Hockey is a vulgar, violent, classless and offensive sport. Deal with it.

The banner says "video review" in german.

A couple of weeks ago, a trio of Philadelphia Flyers fans went to a game of their team in Pittsburgh where the Flyers once again beat the Penguins as they have done so ever since their new arena opened. The story made the news because the three fans wore Flyers jerseys reading "Malkin Blows", "Crosby Sucks" and "Neal Swallows" on the name plates paired with the jersey number of the respective player. They were asked by the arena staff to take those jerseys off or wear them inside out and they complied.

I am a big defender of free speech. Those jerseys were definitely tacky, dumb, and a jersey foul. Not sure why people would deem it worth the ridiculous price that NHL jerseys cost for such a dumb and unfunny display, but if they want to, they should be able to wear it. However, free speech only protects you from government censorship. When visiting a private business you can still be asked to straighten up your conduct and it should be common courtesy to behave like a regular human being and not like an absolute moron, the arbiter of which is the host.

What surprised me however was the reaction around the internet. People were declaring that something like this has no place in the game, and that the censorship was necessary to protect children from being exposed to sexual concepts, putting them and their parents into an embarrassing situation.

Excuse me, but have those people ever been to a hockey game? Or at least seen one on TV?

Hockey is a vulgar sport. It is modern day gladiatorial combat where people ram into each other at high velocities and throw any conceivable body part in front of pucks traveling at more than 100km/h. It's a sport played by people with clubs in their hands and knives on their feet. And you are watching a league that allows bare-knuckle boxing during its games and the only punishment is that both combatants can not be on the ice for the first 5 minutes after the fight.

And with this amount of violence, comes contempt for the opponent. They are not only taking money out of each others pockets by denying them bonuses for Stanley Cup victories or individual performances, they are also trying to make each other suffer, both physically and mentally, and if there is an actual injury so be it.

And with this contempt comes the expected language. It's not hard to curse out an opponent or express your general disgust with a person that just seconds ago tried to break the knee-caps of a teammate. Chirps can also be humorous, as trying to make fun of an opponent also establishes a form of dominance, but they are rarely meant to be less than degrading to the opposition. This contempt is not only felt by the players on the ice, but also the audience in the stands and in front of the TV screens.

Of course there are certain lines to be drawn. For example the NHL and the organization You Can Play has recently started a campaign to eradicate homophobic slurs within the League, and I say more power to them. Homophobia is an issue in the same vain as racism, and while people may earn your disgust for attempting to give another player a concussion, they definitely aren't liable for how they look or who they are attracted to. Or as Fat Mike sings in Don't call me White: "I can except responsibility for what I've done, but not for who I am".

This ties into a concept that I will for now label "real-life entertainment" and into which hockey falls. You see, unlike other forms of entertainment, hockey is not fiction. There is no absolute separation in which the actions portrayed have no direct influence on the real world. When Frank Miller draws a person gruesomely shot to death in a comic book, nobody actually died. And while art & entertainment can teach people what is correct and what behavior can lead to what consequences, there is always the thought in the back of the mind that this is not real and not necessarily a guide to follow, but an exploration of what could happen.

Hockey on the other hand takes place within the real world. Hockey players are real people and if they break a leg or suffer a concussion, it's not just an interesting storyline to explore, but a real event with real consequences that affect real people. And therein lies the worry of the parents I mentioned earlier, in which naive children emulate their skating idols because they don't know any better and the separation between the world of hockey and real society doesn't really exist to them.

However, while this separation is not as strong as for example with books or movies, there is still a separation of context. Hockey is not actual society. While in hockey people can punch each other silly, get smashed in the face with pucks and sticks, and suffer all sorts of injures, there are hardly any real consequences like we would see in the "real world" for similar behavior. Unless there are some extreme circumstances, nobody will be charged with assault or battery.

On a less violent side of things, a coach grabbing his balls or a player making fun of an opponent who just suffered a concussion is the tip of the iceberg really, and a lot of other things are being said and gestured between the players on the ice that the cameras and microphones do not pick up or the press often deliberately ignores. How often have you heard the commentators on a hockey game excuse themselves for shutting down a microphone because it's too close to a verbal joust between two players?

And the same goes for the audience. Within the context of the game, certain things are to be expected. Whether it's the three numbskulls I mentioned earlier, someone making a T-Shirt of the "Wakey Wakey Backes" incident, or the crowd in New Jersey chanting "Rangers suck, Flyers swallow!" on a regular basis, the level of the audience only matches what is already seen and heard on the ice.

