After a week of unplugging with the blogging world, it’s time to plug back in. As the NHL season resumes tonight, I was wondering… was participation in the 2014 Sochi games worth it?
I submit to you a single answer…
No.
Let me lay out some reasons…
Quality of Play – This is normally used as a reason FOR Olympic participation, but let’s face it… the quality of play in this year’s tournament was not consistently great. There were a couple of thrillers and some memorable moments… one or two really fast paced games, but overall, the hockey was just “meh.… The next person that says expansion has watered down the NHL talent pool needs to watch every game of this tournament again… and after they wake up, they should re-think their position. Some of the best, most inspired hockey in the Olympics was played on the women’s side to be perfectly frank.
Injuries – Henrik Zetterberg, out with a herniated disk and may be done for the season… JohnTavares, out with a season ending knee injury... Mats Zuccarello, out with a hand injury for 3-4 weeks... Paul Martin, out with a hand injury for an unknown amount of time... Tomas Kopecky, out indefinitely with a concussion… Alexander Barkov out 4-6 weeks with a knee injury… Fedor Tyutin out 2-3 weeks with an ankle injury. The GM’s for Detroit, New York (Rangers and Islanders,) Florida, Columbus and Pittsburgh can’t be happy about this. Look, there is no guarantee that these players wouldn’t have been injured in their NHL games, but this is a major issue that shows no real resolution.
Olympic Hangover – How do the players that endured a difficult Olympic tournament react to returning to the NHL? Players like Alex Ovechkin or Patrick Kane… How do some players react to the conflicts that occurred, Slava Voynov calling his LA teammate a cheater, Drew Doughty and Jeff Carter had spectacular Olympic performances, but their NHL performance has only been so-so, can they continue their hot streaks upon return? Issues between coaches and players, the controversy between Mike Babcock and Pavel Datsyuk… all potentially impactful to the individual teams involved.
Damage to the Season – The compressed season caused by a 16 day league shutdown does wonderful things to a schedule, increased back-to-back’s, a schedule that looks more like last season’s disaster area… y’know… that kinda stuff. It simply isn’t good for business. Sure… we were mesmerized by the shootout in the USA/Russia game, but will that help make new fans? Maybe… as long as they were watching hockey at 8am on a Saturday morning. The ratings were solid, spectacular even for a hockey game at that time, but the exposure card is simply over-played. You simply don’t see a bump in NHL ratings or ticket sales because of the NHL’s participation in the Olympics.
Damage to more highly talented teams – This one is a controversial one. A study conducted by a University of Massachusetts professor suggests that teams that send more players to the Olympics suffer larger performance drop-offs in the post-Olympic timeframe. This study was conducted in 2012, using NHL participation from 1998 - 2010 and is an indicator of the damage done to the more talented teams You can read the study here. Stick tap to Jeff Z. Klein’s column in the 2/24 edition of the NY Times for this… it’s a good read and is a great companion piece to the study. Boiled down to a single factoid… the study found that for each player participating, the team’s goal differential dropped by 0.088 per game. Considering there were teams that had seven or more players participate… that could constitute a serious drop in performance.
All-in-all, I think that the Olympic experience needs a break for the NHL, if not a break, then a serious re-working of the participation. Everyone is talking about a World Cup and that would be great. It would make a ton of money for the league and the players and take place at a time where it would limit the impact on NHL teams… limit… not eliminate. Having the World Cup take place before the NHL season begins would be excellent scheduling for the event, but as I have said in earlier blogs... why not move hockey to the Summer Games?
I know... I know… hockey is a sport played in winter… so is pro basketball, but we see basketball in the summer games. It does seem counter-intuitive, but think about it this way, considering the summer games can run as late as October (Seoul 1988) and often in September... the timing is not that much different than the World Cup proposition.
One thing is for sure… unless major changes are made, there is a very good chance we have seen the last of NHL participation in Olympic hockey for awhile.
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Random Notes
- Pekka Rinne is ramping up his activity and according to multiple media sources will be cleared for game play sometime this week. I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes to Milwaukee for a game or two to get ready. The Admirals schedule have them home for three games this week, Wednesday against Grand Rapids, Friday against Iowa, and Sunday against Rochester.
- Simon Moser recalled to the big club after a very solid performance for Switzerland in the Olympics.
- Shea Weber had to do himself some good for Norris consideration given his performance in the Olympics and his stats so far this season.
- Congrats to Bridgestone Arena Ice Manager Scooter Fruik who has been tapped to assist NHL Ice Guru Dan Craig with the rink for the Stadium Series game at Soldier field this weekend.
- A quick look at some Pred Prospects shows Portland Winterhawk Brendan Leipsic continuing to burn up the stat sheet, 34 goals and 46 assists, that’s 80 points in 51 games. Winger Jimmy Vesey is posting another solid season at Harvard, 22 points in 27 games (13g, 9a) to lead the Crimson and he is tied for the conference lead in game winning goals.
- I will say that after watching the horrendous officiating at the Olympics... I will be glad to get back to the professionalism of the NHL officials.
- One game tonight – 6pm start – Hurricanes @ Sabres
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