A a loss for words after Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final.
These 6-5 games are the ones that everyone seems to enjoy. That is, everyone but the coach, who is fearful of losing the game and his job, and the GM, who has similar career insecurities.
But the wide-open game, one we were treated to regularly in the 1980s, is an important counterbalance in the National Hockey League.
As much as I enjoyed seeing the Kings win last year with quick passes and a crushing, opportunistic forecheck scheme, the headlong rushes have their place in the game. To have the leading practitioners of the two dominant systems in the finals makes perfect sense. This meeting of two opposite minds, hopefully, will incite some greater coaching minds to create a hybrid that can both display the physical and the skilled.
Remember the Buffalo Sabres coming out of the 2004-5 lockout? They had all the speed and very little of the grit to hold up through a four-round tournament like the Stanley Cup playoffs.
So, enjoy what we are seeing now, and hope that we see more of the same, or nearly the same, from all 30 teams next October.
No comments:
Post a Comment