This is how it starts.

The idea is simple, and one you hear in many sports, "the refs are letting them play". The idea seems to stem from the theory that by equally NOT calling apparent penalties on both sides, the game will be not on the lips of the officials, but in the hands of the players.

Sounds right, doesn't it? Three problems with this theory... 1) It doesn't work in hockey, 2) it helps the worse team and 3) it's killing the sport. (again)

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7-17. That's what (as of this moment) is keeping the Caps from their 5th consecutive Southeast Division title. 17 loser points by Florida has them 3 points ahead of the Caps, while having won 5 fewer games in regulation and overtime (ROW). So... Blame the shootout, right? Yes. (and no...)

How about, blame the conference standings standings. The way I see it, there are three issues that will need to be resolved, to allow us to get to a "fairer" (in my eyes, obviously) playoff seeding system, and yet still be acceptable to the league.

1. Shootouts are popular, they need to still have value
2. Shootouts should not have as much of a say in who goes to the playoffs, and what seed they are.
3. The 3-point system for games is the least offensive to the league and needs to stay.

Fine. Here's the new plan that solves all three.

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I have on more than one occasion discussed how poorly the job of supplemental discipline and player safety was handled by former Head-honcho Colin Campbell.  When the NHL FINALLY decided to move a different direction I was curious about the selection of Brendan Shanahan, but am cautiously quite optimistic that they have made a very good choice. 

The first bit of evidence that things were going to be handled more... well, grown-up from now on was the more even handed and thoughtful language that Shanahan used immediately upon getting the job (which you can juxtapose against Campbells propensity to go on HNC and hatchet players like some talk radio jock).  He was careful not to throw Campbell under the bus, but he also made it clear that he was going to go about the job much differently, and be much more aggressive in protecting the players. 

There have been other subtle clues along the way that make me optimistic, but what really has me excited is the ad I saw on the Washington Times website when I was following one of the morning Clips link.

The ad, suprisingly, was not an add at all, but rather a promotional video by Brendan Shanahan and Mathieu Schneider outlining how they plan to update the rules on hits to the head and boarding.

Check it out:

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Fresh off his 2 year extension, Tom Poti will continue to provide the 2010-2011 Washington Capitals with veteran leadership and solid blue-line play.  Poti, knows when to pick his spots, for all things...  pinching, poke checking, offense and even the fisticuffs.  Pick his spots being the key word...  he doesn't throw unless his team really needs a lift... and the other guy is really...  well you know what I mean.

Let the 2010-2011 season begin!

[h/t to MikeL-Caps for the idea]

Yes, I actually LIKE the shootout.

And, yes, I actually find the term "the gimmick" dismissive of somebody's preference for the shootout as though they are a hockey newbie/neophyte/ignoramus/short-attention-span-idiot-American, etc., that will learn to appreciate the true game of hockey when they grow up.  It's very similar to how some people dismiss those who object to fighting (and yes, I do) as people who "just don't understand real hockey".

When I first began this post, I was planning on the title "In Defense of "the gimmick", and had even begun to start a defense by listing the most common arguments against (in order to rebut them).  But in doing so it occurred to me, I don't care that somebody disagrees with my overtime preference, I dislike that my opinion is being widely conveyed as, at best silly, at worst ridiculous and stupid. 

The term, the gimmick, isn't always used dismissively, but often it is.  And in a world where politics and class and religion and society play out their differences with wars of words, that are heavily laden with anger,belittlement,  dismissiveness, intentional misrepresentation, biogotry and more, I really appreciate that such discourse typically does not exist at The Rink.

I feel calling the shootout "the gimmick" crosses that line, and I'd love to see it gone from the Rink lexicon.  I'm not directly asking you all to stop using the term, just consider what you're saying to those who appreciate the shootout, and make up your own mind.

Am I being WAY too sensitive... probably.

But unlike the many, many things I've said here that deserve being ostracized, (and no I'm not going to link you to my own stupid comments, feel free to quote them yourselves), I think this isn't one of 'em.

As Dennis Miller used to say (back when he was actually,... funny):
"But, hey...  that's just my opinion.  I could be wrong".

In one of the (MANY) comments discussing how Bruce Boudreau plays Tomas Fleischmann and Eric Fehr, somebody put forward the idea that part of the discussion should be that since they often play on different lines, they face different Quality of Competition.  That's an interesting thought, and thanks to our friends over at Behind the Net, I looked up what is the difference in QUALCOMP between Eric Fehr and Tomas Fleishmann.

Fehr: -.033
Flash: +.013

WOW!  That's...  what the hell does that mean? 

