Dave Maloney loves it. A longtime NHL defenseman and a current Rangers radio announcer, Maloney has watched scoring increase almost 20 percent this season, a rise typically ascribed to the league's new rules -- particularly officials' calling of penalties on defensemen who hook, obstruct and otherwise disembowel forwards who dare skate toward the net.
"Before, if you made a mistake, you could just grab a guy," he said. "You could just shut a game down. It's a much better game now."
NHL games have become more dashing, not only because of skaters' emancipation but because fewer of them are cluttering the ice: the extra penalties have increased the frequency of power plays. Entering Friday's games, the number of power plays a game has vaulted to 12 1/2 from 8 1/2 in the previous three seasons combined (2001-2002 through 2003-2004).
PHOTO: AFP
Hockey cognoscenti say that these extra man-advantages are most responsible for the boost in overall scoring, to 6.2 goals a game this season from 5.2 from 2001-2004. And, sure enough, 73 percent of these added goals have been scored on power plays.
But some believe that players have begun to adjust, making the season's wild opening month more aberration than new hockey world. "I think teams are much better at killing penalties than they were six weeks ago," Rangers coach Tom Renney said last week. "I'm not so sure that the power play is as prolific as it once was."
Andrew Thomas is unconvinced. A 24-year-old Harvard graduate student in statistics, Thomas spends much of his time analyzing US congressional elections. But Thomas, a Toronto native, also adores hockey, and he has peered into the numbers.
Power-play opportunities, which zoomed to 13.3 a game in October, have decreased to about 12 since. Thomas noticed, however, that this 10 percent drop was not quite what it seemed; there are historically more penalties called in the first month of a season, before a drop in penalties of close to 20 percent.
"The same pattern is holding -- while there are adjustments being made, it's not as dramatic as some people have hoped," Thomas said.
If anything, players are adjusting to the revamped officiating less quickly than they are able to shed the usual off-season rust. This leads Thomas to predict that penalties and power plays will probably remain at their present high levels, with scoring keeping pace.
As for the other NHL rules changes for this season -- allowing two-line passes, shrinking goaltender gloves and pads and lengthening the offensive zones -- they appear far less responsible for the league's scoring boost than the enforcement of obstruction rules that were long ignored. Thomas notes that scoring in five-on-five or four-on-four situations has not changed much from previous years; the 4.7 percent increase in even-strength goals since October is barely significant or perceptible, even to the players.
"Five-on-five is just as tough -- there's no question in my mind that it's all the power play," Rangers center Steve Rucchin said. "It's such a fast game, it's easy to get caught out of position. There's still a good chance you're going to have to take a lot of these penalties."
The new rules, beyond aesthetics and pure scoring, have added to the uncertainty, and excitement, late in games. According to NHL.com, in the league's last three full seasons, teams that trailed entering the third period came back to win 11 percent of the time. This season, it is 19 percent.
"For the last generation of the game, when you had a late lead, it was just a lockdown -- the defense would take over," Maloney said. "The other day, the Flyers were leading Vancouver, 3-2, after two periods. There were four goals in the third period and Vancouver won, 5-4. In the old days, that never would have happened. And that's just one example."
Renney said that this season's changes would beget even more in the future. He said the league's crackdown on hooking might prove less draconian than Darwinian, making for more lasting change.
"You'll see teams change how they draft, how they acquire their free agents, as to what type of team they put on the ice," Renney said. "Are we less worried about the big, strong, physical guy, and more interested in the smaller, highly skilled, fast player? I think philosophically, every team will realize that every single player will have to skate well, both to defend and from the offensive side of the equation. The general skill level of our league will improve a lot."
Meanwhile, the officials will continue to do their part. Hockey, as in other arenas, has found little difference between whistles and cheers.
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