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January 29 - February 9, 2024
But what makes hockey great is that it’s not just a moment of visceral thrills or superficial ecstasy. Everything that happens in the game—every goal, every shot, every shift, every save—are the last dominos to topple over in a strikingly long sequence of events.
The NHL is still seen by the non-believers as a crude, brutal, foreign game; where two guys punching each other in the face is more symbolic of the sport’s virtues than cerebral athleticism and strategy. This book explains why hockey is actually the perfect marriage of strategy and ingenuity; of preparation and improvisation; and of wisdom and will. Why every position played and decision made is a product of history, savvy, and instinct. Why taking your eye off the puck means opening your eyes to the beautiful nuance of hockey. And, on occasion, to two guys punching each other in the face
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The Fourth Line—Your home for muckers, meatheads, and misanthropes. This is the “energy line” that features checking pests and brawlers, whose task is to cry havoc, let slip the dogs of war, and collect penalty minutes. But for all the circus music they can orchestrate, a strong fourth line can frequently be an X-factor in a given playoff series.
When Crosby faces the Montreal Canadiens, they make sure both center Tomas Plekanec and defenseman P.K. Subban are shadowing him. When Crosby plays the New York Rangers, they simply want to get defenseman Marc Staal to defend against him. And by “defend” we mean “vigorously cross-check him in the back of the head without any repercussions.”
There are two reasons to pull your goalie. The first is when there’s a delayed penalty, giving your team an extra attacker until the other team touches the puck to halt play. The second is when a team is trailing late in the game and the goaltender heads to the bench for a sixth skater. This usually happens with less than two minutes remaining in a game, although we’ve seen aggressive (and somewhat maniacal) coaches like Patrick Roy pull his keeper with more than 13 minutes remaining in a game (and trailing by four goals, hence maniacal). Does it work? Andrew Thomas, in the Journal of
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If you love the team aspect of hockey, then the cycle is your catnip. It requires synchronization, timing, physicality, and above all else an understanding of teammates’ tendencies.
An offensive player chips the puck in; it then becomes a combination of chess match and blunt force trauma.
If offensive hockey is about timing, the puck-carrier keeps the beat. So when you see a team go offside, it’s like the drummer decided to do a fancy-pants solo in the middle of the song only to drop his sticks. The band stops playing, starts glaring, and there are stern words before the encore. So yes, it’s almost completely the puck-carrier’s fault. Unless of course the defenseman made a play, in which case it’s still the puck-carrier’s fault for being so sloppy with the puck to allow this calamity to happen.
Of course, none of this will ultimately work, and your team will squander an odd-man chance…and then score on some fluky shot from center ice minutes later. Because hockey is why.
Defensive coverage is about anticipation, and offensive effectiveness is essentially the art of surprise.
The elite goal-scorers are on fiber optic while the rest of the league is using dial-up. They can understand time, space, quality of competition, quality of goaltender, and the type of move necessary to score, and do all of this in the time it takes for you to raise your backside from your arena seat.
Gap control refers to the space between an offensive player and a defenseman.
The key, as you’ll see on basically every rush, is for the defenseman to keep his outside shoulder lined up with the shooter’s inside shoulder, preventing a clear shot or path to the net.
The aforementioned “active stick”—besides being an essential achievement in the Eddie Olczyk NBC broadcaster drinking game—describes what the defenseman needs to do with his twig when taking on an attacker. It should always be on the ice, always in motion, always seeking to be as close to the shooter’s blade as possible.
Of course, the stick can also be used for more…nefarious purposes. Defensemen are essentially like tollbooth collectors: they impede your journey until you pay the price, and then you go through the stick to be on your merry way.
The old adage is that teams that lead the league in “hits” shouldn’t actually celebrate that achievement. After all, you can only hit the guy with the puck if in fact you don’t possess it yourself.
No guts (or temporary insanity), no glory. Shot-blockers are always among the biggest cult heroes among fans—think of the Gregory Campbell mania, when the Bruins’ fourth-liner broke his leg on a blocked Evgeni Malkin shot but remained on the ice to finish his penalty-killing stint. Seriously, sonnets were being written. Or Dropkick Murphys songs. One of the two.
