Shoot outs are good for the NHL

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GoBuckeyes9

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Jul 5, 2004
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I think shoot out will be a great thing for the NHL. The NHL sold out during its massive expansion. Its not the hockey thats played on frozen ponds up north. Its not the hockey that The Great One played just a few years ago. The NHL needs change, it cant try and force this watered down dump and chase on to the fans.

The shoot out is needed. It will give the game some style back. Also think it will do wonders for the players and the game's marketing. The skill players will be highlighted every night somewhere in the NHL. It would get a face on sportscenter. People think thats overrated, but its a huge deal if you get a couple of players in Top Plays each night. Shows the emotions of a player winning a game, fans cheering for the win...it will be good. Every end of the game will finish with a BIG PLAY! thats a good thing.

Has anyone noticed the Salo vs Souray war of words going on in Europe? Maybe we will get these players talking to eachother and get some people hating eachother. Again getting the sport in the media! Getting people's attention and possiblilty of people getting interested in the sport. As annoying as it to hear that Shaq doesn't like Kobe every 5 mins on Sportscenter...it created a buzz in the off-season, it created a buzz when the schedule was released, etc you get the point.

That said...I think the point system has to be changed a bit..to make sure teams go for the win in regulation. I only want shoot outs in regular season, playoffs should stay the same.
 

Chili

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No. Fix the game, not the result.

It isn't hockey, just a skills event to reward points in the standings.

If the game itself was more entertaining this would not even be discussed.
 

Bring Back Bucky

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GoBuckeyes9 said:
I think shoot out will be a great thing for the NHL. The NHL sold out during its massive expansion. Its not the hockey thats played on frozen ponds up north. Its not the hockey that The Great One played just a few years ago. The NHL needs change, it cant try and force this watered down dump and chase on to the fans.

The shoot out is needed. It will give the game some style back. Also think it will do wonders for the players and the game's marketing. The skill players will be highlighted every night somewhere in the NHL. It would get a face on sportscenter. People think thats overrated, but its a huge deal if you get a couple of players in Top Plays each night. Shows the emotions of a player winning a game, fans cheering for the win...it will be good. Every end of the game will finish with a BIG PLAY! thats a good thing.

Has anyone noticed the Salo vs Souray war of words going on in Europe? Maybe we will get these players talking to eachother and get some people hating eachother. Again getting the sport in the media! Getting people's attention and possiblilty of people getting interested in the sport. As annoying as it to hear that Shaq doesn't like Kobe every 5 mins on Sportscenter...it created a buzz in the off-season, it created a buzz when the schedule was released, etc you get the point.

That said...I think the point system has to be changed a bit..to make sure teams go for the win in regulation. I only want shoot outs in regular season, playoffs should stay the same.


Exciting, yes. Good for the game like fire is good for a straw house. I understand the excitement of a big play ending a game, but it's a team game and shootouts are an individual competition highlighting only a limited portion of the good things about hockey. It would also be exciting to tie the goaltender to the post with no gear and fire pucks at him, but it is not part of the NHL. Wait til some team finishes out of the playoff picture because of shoot-out losses. I, for one, will be turning off the television at the end of a tie game before this circus commences...
 

GoBuckeyes9

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I understand what people are saying about it not being hockey...yada yada

I dont think this is the only thing you do to change the game. But I think you change this aspect of it and the entire product will be better. I just think the game overall lacks excitement and therefore the on-ice product suffers heavily because of it.

I think you have to do a lot more work to the NHL product than just adding a shootout at the end. I will be happy to share my ideas but I am in the middle of finals week at college and should be spending my time doing that. I will be happy to share though, maybe later today.
 

ResidentAlien*

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idaknow, i dont think it would be that bad.
The whole thing that they need to fix is to eliminate the tie-too many times teams skate it out the last couple minutes if they are tied to get that one point. Maybe this might light a little fire under their asses to go for it?
I dont know why one would consider this a circus, they do it in the Olympics still don't they?
I remember that one year, where we were all perplexed why 99 didnt go out on the shootout, that was intense.
We all want( at least I think we do) a more offensive game..isnt scoring a goal offense?
just my muddled thoughts, Ill sit and await the attacks. :thumbu:
 

Chili

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Are ties the problem with the game or are they a symptom of a far larger problem?
 

