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Trapping the way it is in NHL

By Eric Francis, QMI Agency, Nov 13 2011

How to bury the boring Tampa trap? Beat it

One month into the season, no one was complaining about goal scoring in the NHL.

Nor was there any whining about the sort of age-old traps designed to stifle offence.

Up until Wednesday, that is.

Enter Philadelphia Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette, who instructed his players to do the hockey equivalent of taking their ball and going home.

In grade school, we called it “sucking out.”

The more polite term suggests it was a protest against a defence-first system that has been in place for decades.

In response to the Tampa Bay Lightning’s system that had no forwards in Philadelphia’s zone to pressure a breakout, the defencemen simply waited. And waited. And waited.

The game came to a comical standstill.

It happened several times thereafter, with officials unsure what to do.

It was bad for the game, and no one wanted to see it.

And because of it, endless number of critics suggest the league needs to do something to prevent it from happening again.

Enough already.

That’s one of the problems with society today – everybody throws up knee-jerk reactions, and now, there are endless critics who want rules changed.

It isn’t going to happen.

Nor should it.

Yes, the league has looked at it closely and had discussions that will continue on into Tuesday’s GM meetings. Waste of time.

Colin Campbell, who has looked into trying to limit the trap before, cautioned against the type of over-the-top reactions written across the continent and said he’s hesitant to try telling coaches how to coach.

“One thing I’ve learned over the years is that if you put one rule in, it affects seven others,” he said, pointing out implementing new rules is a big decision not taken lightly. (It also requires approval from the Competition Committee.)

Brian Burke said that when he was with the league, he and a screening committee comprised of Lou Lamoriello, Glen Sather, Harry Sinden, Craig Patrick and David Poile tried to do something about the trap in 1995, but after exhaustive efforts, determined it could not be done.

Sadly, he’s right.

Instituting a rule demanding teams send in a certain number of forecheckers or pressuring teams to clear the zone via a clock of some sort is ridiculous.

The game doesn’t need or want it.

As much as fans have every reason to despise any system that limits scoring, we need to stop trying to address every little issue with rash responses.

It’s worth noting Laviolette was not contacted by the league or asked to stop his stance, although obviously, everyone is hoping his notable protest won’t be repeated

It won’t.

After all, in more than two decades of trap-like tactics, this is the first such mockery made of it.

The worst thing about the whole story is that the Lightning won the game, proving once again the trap is an effective way for coaches to mask their teams’ lack of talent and preserve their jobs.

Lindy Ruff suggested probably half the teams in the league employ some sort of trap, so as one GM said, “just get the lead and then you don’t have to deal with it.”

Agreed.

Ironically, it was Ken Hitchcock’s St. Louis Blues who played Tampa Saturday night. When reached before the game he told me he had no plans to pull the same stunt Philly did against Tampa.

“Saw that movie once – it was a flop. Let’s move on.”

Yes, let’s.

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How to bury the boring Tampa trap? Beat it

Jason York, QMI Agency, Nov 13 2011

OTTAWA – The trap, the 1-3-1, the 1-4 — whatever you want to call it — they’re all about as exciting to watch as a four-hour game of Scrabble with your family.

And on Wednesday night, the Philadelphia Flyers had enough of the Scrabble game the Tampa Bay Lightning was trying to play. The Flyers tried to make a statement to the Lightning and the NHL by refusing to skate into the 1-3-1 trap the Lightning were trying to deploy.

I have to admit I have never seen anything like that in my entire life of watching NHL hockey. I played on teams that trapped and I played in a lot of games where our game plan was to break the trap that we knew we would be up against.

But I have to say the Flyers took trap-busting to a whole new level when their defencemen actually stopped skating and just stood there in open ice waiting for the Tampa players to forecheck. I think even the the referees were caught off-guard, but did the right thing eventually by blowing the play dead — much the same as they do when a player does not play a highsticked puck — forcing a faceoff in the Flyers’ zone.

The big question now around the NHL is, should the league discourage the trap by punishing its use with a minor penalty or faceoff in the team’s own zone in an effort to deter teams from playing boring rope-a-dope hockey? My answer is an emphatic NO.

The NHL is a results-oriented league, where wins and losses are the bottom line. Teams should be free to do whatever they want — traps and all — if they think it’s going to increase their chances of winning. The entertainment factor is important, but last time I checked, winning ranked a little higher on the depth chart. When you don’t win, coaches and GMs get fired, players get traded and fans go away.

Look at the Washington Capitals — one of the most entertaining teams in the league — and pose the question: Would you rather entertain the fans like the Caps do or have a few Stanley Cup banners like, say, the New Jersey Devils have, in large part thanks to the trap?

If teams want to trap and play boring hockey, that is their business. If their fans stop showing up, that’s their problem, but the NHL can’t tell teams how to play or change the rules again for the umpteenth time.

People just need to leave the game alone. It’s great the way it is. The Tampa Bay Lightning isn’t the first team to trap and won’t be the last. Philadelphia did the wrong thing Wednesday night by stopping the flow of the game.

From a young age, I was always taught that if you don’t like what the other team is doing, don’t quit — quitting is the worst thing you can do. If you want to stop the trap, figure out a way to beat it.

Unfortunately for the Flyers, their tactics didn’t work. They lost Wednesday night anyway.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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