Monday, March 10, 2014
Ice Time, by score and time
?Cool look by Tyler, seeing how a goon is used relative to a non-goon.
The best hockey is played when goons are not involved, be it in the Olympics, or the playoffs. Ideally, we'd like to have some proactive rules in place to limit the use of goons, rather than reactive rules (i.e., penalties).
As you can see by Tyler's chart, late in close games, goons are not used, while in blowouts, they are used. To the extent that goons are there to protect teammates and send a message, it's unnecessary in blowouts. So, they are only there like "mopup" relievers are used, to use up ice time, and maybe be a jerk.
Otherwise, there are two ways to naturally keep the ice time of goons down even further. One is to have more 4-on-4. Goons just aren't used in 4-on-4. Since close games in the third period already acts as a natural deterrent to using goons, we meed to limit their use in the earlier part of the game. Imagine therefore that we go to 4-on-4 for the entire 1st period (regular season only *). What would happen? Would goons go away?
(*) Not playoffs. Regular season only. For PP/PK, it becomes 5-on-4.
The other option is that the amount of time spent in the box is compared to the amount of time spent on the ice. I don't remember what the goon ratio is. It's probably about 3:1 ice to box time (that is, if he spends 9 minutes on the ice, he might spend 3 in the box). Someone out there can check that out. We don't need players like that. I don't know what a better ratio is, but somewhere between 5:1 to 10:1. Two minutes per game, while playing 14 minutes? That might be the line. Someone out there can check that out.
So, we're being proactive here, in tackling the goon issue by not changing behaviour, but usage. For whatever reason, the NHL doesn't want to have a very visible rule in place to deter goon behaviour. But, change the incentive system for using goons, and teams will organically make the choice for the NHL.
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