When You Force The NHL To Create A Rule Change

When You Force The NHL To Create A Rule Change

if you ask most fans in North America which league has the best playoff experience I can almost guarantee you that the majority of them will say hockey And if they don’t they probably never watch playoff hockey Oh my god Wins the series and they go on Oh baby Score Yes He’s got a point Yes You cannot say he didn’t go out with all the class in overtime 2 minutes 35 seconds in On December 16th 2024 we would see a regular season matchup between the Oilers and Panthers And I want you to pay attention to this power play TS Conor McDavid to the outside Tricidle look over coverage McDavid gets it Tricidle again He scores Did you notice anything interesting about this goal or perhaps the Florida penalty kill As right here Ekkom dishes the puck to Nan Hopkins N passes it back to Echolome and instead of going back to the half wall he would look over and notice that Dryside was sneaking into a tipping lane if not back door option where all of a sudden there are now three Panthers sucked into their own net as typically a team is only trying to assign two defenders net front and use the other two high guys to apply pressure up top or on the half wall Therefore all of a sudden Echol and McDavid have all the space in the world to make a play as Echolome then baits the defenseman to shift left dishes it back to McDavid where at this point McDavid draws so much attention that the Panthers are scrambling which allows Dry Settle to sneak away from the net into his one-time spot Now Edmonton has arguably the two best players in the NHL So their power play is always going to be dangerous but we’re talking about the defending Stanley Cup champions here and their penalty kill was sloppy at best And this right here is what’s so fascinating about playoff hockey In the regular season it is nearly impossible to stay on top of game planning the other team strategies Teams try of course That’s why they watch so much film But when teams are constantly working on new plays you can’t really plan for something if you’ve never seen it But by the time the playoffs come around most teams are well aware of their opposition’s top performing plays specifically in game one Because in game one of this year’s Stanley Cup final after a back andforth game leading to OT Edmonton would go on the power play Also first and foremost I don’t think people realize how invaluable it is to have a player who can cleanly break into the offensive zone with high efficiency Like this may not look alike but holy it’s impressive as McDavid single-handedly force every Panther on the ice to cheat toward him which opens up so much space for every other teammate but okay I want you to take a look at the Panthers defensive pressure It is impeccable As Nan Hopkins cycles it back to Buchard Brad Marshawn instantly attacks the puck This causes Buchard to swing it back to Nooj where Eblad is ready to attack Because when you have the right personnel playing in a tight system this suffocating defense can single-handedly win a championship as it then requires the opposition to think four steps ahead and create specific plays to counter this However the Oilers did because seeing the pressure up top Cory Perry is ready He knew what to do where he slides through the lower half wall Nan Hawkins trusting his teammate makes a no- look pass on the tape but Perry was just a distraction and he instead one touches it to McDavid and Hopkins McDavid scores Leon titles Edmonton will prepare a specific strategy that perfectly countered Florida’s relentless pressure Some of you may be like “They made this play in the moment.” But you are dead wrong This was a specifically catered play that involved perfect timing and execution Because what makes playoff hockey so special is that it goes from a chaotic regular season to the playoffs where it becomes a game of high stakes chess However this is where things get messy constant stalemate guess what happens teams Players will do anything to gain an advantage even if it means that their entire game is just being played in the gray area You may have not even noticed it but on this goal Brad Marshon would quite literally sloff to Buchard on the zone entry Sam Bennett goes “Oh you want to cross-check me in front of the net oops I’m going to fall on your goalie.” Sam Bennett kicking away defender sticks to create wide open shooting lanes Especially in the Stanley Cup final where we’re watching the best hockey of the entire season Players will do whatever it takes to gain any inch of an advantage Players like Marshawn Bennett Perry Aander Kane would rather take these chances although scummy even if it leads to a penalty Why because if they don’t do it it could be the difference between winning and losing And if the refs aren’t calling it then why not because here’s what’s fascinating typically in the past held the entire NHL timeline We would see a lot less penalties in the playoffs Why you ask it leads to much better physical and dramatic hockey entertainment [Applause] over the Hawk line in front shooting He just pissed off our post and he really paid the price the shoulder Yeah And kind of left his feet too a little bit A little bit A little bit Letting players have more control of the game Letting those players police the game is what made playoff hockey so wild And some of you may be wondering if putting away the whistle makes such great hockey then why doesn’t the NHL officiate like this all year round and I mean it’s obvious If the refs put away the whistle for an entire 82 game season plus playoffs most teams will lose half their roster to catastrophic injury It just is impossible But here’s the thing Us fans knew that there was less penalties and so did the players And because of this players would begin to game the system to gain any advantage even if it meant going way too far Take Boston for example Back in 2011 they bullied the Canucks the entire series Many players were borderline suspension worthy if not just straight up suspensions Penalty Oh man there’s a little more You knew this was coming You knew this was coming But then it would happen The NHL would realize that players were taking advantage of the system So much so it was having a big impact on the game Thus we would see a massive shift in playoff hockey specifically when it comes to the Stanley Cup final Because after looking into the numbers I would discover something shocking From 2010 until 2016 on average there was 7.338 penalty minutes per game So that’s the equivalent to around three and a half miners per game also per team Okay and from 2017 up until 2024 and I kid you not there has been 14.68 penalty minutes per game per team So almost exactly double This is absurd So what happened in 2016 well Brooks Orpek would break his hand from a brutal hit Dan Valardi Mark Andre Flurry Strowman Stamco Pereiz Thomas Vanic Mcdana Mulan Trochek GabriC would all be injured putting away the whistle was starting to have dire consequences and was severely impacting the integrity of the game Therefore it would become apparent that the NHL would take a brand new approach to playoff hockey which is to allow physicality and rattiness to keep the drama entertainment of the game However it is clear they’ve been creating rule changes on the fly to counter any gray area ratty plays this playoffs or for the past 10 years because can you guess what would happen after Sam Bennett’s oopsy moments and everything else that happened there would be 35 penalties in game three 35 There was eight penalty minutes to start the game and in total 138 penalty minutes Absolute chaos Taking a run And oh yeah now he just got a penalty Frederick just cross check and now Bennett’s going to get Now unfortunately the NHL doesn’t actually show penalties in their highlight packs So it’s really hard for me to highlight specific penalties but to summarize what we witnessed in game three Edmonton was gas lit Well at least in their minds In Florida’s mind their plan worked perfectly Edmonton was baited As Florida would pull out a shady play in game one that went uncalled Edmonton would try to do something similar in the next game And guess what they got the call Why because the NHL would note it from the prior game And it worked As Edmonton’s three penalties in a row to start their game would instantly take them out of it Now I will say something like suitting your opponent even if it gives your team an advantage is just straight trash But basically my theory for this video is that around 2016 we would see that drastic shift in penalties which led the NHL to creating or adjusting rules on the fly However they don’t want to call everything and take away the drama Hell no Instead they kind of let it happen and then adapt in the moment leading to calls doubling in the last decade Before Edmonton yes they have some throwback players like Nurse Kane maybe Yanmark Cory Perry but they can’t compete in a competition on who’s the bigger rat Florida’s team was constructed for this game which they’re doing extremely well So for Edmonton they need to stop reacting and focus on their high skill plays or they have zero shot at this series But what do you think i’d really [Music] Hey

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