The NHL’s Bye-Week Woes
Im going to keep hammering it down everyone’s throat, the NHL’s bye-week is a problem.
It’s no secret by now, the bye-week has been a fail for the NHL. The Capitals in particular felt the bye-weeks impact, after two back-to-back losses.
It’s a great concept, an 82-game season is grueling on players. With the high level of intensity that players preform, no one is complaining about giving them a week off.
The problem with the bye-week though, comes in how the NHL has built their schedule.
Washington Capitals
With a whole-week off, games are now forced to be crammed together even more so than the past. It’s effectively done worse for player safety than what the NHL expected.
Through Sunday’s games, 20 teams have had their bye-week. Their record coming off the bye-week is a combined 4-12-4…gross.
Players are clearly out of it both mentally and physically in their return. The now condensed schedule doesn’t aid in getting the rust off either. Players are often forced into a slew of back-to-back games with little to no practice time in between.
Just as there is a recognizable drop-off in play on Thursday nights in the NFL, hockey after a bye-week is hard to watch. Offenses aren’t ticking per-usual and defenses are sloppy, to say the least.
According to Yahoo’s Greg Wyshynski, the current NHL average for goals scored per game by a team is 2.74. After the bye-week though, that number drops to 1.95 goals per game. Need I say more?
Coaches have taken a clear disliking to the bye-week for obvious reasons. Those guys are there to win games, and compete for a Stanley Cup. The bye-week has made that a tough task. Practices are key to a successful outcome in game, and it seems that less practice time are a coaches number one concern. Here are a few outtakes from coaches around the league:
“It feels like even less practice, fewer days than an Olympic year.” – Dan Bylsma, Buffalo Sabres
“We’ve had fewer practices than any time I’ve ever been a coach in this league.” – Bruce Boudreau, Minnesota Wild
“You’ve got so many games in such a short period of time and you’re jamming in more.”- Mike Babcock, Toronto Maple Leafs
“You’re in a situation where you go from full tilt on the treadmill — practice, games, competition, meetings, workouts — to nothing. To being on vacation, and even the players, as much as they try to eat well, try to keep themselves going, it’s different.” – John Hynes, New Jersey Devils
“Through the history of being around this team, it’s proven that rest is important and practices can be overrated.” – Joel Quenneville, Chicago Blackhawks
These guys are used to playing the game every day and touching the puck every day, and when you take them away from that, their timing, I think their game timing tends to establish a little bit of rust.” – Mike Sullivan, Pittsburgh Penguins
The bye-week is bound to stay, or at least some iteration of it.
So how can the bye-week be fixed? Some have suggested tacking on a day or two into the all-break. This would give the players participating some extra days to rest without having to worry about any hockey activities and stretch out other players’ vacations.
The most popular and likely scenario proposed by many, including Washington Capitals head-coach, Barry Trotz, involved scheduling team’s bye-weeks at the same time. Trotz reportedly sent a proposal to the NHL around this basis that groups of teams should have breaks at the same time, then return to play each other.
Trotz’s proposal will at least cancel out the imbalance in games played between those coming off breaks and those in the middle of a run. While the quality of play is expected to be very low, it will at least be a fair bout between two rested teams.
Next: Washington Capitals: Capitals Lose Second Straight Game
Wether or not we’ll see Trotz proposal come to fruition is up in the air. In the meantime, what do you think the NHL should do with it’s eye-week?