Sixty Six

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I'm on the fence in this issue, i see the how the shootout is appealing to the average fan, and yes i think it'd be very exciting and would love to see shootouts. However hockey is a team game and should be decided by the teams. But for you shootout naysayers let me ask you this... When Forsberg scored his gold medal winning goal in the 1994 olympics in the shootout, does that take away from what the Swedes accomplished, and does it make it any less of hockey history? I am leaning towards favoring the shootout but if i am not completley sold. I almost think a team winning a shootout should only be awarded like a half point in the standings or something like that, but that could make the standings a bit of a mess
 

Munchausen

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I'm completely in favor of regular season shootouts if only for one thing. To stop the coaches that play only to avoid a loss and not to win. How many times during a season will a team hold on to a tie and not push to get the extra goal? They can sustain that pace for half a game. Then they push for it in OT (as long as they're not playing a division rival). This is crap.

Coaches hate shootouts because it is something they have absolutely zero control over. So you can be sure they'll play a different game, one where they make sure they don't have to go there. No more holding on to a 2-2 tie just to get a point. But you must push the concept even further by not allowing a single point for the team that loses in OT / SO. There must not be incentives given to those freakin coaches (who could probably be blamed just as much as agents for the free fall of hockey) to play it safe.

10 min. of 4-on-4 hockey would also be a good complement to the shootout because there's lots of open ice so chances are that 2 teams going all out 4-on-4 for 10 minutes won't have to finnish the fight in a shootout anyway. But the shootout must be there for this to work. If it's not, coaches will just play it safe and take the point.

EDIT

To clarify my position, I'm more in favor of shootouts for what it'll do for the regular time game than the actual shootout. There would be an other simpler and maybe less controversial solution (or maybe more I don't know) to force coaches to go for the win, which is to only give points to the team that wins. So a tie means no point for anybody. It might seem drastic, but it certainly is less than shootouts, and it would mean that there is no longer incentives to protect the tie for half a game in order to get the point.

Furthermore, I'm not in favor of shootouts like the AHL where you get the point after a 60 min. tie. This has no influence on the way the game is coached. They still try to play it safe for the OT point and the shootout point only becomes a bonus. Do it all the way or don't do it at all.
 
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SPARTAKUS*

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I agree with GoBuckeyes9 the shoot-out will be awsome!!! And for all the ones who are against the shoot-out you gonna have to deal with it, cause the shoot-out are coming. It's gonna be great. Can't wait!!!
 

Chili

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Speaking of Sweden, didn't the Swedish Elite league used to have shootouts but removed them? Considering the Olympic gold medal that's a profound statement. (i.e. the novelty wears off).
 

txpd

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Chili said:
No. Fix the game, not the result.

It isn't hockey, just a skills event to reward points in the standings.

If the game itself was more entertaining this would not even be discussed.

First of all, it is not fixing the result. It is fixing the game. Ties are not good in any sport. The allstar baseball game ended in a tie and it was a national scandal. Football, college and pro, have eliminated ties for all intents and purposes. yet one out of every 3 or 4 NHL games ends in a tie. that is bad for nhl hockey.

one of the main problems with the sport is that defense can be taught a whole lot better than can offense. Defense is about technique which is aided by skills. Offense is skills which are aided by technique.

So many of you want to complain all day and night about the trap, yet you call the shootout bad for hockey. The bottom line should be if you can't score goals, you should not be able to win hockey games. If your team's strategy is to stifle offense with little offense of your own, then you meet you end in the shootout because that requires offensive skill. Shootout means that teams will be encouraged to cultivate some offense and try to win games in regulation and OT by actually scoring some goals. it is a direct attack at the trapfest and clutch and grab defense first tactics of many hockey teams.

