We’ve got some ’80s hockey back in vogue, minus the Cooperall pants and Jofa helmets, of course.
We’re talking about wild, high-scoring games.
On Nov. 29 in Los Angeles, it was a 9-8 overtime contest between the Kraken and Kings. Six days later, it was a ridiculous 7-6 overtime game between the Habs and Canucks in Vancouver. On Wednesday night alone, it was Tage Thompson scoring five goals in a 9-4 Sabers win over the Blue Jackets, the Oilers coming just one goal shy of that total in an 8-2 win over the Coyotes and the Canucks winning another high- scoring overtime affair, this time 6-5 over the Sharks.
These games are emblematic of a wacky NHL season full of lead changes and, of course, goals galore.
“It’s a pretty freewheeling game right now,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said Wednesday after practice in Toronto, his hair perhaps having added another tint of gray from that 9-8 game. “Probably not a lot of fun for the goaltenders or some nights for the coaches. But for the fans, it’s great.”
To wit: The NHL this season is averaging 6.36 goals per game, continuing the trend that saw the league average 6.29 goals per game last season, which was the first time above 6.04 since the 2005 lockout ended with new rules meant to open up the game. and created a temporary spike to 6.17 in 2005-06 — followed by averages below six in every season from 2006-07 through 2017-18.
Meanwhile, the league’s average save percentage this season through Tuesday night was .905, the lowest since 2006-07. Consider that the league average was .915 in 2015-16. Down from .915 to .905 in just seven years. Holy mother.
It’s a league full of younger players with only one thing on their minds, and this is the result.
“It’s completely different. A way faster game. More skill,” veteran Kings blueliner Drew Doughty said Wednesday when asked to compare the way the game is played now with how it was when he entered the league in 2008-09. “The fourth-line guys, back in the day, they were going to just dump and chase. You didn’t have to worry about them trying to ‘one-on-one’ you. Now you can’t underestimate anyone on any team because they’re going to try it.”
All of which brings me back to a comment Blues general manager Doug Armstrong made to me Nov. 23 for a column I was writing on his Blues team, which had opened the season with long losing and winning streaks.
His response went to the bigger picture about the way the game is being played league-wide.
“The dynamics of the league have changed, where the detailed part of defending leads and clock management are not what they were in the past,” Armstrong said. “I think with younger players, the skill level has never been higher, and the game management has probably taken a step back.”
And offense-first mentality among younger players can come at the detriment of sound defensive decision-making.
“It’s great for the fans,” Armstrong said. “It’s always exciting. But it’s a different brand of hockey.”
Those comments from Armstrong reverberated around the league. He was clearly expressing something that other hockey people have seen, as well.
“I did read Doug’s comments,” McLellan said Wednesday. “I thought it was interesting. I think the game has been going that way. It takes a tone early in games and it seems to stick with it. It’s hard to correct that tone. That (9-8) game with Seattle that night, it was a shootout at the OK Corral.
“But the talent that’s coming in now has changed. It’s deeper. There’s more of it. There’s a belief that everybody can contribute offensively. Teams’ makeups are different now. The fourth line is as dangerous as the second line some nights because of the skill level.”
Kings GM Rob Blake during our chat Wednesday referenced Armstrong’s comments, as well, plus a recent TNT intermission interview with Steve Yzerman in which the Red Wings GM gave his opinion on all the lead changes and the offensive nature of the game.
Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman stopped by to talk to the guys about Detroit’s rebuild and partying with Biz 😂⬇️ pic.twitter.com/r9Ybgrz0a2
— NHLonTNT (@NHL_On_TNT) December 1, 2022
“The game is in transition, and the offensive side of coaching has overtaken the defensive side,” Yzerman said. “Now coaches are going to have to adjust and come up with better defensive techniques or systems.”
Yup. The Dead Puck era is a memory. That was the hope when the NHL came out of the 2005 lockout. And it goes beyond just that year. The reality is that GM meetings ever since have been about tweaking rules to create more offense.
“Any rule that’s been put into effect, whether it’s from goalie equipment to (minimizing) obstruction to (a crackdown on) cross-checking, it all adds to the offense,” Blake said. “It adds to the players that if they get open, they can now make these plays.”
And then there is how players are taking matters into their own hands.