What's strange is that these instances make the headlines when the violence and vulgarity of the sport is regularly on full display? I for my part find flying elbows and knee-on-knee collisions much more offensive than a word or a gesture. Yet some of that violence is exactly what draws people to the sport. Not just the big, but hopefully legal hits, but there is a real culture and fanbase for hockey fights which is by definition a penalty, something that is not allowed within regular play.

If I had to draw a parallel, I would call going to a hockey game like going to see an R-Rated movie. Maybe your children are old enough, and you had a good talking to them putting it into context that the behavior of the people you are watching is under special circumstances and not something they should emulate in every day life. However, going into either and then being appalled by what you see and are having a hard time explaining it to your children, nieces, nephews or what have you is your own fault.

Hockey is a violent, vulgar, and in certain ways offensive sport. You know what it is, and it simply is hockey. It is on you whether you want to watch it and who of your immediate family you want to expose to it.

Flyers vs. Rangers - A long time coming

The Playoffs start tonight and while I am still not entirely happy with the new restructured NHL, it is kind of undeniable that it resulted in some compelling first round matchups. Chicago vs. St. Louis should make for some quality hockey with one Stanley Cup hopeful gone after seven games or less. San Jose vs. Los Angeles should make a new great rivalry. Boston and Detroit also looks to be very interesting.

For my favorite team it means that they meet one of their more traditional rivals in the New York Rangers. Personally I would have rather had the Penguins, simply because it is a better matchup. Against the Rangers is kind of 50-50, and home ice advantage could be a deciding factor as the Flyers have failed to beat the Rangers in Madison Square Garden in their last eight tries. The matchup is however not hopeless and Giroux and Co. would be loathe to do anything but beat the Rangers.

The two teams have had a longstanding animosity, mostly fueled by the rivalry between the two cities. As an outside observer it seems to me that the dichotomy between Philadelphia and New York is rooted in how each view the other. New York is seen as a high society town, but is also called out for arrogance and entitlement, while Philadelphia is more associated with a working-class mentality, but also regarded as violent and low-brow. This rivalry is also noted in other sports, particularly football as the Philadelphia Eagles an the New York Giants have been division rivals for ages. In Baseball, the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies also don't exactly like each other.

The Flyers and Rangers have also shared a division for a long time, in fact since 1974 when the NHL dissolved the "East" and "West" Divisions created by the 1967 expansion and formed the Divisions called "Norris", "Adams", "Patrick" and "Smythe". However, considering that the teams have played 276 regular season games against one another (the Flyers most common opponent in the history of the franchise), it is kind of surprising that the teams haven't met in the Playoffs recently. In fact, the last time this happened was in 1997, 17 years ago (let that sink in for a moment).

The Flyers and Rangers met a total of 10 times in the playoffs so far, with the Flyers winning six of those. The first two of those series are of particular interest because of Hall of Fame Coach Fred Shero. Shero actually played for the Rangers for 145 games in three season between 1947 and 1950. He was sent down after that and continued in the minors. After his playing career was over he remained with the Rangers on the coaching staff in their minor league development system.

However, the Rangers seemed unappreciative of his talent as a coach and his long commitment to the club, and appeared unlikely to give him a promotion to head coach any time soon. Without the chance of proving his true worth with the Rangers, he was successfully poached by Flyers General Manager Keith Allen in 1971, one of the kind of moves that gave Allen the nickname "The Thief". The Rangers would soon rue that day when in 1974 the Flyers defeated the Rangers in a playoff series going the full seven games on their way to their first Stanley Cup victory. It was the first time an expansion team beat an Original Arbitrary Six team in a playoff matchup.

The Flyers would make two more appearances in the Stanley Cup Final with Shero, winning again in 1975, but losing against the Canadiens in 1976. However, even the greatest coaches have shelf lives, and Shero himself knew that, submitting a letter of resignation in the '78 offseason and then signed a five year contract to coach the Rangers. However, he was still under contract with the Flyers who had refused to accept the letter. The end result was that the Rangers sent their first round pick for the 1978 NHL Amateur Draft alongside some monetary compensation to the Flyers to avoid tampering charges. The Flyers selected Ken Linseman with that pick.

However, Shero had not lost his coaching mojo and lead the Rangers to a 40 win season the following year. As fate would have it, the Flyers and Rangers would meet in the playoffs and this time the Rangers prevailed 4 games to 1. Shero would manage a fourth appearance in the Final in six years, but would again be vanquished by the dynastic Canadiens.

