East Meets West

It's all about Nabokov

At the beginning of this playoff season, it was fascinating to watch the Sharks TV commentariat talk about Nabokov. 

Or rather how they talked about Niemi

Now with Niemi, the Sharks finally have that goaltending element they always missed.

At first, my reaction was: 

Shame on you for speaking ill of the dead

But then, well maybe we should speak ill of the dead.

Nabby was a good goalie. Not a great goalie. His save percentage wasn't great. Look at his record from the Internet Hockey Database:

2006-07	San Jose Sharks	NHL	50	0	6	2778	106	4	7	2.29	25	16	4	1121	0.914	11	0	0
2007-08	San Jose Sharks	NHL	77	2	12	4561	163	6	6	2.14	46	21	8	1639	0.910	13	0	0
2008-09	San Jose Sharks	NHL	62	1	12	3686	150	0	7	2.44	41	12	8	1513	0.910	6	0	0
2009-10	San Jose Sharks	NHL	71	0	6	4194	170	2	3	2.43	44	16	10	1998	0.922	15	0	0

Yes, his teams won a lot of games, but you can't really point to his goaltending as the reason. He was never an all star. He didn't get the Vezina trophy. If you look at his record 

He was a solid goalie. He would make the periodic great save. But game in and game out he never inspired confidence in the same way that Carey Price or Pekka Rinne did this year. 

I even borrowed a term for his periodic brain farts "The Evgeni Nabokov Freebie" (ENF) that more or less guaranteed that the Sharks would have to score at least one more goal than if he didn't have his brian fart. 

Don't believe me, read this piece on a great goaltending blog on last year's playoffs: 

Why the lesson in vision, you ask? For Evgeni Nabokov, three crucial goals allowed in his last two games were a direct result of losing sight of the puck on plays below the goal line or in his crease. These goals were momentary flaws in an otherwise awesome playoff run, but they still shed light on an area of weakness in Nabokov’s game.

If you don't believe me on brain farts consider the number of shutouts he got over the last four years. In 99 games, Niemi got 13 shutouts whereas Nabokov had 10 shutouts over 133 games. And in the playoffs, Niemi had two shutouts to Nabby's 0. 

And then there were the playoffs. 

There was the 2009 playoffs where Jonas Hiller playing out of his mind beat the Sharks. Then there was the 2010 playoffs where Craig Anderson almost beat the Sharks, only to be beaten by, yes you got it, Niemi. For crying out loud, in the 2008 playoffs, Niemi made Marty Turco look like the kind of goalie that could win the cup. 

 

When Niemi started the season, I tweeted: I want Nabby back. And I was probably not alone. But that's why I am a fan and the GM of a hockey team.

Nabokov was ill equiped to be the kind of goalie that wins in the Stanley Cup. He needs to see the shot. In the new NHL the whole offense is geared towards hiding the shot. What you need is defensemen who can block shots, and have a goalie who is comfortable being in the general area of the puck and then dealing with the fallout after the shot. 

Again from my favorite blog: 

 

Not so for a goaltender. They must be so attuned to the puck’s movement that even the most sudden bounces must be stopped. Juicy rebounds off lively back-plates, crazy caroms off the glass, deflections, re-directions, hard shots from bad angles – it doesn’t matter. If the goalie sees the puck, he must effectively make saves, control rebounds, recover quickly and be ready for the next shot. (*1)

The most difficult area on the ice for pro goalies to keep their eyes on the puck is below their goal line. No matter how hard a goalie tries, their eyes must detach from the puck, at some point, in order to turn their head from side to side. This is a fleeting but crucial moment for the goalie, as they must work extremely hard to re-attach their eyes to the puck as quickly as possible. If they fail to see a pass being made from behind the net, they are forced to guess on shots. As a result, they have to depend on instinct to make the save, instead of solid positioning and awareness.

 

Nabokov couldn't deal with that chaos at the elite level needed to win. 

He wanted his defensemen to never block shots. Once, infamously, cross checking Jason Demers because Demers wouldn't get out of his field of view.

The Sharks were forced to play a style of defense that tried to overcome the limitations of their goalie while the rest of the NHL was optimizing how to score goals on goalies who had those limitations. 

Niemi doesn't have Nabby's grace. Niemi is nowhere near as colorful an interview. Niemi will never cross check a rookie defenseman. Watching Niemi stop shots you are reminded of a the tasmanian devil. 

But that's what being a great goalie in the NHL is about these days. Positioning for the tip in. Being able to deal with the chaos. Not about seeing the shot. 

I don't know if Niemi will win a second cup this year (sort of the anti-hossa curse), but for some reason when the game is on the line, I have confidence Niemi will find a way to stop the shots and win. That no matter what the goal will not go in, a confidence I didn't have with Nabby between the pipes. 

