Apple podcast title, The Deep Dive, the 2015
-16 NHL season rule changes, rookies, and the
Canadian playoff drought. Apple podcast description.
Dive into the 2015 -16 NHL season, a historic
turning point in hockey history. We unpack the
Wikipedia archives to explore major NHL rule
changes like introduction of three on three overtime
and the NFL style coaches challenge. We track
the generational shift from departing legends
and crazy Jeremy or Jagger milestones to the
explosive Connor McDavid rookie year. Plus, we
break down the unprecedented Canadian NHL team's
playoff drought, the chaos of the John Scott
All -Star Game and the incredible Pittsburgh
Penguins championship run. Whether you're a diehard
fan or just fascinated by how a 99 year old institution
adapts to digital age this deep dive delivers
the stats stories and aha moments of a transformative
year on the ice welcome to the deep dive i am
uh i'm really glad you're here with us today
yeah we have a fantastic one lined up we really
do so i want you to imagine a 99 year old institution
it is deeply steeped in tradition intensely beloved
by millions of diehard fans but suddenly it looks
in the mirror and realizes Well, it needs a fundamental
facelift. A massive one. Right. It has to completely
overhaul how it operates, how it presents its
product to the world, and even who makes up its
workforce. And that is exactly the scenario the
National Hockey League faced heading into the
2015 -16 NHL season. It really was a watershed
moment. You know, when you study the history
of professional hockey, there are these long
periods of stasis, and then there are these explosive
pivot points where everything just shifts at
once. This season was absolutely one of those
tipping points. For sure. And for this deep dive,
we are pulling from a highly comprehensive Wikipedia
archives covering the entirety of the 2015 -16
NHL season. Our mission today is to extract the
most fascinating insights from this archive and
explore why this specific year was such a monumental
transition for the sport. There's a lot to cover.
Oh, there is. We're looking at the rewriting
of fundamental rules, massive demographic and
generational shifts, and some truly bizarre statistical
anomalies. So whether you're a lifelong hockey
fan or just someone fascinated by how massive
corporate institutions adapt to the modern era,
there is a lot to uncover here. Okay let's unpack
this. Where are we starting? Starting with the
structural changes to the game itself. That is
definitely the best place to start because in
June of 2015, the NHL's Board of Governors convened
and approved a slate of NHL rule changes that
fundamentally altered the geometry, the pacing,
and really the biomechanics of the sport. Yeah,
I was looking through the list of those changes
in the sources, and the one that immediately
jumps out is the introduction of three -on -three
overtime. Oh, yeah. Because for the previous
15 years, regular season overtime had been played
four -on -four. So what was the catalyst for
suddenly stripping another player off the ice?
What's fascinating here is the underlying philosophy
behind that decision. The league had a very specific
problem and that problem was the shootout. When
the shootout was first introduced, I think after
the 2005 lockout, it was a wildly entertaining
novelty. People loved it. But by 2015, it had...
Basically devolving into an artificial skills
competition. Like a gimmick. Exactly. It was
essentially a coin flip deciding crucial points
in the standings. So by going to three on three,
the NHL wasn't just tweaking a rule for entertainment.
They were making a calculated move to emphasize
speed and open ice. They were hoping the actual
flow of hockey would determine the winner before
a shootout was even necessary. I remember reading
about the immediate tactical fallout of that.
Coaches initially thought it would be this chaotic
back and forth pond hockey, but didn't they quickly
realize it was entirely about puck possession?
Precisely. The strategy evolved almost overnight.
Instead of rushing the net and risking a turnover,
players would cross the offensive blue line,
realize they didn't have a clear shot and literally
skate the puck all the way back into their own
defensive zone. Just to reset. Just to reset
and maintain possession because the open ice
was so vast that a single turnover was an almost
guaranteed odd man rush the other way. And just
as a fun piece of historical trivia, it was actually
Jason Garrison of the Tampa Bay Lightning who
scored the first ever three on three overtime
goal that. October beating the Philadelphia Flyers.
OK, so that structural shift makes total sense.
But the league didn't stop there. They also introduced
the coach's challenge, which seemed, I mean,
heavily inspired by the NFL. He was directly
inspired by the NFL. They had been using a challenge
system since 1999. In the NHL, a coach could
now use their timeout to challenge a play, specifically
looking at whether a goal was offside or if there
was goaltender interference. And if they were
wrong. If the challenge failed. They lost their
time out. Right. But the implementation of that.
caused a lot of friction, didn't it? I saw in
the sources that it completely changed the dynamic
on the bench. Oh, it created an intense new layer
of strategic risk management. Suddenly you have
assistant coaches staring at ice level tablet
monitors, trying to make a split second decision
on whether a player's skate blade was, you know,
a millimeter off the ice at the blue line 40
seconds before a goal was actually scored. Which
is crazy to think about. It is. On one hand,
it ensured the rules were applied with surgical
precision. But on the other hand, it infuriated
fans because a beautiful high skill goal could
be erased due to a microscopic technicality that
had no actual bearing on the play. Speaking of
technicalities that shift the balance of play,
there was a new faceoff rule that sounds incredibly
minor on paper, but seems like a massive deal
for the players. The stick rule. Yes. On any
faceoff, not at center ice, the defensive player
now had to put his stick down on the ice first.