The next season the two teams would meet again, this time the Flyers would return the favor against their former head coach as this time they took a four games from the Ranges while surrendering only one, but they also could not reach the chalice as they were defeated by the other New York team, the Islanders.

Several more playoff bouts between Broad Street and Broadway followed. A total of five meetings in the 80s seesawed. The Rangers won in 1982 and '83, but were defeated by their upstart little brother both times. The Flyers fired back in '85 and made it to the Final, but lost to the Edmonton Oilers featuring Wayne Gretzky. The Rangers won again in '86 and ended a tormented season by the Flyers who were still shocked by the death of their goalie Pelle Lindbergh. The Rangers for their part lost to the Canadiens. The Flyers took one back in '87, but again fell to the Oilers in the Final. Then the two teams avoided each other until '95, when the Flyers beat the Rangers, reigning Stanley Cup champion at the time, and pulled ahead in playoff series victors, 5-4. The Flyers would lose to the Devils the next round.

When the two teams last met in the actual playoffs, it was seen as a passing of the torch. The Rangers had signed "The Great One", Wayne Gretzky during free agency the previous offseason, while the Flyers had "The Next One" on their roster as Eric Lindros had established himself as a true force in the NHL.

Lindros was acquired by the Flyers during the 1992 draft in a blockbuster trade with the Quebec Nordiques. The Rangers were also in the running for Lindros and the Nordiques actually preferred the offer by the Rangers, but an arbitrator ruled that the Nordiques had already entered into a verbal agreement with the Flyers when their General Manager solicited another offer from the Rangers.

In any case, the Series was hard fought, but Lindros and the Flyers prevailed in five games and moved on to the Stanley Cup Final against the Detroit Red Wings, which was unfortunately lost.

This year is the first time the two teams meet in the postseason since 1997. However, that doesn't mean there haven't been any significant or important games between the two teams since. For example in 2010 the final game of the season was between the two clubs and a playoff berth was on the line. The Rangers had kept themselves alive by defeating the Flyers the previous game at Madison Square Garden and were in a tie with the Flyers. The winner of this game in Philadelphia would jump ahead of the Montreal Canadians for 7th place in the conference. The loser would have nothing to do but book a tee time.

The Rangers 4th line fighter Jody Shelley scored an early game, but the Broadway Blueshirts had little to show elsewhere as the Flyers threw everything they could the other way, outshooting them by a final tally of 47-25. However, their goaltender Henrik Lundqvist held steady and kept everything out, until in the 3rd period Matt Carle finally tied it. The Flyers continued their onslaught but the Rangers could no longer stay back and needed to put out some offense as well. No decision could be made though and the game was pushed into a shootout. Daniel Briere and Claude Giroux scored, while Brian Boucher stopped Olli Jokinen who had to score to keep the game going. This started the Flyers on a nearly miraculous run which ended only in overtime of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final that year.

This first round matchup is definitely compelling. Two teams that do not like each other, and who have a long and storied history with each other. As it turns out this matchup usually also has a lot of implication for the rest of the NHL. If you take note with the Exception of 1974 when the Flyers won, every year the Flyers and Rangers met in the playoffs, the team that would defeat the victor of that battle would go on to win the Stanley Cup. It should be interesting to observe whether this pattern holds up, breaks, or perhaps one of the two combatants actually manage to lift Lord Stanley's Chalice this year for themselves.

The Greatest Franchises in the History of the League (and why the Flyers are among them)

With each passing season new history is made. Some franchises improve, find success, write new stories which will later be passed along by fans and media alike. They add to their legacy. Other franchises don't do so well, and while tragedies also make for great stories and add a certain kind of mysticism and intrigue, it requires perseverance to suffer through them and find new glory rather than fail and sink into a swamp of misery.

As a fan of the Flyers I find it interesting how this year went. From the miserable start to a remarkable turnaround which saw them return to the playoffs after last year's absence. It is already a season to remember for it, and it bodes well for the future too. Captain Claude Giroux solidified his role on the team and his position as one of the premier forwards in the league, while a lot of the young talent that surrounds him is also improving and finding their place in the league. Throughout the season the Flyers have shown the resiliency that is required to be successful and the team has with it done their heritage proud.

