Hockey has finally returned and I thought I’d wait a while before I gave my comments on any post-lockout hockey stuff. The lockout was a terrible situation for everybody involved but did wasting a year’s worth of hockey really help the game in any way? Well to answer this question, you’d have to take a look at the so-called “New NHL” and figure out if taking off 1 full year’s worth of hockey really helped the state of hockey in North America. I am but only 1 of millions with their own opinions on the matter, but in my opinion it ‘HAS’ helped hockey.Let’s take a look at the first week in the ‘New NHL: Scoring is up, Penalties are up, fighting is down. I would say that that the biggest change to happen so far is the deletion of the red line in hockey. I’m seeing a lot more counter-attacks and 2-on-1 and 3-on-2 breakouts as well as an increase in break aways to start off the season. Some would say that this “New NHL” is a more woosy/European version of hockey due to the fact that fighting is down and also for the fact that defensemen are hitting less because of their fear of getting a penalty.
While to some degree defensemen may be hesitating a bit more before going up against forwards; I would also add that I’ve seen an increase in body checks and open ice hits. The reason for this simply being that defensemen are learning quickly that they can’t use their sticks to hook or grab players anymore and must rely more on their physical strength and use their bodies more to their advantage.
If you watched a nightly broadcast of Sportscenter, you’d find a few nice highlights every night of a defenseman laying out a forward with a body check. In regards to fighting, it has gone down but mostly for the fact that 4th line players are seeing less ice time because of the increase in penalties and also because of their lack of speed in the “New NHL”. Speed is definitely an issue so far and you can see it by watching teams like the Montreal Canadians and Minnesota Wild in games in the opening week.The red line being taken out and the increase in penalties has allowed the faster teams to excel whereas the slower teams are having a harder time reacting to the change in style. Goal scoring has also gone up and it’s nice to see games ending with scores of 6-5 or 5-4. Does this mean that we’ll be seeing this every night? No, of course we won’t as goaltenders are still getting shutouts and I don’t think the reduction in the size of their equipment has made such a drastic change to their playing habits either. What has changed is the angles of their nets related to the movement of the blue lines which is causing problems for goalies trying to cover their angles.
The biggest this season was the addition of shootouts to end ties. While purists hate the idea still, the fans seem to be enjoying it very much. The only problem I have with the shootout is that it’s over way too fast with only 3 players going head to head with the goalie. They should increase it to 5 players which is the same amount of players that normally play on the ice anyways. The “New NHL” is here to stay. The only question remains is whether the fans in The United States (Not Canada) come back to the game and help to make it more successful than it was before. While some are calling hockey ‘Olympic Hockey’ ; I don’t think we need to get to that point just yet as I think there will always be a difference between the NHL and Olympic Hockey for a variety of reasons that will separate each game from one another. But one thing is for certain, The NHL is faster,more skilled and will hopefully regain the casual sports fan back to watch the game in the not too distant future.
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