So I decided to try and make sense of that with numbers that would make sense to me.  (BIG TIME CAVEAT:  This is neither scientific nor complete, but simply a way to make sense in my own head).

How to do this?
I came up with the following criteria to help me get a handle on it (stick with me, it should make sense at the end).

1. Find the D pairing that faces the toughest forwards throughout the year, and use that to represent my ceiling for the highest quality of competition ("toughest assignments")
   
2. Find the D pairing that faces the worst forwards throughout the year, and use that to represent the floor ("easiest assignments")
   
3. I decided to total the top 30 and top 60 scoring forwards, per division, as a way to measure each division's relative forward's "toughness" (points not grit here)

So I took the leagues top scorers and came up with the following tally:

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I know I tend to make these funny and rejected, but I got such a man-crush on John Carlson that I just couldn't help but create my first Accepted Hockey Card.  I only wish there was a better angle or photo that I could use for this, because from the vantage point of my seat it was like watching the shot he took to crush the land of Canadia, and I would love to have been able to put a side-by-side shot of them both.

If anyone can find a better shot I will definitely update...

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For months now I have been ranting and raving about the inconsistent and ridiculous way the NHL officiates and supplementaly disciplines its players.  While I feel I have a good sense for some of what is wrong and should be fixed, I also felt like something is missing; and Mike Green solidified it for me on Sunday.

After the game on Sunday ,Greener had me thinking about the old nagging question, "you don't want to put these poor refs in the situation of trying to determine intent do you?"  Sure I do!

Sometimes.

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What the hell was going at the end of the Flames game?

Here is my list of grievances in no particular order:

• Ovechkin playin approx 28 minutes in the third period
• Gabby doing some extraordinary measures to try and tie up a 2 goal deficit
  • pulling the goalie with 2+ minutes
  • Putting Ovechkin out as your non-PP pointman (pulled goalie is not the same thing)
  • leaving Ovie out there for the entire two plus minutes when he'd been one the ice more than the linesman that period
• putting a purely skill lineup out in the waning minutes of a chippy game

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JP's link to the Rocket Richard analysis in today's clips really semi-shocked me when I saw Alex Semin's name at the bottom of the list.  I know the kid is good, (and I am firmly in his camp) but I was really surprised to see the list of names that he is with.  It occurred to me.  Hey, aren't these some of the most highly paid guys in the league?  So I figured I'd give it a look.

Some numbers after the jump.

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I recently got an email from a friend I have inside one of the major trading card manufacturers and he was telling me about a certain oft-traveled head coach in the NHL who has been hired to give more of an "expert" feel to upcoming cards, with...  uh, mixed results.  Below is a proof sheet he sent me of the Jaromir Jagr card. 

I don't think it was approved.

Full sized image

Dammit, now I'm going to have to change my screenname to "Jaromir meet Alex".  Every 4 years AO annihilates one of the guys I love to hate.

#needsMoreOlympicAlex

Others like this:

Rejected Hockey Card: David Steckel
Rejected Hockey Card: Michael Nylander
Rejected Hockey Card: Jeff Schultz
Rejected Hockey Card: Matt Bradley
Rejected Hockey Card: Mike Green

In case you didn't wade your way through all of the really great conversation from the recent Rink Love-in, I am pulling the following points from D'ohboy's outstanding comment to put together a user's guide for Lurkers who don't know how to take that first step.

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I was thinking back to the Tampa Bay game and thought about how... unique... David Steckel's fighting stance was and it reminded me of something.  So it prompted me to once again look back into my own "shoebox next to my desk" and dig up a Steckel card that never made it to print.  (By the way, he may not win many fights but watch out for that first straight left... it's a doosey!)

Since the stupid custom tags thing STILL doesn't work,(hey, it actually works now!) If you're looking for more like these...

Rejected Hockey Card: Michael Nylander
Rejected Hockey Card: Jeff Schultz
Rejected Hockey Card: Matt Bradley
Rejected Hockey Card: Mike Green

It's absurd ironic that a league that needed an entire season off to learn the painful lesson about calling obstruction regardless of whether it has a major impact on a scoring opportunity, has such a hard time with the idea of fining and suspending players regardless of whether the infraction caused an injury.  

In my post Colin Campbell is a joke, I made the case that by only enforcing dangerous plays that cause an injury instead of ALL dangerous plays, you are actually reenforcing the idea that you can "get away" with dirty and dangerous plays the majority of the time.  You just have to hope that you don't get unlucky and actually cause a fluke injury (which in turn might mean a suspension  -  a risk that guys who cross the line will take).   