The Flyers put together another winning season, and the franchise thus remains as the team with the 2nd best yield of points in the history of the league. This will also be the 38th time they will make the playoffs in 47 years of team history, or more than 80% of the time. And while they haven't won the Cup in a while, they are known to make a run with 8 appearances in the Stanley Cup Final, which is the 3rd most of all franchises since they entered the league (and until last year it was tied for 2nd most). The Flyers also have 16 division titles to their name.

They may not have as many Championships as I might like and some other teams do, but they are always a threat to look out for. And the longest lull in their history was a period of 5 years in the early 90s in which they missed the playoffs, but only once were they out of it by more than 4 points.

They are, to put it simple, the picture of constant high level play and continuous success. And even outside just being successful the Flyers have influenced the league, the Broad Street Bullies and the Lindros trade (probably the 2nd most significant trade in NHL history, after the Gretzky trade) just to name a couple of examples.

Still, some people seem to look at me incredulously whenever I exclaim how proud I to be rooting for one of the best franchises within the sport. In their mind, only teams from the Original Arbitrary Six have a claim at such a legacy, which I find strange considering that the expansion of the league began almost 50 years ago.

It appears to me that they are thinking solely in absolutes. Team X has more Cups/Playoff Appearances/Division Titles/1st place finishes etc. than Team Y so it is automatically better, and seem to simply neglect the fact that Team X has been around twice, sometimes three times as long. They also conveniently overlook the fact that it was easier for a franchise to win something back then than it is today. Now a team has to beat 29 other teams. Back then it was only five others.

Simply in the interest of fairness we have to handicap the Arbitrary Six to a certain extend, and if it's only dividing a teams success by the number of years of their existence.

But even taking such things into account I will easily admit that the Montreal Canadiens are the cream of the crop. They have won the Cup 24 times (as any Habs fan will pretty quickly remind you) and even after expansion they were a force to be reckoned with. They have the best points yield of any franchise throughout history and a slew of division titles and other accolades. However, their grasp on the power has been waning since their last Cup victory in 1993, with 7 missed playoffs and 7 first round exits since.

On the other hand, Canada's other A6 franchise should be excluded from the "great franchise" debate outright in my opinion. Yes, the Toronto Maple Leafs are no longer a great franchise, and haven't been for a while. They have won the Cup 13 times, but all these victories came when there were seven or fewer teams in the league On one occasion it was only four. It doesn't take a lot of math to figure out that even a base probability of a Cup win is much lower now that 30 teams are in the league.

What nails down the Leafs however is their lack of success ever since the 1967 expansion. They have not only failed to win a Stanley Cup, they have failed to even make it to the Final. In 47 seasons they have only won their division once and missed the playoffs 19 times. And since the lockout that ate the 2004-05 season they have only made the playoffs once, failing in spectacular and soul-crushing fashion in Game 7 to the Boston Bruins. Add in their horrifying collapse this year that rivals that of the New York Mets in 2007, I have a hard time believing that anybody still thinks of them as a great franchise.

This brings me to the Chicago Blackhawks, who are kind of the reverse Leafs. They were absolutely atrocious during the A6 era, qualifying only twice for the playoffs in 14 attempts between from 1944 to 1958. After that they made 28 consecutive playoff appearances from 1969 to 1997, but never managed to win a Cup losing in the Final three times. After another decade of losing and consistent bottom rung finishes they amassed talent through the draft and won the Cup for the 2nd time in four seasons last year.

A similar story is told by looking at the Red Wings, though with a higher peak. They were a force in the Original 6 era, and were a veritable Dynasty in the last two decades, managing to make the Final six times between 1994 and 2009. This year they qualified for the playoffs again, making it their 23rd consecutive year doing so.

However, separating those two runs was the "Dead Wings" era. In between 1966 and 1986, the Red Wings were perennial bottom dwellers, missing the playoffs 16 times and getting past the first round only once. They were the absolute laughingstock of the league and a shame to everything that came before.

For both the Hawks and Wings recent success is fine and dandy, but it can not overshadow their long bouts of futility entirely. A franchise has to live with its history. If I had to make a choice between the two, I would take the Red Wings. The Hawks could prove me wrong in the immediate future though.

The Boston Bruins also have a similar history, though their only true futile years were 8 seasons in the 60s in which they failed to qualify for the post-season. They also had kind of a lull through the 90s and 00s. However, 18 Division Championships and 9 appearances in the Final since the league expanded are a strong language, particularly if added to their recent Cup victory and last years appearance in the Final.

