Goalapalooza: Offense coming from everywhere
Alain Nasreddine has watched New York Rangers defensemen go to the front of the net and hang out below the goal line.
It wasn’t like this back in his playing days.
Nasreddine scored one goal in 74 NHL games as a defenseman from 19982008. Now, the interim New Jersey Devils coach sees a league in which defensemen are expected to score — and they are delivering.
Goals are coming from everywhere this season: lacrosse-style from Andrei Svechnikov and Filip Forsberg, a ton from the blue line and even one from Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne. A total of 661 different players have scored at least once this season, a testament to balanced attacks around the league.
“You want a five-man offense,” Nasreddine said. “The way the game is played right now, you need a fiveman offense with D-men joining, whether that’s off the rush or in the offensive zone.”
There are an average of 6.12 goals per game so far this season, the second straight year that number has surpassed six and just the third time in the past 23 seasons. The top four goal scorers are all forwards 24 or younger; more impressively, 200 defensemen have combined to put up 727 goals.
Washington’s John Carlson is on pace to be the NHL’s first 100-point defenseman since Brian Leetch in 1991-92. But he’s just the leader of the pack as the style of play in the league moves more and more toward getting defensemen involved in the offense.
“Nowadays, everybody activates the D,” Arizona coach Rick Tocchet said. “I don’t think there’s a team that doesn’t try to get their D to join the rush. You can’t just have your top two defensemen (be) offensive guys. You have to have everybody participate.”
Look no further than the Nashville Predators for a prime example of that. Even after trading P.K. Subban, Nashville’s blue line can still pile up the goals and has combined for 29 through 48 games.
“Teams want their defensemen to jump up, want their defensemen in the play,” Predators defenseman Roman Josi said. “Every team has kind of that fourth guy in the rush all the time, and even in the Ozone, teams are moving. I think that’s just kind of the way the game is now.”
The game is trending that direction so much that Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour tells his team, “You score off the rush and you score on the power play.”
Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin said odd-man rushes with defensemen are “the best opportunities to score” and that, combined with the talent of young defensemen like Dallas’ Miro Heiskanen, Colorado’s Cale Makar and Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin, has been responsible for much more offense from the back end.
“You look at the young guys coming in: Heiskanen, Makar, some of these really young guys, and they come in and they’re contributing right away,” Slavin said. “I think some teams are driven by their defense, and when their defensemen are going, that’s when the team’s playing really well. Some of those teams have those offensive defensemen that are expected to put up big numbers.”