The Trap and the CBA

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MHA

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Paul Maurice made a great point today, he said teams are playing more defensive because they are forced too because of payroll. for instance when Carolina plays a stacked Detroit Red Wings they have to play a trap because they don't have the firepower. With payroll parity it will be much different.
 

Torch

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MHA said:
Paul Maurice made a great point today, he said teams are playing more defensive because they are forced too because of payroll. for instance when Carolina plays a stacked Detroit Red Wings they have to play a trap because they don't have the firepower. With payroll parity it will be much different.


He makes a good point, and I've been saying that for a long time.

When a team can't afford as many good players, obviously the quality of the product will decrease.
 

Bicycle Repairman

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MHA said:
Paul Maurice made a great point today, he said teams are playing more defensive because they are forced too because of payroll. for instance when Carolina plays a stacked Detroit Red Wings they have to play a trap because they don't have the firepower. With payroll parity it will be much different.
Maurice is wrong.

Payroll disparity has existed throughout hockey history. As has defensive systems. They are mutually exclusive.
 

gerbilanium

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Bicycle Repairman said:
Maurice is wrong.

Payroll disparity has existed throughout hockey history. As has defensive systems. They are mutually exclusive.

You sure can't drive holes through that one. Rock solid.
 

Lanny MacDonald*

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Bicycle Repairman said:
Maurice is wrong.

Payroll disparity has existed throughout hockey history. As has defensive systems. They are mutually exclusive.

I think I've seen those words somewhere before? Those haven't been plagerized by chance?

:biglaugh:
 

EroCaps

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nyrmessier011 said:
ill just keep doing what i've done for 10 years...blame the freakin devils

Blame no one. It's a fair strategy. Blame a rule system that favors defensive hockey.

no touch up offides, obstruction, expanding goalie equiptment, games ending in ties.
 

nyr7andcounting

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No correlation really. The Devils have always been one of the more defensive minded teams, and what was their payroll last year? Above $50M I think. Who had the 2nd best defense? Dallas, huge payroll. Who was the best offensive team last year? Ottawa, who some would say is a small market..definetly not a big market. TB definetly wasn't a defensive team last year. There are examples that go both ways, but most teams fall in the middle. Really just depends on your teams style.
 

Epsilon

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MHA said:
Paul Maurice made a great point today, he said teams are playing more defensive because they are forced too because of payroll. for instance when Carolina plays a stacked Detroit Red Wings they have to play a trap because they don't have the firepower. With payroll parity it will be much different.

This of course ignores the fact that the Devils and Red Wings have been playing versions of the trap for years, as have the Dallas Stars when Hitchcock was there. The trap has much more to do with coaches than payrolls.
 

GirardIsStupid

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it's funny to see fans who feel so vindicated (re: anti-NHLPA threads) that the NHLPA lost even though payroll parity will still exist in the new economic world of the NHL. big market teams will find a way to circumvent the cap to some extent. as well, there isn't going to be enough revenue sharing that'll allow small market clubs to competitively bid for the big name free agents. meanwhile, the large market clubs will be making money like there's no tommorrow, thus allowing these owners to spend more money on player development and management.

moreover, I don't want to see mediocrity rewarded. if you suck at drafting/trading, you deserve to lose. this also means that if a small market team is able to build up its assets, I would like to see them maintain it. unfortunately, not enough revenue sharing means it'll still be difficult for the financially burdened teams to retain their best players.

frankly, the rumored CBA is most suitable for the large market clubs since its still handicaps the smaller clubs and significantly increases the value of big market teams. selfishly, I'm happy with these circumstances since the avs will become a much stronger franchise. so, feel vindicated you fans of small market teams...
 

GirardIsStupid

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Epsilon said:
This of course ignores the fact that the Devils and Red Wings have been playing versions of the trap for years, as have the Dallas Stars when Hitchcock was there. The trap has much more to do with coaches than payrolls.

Conversely, the Lightning don't have a large payroll and still somehow managed to play entertaining hockey in their playoff run.
 

A Good Flying Bird*

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MHA said:
Paul Maurice made a great point today, he said teams are playing more defensive because they are forced too because of payroll. for instance when Carolina plays a stacked Detroit Red Wings they have to play a trap because they don't have the firepower. With payroll parity it will be much different.

Which would make a helluvalot more sense if the Red Wings hadn't been playing the left-wing lock. Which would make a lot more sense if the Wings didn't have a ton of defensive forwards committed to defense (Draper/Yzerman/Fedorov/Maltby).

And let's also get real before we paint the Wings as a team that bought all their cups.
They won their first cup with a roster that was largely homegrown.
Yzerman. Fedorov. Lidstrom. Kozlov. McCarty. Konstantinov. Lapointe. Dandenault. Holmstrom (can't recall if he and Dandy were really on the team). Kocur was back on the team he started his career with. Osgood.