This leaves the New York Rangers, who are definitely a step below all teams named so far. The Original Arbitrary Six era was not kind to them, as they missed the playoffs 18 times in the seasons between 1942 and 1966. In the 6 years they managed to qualify, they made it out of the first round only once, and were then dispatched. There's also the infamous 54 year Cup drought from 1940 to 1994, with little to write about between those years or since that Victory twenty years ago. Even with the advantage of having played within a league that consists of only six teams they were incapable of amassing the accolades like their colleagues from the same era did. The Rangers are an old franchise. Successful is a different matter.

So with the Original Arbitrary Six covered, let's look at some more recent additions to the league.

The  New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers are a curious case of symmetry. Both teams entered the league in the 70s, wear Orange and Blue, quickly established themselves as veritable dynasties, but have fallen flat ever since and are currently trying to rebuild through the draft. The Oilers have a little bit of a better claim, with one more Cup victory in their history, plus a somewhat miraculous Final appearance in the deviant post-lockout 05-06 season.

However, whatever capital both teams amassed through their dynastic years in the 80s is long gone, fallen by the wayside through years of losing and both teams have become the laughingstock of the league at one time or another through bad management. How the mighty have fallen.

From the 80s we jump to the 90s and 2000s, in which for the most part the Colorado Avalanche and New Jersey Devils split whatever the Red Wings left over.

While Wikipedia is trying to fool people by separating the seasons in Quebec and Colorado, the Avalanche are still the same franchise as the Quebec Nordiques and the Nordiques' years must be taken into account when looking at their franchise history. Make no mistake, the Avs won the Cup in their first season in Colorado because of the players amassed in drafts and trades made in Quebec so it is only fair to count the losing years of the Nordiques against the Avs franchise history. And lose they did often, collecting four consecutive 1st overall draft picks in the late 80s and early 90s.

The Avalanche made good use of those picks, and the rewards for trading away one of those draft choices named Eric Lindros and won two Cups, but the Avalanche never made another appearance in the Final since their last victory in 2001. Since then they have fallen off, but thanks to talented amassed in the drafts they seem to have returned to form. This hasn't delivered anything too outstanding yet, though it seems to be developing that way.

The Devils also once played in Denver, and Kansas before that, but all those years were miserable and hardly worth mentioning. Even after moving to New Jersey little happened, to the point where they were infamously declared to be a "Mickey Mouse franchise" by the best player to ever play the game. However, thanks to four appearances and three victories in the Stanley Cup Final over nine years they managed to get rid of that moniker. But those seemingly dynastic years are now in the rearview mirror and the franchise is running on the fumes of old glory. They had another appearance in the Final only two season ago, but the leading player in it, Ilya Kovalchuk has since "retired" from the league as well, leaving the Devils somewhat stranded, with Martin Brodeur, the last vestige of their glory days appearing to leave the franchise in the immediate future.

Finally, let's take a look at the nouveau riche of the NHL, the Pittsburgh Penguins. Since their incarnation the Penguins were a doormat up to them drafting Mario Lemieux, which was pretty much a race to the bottom with the Devils. The interesting thing though is that even with Lemieux in their lineup, there was little immediate impact. When they drafted Lemieux in 84, they had already missed the playoffs twice. They would miss it another 5 times in the next 6 years before winning two Cups, conveniently falling in between the end of the Oilers Dynasty, and the start of the triumvirate of the Red Wings, Avalanche and Devils. They also only managed to do that after luckily picking up another all-time great forward in Jaromir Jagr.

While continuous playoff appearances followed, the unfortunate illness of Mario Lemieux would put a dent into their hopes of regaining another Cup to the point were they traded an unhappy Jagr for players that never panned out. Mismanagement on both the financial and athletic side followed with the team becoming a bottom dweller just at the right time to pick up a couple more generational talents in Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, a player they literally won in a lottery. Talk about lucky.

The little secret here is that even after putting up two more Stanley Cup Final appearances and another victory in it, and while retaining those two generational talents, the Penguins are far from threatening now. They have been routinely exposed by a variety of opponents in the playoffs as unfocused and easy to manipulate, and are thus less thought of as the team to beat than other recent Cup winners like Boston, Chicago or Los Angeles.


