re: Puckheads Unite! Season Long NHL Thread

Good game jackets.

It's pretty fricking sad reading DK's column tonight after the game, that one of the best and most respected award winning NHL writers that the League has, says he just can't stand to watch hockey anymore. And I'm right there with him, I've tried, but it's just so damn boring.

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This isn’t about this game. This isn’t about the Penguins. This isn’t about making excuses for individuals under-performing on this night or any other. And believe it or not, for all I’ve criticized Mike Johnston to date, it isn’t about the head coach.

It’s about hockey.

Or whatever Gary Bettman has left of it.

I can’t stand to watch the Penguins anymore. But I also can’t stand to watch other NHL games, whether in person or just plopped on the couch. And it absolutely kills me to type that onto my screen as I’m looking down from the press box at the Zamboni circling the ice that just witnessed three total goals, 57 shots, 21 shot attempts that missed the net and 30 others that were blocked.

That’s more than $120 million of talent between these two teams, both of which are loaded up front, having almost half as many of their shot attempts fail as those that reach the target.

And even the goals that were scored were the standard banks off people’s behinds or feet or random sticks on the way. They’re mishaps where they once were magic.

People talk about chances as if shot totals reflect that. They don’t. The shots are more Tyler Kennedy than Tyler Seguin. In this game, there were barely any odd-man breaks, aside from a bizarre two-on-none by Columbus that Marc-Andre Fleury read brilliantly, and there were no other breakaways or slick one-on-one moves or one-touch passing or blazing shots while speeding down the wing … no creativity of any kind.

Can’t have that, of course. Coaches, who always are first and foremost about self-preservation in the fickle world of NHL employment, aren’t interested. That wouldn’t be good “puck management,” a term that should sicken hockey fans today as much as the previous generation spurned the “neutral-zone trap,” the monster born in a New Jersey swamp in 1995 that continues to haunt the sport to this day.

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A league that once oversaw the very best version of the world’s fastest team sport now sees a team averaging a pathetic 2.67 goals per game, almost touching the historic low of 2.63 from 1998-99. And the trend that precedes it is a steady down arrow since Bettman instructed his referees to enforce existing rules following the 2005 lockout, an edict that evidently carried as much weight as Johnny Gaudreau.

• Only six teams are averaging better than three goals per game, led by the Canadiens and Stars way above the pack, both at 3.65. Neither will come close to sustaining that, surely not Montreal. The Lightning, maybe the league’s most exciting team last season and a Stanley Cup finalist, has plunged to 24th in scoring. The Penguins are 25th. The Ducks, with Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and a lot more, are dead last with a 1.69 average.

• A league that once had 21 players top 100 points in a season — 1992-93, the year in which Lemieux put up 160 in 60 games and beat cancer — just crowned the Stars’ Jamie Benn the scoring champ with 87. Currently, approaching a quarter of the schedule, four players — the Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane, Seguin, Benn, and the Jets’ Blake Wheeler — have topped 20 points.

• A league that once boasted of transformational stars setting records that ushered in an unprecedented wave of cross-continental and even global expansion, whether Wayne Gretzky’s 215 points or Lemieux’s 13 short-handed goals in one season or Teemu Selanne’s 76 goals as a Winnipeg rookie, it’s all now mired in mediocrity.

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At least some seem to have recognized this, as the bigger/angled nets are now actually on the NHL general managers’ docket — they’re entrusted with rule changes, though Bettman does the pushing and the approving — and there’s actual momentum, though still too small, toward making it real as soon as March.

Heck, people are actually talking about it, which is encouraging all by itself: Mike Babcock, the Maple Leafs’ coach, openly called for bigger nets in the past week. Patrick Roy, legendary goaltender and now the Avalanche’s coach, did likewise. Players have discussed bigger nets and smaller goaltending equipment. Tuukka Rask, the Bruins’ goaltender, suggested not letting goaltenders leave the blue paint.

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Burke, the Flames’ president, predictably came up with the winner, though: “You’re rewriting the record books if you change the size of the nets.”

No, sir. You’re restoring dignity to the concept of NHL records by adjusting with players and goaltending equipment being bigger than ever.

