Bigger Nets

[Split98]

I would like smaller goalie equipment explored before we make any net adjustments. Give it a couple years with considerably slimmer pads and see where we are with goals. If we can keep the classic nets and return to more classic goaltending I would love to see it.

I would hate seeing our trios SV% with even less of an advantage though... yeesh.

While neat, the angled post really does fall under 'manufactured' goals to me. I hope they avoid that.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Realtor 1

Mark me down for the "leave it as is" crowd

It was not long ago that I wanted to see goalie equiptment smaller or nets bigger however I have really come to appreciate a goal in this era of the NHL. A goal means so much more than it used too and is something you want to watch the replay on. It also allows for more action in-between whistles. Hockey is at its best when you go 10 minutes without a whistle and end to end action.
Make the glass at the ends of the ice higher... less pucks will fly out of play and you will see sustained pressure more often leading to more goals. (only half kidding as I do think it would add excitement)

I would be more conducive to finding ways to eliminate cheating defending to create more chances than just 'make the nets bigger.'

[Huntingwhale]

I'm for leaving the nets the same size. But angle the posts differently so that when a puck hits it, it's more likely to go in. Seems to me that most shots that hit the posts (for the Flames anyways) seem to go out. Have some hockey engineer design the column so that its more likely to deflect towards the next instead of away from it.

Flames fans should probably be hoping to keep the nets the same size with the way our goalies are playing. And truthfully I think that if larger nets are implemented and goal scoring does go up, people will just complain about how crappy goalies are. Coaches will implement even more restrictive defensive systems.

In fact NHL coaches are so good that they will find a way to beat any new thing that is implemented. Honestly the only way your going to truly increase scoring and showcase skill every game is by bringing in offensive-oriented NHL coaches. But in the grand scheme of things, defence wins you more games then offence so that will never happen.

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by Split98

I would like smaller goalie equipment explored before we make any net adjustments. Give it a couple years with considerably slimmer pads and see where we are with goals. If we can keep the classic nets and return to more classic goaltending I would love to see it.

I would hate seeing our trios SV% with even less of an advantage though... yeesh.

While neat, the angled post really does fall under 'manufactured' goals to me. I hope they avoid that.

Lol. Flames fans have been treated to 80's hockey all season. Its been really entertaining

[Trailer Fire]

Nope. Leave it as it is. Maybe look at smaller goalie equipment, but don't change the 4x6.

[CroFlames]

If they made goalie gear the same size as in the 80s (but with today's level of protection) that would be the sweetspot in my opinion.

Some kevlar and carbon fibre and voila.



Few minor changes:

1. Keep today's masks, obviously
2. Make the chest protector slightly larger around the shoulders for protection
3. Protect the catching arm wrist a little better.
4. Get rid of the trapezoid. I love watching goalies mishandle the puck in the corners.

I would be happy with that, people who want more goals will be happy, and we will all be happy.

[-TC-]

Originally Posted by AcGold

.I'd like to see calls against players made from a 4th perspective up above, don't take out the hitting but take out all the little stuff the players get away with nightly. Imagine if the skilled guys could go to the net knowing they aren't going to get slashed or crosschecked every time. Open up the ice, not the net.

This is a brilliant idea, makes me wonder why the NHL brain trust hasn't looked at it.

Put a 5th official up high in the rafters, I think most buildings have space they could use. Equip the on ice officials with radios in their helmets. When an infraction occurs the official could call down to the on ice refs, they raise a hand and blow it down just like they do now.

It would actually be quite striaghtforward to implement and probably wouldn't take long to coordinate between the three officials involved.

[Finger Cookin]

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by AcGold

Yeah the clutch and grab then was bad but there is still a ton of stuff that goes on, little shots, hooks and grabs, whatever they can do to gain a small edge.

Compounding the issue is the wildly inconsistent Reffing where they'll change the standards based on the game, there is little objectivity and tons that players get away with. Imo it's the worst officiated pro league around and a game with not much room, high speeds, and huge goalie equipment should have consistent officiating.