 

 

Pittsburgh Outplayed Montreal Everywhere Except the Crease - So what?

An open letter to the stats heads who dismissed Montreal's performance as luck. 

So Pavelski scoring 8 goals over a 4 game series is OK but Halak playing great is not? 

There seems to be, almost as an article of faith, that winning with Great Goaltending is luck.

This, to be blunt, is a side effect of the statistical analysis you are so desperately fond of. 

So before I go into my tirade, let me observe, that sabermetrics, and the analytical study of baseball is a hobby of mine. The 1986 baseball abstract opened my eyes to how you can use numbers to analyse how players performed. It served as a starting point for my own personal investigation into how existing numbers could be used to understand hockey. The last several years I have continued to be impressed with how we've acquired a deeper understanding of how the sport works. 

But.

The problem with the current form of crude statistical analysis (Corsi et al) is that they do not account for the goaltender. If the goaltender was equalized then Corsi et al is a valid measure of who will win and who will lose. The problem with Corsi obsessed analytics (and all of their derivatives) is that they assert a goaltender who stops more than his fair share of shots is lucky. For Corsi obsessed analysts, a goalie who outperforms norms is by definition lucky. And any team that relies on such a goalie is doomed to failure. 

And thus we have this year's final with two teams where the goalies were vying for the title of biggest goat.

Halak's record when being outshot over two seasons is surreal. His record this year was phenomenal. And because it can not be explained it must be luck. And the reason Corsi et al hate goaltending is that they view relying on extraordinary athletic performances as a poor way to guarantee wins. Because Corsi says over the whole season everyone will play well and badly at times so on aggregate things will balance out. So if you have a good Corsi team then, guess what, you are more likely to win because your reliance on any one player goes down.

And relying on goaltending seems to be the exact opposite. It says screw the aggregate, I am going to rely on the particular. And guess what all of the analytical models in the world won't help you figure out why X did Y at time T. Which is why I love sports. Because guess what, the analytics don't allow you to know what will happen.

And that's why Corsi fans don't get the playoffs. They believe that the playoffs are luck because statistical anomalies can happen. And so they dismiss the term playoff performer. Because the sample set is too small etc. 

But this was about JM's coaching. The theory goes that the Habs should have played X or Y or Z style of hockey because it would have produced better results. 

Better than what? That's the part that drives me nuts. Better statistical results? Or better than an ECF performance? Seriously? Did you actually believe they could make it as far as they did playing some other system? I didn't. 

You don't like his passive system? Neither do I. But I'm not sure I care about Corsi. What I care about is whether players are performing to their expected norms. And the reality is that they were. 

This fan base will not tolerate the kind of team we created. But the kind of team we created relies on excellent goaltending opportunistic forwards, tough-as-nails dman and a smattering of transition cable d-men. Which is ironic because our choice of Price over Kopitar more or less sealed our strategy. Look at the end of the day the goal is to score more goals than the other guy. If you do it by stopping more shots or by getting more shots than the other guy is irrelevant. What's relevant is the number that go in. 

But what drives me, especially, nuts is that everyone must have forgotten JM's teams in Ottawa. They weren't passive. They were exactly the kind of Corsi optimized teams you love. So it's not his style. Maybe it's his team... It is easier to win if you don't have to rely on a single player ... but relying on a single player, especially if he's your goaltender isn't that bad. 

Now as for the left-wing lock and Philadelphia. The team was wiped. And Philly was not. Yes the left-wing-lock was hard to break through, but it's especially hard to break through if you're tired. There is a reason no team has won the cup after playing two straight seven game series. There is only so much gas in the tank. If you want to blame coaching that's fine. But until we have an energy bar metric, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Montreal was wiped. The effort necessary to beat Pittsburgh and Washington was too much. Maybe it's because I've seen way too much cycling. Watch it enough, and you can see when an athlete cracks. It's not pretty.

In short, Corsi and Chances discount goaltending, the team was tired and got beat by a team that wasn't, and finally JM was exploiting Halak's incredible performance, and that maybe given how everyone else was playing that wasn't a bad thing. 

cheers, 

kostadis

They cracked.

In cycling, there is nothing more tragic than watching a cyclist crack. It's that moment where the cyclist is powering up a hill, minutes away from an amazing triumph, and then all of a sudden, it all falls apart.

His pedaling becomes labored.

His body which seemed so light on the bike now looks like a sack of potatoes slumped ungainly over the top tube.

His eyes which seemed so full of poise look lost.

And it's a sad moment. But when that happens, at that moment you know that this guy who was about to win, is no longer going to win.

 

Phil Liggett will say: So-and-so-and-so has cracked "... his legs have turned to rubber and his effort reduced to mere survival." Can he find a way to win?

