Fixing the All-Star Game: Go-for-broke edition

1) Move it to the preseason

I can't claim this as an original idea, but it's so obvious that it deserves to be at the top of every list until the change is made.

Since the purpose of the All-Star Game is to generate media hype, let's play the game at a time when it will have the most media impact. The Winter Classic has fulfilled the need for a mid-season hypefest, and the second half of the season sells itself. The biggest "hole" left in the schedule is late summer: after the draft, before the preseason, and during a lull that features no major sports-world distractions.

A preseason date would do more than simply fill a gap in the NHL's media cycle. It would also allow the league to shorten the length of the season by a week, thereby awarding the Cup in late May and avoiding direct competition with the NBA Finals. Furthermore the game would feature a healthier, higher-quality roster and might even draw a bigger audience to the host city -- who takes a vacation in late January?

2) Populism > Elitism

This year's fan-voting travesty revealed an interesting phenomenon: the fans would rather see their favorite players than see the best players in action. While no-one would disparage Dan Boyle's worthiness, the majority of the viewing public would much rather see Jeremy Roenick represent the Sharks.

So, make a simple change: adjust the expectations for All-Star selection. Don't pretend that it's about selecting the league's elite -- frankly, a lot of elite players are boring. Let's make this a showcase of the league's most popular personalities.

The beauty of this is that you can actually increase the weight of fan ballotting under this system, without sacrificing legitimacy. Have a "Favorite player" vote in each city, with 100% fan voting, to select 15 players. Give the final 5 votes to the coach or media. Simple, entertaining, legitimate. What else could you ask for?

3) Fight Club

Ok, so this wouldn't happen in a million years. But then again, the idea of a popular All-Star Game is fantasy anyway, so let's go for broke. Summon your inner Don King for a moment and imagine the massive "casual" audience that would be drawn to the NHL if the weekend included a Heavyweight Championship Tournament.

The process would be simple - let the players cast votes to select the top 8 fighters in the league. During the day of the Skills Competiton, hold a quarter-finals round (4 fights). During the first intermission of the All-Star Game, hold two semi-final matches -- one at each end of the ice, maybe even simultaneously. During the second intermission, let the two finalists duke it out at center ice for the title belt. Use professional boxing judges to score each fight according to punches-landed and takedowns. Watch and listen as the fans lose their minds with bloodlust and scalpers draw double the usual ticket prices.

I know what you're thinking: "No coach in his right mind would allow a player to fight three times in two days against elite heavyweights". Well, screw the coaches. Offer a $1 million purse and leave it up to the players whether to participate. Give 'em softer, tighter helmets to protect both fists and noggin. Require thick mouthguards and D.Q. anyone who resorts to cheapshots.

The All-Star Game is, at its heart, all about exposing superstars to unnecessary risk in order to create an artificial spectacle for the fans and media. The NHL is, at its heart, all about exploiting violence and testosterone in order to create a 60-minute adrenaline rush for its viewing audience. What better marriage of purposes than to reward pugilistic superstars on the game's biggest stage? It's time for the league to stop apologizing for its product and just sell the damn thing.

Bonus Suggestion: More importantly than any of the other items, it's high time for the league to resume the long-lost tradition of playing each game for a specific charitable cause. For one day a year, let's stop acting like the result of a silly game actually matters, and put the All-Stars to work to make the world a better place. It would not only promote the game in non-hockey circles, but legitimize what is otherwise the least-legitimate event in the sport.

Any other ideas? Put 'em in the comments section.

Leafs vs. Bruins: Takeaways

All things considered, this was a good win for the Bruins. Down 2 goals to enter the third period, missing the majority of their scoring punch, heading into the All-Star break and riding a 2-game losing streak... that's when you need your best players to step up.

Three stars of the night:

Blake Wheeler - I'm going to stop calling him a "kid" before too long. He stepped up and publicly took responsibility for the Blues loss, then came out and played a key role in taking this game away from the Leafs. Big, big, big kudos to him for having that kind of chutzpah.

Marc Savard - There's an unknown highlight that you'll never see on Youtube -- with 6:00 to go in the second period, Savard completely took control of a shift in Gretzky-like fashion. Even though it didn't lead to a goal, he made four different setup passes to different players, each a no-look touch pass on the move. Then he made the key assist on Chara's tying goal. Only a few players in the world can control a game like that.

