Could a rival league slay the NHL?

[PASabreFan]

I just want to say that I agree with almost all of this other than what I pointed out. But I think that is the problem, there will alwyas be disagreement about plays that happen as fast as they do.

 

If you don't think that was a slash... wow.

[SwampD]

If you don't think that was a slash... wow.

Did he hit him in the leg? Oh, you betcha. But a slash is a penalty and that wasn't. Guys get hit in the legs all the time. Watch how many times it happens tonight in the corners when they are whacking at the puck. Is every one of those a slash?

 

The game doesn't happen in super slo-mo.

[PASabreFan]

Did he hit him in the leg? Oh, you betcha. But a slash is a penalty and that wasn't. Guys get hit in the legs all the time. Watch how many times it happens tonight in the corners when they are whacking at the puck. Is every one of those a slash?

 

The game doesn't happen in super slo-mo.

 

Shut up Palin. :)

 

And find a rule book somewhere.

[notwoz]

You ready for this? This always amazes me. Vaclav Varada scored 50 goals in the WHL. (And 39 the next year in the WHL.) P.S. He had 23 in 96-97 for the Sabres. Then he met Lindy, but that's another rant for another time, maybe about 9:30 tonight.

Firing Lindy isn't going to change anything. Fire Darcy and get a GM who has the balls to tell Larry Quinn to pound salt, or develop a shopping mall in Columbus, Ohio. That's quite a trick I admit. But only then will the Sabres have a chance to put together a team that can compete through the season and into the playoffs.

BTW, I remember reading a story in one of the Boston newspapers back in the late 80s that said Buffalo was the team that Boston like to meet - "and beat" -- in the playoffs. So the problem goes back well beyond Lindy's tenure.

[notwoz]

just heard on VS that the Kings are 8 for 13 on the power play. That's just a wet dream for us Sabres fans

[Bmwolf21]

I've never bought into the "diluted talent"/overexpansion arguments, at least not in the sense of 30 teams versus 24 teams or something similar. What are we talking, another 150 roster spots? Assuming 6-10 grinders/muckers/physical players, that brings it down to what, 90-100 more skill players needed. With the NHL drawing from Canada, Russia, the US, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, etc., teams can't find another 90 or so skill players and develop them?

 

If the argument for dilution of the talent pool is the rise of the KHL and other overseas teams, then I can get on board with that. But I don't see the addition of 150 roster spots over the last 18 or so years as the reason the league struggles. The league struggles because there are a lot of dinosaurs running the league as well as coaching, managing and developing players.

[bunomatic]

The reason this league is in the state its in is simple.He's a 5'5" lawyer that tries too hard to emulate David Stern.He's arrogant and starts sentences with thus.In his quest for a U.S. t.v. deal he expanded the game too fast into markets that were'nt necessarily ready for the game.And although there are scores of great American fans he thought wrong when he tried to force feed a game thats played on ice to southern markets.To be fair some of those markets have done well but others have failed miserably and the league continues to prop them up artificially which in turn weakens the league.At some point expansion fees became the be all and end all of what Gary thought constituted a successful league.He was wrong.Expand into markets that are hockey crazy not into markets that could clearly care less.

[Taro T]

In my opinion there are two causes for this. First, poor leadership in the NHL. They just can't get it right, whether it is suspensions, officiating, etc. Sure, for a short while they had it right after the lockout, but we are right back to where we started.

 

Second, I think that the talent in the league is spread too thin. You have goons playing against superstars. I'm sorry, but a goon can't keep up with a superstar, so they have to play a dirty, grabby, crappy game. You'll see the same thing on the pond, and then a fight breaks out and they send the goon home after he beats the snot out of someone. Well, I'm sorry, but they're not sending the dirty players in the NHL home, so we're stuck with teams and players that just can't keep up with skill, so they are forced to find another way to win and we end up with sub-par hockey.

 

Any other league will have the same problems though...it's just the destiny of hockey for some reason.

We are not even CLOSE to where we started prior to the lockout. Watch the Tampa - Calgary final and then compare it to anything going on today. The game is still FAR more open than it was pre-lockout. I'd actually consider an argument that the game is better today than when it was right out of the lockout as they were calling penalties on pretty much ANY interference at all, even if the interference was a case of a player not conceding a lane to a player that he had outpositioned. (Not sure that I'd make that argument (it's late and I'm beyond tired), but I'd definitely consider it.)

 

Was the talent spread too thin in the 21 team league? The reason I ask is, except for a handful of defectors, you had NO Eastern Europeans in the league back then. Now the league is ~50% bigger, but the places you can stock talent from have increased nearly the same amount. If the talent sources were still the same as they were back in the mid '80's, you would not have most of the following in the NHL: Ovechkin, Malkin, Chara, Nabakov, Gonchar, Kovalchuk, Gaborik, Halak, Bryzgalov, and a couple hundred other guys.

 

And if it was spread too thin in the 21 team league, remember that the 14 team league didn't have guys like Kurri or Naslund playing in it. There were a couple of Swedes playing for the Loafs and that was it.

 

The league was too small when it only had 6 teams. Since the 1st expansions to 12, 14, or 16 teams; the talent pool has coincidentally expanded along with the league.