Post-Game Talk: I hate the Leafs, redux

[Pavels Dog]

To me, it's clearly a misguided rule that has resulted in an otherwise good goal, in the spirit of the game of hockey, being disallowed. And that's unfortunate.

Goals like that were literally disallowed when we played hockey as kids on backyard rinks. It's never been in the spirit of hockey to kick a puck into the net.

 

[jaster]

I don't think it's moving goalposts. The kick clearly added to its momentum and was the last act that propelled the puck into the net.

This goal was a bit of collateral damage from the rule but without it you get into trying to discern what a player's intention was. And to my point earlier if this rule is not in place and there is a goal mouth scramble, if a player's stick is being tied up it does seem like a plausible strategy to kick it at the net in hopes it deflects off something and in.

As @norrisnick pointed out, this isn't soccer. The puck should be propelled into the net by a hockey stick.

@norrisnick moved the goalposts (admittedly not in a very meaningful way) and referenced soccer. He left me no choice but to employ this meme!

While this rule has the upside of eliminating some ambiguity and subjectivity (I'll give it that), it still chips at the spirit of the game. And this disallowed goal is evidence of that. The guy is making a good hockey play in an effort to ultimately shoot the puck, and then.... chaos happens. As it happens multiple times a game, and often results in a goal, regardless of where the puck originally came from. Again, can't kick it directly into the net, I fully agree with that. But trying to take chaos out of a game that is half-fueled by chaos is problematic.

I think the "has to be propelled off a stick" and "this isn't soccer" sentiment is a bit disingenuous. The former is, frankly, kind of meaningless when you consider the big picture of hockey and the chaos I mentioned previously. And the latter because if we have a problem with pucks off of feet then we should have a rule that says you can't kick the puck to your stick at all, no? I mean, this isn't soccer. I don't mean to sound snarky with that point, but I don't really like the soccer reference because no one is trying to make hockey like soccer, the similarities being drawn here are completely coincidental in nature.

Good discussion at least

 

[jaster]

Goals like that were literally disallowed when we played hockey as kids on backyard rinks. It's never been in the spirit of hockey to kick a puck into the net.

He didn't kick it in the net though, that's the issue here.

And no, those weren't disallowed when we were kids, not in backyards and not in officiated games. Things get scrambly in front of the net and a loose puck goes in, that's it. Goal. I recall in maybe squirts a kid having a goal disallowed because he blatantly kicked it in. But it was blatant and clear.

 

[norrisnick]

I don’t believe that.

Revisiting the Blues' Trade for Ryan O'Reilly

He’s in his 30s now and has played a lot of hockey. His stats are going to drop. It doesn’t help that St. Louis is a much weaker team defensively and in net this year.

In the last 3 years they’ve lost…
Fabbri
Sunny
Perron
Schwartz
Bouwmeester
Pietrangelo
Dunn
Maroon
Bozak
Edmundson
Husso

Those are all pretty good hockey players. Many of the guys that replaced them aren’t as good. I wouldn’t blame the blues being a bubble team on ROR.

That's fine. He held out and signed offersheets in Colorado. Said he stopped caring in Buffalo and it looks very similar to that this season in St Louis.

I don't blame ROR for STL being a bubble team. I blame ROR for playing like dogshit because STL is a bubble team.

 

[Pavels Dog]

He didn't kick it in the net though, that's the issue here.

Yes he did.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

@norrisnick moved the goalposts (admittedly not in a very meaningful way) and referenced soccer. He left me no choice but to employ this meme!

While this rule has the upside of eliminating some ambiguity and subjectivity (I'll give it that), it still chips at the spirit of the game. And this disallowed goal is evidence of that. The guy is making a good hockey play in an effort to ultimately shoot the puck, and then.... chaos happens. As it happens multiple times a game, and often results in a goal, regardless of where the puck originally came from. Again, can't kick it directly into the net, I fully agree with that. But trying to take chaos out of a game that is half-fueled by chaos is problematic.

I think the "has to be propelled off a stick" and "this isn't soccer" sentiment is a bit disingenuous. The former is, frankly, kind of meaningless when you consider the big picture of hockey and the chaos I mentioned previously. And the latter because if we have a problem with pucks off of feet then we should have a rule that says you can't kick the puck to your stick at all, no? I mean, this isn't soccer. I don't mean to sound snarky with that point, but I don't really like the soccer reference because no one is trying to make hockey like soccer, the similarities being drawn here are completely coincidental in nature.

Good discussion at least

I still fully support the "has to be propelled off a stick" part but do agree the soccer part is a bit of a strawman.

It's not really anything to do with soccer and more that for a goal to count in the spirit of hockey, the puck should be propelled into the net by a stick. If the puck comes off a stick and deflects off someone, that's a good goal. Prior to 1996 no goals off of skates counted. Allowing them was the league's misguided attempt to increase scoring during the clutch and grab era without actually addressing the clutching and grabbing.

