NHL: November 2011

The Game Room
1

Here’s the November thread to discuss the NHL.

Phil Kessel Kari Lehtonon, and Nikolai Khabibulin as the top 3 players for October? Yeah, I saw that coming.

I’m also finding the Sean Avery news to be quite interesting. Obviously, Tortorella doesn’t want Avery there at all, but I think Tortorella is on a very hot seat right now in New York. The Rangers had a horrific travel schedule to start the season, but going forward, they’ve got almost all their games in the Eastern time zone so that won’t be an excuse.

I think the first coaching change occurs by the end of November in Columbus with Arniel out and Ken Hitchcock back in.

2

I’m just flabbergasted the Senators have won six in a row. At the beginning of the year I would have been thrilled if you’d told me they were going to have any one month with six wins.

I have a feeling the Bruins are going to wake up and annihilate the Sens tonight.

3

Okay, third line was playing great. With the goalie pulled with a minute to go, the Caps third line was on the ice, not the first or second line. Why is the headline “Ovechkin Benched”. One shift and he did play in overtime.

I guess the NBA, MLB, NFL and college football left a void that had to be filled.

4

I watched the Leafs/Devils game last night. I wasn’t impressed with Brodeur’s return, although the Devils didn’t give him great defense either. A very nice natural hat trick by Joffrey Lupol in the 2nd period gave the Leafs the win.

Are the Devils going to stay with Broduer as the starter and just attribute last night’s game to the injury and the time off of the ice? He did have a very nice stop in the 3rd period when he looked like the Brodeur of old. I assume Hedberg will get the start tonight.

5

The plan all along was to go with a more even split between Brodeur and Hedberg so Marty will probably get a few in a row to get back into the feel of things and then they’ll go back to a more even rotation.

If I were to guess I’d say he gets the start again tonight because he usually bounces back well and though he showed some rust, the team defense in front of him was laughable.

6

Oh man, I think I may go crazy soon.

WTF NHL? WTF?!?!?!?!?!

::sob::

The most interesting news about the Habs is that Max Pacioretty likes to eat bison, and he has a dairy intolerance. This has seriously prompted multiple news stories, because there’s fuck-all else to talk about.

THIS IS WORSE THAN THE SUMMER, GUYS!!

It’s like those Ally bank commercials where the guy gives the kid an awesome toy truck then takes it away and gives him a crappy cardboard drawing of a truck. It’s really, really cruel.

:sob:

7

Look at the Nashville Predators spending money! Pekka Rinne signs a $7 million 7 year contract. Does this mean the Preds have given up hope of trying to keep Weber and Suter after this year and figured they may as well hold onto Rinne? I’m thinking it does mean the Preds don’t want to play Drew Doughty games all summer long with Weber. Although, I’m not sure how much Rinne is going to help without any defensemen in front of him.

8

The Rinne signing was a little surprising. This is a franchise that has made just about every goalie they’ve had in the past decade look great, but even more surprising was the money. They’re not normally a big-spending team, having a reputation for letting guys go rather than giving them their payday, and $7m for a goalie in today’s market is excessive.

It might be a sign that the fan base is growing in Nashville and the team is willing to spend more money. We’ll probably know for sure by July 1st in seeing how they deal with Weber and Suter (mostly Suter).

9

Any one catch the Briere shootout goal last night? I’m clearly biased and wondering how others see it… goal or no goal?

My concern is the precedent it sets.

10

Another quick hook for Steve Mason last night in Columbus. This has got to end soon. At the very least, isn’t Marty Turco worth bringing in?

11

Probably because Ovie through a hissyfit like the drama queen that he is. Don’t get me wrong – he’s a good player, but he’s a total prima donna, and he was caught on camera getting all butthurt over not being put into play.

12

Saw only one replay of it tonight; I’m pretty sure the rule is you can’t stop and start again, right, and that’s where the controversy is?

You can’t cut the ice with both feet sideways in front of you and then move forward again without, at some point, coming to a complete stop in order to be able to shift and push off again. It just isn’t possible. I heard the guy talking about it when they showed it (who loves Briere…I mean, LURVES Briere!) and claims that “his momentum never stopped” but on that one replay I saw; dude, the laws of physics required his “momentum to stop”.

Then again, who in the NHL understands basic physics?

I agree about the precedent it sets being a bad one. That move is contrary to the very spirit of the rule, and it shouldn’t have counted.

Habs finally played. And won. YAY four in a row! I love how the crowd booed the Senators when they scored, and was pro-Habs the whole way. The game was in Ottawa :cool:

At Rangers tomorrow. Still annoyed at the schedule.
I might get bitched at for this, especially because the Habs won, but MAN were the refs brutal tonight, though. Stephen Walkom is a “let them play, even when the rules are blatantly being broken” kind of ref. Missed a pretty obvious high stick by Gorges and a holding by Pacioretty, but the insane one - as in, not all that subjective - was the Senator who grabbed the puck out of the air, held it in his hand for a beat, then threw it down the ice while standing in the blue paint. Um, ref, that ought to have been a penalty shot in favour of the Habs (rule 67.4). What on earth are NHL referees looking at, because the more this season goes on, the more I suspect that it isn’t the game they are refereeing. Between him and “Early whistle” Chris Lee, I find myself really, really wanting to punch a zebra.