Martin St. Pierre - That penalty in overtime was the kind of thing that can get a guy sent back to the AHL, but Julien showed faith in the kid in the skills competition... not unlike his choice of Wheeler in Monday's shootout. That's great coaching, and it's paying huge dividends in confidence.

Other game reviews:
Stanley Cup of Chowder
The Hockey Blog Adventure
The Bear Cave

Also of interest:
Hub Hockey asks -- was Tim Thomas' hit on Jason Blake legal? Leave your 2 cents in the comments.
Leafs Hockey Analysis provides a fascinating, detailed look at the Bruins' rebuilding plan and what lessons the Leafs might take away from it.
All Habs is convinced that Tim Thomas is nothing but "smoke and mirrors". Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of the debate.

Bruins vs. Leafs: Stuff To Look Out For

The Bruins limp into Toronto tonight for their final pre-AllStar matchup.

Injury (non)update: All the usual suspects are still out of the lineup (Kessel, Lucic, Bergeron, Ference, Ward) and to the best of my knowledge the AHL callups are still the same (St. Pierre, Bitz, Lashoff, Nokelainen, Sobotka).

updating the update: Julien says that Ward actually will be playing tonight, since the Bruins need to get things turned around ASAP.

News out of Toronto is that Mike Van Ryn will miss the game with his continuing concussion problems (Bruins fans can sympathize) and the Leafs will also be without D Jeff Finger and LW Jeremy Williams.

Wakeup calls in the East: I don't think we have to worry about the Bruins looking past this game, considering the nature of their loss to the Blues on Monday. That cluster**** stings a little less since both the Caps and Habs were upset yesterday (by the Sens and Thrashers, respectively), thereby giving the Bruins an opportunity to actually widen their lead on the East by week's end.

Death Watch: Last Wednesday I issued an ultimatum to the Leafs -- win 4 more games in January or be moved to the "dead" list for the rest of the season. Since then they've got one win (Hurricanes), one loss (Hurricanes) and one OT loss (Thrashers). They have 4 games left in January -- the Bruins, followed by road games in Minny and Denver, and a home game against the Pens. The watch continues...

The Barilkosphere: The Leafs blogging community is probably the best in the NHL, in part because they have the coolest nickname. What pre-2004 Red Sox fans were to baseball, Leafs fans are to hockey. Losing sucks, but it sucks more when you don't care. Leafs fans, for all their bitterness and backhanded fandom, care enough to turn the whole situation on its head.

A sampling of today's Barilkosphere, with scattered pre-game items:
Down Goes Brown
Cox Bloc
Pension Plan Puppets
Just Your Usual General Borschevsky
The Wonderful World of Loser Domi
Die Hard Blue and White

Since this is the 4th meeting between these teams this season, there's not much more to say about the matchup. Here are some more links to make up the difference:

Interchangeable Parts says the Bruins are this season's "Tranny Gentleman Caller"... it's a higher compliment than it sounds.

From The Rink points out that Wideman and Chara have been the two most-productive defensemen in the league over the past 30 days.

Fluto reports that Patrice Bergeron is staying home rather than make the trip to Toronto.

The Bear Cave has a very thorough game preview.

Hub Hockey gives us the rundown of Bruins who will participate in the SuperDooperSkillz Competion. Z is the defending champ in the hardest-shot contest, but I think Savvy's got the best chance at a victory this season. If he can put a blind pass on the trailing winger's tape at full speed against a defense, he should be pretty good at nailing stationary targets.

Stanley Cup of Chowder interviews CHL ref Tom Steinel, including a direct question about the controversial high-stick review on the Blues' tying goal.

The Bastard is back.

How Much Have Injuries Hurt the Bruins?

No way I'm going to try and crank out a preview for today's 1pm game against St. Louis -- the game would be over before I finished writing. Suffice it to say, the best team in the East versus the worst team in the West is something of a mismatch.

The Bruins can't complain too much about injuries when they look at the Blues' IR list. Nevertheless, there's no question that they've lost a step since the latest round of injuries (Kessel, Lucic, Wideman) took hold. Now, it's worth taking a step back and remembering that for most of the season Boston has missed the talents of solid second-line players Patrice Bergeron and Marco Sturm, as well as quality defensemen Andrew Ference and Aaron Ward. The Bruins squad which has taken the Eastern Conference by storm has done so mostly on the backs of their first (Lucic-Savard-Kessel) and third (Ryder-Krejci-Wheeler) lines, with a huge dose of support from AHL call-ups.