THIS is in fact another reason why the salary cap and quality players being equally available to all nhl teams. The defense first epidemic in the NHL is a direct result of the have nots trying to compete against teams with skill levels that they themselves could never afford to buy.
 

Chili

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It is fixing the game.

How? How does this change 'trap' hockey? How does this bring more flow to the play? Players will just stop clutching and grabbing because there is a shootout if the game ends tied?

It's conjecture to me to believe it will improve the style of play.

I enjoy watching the skills events at the all star game but to equate winning one with a hard fought win over 60 minutes of team play makes a mockery of the sport, imo.

At minimum, I hope they bring in the three point win if this is adopted.
 
Munchausen said:
I'm completely in favor of regular season shootouts if only for one thing. To stop the coaches that play only to avoid a loss and not to win. How many times during a season will a team hold on to a tie and not push to get the extra goal? They can sustain that pace for half a game. Then they push for it in OT (as long as they're not playing a division rival). This is crap.

Coaches hate shootouts because it is something they have absolutely zero control over. So you can be sure they'll play a different game, one where they make sure they don't have to go there. No more holding on to a 2-2 tie just to get a point. I would push the concept even further by not allowing a single point for the team that loses in OT / SO. There must not be incentive given to those freakin coaches (who could probably be blamed just as much as agents for the free fall of hockey) to play it safe.

10 min. of 4-on-4 hockey would also be a good complement to the shootout because there's lots of open ice so chances are that 2 teams going all out 4-on-4 for 10 minutes won't have to finish the fight in a shootout anyway. But the shootout must be there for this to work. If it's not, coaches will just play it safe and take the point.

EDIT

To clarify my position, I'm more in favor of shootouts for what it'll do for the regular time game than the actual shootout. There would be an other simpler and maybe less controversial solution (or maybe more I don't know) to force coaches to go for the win, which is to only give points to the team that wins. So a tie means no point for anybody. It might seem drastic, but it certainly is less than shootouts, and it would mean that there is no longer incentives to protect the tie for half a game in order to get the point.

Furthermore, I'm not in favor of shootouts like the AHL where you get the point after a 60 min. tie. This has no influence on the way the game is coached. They still try to play it safe for the OT point and the shootout point only becomes a bonus. Do it all the way or don't do it at all.

You could accomplish the same thing by simply awarding no points at all for ties or losses. Win or die. No need for a skills competition event to resolve the game.

This is *exactly* the same as a baseball game being decided by a homerun competition, or a basketball game being decided by alternating free-throws. Ridiculous.

Why not skip the game and just have the National Shootout League?
 

Munchausen

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dolfanar said:
You could accomplish the same thing by simply awarding no points at all for ties or losses. Win or die. No need for a skills competition event to resolve the game.

This is *exactly* the same as a baseball game being decided by a homerun competition, or a basketball game being decided by alternating free-throws. Ridiculous.

Why not skip the game and just have the National Shootout League?

This is what I wrote in the EDIT portion of my post you quoted (maybe you didn't see it). The shootout in itself means very little to me. It's the consequences that would follow for the game prior to that point that I find interesting. So I agree, giving no point to anybody unless they win the game is a change I would welcome as well, in fact probably more than shootouts.
 
Chili said:
How? How does this change 'trap' hockey? How does this bring more flow to the play? Players will just stop clutching and grabbing because there is a shootout if the game ends tied?

It's conjecture to me to believe it will improve the style of play.

I enjoy watching the skills events at the all star game but to equate winning one with a hard fought win over 60 minutes of team play makes a mockery of the sport, imo.

At minimum, I hope they bring in the three point win if this is adopted.

I'd really hope that they'd try a few other things before going the rather extreme route of shootouts.

The 3 point regulation win, 2 for an overtime win, 1 for a tie or OT loss is a start. 10 minute 5 on 5 overtime (rather than the silly 4 on 4) is another. Calling friggin obstruction in regulation and OT, and calling penalties *period* in Ot would be another.

