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I don’t think the goal is necessarily to have more goals, but to reduce the pile up of players around the net. Maybe it’s my goalie experience speaking, but th

I don’t think the goal is necessarily to have more goals, but to reduce the pile up of players around the net. Maybe it’s my goalie experience speaking, but the highlight of hockey to me was always the direct confrontation between a shooter and the goalie. The more chaotic the goals, the less interesting the sport is.

remarkEon 6y ago
Inclined to agree. The goals I remember from watching hockey in my youth are the really sexy ones. A risky pass and a breakaway, or some slick skating at the blue line to put some defenders off balance. Also, “just make the goal bigger” sounds a lot like “change the rules so more runs are scored” in baseball. You lose an element of the game you can’t get back when you do that. Maybe that’s a little “old man yells at cloud” but whatever.
JohnBooty 6y ago
I think like the article says, the way you reduce the pileup around the goalie is to make it possible to score from places other than the pileup around the goalie. Just as the viability of 3-point shooters opened up the floor in the NBA, making it viable to score from the blue line in the NHL would open the ice as well. When I was a kid in the 80s players would score from the blue line all of the time. They were still relatively low percentage shots but a guy could absolutely score with a slapper from the blue line. Enough that you had to respect the threat. Not unheard of for a d-man to score 20 or 30 in a year. As a fan that was fun too! Not as fun as a magical "sexy" Gretzky goal. But you could hear the anticipation in the building when the puck went back to some guy who had a cannon from the blue line. Al Iafrate, etc. Today, if a defensemen actually scored from the blue line, the team would probably immediately release the goalie and fire the goaltending coach lol. Only reason to shoot from long range is so you can get the puck into the scrum in the slot and hope some something happens from there.
- miskin 6y ago
  Goals from blue line are not that uncommon even in NHL [1]. Also, hockey is played on many different levels than NHL and trust me, if I got one USD for each goal I got from blue line, I'm doing just fine :) [1] https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/video/chara-levels-slapshot-blue-line-capitals-goal-bruins/ https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/video/chara-levels-slapshot-blu...

remarkEon 6y ago

Inclined to agree. The goals I remember from watching hockey in my youth are the really sexy ones. A risky pass and a breakaway, or some slick skating at the blue line to put some defenders off balance. Also, “just make the goal bigger” sounds a lot like “change the rules so more runs are scored” in baseball. You lose an element of the game you can’t get back when you do that. Maybe that’s a little “old man yells at cloud” but whatever.

JohnBooty 6y ago

I think like the article says, the way you reduce the pileup around the goalie is to make it possible to score from places other than the pileup around the goalie. Just as the viability of 3-point shooters opened up the floor in the NBA, making it viable to score from the blue line in the NHL would open the ice as well. When I was a kid in the 80s players would score from the blue line all of the time. They were still relatively low percentage shots but a guy could absolutely score with a slapper from the blue line. Enough that you had to respect the threat. Not unheard of for a d-man to score 20 or 30 in a year. As a fan that was fun too! Not as fun as a magical "sexy" Gretzky goal. But you could hear the anticipation in the building when the puck went back to some guy who had a cannon from the blue line. Al Iafrate, etc. Today, if a defensemen actually scored from the blue line, the team would probably immediately release the goalie and fire the goaltending coach lol. Only reason to shoot from long range is so you can get the puck into the scrum in the slot and hope some something happens from there.

miskin 6y ago
Goals from blue line are not that uncommon even in NHL [1]. Also, hockey is played on many different levels than NHL and trust me, if I got one USD for each goal I got from blue line, I'm doing just fine :) [1] https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/video/chara-levels-slapshot-blue-line-capitals-goal-bruins/ https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/video/chara-levels-slapshot-blu...