A game of trap

BOSTON -- We'd like to begin by thanking Philadelphia Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette for the free seminar he conducted Wednesday night in Tampa, revealing to the hockey world this salient fact: The trap is boring.

Where would the game be without Peter Laviolette? No doubt wandering in darkness without a forecheck or a flashlight, forever ignorant of the fact that coaches like Tampa's Guy Boucher value winning over entertainment value.

We can only be thankful that Laviolette had Chris Pronger slow the game down to our level, so the rest of us could recognize what Prof. Laviolette had been able to detect at game speed: That Tampa plays a 1-3-1.

"They have a set forecheck in the neutral zone, so we have a set breakout," Laviolette told reporters in Tampa after Thursday's game. "As soon as we get some pressure, we'll get into our routes. … They should come after us. Otherwise, we can just stand there."

Well, they CAN just stand there -- if being part of the problem is going to be Laviolette's grand contribution to the game of hockey. But we're not sure how that furthers the goal of scoring, and by extension, winning. (Which, by the way, Philadelphia did not do Wednesday.)

One would think, with a brilliant tactician like Laviolette holding the chalk, the Flyers might be provided with a system of attack that exploited Boucher's risk-averse trap. But perhaps Laviolette's ploy was not aimed at instructing the hockey world on how boring Boucher's game plan is?

Could it be that it was simply an admission that the Flyers coach has no answer for the Lightning's defence?

So, behind the veil of self-righteousness and "keeper of the game" sanctimony, what Laviolette has really admitted Wednesday in Tampa was, "I can't devise a system to beat this system under the existing National Hockey League rules."

Tampa is 8-5-2. So five other guys out there have figured out a way to deal with it, Pete.

Look, no one is standing around in admiration of Guy Boucher this morning. Guys like him, Jacques Lemaire, Ken Hitchcock when he was coaching the obstructionist Dallas Stars… They are, at worst, bad for the game, and at best, conflicting forces.

They sell the game in their own markets, because winning is the best sales pitch -- no matter how it is accomplished. But they do/did so at the expense of the game's greater good. They ruin the game for everyone else, by draining it of its speed and skill.

Lemaire's trap was dependent on obstruction; on "getting a stick on him" as a player made his way into and through the neutral zone.

In response, the NHL spent hundreds of man-hours aimed at devising a rule to outlaw the trap, but was unable to accurately define an "illegal defence" penalty, the way they have in the National Basketball Association.

So instead, the NHL took the teeth out of the old trap by eliminating obstruction and taking out the red line. It has worked well enough, though we knew a time would come that someone like Boucher -- and every other coach in the NHL, because they all trap to a degree -- would find a way to return the game to what Mario Lemieux once referred to as "a garage league."

There are tactics that exist, however, that can pry a trap open far enough for a player to dart through with the puck. Then the pendulum swings, and a group of Tampa forwards who are standing still are apt to take a penalty on a speedy Philly puck carrier.

Score on the resulting powerplay and you've got the lead, and like Tylenol for a headache, the surest way to stop your opponent from trapping is to get ahead of him on the scoreboard.

But, either Laviolette does not have the confidence in his team to use speed and skill to attack the trap. Or (gasp) he hasn't game-planned a way to do it.

The latter is highly unlikely, however. Because the Flyers coach is, as we are all aware, one of -- if not THE -- sharpest minds in the game.

Don't believe it? Just ask him.

Mark Spector is the senior columnist on sportsnet.ca