Other guys on the team were traded for when they were young in their career: Draper/Maltby.

Shanahan was the one one big ticket item with a large price tag. But he came in a trade that cost an up and coming powerforward (Primeau) and a hall of fame defenseman (Coffey)
Vernon was picked up from Calgary for next to nothing.

Yes, the Wings payroll at the time was high. But that's because they'd kept a lot of those good players they drafted.
The Wings payroll didn't get out of hand until Carolina Hurricane owner Pete Karmanos (the guy who loves to whine about players' salaries) made that ridiculous offer to Fedorov. It was made in such a way that Illitch would have to pay a HUGE bonus up from, but Karmanos wouldn't have had to pay it because it seemed unlikely they'd made the conference finals.
Illitch wanted Fedorov. And he certainly didn't want Karmanos, a business rival from Detroit, to win his young star with such a sleazy offer.
So he matched it.

Problem is, now Illitch had to pay that big money to Yzerman, Shanahan, and Lidstrom.

This was the start of the "big spending" Red Wings.

But I'm way off track. Back to Maurice's point.

Fact is, it is easier to destroy offense than it is to create it. That is why defensive hockey is on the rise.

You want offense? Put an end to whacking/hacking/holding/hooking.
It's been here since the NHL's most recent expansion era. It has allowed the new, crappy expansion teams to lose 1-0 i and 2-1 instead of 7-5 and 6-2.

I suspect that the officials were instructed to let the obstruction go, so that the expansion teams in weak markets wouldn't get blown out every night.
 

NYR94

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The trap, along with all of the clutching and grabbing should just be called as a penalty every time it occurs. It should be the NHL's version of illegal defense. If a team fails to send in at least two forecheckers when the other team is carrying the puck out of their zone, then the defensive team gets a 2 minute bench minor. In other words, the 1-2-2 defensive scheme would be illegal.

I wouldn't be so interested in seeing the trap outlawed if it were not for the NHL's chronic inability to call obstruction penalties consistently for an entire season. Obviously a successfully executed neutral zone trap often forces the offensive player to just dump the puck into the offensive zone. I would normally not have a huge problem with this except for the fact that the trapping team will then proceed to clutch, hook, grab and do whatever else it can to slow down the offensive players rushing in to retrieve the dump in.

So the NHL needs its officials must call all hooking and holding penalties all the time. This will give the offensively gifted players more room to display their skills. The dazzling offensive plays that can be generated through unobstructed play are worth ten times as much in terms of entertainment and excitement than all of that clutching and grabbing nonsense. It will also speed up the game.
 

Icey

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Epsilon said:
This of course ignores the fact that the Devils and Red Wings have been playing versions of the trap for years, as have the Dallas Stars when Hitchcock was there. The trap has much more to do with coaches than payrolls.


It is coached and tolerated in the NHL. No matter what you do to the payroll it will continue unless the coaches and GM stop allowing, but they don't because its the easy way out. So instead of attacking another team with skill they attack with clutching, grabbing and the trap. You can't tell me their wasn't skill on that Carolina team. There was plenty of skill, you don't get to the finals without some skill.
 

txomisc

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EroCaps said:
Blame no one. It's a fair strategy. Blame a rule system that favors defensive hockey.

no touch up offides, obstruction, expanding goalie equiptment, games ending in ties.
No
Blame yourselves and fellow fans for not being able to sit through a growing process. Blame yourselves for not being willing to watch your team lose. Blame yourselves for having a "I demand results now!" attitude. Therein lies the problem. A team, its management, its coaches, know damn well they are not going to be supported if they can't find a way to compete. What better way to get competitive and stay competitive than to clog the ice up like nobodies business.
 

London Knights

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Personally I think the "we can't compete monetarily" excuse for the trap is garbage. Teams use the trap because they can win games with it. Philly uses a form of the trap. Would you call them a financially tapped team?
Detroit uses the trap in certain situations. New Jersey has never been in financial ruin (they don't spend a lot but that is because Lou has better kool-aid than David Frost) yet they thrive off the trap.

If playing run and gun gave you a better chance to win, then you would see 25+ teams playing run and gun. Right now defensive play improves your chance to win, regardless of team talent, and thus you see so many teams playing the trap.
Is it possible that if some teams had more talent that they wouldn't play the trap...I guess, but if you think taking 35 million dollars off Detroit's payroll, and 30 million off Toronto's is going to give teams the 3-4 players to make them good enough to play run and gun hockey you are probably mistaken.

Part of the problem is that it is unacceptable to lose for a few seasons in a lot of markets. If you go into places with no hockey background and then put in a losing team, that won't fly.
 
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