It sounds like a footnote. I know. But if you
look at the biomechanics of a faceoff, it is
a complete game changer. When you are forced
to put your stick down first, you are physically
anchored. You're stuck. You have shown your hand
and limited your range of motion. So the attacking
center gets a split second advantage because
they can react to your positioning. The league
was intentionally engineering the rules at a
micro level to give attacking teams a head start
on puck possession, which theoretically leads
to more offense. For you listening. Think about
how that concept translates to your own environment.
Consider how changing one tiny operational rule
in your workplace like who is required to speak
first in a negotiation or who sets the agenda
for a meeting can completely shift the balance
of power and the output of a team. That's a great
way to look at it. The NHL was basically redesigning
its entire system to force a specific result.
And while the League was redesigning its rulebook,
the actual workforce executing those rules was
undergoing a historic transformation of its own.
That brings us to the changing face of the league,
because the demographic data and the sources
points to a massive tipping point regarding the
origin of these players. It was a staggering
milestone for a sport that has always been deeply
tied to a specific national identity. For the
first time in the history of the NHL, Canadian
-born players did not make up the absolute majority
of the league. That is wild. Over the first two
weeks of the season, the percentage of Canadian
players dropped to 49 .7%. I mean that has to
be an existential crisis for hockey purists in
Canada. If the Canadians are dropping below half,
who is filling those roster spots? It perfectly
illustrates the globalization of the talent pool.
The sources note that American -born players
surged to make up 24 .2 % of the league. You
had a record 9 .1 % coming from Sweden and 4
.5 % from Russia. So it's spreading out. Exactly.
The NHL was no longer just a North American league
with a few European stars sprinkled in. It had
become a truly global ocean of talent. And it
wasn't just geography that was shifting, right?
It was a profound generational turnover. The
2015 -16 season marked the arrival of some wildly
hyped rookies. This was the highly anticipated
Connor McDavid rookie year. Oh, yeah. The hype
was unreal. Coming in as the first overall pick
for the Edmonton Oilers, you also had Jack Eichel
debuting in Buffalo and Artemi Panarin bursting
onto the scene for the Chicago Blackhawks, ultimately
winning the Calder Memorial Trophy as Rookie
of the Year. The contrast on the ice that season
was incredible, because right alongside McDavid's
hyper -speed modern game, you had absolute legends
skating their final laps. Pavel Datsyuk, a player
who had essentially owned the Salk Trophy as
the league's best defensive forward, was playing
his final season for the Red Wings. And Vincent
LeCavalier, too. Yes, LeCavalier, a former Rocket
Richard winner as the league's top goal scorer,
he retired after finishing the year with the
Kings. And hovering above all of this generational...
turnover is the ageless wonder himself. The Jaramere
Jagra milestones from this particular season
read like a misprint. They really do. He was
in his mid -40s playing for the Florida Panthers
and he just casually passes Brett Hull for third.
on the NHL all -time goals list. And then a few
weeks later, he passes Gordie out for third in
career points. It is the perfect juxtaposition
of eras. Jagger played a massive, old -school
puck protection style of game. He survived the
clutching and grabbing era of the 90s, and here
he is setting records that seem mathematically
impossible. While sharing the ice with guys like
McDavid. Exactly. Sharing the ice with McDavid,
who represents the absolute apex of the new speed
-driven NHL. Oh, and meanwhile, Alexander Ovechkin
is quietly hammering home his 500th career goal.
It's fascinating to watch an entire profession
evolve in real time. Imagine being in a room
where the retiring senior partner who literally
wrote the foundational textbooks for your industry
is sitting across the table from a 22 -year -old
prodigy. who was already rewriting the entire
workflow using new technology. That's exactly
what it felt like. That electric tension, that
passing of the torch, that was the NHL every
single night. But that tension wasn't confined
to the ice. The business of hockey was experiencing
its own massive upheaval behind closed doors.
Here's where it gets really interesting. Because
we are pivoting from the locker room to the boardroom.
