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It was nice while it lasted but it didn’t last very long. The National Hockey League is right back to its pre-lockout state, just one big slumber party.
Five games ended in shutouts on Monday alone. Nineteen of the league’s 30 teams were averaging fewer than three goals when play concluded Wednesday.
This isn’t the NHL. It’s the English Premier League.
The upgraded style of play that resulted from the lockout has been victimized by strategy. Coaches adjusted to the rule changes intended to promote skill and skating. Defense reemerged as the great equalizer for offensively challenged franchises. Nowadays NHL players are always in the zone, be it a 2-3, a 1-4 or variations thereof. The game can’t breathe.
“Zone defense right now, I would put it under the label of killing the game,” Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said Thursday. And he plays it.
“Under the top of the circle it’s pretty well three forwards versus five defenders,” Ruff said. “Around the league it’s something that is very common. Ask all the top forwards. That’s why they’re struggling. There’s a lot of good goal scorers with two, three, four goals. A lot of good players aren’t ripping it up. The tendency seems to be going toward that again.”
Who says winning’s never boring? Minnesota is 9-4-2, Columbus 8-4-2. Both are averaging 2.7 goals. The New York Rangers are sitting at .500, having scored all of 31 times in 16 games. That’s entertainment? No, that’s how the under- skilled and less-talented survive.
“A lot of times you can’t do it through scoring,” Ruff said. “You have to do it through better defensive play. You can get by with average goaltending if you give up half as many chances as you did the previous year.
Five games ended in shutouts on Monday alone. Nineteen of the league’s 30 teams were averaging fewer than three goals when play concluded Wednesday.
This isn’t the NHL. It’s the English Premier League.
The upgraded style of play that resulted from the lockout has been victimized by strategy. Coaches adjusted to the rule changes intended to promote skill and skating. Defense reemerged as the great equalizer for offensively challenged franchises. Nowadays NHL players are always in the zone, be it a 2-3, a 1-4 or variations thereof. The game can’t breathe.
“Zone defense right now, I would put it under the label of killing the game,” Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said Thursday. And he plays it.
“Under the top of the circle it’s pretty well three forwards versus five defenders,” Ruff said. “Around the league it’s something that is very common. Ask all the top forwards. That’s why they’re struggling. There’s a lot of good goal scorers with two, three, four goals. A lot of good players aren’t ripping it up. The tendency seems to be going toward that again.”
Who says winning’s never boring? Minnesota is 9-4-2, Columbus 8-4-2. Both are averaging 2.7 goals. The New York Rangers are sitting at .500, having scored all of 31 times in 16 games. That’s entertainment? No, that’s how the under- skilled and less-talented survive.
“A lot of times you can’t do it through scoring,” Ruff said. “You have to do it through better defensive play. You can get by with average goaltending if you give up half as many chances as you did the previous year.
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