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Thursday, November 17, 2011

Occupy the Neutral Zone

I hate boring, defensive hockey so much I once proposed fining and banning defensive coaches. Of course, that was a little tongue-in-cheek, although sometimes that doesn't translate well on the internet because people take everything super seriously.

There is a lot of hullabaloo lately about the Lightning's use of the 1-3-1 trap, which started some murmurs that the league might even look into adding some sort of shot clock style system that requires teams to move from zone to zone in a certain time. That's stupid.

What's really stupid is that the Lightning are being killed for using the trap even though it hasn't affected how offensive of a team they are. They are still a top-10 offensive team even with the trap.

When people hear trap they immediately picture the New Jersey Devils. But there's a difference between being a defensive team because you know you can only score a maximum of two goals a game, and just being a good defensive team. The 1995 New Jersey Devils probably were more of the former, as they were a middle of the pack offensive team; but the 2000 New Jersey Devils were definitely the latter, as they led the league in goals.

Just because you use the trap does not immediately make you boring - just plenty of boring teams use it. The Lightning, however, are not one of them.

That's today's post at The Good Point.

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