The Athletic has live coverage of Texas vs. South Carolina and UCLA vs. UConn in the 2025 Women’s Final Four.

Start times matter in sports when it comes to championship game viewership. The World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Final, the NCAA men’s basketball title game and college football national championship game, just to name a few mega-events, all commence in a prime time (on the East Coast) television window. The Super Bowl airs slightly earlier (roughly 6:30 p.m. ET) but concludes in the middle of prime time. There is a reason television programmers have historically done this, and it follows the same adage that Willie Sutton used when someone asked him why he robbed banks.

Because that’s where the viewers are.

Prior to arriving at The Athletic, I covered women’s college basketball for Sports Illustrated for more than a decade, including annually the women’s Final Four. The role gave me a window into the sport, and I could see the potential for an economic rocket shot as the players got more skilled and athletic, and programs got deeper. The past three years have shown everything points arrow up:

• In the BCC Era (Before Caitlin Clark), the 2022 title game between South Carolina and UConn drew 4.85 million viewers and peaked at 5.91 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, the most viewers in nearly two decades.
• In 2023, the championship moved from ESPN networks to ABC. The title matchup between LSU and Clark’s Iowa more than doubled 2022, averaging 9.9 million viewers.
• Last year, the South Carolina-Iowa title game drew an astonishing 18.9 million viewers on ABC and peaked at 24.1 million. It was the most-watched basketball game (men’s or women’s, college or pro) since 2019.

The last two title games tipped off at 3 p.m. ET, and there is a strong argument to be made that even with their increasingly huge TV ratings, they all left even more audience attention on the table by airing at 3 p.m. ET, rather than primetime, when more people would watch.

During my years of writing about women’s basketball, I’ve watched ESPN make a bigger commitment to its coverage, from airing more high-profile regular-season games in better programming windows to enhancing its studio coverage with dedicated women’s basketball experts. The company made the decision in 2021 to air all 63 NCAA Tournament games nationally and placed both semifinal games on Big ESPN. Now, the title game airs on ABC. ESPN recognized it had a product with growing mass appeal and acted accordingly.

The deal that ESPN signed with the NCAA last year — an eight-year, $920 million media rights agreement that featured 40 championships bundled together (including women’s basketball) through 2032 — has contractual provisions that the title game will air on ABC. This is a great thing.

But the time has come. Rather than the usual 3 p.m. ET start time — as with this Sunday’s championship game — the title game should air on ABC in prime time starting next year, and ESPN executives and the NCAA should advocate hard for this.

The ABC schedule this Sunday includes new episodes of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (7 p.m. ET), “American Idol” (8 p.m. ET) and “The $100,000 Pyramid” (10 p.m. ET, and celebrity contestants include Rob Riggle, Luenell, Fortune Feimster and Rachel Dratch). That’s not exactly NBC’s Thursday night lineup in the 1990s.

The Walt Disney Co. would benefit far more in the long run from exposing one of its significant sports properties to a bigger audience because women’s basketball is going to be played on ESPN/ABC far longer than “Idol” and “Pyramid” will run on that network. American Idol drew 4.66 million viewers last Sunday while Pyramid drew  2.29 million viewers. The women’s title game would obliterate this in prime time.

Everyone wants to protect their own fiefdom at Disney, and there are legitimate challenges. Idol may have built into its contract that it can’t be pre-empted. As far as non-NFL programming, Idol also generates more than $100,000 for a 30-second spot, which is robust in 2025 for a broadcast show. So you would need a lot of executives from multiple sister partners to make this happen, but this is good long-term corporate business for the parent company. Willow Bay, the dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and her spouse Bob Iger, the CEO of the Walt Disney Company, know well the power of women’s sports. Last year, the couple purchased a controlling stake in Angel City FC of the National Women’s Soccer League. Iger can make this happen very easily if he wants it.

No doubt the afternoon window has produced great viewership for the title game over the last two years, and a 3 p.m. (ET) Sunday tip has benefits, given it is an accessible time for younger fans.  (The prosecution has no objection here, your honor.) But prime time on ABC on Sunday or even Tuesday will do better.

