Kukla's Korner Hockey

Category: NHL-Talk

Get The Call Right

by Paul on 02/09/12 at 06:19 PM ET
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from Katie Strang of ESPNNewYork,

New York Rangers coach John Tortorella wants hockey to adopt an NFL-style review system for the last minute of a game, he said in a pregame news conference Thursday.

The Rangers saw their late-game rally fall short in Tuesday’s 1-0 loss to the Devils after a goaltender interference call against them negated what would’ve been the game-tying goal with less than four seconds to play. Tortorella was careful not to link the suggestion with criticism of that particular play—he was fined $30,000 last month for ripping officials after the team’s 3-2 win over the Flyers in the annual Winter Classic—but said he supports a system that would require any questionable call to be reviewed by the league’s nerve center in Toronto in the last minute of regulation.

In the NFL, calls and plays are reviewed “upstairs” in the last two minutes of the game.

“I’m not questioning the call, but it brings up a discussion and I think the NFL gets it right,” Tortorella said before the Rangers hosted the Tampa Bay Lightning at MSG. “In the last two minutes, it’s a booth replay to get the call right. I haven’t thought it all through. But maybe the last minute of an NHL hockey game, get that call right. Maybe you do have to go upstairs and make sure it’s the right call.”

continued

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NFL Fans, Try The NHL

by Paul on 02/07/12 at 03:20 PM ET
Comments (1)

from John Buccigross of ESPN,

• Unknown female rappers will never pollute Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. The game is the thing.

• You have diva wide receivers. We don’t have any divas except for some broadcasters. Diva players end up in the AHL. And then end up dating an extra from a “Warrant” video.

• Your referee’s microphones always work when announcing penalties and rulings. Our microphones are Kiwanis Club-quality with a 25 percent success rate. The NHL also does not have an Ed Hochuli orator who can explain rulings in an encyclopedic manner that qualifies as performance art. Little League PA systems sound better than the NHL’s. Your referees have law degrees. Ours stopped going to school at 16 to play junior hockey in Saskatoon. Personally, I prefer the good ol’ point to center ice or incomplete-pass signal when giving the results of a video review.

more

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 Tags: NFL,

Bring Back The Red Line?

by Paul on 02/04/12 at 10:56 AM ET
Comments (9)

from Chris Stevenson of the Ottawa Sun,

It will be interesting to see what will be on the agenda for the general managers’ meetings next month, but it sounds like reinstituting the red line for purposes of two-line passes is becoming a talking point.

Bringing back the red line has long been an option endorsed by Senators GM Bryan Murray, who thinks little has been gained by having defencemen fire the puck up the ice and have it tipped in by a teammate at the far blue line (then have the other team do exactly the same thing), but it’s been a non-starter for many of his colleagues.

Now Tampa Bay Lightning GM Steve Yzerman, viewed as one of the bright young minds in the game, has added his voice to the minority looking to bring back the red line.

“I don’t see it as wanting to slow the game. You have to look at what the game is now. We changed the rules to make it a more skilled game. It’s not a more skilled game,” Yzerman told the Tampa Bay Times. “It’s shoot the puck down the ice and go chase it. It’s about getting the puck in the other team’s end and getting there as soon as possible.”

Yzerman said he would also be in favour of permitting players to engage a little more in their pursuit of a 50-50 puck

continued and more topics too…

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Bettman Addresses The LA Clock Problem

by Paul on 02/02/12 at 08:12 PM ET
Comments (5)

from NHL.com,

“Not good, not acceptable—if [the clock] had run straight through, the game would have been at a tie at that point, would have gone to overtime,” Bettman said. “And maybe L.A. would have won anyway, maybe not. That’s not the point. We are taking this very seriously. We’re investigating as to how it happened. Obviously it’s either human error or a technology glitch. We don’t know which, but we’ve already begun investigating and we will get to the bottom of it.

“Now I know lots of people are going to say, ‘How can you have a mistake?’ Well, unfortunately or fortunately, our game is full of mistakes—by players, by coaches and occasionally by officials—and on some levels it’s no different than if a guy makes a bad penalty call, puts a team on the power play and they score the winning goal. It happens. We don’t like when it happens and our job is to minimize mistakes. We don’t want any, but obviously when you have a human element in any aspect of the game you’re going to have it.

“If we had any reason to believe that this was intentional we would deal with it in a whole different way, but we’re going to investigate it, get to the bottom of it.”

a bit more

added 9:19pm, Instead of reading more, you have the option below to watch Bettman discuss the clock problem…

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Illegal Streamer Shut Down

by Paul on 02/02/12 at 03:06 PM ET
Comments (24)

from Robert Gearty of the NY Daily News,

On Thursday, the government charged a Michigan man who operated websites that streamed pirated telecasts of top sporting events

Yonjo Quiroa. 28, of Comstock Park, MI, was hit with one count of criminal infringement of a copyright.

“Sports fans may be tempted by illegal streaming websites, but in the end, it is they who pay the price,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.

