Grantland Fixes The NHL

Grantland has some ideas about how to improve the NHL product.  It is a lengthy list, and well worth reading.  For the most part I agree with the suggestions and the rationale for some things which were explicitly not suggested.

Things I disagree with, kinda:

Lose the puck-over-the-glass penalty: The cynic in me says that people don't like this rule because it is black and white.  There's no room for interpretation as to whether or not the puck went over the glass -- if it is in someone's beer, and that someone isn't on the ice, it went in the glass.  Fans -- and players -- like rules with room for interpretation (or "discretion") because it means that in certain game-critical situations, the enforcement of rules can be suspended in the interests of letting the boys play the game.  Changing it so that it is the same as an icing call is fine with me from a game-flow point of view.  As long as the rules are consistently applied, I really don't care too much about the specifics.

No more Bettman Cup Presentations: I'm all for making Bettman sad, but frankly the cup presentation isn't about the players.  This is about the owners inserting themselves into the process so that history will look back and see how gracious the owners were about providing this format for the feats of greatness that the players perform.  It is, in short, about the money rather than about the sport.  And as long as Bettmen is involved with the NHL, he'll be handing out the cup.  Besides, it makes the cup presentations something to remember and talk about when it goes so comically, hilariously bad.  Otherwise nobody would care about it after the live presentation.  I mean seriously, which Prince Of Wales Trophy presentation is the most memorable to you?  If you exclude those awarded you your favorite team at the time, I bet the answer is none of them.  (And I had to look up the trophy name.)

Crossover Final:  I'm pretty sure this will never happen because of the potential for increased travel costs.  And frankly it would lead to situations approaching those as ridiculous as the Mets and the Yankees playing a subway series for the "World" championships.  And really, that will lead to larger segments of the country feeling left out when every final is played between two Western teams.  Because it will.  So if you want a crossover series of playoffs, why start at the second level?  I say, rank the teams from first to last in terms of points, and seed the top eight, and go from there.  That will make more of the regular season games meaningful, give random playoff combinations.

Place a moratorium on redesigned logos/jerseys: Again, this is about money, although in this case it is more blatantly about moving it from the fans' pockets into the owners.  I think that as long as fans keep buying the jerseys, the teams should be permitted to make whatever changes they want.  A fan spending a couple thousand bucks a year on tickets and parking and beer probably has a budget where another $200 jersey is a rounding error.  If fans really don't like it or feel that the costs are exorbitant then they'll stop buying the new jerseys.

Go back to home whites: Home whites only look good if you are the Toronto Maple Leafs, frankly.  Just about everyone else's look stupid.  The only time I liked the Ottawa Senators whites was with the "old" logo (see any Ottawa Senators post on this blog) because it didn't look good with the black.  So if we can go back to the "old" logo for the Senators, I'd possibly be down with going back to home whites.  But maybe not, I'd have to see how the logo looked on the current red.  I really like the red first.  And changing the Senators logo would conflict with his "moratorium on redesigned logos/jerseys".

More home-and-homes: I'm totally OK with this if it is applied fairly.  See also the 2011-2012 season, where something like seven of eight Senators-Leafs game were the second of a two-games-in-two-days sequence for the Senators.  That was totally ridiculous.  And yes, the Leafs totally deserved to win most of the games they won against the Senators that year, but wouldn't Leafs fans prefer that those victories were earned fairly? </rhetorical>

Fewer outdoor games: See also the entire discussion about how if fans think the costs are too high they'll stop paying.  But more to the point, outdoor games are interesting because they are rarities.  But if there are only one or two of these games a year, the pressure will be on to ensure that they are big draw teams like Pittsburgh, Toronto, New York Rangers, all the time.  The series would lose media and fan interest if one year you had a Nashville-Edmonton game, and the next year it was Phoenix-Tampa, and the next year it was Ottawa-Winnipeg. Having lots of these means you can keep the focus on the big draws, while throwing pity events to those of us who live in smaller markets.  And it will spread the pain in the standings of having to play a game on bad ice around more.  Maybe six is too many, sure.  But one or two isn't enough.

