Jacques Lemaire....the architect of the dead puck era

[Gorskyontario]

Plenty of teams...Anaheim, Florida, Hartford, San Jose, Montreal...the list goes on and on...

Montreal wasn't playing the trap under Demers.

I do remember florida with Roger Neilson, and then after he got fired when they went to the final in 1996.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Montreal wasn't playing the trap under Demers.

They employed it a good bit. Demers carried a good deal of Pat Burns' tactics over. Maybe it wasn't quite as militant as New Jersey, but that would describe most situations. Most teams were playing it a good bit because there's only so many ways you can arrange five guys reasonably. That's why I was saying the whole DPE concept isn't just purely centered on a NZ forecheck concept. It's a buzzword ("the trap"), so it caught on.

But Montreal was no exception...



1-2-2. Dump. Then they get reset, you can even see Kirk Muller stop up and point out that LeClair is F1 there. Higher than New Jersey and San Jose's at points? Sure.

A couple years later when they started to try to open things a bit more to find some offense, it gets referenced here by John Davidson and then the Rangers coaching staff that they were playing it a little less now than they did a couple years ago, but they still are...

 

[The Panther]

Yeah re-watch the 1994 playoffs. Seems to be the best balance between speed, skill and physicality. Goaltending too was quite good, and the with Ranger winning that year I think the NHL lost a huge opportunity to market the game before it entered the DPE....

I agree. The NHL circa 1993-94 was the all-time peak of entertainment value for fans. (Unfortunately, my team sucked the big one in that period, but still it was a great hockey period.)

Suddenly,, the work-stoppage in 1994... the short, crappy 1995 pseudo-season... the Devils win the Cup... the League starts desperately expanding to line the owners' pockets... Florida makes the Finals playing boring-ass hockey... the DPE begins... big money is at stake now so clubs are content to acquire mid-range players and go one round of playoffs.... the size-fetish era... Oh God, make it stop!!!

 

[Nogatco Rd]

Unfortunately the 90s also had some of the worst draft classes of the Bettman era so there wasn't enough skill to go around.

what was up with that?

 

[Brodeur]

what was up with that?

Iron Curtain falling in the early 90's definitely hurt the Soviet and Czechoslovakian programs. I always remember this ESPN show that followed a few players going back to Russia in 1995. The Kasparaitis segment showed how bad some of their facilities had gotten.

I wish I could remember the source, but I recall reading something about the Swedes losing a lot of top young athletes to soccer in the 70/80's that could have been the draft eligible guys in the 90's. The 1994 Olympic Gold winning club helped reinvigorate things and that was a reason why they had a resurgence of guys born into that wave.

With the US, I think a lot of people credited the 1980 Miracle on Ice club with boosting interest in hockey. But that didn't cause a bump with draft prospects until the late 90's / early 00's.

I have no idea if there was a cause but even Canada wasn't producing as many high end forwards during some of the 90's drafts.

 

[Nogatco Rd]

Iron Curtain falling in the early 90's definitely hurt the Soviet and Czechoslovakian programs. I always had this ESPN show that followed a few players going back to Russia in 1995. The Kasparaitis segment showed how bad some of their facilities had gotten.

I wish I could remember the source, but I recall reading something about the Swedes losing a lot of top young athletes to soccer in the 70/80's that could have been the draft eligible guys in the 90's. The 1994 Olympic Gold winning club helped reinvigorate things and that was a reason why they had a resurgence of guys born into that wave.

With the US, I think a lot of people credited the 1980 Miracle on Ice club with boosting interest in hockey. But that didn't cause a bump with draft prospects until the late 90's / early 00's.

I have no idea if there was a cause but even Canada wasn't producing as many high end forwards during some of the 90's drafts.

Yeah I assumed the collapse of the soviet bloc would disrupt player development in those countries, the lack of Canadian talent is strange though.

 

[vikash1987]

Outside of Lemaire’s Devils and Canadiens: didn’t the Czechoslovakian teams in the ‘70s use a variation of the NZT to disrupt the offense/flow of the Soviets?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Left wing lock. So, closer to a 1-1-3 type of a deal. But similar concept. You give up some leverage because you don't really get a "second" chance. You're really loading up all of your leverage (3 back and then the extra half of a d-man because there's offside) in one spot, where the 1-2-2 diffuses it a bit more...but you're trying to split the rink, you're trying to absorb speed, you're trying to loosen puck control...

They aren't chess pieces, ya know? Haha, like, the guys are on skates. So, these formations can get a little bent depending on when you take your snapshot.