Tampa and Flyers Game

[L K]

I think an easy fix to this is making the defending blue line the indicator for Icing.  That way you can have the attackers start skating through the neutral zone, dumping the puck from your own blue line to start a forecheck, instead of trying to get to the red line first to do this.  The defending team would not be able to sit back for this.

I think you'd see coaches using that as more of a defensive tactic than an offensive one.

Yeah, I think the expanded blue-line is a better fix than that (agreed that my -let the linesmen make a gut decision- idea would be too difficult for them to handle).  What they need to do is find a way to create more room in the neutral zone.  The only other fix would be going to international sized ice, but no team is going to want to take out 1-3 rows of lower-bowl seating.  If you widen the blue-lines, you expand both the offensive zone and the neutral zone at the same time and that's probably the best option to give an extra few feet so guys aren't stuck dragging their feet to avoid being offside. 

It would probably enhance offense more than any change (other than wider nets) as it would also give more space on the PP too.

 

[Kin]

Why?  Is it not Tampa Bay's goal to try and score as well? 

Both teams were in their right to do what they did.  Or they are equally at fault.  Whichever way one wants to look at it.

Because, in all sports, I feel the responsibility to advance the play lies more heavily on the attacking team - they are, after all, the team with possession of the puck/ball/whatever, and, at that time, while the defending team would like to score, until they regain possession, their primary goal is to prevent the other team from scoring. Whether they choose to do that passively or aggressively is up to them. The attacking team is, of course, welcome to try to score passively, but, as we all know, that's virtually impossible.  If they're not advancing the play, they're not going to succeed, but, the defending team still will.

The problem with using other sports as a guidepost is that other than baseball, where advancing the play is the responsibility of the defense, those sports act very consistently and proactively to make sure defenses dont take advantage of that fact. You can't clog up the lane in basketball and just about any contact is whistled. In football they've whittled defenses down to lovetaps.

If we're going to say that the onus is on the offense to advance the play then The onus is on the league to make sure they can. This event was a bigger reflection on the leagues failure than the flyers.

 

[Kin]

I suppose that's a fair point. Still, I don't like the idea of the NHL dictating how a coach should do its job. Although I suppose every rule, like icings, do that.

Just out of curiosity, I keep hearing/reading that the NHL could follow what the NBA did to outlaw "zone defences". Any chance you could explain what they did there?

It depends on whether they mean what they did pre-2001 or post-2001(Although I assume they mean pre-2001). Basically it was a judgment call on the part of a referee where if he saw a team drop into a zone, or players defending areas on the court rather than individual players on the other team, there'd be a whistle and the offending defense would give up, if memory serves, a foul shot and possession.

They changed it to a rule where players aren't allowed to be in the shooting lanes for more than three seconds at a time when the argument became popular that Zone defenses, so long as they weren't clogging up the middle of the court, actually led to more turnovers and fast-breaks and increased the pace of the game.

I've never been a fan of putting anything in the referee's discretion. I can see why the NHL would have a problem with a team using a 1-3-1 system throughout an entire game/season, but there are definitely situations when it's a very useful tactic. If a team is up by two goals in game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals are they not allowed to sit back and protect it? Or even just late in the 3rd period of any regular season game?

Ok, but I can think of just as many situations where the attacking team would be happy to sit back and take the point. They don't have a responsibility to play into their opponents hands either. Like I said the responsibility is on The league to not have a situation where doing nothing is in anyone's interest.

 

[bustaheims]

If we're going to say that the onus is on the offense to advance the play then The onus is on the league to make sure they can. This event was a bigger reflection on the leagues failure than the flyers.

Well, sure, if we're going to place the ultimate blame here, it's on the league allowing for such an incident to take place. The underlying fault is with the structure of the rules and such. I just always feel the responsibility lies on the attacking team to break through a defensive structure, rather than vice versa - as long as that defensive structure falls within the rules of the game. In this situation, I do somewhat applaud the Flyers for calling attention to the flaws in the structure of the rules, I just really disagree with the assertion from Colin Campbell that "Tampa had a responsibility to forecheck," because I don't Tampa did anything wrong or illegal. The onus is on the attacking team and should remain as such (even if all they choose to do is chip in to the opponent's zone and become the defensive team), even though, for the good of the game (as an entertainment medium), a rule change is likely in order to eliminate the effectiveness of the trap - or, another crackdown on obstruction. I mean, wasn't that part of the point of the changes in the way penalties were called coming out of the lockout?