So there you have it.  Most of my objections or comments surround those changes to the way the business is organized.  His proposed changes to the on-ice game I more or less agree with.

This Is Why I Don't Watch Playoff Hockey

What We Learned: Why ‘letting them play’ is nonsense in the NHL:

But the problem with this insistence on letting guys play is that when you do so, they tend to start committing penalties, and that, in turn, necessitates that, at some point, some of the infractions actually have to be called.

In a nutshell: hilariously inconsistent officiating gets even worse.

Hypocracy from team staff and boosters is to be expected (ie: an offensive call against one of your players would be just fine if the same call had been made against the opposition), but the fact that the rules are apparently different in period one than they are in overtime is just plain unacceptable.

Frankly it is hard enough to watch during the meaningless regular season games.  But when there is actually something riding on the outcome, I just can't do it any more.

Choosing to not call a penalty affects the game's outcome just as much -- if not more -- than calling a penalty.  Why more?  Because if a penalty goes uncalled, it will likely be repeated again, and again, and again if the game lasts long enough.

Add in the random acts of goonery that seem required for a playoff game and the Random Wheel Of Shahan-a-ban Justice, and it is just too much work to get invested in playoffs.

See you in the summer.

Blah

Who would have thought that the worst part of post-lockout hockey would be the officiating?

Frankly between the circus-clown officiating and the lack of conditioning and polish of these teams, I find I'm just not that interested in hockey right now.

I mean, I went to the home opener, and what resulted from that? It was fun and all, but the most noteworthy reaction I had was the fact that I paid $5 for a fountain drink that was all carbonation. So I went and found a vendor selling pop by the bottle, and paid her $5 for a 600mL bottle of pop. So I ended up paying $10 for a bottle of pop.

Hockey? Yeah, there was some hockey. And the good guys won, which was good.

But overall I don't feel the need to vent about the officiating because frankly I'm just not watching. For some reason I just don't care.

...other than that, I got nothing.

(Update: This article talks about the new definition of interference, which explains some of the calls which would be ordinarily stupid.  Personally I look for normal service to resume well before the playoffs.)

Bad Officiating

Can I get a hell yes?

NHL Officials Need to be More Accountable

As fans, we should care less about this or that call against our team and instead unite in our anger about the standards of accountability and consistency in NHL officiating in general. These guys can and should be a lot better.

Refs Steal Another Point

So really the only thing I want to say about the Buffalo-Ottawa game last night is: that disallowed goal was bogus. The refs waved it off as no goal, and the war room didn't over-ride "because the whistle blew before the puck crossed the line". Which is crap. HNIC replayed the sequence, and once could clearly see the puck go in, and then out again before the sound of the whistle came across.

"Interesting" was the HNIC commentator's view, but he didn't follow up on that.

"Interesting" meaning "That statement is totally contradicted by the evidence we've just examined", maybe. The only way you come to a conclusion like that is by buying into the whole "intent to blow" theory that says that the play is dead when the ref decides to blow the whistle, not necessarily when he blows it.

So yeah not to say that the Senators wouldn't have blown another goal lead, but frankly it would be unlikely. So I think Buffalo basically stole two points last night. Ottawa was compensated by being permitted one. That's more important to Buffalo at this point in the season than it is to Ottawa, but it is still bogus.

Bad officiating aside it was a reasonably entertaining game.

• Karlsson's now one goal shy of the franchise record for goals in a single season by a defenseman. HNIC says's he's now got 69 points in 69 games -- that's a defenseman producing at a point-per-game scoring rate. We're all just hoping this isn't merely a career year and that he'll continue to grow, because the last thing you want to do is over pay for declining production.  One good goal from the slot, and one billiards goal off the back of Buffalo goalie's shoulder -- shouldn't have worked, but he's clearly got the magic touch these days.
• Spezza's looking tentative with the puck at times, but he's still attempting -- and frequently achieving -- those outrageous dangles that I love to watch.  Still magically showing up in almost the right place at the right time to get the rebound or the cross-ice pass.

