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Dans les coulisses

No more field hockey shootouts

It was quite a game last night in Las Vegas. No, the Canadiens couldn’t beat the Stanley Cup champions – undefeated in regulation time and first in the overall standings since the start of the season – but it’s all the same.

The CH dominated the Nevada powerhouse 39 – 25 in shots on goal, and despite a shaky start to the game, the Montrealers rallied… and left the arena with a point in the bank. Martin St-Louis is probably not wrong in calling it the team’s best game since becoming head coach.

Samuel Montembeault was a scorcher, especially in overtime…

Nick Suzuki (1 goal late in the third and another in the shootout) and Cole Caufield (1 assist) were successful against their former team and their former coach respectively…

And the Canadiens (5-2-2) added a 12th point to their tally. No worse month in October, especially with Kirby Dach and Christian Dvorak out…

But there’s one thing that bothers me about the start of the season. And I’m not talking about the non-production of Josh Anderson and Juraj Slafkovsky or the fragile health of Mike Matheson (who didn’t reassure me so much last night)…

I’m officially among those who want to see the shootout disappear from the NHL.

When a game goes to overtime, I get excited:

“Cool! We’re going to have some spectacular 3-on-3 play!”

But when the five-minute period is about to end, I always tell myself the same thing:

“Damn, we’re going to have to settle this with breakaways again.”

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A quick look back in history and a basic questioning of the merits of shootouts leads to the conclusion that no, the NHL doesn’t need them anymore in 2023-24.

The shootout was introduced in 2005-06, after a full year of lockouts and as a means of livening up the NHL spectacle. The long, sappy five-on-five late-night/early-night overtimes and draws were to disappear. In those days, the decision to determine the winner of a game with breakaways was sellable, innovative, entertaining and spectacular. I remember crying genius!

But then something happened 10 years later, in 2015-16: the introduction of five-minute 3-on-3 overtime periods, which fulfilled the same need as shootouts (but in an even better way): to ensure that the game didn’t end in 45 minutes, like…

I’m sure everyone will agree: 3-on-3 overtime is much more spectacular and enjoyable to watch than breakaways with no chase and no intensity whatsoever…

So why not extend them indefinitely and eliminate the shootout? We all agree that 3-on-3 overtime will never last 34 minutes.

We’d still be meeting the original need (to liven up the show, remove ties and ensure that regular-season games don’t last forever), but we’d be doing it in an even more optimal way than with shootouts. And with the time it takes to shovel snow and start shootouts, I’m pretty sure we’d even save time in the end.

Shootouts aren’t part of North American field hockey culture. It’s not like soccer, where they’ve been around for decades…

Where a game could take forever to finish if we didn’t have that…

And where reducing the number of players on the field wouldn’t make sense.

Field hockey shootouts have become flat. They bore me. I’ve seen them (and seen them again), Nick Suzuki’s two slow-motion feints.

(Credit: YouTube (screenshot))

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Besides, I don’t like to see programmed individual actions decide the outcome of a team game.

And for those of you who like breakaways, there are almost always two or three per overtime period anyway. You’ve already been served! And you’ll be served again at international competitions, where shoot-outs are part of the culture and here to stay, in my opinion.

Last month, we learned that several players wanted to see an end to shootouts in the NHL. I think we should listen to them; they know what they’re talking about.

The next time I take up my pen to call for changes in the NHL, we’ll collectively ask ourselves whether there aren’t too many outdoor games in the Bettman circuit these days. My indifference to Sunday’s game in Alberta has reached the same level as my indifference to the possible domestic politics of the various opposition parties in Burkina Fasso.

Too much is like not enough… and that takes all the magic out of it. Both on the outside ice and during the shoot-outs at the end of the match.

Three of the Canadiens’ nine games this season have ended in shootouts. And on three of those occasions, I found myself saying inwardly: I don’t want it; let’s go to 3-on-3 overtime.

In short

– Kane – > Bedar.

– Georges Laraque: a player who left his mark on Pierre Gervais. [BPM]

– Evan Bush and his family miss Montreal.

– A costly victory for the Texas Rangers

– James Harden traded in the middle of the night.