Crawl Across the Ocean

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Trending Towards Zero

No, not the level of respect in politics today, scoring in the NHL. 14 teams in action today and none managed more than 4 goals. The new NHL, bearing a strong resemblance to the old NHL.

8 Comments:

  • A little bit of an overreaction, don't you think? Teams are still scoring more than 3 goals a game each. (3.15, 3.10 removing shootout goals that no one gets credit for) On saturday, there were 20 teams playing, and they managed to score 67 goals (by my quick count). I don't think the enforcement suddenly changed this week.

    I have noticed the difference in hooking/holding from before, in almost every game I've seen this year.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:11 AM  

  • It could be an overreaction. It seems to me like scoring is heading back down, but I could be wrong - living on the West Coast I see a lot of Minnesota, Calgary, Phoenix, Columbus and San Jose, and not so much Atlanta, Washington, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia.

    I guess we'd need to look at average goals per game over a few weeks lately vs. at the start of the season to know for sure.

    The refs are definitely starting to ease up on calling the hooking and holding (although to be fair it is still much better than in the past).

    By Blogger Declan, at 3:23 PM  

  • All you have to do is wait a few more months and you'll get your wish of 0.00. The NHL of March 2006 will look just like the NHL of March 2005 except with overtime shootouts.

    If you closed down 8 franchises (never going to happen) you might start to see progress.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 7:46 PM  

  • I'm not sure contraction would help with the scoring but I'd like to see it anyway. But like you say, it's not too likely.

    By Blogger Declan, at 8:13 PM  

  • Contraction? Them's fightin' words by me... Feb 17, at my place, if you want the full argument: it's way, way too long to post here!

    Never mind the goals, are the chances staying? As the players and coaches get more used to playing with the adjusted rules, goals are going to be tougher to come by. These people are the best in the world, folks, they're going to learn quick.

    By Blogger Thursday, at 10:26 PM  

  • Thursday - I generally agree with you (that contraction won't incrase scoring) I support it mainly to get rid of a bunch of teams and players I don't care about from the league, leaving behind a more concentrated, more interesting league.

    You are right that teams will adapt quickly to the new rules to keep playing tight defense, if that is their objective. It would be nice to see the rules changed a bit more to favour teams which devote more of their talent to playing offense.

    By Blogger Declan, at 10:16 AM  

  • I guess my problem is that I don't think more goals = better game. If I want cheap thrills, I'll watch basketball. *snark*

    By Blogger Thursday, at 11:25 AM  

  • I don't know about goals, but for me, more chances to score (which usually correlates pretty closely to goals) = better game - up to a point, but we're nowhere near the point where I'd be turned off by the game being too wide open.

    I'd say about 7 or 8 goals a game (or 6 or 7 with high save percentages) would be about ideal for me.

    By Blogger Declan, at 8:44 AM  

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