NHL stuck in power-play tailspin
Are league’s refs letting up on calls?
OTTAWA — Has the NHL gone back to its pre-lockout style of officiating games, when defencemen could hold up forwards at will and clutching and grabbing was tolerated, if not expected?
It depends who you talk to about the issue.
But this much is clear: There are demonstrably fewer power plays in today’s game and many in hockey believe referees have gone soft on the obstruction enforcement t hat was front and centre coming out of the 2004-05 lockout.
Kerry Fraser, who refereed more than 2,000 NHL regular season and playoff games before retiring in 2010, believes there has been a slight let-up on calls, especially during what he calls the “dog days” of the hockey season in February, when some players try to get away with lazy hooks and holds.
“The referee mindset can also be the same, that, you know, we’ve had a whole bunch of games here, we’re a little tired, this is the time of year when you might become more of a passenger and an observer, an inactive participant,” Fraser said.
Fraser does not dispute a popular contention that players are getting away with more infractions than they did when the lockout ended, and rules were enforced to open up the game.
“The expectation became that a penalty would be called regardless of the score at the time,” says Fraser, now a TV hockey analyst for NBC and TSN.
Over time, the vigilance has slipped, he says.
“There has been a slide, and it’s really important that the officiating department monitor each game, each call, each official, so that their standard is consistent with the expected standard that the league sets,” Fraser says. “Let ‘em play really means let ‘em cheat.”
Watching the NHL playoffs last spring, Fraser says, he didn’t know what calls might be made from “period to period,” let alone from game to game.
And when officials fall into the pre-lockout mode, players take a calculated risk that they won’t be called for a penalty.
“The biggest deterrence for a player is the fear a pen- alty will be called regardless of the score and the time,” Fraser says. “Otherwise, it’s worth committing an infraction knowing ‘I might get away with it, or I’ll probably get away with it.’”
There have been a lot of corridor conversations about this topic recently on the heels of an Nhl.com report showing how power play opportunities have trended downward each season since the lockout. The average number of power plays per game has dipped to levels not seen for three decades.
According to Nhl.com data, through 810 games there had been 6.9 power plays per game on average, the lowest number since 1978-79 when there were 6.77 power plays per game.
I updated the power play totals through Wednesday, and with 850 games played, the extra-man opportunities have dipped even lower, to 6.87 per game. But what does that mean? By comparison, there were nearly twice the number of power plays in the whistlehappy days following the lockout. Some fans would suggest power plays were handed out like after dinner mints — 11.7 power plays per game in 200506. But, the number has declined each year since. Last year, it was about seven per game.
Football officials tend to be credited for calling a penalty a penalty no matter the situation, while hockey referees have been known to “manage” a game, calling fewer penalties as games grow in importance. Fraser said he liked to invoke a standard by talking to players, sometimes warning them, before blowing his whistle for a penalty.
It’s interesting to note the in-season decline in calls, with more power plays in October and November, (7.9 and 7.5) and fewer in December and January (6.9 and 5.9).
Are players being smarter, or is it a case of officials growing reluctant to make calls they made earlier in the season?
“I don’t necessarily think the play has got cleaner,” Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma said this week. “But there are fewer power play opportunities out there for every team.”