“Every one of our players worked with a skills coach this summer,” Blake said. “So what they’re working on is their offensive ability. But it used to be, you would learn how to protect a puck, how to come out of a corner, what’s the next play. Now they’re actually taking it to the next level. Now you’re seeing your east-west passes, cross-ice passes, left and right — they’re automatic for players now. That’s the next play. ‘I can get out of the corner. I’ve got that skill. Now I’m looking at the next play that’s going to lead to the best shot to score.’
“And then a combination now of coaching staffs really focusing on teaching offense — all that accumulation has led to this type of game where two- and three-goal leads, you sit up there now and you’re like, ‘I don’t know how safe this lead is.’”
Do we call it the Adam Oates Revolution, all this focus on skills development? Or Darryl Belfry? There’s a long line of skill development coaches around hockey at all levels.
Even an old goat like Doughty can get into it.
“I never had that in my whole life growing up. Last summer was the first summer I worked on individual skills stuff,” Doughty said. “I had never done that in my whole career. I would just scrimmage all summer. That’s how I would get ready for the season. This was the first summer I did that.”
It’s creating a league full of skill — and of players thinking offense. One that belongs to the Jason Robertsons, Cole Caufields, Jack Hugheses and Trevor Zegrases of the world. It’s in their DNA.
They are a product, years later, to some degree, of the NHL rule changes from 2005 that opened up the game. Those changes impacted grassroots hockey.
“The generation that’s entering the league now only knows that,” McLellan said. “It never played any other way.”
Added Blake, “I just think the offense is pushing harder and harder.”
Barry Trotz has sat back this season and watched games from around the league as he enjoys his reset away from the NHL. But he’s obviously still seeing this continued offensive explosion with a coach’s eye.
“The youth the league has shown, everybody is pushing offense, which is great for the league,” Trotz said Wednesday. “But at the same time, you have to understand at the end of the day that it’s about winning. And you have to adjust to the game to win the game.
“A lot of young players, instead of managing the game when you have a two- or three-goal lead, they’re looking at going to four or five. Therefore, some of those games end up getting more wide-open instead of tightening up. Which is what I’ve seen here.”
It’s always been the case that coaches understood the losing team would have a push within a game. Surviving it was a matter of knowing it was coming and not being caught off guard.
“Teams are going to have their push, (and) good teams are able to really limit the damage when the other team has their push,” Trotz said. “A lot of teams (this season) haven’t been able to do that. They don’t survive some of those onslaughts.”
Why? Trotz sees the same thing Armstrong does.
“The game management is not there,” Trotz said. “Players are still trying some of those high-risk plays.”
Said Doughty: “Guys aren’t afraid to make passes that are completely blocked off. They’ll still try to make it. That didn’t happen back in the day. Yeah, guys are just more skilled now. Faster. It’s harder to play defense now.
“And I do feel that a lot of guys don’t focus on defense as much as they did back in the day.”
Trotz also sees players who stop skating, who “don’t know how to check.”
“Teams end up defending rather than checking, and there’s a difference,” Trotz said. “Checking is moving your feet and angling and making it hard to penetrate or get through the neutral zone or get through to your net. Young teams now, it seems, when they get a lead, they back straight up. There’s not a lot of angling, and the spacing is off. Players are able to come through the middle of the ice with speed, pop it, get it back, create some offense, odd-man rushes happen.”
It all adds up to one thing: Offense has taken over.
“It might be part and parcel of everybody pushing offense. Even the defensive coaches, everybody is pushing offense. I do, too,” Trotz said. “But managing the game and those little details, line changes, spacing, understanding risk-reward, it seems to be falling a bit on deaf ears.”
So the sales job for NHL coaches to players is perhaps more demanding than ever. How do you preach more defensive discipline in this era?
The defensive buy-in is easier to get come playoff time, when players are ready to completely sell out to win. But over 82 games, I do wonder given how the game is now played, just how difficult it is to get players to make the kind of sacrifice it takes to slow down offense.
“That type of tempo and offense is hard to stop. It’s taxing on a group of players to commit to that and block shots and grind it in the corners,” McLellan said.
“So sometimes the loose play goes both ways, and you end up with 17 goals in a game.”
You sure do.
Not that most hockey fans are complaining.
(Top photo of Canadiens goalie Sam Montembeault: Derek Cain / Getty Images)
.