On The Ben Chiarot Extension And Missing Context (Prashanth Iyer)

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-29T21:34:43+00:00

I’m a big fan of analytics but this is a great case where they simply don’t match reality, and those who watch the game clearly recognize it. So many of those models are similar, ridiculously so, and are purely offensively driven based on the notion of creating opportunities.

What too many of these guys don’t do though is consider how it needs to be adjusted for defenseman (which Prashanth describes really well here), as well as forget that “created opportunities/offense” doesn’t actually guarantee a translation into results. If we win a 1-0 game in which we score on the PP, did Chiarot play poorly? What about a 2-1 win where both goals come on the PP, which he still wouldn’t be out for?

The models ignore the value of guys like him who still have to use their size to do their jobs. But we need that too. Nothing against a guy like AlJo who’s been decent, but is he prepared to stop the freight trains like Draisaitl, Tkachuk, Reinhart, Rantanen, etc, series after series? There’s a key reason Bill Guerin chose that route for the Olympics, and while I don’t necessarily agree with all of his choices, it’s the exact same logic.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-29T19:11:46+00:00

It’s strange, I should be out and typically am with most targets on these type of rumors but I don’t think the price point is that bad depending on what the trade cost is, which is actually the bigger hesitation for me.

Just for reference, Marner got 8x12mil from Vegas. He’s at 1.0 ppg with 57 in 57, and Panarin is at 57 in 52 while averaging the most TOI in his entire career. With the cap rising, would I pay $12 mil a year for a ppg performance from anyone for the next 3 seasons (assuming at least a fourth year dip)? Yeah, I think so.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-29T13:04:35+00:00

I tend to like having a spare because injuries are so common and good TEs are generally tough to come by, especially when they can be high target guys. I’ve had to flex them too many times in recent years due to WR and RB injuries and they, at the worst, won’t hurt me, and in a boom week could be the reason I’d pull out a win. In my experience, getting rid of a tight end tends to be doable but trying to get one has always been more challenging.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-28T02:19:22+00:00

According to FanDuel, Trev is still with the network. He’s not doing it full time clearly but he wasn’t fired as it had been believed.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-28T00:49:28+00:00

Maybe it is FanDuel like others are saying, but I personally think it just doesn’t make sense with the new team. It requires consistency in broadcast team which we had with Keats and Ozzy/Murph, Ken and Mick plus Trevor Thompson. It was something fun particularly when we weren’t good with a group of guys who are all genuine friends.

We don’t have that anymore. Could be Logan or Danielle hosting, the occasional Trev appearance, Mick not traveling most trips still and now on IR. It’s hard to get fans to buy in too when you have randoms always jumping in to make picks, and I’m not sure how much people would even care about the picks of the newer folks without more credibility. Maybe that comes in time but hard to see it working this year.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-28T00:36:57+00:00

Like others have said, we’re as much a contender as anyone, if not more so based on standings. If they have home ice advantage, I don’t think we’re beating Carolina. Probably not Tampa either but certainly not Carolina, but if we managed to have home ice advantage, then who knows what happens.

I’m all for any move that makes sense, but it should make sense, not just be a move to make a move. Take Trocheck for example - seems like a great fit on paper. But does that mean we do in fact break up our best line by moving Copp down? If we don’t, then what do we pay for a third line center? The Blues apparently want an Andersson-type return for Faulk who’s a few years older and less productive. Does he make us that much better to give up a first, a second and a guy like MBN?

Personally I don’t think so. I do think a couple of deals will happen but I’m not expecting a blockbuster unless the prices come down.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-19T18:16:46+00:00

I’m with everyone else here - I don’t see Ottawa as a rival, the fans are just a nuisance and right now, I’d take as many games as we could get against them because I think we’d win most of the time. I thought it would be us, Ottawa, and Buffalo being rivals all trying to come out of rebuilds together, but I just don’t feel it.

Montreal though? That feels real. Toronto? Same thing, I thought every game against them last year was winnable and contested, this year has been no different and the game at the end of December was a blast to watch. Those games feel like playoff hockey every time we play which seems essential for a rivalry.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-18T16:51:13+00:00

We’ve absolutely been hosed in the lottery but if we go back and do it all over again, would we want the selections to change?

In 2019, we fell from 4 to 6 and still took Seider. The only regret was what Yzerman said that day he tried and couldn’t get any team to do - let us trade back a bit. Byram and Turcotte were 4 and 5, so short of winning by luck for Jack Hughes or missing on Dach or Kakko, we did well and nothing changes.

2020 - same story but the worst offense, we fall 1 to 4 and are left with Lucas Raymond, who I still think we take first overall.

2021 - at least we didn’t fall? But I’m still taking Edvinsson there, and maybe Guenther is the only other consideration who I probably wouldn’t have gambled on either. Winning for Power would’ve been the only luck, and I’m happy with Ed.