If the NFL disciplinarians were running the NHL show, Tanner Glass would very likely be little lighter in the wallet tomorrow and on notice that the league is watching him.   Why?  Because he made a dangerous hit, that deserves punishment.  

Tanner Glass starts a shift at 5 minutes of the second period and attempts to hit Alex Semin as he's clearing the puck from the defensive zone.  Semin is not easy to hit cleanly, and as many do, he whiffs.  Later in that same shift, Semin is once again in good defensive position making a clear of the zone when Glass tries to hit him a second time.  This time instead of skating away, Semin jams on the brakes and jumps around the hit.  

At this point I will give the standard caveats that "yes, it's an extremely fast game" and "yes, the refs have a very difficult job" and "yes, occasionally they are going to miss things"...  they are human.  But this is a missed call.  This is a penalty.

I watched this play unfold and one thought immediately crossed my mind the instant I saw it.

"That play looked EXACTLY like the one that Ovechkin got suspended for!"

In going back and reviewing the footage again, I realized I was wrong.  That play was MUCH MORE EGREGIOUS!

Look at how much FURTHER he extends his leg to hit Semin, when CLEARLY he was going to whiff again.  I know video is crappy (taken from my cell of my TV) but I think you can still see what to me clearly looks more dangerous than Ovie's hit...  furthermore this looks, to my eye, intentional.

Thankfully, for everyone involved, Semin managed to get enough out of the way that he was not injured.  But you can bet your arse, if he was left writhing in pain on the ice after this hit, it would definitely have been called a pentalty, and probably a suspension.  

More than just inconsistent and aggravating, this inconsistency is dangerous.  I understand why refs missed this call; they're human.  I don't understand why the league doesn't supplementarily discipline players a few game checks for this stuff even when a penalty isn't called in the game.  I've heard the lip-service from the league that they do so, but I don't buy it.

To me it's bush-league to only punish upon injury...  punish for what happened regardless of result.  anything else is encourages trying to "get away with" bad behavior. 

Every time J.P. posts a picture of a hockey card from "the shoebox next to my desk" it makes me want to dig around in my own shoebox and see what interesting cards I have.  Well today I did just that and came across a card I didn't even remember buying.  It's a little faded and beat up, but man, in light of recent events it might be worth something!

Thus, I present Michael Nylander's AHL rookie card:

:: UPDATE ::  Because the stupid custom tag thing doesn't seem to work, if you're looking for more like these...

Rejected Hockey Card: Jeff Schultz
Rejected Hockey Card: Matt Bradley
Rejected Hockey Card: Mike Green

Now I know what you're thinking.  Here it comes, the inevitable blast of Jeff Schultz...  but it's not.  Really.  I think Schultzy is getting better;  slowly but surely improving and becoming a player that we may someday look back on and laugh about the grief we used to give him.  Like when people in my section (GRANT!) yell, "Stop Sucking!". 

Usually that's aimed at the whole team, not just Schultz. 

Well, if someday we're going to look back and laugh, we might as well start here:

Seriously, I'm excited about his future...  no, really I am.  It's just that... well, ya know...  he's ...  funny.

Don't listen to me Sarge!  Go get em!

After such an epic night, no one (except perhaps for poor Quintin Laing -- but nobody wants to see that card) deserves to be enshrined in a hockey card more than Matt Bradley.  Yes, he tied (at best) his fight, but it's what it meant to his teammates, the fans, the guy who has to scrape blood off the ice, and Henrik Lundqvist that is what we should remember, and celebrate.  So I present...  the Matt Bradley Rejected hockey card:

(not up to my usual standards, but it's a rush-job).

There's no way that after a season like few defensemen have ever had that the Canadian Olympic team wouldn't include one of the fastest, slickest, and most offensive (wait, that came out wrong) player on their roster, Mike Green of your Washington Capitals...  would they?

I mean it seems beyond improbable that a Norris trophy finalist isn't good enough to play on your Olympic team, but here we are. 

And thus in honor of the possibility that Greener watches the Olympics the same way we all are going to (in a futon eating Funions and drinking Mountain Dew), I am going to leak the never before seen hockey card that was pulled at the last second!

"I support more Rink original works of art"  -Fehr and Balanced

You can thank F&B for this mess.

::Update::  Circles anyone?

Okay, I admit that was link bait, but now that you're here, this is the real question at hand.

Does a team that is likely to have a high seed really need to play 100% for every game in the season, and is that really in their best interest?

I have thought about this question a LOT throughout my life watching and playing sports, and the answer is always a little different in each sport.  Hockey is a tough one to decipher.

The first question that invariably comes to mind when considering the larger question is..
"Does it really hurt you to play down to the level of crappy opponents?"  

