Hot Ice: NHL Thread

[Wouter D]

2021 season has started! Penguins with the first goal.

[BallochSonsFan]

Watched the Leafs v Habs game.

Montreal still lack a goalscorer despite managing 4 last night. Suzuki is going to be really important this season and Anderson made a great start. He has it in him to be a 30 goal scorer, but he's coming off a poor year last season before signing in Montreal. My usual criticism of Gallagher applies - he's a rink rat in a league where players don't give up as many stupid penalties. I'm not sure that the NHL still has a massive role for instigators and I don't like him offensively. Drouin continues to be an absolute bust. Not quite Alexandre Daigle level of first round draft bust, but he isnt the top line winger that Montreal need.

Leafs continue to be good offensively, patchy at the back and have questions in goal.

Entertaining game.

[ursus arctos]

Pretty much everyone was exhibiting clear signs of not having had a full training camp last night. There is going to be a shakedown cruise element to the first month or so, the effects of which will be amplified by the short schedule. It also looks like the teams who didn't qualify for the bubble (and thus haven't played for nine months plus) may be particularly disadvantaged.

[BallochSonsFan]

I think the NHL will see similar injuries to NFL teams. First half of the season there was carnage with players picking up bad injuries. Difference between fitness and game fitness. Lots of guys might have been fit but they werent game ready and the limited training drills they could run weren't helping them to get up to match sharpness.

I'd expect a lot of muscle and lower body injuries.

[ursus arctos]

Excellent shout

[Amor de Cosmos]

Nux won their first of ten against the Oil. They go again tonight.

Given the schedule and lack of practice time, I suspect we might see some extended losing/winning streaks.

[Hot Pepsi]

Oilers won. McDavid got a Hattrick.

[Snake Plissken]

Interesting - must confess I hadn't been following this.

https://twitter.com/skodaautonews/status/1350397536603828225

[Hot Pepsi]

I don’t recall what Belarus did.
As we discussed, over here, we don’t take the “world” championships seriously.

[BallochSonsFan]

The political situation in Belarus is problematic. One one hand removing the world championships would be a token gesture but on the other is it unreasonable for major sporting events to be uncomfortable going to countries where there is political unrest and a lack of proper democracy? Particularly when hosting major events can give a sense of legitimacy or be exploited by political leaders.

As for the tournament itself? The timing will always be an issue as the best players will be involved in Stanley Cup play-offs. It's a shame because it's a genuinely enjoyable tournament. I'm not sure that there's another time of the year where NHL teams would be willing to release their best players to play in an international tournament, but for a lot of KHL and European based players it's a chance to play in a tournament with decent exposure outside of their own country. The only option would be to potentially move the tournament from May to June. That way you're really getting to the very end of the Stanley Cup play-offs and you'd potentially have 30 teams (following Seattle joining) who would have players available. It would be a great tournament for a lot of younger players to use as a showcase and to gain more experience. You could fill the US and Canadian teams with a mix of guys from the most recent 4 draft years plus a few experienced older players and it would potentially be a very worthwhile development opportunity. Also potentially very helpful as a way of growing the NHL internationally.

The international growth of the NHL has always been an issue. Clearly it's got a following in Scandinavia and Russia, but those countries have their own high quality domestic leagues. Germans will follow it but they too have a very healthy domestic competition. We watch it in the UK and we're probably a bit of an outlier where we have NHL fans in the UK who don't follow our domestic leagues. Somebody in my office is married to a Canadian and is a big NHL fan, but they just won't go along to Glasgow Clan games because it isnt NHL quality hockey. Looking at other American sports, hockey lags a long way behind the NFL for international exposure. The NFL actively targets the UK, but hockey came here once and gave up on the idea. The NHL does have it's international series games but they just never really feel particularly committed to the idea. I suppose that when you have mainly evening games then the time difference makes selling to an international audience difficult. NFL doesnt have that problem as the early games are 6pm kick offs for us whilst hockey's traditional 7:30 face offs don't start until after midnight here. Building an international audience across Europe with those time differences is tough.

Still think that participating in the worlds would be a useful step towards better world-wide engagement for the NHL.

[jason voorhees]

Not sure to put this in NHL or NFL, but since they're NHL teams...

https://www.foxsports.com/nhl/galler...f2v0hT1YyZKyIo

Kind of cool how some would be perfect in gridiron (Preds, Maple Leafs, Lightning, Sharks, Coyotes) and some fall quite deep into the Uncanny Valley (Flyers, Isles, Avs.)

[Hot Pepsi]

The political situation in Belarus is problematic. One one hand removing the world championships would be a token gesture but on the other is it unreasonable for major sporting events to be uncomfortable going to countries where there is political unrest and a lack of proper democracy? Particularly when hosting major events can give a sense of legitimacy or be exploited by political leaders.

As for the tournament itself? The timing will always be an issue as the best players will be involved in Stanley Cup play-offs. It's a shame because it's a genuinely enjoyable tournament. I'm not sure that there's another time of the year where NHL teams would be willing to release their best players to play in an international tournament, but for a lot of KHL and European based players it's a chance to play in a tournament with decent exposure outside of their own country. The only option would be to potentially move the tournament from May to June. That way you're really getting to the very end of the Stanley Cup play-offs and you'd potentially have 30 teams (following Seattle joining) who would have players available. It would be a great tournament for a lot of younger players to use as a showcase and to gain more experience. You could fill the US and Canadian teams with a mix of guys from the most recent 4 draft years plus a few experienced older players and it would potentially be a very worthwhile development opportunity. Also potentially very helpful as a way of growing the NHL internationally.

