Contact Sports are a Dying Breed

      With the recent class action lawsuit brought against the NHL, now seems like a crossroads for the future of the sport. As more and more damning evidence comes out about the dangers of concussions sustained while playing contact sports, it seems ever more likely that the future of contact sports is finite. While they are not changes fans, players, nor executives involved with the sport want to make, the necessity of it seems rapidly approaching.
       The NHL is, in my opinion, better suited to deal with the concussion issue than a sport such as football. The NFL has an almost hopeless future, as there is little the sport can do to prevent the repeated blows to the head suffered by linemen, running backs, and defensive players. As pressure mounts and public high schools are forced to abandon the sport due to liability concerns - something I personally could see happening within the next ten years - many young players will be priced out of expensive private options. This combined with concerned parents that prevent their children from playing the sport will ultimately constrict the NFL's stream of athletes and result in a dying sport. Hockey, however, can avoid this fate, and with just a few simple rule changes.

Change 1: More stringent fighting rules
      The current penalty for fighting is a five-minute major that doesn't even put the offender's team down one man because of the coincidental nature of the penalties. Other leagues and international play have more strict penalties for fighting, and as a result have less of it. Throughout all professional and amateur hockey leagues, it should become the policy that a player that engages in a fight should be ejected from the game and face further suspension after that. This rule is in line with the policies of most other professional sports, and while yes fighting is an exciting part of the game, more stringent penalties would reduce the needless fighting after clean hits, while not being so strict that it would prevent the occasional fights that are actually called for.

Change 2: Eliminate open-ice hits
      There are few things in hockey as exciting as a jarring hit in the middle of the ice. However there are also few things as dangerous for both players involved. The NHL has already suspended twenty different players this season, with many of those being for players that initiated open-ice hits. These hits are punishing and dangerous and are one of the least effective methods of defending. While body checking in front of the net and along the boards are integral parts of the game and cannot be legislated out, checks in the open ice should be an automatic penalty. Hockey Canada has already taken steps to encourage safer checking practices and other methods of defense, such as stick checking. Other amateur leagues have also taken steps, for instance, Devils prospect Steve Santini was suspended for a hit in college that many believe wouldn't have even been a penalty in the NHL. The removal of open-ice checking would not only make the game safer, but it would also open up more space for creativity. Like banning fighting, it isn't a change most fans want to make, but it is a change that must be made to preserve the game

Change 3: More consistent officiating and discipline 
       This isn't really a rule change, but there is already much complaining among hockey fans on the varying length of suspensions and non-suspensions on similar plays as it is. If the NHL is to become more strict on physicality, they will have to come up with a less arbitrary and subjective system for determining punishment.

      Again, I don't want fighting and hitting to be taken out of the game, but it may just be a necessity if the league is to continue.

Crucial West Coast Trip for the Devils

      The Devils will begin a potentially crucial three game road trip against the California teams tonight. New Jersey is coming off a strong team victory against Pittsburgh on Saturday, but despite a recent surge in play remains with a losing record at 7-8-5. The 5 overtime losses, all of them in the shootout, combined with a surprisingly weak start for the Metropolitan division as a whole has kept the Devils in competitive standing through the first fourth of the season, however they need to start stringing together 3+ game winning streaks if they wish to stay in the mix. Escaping California with a 3-0 or even 2-1 record would be a good start, however the Devils will have their work cut out for them. The first match against the Anaheim Ducks draws a team that has yet to be defeated at home this season. After that, the Devils will face the LA Kings in Los Angeles for the first time since losing game 6 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals. The Kings have already defeated the Devils this season and only trail the Ducks by 1 point in the standings for the Pacific division lead. Finally, New Jersey will be taking on the San Jose Sharks, who have only lost in regulation 3 times this season, before returning to host the Winnipeg Jets on Monday.

Kings 2 - Devils 0

      The score aside, at first glance this game appeared to be a good one for the devils. Cory Schneider played an excellent game in goal only to see the team in front of him provide no goal support once again. Stephen Gionta, Ryan Carter, and Cam Janssen played minutes on par with what fourth line players should. The Devils had a solid effort against a good team and simply came up unlucky.

      At least that is the way this game could have been viewed circa March 2012. In the context of November 2013, this game simply represents a continuing trend for the franchise. Cory Schneider played excellent, yet his stat line for the season still finds him 6th in the league in GAA with 1.98 yet only with one win. Carter and Gionta's minutes were limited, yet they both got several shifts in the waning minutes of a game the Devils were losing by one goal when neither had shown much in the way of offensive chances to that point in the game. The Devils played nearly as mistake free of a game as you'll find in the NHL, yet came up short. The game was a textbook example of the two greatest problems facing the Devils franchise today: a woefully inept group offensively and a coach that does not seem to fit in with where the franchise is headed.

      The Devils have been shutout five times already in nineteen games this season. They are twenty-seventh overall in goals for per game with an average of exactly two per game. There is no way to view the team other than bad offensively. This fact isn't helped by the way coach Pete DeBoer has employed his players since the playoffs in 2012. DeBoer has made it a habit to turn to his "favorite" players, such as Gionta and defenseman Peter Harrold, over others in crucial moments of the game. While most coaches would keep their top two lines on the ice in the final minutes of a game in which they are trailing, DeBoer turns to Gionta and Carter for inexplicable reasons. And while most coaches would scale back the minutes of a defenseman that was struggling as much as Harrold was last night, particularly after he took a hard check from the Kings' Jordan Nolan late in the second period which left him on the ice for several moments, yet Harrold still logged the third most minutes among Devils defensemen. Not to mention the fact that forwards Jacob Josefson and Mattias Tedenby were scratched from the game after Gionta came back from injury despite both young forwards having played several strong games. Sitting the younger players while giving veterans much more leeway has been a hallmark of DeBoer's time in New Jersey.

      Overall DeBoer has made it clear both in New Jersey as well as his previous Head Coaching position in Florida that he does not handle young players well and relies on his favorite veteran players far too often. For a team that is transitioning from an older core group of players to a new group of youth, this raises Questions about his future with New Jersey. There aren't many coaches better than DeBoer in a seven game playoff series, but for the foreseeable future, he may not be the best fit for a Devils franchise that desperately needs to get younger and grow as a team.

     I'm personally not ready to fire DeBoer, but something needs to change in order to get him to get more on board with the youth movement, because it is undeniably coming.

      The Devils will be back in action tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins. DeBoer has already said that the same lineup will be taking the ice tonight as last night, but it remains to be seen if he'll change his use of those players based on last night. Perhaps he will use young defensemen Adam Larsson and Eric Gelinas a bit more. It certainly would help them to develop to get a bit more responsibility, and it might even help the Devils score for a change.

Greetings Traveler!

Welcome to my blog! This is going to be a place for me to share all my thoughts and feelings about the NHL, with an obvious emphasis on my favorite team, the New Jersey Devils. I'm not a hockey expert or analyst, but I've been watching this game since I can remember and I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about. I'll try to update every other day or so when possible, so away we go!