From elation to disbelief, all in a matter of about a half an hour.
When Zach Parise scored the tying goal with 24 seconds left in the third period for the United States, the air was sucked right out of Canada Hockey Place as team Canada went into the locker room at the end of regulation. The United States were still celebrating as they went in with a wave of momentum on their side heading into OT. Canada would have to kick it into another gear to sustain the U.S.
One thing they had going for them, 4 on 4. The United States was no match against Canada 4 on 4. In fact, play a full 60 minutes 4 on 4 and Canada wins hands down. Too much space for the superstars on team Canada to utilize their skill and create scoring chances. And sure enough 2 of those superstars would create the situation for the game winner. After a simple dump to the corner, Jarome Iginla and Sidney Crosby worked a simple cycle play along the boards. Defenseman Brian Raflaski let Crosby get ahead of him and left him in alone on Miller. As Miller went to poke check the puck away from Crosby, Crosby looked up, saw Miller reach out, and pushed the puck in the exposed 5 hole of Miller. Its one of those bang bang situations for a goalie that once you decide to go for a poke check, you leave the 5 hole (the area between the goalie pads) totally exposed. The helpless Miller fell to the ice in disbelief as Crosby and team Canada celebrated to his left along the boards.
If that same situation had happened 5 on 5, that goal never happens. Once the puck is dumped in, a defenseman and the center would flow towards the boards in pursuit of the puck and the second defenseman would stay back. In that situation both defenseman went along the boards to pursue the puck and the centerman stayed high to defend the point. Its just a situation that is not practiced a lot by NHL players because they rarely play 4 on 4.
But to get to that point in the game, Zach Parise had to get us their. And who would anyone else think it would be besides him? With the goalie pulled under a minute to go, Patrick Kane cycled the puck around the net, turned, and shot towards Luongo. Both Parise and Langenbrunner were left alone in front of Luongo behind the defense as everyone on Canada was watching Patrick Kane. Parise would put home the rebound on Kane's shot to tie the game. Another huge defensive let down that we saw too much of in this game from both teams. On Canada's first goal, Eric Johnson tried to pass the puck up the middle to his defense partner rather than clearing high up the boards. The puck was turned over, and Jonathon Toews buried home a rebound for the first goal for Canada.
The great thing about this game and these Olympics is the exposure hockey is getting. Normal people who normally do not watch hockey were glued to their TV sets over the past 2 weeks, and are still talking about the game today. The U.S. Canada preliminary round game was the highest rated show on MSNBC besides Election Night coverage (not a shocker by any means). The NHL needs to take advantage of this for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs this year in their marketing. Let the casual sports fans know that this is what happens year round for all 30 teams for 82 games followed by the Stanley Cup playoffs. Their case isn't helped by the fact that Versus is not carried on DirecTV in an ongoing dispute over a contract.
Another thing up in the air is the 2014 games in Sochi. The NHL collective bargaining agreement will expire prior to those games, so the NHL right now will not commit to sending their players to them. It would be a monumental mistake should the best hockey players in the world NOT be playing in those games. Every player that was their this week said they would not give up a chance to play in these games for anything. Lets keep it that way.
Comments on the Olympics
Showing posts with label NHL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NHL. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
New York Islanders Mid-Season Crisis
The New York Islanders entered the 2009-2010 season with limited expectations in year 2 of their "re-build". They got their prized franchise player in the draft and kept the core intact while adding depth between the pipes after going through all of last season without a legitimate NHL goaltender.
But when the team plays better than expected and goes on a nice mid-season run, people raise their expectations. When you are sitting in a playoff spot after January 1, all of a sudden the playoffs look much better then a lottery pick.
But what happens when you lose 6 in a row and find yourself chasing 7 teams ahead of you for 3 playoff spots? Panic starts to set in. Which is where the Islanders find themselves at this point and time. They are a team that has lost their identity from earlier in the year and is struggling to regain it. A team that was always praised by opponents for their relentless puck pursuit and work ethic earlier in the year are now being dominated by their opponents on a nightly basis. This has not come from a lack of work ethic or heart, but a lack of talent.
Garth Snow started this process with the intent of seeing it all the way through. I am glad him and Assistant GM Ryan Jankowski are sticking to that. Considering the situation Garth has been put in, I believe him and his staff have done a great job. Compliments go to his scouting staff for finding their leading scorer and number 1 goaltender as free agents completely under the radar this past off-season.
But what the Islanders lack they do not have internally. What they have now are about 9 players they plan to build a Stanley Cup team around, the rest are expendable. For the time being, the current roster is filled with 3rd and 4th line players that are plugged in to get by this season and possibly next.
As long as Garth Snow's hands continue to be tied by Charles Wang, who's hands are tied by a terrible arena lease and the Town of Heampstead, me and every other Islanders fan around the world have to realize that as long as the situation remains status quo, the Islanders will not be a contender. You can not expect the team to pay $100 million for Ilya Kovalchuk when they wont even pay for the team to have a regular radio station and broadcasters.
That last paragraph may be tough to swallow for a lot of Islander fans. Go back and read it again if you have to, but do not try and convince yourself that it is not true, because it most certainly is.
So what do you do now if you are an Islanders fan? You sit and wait. You watch the remainder of this season hoping they turn things around and make a strong push, or hope they bottom out and end up with a lottery pick. You also hope for good news from the Town of Heampstead about the redevelopment of the arena.
If your Garth Snow you stick some lines in the water for players YOU think are best for your team in the future and you DO NOT pull the trigger unless you are satisfied with the terms. You also look to sell of dead Weight for as much as possible.