I have no doubt the Leafs player was trying to kick the puck along to get it to his stick but it was a distinct kicking motion and the rule is clear. I'd rather have a goal like this get overturned once in a while than have refs trying to sort out an even grayer area of what a player was trying to do.

And like I said in my initial post on the matter, I'd actually be ok if the league went back to how it was prior to 1996.

 

[jaster]

Yes he did.

He kicked it in the net the same way any puck that is kicked, and then at any time before the next whistle goes in the net, is kicked in the net, sure.

 

[Nut Upstrom]

I thought we had 3 slam dunks, yet no goal.

The best game by Chiarot in wings uniform. Walman is just unbelievable and Hronek was very strong. Seider is getting points.
Berggren is so dynamic. But both he and Seider have to shoot more. Copp very strong game. We finally win special teams battle. We beat 2 good teams at home and score 11 goals


Really? He was the sloppiest player on the ice tonight

Yes totally. Been harping on Seider not shooting for a while now. Good things happen when you put it on the net. Nice to see Seider shooting more, hopefully Berggren follows suit.
Fun game in that we beat the leafs and miced-up Marner had 0 points.

 

[jaster]

I still fully support the "has to be propelled off a stick" part but do agree the soccer part is a bit of a strawman.

It's not really anything to do with soccer and more that for a goal to count in the spirit of hockey, the puck should be propelled into the net by a stick. If the puck comes off a stick and deflects off someone, that's a good goal. Prior to 1996 no goals off of skates counted. Allowing them was the league's misguided attempt to increase scoring during the clutch and grab era without actually addressing the clutching and grabbing.

I have no doubt the Leafs player was trying to kick the puck along to get it to his stick but it was a distinct kicking motion and the rule is clear. I'd rather have a goal like this get overturned once in a while than have refs trying to sort out an even grayer area of what a player was trying to do.

And like I said in my initial post on the matter, I'd actually be ok if the league went back to how it was prior to 1996.

I'm not going to push back on subscribing to the "has to be propelled off a stick" part much. The core idea is fine, and I get where it's coming from. I just think it ignores too much context that is very relevant to the sport of hockey.

I think we've basically reached an "agree to disagree" point, and I do mean that in a respectful way since we've essentially boiled it down to preference at this point. My rule that would eliminate the gray area would be "you can't kick a puck directly into the net" (basically 90% of the rule as it is). Any other kicking of pucks is allowed. If that happened and it turned into a bunch of guys getting cut and 3 dead goalies, I'll admit I was wrong. But I just don't foresee it being a problem. Guys already kick pucks to their teammates when there's a board battle in the corner and someone has fallen down and is laying on the ice.

 

[dalem177]

Yes totally. Been harping on Seider not shooting for a while now. Good things happen when you put it on the net. Nice to see Seider shooting more, hopefully Berggren follows suit.
Fun game in that we beat the leafs and miced-up Marner had 0 points.

He said just a couple games ago how he's been told to be more stay-at-home and look for opportunistic offense rather than be central to generating it. This year is a building and learning year for him. I assume Raymond has had similar instructions: "OK, you already have talent and know how to be explosively dangerous, now we want to you to learn X."

I dunno what "X" might be, but I can bet that's partly what's been making him a different Raymond this season.

Coaches do more than flip tables - they COACH.

 

[14ari13]

Yes totally. Been harping on Seider not shooting for a while now. Good things happen when you put it on the net. Nice to see Seider shooting more, hopefully Berggren follows suit.
Fun game in that we beat the leafs and miced-up Marner had 0 points.

They remind me of Datsyuk. Datsyuk always tried to find the perfect play, but sometime a good play beats the perfect play and that is a shot.
Last night Berggren had a great chance to shoot, he decided to pass it and it caused a bad turnover, luckily for him they did not score, but a great chance turned out in almost a goal for them.
He and Seider have to shoot more. I think the coaches have said that to them and I think they know it now.
Berggren is the player who creates the most in the offensive zone. Larkin creates more in the neutral zone as he skates fast through the neutral zone into the offensive zone. But no player creates more than Berggren. He should be on the 1st PP unit.

I'm not going to push back on subscribing to the "has to be propelled off a stick" part much. The core idea is fine, and I get where it's coming from. I just think it ignores too much context that is very relevant to the sport of hockey.

I think we've basically reached an "agree to disagree" point, and I do mean that in a respectful way since we've essentially boiled it down to preference at this point. My rule that would eliminate the gray area would be "you can't kick a puck directly into the net" (basically 90% of the rule as it is). Any other kicking of pucks is allowed. If that happened and it turned into a bunch of guys getting cut and 3 dead goalies, I'll admit I was wrong. But I just don't foresee it being a problem. Guys already kick pucks to their teammates when there's a board battle in the corner and someone has fallen down and is laying on the ice.

I understand what you mean. It was more than obvious he tried to kick it to his stick, but it hit the skate of our defenceman and went in. A bit unfair, but the rules are the rules.