What's Your Most Controversial Hockey Opinion?

[Didalee Hed]

I guess these days it’s controversial to call a player like Nylander soft. Cause he’s generational at things like skating towards the opponent’s blueline, away from their net, and lobbing in soft shots or dumps into the corner.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Tyler Seguin is not a real star player. Now or ever.

 

[SeanConn]

Body checking should be introduced a lot later than it currently for recreational hockey, as it makes some parents remove their kids from the sport prematurely.

Also, recreational hockey has way too much structure now... kids should be allowed to play the game as they want until they are teenagers basically.

 

[Puckstop40]

TheJackAttack is the best poster on HFboards

 

[CookiesAndMilk]

Diving and embellishment should automatically result in a season ban for the player.

 

[BurgoShark]

Body checking should be introduced a lot later than it currently for recreational hockey, as it makes some parents remove their kids from the sport prematurely.

Also, recreational hockey has way too much structure now... kids should be allowed to play the game as they want until they are teenagers basically.

This is not controversial at all! This is actually pretty close to what all of the research says ... for all sports. In Belgium there are no standings, finals or specialization programs for soccer until kids are 14 or 15. Everything before that is focused on enjoyment and inclusion. Since they made this change they have higher participation rates for kids under 16, all of their 16+ and adult teams actually got better, and they produce significantly more elite players. In Australia we are in the early stages of making similar changes to some major sports.

My favourite controversial views are:
1) If play is stopped in the offensive zone because of an injured player (like they should have for Matt Calvert) the defending team has to take the faceoff with 4 skaters only, and can't ice a 5th skater until the puck clears the zone, and
2) Ditto for icing the puck when a player has a broken stick. The player doesn't get a stick for the faceoff and has to skate to the bench to get one at the first opportunity

 

[nbwingsfan]

Mine is that for the most part analytics are for nerds who've never played hockey. The vast majority of podcasts, twitter people, bloggers etc who preach about analytics above all else have never played hockey in their life

Couldn’t agree more. Sure they can kind of help distinguish between two players who LOOK very similar in skill, but the eye test will always come first for me.

People who think you can judge players by a math equation have definitely never played any type of meaningful hockey in their life.

Another obvious sign to someone never playing hockey are people/posters who say a guy should have “let up” on a big clean hockey hit or that a clean his was “unnecessary”.

Those people clearly do not understand the impact that a massive hit can have in bringing up your team’s morale, and putting fear into the opposition

 

[CookiesAndMilk]

Those people clearly do not understand the impact that a massive hit can have in bringing up your teams morale, and putting fear into the opposition

Can't agree more. Especially if you flatten the other teams star player.

 

[swedehollow]

Can't agree more. Especially if you flatten the other teams star player.

Yeah! Like, who needs star players anyway! Grinders are what we all want to see!

 

[CookiesAndMilk]

Yeah! Like, who needs star players anyway! Grinders are what we all want to see!

Both playertypes are part of the game. So are hitting and scoring by that logic. Diversity is what makes hockey such a good sport.

I don't have a problem, when a hit is fair and square. I never said, that you should bertuzzi your opponent.

 

[Paradise Circus]

Regular season should be 62 games long MAX.

 

[Drake1588]

Ties were fine. So was awarding no points for losses in overtime. Two points for any win, no points for any loss, one point for a tie.

 

[hockeyguru]

the nhl should cease to exist

 

[JasonRoseEh]

Fighting and fighters do not deter anything.

In today's game they've been neutered, it's a dog and pony show but they undeniably did at one point in the game. Get rid of the Instigator penalty and see this balance itself out again.

 

[JasonRoseEh]

1-Nothing wrong with a tie in the regular season and it's vastly superior to a glorified skills competition deciding games. The shootout is awful. I hate it, coaches hate it and so does pretty much every player I imagine, it isn't hockey.

2-Players don't shoot the puck enough. I know it's a thing players make fun of fans for, but how many wasted odd man rushes do you see from teams over passing like idiots "You shoot, no you shoot, no after you!" JUST SHOOT THE PUCK!

 

[HockeySniper]

Bobby Orr, Mario and Howe are all better than 99. Jagr doesn’t get as much credit he deserves. Malkin and Kane are underrated in terms of best players of their generation as where Crosby and Ovi are overrated. Ovechkin is rated higher than Crosby all time

 

[BostonBruins11]

Diving and embellishment should automatically result in a season ban for the player.

I would take a different approach.
If a player is penalized as a result of the opposing player diving/embellishment the call should be reviewable. If the player is found guilty give him a nice 10min penalty on top of a fine

 

[pi314]

You can’t suspend away concussions or dirty hits.

 

[BostonBruins11]

Mine is that for the most part analytics are for nerds who've never played hockey. The vast majority of podcasts, twitter people, bloggers etc who preach about analytics above all else have never played hockey in their life

Yup all of my friends who never players hockey never notice the simple yet very important details. (Stick positioning, gap control, simple/affective passing, timing, effective pivoting)

They're only wow'd by fancy highlight goals or big dekes/one timers and they almost never see the value in role players.

 

[Necrobutcher]

Mine's that i dont value Ovechkin overall as a good hockey player. Good shooter yea he has had and will get crazy amount of goals because theyr team's stragedy is to get him goals, but really outside of shooting nothing special. My opinion is that if Ovechkin would be replaced by some other player Capitals wouldnt be effectively negatively at all lets say atm player like Tomas Tatar or somethink like that Capitals would be about same level team. Tatar ofc wouldnt get as much goals they would play differently, but removing Ovy wouldnt negatively affect Capitals at all they would just play different style.

Is this post from 2009 or something?

 

[Hockey Stick]

Mine is that the NHL or scheduler is cheating to get the Canadians back into the playoffs by giving them the second game of a back to back playing the tired team 19 times. That is 1/4 of their season playing tired teams. And that is 12 more than the next which is Tampa Bay. Thats not a coincidence, its flat out cheating.

You already made a thread about this a couple weeks ago, and you're just going to get the same responses this time. Sorry your coach makes you lose all of your back to backs with his philosophies. It's not Montreal's fault.

The Habs are 1-3 in them so far this year, for what it's worth. You're just throwing crap at the wall

 

[TrufleShufle]

Icing should be moved from the red line back to the defensive team blue line, if you get it out of your zone, you aren't icing out of desperation, you are going for a stretch pass that missed.

 

[Fitzy]

That the NHL should go to four-on-four permanently.

 

[koalabear9301]

Arizona is another analytics built team. It doesn't work

They narrowly missed the playoffs last year with an absurd amount of injuries, and currently have the 2nd most points in the West.

Hurricanes, Vegas, Caps, Pittsburgh, Tampa, and Colorado are examples of teams that use analytics and are doing/have done well too. Florida could be another example if Bobrovsky breaks out of his slump soon.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Durability is a key virtue in all professional sports.