I'd like to see calls against players made from a 4th perspective up above, don't take out the hitting but take out all the little stuff the players get away with nightly. Imagine if the skilled guys could go to the net knowing they aren't going to get slashed or crosschecked every time. Open up the ice, not the net.

This is, pretty clearly, the biggest problem. Guys get slashed and cross checked and hooked and held repeatedly, and on every shift.

Your proposal to have the eye in the sky making calls, if I understand you right, is interesting. I'm not sure how it'd be implemented. Imagine you have a senior official at every game overseeing a couple of TV screens up high, and calling down to assess penalties at the next whistle rather than immediately. That's a very controversial idea, but not necessarily something I'd be against. Might also lead to more embellishment penalties...

[Street Pharmacist]

Steve Kouleas and Jeff Marek had a fun conversation about this on XM this morning. Jeff's point is that with 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 the equipment isn't too big. He thinks there's too many players.

He also pointed out (correct please if wrong), that what were watching is hockey and outside of a blip on the eighties/nineties scoring has been similar to where it is now.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Steve Kouleas and Jeff Marek had a fun conversation about this on XM this morning. Jeff's point is that with 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 the equipment isn't too big. He thinks there's too many players.

He also pointed out (correct please if wrong), that what were watching is hockey and outside of a blip on the eighties/nineties scoring has been similar to where it is now.

He's not wrong. The question is whether goals will increase from where they are now (say, through expansion?) or shatter that 5 Goals/Game average like the 20s and 30s.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

This is a quote from Babcock today. Now, I would never question the wisdom of a guy who knows more about hockey than I ever will, and I've seen this suggestion before that if you just move the posts a couple of inches, all the shots that currently hit the post will become goals. In theory that makes sense, but I wonder what the difference would actually be in reality?

I'm no professional, and I never had a particularly good shot, but I assume most players are using the posts/crossbar as a visual target and aiming their shots to go slightly inside of the post. If you move the posts, players aren't going to use where the post used to be as a target, they're going to use where the post is as a target.


I wonder how much larger the goal would need to be to make a measurable difference in the number of goals scored? I have a feeling it's much more than the 6 inches or so that has been suggested.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by getbak

This is a quote from Babcock today. Now, I would never question the wisdom of a guy who knows more about hockey than I ever will, and I've seen this suggestion before that if you just move the posts a couple of inches, all the shots that currently hit the post will become goals. In theory that makes sense, but I wonder what the difference would actually be in reality?

I'm no professional, and I never had a particularly good shot, but I assume most players are using the posts/crossbar as a visual target and aiming their shots to go slightly inside of the post. If you move the posts, players aren't going to use where the post used to be as a target, they're going to use where the post is as a target.


I wonder how much larger the goal would need to be to make a measurable difference in the number of goals scored? I have a feeling it's much more than the 6 inches or so that has been suggested.

But the square footage of 6 inches or so in each direction is massive.

If they implement that post idea, Calgary might have to try to convince Amonte and Jokinen to make a comeback.

[2macinnis2]

Babcock is absolutely spot on. As you'll recall I tried to start a little movement on this topic over the summer, but honestly the Flames goalies had me second guessing the entire notion.

Scoring is down as a general trend over the past few years, there's no question, and the biggest reason is goalie size.

[Caged Great]

What needs to be done is reduce the equipment size. With better materials, a goalie should be able to be protected with smaller equipment.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

But the square footage of 6 inches or so in each direction is massive.

If they implement that post idea, Calgary might have to try to convince Amonte and Jokinen to make a comeback.

That's my point. Do you honestly think that all of those goal posts that Amonte and Jokinen hit when shooting at a wide open net would have automatically been goals, or would they have just hit the post a few inches further over?

In those situations, the player is positioned relative to the position of the goal and more-importantly the crease. Presumably, if they make the net 6 inches wider, the crease will also be 6 inches wider. The player's position relative to the post and crease will be the same, so he's still likely to hit that post, all other things being equal.