ESPN did not make a programming executive available upon an inquiry on this topic, most likely because it is trying to be a good corporate partners. But last year when I asked this of Nick Dawson, ESPN senior vice president of programming and acquisitions, he said:

“The conversations have happened with regard to the time slot of the championship game as well as network considerations for the national semifinals. It’s an eight-year deal, so where we start may not be where we finish. As of right now, our intention is to continue with what we did — the championship game on ABC in that kind of late afternoon Sunday slot, which from a potential viewership perspective our research team has proven to us that there’s not much difference in terms of potential upside between that window and in a prime-time window.”

Though the decision would have to happen at levels above her, I asked Meg Arnonwitz, an ESPN senior vice president of production and the point person for the women’s tournament, what she thought of the idea. “What I would certainly be in support of having conversations about how we continue to put this sport in the best light possible for it to grow and give it the exposure it deserves,” she said. “We should never shy away from having those conversations.”

Added Rebecca Lobo, the lead analyst of the women’s tournament: “Moving the championship game from ESPN to ABC in 2023 proved to be a brilliant decision that took advantage of the newfound popularity of women’s college basketball. I’m curious how ratings would be impacted if the game was moved to prime time. But I also trust the leadership at ESPN to know if and when the timing is right for that.”

The women’s college game is in a great place. The Elite Eight round averaged 2.9 million viewers, the second most-watched Elite Eight on record and up 34 percent from 2023.  ESPN experienced a massive windfall with the nexus of Clark and a move of the title game to ABC. A prime time final is the next step. When you have momentum, ride it.

(Top photo: Al Bello / Getty Images)

By Patrick Mooney, Ken Rosenthal and Sahadev Sharma

CHICAGO —  At first glance, the post from an X user named @Brooks_Gate seemed like something a multibillion-dollar company would ignore.

It consisted of a chart that used estimated data to illustrate the percentage of revenue spent on player payroll. Rather than sitting at the top with heavyweights like the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, the Chicago Cubs were lumped in near the bottom alongside the crosstown White Sox as well as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins — the lightweight class.

The Wrigley Field money-making machine drove the Cubs to the third-highest revenue in Major League Baseball last year, according to sources briefed on the club’s finances. Yet even as one of the world’s most beloved ballparks hums along, a single post on social media struck a nerve with fans — and inside the executive offices.

When fans stream into Wrigley Field for Friday’s 1:20 p.m. home opener, unmistakable signs of the disparity between revenue and payroll will be visible. It’s seen in making Craig Counsell the highest-paid manager in the game and then handing him almost the same roster that got David Ross fired after the 2023 season. It’s seen in trading for Kyle Tucker after back-to-back years with 83 wins, but not going all-out to maximize his final season before becoming a free agent. It’s seen in handing the third-base job to an unproven rookie at the start of a playoffs-or-bust season, after budgetary restrictions effectively took them out of the running for Matt Chapman and Alex Bregman.

how much revenue each MLB team generated last year, and how much of that is going towards their payroll this year pic.twitter.com/UAZmHhaR8a

— BrooksGate (@Brooks_Gate) March 29, 2025

The graphic that perturbed Cubs executives was just one of many floating around in the vast expanse of social media. But it captured the growing belief that the Cubs no longer seem quite as singularly focused on winning the World Series, at least compared to the way that 1908 once hung over prior regimes.

One reason is the payroll parameters set by the Ricketts family ownership group and Crane Kenney’s business operations department. Another is the rising cost of doing business in the hypercompetitive National League. Taken together, those factors have left the club in a somewhat nebulous state, as legitimate contenders but with a margin for error that is arguably thinner than it should be.

The organization’s decision-makers dispute that notion. They believe the graphic is misleading and that they are making forward-looking financial choices, from hiring Counsell to building a scouting presence in Japan to enhancing player development.

“Talking about team revenue and payroll without including the other investments in baseball and business operations, as well as the impact of revenue sharing, does not show the whole picture,” said Kenney, a reference to the capital expenditures to maintain a team-owned ballpark that opened in 1914, and operating costs to run a popular tourist attraction.

