Game Misconduct (How the NHL ate itself)

I don't think I'm alone in my conviction that, if the NHL is going to be taking all this time off to get its financial affairs in order, it may as well take this time to take a good, long, hard look at some of the reasons why scoring has been down in recent years which has, in my opinion, led to a general decline in interest in the game. These things seem to be cyclical in nature. Before Wayne Gretzky came along, 50 goals and 100 points in a season were considered pretty major accomplishments. The Great One re-wrote the record books in the 1980s and 1990s, scoring 92 goals in the 1981-82 season (establishing, on the way, the record of which he says he is most proud: 50 goals in 39 games) to go along with 120 assists for a previously inconceivable total of 212 points. That Gretzky was able to better that mark by three points four seasons later surprised no one. During the wide-open decade of the 80s, many players routinely reached the benchmark of 100 points in a season. Now, the pendulum has swung the other way again. 100 points is considered a pretty darn good season now. In the last NHL season of 2003-2004 (which seems like forever ago), only one player, Martin St. Louis of the Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning, recorded more than 90 points. The three players who finished tied for the league lead in goals (Ilya Kovalchuk of Atlanta, Rick Nash of Columbus, and Jarome Iginla of Calgary) lit the lamp 41 times. The league leaders in assists (St. Louis and New Jersey's Scott Stevens) each recorded 56 helpers. These were respectable totals for this era, but that pendulum has swung a LONG way from 92 goals and 120 assists. I'm not suggesting that any player should be held to Gretzky's standard. He was clearly the best player of all time (although it's worth contemplating what Mario Lemieux may have been able to achieve had not Hodgkins Disease and chronic, debilitating back and hip injuries derailed his career). Still, the question remains - what happened? There are many answers to that question and many reasons why interest in the league has declined, but I believe the primary answer can be traced to two sources: over-expansion and the success of the New Jersey Devils.

At the end of the decade of the 1980s and early in the decade of the 1990s, the number of NHL franchises stood at 21. Today, that number has swelled to 30. Many people would say that that kind of expansion in only a 10-12 year period represents success. I suppose that's true in one way. Hockey has expanded into warm-weather markets like Phoenix, Nashville, San Jose, North Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Miami. No one could have predicted that, and much is owed to people like Wayne Gretzky (part owner of the Phoenix Coyotes franchise) and Mario Lemieux for promoting the game of hockey and making it fun to watch. In another way, though, that kind of expansion has led to an EXcess which has hurt the game because it has led to an inferior product on the ice. More teams meant more jobs for more players. This meant that there were more NHL jobs available for mediocre players. Players who, in prior years, would have been in the minors or out of hockey now had jobs in the pros. Expansion teams with few proven goal-scorers among their collection of castoffs and draft picks were forced to play a more defense-minded, clutch-and-grab style in order to keep the score low. They could not hope to compete in a shootout. Many of the players who began to populate the rosters of expansion teams had few other skills besides the ability to slow down the other team's best players. This dovetails nicely into my second reason.
I don't mean to take anything away from the New Jersey Devils. They won the Stanley Cup under Jacques Lemaire in the 1994-95 season, the first of two cups they won in the 90s (the second was in 1999-2000, this time under Lemaire disciple Larry Robinson). They added a third Stanley Cup in 2002-2003, under Pat Burns. The Devils won their cups by employing a defensive style known as the Neutral Zone Trap. That style is fairly prevalent in today's NHL, along with variants of it such as the Left Wing Lock. Teams have copied and imitated the Devils' blueprint, hoping to achieve the same success. Jacques Lemaire brought that style with him to my Minnesota Wild, the team he has coached since its inception in the 2000-2001 season. The Wild rode that style to 95 points and all the way to the Western Conference Finals in 2002. Marian Gaborik led the Wild in scoring that season with 65 points (30 goals, 35 assists). As a team, the Wild scored 5 goals or more only 7 times out of 82 games. Organizations such as the Wild that wished to be budget-conscious (not that there's anything wrong with that) and lacking an abundance of skill players can compete and do very well in that system if the players are willing to work hard and buy into it. Great for the team, but not very much fun to watch. The Wild recorded 23 ties last season, largely, in my opinion, as a result of trying not to lose rather than trying to win.

In order to survive, I believe that The Game must evolve yet again. In my next post, I'll talk about how.

Cheers!