But there's a huge difference between losing Bergeron/Sturm (depth scoring, frequently injured), as opposed to being deprived of Kessel/Lucic (elite scoring, dependably healthy). Here's the difference it has made so far:

The Hard Numbers

The Bruins remain one of the tougher matchups in the East, but their offensive numbers have come back down to earth.

Record With Kessel and Looch: 31-7-4
Record Without: 2-1-0

Goals Per Game With: 3.67
GPG Without: 2.0

Shots/Game With: 29.8
Shots/Game Without: 26.7

Effect on Teammates

Pity Marc Savard -- one day he's skating with Kessel and Lucic on the NHL's best-rounded line, the next he's centering P.J. Axelsson and Chuck Kobasew.

Savard With: 42 games played, 14-38-54, 2.6 shots per game, +29
Savard Without: 3gp, 2-0-2, 3.7 spg, +1

Note that Savard is shooting the puck much more often, and therefore scoring goals, but that his overall production is down as he's being forced to play "out of character".

But then there are the changes that have been made deeper in the lineup:

First line:
Kobasew since being promoted: 0-3-3, 6 shots, +1
These are good numbers for a third-liner, but Kobie's lack of elite offensive skills makes him nearly useless as a scorer. 6 shots in 3 games doesn't replace Kessel.

Axelsson since being promoted: 0-0-0, 5 shots, +1
Yeah, that includes PP time.

Second line:
The line of Ryder-Krecji-Wheeler has suffered the most, since they are now effectively the first line (in terms of expectations, anyway) and are seeing much more defensive attention.

Since becoming the "first" line:
Krejci: 1-1-2 (all against Montreal), 5 shots, even
Wheeler: 0-1-1 (against Montreal), 6 shots, even
Ryder: 0-1-1 (against Montreal), 5 shots, even
Needless to say, their past two games have not been much fun for this line.

Third line:
The domino effect continues to the third line where Stephane Yelle finds himself centering the AHL duo of Petteri Nokelainen and Byron Bitz. Deprived of his veteran linemates, Yelle has had "0"s all across his stat line -- in fact, the entire line has combined for 0 points and only 5 shots.

Fourth line:
Early in the season, the Bruins had a bread-and-butter fourth line that was used to maintain a strong forecheck while the other team's top scorers frustrated themselves with scrumming in the corners and dumping the puck in from the red line. At this point the fourth line is basically a rotating carousel of AHL grinders, with Shawn Thornton as the "regular". They've had mixed results -- Martin St. Pierre scored the winner against the Isles, but made the crucial mistake on the Caps' game-winner only two nights later.

The Bright Side

Actually, there are quite a few positives to report. Neither of the Bruins' special-teams units (PP 3 of 12, PK 10 of 12) has been underperforming under the most trying circumstances. The defense has held fairly steady, giving up only 4 goals in 3 games.

And most importantly, the record is still better than even.

Word out of Boston is that Bergeron and Lucic will wait until after the All-Star break to return. In the meantime, the Bruins face two non-playoff teams (St. Louis and Toronto), and so the injuries might not have much of an effect on their place in the standings. The schedule for the next month thereafter is much tougher, so a quick return for each player will be key.

But for the time being, we're going to see how this team handles adversity. Based on last year's gritty charge into the playoffs, that might be the brightest side of all.

Coming soon: What in the world to do with the All-Star game...

Weekend Links

Starting today, I'm going to throw a few juicy links your way each Friday afternoon. Enjoy!

The Hockey News: “But there is a way to say the right things while still looking like you give a damn." -- Jeremy Roenick offers some pointers for dealing with the press.

Hockey's Ladies of Greatness: Breaks down the many ways in which the Carolina Hurricanes suck right now. Blunt, but well-informed and worth the read.

Battle of Alberta: Baseball standings -- one of the best ways to compensate for the NHL's absurd points system. Hey, we're 5 1/2 games up on the Habs!

Brodeur is a Fraud: If you liked this week's Quality Shots analysis, you'll love BiaF's careful study of shots and save percentage.

From the Rink: I hesitate to link to this little fiasco, but it's too bizarre to pass up. More info on the Eklund-esque case of identity fraud at Lighthouse Hockey.

Red and Black Hockey: Thoughts on the Sabres/Canes rivalry that you didn't know existed.

The Good Point: Some really... different... midseason awards.

Bruins vs. Caps: Stuff To Look Out For

This game doesn't really need any extra hype. Boston and Washington are not only on top of the Eastern standings, they're playing the best hockey in the conference of late -- only Montreal, which beat the Caps and fell to the B's in the past week, seems to be in the same stratosphere.

