Welcome to another edition of Help Me Understand.

Sports, hot takes and narratives. Some make sense, others perplex me.

1. Help me understand why so many people drive around without their taillights off when daylight is minimal? This isn’t a difficult concept. Turn your lights on. Daylight running lights only ensure your front lights are on. It is dark out from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. in the winter in Alberta, yet every night I drive home I see at least 15-20 cars without their taillights on. WTF.

2. Help me understand how some Oilers fans don’t realize two things can be true at the same time. Evan Bouchard is a very good player. He’s also a player who hasn’t performed very well for much of this season. He and his partner Mattias Ekholm can play a lot better than they have and I expect they will. Bouchard said his performance on Monday was “unacceptable.” He’s in a funk right now, yet we have two groups of fans who seem to overlook the entire picture of Bouchard. Anyone suggesting the Oilers should trade him should take a break from posting on their social media page. You don’t trade him. That would be asinine. At the same time, there are are big fans who need to stop pretending he’s playing up to his standard. He isn’t, but that doesn’t mean he won’t again. He will find his game again. It might take some time, but he’s a big part of the team and he needs to rebuild the basics of his game and just start making the simple plays.

3. Help me understand how the Buffalo Sabres can be this bad. Again. They’ve missed the playoffs an NHL record 13 consecutive seasons and they will make it 14 this year. They are winless in their last 11 games (0-8-3). They rank 30th in the NHL two points ahead of Chicago and Nashville and are showing no signs of improvement. Their owner met with the team in Montreal and reports are he told them he believed in them and the solutions were inside the dressing room. The Sabres then went out and got demolished 6-1 by Montreal last night. You have to make many incorrect decisions to miss the playoffs 14 years in a row and the latest one was when GM Kevyn Adams hired Lindy Ruff this past off-season without interviewing any other coaches. It missed an opportunity to learn more about his organization. Ruff might have been the best fit, but why not at least interview others?

Adams had very little NHL experience when he took the job, and the Sabres don’t have many experienced guys surrounding him. That is one main issue, and it is clear the Sabres will need to make a change in management. I guess they could fire the coach after 32 games, but that won’t solve their problems. It will be fascinating to see what they do moving forward, but this season is lost and the best thing for the Sabres right now is how well Josh Allen is playing for the Bills. The Sabres ineptitude will be overlooked as the Bills prepare for another playoff run.

4. Help me understand why the NHL has such different interpretations from referees regarding crosschecking.

—- JT Miller was given a crosschecking penalty on this play.

Jack Eichel wasn’t given a penalty on this crosscheck.

Being a referee is very difficult. Overall, they do a great job, but I can sense why players get frustrated especially when dealing with crosschecks. The JT Miller penalty is by definition a crosscheck, but we don’t see it called very often. If they are going to set that as the new standard, I’m all for it. If Miller knows that he won’t do it. Simple. But there is no consistency in the standard. And don’t tell me they can’t do it, because the league has done it with headshots. If the head is the initial point of contact it is a penalty. The consistency in how they called it has reduced headshots. You will still see the odd one because the game is so fast that at times a player will miss by a few inches, but overall headshots are very rare.

I don’t understand the NHL’s resistance to wanting to reduce hits from behind/crosschecks in the back, especially a few feet from the boards.

The Eichel crosscheck was much worse, from my viewpoint, than Miller’s. The Eichel play should be a penalty every time, without exception. However, the league refuses to crack down on hits/crosschecks from behind. There was some concern players are turning into hits to draw calls. Sure, that happens, but Ekholm was skating in a straight line. He never turned at the last second and he was six feet from the boards when he was hit. That should be a call all day in the NHL.

5. Did anyone else find Yellowstone unwatchable without Kevin Costner? I don’t understand the love for Beth. She is so over-the-top that her character is completely unbelievable and annoying. She and Jamie might be the two least likable characters I’ve ever seen in one show.

6. It has been two weeks since Canada announced their roster for the 4 Nations Faceoff, and the decision to leave Zach Hyman off the team still is hard for me to understand. He has a slow start, and it seems management viewed 19 games, where he had chances, but didn’t finish, as an accurate reflection of who he is as a player. They could not have been more wrong. Here are the goals totals of the players who were battling for roster spots. It shows the two previous seasons, goals this year and goals since the roster was named.