The NHL has a number of great franchises. I'm lucky to be a fan of one of the best of them as they can very much hang with any other franchise in terms of team success, pride, community and history. If you ask me, while the Canadiens are the clearcut all-time leader, they are slowly fading, and teams like the Flyers, Red Wings and Bruins are gaining on them. Of that pack I think the Flyers are a nose ahead, though that may be bias on my part speaking. The Bruins are improving though and may soon be in position to make a claim for it. However, saying that it isn't close is a mistake I don't think any fan should allow themselves.

Which franchise is truly the best ever can never be truly answered while the league is still running of course, which I hope it will for a long time. This leaves us with continuously adjusting a franchises reputation and whether their recent play solidified their legacy or brought shame on itself and took away from their history. However, this also keeps things interesting as a franchise can not simply rest on its laurels.

The Flyers are a raging success, and Claude Giroux is their captain

The Philadelphia Flyers had a terrible start to the season. This is no secret. The reasons are many. They had tuned out the coach. The training camp was an absolute disaster. Claude Giroux suffered a freak golf injury during the offseason and missed training camp entirely. They had a terrible time to find the net, etc. These things aren't as much excuses as they are observations.

Then the Flyers were at a 1-7-0 record and seemingly at the end of their wits, team captain Claude Giroux had the following to say:

"We're not far off at all. How many points are we out, six? To think of the start that we had and we're that close. We never thought about not making the playoffs. We've got to go game by game and we will make the playoffs."

Reading over it now, the statement seems a little bit innocuous, but nevertheless a lot of media outlets picked it up as a sort of Mark Messier-esque guarantee. And so did fans, eager to have a laugh at the expense of a downed opponent. Just take a look at the commentary sections of this article on Yahoo, or this article on ESPN.

Commentators such as Ryan Lambert, the Bill O'Reilly of hockey, also had their field day dancing on what seemed to be a grave already. Particularly after the Flyers hit rock bottom in their lousy and embarrassing game against the Capitals. The cake probably takes the column entitled "Philadelphia Flyers are a screaming disaster and Claude Giroux is its captain".

Now we are here, 5 months later, and the Flyers clinched a playoff berth with a 5-2 win over the Florida Panthers yesterday night.

While it would be a delight to go back and pick out some choice comments from the naysayers, but I think looking at the above mentioned comment sections speaks for itself. Rather, let's take a look at some of the factors why the Flyers made that remarkable turnaround.

First must be Claude Giroux. After the statement he made he kept his end of the bargain, placing first on the team in points and goals, and is as of this writing 4th in the NHL in points. After a brutal start that took him 6 games for the first assist and 15 games to score his first goal, that is quite something to behold. It even places him into the Hart Trophy race. I've made my feelings about this known, though unfortunately the Professional Hockey Writers' Association treats it as a general, league-wide MVP award so it is a foregone conclusion that Sidney Crosby is going to win it.

Claude Giroux also had several late-game heroic scenes, such as overtime winners against Chicago and Columbus in rather spectacular fashion, which showcases the Flyers resiliency. They have a ton of games in which they trailed at some point in the third only to tie it back up and get at least one point, or even win outright.

Special teams play has also been a constant factor. The Flyers are ranked 10th in Power play percentage and 6th in the penalty kill. The guys over at Broad Street Hockey have an excellent article on the Flyers PK unit and how they make their opponents lives tough through shot suppression.

The Flyers also were horribly snakebitten in the early part of the season. They only scored 11 goals in the first 8 games of their season. Since then everybody has stepped up, as the Flyers can now boast that they have 7 different players that have scored at least 20 goals. They are the only team sporting that number.

All of this is nice and fine, but the season is not over yet. They still have to vie for positioning. They are most likely playing the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs, and home-ice advantage will be paramount. They have a game in hand, but since the Rangers hold the tiebreaker the Flyers need them to screw up at some point, though their schedule is rather easy.

In defense of Zac Rinaldo (kind of)

Zac Rinaldo is a sword with two edges and this weekend very much illustrated this. On Saturday the Flyers played the Bruins, who have been a thorn in the side of the Flyers ever since the Flyers beat them in that miraculous 4-3 comeback in 2010. Rinaldo leveled Milan Lucic on a clean hit in the opening minutes, mirroring a scene from the previous game just a week earlier in which Rinaldo smashed Jarome Iginla, then had to fight him as Iggy was kind of pissed about it. This time Rinaldo kept his gloves on while Lucic did not, and Lucic ended up taking the only penalty on the incident.

Unfortunately the Flyers and their lately frigid power play failed to take advantage of that advantage. The game then became somewhat stale-matey as the Flyers hung with the Bruins for the first 40 minutes. However, they got absolutely destroyed in the 3rd period and lost 5-2. Not a good showing and Lucic got the last laugh with two goals in the game.