“These websites and their operators deprive sports leagues and networks of legitimate revenue, forcing spectators and viewers to bear the cost of this piracy down the line,” he said.

In a related action, the feds shut down nine of Quiro’s websites that he operated out of his home, as well as seven other websites.

The websites illegally streamed NFL, NBA, NHL and World Wrestling Entertainment events, said Bharara.

a bit more

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Review All Goal/Non-Goal Goalie Interference Calls?

by Paul on 02/01/12 at 09:49 PM ET
Comments (4)

The TSN Experts answer this question…

Is it time the NHL Situation Room was empowered to have the final word on all goal/non-goal calls related to goalie interference?

Darren Dreger: Yes. Above all else it protects the integrity of the on-ice officials. All good goals should count. There is too much at stake in the playoff races for a good goal to turn bad.

Marc Crawford: No. I coached and lived through the toe-in-the-crease era, all the fans remember that. The referees by and large get most of the calls right. Otherwise, if we did this we’d have four hour games. I am maybe in favour of one coach’s review.

Aaron Ward: Yes. The momentum of the game to the big picture of a team making the playoffs. Every point counts. We have the technology right now, somebody just has to take the initiative to do so. I’m pretty sure you’d have a lineup of Phoenix and Toronto supporting this initiative right now.

continue for more topics including the best NHL defenseman is…

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Video- Referee Sutherland Takes A Puck To The Face

by Paul on 02/01/12 at 09:41 PM ET
Comments (0)

Referee Kelly Sutherland took a deflected shot to the face tonight.

No blood but very woozy as he left the ice, no update on his status at this time.

Sutherland was involved in another accident about 11 months ago, watch below…

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 Tags: Kelly+Sutherland,

Terry Gregson Defends His Refs

by Paul on 02/01/12 at 08:16 PM ET
Comments (7)

from Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen at Canada.com,

The history between (Paul) MacLean and (Dan) O’Rourke goes back to Jan. 21, when the Senators lost 2-1 to the Anaheim Ducks. Immediately after that game, MacLean said O’Rourke told him that defenceman Erik Karlsson was “a diver,” which was the reason he didn’t call a penalty when Karlsson was knocked to the ice by Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf in the final minute of the game.

Since then, the Senators have been on the wrong end of the referee’s whistle.

In a 4-0 loss to Los Angeles on Jan. 23, when O’Rourke and Tim Peel were the referees, a penalty shot was awarded even though replays showed that a penalty wasn’t warranted. Against Phoenix on Jan. 24, with Peel and Dan O’Halloran serving as referees, an apparent third-period tying goal by Daniel Alfredsson was wiped out by a questionable goaltending interference call. Then came Tuesday’s game against Boston.

Terry Gregson, the NHL’s director of officiating, defended his official on Wednesday.

“You do not work the Stanley Cup finals in this league, as Dan did last year, without being a top-notch official working from an impartial perspective,” Gregson said in an email. “An official must enter each game with the mindset of being prepared, but not prejudging what will occur.”

more

Kerry Fraser of TSN chimes in on this topic too…

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Concussions May Influence Future Player Contracts

by Paul on 01/30/12 at 07:22 PM ET
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from Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star,

Insurance companies specializing in sports say the Penguins and other NHL teams will increasingly have to adopt the risk of million-dollar contracts alone as the number of players sidelined with concussions swells. The prospect threatens to alter the hockey industry.

For players who have suffered serious concussions — there are at least 73 players who have missed games this season with brain injuries, according to player agent Allan Walsh — new contracts will include so-called concussion exclusions.

That will mean teams won’t be able to insure those players against future brain injuries.

Bill Hubbard, chief executive of HCC Specialty, a New York-based company that also specializes in the sports industry and has insured hockey players, says it could lead to an even more troubling development for the NHL.

If more players continue to be sidelined with concussions, insurers may stop insuring players with brain injuries altogether.

“Right now you’ve got 10 per cent of the league affected by concussions,” Hubbard said. “While I don’t know where the breaking point is, at some point, if it keeps trending this way, companies are not going to be able to insure NHL players for concussions.”

read on

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Boring

by Paul on 01/29/12 at 09:31 AM ET
Comments (3)

from Adrian Dater of the Denver Post,

Some all-star break-related thoughts as the NHL enters today’s game in Ottawa.

It’s time for the All-Star Game to go. I say this not as some crusty old contrarian who wants to stir the pot. I say it as a person who lives in the year 2012.

The reason the NHL All-Star Game used to be fun — or more fun than it is today — is because back in the day you rarely saw some of the top players. You saw them if they came through your city and you had tickets, or you saw them if the game might be on one of your local channels. Otherwise, you almost never saw the top guys play. It was a thrill when they came on once a year, on national TV.

Now, I can call up any game I want from this season — any game, from any team — and watch the whole thing online. I can watch highlights all day long on NHL.com and other sites. I can call up a million YouTube videos of Alex Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby.

continued

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