Banging the Drum Loudly

We're two regular seasons down post-cancelled season, and it's more than enough time to go over a few things about the new NHL that are worth discussing.

First, with the playoff situation still unresolved with most teams now with either two or three games remaining, it makes watching the games excruciatingly painful - and that's just at work. Things are so tense and so unexpected, and there is so much on the line for these teams, that the second you look away or switch to a baseball game or basketball game - something actually happens. Like I had feared/predicted, virtually every team is now playing one-goal differentials, and wringing every point they can out of these games. It's a sickening replay of all those games in Marches and Aprils from the late 90's.

Tomorrow night I'm actually going as a fan to the Devils-Flyers game at the Wachovia Center. The Devils are fighting for the Atlantic Division title, while the Flyers have officially locked up the worst record in the entire league. Do you think New Jersey is going to go full throttle and beat the pulp out of Philly because that's what you do to a team that's DFL in the NHL? Heeeeellll no. There's going to be so much fear that a team like the Flyers will play spoiler on the Horned Ones, that the Devils will score once and play 50 minutes of trap until the buzzer. Never mind the Flyers have less wins at home than on the road this year.

There are more teams than ever which have topped the 100-point plateau, because the NHL gives all clubs three opportunities to earn a point, while only one of them is for an actual win. Did Bettman and the GM's really think team's wouldn't abuse that privilege after they abused ties and overtime losses so much that they had to create shootout losses as well? In the space of two years, the number of games going to overtime and the shootout has exploded, and has increased exponentially from last year to this year. At this point, even more so than ever, I'm all for two points for a win, one point for a tie, and no points for an overtime or shootout loss. I can't stress this enough, people. I'd rather have ties back than go through the farce of having teams earn points for losing in not one, but two manners.

Which also means for the love of God, NO MORE SHOOTOUTS!!! KEEP THEM IN THE ECHL AND CHL WHERE THEY BELONG, IN MARKETS LIKE CORPUS CHRISTI WHERE FANS DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER!!

While you're at it, O Blessed Lawyers of Manhattan, let's stop using the American Hockey League as a guinea pig. You've ruined the league by trying to turn your farm teams into bland family-friendly entertainment, where it once was a place where you could see rock-em, sock-em, high-scoring hockey for a bunch of players literally fighting their way up to the NHL. Besides, just because something works well in Binghamton or Lowell, doesn't mean it will play well in St. Louis. You want to make sure the kids get to the NHL with the proper tools to succeed? Teach the kids how to deal with an 8-6 game and how to defend themselves, instead of instilling rote defensive and forecheck systems that end up choking the life out of the NHL...like in the midst of a playoff race.

Speaking of choking, the level of violence in the league has become a hot-button issue lately. In fact, the mode, level and seriousness of violence in the game is as proportionate as it ever was. Let's keep it where it is. Remember, the handshake line comes after a playoff series is over. Before then, it's every man for his team, and every team for the Cup - consequences be damned. The Chris Simon incident earlier this month was foul in so many ways, not the least of which was the fact that Simon has made a decade-plus-long career on knowing the rules of being a fighter. We can't take fighting out of the game, because it is essential to the sport in that it is the only mode of violence in any organized game which has its complex set of rules intended to keep the honor of the fight intact, while keeping collateral violence to a minimum.

This rule that a player gets an automatic one-game suspension for fighting in the final five minutes of the game is positively insane. Chaos and mayhem by an opposing player must be answered when it is answered - and to put an arbitrary lock on that answer means that bad attitudes fester and boil over into spearing, high-sticking, boarding, whatever - all because you face a stiffer penalty for dropping the gloves. It was clear from the moment the rule was put in place that Bettman and his charges blanched at the Philly-Ottawa brawl from March of 2004, all the while missing the point that it could have been worse for players on both clubs if they had not cleared out all the bad blood from Martin Havlat's careless stick and body work that night.

Anyway, how ridiculous is it that Ben Eager...Ben Eager??...leads the NHL in total penalty minutes, but not in fighting majors. All while Georges Laraque, Matthew Barnaby, Jarome Iginla, Simon, Cam Janssens, Travis Moen, Derek Boogard and Andrew Peters have solid careers. Once again, I'll call for any suspension for any number of instigation penalties to be abolished. An instigator should only be assessed in a situation where a player drops the gloves and his opponent turtles, or only in clear situations where one player throws down long before his opponent decides to engage.

Moving on to penalties, whatever happened to good old fashioned majors like high-sticking, boarding, and spearing? At least those were man-sized penalties you weren't supposed to take, instead of this grey area where nobody can determine if you hit someone's face with an elbow or a dropped shoulder. Ditto on this hitting players along the boards from the side. Unfortunately, with the proliferation of the video system, and the ability of head coaches to question virtually anything that doesn't go their way (thank you very much, Lindy Ruff), referees are pretty much impotent. It used to be, under the three-official system, it was a minor for a normal infraction, and a major for intent-to-injure (which didn't have to mean blood was drawn). Now, there's no room for a ref or a linesman to make an interpretation - because I think they're incapable of doing so. The two-referee system is a major culprit - because you'll have either one veteran and one young zebra with one constantly deferring to the other, or two youngsters who don't know what's going on. Therefore, appearances become the driving factor.

