Barnaby is correct that there's a confluence of factors at play. The NHL has changed dramatically since the lockout, as rule changes pushed the game into an offensive era with an emphasis on skill and skating, pushing out less skilled and perhaps more fight-inclined players. Managers are seeing the value of having an effective bottom six. So as managers attempt to populate the deeper parts of their rosters with players who can contribute in meaningful ways, they are probably acquiring players who may not have that [fighting] element in their skill set.
Meanwhile, lower leagues have instituted rules to discourage fighting. The Ontario Hockey League famously followed its "fight rule" -- in which a player could be suspended for fights above that threshold -- by dropping that bar to three fights, with incremental increases on the suspensions. An unexpected byproduct of the rule was a significant decrease in the overall fighting in our league," OHL vice president Ted Baker said at the time. All of this is happening in an era of unprecedented awareness of player safety and health concerns, specifically when it comes to concussions, CTE and the effects of a physical and injurious game on a player's life well after retirement.
Although there have been skeptics about fighting's link to the concussion epidemic -- NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wrote in a letter to the Committee on Energy and Commerce that "only two percent of video-analyzed concussions resulted from fighting" in the previous season -- Chris Nowinski of the Concussion Legacy Foundation sees the downward trend as being tied to that awareness.
Nostalgia can be quite the enchantment, and Barnaby said the fist-filled days of yore still have their appeal. Some fans are always going to miss the way it was, but I'll take watching unreal skill over the fights.
I don't see this trend reversing, and it's a good thing that young men don't have to play hockey with a pre-requirement being that you may have to bare-knuckle box," he said. Even in its diminished state, a ban on fighting is something for which many continue to advocate. In concert with that entertainment value, Grimson believes there is a place for fighting in the modern game from a tactical perspective. From the players on the bench to the coach to the thousands in the stands And no longer are you watching a match where one team is dominating.
You usually end up with a closer, more exciting spectacle. And the two -- fast, skilled hockey and physical hockey -- are not mutually exclusive. Yet in today's NHL, we're seeing one increase -- for only the second time since , teams averaged more than 3. Skip to main content Skip to navigation.
Hockey betting: Don't be tricked by early NHL trends. The state of the captain's 'C' in the NHL. Buffalo Sabres. Merzlikins: Provoked by fan over teammate death. Dallas Stars. Devils goalie Blackwood gets 1st vaccine dose. It has simply evolved. The typical fourth line enforces of the past are gone as everyone is expected to produce in the current era of the sport, but teams also cannot be without someone willing to drop the gloves to defend his teammates.
So when something happens, you go into Ottawa, you look at their lineup, it's a guy like [Mark Borowiecki], he's probably the guy that would fight if something happened. There's that understanding. I'm not going to go grab someone else on their team like the young [Brady Tkachuk] kid.
There's just that understanding. Because of his growing role, Wilson cannot simply drop the gloves against anyone just because they ask. If you get a five-minute major, you could be in the box for 10 minutes because you have to wait for a whistle. It can be a huge chunk of time so you've got to be really smart about it. In , the NHL adjusted its rule on instigating a fight to make the punishment a game misconduct. In , the league further changed the rule giving an instigator a two-minute minor, five-minute major and a minute misconduct penalty.
But saying no to a fight is not without its risks. Refusing a fight when a player wants to stand up for a teammate or spark his team has its consequences. Wilson said there have been players who told him after he refused a fight that they would continue targeting his teammates with big hits until he agreed.
He then has to determine how much he will allow before he ultimately acquiesces. There's guys that take that approach. Even with the instigator penalty, you also still risk getting hit if you refuse a fight. It can be difficult to understand at first why there are so many rules the players hold themselves to when it comes to fighting. In any other sport, there are no such understandings. Tensions rise, punches get thrown and an argument devolves into a fight and further into a brawl.
When things get heated to a point in which emotions take over, things get very ugly very quickly. But fighting in hockey is different because the underlying foundation in which all these unwritten rules are based on is respect.
Not later in the game. Not as soon as the incident happened. Not once. And that includes San Jose Sharks forward Raffi Torres who was suspended 41 games for his latest incident when he delivered a cheap-shot on Jakob Silfverberg in the preseason. There is no evidence to suggest that having a fighter or a tough-guy in the lineup deters players taking runs at opponents because it still happens, usually when a team has a tough-guy in its lineup and nobody really does anything after the fact anymore.
Before he was hired in an analytics role by the Edmonton Oilers last season and had to close off all of his online writings at Mc79hockey. We know there is a decrease in fights during the playoffs, but he also found that expands to almost any meaningful part of a game during any point in the season.
You almost never see fights in the third period of a game when the score is close. You almost never see them in overtime. You never really see them outside of the first few minutes of a game. And that makes a ton of sense. And this season, nobody is doing it when it matters the most. Only 13 fights have taken place in the second period, and out of those fights only five of them have come in the final 10 minutes of the second period.
There have only been five third period fights, with three of them coming in games where a team was facing a three-goal deficit and the outcome was already pretty much in hand.
Two of those games involved Columbus in the final three minutes of a loss. Seven fights this season have come right off of a face-off including one off the opening face-off of a season-opening game between the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames when nothing preceded them while another 10 happened behind the play in a completely different zone from where the game was currently being played at that moment.
Another five fights happened for no apparent reason at all, including this Mike Brown - Gregory Campbell fight on Tuesday night. Brown makes a fine defensive play to block a shot, and then for some reason decides that because he is Mike Brown and he is in the game, he has to fight somebody. Another example from just last week involved Anaheim Ducks forward Chris Stewart seeking out Dallas Stars defenseman Jamie Oleksiak just into a scoreless game.
0コメント