But no, let's go for another radical quick fix that flies in the face of NHL tradition, yeah that will help. Let's show that this league has zero respect for it's own history. I'm sure that someone with no interest in the game will be completely turned around by an artificial way to determine a winner. Just look at the ratings for All Star Games and skill competitions in the US... heck it's a wonder this hasn't been adopted years ago! :rolleyes:
 

Habber

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A shootout won't "fix" anything. It would probably make things worse.

You could say goodbye to any kind of excitement in OT if there's a shootout. Where's the incentive to open things up in overtime when a team can just go into a defensive shell and try to win the crapshoot called a shootout.

The weaker teams will just make things worse, because with a shootout they could win a game without taking a single offensive chance. And believe me, they will try it.

Can you imagine if baseball only played 10 innings, and if the game was still tied they had a homerun derby to decide the winner? It's just plain stupid, and so are shootouts in hockey.
 
Munchausen said:
This is what I wrote in the EDIT portion of my post you quoted (maybe you didn't see it). The shootout in itself means very little to me. It's the consequences that would follow for the game prior to that point that I find interesting. So I agree, giving no point to anybody unless they win the game is a change I would welcome as well.

Sorry the second part of my rant wasn't directly in response to your post, more my personal disgust for the general idea of shootouts, especially the notion that they will magically solve the problem of boring regular season hockey.
 

Patman

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txpd said:
First of all, it is not fixing the result. It is fixing the game. Ties are not good in any sport. The allstar baseball game ended in a tie and it was a national scandal.

But you don't change the game to a homerun hitting contest because you've ran out of innings... you just play another inning. Why should we switch to a shootout after playing hockey for 65 minutes? Why not more hockey? Why not continuous overtimes if a result is mandated?
 

amazingcrwns

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dolfanar said:
You could accomplish the same thing by simply awarding no points at all for ties or losses. Win or die. No need for a skills competition event to resolve the game.

This is *exactly* the same as a baseball game being decided by a homerun competition, or a basketball game being decided by alternating free-throws. Ridiculous.

Why not skip the game and just have the National Shootout League?

I compare this to the MLS... Soccer is a team sport played with 90 minutes of team play. If it's tied at the end of regulation there is OT. if it's still tied you go to the shootout. In the MLS you don't face the problem of teams playing for a tie as much as you see in hockey. Teams fight for a win right up until the final whistle. Sure teams sit back and take fewer chances when they have the lead but you don't see both teams sitting back playing to not make a mistake for the last half an hour because they get one point if they make it to overtime. They are trying to win for 90 minutes.

I hate it when games end in shootouts but it prevents the problem of both teams playing for overtime then going for the win once they get there. The points would have to work themselves out. 3 points for a win 2 pts for an OT win and 1 pt for a shootout win. No points for a loss, ot loss or shotout loss. . This would get teams to fight for a win the entire game.

Is a shootout at all like the 60 minutes of hockey before you get there? no... not at all. Would it bring more fans to the sport? Yes. People don't like tuning in for the game of the week and at the end of the night not having a winner. For the hardcore fan it isn't necessary nor desirable to have a game end in shootouts but I think it's worth it during the regular season if it brings more support to the game I love.
 

Munchausen

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dolfanar said:
I'd really hope that they'd try a few other things before going the rather extreme route of shootouts.

The 3 point regulation win, 2 for an overtime win, 1 for a tie or OT loss is a start. 10 minute 5 on 5 overtime (rather than the silly 4 on 4) is another. Calling friggin obstruction in regulation and OT, and calling penalties *period* in Ot would be another.

But no, let's go for another radical quick fix that flies in the face of NHL tradition, yeah that will help. Let's show that this league has zero respect for it's own history. I'm sure that someone with no interest in the game will be completely turned around by an artificial way to determine a winner. Just look at the ratings for All Star Games and skill competitions in the US... heck it's a wonder this hasn't been adopted years ago! :rolleyes:

I understand whta you're saying, but if your reason not to do it is only because it wasn't like that before, I disagree. Tradition can be a mean to keep your perspective on the game and not blindly change direction for the sake of it, but it can also be a real brake to interesting and enhancing ideas. It's not because it was a certain way before that you can no longer change it. Things have changed in the game, the players have changed, their skills have changed, the way the game is coached has changed, why can't the rules adapt to this reality?

