Give me your unpopular hockey opinions

[c9777666]

I'll start with mine.

I think last year's Penguins were the flukiest Cup champ since the 2006 Hurricanes that caught lightning in a bottle, and I just don't think they can bottle that magic again given the Cup repeat drought/the Pens do have some weaknesses that don't make them so overpoweringly unbeatable IMO.

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[Machinehead]

I think Kunitz is really good

 

[YoSoyLalo]

The Capitals aren't very good.

 

[Elvs]

I believe in the eye-test.

 

[clunk]

I think that the league actually has a bias against a few teams and purposely rigs lotteries to make sure they don't win. The Canucks for one. We will NEVER have good results in the lottery, imo. There's an old man's club that hates us, including our management. Aliens, okay?

 

[Spearmint Rhino]

The 4th line should be eliminated and no 'free icing' during the PK

 

[BigRangy]

The Hall-Larsson trade was lopsided in the Oilers favour right from the start. Getting rid of Hall was the best move that team will ever make.

 

[Kryten]

Bring back ties, no overtime loss point. Go to no touch icings.

 

[Machinehead]

The Capitals aren't very good.

I think they're better this year.

Last year they were Braden Holtby.

 

[D Wakaluk]

Carey Price is an overrated product of modern hockey and goaltending where the key is position, position, position and playing the angles to death. He would be very average with some old school equipment and not everyone collapsing down, blocking shots etc. But thats hockey nowadays. Theres 12 goalies on ice.

/takes cover from the angry horde

 

[xxgt465xx]

Teemu Selanne shouldnt have played the final two years of his career. He was absolutely terrible and held the team back regularly.

 

[D Wakaluk]

^That is the truth. Atleast the last "one more year" was too much.

 

[Spearmint Rhino]

Carey Price is an overrated product of modern hockey and goaltending where the key is position, position, position and playing the angles to death. He would be very average with some old school equipment and not everyone collapsing down, blocking shots etc. But thats hockey nowadays. Theres 12 goalies on ice.

/takes cover from the angry horde

I think you're giving the rest of the team too much credit, like any. We are a lottery team without Carey

 

[bigd]

Character players are still valuable.

 

[Bougieman]

The three greatest Calgary Flames of all time are:
Theo Fluery
Jerome Iginla
and
Hakan Loob

 

[PsychoDad]

The three greatest Calgary Flames of all time are:
Theo Fluery
Jerome Iginla
and
Hakan Loob

Greatest flames forwards or greatest players overall? Because Al MacInnis... but this thread is really about unpopular opinions )

 

[KingTux]

Carey Price is an overrated product of modern hockey and goaltending where the key is position, position, position and playing the angles to death. He would be very average with some old school equipment and not everyone collapsing down, blocking shots etc. But thats hockey nowadays. Theres 12 goalies on ice.

/takes cover from the angry horde

Lolz wut

Nan, if it wasnt for Carey Montreal would be a bottom 10 team at best. He is our savior.

As for OP, I think the Western conference has been vastly overrated for the last 10 years or so

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

I have a lot of them. Here's one:

The Hall-Larsson trade was lopsided in the Oilers favour right from the start. Getting rid of Hall was the best move that team will ever make.

Also a bunch more. Don't judge me.

Player specific:
- Brodeur was nothing more than a very good goalie on an elite defensive team.
- Quick was at best an average goalie on an elite defensive team.
- Johnny Gaudreau will be the league's best winger for the next decade.
- Gretzky would struggle to crack 80 points in today's NHL.
- Jacob Slavin will be a franchise player - he is the best U23 defenseman on the planet.
- Mike Ribeiro is criminally underrated and has been his entire career.
- Sean Monahan and Mark Giordano are criminally overrated.

General
- Hitting does not help teams win hockey games
- Coaching in such a way that intentionally manipulates possession numbers (shooting from everywhere) does not help teams win hockey games
- Teams shouldn't over-value 2 way play in a draft prospect. It is far easier to teach a smart, skilled, competitive scorer to play defense than it is to teach a middling 2 way player how to create offense.
- There is no need for bottom 6 players to play any different stylistically than top 6 players. One dimensional offensive forwards who score 10-20 more points per year typically will win you more games well rounded comparable.
- It doesn't require high point totals to be a good offensive defenseman. Guys who can escape a forecheck and move the puck quickly up to the forwards don't usually get tons of points, but they would have tons of tertiary and quaternary assists. Doughty, Larsson, Slavin, and Russel are great examples of these types of dmen.
- Anything beyond 2-3 years of NHL experience is overrated.
- I find Pierre McGuire tolerable *cringe*.

Rule specific:
- Nets should be 6-12 inches wider, which would IMO give an advantage to smaller, more mobile goaltenders.
- Interference around the net needs to be a penalty. Just because an forward is standing near the crease doesn't mean he's allowed to get slashed, shoved, and cross checked.
- League should actively attempt to remove as many off sides stoppages as possible - make all offsides plays result in change of possession where the offending team has to leave the puck and tag at the red line.


And finally . . .
- HFBoards is extremely underrated. Yea, there are some crap posters and plenty of poor discussion if you go looking for it. But there are many high quality posters on this site who could scout / analyze / manage hockey better than most who are paid handsomely to do so - appeal to authority is stupid in such a nepotistic system.

 

[Daishi]

Carey Price is an overrated product of modern hockey and goaltending where the key is position, position, position and playing the angles to death. He would be very average with some old school equipment and not everyone collapsing down, blocking shots etc. But thats hockey nowadays. Theres 12 goalies on ice.

/takes cover from the angry horde

I agree with you 100% about Price, and go further by saying Henrik Lundqvist isn't even half as good as he's hyped to be.

 

[MasterDecoy]

Wrong, hf is full of bipolar herd monkeys. And no, no one here could manage an aspect of a team better than 99.99999% of people currently working in one.

Oh, unpopular.... my bad

 

[PensBandwagonerNo272*]

Here's a big one: I love the new low scoring, defense-orientated NHL.

 

[AD1066]

I think that the league actually has a bias against a few teams and purposely rigs lotteries to make sure they don't win. The Canucks for one. We will NEVER have good results in the lottery, imo. There's an old man's club that hates us, including our management. Aliens, okay?

The NHL hires one of the Big Four to do the lottery; I'm pretty sure it's E&Y.

Either way, a firm like that is several times more valuable than the entire NHL and would never risk its reputation to affect which teenager goes to a sports franchise in British Columbia.

 

[TheMule93]

The refs single handedly lower the entertainment value of the league by not calling interference, bringing us back to clutch and grab hockey

They should be held accountable for inhibiting the growth of the league and should pay hundreds a of millions (if not billions) to the league for potential lost revenue. And whoever up high is letting the refs get away with this should be held to the same standard.

 

[MrS0mething*]

Pucks will one day become self aware & turn the nets into skynets. Humanity's last hope? John Connor McDavid

 

[geehaad]

Don't judge me.

- I find Pierre McGuire tolerable *cringe*.

You and I were getting along famously until this.

The refs single handedly lower the entertainment value of the league by not calling interference, bringing us back to clutch and grab hockey

They should be held accountable for inhibiting the growth of the league and should pay hundreds a of millions (if not billions) to the league for potential lost revenue. And whoever up high is letting the refs get away with this should be held to the same standard.

I agree with the problem, but disagree with the root cause...I think the players are to blame. If you're old enough to remember 2005-2006, you'll remember that we had much of what you're wanting here, but the players *****ed about it. And thus, it died.