Certainly, there are times that post shots would turn into goals, but I don't think it's necessarily as many as people think.

[Vulcan]

As that graph shows scoring goes up as the skill level goes down as shown during WWII and during the WHA when the talent was diluted. The obvious solution is expansion but I don't think that will work out financially. I don't necessarily dislike low scoring but as Gaudreau said on Hockeycentral when asked about expanding the nets, scoring is fun.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/590/hockey-central-at-noon/

[getbak]

If you look at the scoring chart, you'll see that there was a low point in the late 1920s, followed by a big one-year spike.

That low season was 1928-29, and it was the final season before the NHL legalized the forward pass into the offensive zone. That year, the highest scoring team in the NHL was the Bruins, who scored 89 goals in 44 games (just over 2 goals per game). The lowest scoring team was the Blackhawks, with 33 goals in 44 games (0.75 GPG).

In 1929-30, the NHL legalized the forward pass, and scoring exploded. In fact, scoring increased so much that the league introduced a version of the offside rule mid-season to actually bring scoring down. In 1929-30, the Bruins were again the highest-scoring team, putting up more than 4 goals per game. The lowest scoring team was the Pittsburgh Pirates (obviously, their problem was that they were a baseball team trying to play hockey), and they actually scored 13 more goals than Boston had the previous year.

In the 1930-31 season, with a full year of the offside rule in place, scoring settled down into an area that was lower than the previous year's high-point, but still significantly higher than the low point of two years prior. That season, there were no teams above 3.5 goals per game, and no teams below 1.5.



Since the offside rule was originally brought in to reduce scoring, if they want to increase scoring, they should look at eliminating or altering the offside rule. Personally, I'd just scrap it entirely. Let players go anywhere they want on the ice at any time.

If a team wants to cherry-pick, they can, at the risk of being outnumbered in the defensive zone. If the other team is cherry-picking in your zone, you have to decide whether to defend against the deep man when you have the puck, or take advantage of the odd-man situation down the ice. Eliminating offsides, would open up the ice, which would create more room and likely increase scoring chances.

One of the things that allowed the trap to flourish was the fact that teams can line up across their blueline and prevent the other team from gaining the zone with any momentum. Without offsides, the attacking players could skate past the defenders on the line and be in the zone ready for a pass from the puck carrier rather than being forced into a dump and chase scenario.

Eliminating offsides would also get rid of the importance of dumping the puck out of the zone because the other team wouldn't have to clear the zone before continuing their attack. In fact, along with eliminating offsides, I'd also eliminate icing. Any team with a goalie who can handle the puck well would be able to pick apart teams that ice the puck too much.

Getting rid of both offsides and icings would also reduce the number of stoppages. Basically, play would only stop on goals and penalties or when the puck goes out of play or the goalie freezes it. The game would be almost constant action.


Look at the NLL. They don't have offsides or the equivalent of an icing rule, and their scores are extremely high, despite the fact that their nets are smaller and their goalies wear massive pads. Obviously, there are other factors that impact scoring in lacrosse (notably that a player can release a shot from anywhere in his full range of motion, so it's harder for a goalie to know where the shot is coming from), but the fast breakout definitely opens up the game.

[Enoch Root]

I agree that hockey is far superior now. And it SHOULD be hard to score. Having said that, I wouldn't mind if there were a small increase in the number of goals - not back to 7.5/game like in the 80s, but maybe back near 6.0 from the current 5.3/game.

If it came down to bigger nets vs smaller equipment, I would be 100% on the side of smaller equipment. We don't have to go back to 60's pads like the pic above, but we could get things a little more normalized without risking the safety of the goalies at all.

Changing the net sizes throws history on its ear. Just make the goalie equipment a little smaller and that is good enough.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Changing the net sizes throws history on its ear. Just make the goalie equipment a little smaller and that is good enough.

Kinda like when traditional golf courses started getting longer?


Goalies used to be the smallest guy on the team. Now they're the tallest. Instead of Darren Pang, you get Ben Bishop. That's a significant amount of extra net covered