Some observations about the first 10 days of the regular season:
- Scoring is down slightly from this time last season. Even in the early going, about 80 percent of the games are within two goals. The lone blowout was Detroit netting nine against a Phoenix team that has a pathological inability to win on the road. Teams playing it even this close to the vest so early on is a harbinger for the middle part of the season and the squeeze near the end. In the pre-lockout NHL, goals per game looked like a reverse hourglass - skinny at the top and bottom, fatter in the middle. The trend should continue this year, but there won't be many more 6-5, 7-6 games in January than there are thus far. The number of shutouts already has raised a red flag as well.
- The Flyers-Rangers 13 round, 26 man shootout only reinforced my belief that this little invention to keep fannies in seats is completely inane. By the 7th round, shooters pretty much stopped being creative, and it looked by the end like fatigue had set in from 65 minutes of high-octane play plus those breakaways. Even though a fluke goal tied the game and gave the Rangers a point right away, I would have been fine seeing a well-played 4-4 tie. Ditto with Toronto-New Jersey from Thursday night. I don't know any half-brained fan who would be or should be crying for a definitive result after the Devils scored six, and the Devils gave up six. I can't repeat this enough, people. Ties are not "Un-American." Ties are not cheap anymore, especially since the league is one step away from awarding a point just for showing up at the rink on time. Wins are wins, ties are ties with each team getting a point, so why force yourselves to think a loss with a point is anything but a loss?
- The following quote should be laughed at by fans, questioned intensely by beat writers and columnists, and players subject to electro-shock if uttered: "We were tight all game because there's pressure from the home fans to do something to get them into the game." ANY system, whether it's forechecking, backchecking, power play, penalty kill, or line changes, automatically forces a team to think and act like automata who cannot seize the opportunity to use emotion, drive, and creativity to beat the visiting team. It's amazing to me how many teams still employ rigid systems and expect to win with more speed and skill - the two are direct opposites. Ken Hitchcock and Jacques Lemaire are the chief examples of this failed philosophy. No wonder the Flyers can't get past the second round, and Minnesota can't find its way past fourth place, despite the talent that each team possesses. Meanwhile, the Devils keep winning 25 games a year on the road.
- For the love of the Hockey Gods, let's stop using the AHL as the guinea pig for every potential rule change in the NHL. The mother bringing her three little kids for a night out of alternative entertainment is always going to be less aware and less impressed with the tweaks in the rules than they are at the three-ring circus that goes on between face-offs, timeouts and intermissions. Young kids in Omaha, San Antonio, or Milwaukee who may not have a grip on the history of the sport will be suckered in for new rules if it's couched as anything "for the good of the game," or if it's done "to boost the excitement of the game." These are the only people the AHL poll because they're asked by the NHL to gauge these specific fan bases. We need to get a poll together of grizzled oldheads in Hershey, Winnipeg, Chicago or Providence to say the game would be improved if the opponents were executed in the Aztec tradition (the losers would be sacrificed to the gods, en masse, in a large ceremony). That would definitely make arguments over the trapezoid moot, huh?
- Former Flyer Watch: Jon Sim (ATL) 4 goals; Eric Lindros (DAL) 1 goal, 4 assists; Patrick Sharp (CHI) 2 goals; Michal Handzus (CHI) 2 goals, 6 points; Kim Johnsson (MIN) 2 goals; Justin Williams and Rod Brind'Amour (CAR) 3 assists each, team co-leaders in scoring. Who needs 'em anyway?
No comments:
Post a Comment