Still, one league source referred to “the handcuffs” that Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer has dealt with while trying to build a playoff contender. A competing view, however, is that the Cubs spent roughly $100 million more than the Milwaukee Brewers last year and still finished 10 games behind that small-market team.

“The focus should not be on payroll,” Hoyer said. “Last season we went over the luxury tax and we ultimately didn’t win. That’s on me. I think we’ve built a better team this year and I’m excited for the season.”

On paper, the club remains a favorite to win the NL Central with a solid pitching staff, first-round picks all over the field and the ability to upgrade at the trade deadline. This new Cubs Way could work. But success would come despite the discrepancy highlighted by the graphic on social media. The Cubs’ spending on payroll does not appear to match their revenues.

Imagine what Chicago’s lineup would look like with Chapman or Bregman hitting in the middle of the order and playing Gold Glove defense at third base. Within the past two offseasons, the Cubs had their chances to sign those All-Stars, who lingered on the free-agent market longer than expected.

Hoyer’s baseball operations department viewed each player as a sound investment and lasted into the final rounds with Scott Boras, the high-powered agent who represents both Chapman and Bregman. Those negotiations, however, went down as missed opportunities.

Matt Shaw, the unproven player tapped to play third base, might wind up being the NL’s Rookie of the Year. But the Cubs also could have bought more time for Shaw, the No. 13 pick in the 2023 draft, or upgraded in other areas to lower some of the team’s overall unpredictability.

Shaw started spring training this year understanding that Bregman was a possibility for a front office that often stays engaged on free agents deep into February or even March.

The year before, with a hole at third base, league sources said the Cubs kept Chapman on their radar but never made a formal offer due to budgetary constraints.

Chapman eventually signed a three-year, $54 million contract with the San Francisco Giants. While the Cubs started seven different players at third base last year — all no longer in the organization — Chapman posted 7.1 wins above replacement, per Baseball Reference.

“The Cubs had a lot of interest in me,” Chapman told The Athletic. “They were willing to do a one-year deal with me.

“There was just no way I could take the Cubs’ one-year deal, just for protection purposes. I was definitely considering it. I thought it would have been a good place to play. I thought they were a good team.

“Even if it was two with an opt-out after the first year, I would have really had to take a look at it. But they said with the way their money was, they could only do a one-year. I was just like, ‘That’s just too risky.’”

Boras first placed another client, Cody Bellinger, back with the Cubs before securing Chapman’s deal with the Giants. Chapman played so well in the Bay Area that he wound up signing a six-year, $151 million contract extension last September.

Matt Chapman would have made sense for the Cubs, who couldn’t make him more than a one-year offer because of budget limitations. (Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)

Bellinger, meanwhile, had a good-but-not-great season with the Cubs, which convinced him to opt in for another year on his current deal. Rather than retain the former MVP, the Cubs traded Bellinger to the New York Yankees last December, a move that lined up with their blockbuster deal to acquire Tucker from the Houston Astros.

In a salary dump, the Cubs gave up Bellinger for Cody Poteet, a 30-year-old pitcher who got designated for assignment last week and was then traded to the Baltimore Orioles for cash considerations.

Internal frustrations resurfaced in February once the Cubs missed on another third baseman. Bregman picked the Red Sox, signing a three-year, $120 million contract that includes a substantial amount of deferred money that lowered the present-day value.

Hoyer was authorized to present Bregman and Boras a four-year deal worth $115 million, according to league sources, which paled in comparison to offers made by the Astros (six years, $156 million) and Detroit Tigers (six years, $171.5 million) as well as the opportunity in Boston.

While thanking the Ricketts family for the freedom to pursue Bregman, Hoyer also made it clear to reporters that this was deemed an exceptional case. The money earmarked for Bregman would not be automatically transferred into this year’s budget for baseball operations.

Hoyer also revealed that the Cubs were around their budget limits last year when ownership gave the approval to sign Bellinger. Their final 2024 payroll wound up ninth in the majors, according to The Associated Press, at almost $240 million, or just slightly over MLB’s luxury-tax threshold.

If Hoyer had to make a special request for Bellinger, then signing another All-Star shortly thereafter would have been out of the question. This was not lost on one of the sport’s most influential agents.