Since the start of the 2022-23 season, Hyman has 100 goals followed by Konecny (79), Hagel (71), Jarvis (55), Bennett (49) and Stone (39).  He isn’t on the team. Help me understand why.

7. Some have said he isn’t there because he isn’t a very good skater. Help me understand how people not only believe this but actually repeat it as though it is true. Here are the skating stats, via NHL Edge, of these players. This shows their top speed this season, how many times they’ve been 22+ MPH and how many bursts of 20-22 MPH. The number in parenthesis shows where they rank among all NHL players.

Hyman has the most goals, the highest top speed, the most 22+ MPH bursts and the most 20-22 MPH bursts.

8. Some things are hard to understand. Sam Reinhart has four shorthanded goals while no NHL team has more than four. Only Columbus, New Jersey and Tampa have four, while Florida’s other skaters also have four as the Panthers lead the league with eight shorthanded goals. The Panthers also lead the NHL in allowing the most shorthanded goals (5). Despite watching their teammates score lots of shorthanded goals, they haven’t figured out how to stop allowing them.

And one last thing…The Panthers have scored eight goals in 150 minutes of PK time, while the New York Islanders have 11 power play goals in 162 minutes. The Islanders only have three more goals despite having an extra player on the ice. Ouch.

9. Since the NHL started tracking hitting goal posts/crossbar the most iron hit in one season by a D-man was 13, set by Zach Werenski in 2022. Werenski has already hit 11 this season (7 posts and four crossbars). He only hit one crossbar in 2022. Werenski is having an outstanding campaign in Columbus. Help me understand why he isn’t talked about more with Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar for the Norris Trophy.

Werenski has been much better at getting pucks on net. He has 114 shots on goal, with 78 attempts blocked and he’s missed the net 54 times (11 of them are iron). Makar has 97 shots on goal, 93 attempts blocked, and he’s missed the net 50 times (six iron). Hughes has 95 shots on goal, he’s had 100 attempts blocked and he’s missed the net 49 times (three iron).

Werenski has had 46.3% of his shots hit the net, Makar is at 40.3% while Hughes is at 39.2%.  Werenski’s point totals overall are 10-21-31, Hughes has 7-28-35 and Makar has 9-29-38. Makar has 16 points 5×5 while Werenski and Hughes have 15. Their GF-GA is Werenski (33-23), Hughes (32-19) and Makar (27-20).

Werenski averages 26:51/game, while Makar is 25:18 and Hughes is 25:01. Both Werenski (1:40) and Makar (2:02) are on the PK, but Hughes isn’t.

Werenski’s most common teammates are Sean Monahan (356 minutes), Kirill Marchenko (326), Dante Fabbro (308), Ivan Provorov (237) and Cole Sillinger (236).

Makar’s most consistent teammates are Nathan MacKinnon (555), Mikko Rantanen (514), Devon Toews (483) and Artturi Lehkonen (314).

Hughes’ most common linemates consist of Filip Hronek (321), Elias Pettersson (300), Conor Garland (272) and Jake Debrusk (267).

I think everyone would agree that Werenski plays with less talented teammates than the other two.

Thanks to Vance for his bid on the Hervey/Morris dinner at Ruth’s Chris.

DAY 13: 🎁 Water Home Filtration System from Culligan.

This complete system (valued at $8,000) can be applied to any residence on EPCOR municipal water supply. This would be a top-of-the-line setup that would encompass all the treatment requirements for a home on municipal water. If the winning bidder is on well water, we can adjust the package, so the treatment system matches the well water characteristics.

Installation would be within Edmonton and surrounding areas.

The water softener removes hard scale from the main water supply which benefits skin, hair, laundry, and plumbing infrastructure. The Reverse Osmosis removes dissolved solids, organics, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and forever chemicals (PFOA, PFOS) from household drinking water. The Chlorine removal filter provides whole house removal of Chlorine and Chloramines from the main supply to the house.