Rule Enforcement

On Cheering For The Refs:

I never knew the rules. I used common sense. It’s really the only way to run a game. If officials called every penalty they saw, there would be no players on the ice and no one in the rink.
- Hall of Fame NHL Referee Bill Chadwick

This highlights the strength of, and the weakness in, the game of hockey as played in the NHL.

The problem is that many of the activities in hockey which are prohibited by the rule book turn out to be not that bad when they happen in moderation. The job of the referee is to then control that moderation and to not permit the game to turn into some kind of uncontrolled brawl. This puts the onus on the referee to use his judgement as to what constitutes an "ok" violation of the rules, and what is over the line. Different refs on different days will have different opinions as to whether a particular play is OK or not.

The problem is this variability, where certain plays are considered by the refs to be OK, but not considered OK by the players themselves. This leads directly to the problem of fighting, where players enforce their own ideas of what is acceptable or not by engaging in fights or after-the-whistle pushing and shoving -- even after perfectly legal plays being made.

The quote at the top of the article is true. If every rule infraction was called, there'd be a lot of games with nobody on the ice or perhaps the goalies playing tennis (at least until one let the puck slide into the trapezoid). But in the long run, if the rules were called, they wouldn't get violated.

The real question is, would the resulting game of hockey be worth watching?

I think it might be.

Why Bother?

Shanahan is showing absolutely no interest in consistency or rationale.

Ryan Lambert:

Tootoo got a five minute major for charging, a game misconduct and a two-game suspension, which is placating to the Sabres to a laughable extent. It’s also a sign that the frustrating inconsistency which has long plagued the NHL’s supplementary discipline system is alive and well. It’s difficult to say exactly what Tootoo did so terribly wrong that he lost two games of his season that Lucic didn’t do worse.

Step right up and spin the Random Wheel Of Justice. With your host, Mr. Shanaha-ha-han.

Crosby Is A Hypocrite

Sidney Crosby, September 2011:

"As a League, as a union, I think we've all educated ourselves a lot in the last six or seven months. I think it can go further. At the end of the day I don't think there's a reason not to take [hits to the head] out.

Sidney Crosby, November 2011:
Sidney Crosby, a couple of hours later:

I don’t what he’s talking about. I was preaching about the hits like tonight (Pacioretty hit on Letang) , not a scrum….I don’t know what he expects after he runs a goalie three times…if he is going to run a goalie, he got to expect guys are going to get their hands in his face….he is blowing it out of proportion.

Shanahan apparently has no problems with any of this. One might suspect that if Crosby had been the elbow-ee instead of the elbow-er things might have been different.

Look, the bottom line is: either head shots are bad, or they are not. Players, Crosby in particular, can't have it both ways.

Shanahan On Why No Shahanaban For Wolski

“Now, if I felt this was intentional, or if it wasn’t at the last instant, just prior. [If] I might have felt there was any kind of sneakiness or history of these types of offenses for Wolski, he would have been suspended.”

- Brendan Shanahan's non-explanation for failing to discipline Wolski for his hit on Alfredsson. And we of course find nothing significant in the fact that it for some reason took five days to justify a decision that was made much more quickly.

Just business as usual at the NHL, nothing to see here.

(Update: a better link with the Shahanadance.)

Amateur Hour At League Discipline

This is why people don't think the NHL is serious about cleaning up the game.

To review: why is fighting permitted in hockey? Answer: because the officiating is bad.

And hoo boy, is the officiating bad.

For example, on Saturday's game against the Rangers, Ottawa player Konopha is sent off for a five minute major after boarding Ansimov:



You know, boarding is where you hit an opposing player from behind into the boards. (Note to refs: the penalized player is supposed to be behind the injured player, and injured players generally miss a shift.)

Yeah. Oops.

Next, here's a screen grab of the "incidental contact" made between the Rangers' Wolski's elbow and Alfredsson's head:



Video here.

Derrick at the Senday Observer makes the case that this totally blows Brendan Shanahan's credibility right into orbit -- if not the NHL's credibility too. And he's right.

So much for integrity. So much for discipline. So much for separating acts from intent.