The very next day the Flyers played the Sabres at home. Rinaldo for his part took advantage of his recently increased ice time, skating with Matt Read and Sean Couturier on the 3rd line, by scoring a goal. With Jay Rosehill scoring against the Bruins and The Undertaker losing at Wrestlemania some people see it as a sign of the apocalypse. Other people were just happy he found some success, particularly his little brother, who is just adorable.

However, then Zac had to go ahead and lose all the trust and respect he recently earned by hitting Sabres rookie defenseman Chad Ruhwedel in the head.

This was not a good hit. It was a direct contact with the head and no body contact at all. Rinaldo also appears to leap into the hit. He is also a repeat offender from an incident in 2012, in which the suspension was also rather warranted. Also, Ruhwedel suffered a concussion from the hit. Combine all these facts together and Rinaldo is staring at a lengthy suspension at the hands of the Department of Player Safety in the immediate future.

So let me get this out of the way first, I am not going to defend the hit because there is nothing to defend. To bring out the cliche, it is the kind of hit the NHL is attempting to legislate out of the game, and I am pretty okay with that. Players make mistakes and will have to suffer the consequences for them.

What I will try to defend is Zac Rinaldo, the player.

Immediately following the hit and the reporting on it, the crow calls came. The peanut gallery on various hockey sites were condemning the hit (which is correct) and questioning why Rinaldo is even in the NHL (which is not).

That Rinaldo has a reputation problem is almost an understatement, tracing way back to his days in the OHL and before that. He has pretty much always been a mucker and a hitter, just as he is now. He was never a scoring threat or anything like that. He is a pest who makes his living by putting the fear into people and giving them bruises from big hits. It is a fine line he plays on, a fact that he is aware of, and for 99% of the time he stays on the right side of that line. But with playing on that line also comes stepping over it on occasion, either by mistake or intent, and suffering the consequences. A price he is willing to pay. However, that hardly warrants the label of "dirty" being placed on him.

From what I can tell out of interviews and how he presents himself in documentary scenes like on 24/7 Road to the Winter Classic, he is also an earnest person who accepts his role on the team and does what he can to advance it. He also has something child-like in him, like a kid in a candy store, casting him in a bit of a locker-room-guy role as his enthusiasm appears to be quite infectious.

What I do not get is how other people can not see or appreciate this fact. For the most part it just has to be the desire of vengeance. Rinaldo is the type of player who goes under the skin of his opponents, both those on the ice and the fans thereof. Nobody likes to be hit, and Rinaldo hits hard and often. To roll on another cliche: He's the kind of player you like to have on your team, but hate when he's on the opposing one.

And therein lies the core of the problem, familiarity. Even his biggest detractors must have had a similar player on their team at one time or another if they don't do now. Teams need these kinds of players as they bring some raw energy to the table, and the fans of the teams often love those little balls of enthusiasm. It is of course on the team to make use of this energy, to form it into something useful and valuable, rather than leaving it dormant or having it explode in their face.

Perhaps another current Flyer is a poster boy for this, Steve Downie. Downie is somewhat of a more talented version of Rinaldo, a mucker and a hitter but with a bit more of a scoring touch. He too was troubled by a bad reputation coming out of juniors, and his energy exploded into senseless destruction when he hit Dean McArmond in preseason all those years ago. However, after he was traded to Tampa and under the guidance of figures like Rick Tocchet (who would be another player in a similar vein) formed a very nice NHL career for himself.

Watching Rinaldo has given me a bit more of appreciating for other players of his type on other teams, even if I despise them for the moment. As Jeff Marek like to say, even the worst player in the NHL is miles ahead of any average Joe from the street in terms of hockey skill, even the streets in Canada. Players like Zac Rinaldo are contributing something to their team and are far more skilled than people give them credit for, so even if they cross a line and make a mistake, I think it's just entirely unfair to immediately call for their dismissal from the league. It would also be hypocritical to condemn players to it when the same kind of player with the same types of plays would rouse excitement if he was on your own team.

What my worry is though is that other people can't see through this, including Brendan Shanahan and the Department of Player Safety. They seem to go a lot harsher on low-level players like Rinaldo than on players with a larger profile on the score sheet. That being said the hit does definitely warrant a suspension, though I hope it isn't primarily based on Rinaldo's embellished reputation but rather on the action itself.

