Taking a quick diversion from baseball...I just watched the Pittsburgh Penguins win game seven of the Stanley Cup finals with the worst game plan I've ever seen. Based on the one hockey game I saw this year, the coach of the Penguins, the coach of the Stanley Cup champs, ought to be fired.
The Pens battled with Detroit for a period and a half, created two critical turnovers and converted them both for a 2-0 lead. The Penguin coach then decided that his team should try to run out the clock. For the next 30 minutes of hockey, the Penguins simply played defense. Anytime they got the puck, they whacked it the other way.
In the third period, Pittsburgh went seven-and-a-half minutes before they had possession of the puck in Detroit's zone. It involved one skater and lasted four seconds. It was nine-and-a-half minutes -- half the period -- before a Pittsburgh defenseman set foot on Red Wing ice. Otherwise, the Wings deluged Marc-Andre Fleury.
The Detroit goal, which came with six minutes left, was inevitable. Did the Pittsburgh coach not understand that the best defense is running a play inside the other team's blue line? That the clock ran out on the defending champs does nothing to diminish the culpability of the Penguin coach.
We can't test this proposition, but I make it anyway: Had the game lasted another period, the Red Wings would have won by at least two goals. A team can sit on a lead just so long.
In a way, this game was a microcosm of an NHL season. The game announcers mentioned that the two teams had begun this season eight months ago. Apparently they believe that is a testament to the teams' perseverance. It is instead an indictment of a league that has ruined its sport. A meaningless regular season that filters out only the most horrible teams and utterly fails to establish any hierarchy going into the playoffs is followed by an interminable playoff season that ends a week before the summer solstice.
Ridiculous. In every way.
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