I mean, you might expect this kind of "regulation-free" hockey during the playoffs, but this is just a meaningless Saturday afternoon regular season game, the kind that nobody will remember in five months.

But of course, nobody else cares.

Good on the rest of the team to claw the win back from the refs.

Officiating

Looks like we might be able to put the Random Wheel Of Justice away.

Houses Of The Hockey explores Shanahan's first efforts as discipline czar.

The highlight for me:

Negotiating around intent…can overly complicate behavioral modification, especially in an area like hockey where a certain level of violence is not only expected but applauded. The league would likely be far more successful in their efforts if they chose to strictly define the behaviors they want to eliminate and then consistently applied suitably large consequences to those behaviors regardless of the actors perceived intent or motivation. Meaning no more debates about whether an action was a “hockey play” or not. No more considerations paid to whether “he really meant it”.

I always said: if fighting is permitted because the reffing is bad, then fix the reffing. This is an excellent start.

(Oh, if you've noticed all the pictures are gone, that's because my hosted computer where the images are stored took a dump last week and I have not completely recovered it yet.)

Priorities

The NHL cracks down on the most serious issue of the playoffs thus far.

...and they wonder why nobody takes them seriously.

Much Nothing About Ado

Gary Bettman's 5-point plan to make the media hurting stop improve player safety:

• Brendan Shanahan will work with the NHLPA on equipment safety
• Players will be removed from the ice if they show concussion symptoms after a hit
• Additional penalties or fines may be handed out to teams and coaches for players who are “repeat offenders”
• An engineering firm will evaluate all 30 arenas for safety issues
• A ‘blue-ribbon’ committee of former players will examine topics relevant to the issue

These all sound good, but as with all things political, effectiveness depends more on what gets delivered than what gets announced or who studies what.

The only one with any potential to make even mid-term changes to the game is the engineering study, and that just changes the area in which they play.

Meanwhile, not wanting to be outdone at being seen busy at improving matters, the team GMs today announced this:

The general managers followed commissioner Gary Bettman's lead Tuesday by announcing they'd like to see a tighter enforcement of rules on charging and boarding.

This is nothing more than pandering to the wider world beyond the arena and sports media. If the Prime Minister of Canada is talking about your league, even if it is in a vague passive-aggressive non-descript circular political say-nothing way, you have an image problem. And the way you solve image problems today is you present the image of addressing the issue in a calm, steady, sober manner and hope that the wider world forgets about you before you actually have to produce anything*.

We've talked about the vague bullshit that is the charging rule before**. The question is, how does the "boarding" rule actually stack up?

41.1 Boarding – A boarding penalty shall be imposed on any player or goalkeeper who checks an opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to be thrown violently in the boards. The severity of the penalty, based upon the degree of violence of the impact with the boards, shall be at the discretion of the Referee.

[...]

Any unnecessary contact with a player playing the puck on an obvious “icing” or “off-side” play which results in that player being knocked into the boards is “boarding” and must be penalized as such. In other instances where there is no contact with the boards, it should be treated as “charging.”

By the rule, any throwing of a player into the boards is boarding, just as any player-on-player check is technically charging. It is more vague regulatory bullshit. The clarification says that the contact has to be "unnecessary", the only purpose of which is to throw the matter back into the hands of the officials to make the instant judgement -- based on whatever directive the league is overtly or covertly giving to officials.

This I think is another example of NHL hypocracy, who insist on the one hand that the officials are given a free hand to enforce the rules -- but at the same time issue directives like this one to "enforce more tightly".

(I also think it is a little amusing to see that technically a goalkeeper can be assessed a boarding penalty, in practice any goalkeeper who is close enough to throw an opposing player into the boards is way hugely out of position.)

The problem, as it is with the headshot issue, is one of determining intent on the part of the checking player. And that, as any good lawyer can tell you, is always doubtful.

One suggestion I found today: On Finishing The Check:

Deeming a player without clear possession of the puck an illegal checking target would most certainly decrease the number of hits in the league [...]

Reducing the situations in which a player can be checked will reduce the opportunity for injury. Of all the noise that has been generated on this issue, this seems like a good place to start.