The international growth of the NHL has always been an issue. Clearly it's got a following in Scandinavia and Russia, but those countries have their own high quality domestic leagues. Germans will follow it but they too have a very healthy domestic competition. We watch it in the UK and we're probably a bit of an outlier where we have NHL fans in the UK who don't follow our domestic leagues. Somebody in my office is married to a Canadian and is a big NHL fan, but they just won't go along to Glasgow Clan games because it isnt NHL quality hockey. Looking at other American sports, hockey lags a long way behind the NFL for international exposure. The NFL actively targets the UK, but hockey came here once and gave up on the idea. The NHL does have it's international series games but they just never really feel particularly committed to the idea. I suppose that when you have mainly evening games then the time difference makes selling to an international audience difficult. NFL doesnt have that problem as the early games are 6pm kick offs for us whilst hockey's traditional 7:30 face offs don't start until after midnight here. Building an international audience across Europe with those time differences is tough.

Still think that participating in the worlds would be a useful step towards better world-wide engagement for the NHL.

That was supposed to be point of the World Cup and having NHL players in the Olympics. The players understand the value of it and I suppose the league marketing people do too, but too many of the owners don’t. But that’s true of owners in all sports. It’s money out of their pockets in the short term for an uncertain future benefit.

It’s hard to get the owners to let the players play in these events and they’re surely not going to give up revenue by shortening the season to accommodate the world championships. There is no possible universe where that makes economic sense for them.

They should just make it a European Championship and not expect North American teams to come. It will never be played in North America. It doesn’t get much TV coverage here. Canadian fans may care a little, but US fans are focused on the playoffs.

Despite that, North American players whose NHL seasons are done often do want to play in it.

Hockey players in general are more willing to show up whenever asked compared to US baseball or basketball players. But in the past, one reason they wanted to do that was to get international experience ahead of the Olympics and World Cup. For guys who are kind of on the edge of making an Olympic/WC team, showing their commitment to the national team would help their chances of making it in the future. But if those events are not going to be legit best-on-best competitions, NHL players might not care as much about getting international experience any more.

[Wouter D]

This year I decided to treat myself to an nhl.tv subscription. I'm mostly following the exploits of the Islanders, the last team I saw live. That Barzal is quite a player. But now and then, I thought I'd also dip into the Canadian division, so tonight I had a look at the Canucks - Flames game. It must not be easy to be a Canucks fan. Hamonic' assist for the Flames' 1-4, Demko getting out of his goal and giving the puck to a redshirt not once but twice tonight (on which the Flames somehow managed to not capitalize), and so many silly penalties. Exhausting.

[ursus arctos]

Tell me and Amor about it . . .

[Amor de Cosmos]

Several people I know reckon last night's second period was the worst ever by a Canucks' team. Which is a very high bar.

[jefe]

Varlamov for God.

[BallochSonsFan]

Much like the NFL, so far defending seems to be a lost art. Plenty of high scoring games. That won't continue all season, but I think we're definitely seeing the effect of a lack of proper pre-season and exhibition games. Forwards are taking advantage of that.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Man oh man! Nux give up seven more tonight. Tyler Toffoli is providing an abject lesson in why they should have resigned him by scoring five goals for the Habs in two games.

Step right up folks, they go again on Saturday!

[BallochSonsFan]

NHL decide that the Myers hit on Armia late in the Vancouver v Montreal game on Thursday will not attract any suspension.


Tyler Myers big hit on Joel Armia starts scrum/ Montreal Canadiens vs Vancouver Canucks (2021 NHL)



NHL's DOPS released a video explaining their decision. Deemed the principle point of contact was not the head and that it was therefore a clean check.

I don't like the decision or the explanation. Although Myers doesnt make his initial contact with the head, there should be a responsibility on the checking player to make sure that the check is going to be as safe as possible. If the checking player's follow through is going to take the force of the check through the opponent's head/neck area then at best it's an inherently reckless play. There's no regard from Myers as to the safety of the check. Whilst Armia's concussion shouldn't necessarily be a factor in the way that the league looks at hits like that one, I think that reckless plays need to be properly dealt with. Lots of clean checks have unintended consequences - I think the determining factor should be whether or not when looked at as a whole, was the check likely to pose an increased risk the opponent being hit?

Regardless of the principle point of contact, if the whole play is likely to be reckless then for me it's a bad check.

[BallochSonsFan]

Man oh man! Nux give up seven more tonight. Tyler Toffoli is providing an abject lesson in why they should have resigned him by scoring five goals for the Habs in two games.

Step right up folks, they go again on Saturday!

Toffoli is looking good in a Habs jersey. Tatar has started the season well too. I don't like Gallagher as a player and Drouin is doing nothing to convince me that he isnt an absolute waste of a jersey and of $5mil cap space.

[ursus arctos]

Eh, the Canucks only gave up five tonight . . .

[ursus arctos]

They appear to have found their level for this season, which is Better than Ottawa

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yay!

[Wouter D]

Because of the time zone difference, I'm always watching yesterday's games. So I just finished the Islanders @ Capitals game. Nice even match all around, until that Schultz broke the equilibrium in the last minute. I didn't know Varlamov was allowed to lose games this season.

[ursus arctos]

His save percentage is very much unsustainable