Mike Chen's Hockey Blog
Why Is The Game Better?
by Mike Chen on 11/03/08 at 01:00 PM ET
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If you took a random sampling of hockey fans, there’d probably be a pretty strong consensus saying that the games early in the season have been more entertaining and dynamic than the games generally seen last season. Goals are up so far this season—5.93 goals-per-game vs. last year’s 5.57 goals-per-game (+0.37)—but where are those goals coming from?
A quick statistical breakdown shows two things:
-Each team is averaging more power plays per game: 4.7 power plays vs. 4.3 power plays for a positive differential of .4 power plays, or stastically about one extra power play every other game per team. If you consider that those statistics are for a single team, a combined value (since there are, after all, two teams playing each game), that means that there’s one extra power play per game.
-Power play percentages are up: 18.5% vs. 17.7%. When combined with the overall increase in power plays, some number crunching shows us that the increase in goals-per-game basically comes from the power play.
Why are teams better on the power play this season? Some of it stems from a subtle but effective way of increasing scoring chances for the team on the power play: the automatic puck drop in the offensive zone. If the team on the power play wins the faceoff, it’s automatic good zone time with the man-advantage. Get enough of that and any team will eventually score.
However, do more power plays and more goals actually make a game more fun to watch? The answer, for the most part, is no—at least not directly.
Two things really make an entertaining game: the possibility of lead changes and the overall skating flow of the game.
For the first part, the power play numbers do make a difference. If more goals are scored, then there’s a greater opportunity for a lead change to happen. And if more power play opportunities happen, there’s a greater chance for a team to try and claw back into a game.
For the second part, it’s hard to quantify the flow of a game into pure numbers. However, we do kow that teams love to copy a champion, and the Red Wings played a puck-possession game that emphasized speed, transition, and shots. Almost all of the new coaches in the league this season stated that they wanted to focus on those traits when bringing their new game plan. That doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily successful at it, but a floundering puck-possession team is far more interesting to watch than a floundering trap team.
Of course, what happens when the haves and have-nots ultimately separate? Will the have-nots revert to the trap to stay in the game or will they see how teams like Buffalo and Washington have had success with a go-go-go attitude?
San Jose coach Todd McLellan may represent the new breed of NHL coach—and if he really does, let’s hope that his philosophy trickles down to all new coaches from the NHL down. Traditional thinking is that you can teach defense but you need skill to produce offense. McLellan belives that you can teach offense as well; perhaps not the pure skill needed to deke a defenseman or fake out a goalie, but at least a system that produces scoring chances through speed and shooting.
It’s not necessarily a far-out concept and it bodes well for fans that coaches may be putting as much emphasis on their offensive system as their defensive system. Is that why the NHL has been more fun to watch early in this season? Perhaps, but more importantly, it may explain why the NHL will hopefully never veer into a dead-puck era again.
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