---
*= ...a pretty safe bet these days, but that's a wider problem.

**= even to the point of copy/pasting that sentence from last week's post, yeah, I know.

Knee Jerks

Lessard getting a five-minute major and a game misconduct for his hit in Florida on Thursday is stupid beyond belief. It was a clean hit on the puck carrier. The fact that Timmins got spun around a bit gave the officials the opening they needed to strongly disapprove of that kind of conduct*.

We've talked about the vague bullshit that is the charging rule before. Almost a year ago, as it happens.

The league wants to be seen to be sending a message -- the problem is, the message being sent is "we're a bunch of over-reacting, knee-jerk idiots".

I'm almost a bit sorry that Florida had to eat the bad karma that results in Karlsson firing up his game and leading Ottawa to the 2-1 victory.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Oh! And not to be out done -- the refs in Boston give Chara a boarding penalty for a play where the player hit the ice before the boards! Like the announcer says: how can it be boarding if the player hit the ice first!
---
*= and lets not get into the total hypocracy that is the playoffs, where this kind of play would be so routine it would not be commented on, let alone cause a stoppage in play. The league can't have it both ways.

Discipline

Dean Brown gets on the Call The Fucking Rulebook bandwagon, albeit at a higher level.

Refs Try To Give Toronto A Win, Leafs Can't Take It

I'm still angry about Tuesday night.

Tuesday I watched most of the game between the Leafs and the Senators. Overall I thought the Leafs skated better and and made the Senators run around in their own end, but stand-up play from Elliot and no small amount of bad luck on the Leaf's part meant that the Senators ended up winning.

But what has me angry is the just plain flat out BAD officiating that happened in that game:

• Fisher wasn't hooked. Officials have let FAR worse go FAR more regularly, and to suddenly call something like that is to raise the level of inconsistency.
• Both refs were far more interested in watching Phaneuf get up-ended on his ass than watching the goddamn puck. So even though the puck went under Kovalev, who went in the net, which is where the officials picked the puck up from after Phaneuf was helped off the ice play -- no call. Since there was no call on the ice, there was no call to overturn, and the cameras have not yet been fitted to Kovalev's ass, so -- no goal. WATCH THE GODDAMN PUCK, ITS YOUR JOB.
• The flurry of penalties at the end was more than a little ridiculous, considering worse had been ignored EARLIER IN THE PERIOD.
• That TOTALLY bogus "delay of game" penalty issued to Hale even though we could hear the puck HIT THE GLASS on the way out of the ice surface.

It felt by the end that the officials were trying very hard to give Toronto the win, but somehow the Leafs couldn't quite seal the deal.

That's not to say that the Leafs fans had nothing to complain about with regards to the reffing:

Similar slashes to the one called on Grabovski were let go, a trip on Beauchemin prior to Orr's dumb penalty was missed, and Mike Fisher interfering with Jean-Sebastien Giguere's right leg was not seen by any refs.

PPP (the author) is far more charitable to the officials that I am.

And this, I think, is what gets me. This kind of bad officiating is so run-of-the-mill that there is no serious mention of it. It is accepted that over the long haul, sometimes the refs will work for you and sometimes they will work against you and that's just considered part of the game.

Now I'm sure that because this is a fast-paced, high-pressure game where the players will push every boundary just a little bit further than they can that the refs are under enormous pressure to make split-second judgments. To get it right every time would be impossible. However I don't think they were even close on Tuesday night.

Foligno Owns Last Night's Near Disaster

Nick Foligno got away with one Thursday night, even if the Senators as a whole almost didn't.

Foligno's hit to Carolina Hurricanes Patrick Dwyer was a clear case of a blindside hit to the head. And in keeping with the fine, high quality officiating for which the NHL in general has become known for, there was no penalty on the play. Dwyer was unhurt as a result of the play, and didn't miss a minute of the game.

The Carolina bench was justifiably incensed.

