As the new regular season approaches and we add to our staff at Pro Hockey Rumors, we’re looking to expand our slate of features, originals, and trackers in 2025-26.
In doing so, we’d love to get some reader input. Were tools like our Active Roster Tracker from the 2024-25 season useful? What other features do you wish PHR had to make it a more immersive home for everything related to hockey transactions?
If there are certain features you find valuable or there are things you’d like us to implement, let us know in the comment section below, use the Contact Us page on our website, or email us directly at prohockeyrumorshelp@gmail.com.
Love it here, it’s my go to for all things NHL.
I think a weekly power rankings article with a blurb about each team would be awesome. And either a link to a something like the late cap friendly in team specific articles or have it as a sidebar here.
The more original content the better. The writers here are very knowledgeable and it really helps
Videos with me in them 😀
It’s a great and reliable site. I would like a complete offseason tracker showing a summary of each team’s UFA/RFA lists and player additions/subtractions. Also leave a quick link to the offseason trade tracker as the one listed currently is for the past in-season trades only.
I have rectified the issue with the offseason trade tracker!
I would suggest an occasional podcast around busy times like around free agency, roster cuts at end of preseason, trade deadline.
Yes to the roster tracker the more indepth the better
Your ‘Salary Cap Deep Dive’ and ‘Summer Synopsis’ features are excellent. What would be helpful is a post listing all the teams with hyper links to the ones you’ve completed. They have that on the baseball site and it’s really helpful for those who want to go back and look at ones completed some time ago. I am VERY happy with PHTR. It’s my go to for hockey info.
One way to currently see the completed articles in the series is by clicking the tag at the bottom of the article (either Salary Cap Deep Dive 2025 or Summer Synopsis 2025). Doing that will then show all of the columns from each series so far.
I didn’t even know there was a roster tracker.
I would, however, ask that the desktop site be uh… Better. Like a list of articles to click like the mobile site instead of dumping them all on there and having ads block the text.
Vote up and down options
Followed by some more regulation of trolling accounts only hear to stir the pot and deflect from what is really good content.
Up down vote is a good idea.
You got mute and flag buttons for ppl you dont like. Also here’s a tip from an adult: you have an option NOT TO ENGAGE with trolls.
More in-depth descriptions of some of the confusing rules and terms and types of free agency and so on. Kind of like what we see on the basketball site explaining all the different contracts and things.
have glossary like hoops rumors
Comment reaction option would be awesome! Imagine you could react to local cry babies with tears emoji. Then have a tracker that would show reaction leaders, so everybody knows the local heroes
Please no.
Why?
GM Profile
A series of articles for all active GMs, going over all their notable transactions (including drafts) and grading their overall performance as well as separately for each team they have worked for.
Attach a poll for readers to grade the same thing.
Having done an article for each GM, do an article listing everyone’s grades, both writer’s and readers’ average.
The grades obviously need to be numeric.
For consistency, it should be the same writer.
You can do profiles of notable alumni. Personally, I’d love to see Ron Hextall and Mike Milbury there.
Draft class analysis
A series of articles for all recent drafts, grading every first round pick as well as other notable picks further down the draft.
Grading could be 3-fold:
1. Games played over expected. If overall 10th pick averages 350 GP during first 10 seasons and this one has played 415, the grade is +65. If he has played none, it’s -350. Goalies have different averages than skaters and need to be graded separately.
2. Points avg over expected. If overall 10th pick (forward) averages 0.5 PPG during first 10 seasons and this one has scored 0.663, the grade is +163. If he has scored 0.25, it’s -250. For goalies, use SV%.
3. Intangibles. This would be a combined rating for things like physicality (above/below average), consistently high/low plus/minus (relative to other teammates), being a good/bad teammate, leadership etc. It’s all relative to expected average and can be positive or negative.
Combine the 3 ratings (how exactly is up to you) to obtain an overall grade.
Best drafters
Having done an article for each (recent) season, work out overall grades for each drafting team.
Updated depth charts?
Basically find the starting lineups from each team’s previous game with the 4 lines, 3 pairs and 2 PP units.
Constant traffic from fantasy, daily pool, etc. players.
Does salary structure matter?
Intuitively, Panthers’ salary structure (no one over $10M) should create a better climate within a team than that of the Oilers. But is it indeed the case? Go over the salary structure of every Cup winning team to see if you can win with a team of unequals.
Can you win north of the border?
Calculate points average at the end of the regular season for US teams and see how it compares with points average for teams based in Canada. For the playoffs, compare average playoff runs (ie number of series won).
Trades that benefited both teams
Go over trades where players going each way have performed much better than before the trade.
