Scoring is up in the NHL and it's a certifiable trend that will continue | Michael Arace
Scoring is up in the NHL and we will discuss this trend, and why it will continue trending, after just a bit of whining to set the stage.
In the Blue Jackets’ first season, 2000-01, the best teams in the league were the Colorado Avalanche in the West, with apologies to the Detroit Red Wings, and the New Jersey Devils in the East, with no apologies to the Ottawa Senators.
The Avalanche and the Devils met in the Stanley Cup Final and the Avs topped off a terrific series with a 3-1 Game 7 victory in Denver. Colorado captain Joe Sakic had 13 goals and 13 assists in 21 playoff games that spring. New Jersey’s Patrick Elias had 23 points and was plus-11 in 25 playoff games. The goalies, Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur, might be the two best who ever played the position. It was terrific theater.
But it was a different game then. The second half of the 1990s, as the Jackets were being birthed, was not the advent of obstructionism, but it was when it was perfected, like smartphones. Cups were won in New Jersey with Jacques Lemaire’s neutral-zone trap (1995), in Detroit with Scotty Bowman’s left-wing lock (1997, 1998) and in Dallas with Ken Hitchcock’s take-no-chances Stars (1999).
Along the way came a better brand of athletes, a higher caliber of defensemen and a phalanx of highly polished goaltenders. They were all part of this conservative evolution.
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The phrase “defense wins championships” became a haptic feature to the point that the league cracked down on obstructionism (which is to say, began enforcing existing rules) to at least cut down on hooks, holds, interference and the like when it emerged from the lockout of 2004-05.
Those who watched and loved the game as children of the 1970s and 1980s still felt a pang for simpler times. This is not to say that Sakic and Elias and Roy and Brodeur, et al, were not recognized for their greatness. It is to say that some of us missed the wide-open game when artists didn’t always have to act as plumbers. We missed the scoring.
The Montreal Canadiens under Bowman, who won four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1976-79, were terrific defensive teams. The 1976-77 Habs, for instance, allowed just 171 goals (2.1 a game). That same team scored 387 goals, the eighth-most in a season all-time, and had a goal differential of plus-216, a record. By comparison, this season’s Florida Panthers (plus-89 through 73 games) are modern-day awesome.
Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers from 1981-82 through 1985-86 averaged 5.29 goals over 400 regular-season games. After they figured out the dynastic New York Islanders, who had figured out the dynastic Canadiens, the Oilers won four Stanley Cups (and added another one, sans Gretzky, in 1990). And they were dynastic.
The Jackets in 2000-01 were offensively challenged, by design (such was their expansionist lot). They scored 190 goals (2.31 per). This season the Jackets have scored 240 goals through 74 games (3.24 per).
More scoring is a trend.
In 2021-22, the league is averaging 6.24 goals a game. In 2018-19, the last season that wasn’t truncated due to COVID, the league averaged 6.02 goals.
Before that, the last time games averaged more than six goals was 2005-06, when there was a concerted crackdown on obstruction coming out of the lockout.
Those Jackets fans who watched the Union Blue get thwacked 9-2 by Florida on Jan. 15 know there have been some crazy games this season. In fact, there have been eight games in which the winning team has scored nine, 10 or 11 goals since Dec. 20. That’s nutty. Largely, it’s attributed to how deeply down the depth chart teams have had to reach for goaltenders due to COVID, not to mention injuries.
Still, more scoring is a trend.
The last pre-COVID season, 2018-19, there were six 100-point scorers, led by Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov with 128, and there were two 50-goal scorers.
The last player to score as many as 128 points was Mario Lemieux (161 in 1995-96).
This season, there will be at least five 100-point scorers — Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Florida’s Jonathan Huberdeau, Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau and Toronto’s Auston Matthews. And there will be three or four 50-goal scorers — including Matthews, who, if he maintains his goal-scoring rate, will end up with 65.
The last player to score 60 goals was Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos in 2011-12. The last player to score 65 goals was Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin in 2007-08.
Compare: In the 10 full seasons prior to 2018-19, there were four 100-point scorers just one time, and there were three 50-goal scorers just two times. There was one season in which there wasn’t a 100-point player. There were two seasons where there wasn’t a 50-goal player.
The league is getting younger and faster. Coaches are rolling four lines that can score and putting a premium on puck-moving defenseman. Talent has a freer reign.
Cool.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: The NHL is getting back to where all artists don't have to be plumbers
