It’s a rare off day for the Nashville Predators after a busy day on Wednesday… practice followed by a season ticket holder event at Bridgestone Arena. It was a busy day in the NHL as well as stories swirled about coaches… one fired and the rest being able to challenge.
The firing of Lindy Ruff has me scratching my head a bit. The typical post-firing leaks are coming out, unnamed players and other sources talking about how the coach was disliked have been quickly shouted down by players willing to go on the record about how Ruff profoundly influenced them. I understand the impatience and that coaches are the first to go when thing get bad, but… were things that bad in Buffalo?
The Sabres certainly haven’t gotten off to the start that was wanted, 6-10-1 in their first 17 games of this shortened season was only good for 13th in the East. I guess it is possible that Ruff may have lost the room or his message had gotten tired, but it is my opinion that he will not be unemployed for long. Time will tell here, but this situation reminds me a lot of St. Louis in 2004 with the firing of Joel Quinneville. It obviously wasn’t the problem, as shown by the team’s post-firing performance for the next couple of seasons. Quinneville just went on to win a Cup in Chicago.
The other coaching story from yesterday has to do with the debate over an NFL-like “coach’s challenge” on plays like the “offsides goal” in Monday’s Preds/Avs game. Opinion pieces have been written on both sides of this. I will do my best to put my bias aside, but I think it is a great idea.
Arguments abound about how it will slow down the game, how the game is so fast that mistakes will happen, officials are human and make mistakes, etc. I can buy off on each one of these… but each one of these arguments have a simple fix…
- It will slow down the game – This one is easy… you simply limit the number of challenges to one per game. Simple.
- The game is so fast that mistakes happen – sure is… so why not use the same technology to make sure that goals are good to correct these obvious errors.
- Officials are human – Sure… see argument above.
So, if you are worried about coaches using the challenge too much, put a penalty on unsuccessful challenges. In the NFL, you lose a timeout for an unsuccessful challenge, you could have the same consequence in the NHL… if the coach has already used his timeout, you could assess a two minute delay of game penalty. The intent of a coach’s challenge is not to embarrass or undermine the officials, it is to correct a call at a key time in a game. Use Monday’s Preds/Av’s game as an example. The blown call happened early in a second period when Nashville had seized the momentum back after going down 0-2, this non-call changed the tenor of the game completely. I am not saying that the call was the deciding factor of the game… but it did have an influence, and that influence looms larger given that the Preds dropped a one goal decision.
If you’ve got the technology… I say… use it.
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Random Notes
- With Lindy Ruff’s firing, Predators head coach Barry Trotz is now has the longest continuous current tenure with a single team.
- Colin Wilson is rapidly becoming the offensive trigger for the Predators, finally playing the kind of game that the coaching staff has been looking for. Wilson has 13 points in the last 10 games.
- This weekend’s schedule lays out in a very interesting way. Vancouver plays Dallas tonight before playing the Preds tomorrow, then heads to Detroit for a Sunday game. Detroit plays Columbus tonight, then welcomes Nashville on Saturday and Vancouver on Sunday. Nashville is off tonight, plays Vancouver Friday and plays Detroit at the Joe on Saturday… intricate back-to-backs for these Western Conference contenders.
- Excellent piece from Ryan Porth today on
Smashville 24/7 regarding the “it” team in the “it” city. Good stuff as always from Ryan.
- The Anaheim Ducks announced a two year extension for goaltender Viktor Fasth for $5.8 million… this after eight total NHL starts. Granted, he’s 8-0 with a 1.78 GAA and a .933 save percentage, but it is still only eight starts. This could go down as a steal… or could go down as a classic overreaction.
- Wacky game between Philly and Pittsburgh last night. This one had it all, crazy goals, insane giveaways, the Penguins playing most of the third period on the power play and a Gordie Howe Hat Trick… just a nutty 6-5 win for Philly.
- The St. Louis slide continues, dropping a 1-0 overtime decision to Colorado last night. All of a sudden there is life in the Rockies.
- The LA Kings appear to be righting the ship, they’ve won their last two.
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