include hockey into their sports program, and anyone interested would need to come to the front to sign up. I couldn’t wait, and neither could a ton of other guys. Sure I was Stankoven-sized and couldn’t skate, but I had been following hockey since the 80s, and re-watched The Mighty Ducks and Youngblood enough to exude some comic book level confidence. Plus I had practiced the triple deke. I got this. Thankfully, the dudes at Nolan were sweethearts, so me being the only Latino in that line never occurred to anyone. But I wouldn’t be writing about hockey today if I had to deal with lame Speedy Gonzales jokes. Suddenly all that enthusiasm would have been dulled. It’s hard to enjoy something that makes you feel like you don’t belong to a community, or that you somehow don’t fit the profile of a community member. Isn’t that what sports really are? If they were just games, we wouldn’t spend so much time connecting with so many different groups of people over it. Then it’d just be Battleship, or Hungry Hungry Hippos; a fun diversion rather than an obsessed network.

I got to recalling that experience after reading Sara Civian’s latest article, having forgotten completely about the NHL’s ad campaign in 2019, and the gatekeeping that occurs in hockey. To Sara’s point, why does it matter so much why someone likes hockey to begin with? Chances are, even you and I enjoy hockey for different reasons. I probably love non-NHL hockey more than you, for example. But wouldn’t it be awkward for you to suddenly read comments from me about how “today’s prospect report is for the real fans” or something, as if to question your fandom, or to make you feel like you needed to defend yourself in some way? If there’s a fancy stat or xG for growing the game, that’s it: enjoy and have fun, but not at the expense of others. It’s not your job to build others up, but surely you can restrain yourself from tearing others down, in whatever form that takes, and however well-intentioned. ‘Stick to sports’, right?

Thankfully there are people choosing to do both, like Nate Mata, who is bringing hockey to the Valley. Yes, hockey in the Valley. I couldn’t believe it either. Sticktap to Alvaro Montoya and the Dallas Stars for putting this really cool story on my radar.

Minnesota and Winnipeg: the truth?

As good as the Stars are, they’re right in between two teams having equally hot starts in Minnesota and Winnipeg. The Jets’ unbeaten streak was broken the other day by Toronto, and even though I’ve already talked about the Jets multiple times this month, they continue sliding down the goal recipe chart.

Here they are above the mean in netminding and shooting percentage and below the mean in shot rates and shot quality. The ‘regression’ sign is right there, in bright neon letters. Further to this point, Neil Paine has another piece of the regression puzzle: these Jets always do better in the first half of the season.

Again, this both is and is not about the numbers. Since 2022, Winnipeg is just a barely above average team in shot rates, and expected goal share. It’s not like they don’t deserve respect. Connor Hellebuyck is elite with a capital E. Cole Perfetti is exactly the injection of youthful talent they need, and Nikolaj Ehlers and Kyle Connor are two of most talented, pound for pound impact offensive players around. New head coach Scott Arniel also seems progressive in his approach to coaching too.

Yesterday I wrote in D Magazine about two different values that all teams have: their intrinsic value, and their expressed value. To me, that’s the problem with Winnipeg. So much of what we’re seeing is the latter: a team with the goaltending to steal a game, and the shooters to jailbreak a game. It sounds like a good formula. Except good teams are more layered than that, so consider me a skeptic.

That’s why Minnesota stands out to me: because they’ve been elite defensively for a very long time, except looking at their goal components this year, their offense isn’t deficient in any one area, and the only thing missing right now is their shot quantity. Getting back to this theme of teams with two different values, the Wild are the opposite of Winnipeg — a team that is intrinsically good. Ideally, you have both, and that’s why I wouldn’t call Minnesota the real deal either.

So what does that say about Dallas, who has one of the funniest looking charts of all? (They basically have the same profile as Anaheim, just less dramatic.) Given their recent history, they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt in more ways than one.

But one thing they’ll finally get to answer is how they respond to a tougher schedule. November isn’t exactly the thunderdome, but it’s a far cry from October, starting with back to back games versus the defending Cup champs. Again: cruise control. A back-to-back series is exactly the kind of sequence that should coax Dallas’ best (or worst) impulses? In some ways, I think the next two games will tell us more about these Stars than the previous nine. (Again, only some.)

Mavrik Bourque

Because Bourque was part of Dallas’ next core, the hype was real. But an injury before the year began took away some of the momentum he might have built for himself with more games under his belt, and now he looks like he needs something of a jumpstart. For the most part, I don’t think anyone is actively worried. With the early injuries, he’s kind of just bounced around.

It’s one of the reasons why Oskar Back probably seems like an option: he fits onto the fourth line (even if their expected goal share is awful) with no fuss. Conversely, the Roope Hintz and Wyatt Johnston lines are in constant flux.

The thing about Bourque, and apologies if I’m repeating myself, is that his game will never lend itself to obvious interactions among players. Imagine him on a line with Brady Tkachuk, Jack Hughes, William Nylander, or Artemi Panarin, and you start to get the picture. Dallas is one of the best teams in the league, but except for Stankoven, they don’t have jailbreakers who can magically flip that switch either along the walls or out in the open to capitalize on all the details to Bourque’s game.

None of this is to say that Bourque is “misunderstood” or to make excuses. It’s not a criticism of Dallas either. Only that I think we undersell how peculiar Dallas’ offense is. It’s great, sure, but it doesn’t hew close to a single identity. They’re not a systematic forechecking team like Carolina, not speedy like Philadelphia, and Colorado, or great sequencers like Vegas. Bourque even stands out on his own team, which doesn’t have traditional playmakers.

TL;DR — We don’t know much about Bourque yet, but the history is there, the talent’s there, and we’ll find out soon enough once the lines start to settle in.

1. For those wondering who would make excuses, don’t forget that he’s currently coaching in the WHL for the Lethbridge Hurricanes.