Typically Phil's side-kick will say something like: I don't know Phil, so-and-so looks broken to me.

And Phil will say: What a wonderful ride by so-and-so but I have to agree with you, I don't think he can recover. He's a broken man.

And then the announcers quickly focus on the guys who will win. They are the guys who pedal past this broken man. And you look at this guy, who for a moment flirted with glory, and then quickly forget him as well.

I used to think that this is a property of cycling. But it’s a property of hockey teams as well. There is this moment, where what was easy, suddenly becomes hard. All of a sudden, what was simple suddenly becomes complicated. And it’s not that they other guy is better than you, it’s that you just lost it. You broke. And when you collectively break, it’s like the guy who breaks in cycling, at that moment you know all is lost.

And it’s sad when that happens.

But it has an aura. A stench. A smell. And right now the Montreal Canadiens are suffused with that stench and smell.

So it will be easy to say that the Flyers were better (which they were), because they had better drafting etc. And it will be easy to blame Timmins. And it will be easy to blame Gainey.

But the reality is that our heroes broke. And when you break, there is nothing, and I mean nothing that can put you back together.

Hawks whup the sorry Canadian, American, Russian and Swedish asses

I called the series: Hawks in five. Not because I believed the Hawks couldn't sweep, but because a sweep is such a hard thing to do. You need to be both better and  lucky. A better team will occasionally lose to a worse team, because of luck. So I figured San Jose would win a game because the Universe works that way.

I was wrong.

Sweep.

Now it's easy to say: Choke etc, but the reality was that a San Jose victory would have been an upset. This Hawks team is a great team. They are a well put together team, consisting of some great players on offense and on the blue line. There is little to be said about them other than they are the best team in the NHL this year. 

And this is with one of their best players, playing like crap, Hello Mr. Hossa. 

All season long the Hawks dominated the Sharks, not in the "ah shawks" dominate, but in the "I'll whup your sorry skinny Canadian, American, Russian and Swedish asses up and down the ice, and then whup them some more" kinda dominate.

When I saw the Hawks outplay everyone last year and not make it to the finals I was worried, because I knew they would get much, much better this year. And they did.

So Bravo, and here's hoping that miserable streak finally gets broken (unless Montreal pulls a rabbit out of it's hat and makes it to the finals...)

Hawks 4 Sharks 2: Little Joe

The playoffs are a like a great game of chess. Each move is countered with another move.

In the first game the second line had chances but couldn't bury them. In the second game, the second line got buried.

Not because they didn't try, but because, well to be honest, the Hawks are the better team.

In the post-lockout NHL a defensive corps is key to winning. And I love Blake, but he and Murray are not Keith and Seabrook. To be blunt, Campbell would have been our top defenseman and he's Chicago's #3 guy.

Yes Nabby played not-so-great, but you are not going to win many games scoring 1 or 2 goals a game.

I have hope, that the Sharks will let me see them one last time, but not too much hope. 

Tue 18 May 18:59:53	Round 3 game 2 sharks hawks
Tue 18 May 19:03:27	Happy thoughts! Only happy thoughts....
Tue 18 May 19:04:21	Sharks music sucks. More than usual.
Tue 18 May 19:06:27	Crowd goes nuts...
Tue 18 May 19:08:14	Oh what the hell. If its the last game we mogjt as well cheer
Tue 18 May 19:12:22	Can the sharks win? Can Antti play as well..
Tue 18 May 19:15:16	Keith can you stop being so good?
Tue 18 May 19:15:40	Keith is a beast
Tue 18 May 19:19:32	Chess match begins,
Tue 18 May 19:19:54	Antti halak
Tue 18 May 19:21:49	Antti is playing too well.
Tue 18 May 19:27:03	Sharks did not score. Lots of shooting no Goal....
Tue 18 May 19:28:25	Shots 7-1.. Lots of chances. No goals. Worried.
Tue 18 May 19:31:35	shot to the top right corner.... Happy thought.
Tue 18 May 19:36:33	No Pavs no Heatly we lose
Tue 18 May 19:36:37	Ech. Refing is like one long makeup call
Tue 18 May 19:38:01	Maybe to inspire Heatly or to remind us?
Tue 18 May 19:39:20	now the hawks aren't even trying anything bit shoot from outside
Tue 18 May 19:40:12	Big board showing best of Heatly.
Tue 18 May 19:42:32	shots 10-9 and the hawks are dominating
Tue 18 May 19:43:14	Play has gotten choppy
Tue 18 May 20:04:34	Pavs is struggling
Tue 18 May 20:05:13	Wallin having issues... Happy thought
Tue 18 May 20:06:12	Has the second period acquired stoopid people...
Tue 18 May 20:07:11	Sharks are becoming stoopider.
Tue 18 May 20:11:49	Sharks fans are sux
Tue 18 May 20:13:35	The sharks are playing poorly but the Refs are using this as a big makeup.
Tue 18 May 20:19:01	Sharks pp... This game is over.
Tue 18 May 20:21:22	Not Heatly day
Tue 18 May 20:22:23	Pretty goal! Marleau
Tue 18 May 20:31:20	Sharks are struggling to push back
Tue 18 May 20:32:11	Some push
Tue 18 May 20:37:18	Too many idiots
Tue 18 May 20:54:01	Go sharks!
Tue 18 May 21:01:11	Hawks are very impressive.
Tue 18 May 21:02:43	Huskins got undressed, wow.
Tue 18 May 21:07:57	Okay now its official the game Refing is a joke.
Tue 18 May 21:09:06	Slashing on a faceoff
Tue 18 May 21:12:16	What will the Zebradonkeys do next
Tue 18 May 21:12:44	oh well... feels like a better team is here...si
Tue 18 May 21:18:37	last home goal of the season!
Tue 18 May 21:21:37	At least they pushed, done by 3 they still pushed.
Tue 18 May 21:23:35	Zebradonkeys ended this game on a holding call.
Tue 18 May 21:24:16	Oh well.
Tue 18 May 21:26:15	No retreat no surrender
Tue 18 May 21:27:40	Second line is being shut down.
Tue 18 May 21:29:06	Big scrum.
Tue 18 May 21:34:00	The big pavelski has become little joe