Most lopsided trades
Go over trades where one team benefited at the expense of the other.
Exceeding expectations
Hockey reference lists Stanley Cup odds for every team since 1986-87. Use them to work out the expected overall position in the standings each year and compare it to the actual position at the end of the regular season. This will give you places above expected for each team in every year since 1986-87.
See if there’s a pattern for any particular team or coach there. What coaches consistently perform above expectations? And are there any coaches who got fired despite exceeding expectations?
Just before the start of a season, do a poll “Who will be the first coach to be fired?”. If you can do polls with multiple selections, also do “What coaches will be fired during the regular season?”.
Post a list of winners at the end of the regular season.
Just before the start of a season, do a poll “What star players will be traded before the trade deadline?”.
Post a list of winners at the end of the regular season.
Buyouts
Go over notable buyouts to see which of them benefited (or otherwise) the team the most.
Just before the NHL announces the winner of one of their awards at the end of the season, do a poll here to the same effect.
Do a poll “What GM will be the first to be fired?”.
Do a poll “Which player is the best bargain in the NHL this year?”.
Also “Whose contract is the biggest albatross this year?”.
What makes a rebuild successful
By following histories of various rebuilds, both successful and failed, try to figure out what is the most important thing contributing to success. Is it high draft picks? Is it trades? Or is it coaching?
Can a team successfully rebuild without high picks?
How to find hidden gems
Go over star players picked late in their draft or undrafted and see if there are any patterns in these stories. Are hidden gems smaller than average? Do more of them (proportionally) come from playing outside of North America? How many of them are late bloomers?
Is there a particular team or GM who have discovered a disproportionate number of hidden gems?
What is the average increase in production in a contract year
Compare performances in contract years with those in the following 3-5 years of long-term or bridge contracts.
Does being a tough team to play against really help?
Take the most physical teams (hits and fights) and see how their position in the final standings compare with their expected position (use playoff odds from hockey reference).
Do the same for the softest teams (least hits/fights).
European division
Analyze pros and cons of adding a European division to the NHL. Can Europe afford one (which cities in particular)?
For someone who, not too many posts ago, complained about hockey writers having the audacity to post scores of hockey games on a hockey site, calling said scores “spoilers”, you certainly want a lot from the same writers. That said, I believe that I am on to your strategy. If you can somehow keep the writers occupied with all of your other stat requests, maybe it will deter them from posting the most important statistic: scores. Interesting tactic. I may have underestimated you.
People not posting 19 different comment threads on a single article. Especially, when a lot of what they are talking about they can do themselves by using http://www.rscreencasts.com to learn how to do data analysis themselves.
When a player signs with a European time, I would like the blurb to include how much money he signed for and which team if any retains his rights should he decide to return to the NHL. Also, if the player could have signed with an NHL team, like some veterans originally from Europe who may be signing with a European team because they want to be closer to home, an estimate of the contract they could have gotten if they had stayed in the NHL.
*European team.
European financials are rarely available, sadly. If they are, we include them.
A few ideas:
– current or former NHL player or front office Q&A (you did this a few times on the baseball site)
– occasional fantasy analysis (I know some readers hate that mixed in but I like it sometimes, maybe 10% of articles max)
– occasional power rankings of forward lines and defence pairings
– breakdown of player rankings/comparables by position using your favourite value metric, as well adjusted for linemate quality (e.g. possession or % goals for or whatever). For example, I would interested to see all top 4 defensemen quantifiably tiered this way.
Obviously more cat-related content:
* Videos of cats playing hockey
* photos of cats cosplaying as former notable NHL’ers (Pavel Datsyuk, Stan Mikita, Radek Bonk, etc.)
* Bring-Your-Cat-To-Work Day at ProHockeyRumors.com
* Re-imagining all 32 NHL team logos, but with cats
The site traffic would undoubtedly quadruple with these simple, commonsense ideas.
The sanest ideas ever!!!
ProhockeyMEOWmors.com
Less ads on mobile, can’t even read the content on mobile, parts of articles are blocked by ads.
Love this site!
One thing that would help me use PHR more would be an option on the desktop site to see a full-width list of the article titles (like how the mobile site is set up)!
The current desktop site has the Top Stories and Recent tabs in the right panel which show 10 article titles. Maybe there could be ‘See All’ option below those links that would take you to a full listed version that looks/function more like mobile?
In the mobile version it is also so helpful to have the ‘time’ that it was posted (1 min/hr/day ago) next to the headline, so that could be added as well when the list is wider.
I mainly use PHR on my phone, but would love to see this added so I can expand my usage to my computer/ipad!