Ten, fifteen years ago, double minors were reserved for minor penalties with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty tacked on, now they are regular occurrences for the tiniest drop of blood drawn from a high-stick. Maybe the impotence of the officials are another affect of the need for parity with 30 teams in the league. Major penalties (where you can score as many times as you like in five minutes) are major momentum and game changers, where a team behind can jump ahead, and where a skilled team can just strafe their opponent. My view is: if more scoring and excitement are needed in the NHL, why not call more majors? Separation between the pretenders and contenders are needed more than ever, and if one team gets blown out 8-1 because they can't stay out of the box, then so be it.

The Flyers-Sharks game from November is a prime example. Alex Picard gets rammed from behind clearly into the glass, and is knocked unconscious. A two-minute minor is assessed on the play - which clearly called for a major and misconduct for intent to injure. The Flyers were three goals down at that point, and a major power play could have made things interesting at the Shark Tank. Instead, the non-call deflated the club, and they went on to lose 6-1.

Enough of what's IN the net. Let's talk about the net itself, or rather, what's behind it. As in the trapezoid. What was its purpose again? Who cares? It's gone. Let the goaltenders, who are the most protected players on the ice, go back and handle the puck at their own risk. Make it again where a goalie with the puck can be touched, but if he's checked, it's a penalty on the other side. Make it a minor again for contact with a goalie who doesn't have the puck. Make it so any goaltender who skates in front of the net is fair game once again.

As for the net, let's not go nuts with suggestions that it be widened, heightened, oblongated, ovalled, and whatnot. The only thing I'm looking for is for the nets to go back to being solid metal piping with a thick magnet to anchor it into the ice. I can't stand how many times the net gets knocked off during a game. The best way to avoid this, and to teach players how to use space more effectively, is to have heavier nets so collisions are discouraged. This game is fast enough, and because of the speed, lacks flow. No forward really shortens his stride anymore in the zone because he knows once the net comes off, play stops. Once he realizes the net won't budge, maybe they'll start developing a wrist shot instead of hoping to bulldoze into the crease and poke the puck through from two feet.

The problem of goals being scored, in order of current discussions is: 4) goaltender size comparable to other skaters, 3) nets too small, 2) goalie equipment still too big, and 1a) teams are starting again to exploit the room on the ice and adapt it to defensive systems, 1) goaltenders are more technically sound and stay-at-home than ever before. It's not the net's fault as if it's a living thing which contracts and expands on a whim. It's also not the fault of goaltenders who don't want to routinely come out to challenge a shooter from the bottom of the circles, or to dive across the crease when a player comes in tight. It used to happen all the time years ago when the spirit of adventure and pull of the wanderlust got many masked men in deep trouble with open nets.

My last rant in this space is regarding the current schedule. It needs to be overhauled - and at least a majority of league GM's agree with that fact. Too bad we have to endure one more season where each conference hardly sees the teams in the opposite one. Again, the only way steady interest can be built in the newer markets and maintained in the traditional ones, is if every team plays every other team at least once, and twice for the better. Now that every team, by necessity, has to have at least one marquee name attached to it, the league is doing itself a disservice by stacking so many games within one conference.

I know the players union moaned for years about travel issues, particularly the West Coast teams. However, now is the time for the union to take another step back, acknowledge the short-changing going on when Colorado visits Detroit twice every year, but Pittsburgh and New York once every three years, and take one for the good of the league. It will mean a San Jose might have to go on an epic 10-game road trip like the one they had in 1998 somewhere along the line, but I think most fans will gladly trade in a meaningless fourth game against a non-playoff team for a cross-conference game against one of the league's best.

The two possible scenarios I've found are:
1) Keep the eight divisional games(32), and play all other conference teams three times(30); play two opposite conference division teams once (one division home, one road), and the third division twice (once each home and road) and alternate home and road each season (20) - for a full 82-game schedule.

2) Play two division teams five times, two teams six times(22); play other 10 conference teams three times each(30); play all opposite conference teams once at home and once on the road(30) - for a full 82-game schedule.

Anything short of that, and thousands of fans miss out on some great skilled players and goaltenders every year. Of course, this whole scenario (and the idiotic suggestion that the league return to a four division format) could have been remedied if, say, four teams were contracted right off the bat in 2005. That's neither here nor there now, I'm just saying...

The recipe for further success is there, and I suppose alterations like these might be considered more seriously if the NHL were run more like a benevolent dictatorship than a democracy where a 2/3s majority is the key to enacting any change at all. In the interim, it's just fun to let the mind wander and postulate on the good things that might make something we love even better.