Out of pretty much everyone of importance in the league, only Babock spoke with common sense: “By refusing to change, you are changing. Purists would say you can’t do it because you’re changing the game. But by not changing, you are changing the game.”

Exactly.

And listen to John Davidson, the Blue Jackets’ president, a former goaltender and another of the league’s brighter lights: “It’s slowly growing on me that the only way to fix this is to get bigger nets.”

Spoken like a man tasked with selling the sport in Ohio.

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Try reading next time, obviously not your strong suite. But by all means, ignore the statistical facts of the League posted as scoring has dropped yet again, that'll work! Except it doesn't.

Has zero to do with the Pens as stated, not working out? They've won 8 of 10 and are 4th in Vegas to win the Cup and average 6th in the NHL power rankings.





Meanwhile in the real world, ticket sales, tv viewership, also down from last year, which was down from the year before. This League is hitting rock bottom fast sadly. You go and look at a League like the MLS and then look at the NHL and you go, wow, so that's what a growing League actually looks like. Luckily more coaches and GM's want the larger nets and curved posts, it's on the docket, and will likely happen next season.

Maybe, just maybe, that will get scoring up and the games will be watchable again. I still say eliminate blocked shots, put in a rule that you can't intentionally block a shot or it's a penalty. Spin it off as a player safety thing.

I loved that quote last week from Babcock about the larger nets, just money.

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“By refusing to change, you are changing. Purists would say you can’t do it because you’re changing the game. But by not changing, you are changing the game.”

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The best coach in the League knows.

Game start:
Min @ Dal

Making my dad watch this in his hospital room.

I benched Markov tonight too

Keep ignoring facts.

Thank god actual NHL fans have brains and realize the League is crumbling. As well as the coaches, owners, and GM's. Luckily internet forum morons don't run the League.

Hopefully they ban blocking shots on top of the larger nets next season.

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Ratings are down

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Bingo.

Dallas wins again, but only scores three goals in the effort.

It is the third sign of the apocolypse of the league as was forewarned by our ancestors. All is lost. The NHL will soon go the way of the USFL and HDDVD.

Blues lost but Jake Allen made one of the most impressive saves I've ever seen.

Scoring is at historic lows, this is true. And I've ranted a lot about it, particularly the trap. But I have to say: the actual quality of play has never been higher and there is more emphasis on skill than there has ever been in NHL history.

The slow-footed, immobile defenseman is a relic. Almost all blueliners are expected to contribute at least a little to offense. Passing is now one of the most valued skills for a defenseman.

Goons have been almost completely driven from the game. There's still some tough MF'ers and the occasisonal fight, but the Tie Domi and Tiger Williams' of the world don't really have a place in today's NHL.

And there's more emphasis on possession than ever before. The whole stats revolution stresses skill and actually possessing. Tedious dump and chase hockey is now the last vestige of bad teams. The game itself is fun as hell to watch and there's tons of great, YOUNG talent flooding the league.

So.... why is scoring at a historic low?

Two reasons: League average save percentages are a .915. That used to win the Vezina, now that's just the average. We probably don't need the .880 save percentages of the 80s, back when, to be honest, there weren't very many good goalies. But we'd like to send that number down to .900 or .905. Instead of f'n with the nets, how about we regulate their pads? Just throwing it out there.

But the other reason is the big one: teams don't go on the power play anymore. This year, teams average 3.23 PPO a game. That would be the second lowest in NHL history, behind last year's 3.06. The first year post-lockout, we were at 5.85 as everyone figured out the new rules, and then 4.85 the next year. In the Dead Puck era, teams tended to average between 4.0 and 4.5 a season. In the 90s, it usually hovered between 4.6 and 5.0. And shockingly, more goals were scored.

Power play success rates have been pretty consistent over the past 30 years. This season, it's pretty high at over 19%, but it's usually at 17 or 18%. Know how we get more power plays:

ENFORCE THE frickING RULES.

Interference is illegal. Start calling it. Problem solved. It will either lead to less interference, more space, and more even strength goals OR it will lead to more interference penalties, more power plays, and thus, more goals. Either way, fans win.

But anyone who finds the Blackhawks, Kings, Rangers, or Lightning (the most recent conference champs) boring doesn't like hockey. Those teams all stress skill, possession, and passing.