Highlander Hockey Report is built on a simple idea: hockey is more interesting when we look beyond the obvious story.
There is no shortage of hockey coverage. Scores, highlights, opinions and instant reactions are everywhere. What can sometimes be harder to find is context — the why behind what we’re seeing.
That’s where Highlander Hockey Report begins.
The Report combines traditional hockey observation with modern analytics, history, roster and prospect analysis, and the experience of the game itself. Expected goals, transition data and other metrics matter here, but they aren’t treated as the final word. They are tools that can help us ask better questions and see things we might otherwise miss.
Because hockey rarely offers just one explanation.
Why “Highlander”?
The name is personal.
My roots are in Pictou County, Nova Scotia — the birthplace of New Scotland and a part of the province with a deep Highland heritage. My own MacLeod ancestry is part of that tradition.
There is another family connection as well. One of my grandfathers served with the Nova Scotia Highlanders, a regiment whose history stretches back through generations of citizen-soldiers in northern Nova Scotia.
Those connections give Highlander meaning beyond a name or a logo.
And the MacLeod clan motto provides the philosophy:
Hold Fast.
For Highlander Hockey Report, Hold Fast doesn’t mean refusing to change your mind. Quite the opposite.
It means holding fast to the principles that should guide good analysis: curiosity, evidence, context and independent thought. Follow the evidence where it leads. Question assumptions — including your own. And be prepared to change a conclusion when better evidence demands it.
Beyond the Narrative
Highlander Hockey Report isn’t interested in being contrarian simply for the sake of being different.
Sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong.
Sometimes it’s right.
The interesting part is finding out why.
That means examining the numbers without pretending they explain everything. It means considering deployment, teammates, systems, development, opportunity and circumstance. It means looking at roster decisions within the realities facing the people who actually have to make them.
And sometimes it simply means watching the game.
The objective is not to manufacture controversy or produce another hot take.
The goal isn’t to win an argument. It’s to start a better conversation.
Readers don’t have to agree with every conclusion. In fact, thoughtful disagreement is welcome.
Evidence should inform the debate, not end it.
More Than Analytics
Hockey isn’t played on a spreadsheet, and being a hockey fan isn’t only about analyzing what happens between the boards.
It’s also Saturday nights.
It’s the first NHL game you attended.
It’s opening a pack of hockey cards and hoping your favourite player is inside.
It’s prospects and trades, old arenas and new ones, road trips, rivalries, traditions and the stories passed from one generation of hockey fans to another.
Highlander Hockey Report will explore all of it.
That includes NHL and Maple Leafs analysis, prospects and player development, analytics, roster construction and league-wide issues. But it also includes The Hockey Road — experiencing NHL cities and arenas firsthand and helping other fans understand what to know before they go.
Not simply the best or worst places to visit, but the trade-offs that make every hockey trip different.
The Perspective
I’m a Maple Leafs fan. I always have been.
But Highlander Hockey Report isn’t a Leafs blog.
Toronto provides part of the perspective. The NHL is the beat.
And while analytics are an important part of the Report, this isn’t an analytics site either.
It’s a hockey publication.
One informed by numbers, history, experience and curiosity — and by the belief that understanding the game is more rewarding than simply reacting to it.
Hold Fast
Highlander Hockey Report won’t always have the definitive answer.
That’s not the point.
The point is to ask worthwhile questions, examine the evidence, provide context and offer a perspective worth considering.
Then we can talk about it.
Hold Fast. Think Sharp. See the Game Clearly.