If a Puck Drops in the Forest…

image courtesy of wstera2 of Flickr

Sports are rife with cliches.  We all know this and have probably accepted it for what it is.  Some dream of a day however, when analysis is actually insightful and creative.  This humble dream is constantly impeded by the endless discussion of such interesting concepts as momentum by some of the most respected commentators in the sport.

Most hockey fans will agree that fighting is an important part of hockey.  It’s about intimidation and strength.  It’s about gaining momentum for your team.

Penguin grinder Maxime Talbot fought Flyer goon Daniel Carcillo during their series in the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Talbot was outmatched and lost the fight decisively.  The Penguins later won the series.  During an interview following the series, Sidney Crosby said that the fight was a big factor for their team because as they watched Talbot get pummeled, they decided that if he was gonna try, they sure as heck were gonna try as well.  And so they went out and scored more goals than the Flyers.  Because the Pens came back from 3-0 to win the game, the word momentum gets bounced around and suddenly Talbot getting beaten on was the turning point.

It sounds good.  The facts check out because 1: Talbot was mugged and 2: The Penguins won.  Never mind that the Penguins were probably the better team (yes, the team’s were tied in points after the regular season, but the Penguins were a different team with Bylsma at the helm and were likely playing better than the Flyers come playoff time) and that they outshot the Flyers 20-9 in the final period, which may or may not be because of a fight much earlier in the game.  How many times do you think a player just like Talbot, took on a much more adept fighter, got beaten on and his team didn’t respond with a massive comeback?  Well, I guess those teams didn’t have as much determination as the Pens.  Maybe their fighters didn’t get beaten as badly as Talbot did.

Hey, wouldn’t it be a good strategy for a coach to send the weakest player out to taunt the opposing enforcer into a fight?  Every team should have a guy that can step on the ice for the purpose of getting beaten on if the team’s response is this good.

I find myself wondering what the Flyers thought about all this.  How did their team react to the fight?  Shouldn’t they have gotten inspired that their teammate just beat the snot out of an opposing player and jumped onto the ice with a fresh spring in their step?  I guess they didn’t.

Now I would be inclined to think that I would be more motivated if it happened to be my comrade that was hammering their fist into another guy’s face, but I don’t play in the NHL, so what do I know?  But while I shall admit that I haven’t entirely done my research here, I’ll bet that you don’t have to go very far back to find an instance where a player in a post-game interview, just like Sidney Crosby, told a reporter that their team was inspired to win a playoff series or regular season game because it was their player who was beating on the other guy.

Here’s a fun article on the subject by someone who writes for The Hockey News and therefore wields more authority than I do:

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/25697-THNcom-Playoff-Blog-Did-TalbotCarcillo-fight-spur-the-Pens-to-victory.html

I especially like the comments at the bottom.  They claim that the writer doesn’t know anything about hockey and has clearly never played the game himself.  Hey, maybe I’ll get some of those too!

So apparently sometimes you gain momentum by winning a fight, and sometimes you gain momentum by losing.  I wonder why that is?

Here’s my guess:  It has something to do with hindsight.

One of the two teams playing is guaranteed to win the game, even in the regular season thanks to Bettman’s rule changing trigger finger.  During the game, one team is likely to be getting more shots than the other for a portion of the game while the other may have the advantage for other parts of the game.  Sometimes it’s because one team simply have the more talented skaters and shooters, etc.  Sometimes it’s because one team has their top line out against a weak checking line.  Sometimes it’s because of momentum.  Oops, there’s that word again.

Here’s what I think this mystical force of momentum might be.  I’ll admit that a goal will probably encourage a player to play harder for a time.  He might try skating harder, he might spend a second longer looking for the perfect pass or shot.  His team may generate some more shots, but their players will be more tired when they return to the bench.  If the players can’t recover before their next shift, odds are that the other team will start getting chances again.  It’s been said by a hockey commentator, whose name currently eludes me, that a team has about three minutes to take advantage of the boost of momentum that comes from scoring a goal.  Well, maybe thats about the time it takes for players to 1: skate harder, generate more chances and 2: get tired and give up some ground to the opposition.

I grant that you might not accept this analysis, but hopefully with this considered, momentum might not seem quite so mysterious.

Powerplays are also a great source for momentum switches.  You may have heard it said that a goaltender can turn the momentum by making a timely save.

Actually, allow me to dwell on this interesting little tidbit for a second.  Some say that the best are seperate from the rest because they know when they need to make that big stop.  I hope I am not the only one wondering how exactly a goaltender can control when shots come at him.  Is there ever a time when a goaltender is not required to make a save?  Is there ever a slow moving puck that a goaltender can perhaps let in with zero consequences?

Perhaps the top tenders ask their defense to let a player through so that they can make a game-saving breakaway stop and thus turn the tide.  But I personally don’t think they do.  A team’s defense is arranged to allow the fewest number of shots possible and to put enough pressure on the opposing team’s shooters that any shots that do get on net are of poor quality.  When a goaltender is forced to make a big save, the defense has often made a mistake.  Whether it is because a skater fell or because the opposition made a nice passing play, a defensive mistake has been made.  Apparently the team can gain momentum from making such a mistake however, because once the goalie makes the save, everyone decides that the goaltender made a good decision by making a timely save and wants to play harder for it.

But back to powerplays.

Assuming that no goals are actually scored, a team can get momentum by getting a series of quality shots on net in a short period of time, right?  And a goalie can gain momentum for their team by making a series of saves on quality shots on net in a short period of time, right?

Wait a second.

So who’s really getting the momentum?  I’ll bet that the next team that scores will be the ones who get the momentum from the exchange, because someone surely has to have gotten it.  Never mind that hockey is a game of many chances and that either team has a chance of scoring during almost any given minute.  Nope, it’s because the powerplay got those big shots off that their team scored right after.  And it’s because the goalie made those big saves on the powerplay that his team tied it up later.

But that’s just my opinion.  And guys who are paid to talk about hockey toss the word momentum around like a beloved frisbee.  And players like Crosby also point towards momentum as being an important part of hockey, though of course he grew up listening to the guys who are paid to talk about hockey tossing the frisbee.

So even though I’m probably wrong about all this, I’m gonna go on shuddering at the word “momentum” for years to come.

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