Wild in spin mode

I have been following this story on the Internet and it appears that the Wild are trying to remake their present image and seem to be getting defensive when people call them a boring defensive minded team that lives and dies by the trap. So recently it appears that the Wild management is in full spin mode like a political campaign. I guess they are taking offense to some fans saying that the Wild as semi boring, with little or no offense, trapping defensive minded team is a relatively accurate description of the Minnesota Wild. It is not like the Wild were tearing the league up offensively last season and were ranked 18th over all goal scoring. The Wild are going to be hard pressed to score as goals next season, as the Minnesota Wild lost 113 points from the line up.

Myth Crackers: Popular NHL myths split wide open
By Tom Lynn--Myth #2: The “Trap” was created by Jacques Lemaire in the mid-1990s to stifle offense from either team and allow weaker teams to beat more skilled ones

Like the old cliché, this myth needs no introduction. Media and message boards connected with the Wild’s opponents have whipped this one up like the Red Scare of the 1950s. It even has some high priests among a cell of the Twin Cities media who need MapQuest to find downtown St. Paul. Unfortunately for them, this myth is more similar to the paranoia of “The War of the Worlds” than the West’s reaction to the threat of the Soviet’s Fifth Column.

The most popular version of this legend has the New Jersey Devils introducing the trap during the lockout-shortened 1994-95 NHL season. The Devils won the Stanley Cup that year, and the tag of a defensive, un-offensive (as opposed to inoffensive) team was stuck to them. Somehow, it mattered not that the Florida Panthers used an even more stifling version of the same defense to reach the Stanley Cup Finals the next season, or that the Lemaire-coached Devils were second in the League in OFFENSE to Detroit at the end of the 1993-94 season. Hence, the trap could not prevent a team utilizing it from being high-scoring, unless the NHL Guide and Record Book has an enormous misprint. However, the convenience of a negative and simple myth to explain to the faithful how one of the “new” teams could dominate over the traditional powers gave this one momentum for many years to come.

One legendary player’s view of it: “We played this system all the way up to pro. Centres forechecked, wingers peeled off with wingers, and the defensemen stood up at the blue line and crunched whomever. The system won championships and Stanley Cups. Much later, this system became lionized as the ‘trap….” This debunks the second part of the myth -- that it was invented in 1994 by Jacques Lemaire. These words were from Carl Brewer, referring to the hiring of Punch Imlach as coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1957! The Leafs rode this detested defense to three straight Stanley Cups from 1962 to 1964. Unknown to its local media, the “Golden Age” of the Leafs was not all flying pucks and 7-6 scores. The only thing more awkward in Toronto may be that a team owned by the Province’s teachers is spelled incorrectly.

But the story does not end there. Faithful followers of this blog will recall that the Montreal Canadiens, the “Flying Frenchmen,” won four Stanley Cups in a row from 1976 to 1979, employing a similar defensive scheme and, gasp, leading the NHL in goals-against in each championship year. The only thing left for those clinging to this myth is the lure of Europe -- for sure those flashy, skilled, non-physical European teams playing in big rinks would never fall for such a defensive scheme -- where their work on the ice is pure artistry, improv theater, jazz as sport. Unfortunately, the truth once again gets in their way. Those famed Russian teams of the early '70s convinced the Montreal Canadiens hierarchy to adopt the Left Wing Lock defensive scheme that was part of the groundwork for their looming dynasty. Yes, it was those famed “Flying Russians” that conceived the neutral zone defensive systems of today.

It would be great to watch the Olympics played every year, but the harsh reality of a regular season game on a Wednesday night in Germany is that neither team will forecheck, hanging back in a dump-and-chase war of attrition that is geared to a 1-0 victory as the perfect game. The larger ice surface scares coaches from letting their charges wander far; the players are instructed to bunch up in front of the same 60x45x20x45 trapezoid in front of the net that goals in any hockey game are scored from. Even a game on a completely frozen Mille Lacs would face the same reality -- no matter how big the ice, if you defend the 45 feet or so in front of your net and have good goaltending, it will be exceedingly difficult for the other team to score.

Well, it looks like we killed two birds with one stone -- the history of the “trap” and the idea that more goals would result from more ice surface far from the net. We’ve cracked this myth like a dollar-store safe. We'll be back with another edition, where critical thinking rules, soon enough.