Coach adapts game to new style of hockey
SAN JOSE >> Every night, across the NHL, risk is taking center stage.
As the NHL gets faster and more skilled, coaches are inviting more risk from their players to gain offensive edges, an idea that would have gotten them blackballed during the dead puck era 15 years ago.
The change is evident in the evolution of Sharks coach Pete DeBoer’s approach to the game.
Tuesday, the Sharks used goals from Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton, the 400th of his career, 13 seconds apart late in the third quarter to spark a 5-4 win over Nashville.
DeBoer joined the Sharks in 2015 with a reputation for being a risk adverse defensive-minded coach. He’d just spent three-plus years coaching Lou Lamoriello’s New Jersey Devils, playing a bland updated version of neutral zone trap hockey. The name DeBoer was synonymous with words, such as structure, puck management and defensive zone responsibility. After the Sharks hired him, many
fans on social media started referring to him as Peter DeBoring.
Oh my, how times have changed.
Defensive integrity and smart puck play are still core ingredients of DeBoer’s brand of hockey, but the Sharks coach is clearly flirting with more risk nowadays, a sign that he’s updated his software to keep up with the times.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt the league has moved that way,” DeBoer said. “I look at Vegas last year and that was the story of their season. They pushed the pace and threw numbers at teams going one way, and (Marc-Andre) Fleury made some huge saves going back the other way.
“They’re willing to take a little bit of that risk because they were getting (goaltending). When it’s working, it’s very effective.”
DeBoer’s engagement in risk is evident when he talks about players, such as Kevin Labanc and Antti Suomela. He concedes that both players need to round
out their 200-foot games, but he keeps them in the lineup because they bring an element of offensive creativity that’s so vital in today’s game. It’s a trade he’s willing to make.
And then there’s Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson. A pair of riverboat gamblers skating on the same blue line.
“Another piece of that is how you’re built,” the Sharks coach said. “We have two Norris Trophy winning defensemen. Are you going to tell them not to get involved? That would be a quick way to be on the unemployment line for me.”
You don’t need a pair of binoculars to find the warts on Burns and Karlsson’s defensive games on a nightly basis. They were in plain view on the last two goals against in the Sharks loss to the New York Rangers last month and on a pair of Philadelphia Flyers goals in a Sharks’ win earlier this month.
But the Sharks are willing to live with those defensive miscues because they believe that the offense Burns and Karlsson create outweighs the cost. By adding offensive creativity to the blue line, the Sharks can tip the scale when the top forward lines negate one another.
“That offense has to come from your backend,” DeBoer said. “It’s only way you can cause confusion. Everybody’s so good at recognizing, here come the three forwards, let’s shut this down. We were like that in New Jersey. If you didn’t get the defensemen involved and create confusion, and get up in the rush above people and create some numbered situations in your advantage, you aren’t creating anything.”
DeBoer admitted that his approach has changed since he broke into the league with the Florida Panthers in 2008-09. In those days, he’d allow Jay Bouwmeester to attack while the rest of the blue line stayed home. In New Jersey, Lamoriello put up what he called “an electric fence at the red line.”
Now, with Burns and Karlsson, DeBoer’s changing his approach again.
“The league changes, you evolve,” he said.
But the key to making this risk-reward approach work is elite goaltending. Fleury allowed the Golden Knights to thrive last winter because he bailed out the offense when those risks led to grade-A scoring chances the other way. Entering Tuesday’s game, the Sharks ranked 30th in save percentage.