From a Bruins perspective, there's a bit of nervousness about this game. The Caps trail by 11 points in the conference and have played one more game than Boston, but they're coming off a convincing win over arch-nemesis Pittsburgh. Washington dealt with some awful injury problems early in the season, but it's the Bruins who are at a disadvantage in this game. Furthermore, the teams meet again in a week so this will be a statement game for the Caps -- at just the wrong time for a Bruins team that's trying to keep the ship steady through the worst of the injury bug.

Injury report: Nothing has changed -- Milan Lucic will not play against the Caps, and Aaron Ward will be out for at least a week. The Bruins will continue to lean on AHL callups to provide depth scoring and decent defense.
Meanwhile, the Caps will be without at least two defensemen in Tom Poti and Brian Pothier. Blueliner Shaone Morrisonn is expected to play. Center Boyd Gordon will be a game-time decision.

Goaltending matchup: Fluto says to expect the Tank to make his fourth consecutive start -- perhaps the reward for his 40-save performance against the Isles last night. I suspect the Caps will hand the keys to Jose Theodore, who's started 5 of the last 6, though it wouldn't be a shock if they went with Brent Johnson who beat the Bruins last time around.

Divisional realignment: Caps fans are beginning to make serious pleas for a relocation to the Atlantic Division. They have a point -- their rivalries with the Pens and Flyers have become much more significant of late, and Ovechkin needs to be on the Madison Square Garden marquee as often as possible. Unfortunately, the Southeast Division is already so weak that it's hard to imagine a world in which they aren't buoyed by the Caps. BUT... if the Isles are indeed prepared to move westward, keep an eye on this possibility.

Home cookin': Only the Sharks and Bruins (by virtue of 1 fewer game played) have a better home record than Washington. What was once an echo chamber has become a nasty road destination, as the Bruins found out on 12/10 -- the last time they lost a road game.

Who to watch: The Wheeler-Krejci-Ryder line. Shut out against the Isles, these guys can't afford to have an off night against the Caps. Look for Julien to put them in a position to get quality chances as often as possible.

How The Bruins Win

There are a lot of strange stats in hockey, such as Rod Brind'Amour being near the bottom of the league in +/- or Thomas Vanek leading the league in goals with only a few assists.

Here's a stat that might really surprise you:

Boston's winning percentage when outshooting the opposition: .619
Boston's winning percentage when outshot: .864

That's right, the Bruins are 30% more likely to win a game in which they take fewer shots than the other team. But they aren't alone in having this bizarre advantage. When outshot, the Sharks have a .857 rate of victory; the Rangers see a 20% increase in their likelihood of winning; Buffalo and Columbus are both at .500 only when they see more rubber than the other team.

But Anaheim takes the cake; they are more likely to lose when taking more shots, and more likely to win when being outshot.

What's going on? How is it possible for a team to gain an advantage from being dominated by their opponent? It's beyond this humble blog to try and analyze each unique data set, but we can certainly get some valuable insight from the Bruins' results this season.

Quality vs. Quantity

In a nutshell, the Bruins win because they take better shots rather than more shots. In fact, their defensive system practically invites high-powered opponents to send volleys of rubber toward the Bruins goaltender -- so long as those shots are easily stoppable.

Earlier this season, I pointed out that the Red Wings' puck-possession system struggled against the Bruins' defensive shell. This was largely the result of the Wings settling for low-percentage chances early in the game, which had the effect of cancelling out their puckhandling creativity and rebound control. The Wings outshot the Bruins 30-19 in that game, including a dominant 15-5 during the second frame, but Boston walked to an easy 4-1 win. We saw much the same from Montreal on Tuesday -- a 17-9 shots advantage early in the game translated to a 3-1 loss for the Habs.

Finding the Sweet Spot

Teams that succeed against Boston do four things:

1) Control the puck in between the circles. Not just for lazy backhands, but for bona fide scoring chances.
2) Screen the goaltenders with heavy traffic at the front of the crease.
3) Capitalize on rebounds.
4) Prevent the Bruins from doing each of these things at the other end of the ice.

On any given play, the Bruins protect the slot with hulking defensemen such as Chara, Stuart and Ward -- not to mention the defensive prowess of forwards like Axelsson, Krejci and Yelle. On offense, slick puckhandlers like Savard and Kessel can break down individual coverage while widebodied Lucic and Ryder create havoc in front of the net.

