State of the Game

There is no question that the quest for the Stanley Cup is the longest and most difficult journey in all of team sports.

In the NFL, teams have to win three or four games to capture the Super Bowl. The NBA might come the closest, but their playoffs are not in any way as physically punishing or demanding as the NHL playoffs are. Baseball? While it has its attributes, it is not even in the same universe as hockey when it comes to intensity.

For over two months, the teams that make it to the Finals battle it out tooth and nail, scratching and clawing for every loose puck, every shot on goal and every inch of ice. Every little play matters, no matter when or where it occurs on the ice.

Closer than they appear
One little hiccup, one little slip-up, or one lucky bounce could result in a huge shift in momentum and ultimately become the difference between a win and a loss in any game or any series. It’s that close. Series that are won 4-0 or 4-1 are a lot like objects in your sideview mirrors. They are much closer than they appear. Even games where one team appears to have a substantial territorial edge or a huge margin in puck possession time.

A chance dose of puck luck can make all of the difference in the world. It just becomes magnified during the playoffs, where scoring chances are at a premium and blocked shots or shots missing the net are typically higher than the number of saves that the goalies are required to make in a game.

Coaches and players on the winning side commonly throw out phrases like “paying attention to detail on defense, sacrificing our bodies to take away scoring chances, great body positioning, sticks in lanes,” and “pressuring the puck.” While the losing team is relegated to “we have to make their D go back to get the puck”, we can’t turn it over, win the battles along the boards and in front of the net,” and the ever popular “have to get more pucks to the net.”

With 10 skaters, two goalies and only one puck on the ice it makes sense that the game has become more about what teams are doing without the puck than what they are doing with it. Although a very strong case could be made with the Stanley Cup winning Detroit Red Wings puck possession style of play that the best defense is a good offense.

High stakes game of keep away
But that depends on how you define offense. While at times the game seemed to be nothing more than a gigantic high stakes game of keep away, which the Red Wings are very good at, it still seemed like they had difficult generating any real substantial scoring chances with the puck.
Many shots were blocked, many were forced wide of the net, and many more were taken from bad shooting angles against the “protect the house – circle the wagons” style of defense that every team uses in the defensive zone.

And while that didn’t work for General Custer or Davey Crockett either, it did prove to be somewhat effective for Pittsburgh in almost forcing the series to a winner-takes-all seventh game. If not for a timely dose of puck luck, or as I prefer to call it, accidental offense.

Henrik Zetterberg’s Stanley Cup winning goal was a perfect example of that. His shot somehow squeezed it’s way through Marc-Andre Fleury’s pads and trickled to a stop behind him. If not for the fact that the NHL employs a two-referee – four-official system, chances are the play would have been blown dead at that point with the officials losing sight of the puck. But the puck was visible and the play continued until Fleury fell backward and his backside landed on part of the puck, propelling it into the open net.

If Fleury’s rear end lands a fraction of an inch either way there is no third goal for the Wings on that play and the series might have gone to seven games. Who knows? It’s a great illustration of how close these things really are.

An even better example of accidental offense at work, as it was throughout the series as many goals being scored on caroms and re-directions as on skill plays or shots that cleanly beat the goalies. That’s not to say that there is not skill involved in those kinds of goals, but a bounce that goes just a hair in another direction and there is no goal.

A lucky (or unlucky) bounce
But really, that holds true for every hockey game, at every level of the game. There is always some skill involved, and players and teams that have the most of it will typically have the most success. But accidental offense can and does play a big part in almost every game at every level.

We have all seen it. One team is noticeably more skilled than its opponent. It has control of the puck for most of the game and spends the majority of the time in the offensive zone. But the weaker team works hard, defends well and relies on some lucky (or unlucky) bounces. It is a lot more difficult to score than it is to defend, no doubt about that.

Then it happens. Accidental offense. The puck bounces to the right player in the right place at the right time and the weaker team gets a scoring chance and oftentimes a goal.

Sometimes it is the best and only player on the team capable of making a play or scoring a goal. That is accidental offense in its purest form. If the bounce goes to anybody else, it’s not happening.

Sometimes it is a player that couldn’t carry the puck from one side of the blue line to the other, but given time for a shot from in front of the other team’s net, can somehow find a way to put it in. That’s a little different version of accidental offense.

Sometimes it is a player who would have a hard time hitting water if shooting the puck off the end of the dock who makes a pass to the front of the net (see quote “have to get more pucks to the net”) that magically deflects off a stick or skate blade or two and finds its way over the goal line and into the net.

And once it happens, the game often changes completely. The weaker team gets a boost and starts to play with a little more confidence and a little more jump. The stronger team starts to grip the sticks a little tighter, starts to make bad decisions, starts to hurry things, starts to try to make something out of nothing and starts to hope for things to happen rather than making them happen.

At that point, the skill doesn’t matter as much. The teams become equals, both of them at the mercy of the hockey gods and reliant on accidental offense.

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Accidental Offense