Slowly but surely, hockey strategy is evolving. Modern rosters are optimized to find hidden value and complementary skillsets. Speed and puck movement are at the heart of scoring, more than grit and sticktoitiveness. The players are eating unwholesome amounts of boiled chicken.
And in Winnipeg, they’re pulling the goalie in the first period.
With 2.9 seconds left in the first period of Sunday’s game, Minnesota goalie Filip Gustavsson froze the puck. Huge mistake. Consulting, I assume, with stats nerds, Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel chose to pull goalie Connor Hellebuyck for the ensuing faceoff in the Wild zone.
Scarcely one second after the draw, Mark Scheifele had hit the back of the net for his fourth goal of the young season.
The primary assist belongs to Adam Lowry, the winner of the faceoff.
“I like the mindset that you’re going to push, you’re going to go for it,” Lowry told the Toronto Star. “You put a little bit of risk, but it’s a calculated risk.”
Minnesota Wild head coach John Hynes admitted Winnipeg’s gambit was a reach. “It doesn’t happen often, but I think if you look at it, it was really kind of just a bang-bang play.
“So if that faceoff didn’t go clean right back and set on it, it doesn’t do it. Probably 99 percent of the time, if a guy like [Ryan Hartman] goes down to block it, it gets blocked. It was a well-executed play, and it worked out.”
Sorry to use a video game term, but the meta is changing. Actually, I’m not sorry. At least I didn’t use the word Chel.
THE JETS PULLED THEIR GOALIE WITH 2.8 SEC TO GO IN THE FIRST AND SCORED WITH THE EMPTY NET LIKE THEY WERE PLAYING CHEL 🫨 pic.twitter.com/TJj0MLmJRu
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) October 13, 2024
I’m not sure where Chel, which refers to the NHL video game series, sits on the RMNB Style Guide, but I know for a fact that Ian has a copy of the new one. Competitive NHL gamers are fiends for optimization, leveraging any tiny opportunity to fractionally improve their odds of winning. For example, pulling the goalie for a late-period offensive draw.
In any case, on the strength of their gamer move, the Jets won. They’re now 3-0-0 this season. And their game-tying goal augurs a new generation of hockey where the big decisions are made – and I’m definitely making this up – by the most reviled group of people on the internet: Gamers.
