Evolving Hockey Podcast

Shawn Ferris and Josh & Luke Younggren of Evolving-Hockey.com talk weekly about hockey focusing on NHL players, teams, and other current events from an analytical and statistical perspective.

Episode 164: Trying to Figure it All Out

Just like everyone else, we're trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the NHL this season... in general just overall. We spent the first half doing exactly that (it's figured out now). Later we discussed incredible pump-up songs, Scott Stapp, a more "optimal" league environment, and TRL.

12-02
01:04:00

Episode 163: Parity and The Problematic Atlantic

The Atlantic Division has been all over the place for 20 games, so we took the opportunity to investigate each division relative to our preseason expectations. We discussed the odd Canadiens, bad Leafs, interesting Kraken, and the Canucks. Later we hinted at some early Awards picks and tried to get Shawn to watch a movie.

11-18
01:07:24

Episode 162: The Ducks, Age, and Astrology

We're well into the NHL season at this point, which means it's time for us to meander. We spent the entire episode discussing the surprising teams AND the unfortunate teams, young people and old players, our updated fantasy tools, and McDavid's astrology info. This was a blast.

11-12
01:10:46

Episode 161: Spooky Season

It's Halloween, and Shawn wants nothing to do with it. We spent the first half discussing spooky teams, standout goalies, and teammate combos. Later we chatted about scary movies, superstitions, injuries, and early awards picks.

11-04
01:03:20

Episode 160: Wins Above Replacement and "Bad" Jeserys

GAR, xGAR, and RAPM data is now up on the site for the '25-26 season! We spent the first half talking about statistical models and jerseys that are actually awesome. In the second half we discussed surprising teams, road maps, and feeling very old.

10-28
01:03:05

Episode 159: Way-Too-Early Takes

Week 2 of the '25-26 NHL season is on record and it's way too early to glean anything from 5 games - we're doing it anyway. We spent the first half discussing the Ducks and early-season relative-to-teammate stars, and later we talked about traded players on new teams and tried to convince Shawn to watch Point Break.

10-21
01:02:44

Episode 158: Technical Difficulties

The Sabres are 0-3, Josh is 0-1 in fantasy, and Shawn is in Florida; we embraced all of these issues and powered through it all. We did actually have numerous technical issues, but we rolled with the punches. Week 1 is in the books, and we spent the whole episode talking about it.

10-14
01:05:17

Episode 157: '25-26 NHL Team Previews

The '25-26 NHL season begins today, which means our team projections are out! We released our initial preseason projections on Sunday (there's an article on the site for those interested), and we spent the entire episode discussing the projections and our thoughts on each division.

10-07
01:21:04

Episode 156: Pre-Preseason Projections

The '25-26 NHL season starts in two weeks and (not) surprisingly, there's still nothing happening. We spent the entire episode trying to evaluate teams based on our general feelings before the EH projections are finished. It went about as well as you would expect. It was a great time though!

09-24
55:22

Episode 155: The Kaprizov Situation

We're getting back into the swing of things, even if there's only one of those things going on right now (see: title). We spent the first half rambling about our respective other favorite sports (bowling and golf, obviously). Later, we analyzed the Kaprizov "situation".

09-17
46:57

Episode 153: Offseason Vibes

Marco Rossi signed a contract and nothing else happened this month. It's been a few weeks since our last episode, and after a (much needed) break from hockey this summer, we're back to chat about essentially everything but that. This was a bit shorter, but we had a blast just vibing.

08-26
45:59

Episode 152: Midsummer Free Agency Check In

We, without much thought to it, ended up taking a long break this July. But now that we have all contracts tracked, we can evaluate our projection model and discuss the market. We spent the whole episode doing just that, and talking bowling. It's fun to be back.

08-05
01:13:33

Episode 151: 2025 Free Agency - Week 1

We got right down to business with this one. Despite a weak free agency class, myriad contracts signed before July 1st, and an excess of money still in team's hands, over 200 contracts have been signed in the last week. We spent the entire episode talking about the interesting ones.

07-07
01:11:17

Episode 150: 2025 NHL Free Agency Preview

That's it. That's the episode. We spent the first half covering the exceptionally active last week and the second half discussing our preview of things to come. And also talking about the draft, schedule changes, data annoyances, and bowling.

06-30
01:15:18

Episode 149: Stanley Cup Review and Trades

Upfront: we had some technical issues with this one, but we were all quite happy with our discussion(s) so we decided to upload this anyway. Apologies. The Panthers are your 2025 Stanley Cup Champions! We spent the first half covering the final, discussing team strength, and talking about portable CD players. Later we covered the surprising number of trades and signings over the last two weeks.

06-24
01:14:11

Episode 148: Sports Tier List Discussion

In the second half, I (Josh) proposed a potential framework for a ranking system to order sports based on how great they are. Shawn and Luke were both less than pleased with my (amazing) system. Earlier, we also discussed the ongoing Final(s), contract impacts from playoff performance, and bowling.

06-11
01:08:15

Episode 147: Stanley Cup Preview (2025)

[Boyz II Men voices] although we've come to the end of the road, we're not going to skip the Selke voting results. In the first half, we chatted about the Conference Finals series and previewed the Cup Final. Later, we spent 30 minutes yelling about the Selke Trophy.

06-03
01:03:44

Episode 145: The Second Round (2025)

Oh, what a treat the first round was. Really something to cherish. We move on to the second round, and once again, we've got you covered with a new preview on the site. We spent the first half haphazardly moving through our first round impressions, and moved on to our second round preview in the second half.

05-07
01:15:29

Episode 144: Tornadoes and Forkballs

We're one week into the NHL playoffs, and the twins were dodging tornadoes today. We spent the whole episode discussing terrifying Habs fans, Hellebuyck, the unlikely Wild, the Leafs over-performing worst players, and amazing forkballs. This year's playoffs are shaping up to be a real treat.

04-29
01:11:36

Episode 143: The First Round (2025)

We released our 2025 NHL playoffs preview on the site for the first round a few days ago - check it out! First, we had to get some irritations with the current NHL remote viewing experience off our chests. After that we spent the entire episode discussing every round 1 matchup! These episodes are always a blast.

04-23
01:24:18

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