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Wanted: Hockey Sense and Grit |
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NHL GMs have never been accused of “under” reacting.
With the success of Carolina, Buffalo, and Edmonton last year, everyone is desperate to get faster. It is an epidemic throughout the league: Smaller guys with quicker foot speed, and puck moving defencemen are the rage. Everyone is claiming to have the deepest teams they have ever had, basically because every team has last year’s team and a bunch of guys who either used to be considered too small or too much of a defensive liability.
There is a major flaw in this thinking, and it amazes me that experienced hockey people are missing it. It goes back to the playground. Back to open hockey. Back to roller hockey. Back to Men’s C-Leagues that play their games at 11:15pm on Tuesday Nights. How many of you have played against a player that could just skate circles around everybody, but had zero hockey sense? You know the guy. The one who takes the puck from behind his own net, gets through everyone and then gets to the net without a clue what to do next. He usually just fakes himself out or makes a stupid pass. Sometimes I found these guys liked to play defense. Only because they had more room and could take it end to end. But they never PLAYED defense. I know I played goal.
But I digress.
The problem with just getting fast guys is that fast without hockey sense and fast without grit will get eaten alive in the new NHL.
By grit, I don’t mean fighters, I mean hard working players. Players who ride the emotional wave. Players who if they aren’t playing with the edge can’t stay in the NHL, but if they are playing on the edge are the difference makers. Buffalo was fast, but Buffalo had grittiness.
When it comes to speed, Ken Hitchcock nailed it when he said that there are two kinds of speed. Foot speed is great, but transitional speed kills. Transitional speedThe latter is why the Hurricanes won the cup last year, and transitional speed takes hockey sense. Peter Forsberg, when asked last year if some guys on his team couldn’t keep up with the speed in the new NHL said it best. “Speed isn’t down there (pointing to his feet), speed is up here (pointing to his head.” He went onto to say that some guys aren’t thinking quick enough for the new NHL
To me the best team defenceman in the first year of the new NHL was Jay McKee. Jay McKee is not a fast skater, but he is a very fast thinker. The first pass out of you zone is the most important, and it requires very little foot speed to make that pass. But Jay is also extremely solid defensively, and on the penalty kill he is money. Could a speedy winger beat Jay to the outside? Sure he could, although they may get flattened into the boards if Jay times it right. But Jay also blocked more shots than anyone else, and him not being on the last penalty kill, due to his injury, may have been the difference between the Sabres winning the cup.
Because puck moving defenseman aren’t always the best guys in their own end when they are standing still in their position down low in the box on a penalty kill. And they may not get beat to the outside by a speedy winger, because they got caught in the offensive zone to start with.
Instead of puck moving defencemen, teams should be focusing on puck passing ones. Ones with hockey sense who may be not as fleet of foot, but ones who know how and when to start the rush with a pass
But from what I am hearing from players and coaches I trust, hockey sense and grit are down the priority lists right now. It won’t stay that way for long, because teams that don’t have guys with hockey sense and grit, even with all the speed in the world, will find themselves far out in the standings by December. Many teams that went out and tried to get faster will instead get slower. Yes much changed in the new NHL, but the need for grit and hockey sense never does.
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