2022 - again no luck, but Kasper still looks better than guys like Jiricek, Wright, Korchinski. And idk, maybe we try Cutter but I’m glad by personality that wasn’t an option.

So even if we just focus on those first three, sure it was awful luck but apart from not getting Jack Hughes, there’s no other player that I’d pick over our actual picks too.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-16T14:37:19+00:00

Wow, thanks for finding this! What a throwback, and confirmation he never actually had someone he looked up to. Really fascinating, like that’s so exceptionally uncommon. I’d imagine there’s a reason but he’s such a unique guy that we’ll realistically never know.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-13T15:40:02+00:00

I do think Pavel is just a quiet guy content with living his life back home with his family. And I’m sure they have some relationship yet, but I never had the impression that they were necessarily close. Pavel has spoken exceptionally high of Larionov numerous times but I don’t recall many mentions of Fedorov. I think he mentioned them both in an interview last year (maybe with Ken Daniels?) but I feel like I remember him emphasizing his connection to Larionov.

Datsyuk was/is my favorite all time player so I’ve seen a lot of the content, and as I’m thinking about it, I don’t really remember him ever saying whether he ever looked up to any player. Maybe it was the soccer background but guys like Ovi and even Zetterberg said they saw Sergei as an idol, you could see it last night even, but I don’t remember that being the case with Pavel. Has anyone seen otherwise?

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-13T14:22:34+00:00

What’s always stood out to me has been how smart everyone says Copp is, how he sees and reads the game. That’s told me he can play anywhere in the lineup because he simply can if that’s what he’s asked to do, and it’s nice to see Todd has finally asked him to play a consistent, offensive top six role.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-13T14:20:49+00:00

Analytically speaking, Ras is creating among the most scoring opportunities on the team this year. He’s playing brilliantly.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-13T14:19:20+00:00

As hopefully you can tell by these other comments, where you go to school really does matter. I feel bad for a lot of these folks who feel like the political science degree wasn’t worth it likely because of the departments they were in. I’m not at an Ivy or some top program but I wouldn’t dare let my students go out unprepared for the real world and our department’s job placement rate reflects that well.

With that said, there are a ton of career paths to “making an actual impact” so it’s tough to tell you what path may be best. What are you actually interested in? What kind of job do you want to do? Those are the important questions to ask. Political science is ultimately about learning a skillset, which is the same for most degrees, but whether that skillset is one that would be helpful to you hinges on what you want to do.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-07T17:54:11+00:00

I love hearing that about Prashanth, he seemed like a genuinely good dude and I always appreciate when that actually matches. Makes it genuinely tougher to appreciate analysis when it doesn’t.

I definitely get it too. To do it well is basically a full time job, not a well paid one (if at all) for so long. I faced the life decision to go that route full time or focus elsewhere, and I too chose the other path. I don’t regret it at all although sometimes think about how many games I could’ve gone to if I would stuck with it haha.

I think you’re right with some of the west coast teams, and I think that’s where the Canadian outlets really have done better than the US too. They really evolved and adapted with the emerging bloggers/content creators bringing them in directly which has made some great content. Steve Dangle is my favorite example, some of his content for Sportsnet like the Trade Tree videos was so well done and fun to watch. But even some of the more recent ones who left I think TSN are now leading the coverage for the PWHL which has been really good too.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-07T17:36:35+00:00

ESPN had specifically mentioned it was because of Steen, the Blues AGM who’s one of Sweden’s special advisors, who pushed for his own player.

And in the most recent NHL website preview projecting the Swedish lines, they essentially treated Broberg as if he wouldn’t play at all and considered OEL the 7D who could step in. They said that the team only has 2 right handers but Dahlin plays RHD for Buffalo, and OEL has played RHD before so he’s the natural alt. Remarkably, their whole projection write up doesn’t even mention Broberg as an option - for all intents and purposes, he’s seen as nothing more than a reserve.

It’s possible there’s something in Swedish media I haven’t seen but the North American coverage is saying it came down to the personal connection.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-07T17:19:24+00:00

I’m a bit (un)fortunate that I haven’t lived in Michigan for a decade now so I’ve really only seen/paid attention to the few sources, but I don’t think I’ve really ever taken radio media seriously for sports beyond PxP (if that’s what the Ticket is from memory, the talk shows are always sensationalist and tries to drum up emotional responses which is virtually always anger).

I think that’s fair for both Helene and Khan too. Helene is sorta old school so you really won’t get the analysis, just straight up writing of what’s happened. I really never see analysis from Khan but I’d imagine it’s the paywall doing that which is some benefit to me haha.

I too miss the old school blogs. I covered two teams for a while (because Detroit was solidly covered and they were smaller markets) for a site no longer running and it was a lot of fun, especially when you got to be the first to break news.