“The winning commitment barometer of a major-league team is the percentage of revenues invested in talent,” Boras said.

Ten years ago, Cubs executives were highlighted in a glowing Bloomberg Businessweek cover story that declared “a sports empire is in bloom.” The major-league club had finished in fifth place five years running, and the franchise had not captured a World Series title since Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential administration. Still, the roaring optimism proved to be accurate.

Theo Epstein, the curse-buster from Boston, had recruited Hoyer to serve as his general manager in a growing front office, and later hired star manager Joe Maddon. Big-name free agents flocked to Chicago for the money and the chance to make history.

Just as the baseball side of the organization had modernized scouting and player development systems to support an elite farm system, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and Kenney’s group realized the synergy of a renovated Wrigley Field, which suddenly became the new avatar for a franchise long known as the Lovable Losers.

Kenney delivered the money quote in that Bloomberg Businessweek story: “Basically, my job is fill a wheelbarrow with money, take it to Theo’s office, and dump it.”

The wheelbarrow was big enough to win the 2016 World Series and carry the NL’s highest payroll in 2019, a disappointing season that was the lone playoff miss amid five postseason appearances between 2015 and 2020. But since the fall of what they hoped would be a dynasty, the Cubs have taken a conservative approach while certain NL clubs continue to operate aggressively.

The financials for almost every MLB franchise are opaque, but The Associated Press gave a snapshot on Opening Day 2025 that ranked the Cubs 12th out of 30 clubs with a major-league payroll nearing $193 million, which put them lower than the Arizona Diamondbacks.

That total does not reflect the organization’s entire spend on baseball operations. A team source indicated the Cubs were fifth in that category last year, though the NL is becoming a different kind of arms race.

The Mets, pushed by owner Steve Cohen, and Dodgers, taking advantage of an exceptional TV deal, are both carrying major-league payrolls north of $300 million. The Philadelphia Phillies, led by managing partner John Middleton, have added more investors in recent years as the club pushed its payroll toward the $300 million level.

The Atlanta Braves followed a Wrigleyville blueprint, building The Battery Atlanta around Truist Park, and business is booming. The San Diego Padres just signed Jackson Merrill, a dynamic young center fielder, to a nine-year, $135 million contract extension, which now gives the club six players on nine-figure deals.

“Deficit spending in the National League has definitely accelerated in the past five years,” Kenney said. “This has added pressure to grow revenue in new ways and innovate beyond our comfort zone.”

Fans cheer on Shota Imanaga. Wrigley Field continues to help fuel the Cubs’ robust revenue. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

Forbes recently assessed the Cubs at $4.6 billion, the fourth-most valuable franchise in baseball, an astronomical increase from the $845 million purchase price of the team, Wrigley Field and a piece of a regional sports network in 2009. The Ricketts family subsequently sold equity shares to help finance the stadium renovations, but they do not view that as a sustainable strategy for signing free agents and propping up payroll.

Even as valuations soar — the Boston Celtics, an iconic NBA team, recently sold for $6.1 billion — industry sources said the franchise remains a generational asset for the Ricketts family. Navigating this next phase will be a challenge.

“The business model in baseball, it’s worked pretty well for a long time, but there’s a few things right now that are just a little out of kilter,” Ricketts said on 670 The Score during the team’s winter fan festival. “The Dodgers have a lot more resources, naturally, from smart business moves they made years ago. I don’t begrudge them any of that.

“I understand when fans say, ‘How come you don’t spend like that?’ Because they think somehow we have all these dollars that the Dodgers have or the Mets have or the Yankees have and we just keep it. Which isn’t true at all. What happens is we try to break even every year.”

Ricketts clarified his Cubs Convention comments during a recent sit-down interview with CNBC.

“Maybe using the word ‘break even’ wasn’t the way I wanted to say that,” Ricketts told CNBC. “I just want people to know that every dollar that’s spent at the ballpark goes back into putting a more competitive team on the field. Away from that, everyone knows — every Cub fan knows — that we’ve invested roughly a billion dollars into Wrigley Field itself and the neighborhood around, so it’s not a matter of us not investing. We are putting the best team on the field that we can every year.

