Spitballin’ (or Super Pass It To Bulis: All In, if you love adventurous acronymizing) is a feature that allows us to touch on a multitude of things really fast, because in the world of hockey, there are always lots of things to find and colour. Here are a few topics that deserve mention.

The fact that the NHL doesn’t consider shootout wins when breaking ties in the standings is hilarious to me. 46 ties have been settled already this NHL season by way of the shootout, meaning 46 points in the standings have been awarded through it, but when it comes settling ties in the standings, it’s no good. If the NHL really wanted to be consistent, they’d settle ties in the standings with a emergency shootout. Or, if it’s too difficult to get the two gridlocked teams together, a coin toss.

Yes, the shootout is silly and random. As multiple people have pointed out, it’s a total crapshoot. But when the Canucks are bad at it, as they are so far this season, it invariably leads to all sorts of equally silly, random suggestions on how to improve their fortune. Try this guy. Try that guy. Go in fast. Go in slow. Deke. Shoot. Swap goalies.

Or, in my new favourite innovation, courtesy Jonathan McDonald of The Province, pull goalies. Not during the shotoout, of course. But in advance of it. Let’s all pause to examine this head-scratcher:

While Maxim Lapierre picks up a few goals every season, he isn’t exactly known for his scoring. So it may have seemed odd to see him come out as the first shooter in Saturday’s shootout against the Colorado Avalanche. After all, scoring in the shootout had already been a struggle for the Canucks; how was sending out a fourth-line energy forward going to make things better?

So why did Alain Vigneault choose Lapierre? Simple. Lapierre lied to him.