I knew this was going to be a good idea back when you suggested it.
I would love if you were correct and power plays with more rush involved are systematically more successful, because as it stands right now, power plays (as a neutral observer, which being a fan of the Leafs and Islanders I am most of the time once April rolls around) are the most boring part of the game. Without any interest in a particular team's increased odds to score, all I see is a bunch of hockey players, just kind of standing there. I've (anecdotally) found that when a power play happens is when games begin to lose my attention. Power plays involving more rushes don't fall victim to this as much, so I sincerely hope that's a real trend.
Also, LOL at a game seven having only six minutes of combined penalties. Are these the most disciplined teams on Earth, or is the NHL horrendous at officiating?
I know what you said in the piece, but I'd like you to expand a bit. Do you think a hard shooting defenceman is a useless skill? Obviously, shooting harder in a vacuum is better than shooting less hard, but you made it seem like an equivalent to being able to throw the ball 80 yards at the NFL scouting combine instead of just 70, which is met with a 'who cares' by literally everybody. Is that the same here, or is there any universe where it can actually be a skill worth paying for?
If you plan to do this for the impending NHL season, I'll be anxiously awaiting results. I still think this is a great idea!
Thanks! Yeah, definitely have plans to do this during the season, though I hit a bit of a snag in the first two games with the NHL being late to upload the Prague games and just doing both at once. Hopefully that was just an issue with it being a neutral site (no problems with yesterday's games), but something I'll try to keep an eye on.
I think it would be really interesting if teams intentionally pulled out of the offensive zone on power plays to try to create rush chances. The two most innovative power play tactics over the last decade have been the entry drop/double drop pass and the 1-3-1 formation, but basically every team does both those things now. A really outside the box strategy would be super exciting, just to see if it works.
I feel like shooting hard is a bit of a useless skill once you get above a certain threshold. A 90 MPH shot from the point (60-65 feet) only gets on net 0.15-0.2 seconds faster, and it still takes nearly half a second to get on net, plenty of time for an NHL goaltender to see it and react. Plus, I think most really hard shots are slap shots and with the additional time it takes to wind up, the goalie really has a lot of time to get set, which more than cancels out the slightly faster speed. There's some really interesting stuff about how the number of slap shots has been steadily decreasing for over a decade now (link below). The one exception would be one-timers, where the wind-up happens before the puck gets the shooter and the goalie moving makes it harder to track the puck coming off the shooter's stick. I'll put this one in the hopper for a closer look soon!
I knew this was going to be a good idea back when you suggested it.
I would love if you were correct and power plays with more rush involved are systematically more successful, because as it stands right now, power plays (as a neutral observer, which being a fan of the Leafs and Islanders I am most of the time once April rolls around) are the most boring part of the game. Without any interest in a particular team's increased odds to score, all I see is a bunch of hockey players, just kind of standing there. I've (anecdotally) found that when a power play happens is when games begin to lose my attention. Power plays involving more rushes don't fall victim to this as much, so I sincerely hope that's a real trend.
Also, LOL at a game seven having only six minutes of combined penalties. Are these the most disciplined teams on Earth, or is the NHL horrendous at officiating?
I know what you said in the piece, but I'd like you to expand a bit. Do you think a hard shooting defenceman is a useless skill? Obviously, shooting harder in a vacuum is better than shooting less hard, but you made it seem like an equivalent to being able to throw the ball 80 yards at the NFL scouting combine instead of just 70, which is met with a 'who cares' by literally everybody. Is that the same here, or is there any universe where it can actually be a skill worth paying for?
If you plan to do this for the impending NHL season, I'll be anxiously awaiting results. I still think this is a great idea!
Thanks! Yeah, definitely have plans to do this during the season, though I hit a bit of a snag in the first two games with the NHL being late to upload the Prague games and just doing both at once. Hopefully that was just an issue with it being a neutral site (no problems with yesterday's games), but something I'll try to keep an eye on.
I think it would be really interesting if teams intentionally pulled out of the offensive zone on power plays to try to create rush chances. The two most innovative power play tactics over the last decade have been the entry drop/double drop pass and the 1-3-1 formation, but basically every team does both those things now. A really outside the box strategy would be super exciting, just to see if it works.
I feel like shooting hard is a bit of a useless skill once you get above a certain threshold. A 90 MPH shot from the point (60-65 feet) only gets on net 0.15-0.2 seconds faster, and it still takes nearly half a second to get on net, plenty of time for an NHL goaltender to see it and react. Plus, I think most really hard shots are slap shots and with the additional time it takes to wind up, the goalie really has a lot of time to get set, which more than cancels out the slightly faster speed. There's some really interesting stuff about how the number of slap shots has been steadily decreasing for over a decade now (link below). The one exception would be one-timers, where the wind-up happens before the puck gets the shooter and the goalie moving makes it harder to track the puck coming off the shooter's stick. I'll put this one in the hopper for a closer look soon!
https://open.substack.com/pub/dcastillo/p/metapuck-hockeys-slap-shot-dead-is?r=lc9c7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web