The NHL clearly realized that running a successful
sports league wasn't enough anymore. They needed
to operate like a cutting -edge tech and media
company. In August of 2015, they announced a
landmark six -year partnership with NLB Advanced
Media, or MLBAM. Wait, why would a hockey league
hand the keys to its digital kingdom over to
a baseball company? Because MLBAM was the undisputed
gold standard for live streaming infrastructure
at the time, they were a tech spinoff of Major
League Baseball that had built the back end for
things like HBO now. Oh, wow. I didn't realize
that. Yeah, they were huge. The NHL recognized
they were competing in a highly lucrative, entirely
digital media landscape, and their in -house
streaming just wasn't keeping up. So they handed
over the technical operations of their websites,
their mobile apps, and their out -of -market
streaming services to baseball's... tech geniuses.
The sources mentioned they relaunched NHL .com
and the streaming apps to support 60 frames per
second video, which is obviously crucial for
a sport as fast as hockey. Though it wasn't exactly
a smooth launch, was it? No, it was actually
quite rocky. When they flipped the switch in
February 2016, a failure in their content delivery
network caused massive glitches and stream crashes.
The servers that actually pushed the video data
out. Right. But the strategic ambition was what
mattered. The NHL even took an equity stake in
Bantech. They weren't just renting server space.
They were investing in the underlying technology.
So they are pouring millions into their digital
footprint, but they were also expanding their
physical footprint. For the first time since
the year 2000, the league ended its moratorium
on expansion. They started vetting serious franchise
bids from Las Vegas, led by Bill Foley's Black
Knight Sports and from Quebec City by Quevor.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, you
see a league hedging its bets. Quebec City offered
a deeply passionate historic market, but it came
with the economic risk of a fluctuating Canadian
dollar. Right, which had hurt them in the past.
Exactly. Las Vegas, on the other hand, was a
complete blank slate. It offered massive corporate
entertainment money and a chance to be the first.
major professional sports team in a rapidly growing
untraditional market. It was a clear signal of
where the league's business priorities were heading.
And speaking of massive corporate money, we have
to talk about how teams were spending their cash.
Because the coaching carousel went completely
off the rails this season. The Toronto Maple
Leafs signed Mike Babcock to an eight -year,
$50 million contract for a head coach. It completely
shattered the market paradigm for coaching talent.
You have to remember the constraints these teams
were operating under. The salary cap for player
spending was locked at $71 .4 million that season.
In a salary cap league, you simply cannot buy
a championship by hoarding the most expensive
players. Ah, so they look for a loophole. Exactly.
There is no salary cap on coaches, general managers,
or front office staff. The Maple Leafs, who have
practically infinite financial resources, leveraged
that might to acquire what they believed was
the biggest competitive advantage available off
the ice. It was an arms race shifting from player
salaries to executive salary. Okay, so we have
a league meticulously engineering its rules for
speed, investing in baseball's streaming tech,
and teams spending $50 million on coaches. But
despite all this calculated corporate planning,
sports remain wonderfully weird and chaotic.
Very true. Which brings us to the quirks and
anomalies of the season. And this season delivered
some of the most memorable anomalies in modern
sports history. Let's look at the outdoor games
first. The Winter Classic was held at Gillette
Stadium in Massachusetts, where the Montreal
Canadiens routed the Boston Bruins. But the sources
highlight a much more significant milestone that
happened the day before. Yes, the first ever
women's winter classic. The Boston pride of the
NWHL played Les Canadiens of the CWHL to a 1
-1 tie. It is hard to overstate the importance
of that exposure. Putting women's professional
hockey on that massive stadium -sized stage alongside
the NHL's marquee event was a huge step forward
in visibility. Absolutely. But while that was
a highly orchestrated event, the all -star game
in Nashville was hijacked by absolute chaos.
The John Scott saga. It is a perfect case study
in what happens when a sanitized corporate league
collides with the chaotic democracy of Internet
culture. Break that down for me. The league introduces
this new... Highly competitive three -on -three
divisional tournament format for the All -Star
Game. They open up the captaincy to a fan vote.
And the fans... mobilize en masse to vote in
John Scott. Right. A journeyman enforcer who
had scored something like five goals in his entire
career. The league was terrified. Oh, they can't.
They are trying to present this polished high
skill showcase to their new digital audience.
And the Internet essentially trolls them by voting
for the guy who represents the dying breed of
pure fistfighters. The NHL actually tried to
make the problem disappear. How so? Scott was
abruptly traded and subsequently demoted to the
minor leagues, which many fans suspected was
orchestrated specifically to make him ineligible
for the game. But the backlash was so severe
they had to backpedal and let him play. And you
cannot script what happened next. Not at all.