The sum of these advantages is that the Bruins can safely allow their opponents to exhaust their offensive opportunities by settling for long-range, sharp-angled shots; meanwhile Boston will pass up such shots in order to get one quality opportunity from in front. To control the slot against Boston requires a very high level of skill and discipline, which is why the Bruins have only 7 outright losses in 43 games so far.

Crunching the numbers

All of this is fairly intuitive for those who know hockey, but it's remarkable to see it play out in the box scores. Of the Bruins' 11 total losses this season, 8 came in games in which they took the majority of shots on goal (one of the three exceptions was an SO loss to the Rangers). On the other side of the coin, the majority (19 of 32) of their wins have come in games in which the Bruins were outshot.

Let's look at a specific example: Tuesday's game against Montreal. In this analysis I'm going to use the ESPN Gamecenter feature which tracks the location and result of each shot during the game. Go ahead and click on the link to view the shot chart.

Now, time to use your imagination -- we need to define a "quality shot" (we'll call it a QS). As far as this analysis is concerned, that means a shot from the slot. We'll draw some basic boundaries to define the slot:
- Imagine a line connecting each goalpost to the nearest faceoff dot (it should run at a 45-degree angle to the goal line).
- Imagine a line from each faceoff dot to the top of the circle.
- Finally, imagine a line connecting the tops of the faceoff circles.

The resulting polygon should look a little like the "rewind" arrow on a remote control, or perhaps a sideways "house". We're going to call this the Quality Shot Zone; anything outside this area is either too far away or at too sharp an angle to pose a real threat to an unscreened goalie.

Now, click through each period of the game and look where the shots occurred. Montreal took 17 total shots in the first period, but only 6 QS; Boston had 9 total shots, with 3 Quality Shots and 3 marginally outside of the boundaries of the QSZ for a total of 6 QS. Score was 0-0 after one frame.

As the game wore on, each team pressed to get higher-quality shots. In the second period, Montreal took 8 QS, scoring once. Though outshot overall in the period, Boston took 9 QS (including Chara's borderline-QSZ shot which was deflected by a Hab at the top of the crease) and scored twice. In the final period, Boston outshot the Habs 5-4 inside the QSZ and scored another goal.

Total shots: 35-29, advantage Montreal
Quality shots: 20-18, advantage Boston
Goals inside the QSZ: 3-1, advantage Boston

This example mimics the pattern we've seen all year -- and remember, Montreal is one of the league's tougher opponents. Try the same exercise for Boston's wins against the Hurricanes and Senators; using QS analysis, the outcome of each period becomes pretty easy to predict.

More examples

At risk of overkill, here's a QS analysis for each game since the New Year:

1/1/09
Total shot advantage: Pens, 32-26
Bruins: 21 QS for 3 goals
Pens: 20 QS for 2 goals
Result: Bruins win 4-2

1/3/09
Total shot advantage: Bruins, 31-25
Bruins: 18 QS for 2 goals
Sabres: 9 QS for 4 goals
Result: Sabres win 4-2, truly a case of taking advantage of your opportunities!

1/6/09
Total shot advantage: Bruins, 28-24
Bruins: 15 QS for 0 goals
Wild: 12 QS for 0 goals
Result: Wild win 1-0

1/8/09
Total shot advantage: Sens, 30-22
Bruins: 14 QS for 5 goals
Sens: 15 QS for 3 goals
Result: Bruins win 6-4

1/10/09
Total shot advantage: Bruins, 32-30
Bruins: 16 QS for 4 goals
Canes: 15 QS for 1 goal
Result: Bruins win 5-1

1/13/09
Total shot advantage: Habs, 35-29
Bruins: 20 QS for 3 goals
Habs: 18 QS for 1 goal
Result: Bruins win 3-1

Conclusions

Of course, QS isn't a foolproof statistic. Above you can see a few games in which other factors were obviously at play -- Boston played a sloppy and uninspired game on 1/3, failing to take advantage of a 2:1 QS advantage, while Backstrom played a brilliant game on 1/6 to deny all 15 Bruins QS opportunities. And then there are power-play differentials, screened shots from the blue line, and of course the goaltending wizardry that we see on a nightly basis.

But if we're looking for a macro-scale explanation of how the Bruins can continue to win despite being outshot most of the time, this is it. By intentionally allowing opposing teams to control the non-QS areas of the ice, the Bruins can dictate the terms on which they play defense... and in turn they can transition quickly into a deadly attack which virtually ignores shots from the corners and points.