“Fortunately, for baseball, player development is as important as how much you’re spending on free agents, so we just keep grinding and doing the blocking and tackling that build the organization from the bottom up.”

In 2020, when Hoyer took over for Epstein, the Cubs refused to label it as a rebuild. But they made no secret that there would be changes.

Hoyer dealt with the COVID-19-related budget cuts that forced his group to non-tender Kyle Schwarber and trade Yu Darvish in the middle of a pandemic. When the Cubs began to collapse months later, Hoyer made the bold move to unload Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Báez in a flurry of deals at the 2021 trade deadline.

All those unpopular and unsentimental decisions eventually left the Cubs without any players remaining from their 2016 World Series team.

But what has surprised some players, agents and rivals is the cautiousness that has followed that period of transition.

“They announced what they were going to do when Jed took over,” said one executive who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss another club. “They were going to take a step back and they have. There was the assumption that once they got to a particular point they would start investing very heavily again. And they’ve probably been a little bit more methodical about it than a lot of people in the industry thought they would.”

The expectation was that Kenney’s wheelbarrow of money would come in once the front office reconstructed a stable foundation. While that has not yet happened in full force, the rival exec said, “They’re arguably the favorites in that division now. They’re still in pretty decent shape even with somewhat more modest spending.”

But big spending is the competitive advantage in a division where every other club routinely collects competitive balance draft picks to stack up more prospects. And if deficit spending, equity sales and deferred money are becoming common practices for the sport’s top teams, then the Cubs’ seeming reluctance to more assertively wield those financial tools becomes noticeable.

Jed Hoyer has yet to lead the Cubs to the postseason. In the final year of his contract, he faces pressure. (Griffin Quinn / Getty Images)

The Cubs’ pursuit of Bregman indicated that the bigger wheelbarrow has yet to arrive. Bregman passed the scouting eye test and the club’s projection model. Third base represented the only spot on the field where the Cubs did not have an established position player. Bregman’s championship experience and baseball IQ could have provided intangible benefits, and he’s close with Tucker after their time together in Houston.

After years of creating a solid major-league nucleus and restocking the farm system, this felt like the moment to strike. Instead, the Cubs whiffed and moved forward with Shaw, a top prospect and one of several talented young players who are being counted on to have breakthrough years.

Hoyer is now in the final year of his contract and under pressure. The rival official pointed to the Tucker trade, one that will be endlessly debated if the Cubs miss the playoffs this year and the Astros turn Cam Smith, the headlining prospect in that deal, into a superstar. The outcome may prove to be a referendum on the Cubs — and whether they’ll continue to face scrutiny for their spending.

“They’re going to have a test case with Kyle Tucker,” the rival executive said. “One extension probably puts all of that discussion to bed. And they have been active in a variety of these conversations. They just haven’t quite landed the player.”

Until they do, an undercurrent of frustration will run through Wrigleyville and social media, and the rumbling over time will only grow louder. Unless this is the year the Cubs win big.

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photo: Quinn Harris / Getty Images)

When it comes to stopping a scorer in a one-on-one situation, NHL goalies are better than they’ve ever been.

The league-wide save percentage has dipped in recent years — steadily declining from .910 in 2019-20 to .900 this season — as offensive strategies improve and shooters find ways to beat goalies with screens, deflections and backdoor plays. Beating a goaltender with a clean shot has become incredibly difficult.

Listen to the dressing room conversations after a team is shut out. You’ll hear players and coaches parrot the same reasons for the lack of goals.

“We needed more bodies in front of the net.”

“We didn’t get in the goalie’s eyes enough.”

“Goalies are too good nowadays. If they see the shot, they stop it.”

To an extent, these commonly-used phrases are true. Modern goalies are such good skaters that they’re usually in excellent position, giving shooters very little net to shoot at. They’ve trained their entire lives, specializing in reading shots, so it takes something truly exceptional to get the puck past them when they have their feet set and clear vision of the shot.