The Caps clearly do this, and yet with the skill they have they are currently winning games (or at least getting points) on a fairly consistent basis, even when being outworked by inferior teams (skill wise).  The big question is do they carry this over when playing the leagues other elite teams?  So far the answer has been pretty clearly, no.  Boston, Detroit, Philly, San Jose have all been solid efforts and they have taken points in almost every one of them.  

So that leaves the question, if you're getting the points you need for a top seed, does playing hard only against good teams mean you are ready for playoff hockey?

Trying to apply last year's experience in the post-season to this question seems to return an unclear answer.  The first round was a mix of a very young and inexperienced team meeting an elite goaltender who single-handedly won several games for his team.  Were the Caps not ready to play after an "easy" regular season?  Were they simply still learning about the intensity of playoff hockey?  Was it simply running into a hot goaltender? Was it a little of column A, a little of Column B, etc.

Nothing resolved there in my mind.

So that brings us to the next question,
"Do you open yourself up to more injury playing hard every game?"

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Colin Campbell is the scourge of this league right now… he’s a buffoon. His decisions in the playoffs last year should have gotten him straight canned in the off-season.  And thus, his continued employment is an embarrassment to the league.

In my book, you need to follow the NFL's lead here.  Yes, they go way overboard on the No Fun League stuff, but when it comes to protecting the players they are dead-on. 

They don't try to be a mind-reader and divine intention of a player's action...  you make a dangerous play (helmet-to-helmet, horsecollar, chop-block, etc), regardless of whether that player was hurt (which is where the NHL REALLY drops the ball), you're gonna be punished.  

That sends a clear message...  do bad things (even if they don't catch you in the game), you're gonna pay for it.  The NHL standard is, you do bad things... as long as you don't hurt the guy, you get away with it.

Ruling on these issues, is similar to judging how effectively you play the game (or any game for that matter); practice the right way, good things will happen, and vice versa.  I have taught many people to play golf, and the easy mistake to make is to look at the results rather than the quality of shot.  A duff that goes 10 feet from the pin, is easy to be excited about, but is far less effective than a pure stroke that went thirty feet right due to poor alignment.  In the long run, the more quality strokes you make, the better your game will be. 

There is a similar relationship between the players' actions and the results.  In such an environment, an elbow to the head is a play that a high percentage of the time will do exactly what is intended.  Shake the guy up, exact some revenge, throw him off his game and not seriously hurt the guy.  And since the league doesn't usually penalize players for elbows that don't end up injuring anyone, you'll get away with likely little more than a 2 minute penalty (what? 90% of the time?).  Seems like a fairly high percentage play.  One who's only downside is that once every so often, somebody catches a guy the wrong way and will get suspended and fined.  "Eh, that's the risk of being a physical player". It's not a stretch to suggest that this way of enforcement actually encourages dangerous behavior.

The fact that you are engaging in an activity that has NO respect for the health of your fellow player -  if things go wrong, you can quite literally end someone career and give them life-long brain trauma - is certainly not on most players mind when they elbow someone.  But that's where the league needs to step in and FORCE them to take that play out of their repertoire.

In the long run, the more you consistently rule against dangerous play, the more your players will respect it. The argument that consistent and firm ruling will take away some of the aggressive physical play is ridiculous in my book, aside from the rare accidental elbowing, most dangerous plays in the NHL, especially shots to the head, are intended.  Isn't it worth fining/suspending a few accidental shots to the head, better than the current plan?  I would think the number of accidental dangerous plays would drop too once players are more aware of safe play. 

The NFL is one of the (if not THE) hardest hitting sports on the planet, and their players have been fined, suspended and brow-beaten into having the most respect for each others safety.  The NFL seems to have no problem putting a tough, physical product out on the field that has, for the most part, a fairly strong sense of fair play and player safety. 

Think back to Campbell NOT suspending Mike Cammalleri in the playoffs for reasons that had to do with the game situation, and you have the perfect example not adjudicating for actions but rather for intent (and even more egregiously, results).

P.S.  We'll leave out the fact that they coddle their QBs too much... that's another discussion for another day.

:: UPDATED::
As requested here are some examples:

Puck Daddy lists a few examples of inconsistent punishment on head-shots from last years playoffs.

A few days later, Brashear is suspended for his head-hunt

While Mike Brown is given no league disciplinary action for his shot to the head of Jiri Hudler

This cheap shot from Patrick Kaleta, gets no suspension, even though he clearly jumped. While this similar cheap shot from Denis Gauthier draws a 5 game suspension because Josh Gorges is injured on the play. These two seem pretty similar to me and should get the same, firm punishment IMO.