from Justin Bourne of The Athletic,

I’ll be the first to admit that using “weaponized” in the headline may be a bit much. But in somewhat more literal terms, it is what NHL teams should be – and seem to be? – doing with their timeouts. They’re using them to better take apart their foes. And once one team finds an advantage in the NHL, others are sure to follow, meaning we should see teams become even more aggressive in their use of timeouts. Let’s start with a few examples of what I’m talking about from this season.

As you know, the Edmonton Oilers are top-heavy to a degree we’ve rarely seen in the NHL. ...

Against the Arizona Coyotes on Nov. 24th, they called a timeout after their NBA Jam unit had played nearly two minutes, and managed to get them back out there for another marathon shift. Leon Draisaitl played 4:10 of that five minute overtime. They still went to the shootout, but it won’t get there very often if they can keep those bodies on the ice for that long.

read on (paid)...