As far as the present goes, the Islanders need to ask themselves one question...who is going to step up? Who is going to take responsibility and put this team on their back for stretch run? My bet would go to Kyle Okposo with pretty good odds too. They need to play much more hungry then they have in the past 2 weeks and they absolutely must improve their play on special teams. If you have watched this team all year you've noticed that in recent games they have not been getting any quality scoring chances whatsoever. Goals have come from battles in the front of the net or 30 foot shots that ricochet off of bodies on their way to the net. They have not scored a goal scorer's goal in at least 3 weeks. Get back to the team you were a month ago that teams were afraid to play on a nightly basis, and you make a decent run at a bottom playoff spot.
I will have a Super Bowl XLIV preview tomorrow, needed to rant about this now. Comments
But when the team plays better than expected and goes on a nice mid-season run, people raise their expectations. When you are sitting in a playoff spot after January 1, all of a sudden the playoffs look much better then a lottery pick.
But what happens when you lose 6 in a row and find yourself chasing 7 teams ahead of you for 3 playoff spots? Panic starts to set in. Which is where the Islanders find themselves at this point and time. They are a team that has lost their identity from earlier in the year and is struggling to regain it. A team that was always praised by opponents for their relentless puck pursuit and work ethic earlier in the year are now being dominated by their opponents on a nightly basis. This has not come from a lack of work ethic or heart, but a lack of talent.
Garth Snow started this process with the intent of seeing it all the way through. I am glad him and Assistant GM Ryan Jankowski are sticking to that. Considering the situation Garth has been put in, I believe him and his staff have done a great job. Compliments go to his scouting staff for finding their leading scorer and number 1 goaltender as free agents completely under the radar this past off-season.
But what the Islanders lack they do not have internally. What they have now are about 9 players they plan to build a Stanley Cup team around, the rest are expendable. For the time being, the current roster is filled with 3rd and 4th line players that are plugged in to get by this season and possibly next.
As long as Garth Snow's hands continue to be tied by Charles Wang, who's hands are tied by a terrible arena lease and the Town of Heampstead, me and every other Islanders fan around the world have to realize that as long as the situation remains status quo, the Islanders will not be a contender. You can not expect the team to pay $100 million for Ilya Kovalchuk when they wont even pay for the team to have a regular radio station and broadcasters.
That last paragraph may be tough to swallow for a lot of Islander fans. Go back and read it again if you have to, but do not try and convince yourself that it is not true, because it most certainly is.
So what do you do now if you are an Islanders fan? You sit and wait. You watch the remainder of this season hoping they turn things around and make a strong push, or hope they bottom out and end up with a lottery pick. You also hope for good news from the Town of Heampstead about the redevelopment of the arena.
If your Garth Snow you stick some lines in the water for players YOU think are best for your team in the future and you DO NOT pull the trigger unless you are satisfied with the terms. You also look to sell of dead Weight for as much as possible.
As far as the present goes, the Islanders need to ask themselves one question...who is going to step up? Who is going to take responsibility and put this team on their back for stretch run? My bet would go to Kyle Okposo with pretty good odds too. They need to play much more hungry then they have in the past 2 weeks and they absolutely must improve their play on special teams. If you have watched this team all year you've noticed that in recent games they have not been getting any quality scoring chances whatsoever. Goals have come from battles in the front of the net or 30 foot shots that ricochet off of bodies on their way to the net. They have not scored a goal scorer's goal in at least 3 weeks. Get back to the team you were a month ago that teams were afraid to play on a nightly basis, and you make a decent run at a bottom playoff spot.
I will have a Super Bowl XLIV preview tomorrow, needed to rant about this now. Comments
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
No Love for Hockey
I like to believe that hockey is a sport that does interest a lot of people, but the lack of coverage it gets on all stages just angers me. When a goal like this is scored and it does not even make Top 10 plays OF THE DAY.....never mind the year......THE DAY, it angers me. This will probably be one of the NHL's Top 10 goals of the year.
Now I'm no fan of basketball, but I do like seeing slam dunks and alley-oops from time to time, but how much of the same thing can ESPN show on their Top 10 plays of the day? Besides the Top 10 issue, I rarely see highlights of the major NHL games on SportsCenter the following day. But they are sure to show all NBA highlights, including last place teams playing each other. Turn on TSN in Canada and they are sure to show highlights of every hockey game that happened the previous day on SportsCentre.
ESPN also has a separate show dedicated to the 3 other major sports, Baseball Tonight, NFL Live, and NBA Fastbreak. Where is the NHL's show?
I do think that the NHL lockout in 2004-2005 was a detriment to the league from the public standpoint, but it did wonders for the sport in a lot of ways. Also not having live NHL games on ESPN probably has a lot do with their lack of exposure on that network. But last time i checked they are still the NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE, and still part of the 4 major sports in this country. When the commissioners were asked by Congress to testify about performance enhancing drugs, Garry Bettman was there. I hope soon ESPN will give hockey some more exposure.
Now I'm no fan of basketball, but I do like seeing slam dunks and alley-oops from time to time, but how much of the same thing can ESPN show on their Top 10 plays of the day? Besides the Top 10 issue, I rarely see highlights of the major NHL games on SportsCenter the following day. But they are sure to show all NBA highlights, including last place teams playing each other. Turn on TSN in Canada and they are sure to show highlights of every hockey game that happened the previous day on SportsCentre.
ESPN also has a separate show dedicated to the 3 other major sports, Baseball Tonight, NFL Live, and NBA Fastbreak. Where is the NHL's show?
I do think that the NHL lockout in 2004-2005 was a detriment to the league from the public standpoint, but it did wonders for the sport in a lot of ways. Also not having live NHL games on ESPN probably has a lot do with their lack of exposure on that network. But last time i checked they are still the NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE, and still part of the 4 major sports in this country. When the commissioners were asked by Congress to testify about performance enhancing drugs, Garry Bettman was there. I hope soon ESPN will give hockey some more exposure.
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