He goes to Nashville, scores two goals, his team
wins the tournament, and the fans vote him the
All -Star Game MVP. That is amazing. It completely
flipped from a corporate PR nightmare into one
of the most authentic feel -good sports stories
of the decade. It proved that fans crave relatable
human narratives just as much as they crave elite
skill. That is incredible. But perhaps the most
shocking anomaly of the entire year and certainly
a huge point of interest in our deep dive was
the Canadian NHL team's playoff drought. It is
a statistical mind bender. Montreal, Ottawa,
Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver,
all seven Canadian -based franchises completely
failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
In a league where more than half the teams make
the postseason, how does an entire country get
shut out? The math alone is highly improbable.
According to the sources, this was only the second
time in the league's near century of existence
that the playoff field consisted entirely of
United States based teams. When's the other time?
The only other time it happened was the 1969
-70 season when there were only 12 teams in the
league and only two of them are Canadian. I can
only imagine the panic in the broadcasting boardrooms
up north. It was a disaster for the networks.
Hockey is deeply woven into the national identity
of Canada and the broadcasting rights are built
entirely around the expectation of deep multi
-round playoff runs by Canadian teams. So the
ratings just tanked. Having zero representation
meant a massive drop in viewership and advertising
revenue. It really underscored just how brutally
competitive the league's parity had become. And
that parity brings us to the ultimate conclusion
of the season, the Pittsburgh Penguins' championship
run. When you look at their trajectory, it feels
like a total rejection of the meticulous planning
we discussed earlier. It is the ultimate irony.
In December of that season, the Penguins were
floundering with a 15 -10 -3 record. They looked
sluggish. They didn't look anything like a Stanley
Cup contender. So they fire their head coach,
Mike Johnston. Usually, a midseason firing means
the front office is waving the white flag and
looking toward next year's draft. Right. But
instead of bringing in a high -priced veteran
coach like Toronto did with Babcock, they promote
Mike Sullivan from their minor league affiliate
in the AHL. And what did Sullivan do differently?
He recognized exactly what the new NHL rules
were trying to promote. Speed. He unleashed the
Penguins to play an incredibly fast, aggressive
north -south transition game. Suddenly, a roster
that looked slow and disconnected became an unstoppable
buzzsaw. And they just took over. They tore through
the second half of the season, marched through
the Stanley Cup playoffs, and dismantled the
San Jose Sharks in six games to win the Cup,
with Sidney Crosby capturing the Conn Smythe
Trophy as playoff MVP. It is amazing. We spent
this entire deep dive talking about the NHL's
boardroom strategies. They redesigned the rulebook
to engineer more speed. They partnered with baseball's
tech sector to upgrade their streaming. Teams
were dropping $50 million on coaching contracts
to secure off -ice advantages. And yet, the ultimate
prize was captured by a franchise that threw
its original blueprint out the window in December,
promoted a minor league coach, and rode a chaotic
wave of momentum to a title. You can engineer
the systems and manage the business all you want,
but the game is still fundamentally played on
the ice. So what does this all mean when you
step back and look at the whole picture of the
2015 -16 season? If we synthesize all these threads,
it proves that even a legacy institution cannot
survive on its history alone. You have to relentlessly
adapt. You must be willing to change your fundamental
rules when your product gets stale. You have
to upgrade your infrastructure to meet your audience
where they actually are, even if it means partnering
with outside experts. And embracing new talent.
Yes, you have to embrace the changing demographics
of your talent. But crucially, you also have
to accept that you cannot control every variable.
The magic of human endeavor still happens in
the unpredictable margins. I think that is a
brilliant takeaway. And it brings me to a final
thought for you, our listener, to mull over today.
Think back to the very first topic we discussed,
the creation of three -on -three overtime. The
NHL changed its rules specifically because they
wanted to kill the shootout. They realized the
shootout was an artificial constraint, a coin
flip that didn't reflect the true nature of the
game. They wanted pure skill and open ice to
decide the winner instead. Right. It raises an
important question for you to consider in your
own professional or personal life. How many artificial
shootouts or quick fixes have you created to
resolve difficult situations? Maybe it is a rigid
weekly status meeting that doesn't actually solve
problems, an arbitrary deadline you set just
to force a decision, or a shortcut you regularly
take to avoid a complex conversation. What would
happen if you changed your own rules? What would
happen if you stripped away those artificial
constraints, opened up the ice, and let pure
skill, critical thinking, and authentic effort
determine your outcomes instead? That's a powerful
thought. Something to think about. Thank you
so much for joining us in this deep dive into
a truly transformative year in sports history.
Keep digging into the sources around you, keep
questioning the rules of the game, and we will
catch you next time.