Light the torch people, and let’s put Gary Bettman on a podium to open the remainder of the 2013-14 National Hockey League season. I can just hear his proclamation:
“I declare the rest of the NHL season to be open. Let the Over Coaching begin!”
We’re already hearing it from coaches across the league. Canada won going away in Sochi, and it was a defensive clinic. Coaches love a defensive clinic, because coaches don’t pay to get inside an NHL arena. The word “entertainment” isn’t in the vocabulary of most NHL coaches, so you can bet that strangling Canadian performance blew wind into the sails of 30 NHL coaches who preach defence-first hockey – no matter how boring it may be.
“I looked at it — and I hope our players understand this — as defence wins,” Maple Leafs head coach Randy Carlyle told the Toronto media on Monday. “That’s the simplest statement you can make.”
It can also be exciting—providing you line up 22 of the finest players the country of Canada can assemble. Can the Leafs do that?
In New Jersey, head coach Pete DeBoer and his staff has been pouring over film of Canada’s games. “They were defensively responsible,” DeBoer said of Canada. “And they found a way to generate enough offence to win games. They weren’t blowing teams out, six or seven to one, so there was a lot of good stuff there.”
Translation: New Jersey needs to shut things down defensively.
Isn’t that what they’ve been doing there for the last 20 years?
And out in Edmonton, where Dallas Eakins’ Oilers have tried and failed to win at up-tempo, offence-first hockey, the rookie coach didn’t take long to hold up Team Canada as a template for his young Oilers.
“This is how you win — especially those last two games. Those were clinics on how to play hockey,” Eakins told the local media on Monday. “It goes to show you, you don’t have to score five to six goals a night to win. If you play the game right, you have good habits and you have the mindset if the other team doesn’t score, we have a pretty good chance to win and good things are going to happen.”
It all sounds great, and nobody is going to argue that Team Canada’s game plan was not only masterfully conceived, but perfectly executed. The difference is, the amount and pedigree of talent on that All-Star team was able to play suffocating defence, and still average 36.5 shots on goal per game in their final two tournament games. (That average jumps to 43.3 shots if you count the Latvian quarter-final).
Canada was also comprised, top to bottom, with elite NHL players who were speedy enough to gain defensive positioning and big enough to maintain it, allowing for an average of just under one minor penalty per period through the playoff round. No NHL team can hope to mimic what that Canadian roster accomplished.
They beat Team USA 1-0, and we loved it here in Canada — because we were all cheering for the same team. In the NHL however, a 1-0 or 2-1 game becomes a local story.
When your team wins 2-1 every night, it’s “solid, responsible hockey.” No fan leaves a win by the home team unhappy — ever.
When you’re watching a playoff series that predictably reels off 2-1 game after 2-1 game — and you don’t have a dog in the fight or your team is losing — the lack of offence simply becomes boring.
Toronto, Edmonton and New Jersey already rank 25th, 26th and 30 in the NHL in shots on goal per game. Not one of them averages 28 shots on goal per game, but now the stated goal is to fall back even further defensively?
How does that play out in New Jersey? Well, the Devils already allow the least shots in the league (25.4), and that mindset has been good for 24th place in the league standings. Only the Los Angeles Kings, whose games average 4.35 goals scored by both teams, play games featuring less offence than the Devils, who combine with their opponents for a measly 4.63 goals per game.
And now DeBoer wants more focus on defence, and even less goals? Awesome.
Toronto clearly needs to work on improving its Corsi. You can’t win when you’re allowing a league-worst 36.2 shots per game, but perhaps if you had the puck more — on offence — it would help.
And Edmonton? Well, of 30 teams that could spare some offence to play better in their own end, the Oilers might be the one.
If coaches think, however, that they can emulate with their mediocre NHL roster what Mike Babcock did with Team Canada, good luck.
Defensive structure can be taught. Defensive structure that includes three goals per night and enough shots on goal to keep fans awake?
Good luck, unless you’re Team Canada.