A devastating legal hit is something to behold—a symphony of timing, velocity, and, in the modern NHL, targeting.
Puck-moving defensemen are the single most valuable commodity in professional hockey.
Goaltenders are, essentially, the sadomasochists of sports. They’re tasked with nothing short of depriving joy. From fans. From offensive players. From television executives who desperately want more than three goals per game from which to pluck a highlight. They’re the Debbie Downers of hockey. Every time a puck flies into their gloves, a sad trombone should play.
Even if goalies argue about their styles like grandmothers argue over pie ingredients at a county fair, it all comes back to one thing: making the save. And no two are alike, in execution or purpose.
It’s a concept called “save selection.” In a split second, a goalie must determine how he will attempt to make a save, what he’ll utilize to make it, and how he’ll make the next one. Even on a “bad” play, understanding what a goalie is trying to accomplish is the difference between justified criticism and unnecessary blame.
But that’s the fun of it: a chance for the great to remain great, the good to get better, and the terrible to sell to fans the only thing that truly does sell in professional sports on an annual basis—hope.
At the 2013 Sloan Sports Conference, authors Eric Tulsky, Geoffrey Detweiler, Robert Spencer, and Corey Sznajder presented evidence that showed carrying the puck over the blue line generated roughly twice as many scoring chances as dumping and chasing it.
The Calgary Flames president once added this bit of color: “Stats are like a lamppost to a drunk. Useful for support but not illumination.”
Plus-Minus: There are times when analytics feel like a direct response to this rice-paper-thin evaluation of a player’s value. For decades, players were defined by how many goals for and against occurred when they were on the ice at even strength. Which meant that a player could be 200 feet away from a goal being scored, picking his nose while whistling “Brass Bonanza,” having affected the play as much as you or I had, and he received a plus or a minus. Yes, when you have extremes like a plus-30 or a minus-30, something can be gleaned from it. But being a slightly minus player tells us
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Corsi: Named in honor of former NHL goalie Jim Corsi, it’s the sum of shots on goal, shots that are blocked, and shots that missed the net. The most common measure of puck possession at even strength. Corsi-For percentage is Corsi-For divided by Corsi-For plus Corsi-Against.
Corsi Rel: As War On Ice puts it, Corsi Rel is “the player’s on-ice Corsi percentage minus the player’s off-ice Corsi percentage; off-ice Corsi percentage is the percent of shot attempts taken by the player’s team when the player is not on the ice (but in games where the player is in the lineup).” Translated: a handy way to compare the possession numbers between players.
Fenwick: Named for blogger Matt Fenwick, the other most common measure of puck possession. It’s the sum of shots on goal and shots tha...
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PDO: The sum of even-strength shooting percentage and even-strength save percentage. Essentially, it’s a measurement of luck. The mean is typically 1.00; some players are constantly above that, but some regress to tha...
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Quality of Competition: As Behind the Net puts it, the “average Relative Plus-Minus of opposing players, weighted by head-to-head ice time.” But the stat has expanded over the years to focus on Corsi, giving a better idea of the po...
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Quality of Teammates: The average relative plus-minus of players, based on how much time they shared on the ice. Like quality of competition, this has been expanded to Corsi as well. Typically, statheads prefer “with or without you” ...
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Zone Starts: Where a player begins and ends his shifts in one of the three zones on the ice. An essential way to figure out if some players are being better pos...
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#BucciOvertimeChallenge: Inspired by ESPN friend of hockey John Buccigross, this becomes a trending topic on Twitter whenever a game heads to overtime. You pick one potential OT hero from each team; winners receive a commemorative shirt, the grandest of grand prizes!
Chirp: Hockey parlance for taunting. Wives and kids are usually off limits. Usually.
Hart Trophy: Given by the Professional Hockey Writers Association to the player “judged most valuable to his team.” It should be awarded to a goalie every season, but it’s nice that they let the skaters think they’re as important despite playing a third of the time.