You talk about 4-on-4. This is a formula that has proven to be quite interesting in the past. Why is this silly, other than the fact it is not part of hockey tradition? This is a very close minded view I find, one where if it isn't part of the original thing, don't bother. Well great. So this league can sink to hell in the next few years, continue to lose ground in the sports market until it becomes no more than an elitist sport like cricket, or it can try to improve on its weaker points, the things that drive the fans away from it. This is supposed to be entertainment, and as much a hardcore fan as I am, I find less and less entertainment value in the product the NHL has had to offer for the last few years.
 

Chili

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The 3 point win isn't tradition and I would welcome it. And potentially it could influence the style of play. I am also for trying a host of other potential changes to improve the entertainment value of the game. (i.e. removing the red line, increasing the size of the nets slightly, increasing the size of the 'neutral zone' among others). So shootouts aren't about tradition with me, just not the way I would like to see a game decided.
 
Chili said:
The 3 point win isn't tradition and I would welcome it. And potentially it could influence the style of play. I am also for trying a host of other potential changes to improve the entertainment value of the game. (i.e. removing the red line, increasing the size of the nets slightly, increasing the size of the 'neutral zone' among others). So shootouts aren't about tradition with me, just not the way I would like to see a game decided.

3 points for a win isn't tradition, but it doesn't change the structure of the game, just the way playoff seeding is determined. Not my favorite choice, but this ship sailed the moment the NHL decided to award a point to the losing team in OT, so given the choice I'd rather this then any other option.
 

Belgican

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It doesn't fix the game for sure, other measures are necessary in that aspect.

But shootouts are very exciting. Went to the last regular game in Germany, Cologne , yesterday, and the game was decided with the shootout, exciting !
 
Munchausen said:
I understand whta you're saying, but if your reason not to do it is only because it wasn't like that before, I disagree. Tradition can be a mean to keep your perspective on the game and not blindly change direction for the sake of it, but it can also be a real brake to interesting and enhancing ideas. It's not because it was a certain way before that you can no longer change it. Things have changed in the game, the players have changed, their skills have changed, the way the game is coached has changed, why can't the rules adapt to this reality?

You talk about 4-on-4. This is a formula that has proven to be quite interesting in the past. Why is this silly, other than the fact it is not part of hockey tradition? This is a very close minded view I find, one where if it isn't part of the original thing, don't bother. Well great. So this league can sink to hell in the next few years, continue to lose ground in the sports market until it becomes no more than an elitist sport like cricket, or it can try to improve on its weaker points, the things that drive the fans away from it. This is supposed to be entertainment, and as much a hardcore fan as I am, I find less and less entertainment value in the product the NHL has had to offer for the last few years.

My point is that rather than go back to things that worked *before* (tightly called obstruction, 10 minutes 5 on 5 ot) the NHL is so damn eager to throw away tradition in favor of gimmickry. And that's all Shootouts are, a gimmick meant as a band aid.

I say let's try a few of the less gimmicky alternatives (10 minutes 5 on5 Ot, 3 point regulation win, tag up off-side, calling obstruction, moving the nets back), and then if the situation isn't helped then lets go for some of the more radical changes.

Heck I could even live with 10 minutes of 4 on 4 OT, and allowing 2 line passing, but deciding a game with a shoot out is a 100% turn off.

Hell you can even look at penalties and go back to players serving the full duration of the penalty, or removing the right to ice the puck during a penalty kill. Or both! That in combination with stringent application of the rules will, increase scoring, give talented players more room, give teams incentive to carry more skill players vs muckers, and in turn reduce the number of ties (more scoring = more scoring in OT).

All these options are open, while still at least maintaining some form of continuity in the league...
 
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