In response, today’s elite scorers are finding ways to use these goalies’ reads against them. They pick up on the clues goalies are using to predict shot locations, and then give the netminder false information in an attempt to fool them. Being an elite scorer is becoming less about who can shoot the puck the hardest, or even the most accurately, and more about who can conceal their true intentions and mislead the opposition with deception.

We’ll look at specific examples of these subtle acts of deception, and why they’re so effective, by examining four of the league’s craftiest goal-scorers: Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, William Nylander and Kyle Connor.

First, it’s important to understand how goalies react to shots. The term “lightning-quick reflexes” is often overstated. Yes, these netminders have exceptional reaction time, but the human body has limitations. A study by Harvard University showed that the average human reaction time is 220 milliseconds, and the average recognition reaction time is 384 milliseconds.

An 80-mph shot from the point (55 feet away from the net) reaches the goalie in less than 470 milliseconds. A shot of the same speed from the middle of the slot (20 feet away from the net) reaches the goalie in 170 milliseconds.

That means on most shots from in close, a goalie doesn’t have the time to actually see where the puck is being shot and then react to its flight. Most of the time, they are reading the shooter’s body language and stick blade to predict where the shot is going. After seeing thousands and thousands of shots over their lifetimes, goalies become incredible at it, giving the illusion that they’re actually reacting to the puck. The truth is, if a shooter simulated a shot without an actual puck, the goalie would still know where the “shot” was heading in most instances.

On this goal Crosby scored on March 11, he took the way Vegas Golden Knights goalie Ilya Samsonov read the blade of his stick and used it to his advantage.

Crosby is as crafty as they come, and has plenty of time and space on this play. The deception is so subtle that it’s difficult to notice without slow motion, but watch how Crosby opens his stick blade wide just before releasing the shot. Everything about this release tells Samsonov that Crosby is likely shooting high to the blocker side, but with a quick flick of the wrist, Crosby turns down the toe of his stick blade at the last moment and rifles a low shot just inside Samsonov’s left skate.

If you look closely, you can even see Samsonov’s blocker flinch to his right, where he anticipated the shot would go. The minor weight transfer that a goalie makes when leaning into a blocker save means that his opposite leg will typically be slower getting to the ice, which is why Crosby shot to the short side. It’s a simple-looking goal with a lot happening beneath the surface.

Kucherov uses a similar form of deception, especially on breakaways. This goal he scored against the Penguins on Jan. 12 is a great example of a move he often uses to beat goalies in one-on-one situations.

Kucherov fans his stick blade open, very similar to Crosby in the previous clip, and doesn’t close the toe until midway through the release. Because the change is so late, he regularly leaves goalies flashing their blocker way out to their side, only for Kucherov to curl the puck inside, underneath their armpit, like he does to Tristan Jarry on this play.

The initial deke to pull the puck outside of his body is crucial because it gets the goalie off-angle. When Kucherov had the puck directly in front of him, Jarry was perfectly on angle with the line from the puck to the center of the net running straight through the middle of his chest. That quickly changed when Kucherov pulled the puck outside, giving an edge to the shooter.

You can see how much room there is to the short side after Kucherov pulls the puck outside, and it’s probably why goalies throw their blocker out so aggressively when he shoots. They can sense that they’re off the angle and expect the puck to go between their blocker and the post. Instead of shooting at that opening, Kucherov anticipates the goalie’s next move and shoots where the next opening will be.

He’d pulled the same move the night before against Devils goalie Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom stabs his blocker out aggressively, only for Kucherov to tuck the puck inside it with his late toe curl.

Kucherov has mastered this trick to the point where it feels almost unfair to the goalie. It’s his go-to move on breakaways. Part of what makes it so effective is his speed. Few players approach these situations at the speed Kucherov does, which only makes it more difficult for the goalie to read him.

Here he is scoring on Columbus’ Elvis Merzlikins and Philadelphia’s Ivan Fedotov with the same move on March 4 and March 17. It’s no coincidence that every one of these goalies over-extends their blocker. Kucherov is baiting them into it with slight manipulation of his stick blade, combined with the fact that the deke gets the goalies off their angle.

There’s a reason Kucherov has outscored his expected goals metrics in nine of the last 10 seasons, according to Evolving-Hockey. Expected goals models are based on how often players score on a shot given the location and several other factors, but it doesn’t account for shooting skill, which Kucherov has in abundance.

