What's Your Most Controversial Hockey Opinion?

[TheAngryHank]

Visors ruined the game and the facewash has vanished forever.

 

[illpucks]

Pavel Bure at his best was the best player to ever lace them up, and a better player than both Gretzky and Lemieux.

 

[nilan30]

Playing the second half of a back to back is not that big of a disadvantage

 

[Mikeshane]

The fans are treated poorly.

Teams shouldn't be able to just kick people out without returning their money.

 

[Sergei Shirokov]

You shouldn't be allowed to freely ice the puck on the penalty kill. Should function the same as it does on 5v5

My thought was cross the blue line to dump it w/o icing. Or even the ringette line (but then you'd have to add one).

 

[psycat]

Idk if it's unpopular but Euro sized, maybe even larger, rinks are better for the game.

 

[psycat]

The NHL would be much better if they went to 4 on 4 as standard.

Also, there is nothing wrong with a game finishing in a tie. Putting in the shootout in the 05-06 season was fixing a problem which didn't really exist.

Very much agree on the tie "issue". Sometimes you just have an ok day and results should reflect that.

 

[Sergei Shirokov]

SC wins should be less important for players to get in the HHOF. (if they aren't already)

So many teams in the league, salary cap, exc. So much has to go right to get to a final let alone win. Getting to the finals should be a bigger deal for players legacies now than the past.

 

[wetcoast]

Lemieux was pretty clearly the least dominant of the Big Four at even strength, but he was also pretty clearly the greatest powerplay performer of all-time. I think the consensus on HOH is correct - he's the fourth greatest player of all-time, no higher, and no lower.

I agree that he is the best PP performer of all time but still think that one of Bourque/Lidstrom gave more career value than Mario overall.

In other words the totality of their careers is greater overall than Mario's IMO.

I understand that some view peak/prime very much higher and those video game counting stats can be blinding to other factors as well at times.

 

[mikeyfan]

Referring to teams as 'original 6' is a total joke

 

[Karl Eriksson]

Dubas not Babcock should be fired.

This is mine too. #2 is that CBD/cannabis should be a permitted pain management option league wide.

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Mine is that for the most part analytics are for nerds who've never played hockey. The vast majority of podcasts, twitter people, bloggers etc who preach about analytics above all else have never played hockey in their life

So....???????? I dont get what's so controversial here.

My opinion is that the game needs to get safer without sacrificing the speed. The faster it is, the more skilled players keep up while others weed themselves out.

 

[Sugi21]

What’s your secrets?

A little floor spice makes everything nice

 

[Butch 19]

Referring to teams as 'original 6' is a total joke

It's insulting to every other NHL team.

No other major professional league assigns a "club house" nickname to certain teams just because they happened to survive for a long time. Why don't they? It's stupid, that's why.

 

[MoeBartoli]

The booth official should be limited to watching Offside reviews only in real time. The original intent of instituting this was to correct egregious or obvious missed offside calls. Slow motion review takes officials down a rabbit hole of lifted skates, micro-measurements and other nonsense. Limiting the reviews to using only actual speed gets everyone back to the original intent, reducing the review requests, decreasing the review time, and also likely facilitating elimination of the two minute penalty if a challenge failed.

 

[StoneHands]

John Gibson is pretty close tbh.

Nope. If anything Gibson is a prime example of what I'm talking about. Everyone knows Gibson is a good goalie because of his past success but looking at this year and last year his numbers just look average. As the team started going downhill so did his numbers.

2017: Gibson had a .924 SV% (4th in the NHL). The Ducks finished 1st in the Pacific with 105 points.
2018: Gibson had a .926 SV% (4th in the NHL). The Ducks finished 2nd in the Pacific with 101 points.
2019: Gibson had a .917 SV% (12th in the NHL). The Ducks finished 6th in the Pacific with 80 points.
2020: Gibson has a .913 SV% (4th in the NHL). The Ducks are 6th in the Pacific with 22 points.

It can also be useful to look at the backups numbers to see if the starter is actually carrying the team or if his ebbs and flows happen to mirror the quality of the team in front of him. Since Miller joined the Ducks in '18 he has a .921SV% and 2.54GAA while Gibson has a .920SV% and 2.67GAA. Obviously Gibson has played a lot more games and will typically play the tougher oppenents but if he was legitamately a top 3-5 goalie in the NHL I would think his numbers would outshine a 39 year old who hasn't been considered a good starting goalie in nearly a decade.

 

[Kronwalled55]

A coach shouldn't be able to look at a slow-mo replay on his iPad before deciding to challenge a call. Get the tech away from the benches.

Icing as a rule just sucks in general. I understand the necessity of it, but it slows down games more than anything. It's bad hockey when there's stretches of play where there's a whistle every 30-45 seconds for icing.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Visors ruined the game and the facewash has vanished forever.

Hockey players are dumb. If they were smart, they'd stop trying to facewash and instead press down on the top of the helmet and make the visor gouge the guy in the face

 

[wintersej]

The Maple Leafs will make the playoffs

 

[wintersej]

A coach shouldn't be able to look at a slow-mo replay on his iPad before deciding to challenge a call. Get the tech away from the benches.

Icing as a rule just sucks in general. I understand the necessity of it, but it slows down games more than anything. It's bad hockey when there's stretches of play where there's a whistle every 30-45 seconds for icing.

wish they just let played self clear

 

[Paperbagofglory]

I think Mark Messier is one of the most overrated superstar players in NHL history. The man road the coat tails of all time great teams to pad his stats. Sure he had a few really good years where he was the leader, but it took half the Oilers roster jumping to the Rangers in 1994 to make him look like some genius Captain that was unstoppable.

This is blasphemy in Edmonton yet i share this opinion that Mark Messier is not even a top 100 player of all time. Hes no Toews.

 

[Kimota]

Don Cherry was right

He may have been right athough most people I know don't wear poppies. So he should have blamed the entire country of Canada.

 

[Riseonfire]

Ovechkin has been a greater play than Crosby.

 

[bronco73]

Bobby Orr, Mario and Howe are all better than 99.

This isn't controversial at all. It's just plain wrong.

 

[Whiston532]

I think Mark Messier is one of the most overrated superstar players in NHL history. The man road the coat tails of all time great teams to pad his stats. Sure he had a few really good years where he was the leader, but it took half the Oilers roster jumping to the Rangers in 1994 to make him look like some genius Captain that was unstoppable.

This is blasphemy in Edmonton yet i share this opinion that Mark Messier is not even a top 100 player of all time. Hes no Toews.

To be fair, I can’t think of the last time I heard Messiers name come up during “who’s the greatest all time player”.