Spitballin’ (or Super Pass It To Bulis: All In, if you love adventurous acronymizing) is a feature that allows us to touch on a multitude of things really fast, because in the world of hockey, there are always lots of things to find and colour. Here are a few quick topics.
You may have noticed a lack of articles on Pass it to Bulis in recent days. Unfortunately, a wave of illness hit the Wagner household this past week and sidelined your moderately-intrepid reporter.
While I was out of commission, Canucks news continued unabated. That means it’s time for the return of Spitballin’.
Bo Horvat on the trade market?
Reports surfaced in the past few days that the Vancouver Canucks had made a contract offer to Bo Horvat that was firmly rejected by Horvat and his agent and that the Canucks were now listening to trade offers for their captain.
Rumours suggested that the offer was for eight years and well under $8 million per year.
It’s an offer that might have been acceptable for Horvat if it had been offered during the summer, before Horvat exploded out of the gates this season with 20 goals in 28 games. But the Canucks instead prioritized their other forward with just one year left on his deal: J.T. Miller.
The Canucks reportedly did make a summer offer to Horvat — a pay cut. According to Frank Seravelli, the offer was the exact same offer as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins: $5.125 million per year for eight years, less than the $5.5 million per year Horvat was already making.
That was understandably unpalatable to Horvat and his agent, if not insulting, especially when you consider that his agent called him a number-one centre and was expecting Horvat to receive commensurate compensation.
The Canucks’ decision to re-sign Miller instead of trading him will make it a lot harder to re-sign Horvat, especially now that he’s in line for a much bigger raise than if he had re-signed in the summer. Now it’s too late and the Canucks might not be able to afford to keep Horvat.
Or, if they can afford to keep Horvat, they shouldn’t, because it will prevent them from making desperately-needed improvements elsewhere in the lineup.
That means the Canucks’ best bet is to trade Horvat, whose value should be at its peak given his goalscoring, top-tier faceoff skills, and ability to play in all situations. It’s unfortunate that it has come to this but the Canucks can’t afford to lose Horvat for nothing in free agency.
Hopefully, they can get the kind of trade return for Horvat that they should have gotten for Miller.
Horvat will have no further comments after his further comments
There was a certain irony to the statement released by the Canucks from Horvat, in which he said he would “not have any further comments this year about my future,” because it was immediately followed by a post-practice media scrum in which Horvat was asked several questions about his future and, sure enough, commented.
“I’ve always wanted to keep this kind of thing confidential,” said Horvat to reporters. “I’ve always, right from the beginning of this season when the season started, I just wanted to focus on hockey and focus on the team and winning games and trying to lead this team by example and not let this be a distraction.
“That’s why I released a statement where I just want people to respect my privacy and my choice to keep this confidential and private. Right now, I’m just trying to focus on the team. That’s winning games, trying to make the playoffs, and trying to lead by example night in and night out.”
Horvat’s adamant desire to keep everything confidential and private should provide some clarity as to which side leaked that an offer was made and rejected. Word is that Horvat is not happy that any part of the negotiations was leaked, which might not bode well for those negotiations.
Horvat’s focus on the team extended to concern that he might become a distraction.
“I feel bad for my teammates having to hear all about this in the media and I don’t want to be a distraction, so I apologized to them,” said Horvat. “For me, it’s just focusing on winning hockey games here.”
“I want to be a Vancouver Canuck,” added Horvat. “I’m a Vancouver Canuck right now, until they say otherwise.”
Canucks still want Miller in the middle
Part of the problem with prioritizing Miller over Horvat in the summer is that Miller is looking more and more like he isn’t the first-line centre they believed him to be but is instead a winger.
Miller has performed significantly better on the wing this season, which shows up in the microstatistics tracked by former Toronto Maple Leafs analyst Cam Charron this season.
In the defensive zone, Miller turns the puck over more as a centre and exits the defensive zone with possession less, but is one of the Canucks’ best wingers at exiting the zone with possession. In the offensive zone, Miller has been far more effective at creating scoring chances when on the wing.
“There are two Millers,” says Charron. “The J.T. Miller who plays wing and leads the Canucks in scoring chance setup rate, and the J.T. Miller who played centre earlier this season, is second-worst only to Curtis Lazar, and has yet to set up a scoring chance.”
That hasn’t stopped head coach Bruce Boudreau from continuing to experiment with Miller at centre in practice, though he has admitted they need to use him on the wing in games right now.
“When push comes to shove, J.T. would like to be in the middle,” said Boudreau, then added, “I’d like him in the middle.”
If Horvat gets traded, Miller will have to be in the middle. Otherwise, the team will go from what seemed like an enviable 1-2-3 punch down the middle of Miller, Pettersson, and Horvat, to just one centre: Pettersson.
It really seems like Bettman might be lying about digital ads
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has a vested interest in the NHL’s digital board ads gambit paying off.
Because it’s literally paying off.
After the first day of the NHL’s board of governor meetings in Palm Beach, FL, Bettman met with the media and said that the revenue from their digital board ads has “exceeded expectations.” As someone who works for the NHL owners, Bettman would very much like to keep that additional revenue stream, which means downplaying any possible concerns.
The digital ads cover up the physical dasher board ads on television broadcasts and have sparked all sorts of complaints from viewers. The ads have a tendency to glitch out at times — flashing, covering up the players, or even causing the puck to disappear from view — but even when they’re working correctly, they can be a huge distraction, particularly the animated ads with giant pucks or cars driving around the boards when you’re trying to keep your eyes on the game.
It goes further than that. Dan Bagley at UniWatch reported that among the many other issues with the digital boards ads, they have also caused, surprisingly, audio issues. That's something that I have also heard from sources.
“The ads are inserted via a separate (presumably cloud) system, which means the main camera feeds must make a round trip to this system before being combined with play-by-play audio,” said Bagley. “So if you’ve heard your favourite broadcaster describe something a moment before you see it happen on your TV screen, that’s because the delay on the play-by-play audio is not correct when inserted over the main feed.”
According to Bettman, however, none of those issues really matter and, actually, hockey fans like the digital ads more than the old ads.
“The polling we do with our fans gives us the feedback that it's a non-issue,” Bettman said. “In fact, many think it looks better than having the numerous logos and ads on the dasher boards. It's working extraordinarily well, particularly for the complexity that's involved in doing it.”
This was initially reported as Bettman claiming that fans say games are "more watchable" with the digital ads, which definitely isn’t true, as a quick, informal poll should quickly illustrate.
Even if that wasn’t quite Bettman’s actual claim, what he did say sounds patently false. Or, at the very least, the word “many” is doing an awful lot of work in his claim. I find it extremely hard to believe that the majority of hockey fans prefer the digital ads when the vast majority of feedback I have received from hockey fans is that they hate the ads and find them distracting from the action on the ice.
For others, it’s more than just a distraction. I’ve had fans complain that the new digital ads have actually given them headaches because of sensory issues, forcing them to limit how much hockey they watch. Another said that glitching ads triggered her epilepsy.
Evidently, no one with those issues made it into whatever polling Bettman is referencing, assuming it even exists.
According to Bettman, if anyone does have an issue with the ads, it’s their fault for not paying close enough attention to the game.
“If what you're doing is just watching the dashboards — which I guess if you're reporting on it, you might do — then it may be a distraction,” said Bettman. “If you're watching the game, it's not a distraction.”
Keep that in mind the next time a giant puck rolls around the boards or a glitching ad suddenly covers up a player: just watch the game and you won’t get distracted.