Elite scorers use more than just the stick blade to mislead goalies. Maple Leafs star Nylander has been duping netminders with a kicking motion that he uses quite often. Here’s an example of him using a high kick with his trail leg on this overtime winner against the Devils on Jan. 16.

This move isn’t unique to Nylander. It’s a standard off-leg shot with the left leg (in Nylander’s case because he’s right-handed) hiking into the air to gain leverage and add velocity to the snap shot. It’s a technique mostly used when skating in stride, because it allows for a quicker release, and more often than not it’s used on high shots, such as the one Nylander beat Markstrom with on this play.

Here’s where it starts to get tricky. Nylander has realized that goalies are reading the off-leg snap shots, and is now starting to turn that against them. On this goal – which also happened to come against New Jersey – Nylander kicks the leg up, but shoots the puck along the ice.

You can see Devils goalie Jake Allen react as if the shot is going high-glove. Not only does Nylander kick his leg, his follow-through is mimicking a high shot. If Allen had correctly read that it was going to be a low shot, he would’ve driven his knees into the ice and sealed his butterfly. Instead, he reaches his glove out and his left pad is late to seal, and that’s exactly where Nylander scores.

Up in Winnipeg, Connor is having another excellent season. He’s one of the most under-appreciated scorers in the league, with at least 30 goals in all eight of his full NHL seasons (excluding the shortened 2020-21 season, when he still almost hit the mark).

Connor’s biggest weapon is a ridiculously fast release that is tough for goalies to read. He uses a CCM Ribcor stick with a P92 “Sakic” curve, named after Avalanche Hall of Famer Joe Sakic. It’s the most iconic stick curve and the most popular among NHL players, with a bit of an open toe to promote higher shots.

One of the biggest keys for Connor is the 85 flex in the stick shaft. It’s not the flimsiest stick in the NHL, but it’s on the more flexible side. That allows him to whip the puck at high velocity without putting a ton of weight or pressure into the stick. His upright shooting style gives goaltenders little warning that a shot is coming, and it regularly catches them off-guard.

He did it Monday night against Vancouver, casually zipping a shot by Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko in transition.

There’s very little shoulder dip or forward body lean prior to the shot, which makes it difficult for Demko to anticipate. It’s also a bit out of rhythm, which is a difficult concept to describe but makes a shot feel as though it’s coming out of nowhere for the goalie. In this instance, Connor shoots off of his outside (right) leg, which is typically accompanied by a lowering of the upper body as the player jumps from his inside to outside leg, building energy and leverage.

Demko has some of the best footwork of any goalie in the NHL, and yet Connor still catches him between shuffles. Shooting the puck just a half beat before the goalie expects it can make all the difference.

Connor also uses more obvious forms of deception to maximize his quick release and catch goalies off guard, like this no-look shot that tricked San Jose goalie Alexandar Georgiev on Dec. 17.

Georgiev knows there are several passing threats on the backside of the play (both Cole Perfetti in the low slot and Mark Scheifele near the far post) so he’s already hyper-aware of a cross-seam pass. When Connor glances to the middle of the ice as he loads his stick for the shot, it clearly throws the goalie off. Georgiev doesn’t cheat positionally by flattening out along his goal line. He’s still square to the puck, but he shifts his weight onto his left leg to prepare for a lateral explosion across the crease in the event of a pass.

Because of that, when Connor shoots high to the short side, Georgiev makes an awkward looking stab at the puck with his glove without even dropping into the butterfly. The reason the save attempt looks so strange is Georgiev’s weight transfer is not where it would normally be due to the threat of the pass, amplified by Connor’s head fake.

With the skill and intelligence of the modern goaltender, shooters are relying more and more on deception. The days of winding up and ripping shots past the goalie with sheer velocity are long gone. Lateral passing plays, deflections and screens will still be the most efficient way to score, but when a shooter faces a goalie mano a mano, deception is king.

(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; Photos: Mark LoMoglio, Mark Blinch, Daniel Bartel, Jaylynn Nash / Getty Images)