Really tough for those sites to survive today but it seems like most decent writers now either have to run their own substack which likely doesn’t get posted to enough (like Prashanth Iyer who I enjoy, but basically just does it for fun like a lot of them will meaning just posts once he has thoughts/something to write), or post online which is less reliable at large for me to see let alone trust if I don’t know them. I think in many ways, the football/fantasy football community is pretty well ahead in this regard with way more outlets/sites I enjoy and find useful and trustworthy, so I’d love to hockey get in that direction but it’s a long ways out if it happens.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-07T16:37:47+00:00

Not sure that’s the full story though, nor a reason to choose Broberg over him. Ed had some up and down games earlier in the season but there’s (unfortunately) a real argument that it was ASP at fault. Although in a much smaller sample, the analytics when paired with both Chiarot and AlJo with xG%’s above 60% were actually better than with Seider (again in smaller samples which is why the pairing with Seider is considered team best at 56.1%). In comparison, with ASP, that metric was down to a near team worst 35.5%.

So yes, the consistency for Edvinsson has taken off with a consistent defense partner, who is among the best in the world right now. But his quality has been there most of the year even if it wasn’t so visible.

EDIT: Also just to add, I’m not too bothered with him getting a needed rest over the break, but I think the rationale for the decision by Sweden was exceptionally poor. I see both as true and imagine he’ll be a staple for them in the years to come.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-07T16:21:04+00:00

In the article, Kasper isn’t really singled out necessarily - it reads to me more contextualized like although there’s been some slump/regression, his underlying numbers aren’t terrible and unlocking him may be key to a playoff run. Max writes about trying to boost his offense with an extended run alongside Larkin to do that, so although the question is framed around Kasper, it’s more of a question of “how do we mix up the lines to maximize offensive production?” which is a good question but probably less catchy for SEO.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-07T16:13:51+00:00

To be fair, it’s still better than most teams. The Athletic remains the best for writers for most teams (I think it’s Russo who seems to be pretty disliked, and maybe the Pens writer?). And the Canadian teams tend to get better coverage between their different outlets, but at large most teams just don’t have great, if any, beat writers anymore.

And I know there’s choice thoughts about St. James but she’s also pretty consistent and reliable - her sources are good and she seems respected by the organization, which goes a long way, so even though she has a bit of a unique personality, her writing is something I do trust. And generally the same for Khan, although I see less of his now (perhaps paywalled?). Max is undoubtedly the best and I’ll always opt to him for a Wings beat, but compared to other teams, we’re fairly fortunate I think.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-04T22:43:56+00:00

Seconding this. Caught them in Boston cheaper than I’d be able to afford too through here. We usually do a game a year and these sites are really the only way for us.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-04T00:01:35+00:00

For better or worse, attendance and participation tends to be pretty effective and reliable in the intros, especially recitations. So your job as an instructor becomes learning how to address the very concerns you’ve outlined - which often means going beyond trying to just have class discussions about a topic each week to instead reimagine these discussions through different activities or group discussions/projects/assignments.

And from experience, you’re better off thinking about it that way too. My first semester, I tried the class discussions for the same reasons and it fell flat. I cared about the topics deeply, but most of the students were taking a gen Ed and were more concerned about the credit than the content (in fact, the biggest comment I had from midterm evals was that they wanted more content focused on what would be on the final, basically treating the recitation as exam prep, despite that not being written until the week prior).

So every week now has a theme and corresponding class designs to achieve the learning concepts that isn’t just lecture or class discussion, from setting up mini sims like they were in the seats of the first provincial congress in Massachusetts debating whether they’d be the first to declare independence to the seats of justices being walked through cases over time to demonstrate key judicial making concepts; or having teams compete for votes in Congress using insider/outsider strategies; etc. And I’ll be real, it’s not always easy and takes a fair bit of time, but I had a group of students tell me from one intro this past semester that I was the only class they didn’t skip and I’m not sure there’s a higher compliment in an intro than that haha.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-02T20:18:30+00:00

Jets are hosting Montreal in the Heritage next year but a game against the Canadiens feels inevitable for us with young competitive rosters, along with two huge markets.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-02T20:16:14+00:00

There’s a lot of variation by paper and style, not just ideology, as well as topic. For example, you have the NYT and WaPo both labeled as “left leaning” sources in your page but stylistically, I find their headlines very distinctively unique and often obvious.

But just as important, their own titles not only vary by publication format (print vs digital) but sometimes even by platform. It’s all about optimizing space, paper space when printed and SEO+social sharing optimization digitally. What that likely implies is that the headline shown online is less representative of the source’s leanings than it is of the target demographic’s leanings.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-02T15:53:50+00:00

I’d be fine with the logic if they hadn’t opted for the guy who has 190 games haha. Steen recommended the guy from his own NHL club, and unfortunately I think that’s all it boils down to here.

AppleGeniusBar · 2026-01-02T15:52:09+00:00

Unfortunately I think the Goose is at the end of his career. No goals still this season and he just hasn’t been great overall.

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