ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) – The NHL has been in transition for nearly 15 years, tilting from the wide-open days of Gretzky and Lemieux scoring binges to a time when teams concentrate more on defending than attacking.
Hockey’s buzzwords once were hat tricks, 200-point seasons and power plays; now they’re the neutral zone trap, the left-wing lock and the penalty kill. Playmaking was a virtue to be admired; now it is a skill that must be denied.
As the Devils and Mighty Ducks put on yet another artful display of goal-stopping rather than goal-scoring in the Stanley Cup finals, it seems evident to Ducks general manager Bryan Murray that the sport is caught in the grips of a defensive mania never seen before.
The last two finals are a perfect example. Of the eight Stanley Cup finals games played before Monday, the winning team never once scored more than three goals. The Red Wings took out the Hurricanes in last year’s five-game finals without once scoring more than three times.
The statistical makeup of this season’s finalists also shows how the game is changing. The Devils were the league’s worst power-play team and Anaheim was in the middle of the pack, yet they were 1-2 in penalty killing. To both teams, the thinking seems to be it’s not as important to capitalize on a power play as it is to not allow a power-play goal.
Murray, an NHL coach or general manager for 22 years who built teams in Florida and Anaheim that played for the Cup, credits better coaching, better goaltending and better skating for the changes in the game.
Murray, who has coached the Ducks, Panthers, Red Wings and Capitals, can recall when he didn’t have a fulltime assistant. Now, every team has at least two assistants and sometimes more, plus a goaltender coach. Those assistants spend hours reviewing computer-generated video clips showing what each player did on every shift.
Also, there once was a time when at least one defenseman per team didn’t have to be a skillful skater as long as he could hit and fight. Now, the speed and flow of the game demand that defensemen be athletes, not just pugilists.
“Everybody’s positioning is almost perfect,” Murray said. “Gretzky would even have it tough today. He used to skate – hard – into the zone and stop and spin and hit Jari Kurri on a cross-ice pass. Today, the backchecker would catch up to him and he and Gretzky’s defender would make it that much harder. There’s a lot more pressure on the puck than there used to be.”
Hence, Ducks coach Mike Babcock’s use of the term “managing the puck” in almost every question he answers.
It’s not just the extra padding they wear and the extra coaching they get that is making goaltenders better. There are more European goalies in the league now than in the 1980s, and most spend the entire year working on their games.
“I think in the 1980s, with all the 5-4 games, there were out of the 21 teams probably 15 good goaltenders,” Murray said. “Now with 30 teams, there’s probably 40 good goaltenders.”
Today’s game might feature better athletes and better-prepared ones, but that apparently isn’t translating into higher TV ratings or a broadening of the sport’s fan base.
Still, Murray likes how hockey is being played in the 21st century, though he would like to see some minor tweaks: eliminating icing while killing penalties, and 4-on-4 play during coincidental minor penalties.
“If we did some things to allow the 4-on-4 and take away the icing, that might be terrific,” he said. “That might be something we all should be talking about.”
AP-ES-06-02-03 1524EDT
Send questions/comments to the editors.