Yes, the shootout is still important

With the playoffs drawing closer and teams clinching, I basically stare at the standings at least once a day, usually more often than that, at the NHL.com standings. One of the most interesting numbers in the standings is the Shootout wins and losses. I use it as a barometer on the strength of teams, particularly those on the bubble. Good teams win and are able to deny their opponents points by outscoring them in regulation, or at least punch through in overtime. The number of shootouts they are involved in will generally be low. Other teams have to rely on the shootout scrap points together. However, this also means that they gift points to their opponents, making it overall tougher for themselves.

Personally I don't really mind the shootout as much as the fact that it shouldn't be worth the same as a regulation win (as explained in a previous blog post). Even the NHL kind of admits to that by making win totals excluding the shootout the first tie-breaker in the standings (provided equal number of games played). However, it is definitely a crutch some teams exploit and I call teams whose success is based in it paper tigers, fakes which look stronger than they actually are.

It is undeniable that some teams make the playoffs based on the shootout. As a Flyers fan people are quick to bring up the season-ending shootout in the last game of the regular season against the Rangers in 2010. It came down to a shootout, with the winner of it making the playoffs and the loser being on the outside looking in. The Flyers luckily made it, starting them on their run that ended in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.

The funny thing though is that it's not the Flyers who profited from the existence of the shootout that year: It was the Boston Bruins. The Bruins finished 3 points ahead of the Flyers and 4 points ahead of the Rangers. However, this lead was based in the fact that the Bruins participated in 19 shootouts that year, winning 10 of them. They were 14-13 in games going over regulation time that year. In comparison the Flyers had a 4-3 record in shootouts that year, with a 6-6 record in games decided in OT or the Shootout. The Rangers were 4-11 in games decided past regulation time. In most other point systems, such as the three point system I would like to have in the NHL, the Flyers and Rangers would have already been qualified before the final game of the season, and the Bruins would have been eliminated.

A similar example to the 09-10 Bruins can also be seen this year in the Washington Capitals. They too have participated in 19 shootouts, winning 9 of them. They are for now on the bubble, though two points behind the Blue Jackets who have a game in hand on the Capitals, making me think the Caps won't make it. The Capitals saw 25 of their 76 games played so far this season go into overtime, often by their own inability to hold a lead. It may very well be the reason they are on the outside looking in, as they have bled extra points to their opponents. However, without the extra points they earned in OT they wouldn't even have the chance to make the playoffs either.

On the flipside we have the New Jersey Devils who had to 11 shootouts this year, losing all of them. Yesterday night they lost to Buffalo in a 9-round shootout despite scoring two goals themselves, tripling the season total on successful shootout attempts for the year. They are now 3-for-39 in shootout attempts on the year, which is not surprising considering that their head coach Pete DeBoer does not practice the shootout.

Seriously, how does this happen in a league that has the shootout? If the Devils went as much as 5-6 in their 11 shootouts this year, they would now have 85 points, pushing them into a playoff position ahead of the Red Wings and Blue Jackets. If they had been able to flip their shootout record around, going 11-0, they'd be 2nd in the division and on the brink of clinching a playoff spot. By choosing not to practice this part of the game the Devils are essentially surrendering points to their opponents from the outset, and the importance of these points becomes more and more evident with every passing day this time of year.

Yes, the shootout does not exist in the playoffs. And yes, a team should not be reliant on the shootout to win a hockey game. But as much as I think that the shootout win should not be as valuable as a regulation win, matter of fact is that the shootout is still important and an opportunity to improve point totals and positions in the standings. Not even practicing the shootout should be immediate grounds of termination for any head coach.

However, this also makes me wonder about the Flyers. The last two games were decided in a shootout, losing both of them to the Bruins and Blues. It is good that they got the equivalent points as a win from two games against the two best teams in the league and giving them the extra points does not hurt the Flyers too much, but they are now again at a 3-7 record in the shootout this year. These are similar numbers to the last couple of seasons. In overall, the Flyers are 11-23 in shootouts since 2010, and Berube appears to not have put any more emphasis on the shootout than Laviolette did before him.

While it is always a delight to watch players like Claude Giroux show off their skillset in the shootout, it would be nice to actually win a couple of them. Particularly now as the Flyers are struggling to gain home-ice advantage. The Flyers are pretty much set to face-off with the Rangers in the first round, and they have a terrible record at MSG for the last couple of seasons. Leaving these points on the table could very well cost them dearly.