We wouldn’t need goons if the refs would do the policing, but it seems they can’t even do the basics. I LOVE hockey. I hate the NHL.
//yes, I’m grumpy despite the win…it’s been a day of bad news and it’s easier to bitch about this stuff. Sorry :confused:

13

I haven’t seen the goal, but AFAIK the player can stop if he wishes. The puck, however, can not stop

14

Puck Daddy has a video of it here and covers the debate.

The relevant rule is 24.2:

But there is an exception specifically for spin-o-rama moves that, though clearly violating the backwards motion rule, are allowed.

The controversy (probably too strong a word, especially since it didn’t end up deciding the game) stems from the League’s ruling:

I think it pretty clearly came to a complete stop and, additionally, was not kept in motion towards the the goal line and wasn’t part of a spin-o-rama. In my mind it violates two of the rules that both dictate that the play should have been dead at that moment, but what gets my goat is that they actually went to a review in Toronto (something I’ve never seen for a shootout goal before) for it and they upheld it.

The problem though is that it’s started them down a slippery slope. Theoretically shooters can stand five feet in front of the goalie and deke until the goalie passes out so long as they keep the puck in motion.

15

I would much rather have him be butt-hurt about not being on the ice than just shrugging and leaning back. He’s a competitor and he wants to be out there to help his team.

At least he didn’t sulk, and he was right there with the high fives and backslaps when Backstrom tied it up, and then provided the primary assist on the GWG. He’ll be fine.

16

Thanks for the clarification. I agree that the puck clearly stopped.

I didn’t know it had gone to Toronto - that’s the second time this season I’ve seen something rather obvious get missed by Toronto (the first being the goal by Asham against Price where Asham clearly hit above the level of the crossbar - my conclusion was that whoever was reviewing it doesn’t understand basic geometry).

It’s really disappointing to have a league with such crappy officiating. I can - almost - excuse/understand the on-ice refs missing something on the ice, but Toronto shouldn’t. As I said, I love the game. I hate the NHL!

17

You clearly can stop your feet and still retain forward momentum; just watch a young kid learning how to stop. He’ll fall over his own feet. Stopping your feet doesn’t stop the momentum in your upper body.

But anyway, it’s not relevant. There’s no rule that the shooter must keep moving. The rule says the PUCK must keep moving, as has bene pointed out, and the issue really is whether or not Briere stops the puck; it’s a very hard call to make, even in slo-mo.

18

As to this, the refereeing in the NHL is awful largely because it always has been awful and changing the culture is hard.

Remember that it’s not long ago that the NHL went about ten years basically not enforcing any minor penalty rules at all; holding, tripping, slashing and hooking were all de facto legal, except that every ten minutes or so they’d call a penalty on whichever team was due for it. Today’s reffing is actually an* improvement*. It’s not the fault of the referees; it’s the league’s job to set the standards.

I honestly don’t know what the solution is because it’s not a problem confined to hockey. Officiating in the NBA is an open mockery of fairness and sport. The NFL’s officiating is usually good and then will suddenly be astoundingly awful, with the officials in some cases seemingly not even knowing the rules. MLB umping around balls and strikes is simply terrible and, like hockey, that’s despite the fact that it’s actually a little better than it used to be.

Part of this is that contact and semi-contact team sports are just inherently hard to officiate; it’s a complex, fast-moving system with a lot of rules, some of which are subjective. But part is that you just can’t change things quickly because sports fans are ferociously conservative (not politically.) When the NHL actually proposed enforcing the rules, people were really upset about it because it was a change to the game. Players whined endlessly about how they couldn’t play hockey anymore, by which they meant “hockey the way I’m used to playing it where I can just openly grab and hook people.” When Major League Baseball told the umps that they should start calling strikes and balls the way the rule book defines them there was an outcry, and there even some sentiment that it was wrong of MLB to be so impertinent as to tell their employees how to do their jobs.

Personally, I would be perfectly happy to have every NHL game reffed by 20 officials with hi-def cams and DVRs, or to have balls and strikes in MLB called by a machine (they have the machines, too.) But most people hate that stuff and call bad officiating “part of the game.”

19

It is ‘part of the game’ to a point. In the 1950s the technology wasn’t there to make replays viable and mistakes were part of the game(s). However, today, the technology does exist to make sure that things are done right and in a timely manner. I think that all 4 major sports could benefit from an expansion in the use of instant replay, as long as the number of challenges is limited, like in the NFL now.

20

An ugly night in Columbus, losing 6-0 to the Flyers and the Flyers just scored a shorthanded goal. Coaching change tomorrow morning?