But just to ensure that the reputation of the officials was tarnished, Ottawa was victimized by a practically bogus interference penalty on Michalek. Carolina converted on the penalty, this rattling Ottawa enough that Carolina quickly got a second, equalizing goal.

This, I think, was karma. Foligno's hit is one which has no place in hockey, and permitting Carolina back into the game was just compensation for the keystone-cops caliber officiating.

Beyond that I think the Ottawa fans were probably over-reacting -- the instant replay on one non-called alleged interference on Jarko Ruutu made it look like had a penalty actually been called, Ruutu should have gone in the box for holding the stick. But officials routinely turn a blind eye to this kind of theatrics.

Now all of this can be taken with the firm knowledge that had Dwyer actually been hurt in this play Foligno would have had the proverbial book thrown at him.

Foligno nearly threw away the win that the team had worked so hard to earn, and I hope that he learns from this experience.

Of course, not to be left out, the NHL has fined Foligno $2500 for the play. This certainly fits, a non-punishment for a play that wasn't penalized, and it is nice to see that the league refrained from the "wheel of punishment" style dicipline that has been characteristic of such incidents. (Left out of the story was whether or not Foligno merely peeled three $1K bills off his roll and told the league to keep the change.)

Foligno skated on this one.

Officiating

Read this. Read it now.

Almost Time To Tune Out

Both Friday's and Saturday's games were "playoff-style" hockey, in that there was a lot of grinding (ie hitting, clutching, grabbing, punching) and laughably inconsistent officiating.

The Saturday game, which I watched all the way through, was especially bad. I think there was only one penalty call the first 30 minutes, and that was waived when the play resulted in a Florida goal.

After that, it was like the refs discovered that this shiny thing attached to their hands could, you know, make actual sound or something and they began to use it -- mostly to Ottawa's detriment.

And they say the officials don't like "deciding" games by calling penalties. Horse s--t. NOT calling a penalty is even more as much "deciding" a game, in that the game being played stops bearing a resemblance to the actual rule book (passing though that resemblance may be during the regular season).

But it was good to see that no matter how hard the officials tried to hand the game to Florida, they just couldn't convert on it.

Each year I get tired of the blatantly bad officiating and figure that I'll tune out of the playoffs. Last year was easy since the Senators didn't make the post-season. I could watch what I wanted, if I wanted, and if it wasn't entertaining I had no problem turning it off.

But if the rest of the season is going to be like this, I just might wish the team good luck in the post season and tune out early.

Ugly Game, Better Effort

So I did watch most of the Philadelphia game last night. It featured a better defensive effort from the Senators. Funny how your goalie does a much better job of stopping pucks when he isn't constantly hung out to dry. Elliot still managed to come up with some mega saves at the end when the Flyers were pressing.

The high point: that 2-minute 5-on-3 kill. That was... amazing.

The low point(s): the officiating was incredibly creative inconsistent bad. The first power play to Ottawa shouldn't have been called. It became clear that the on-ice officials were taking it to Philadelphia for some reason. For once Ottawa was the beneficiary, although at the end of the third there were some boarding and elbowing incidents that might have been made against the Flyers but were for some reason not worthy of being called.

Although I will say... "Instigating to the visor." Love it. Handing out a 10-5-2 with the extra five... love it. Too bad that the Senators could not capitalize on the resulting seven minute power play opportunity.

Interesting: the Flyer penalty-kill was mega. They managed to keep the Senators from getting sorted at all in the offensive zone. Five-on-five they were not so good, and I never felt that the Flyers were legitimately in with a quality chance to win. Between the effort shown and the officiating, this game was always Ottawa's to lose.

About Volchenkov's "save". I agree that it was in -- while it isn't clear from the overhead, there is enough evidence from the long-angle shot that the puck was over the line before Volchenkov batted it out. The Senators dodged a bullet with that one, although Toronto took, what, 10 minutes to sort it out? Because of that, the PVR didn't pick up the end of the game for me, although I did get to see the call. Basically even though the puck was in, I think Toronto made the right call. The evidence wasn't irrefutable, and there was no on-ice "no-goal" call to overturn. Therefore, no goal.

So over all a good quality effort in an ugly game.