What if the problem isn't the Habs but Corsi?

In the new NHL, the ability to have a top goaltender and a top defensive pairing and a top offensive pairing and have 21 players is quite limited. There is simply not enough money to go around.

Ken Holland, of the Detroit Red Wings, recognizing that he has the greatest defenseman of his era, in Nicholas Lindstrom, and a set of great forwards constructed a team that did not require a great goaltender.

Like Team Canada, the role of the Wings goalie wasn't to win games, the role of that goaltender was to be good enough to not lose games.

This is an important point.

Because the adherents of Corsi have lead us to believe that it's about how many offensive opportunities you get because every goalie is created equally bad. 

Look it's not insane. More shots, equals more opportunities. The more opportunities, the more likely you are to get a goal.

And if you want to construct a great team, you look at other great teams, and historically great teams outshot their opponents. 

So Corsi was born. And the theory was that any team that got outshot and won was lucky because you could not get consistently out-chanced and still win.

Now let's add another layer to the theory.

Modern goalies simply can not be scored on if they can see the shot. They are that good. They benefit from extra light equipment, tremendous agility and a tactical style that isn't about playing the angles but creating openings that they close down. 

This isn't about squaring yourself with the shooter, it's about out-thinking the other guy. 

Suppose you're JM sitting on two great goalies in Halak and Price. And suppose you have a very immobile defense that can clog up the slot.

So here's an interesting strategy you may choose to pursue. Instead of trying to stop the other guys from taking a shot, how about you stop the other guy from passing across the slot. You make the half-board offensive play useless. 

That means you force the other guy to take shots from the point, and set up people for deflections down low. 

That strategy then produces a lot of shots, but mostly are useless in terms of scoring opportunities unless the guys trying to score can setup for a deflection. 

You take away the rebounds, you take away movement across the slot and then? Why then you have a lot of shots but not many scoring opportunities. 

If you're a Corsi adherent, this creates an impossibility, a team that is winning while outshot. 

And therefore it must be blind luck.

I'll contend that perhaps something is going on here that we don't understand and the right answer is to look deeper. Montreal has won too many games while being horribly outshot for luck to be the ONLY answer.

Hawks 2 Sharks 1: Round Three and Keith Showed Up

Game 1, Round 3, Fight. Unfortunately although both teams showed up, the Hawks D outwitted the Sharks goalies and forwards. Although you can't claim that the Sharks had no chances, the reality is that Keith and Seabrook were there stopping any realistic chance from emerging.

Will the Sharks prevail? I'm already on the record saying no, and nothing I saw today changes that. The Hawks are the best team in the NHL still playing and I expect them to win the cup. 

Unless the Sharks discover an extra gear, Hawks in five. 

Sun 16 May 11:29:16	Sharks hawks round 3 FIGHT
Sun 16 May 11:33:44	More drool cloths!
Sun 16 May 11:38:19	sharks and hawks couple. Guy shouts if hawks Win no sex for a month.
Sun 16 May 12:05:54	Atti vs Nabby
Sun 16 May 12:11:43	Very few clips from hawks vs sharks...
Sun 16 May 12:12:43	worst musical opening ever!
Sun 16 May 12:13:14	No pp... too many shorthanded goals...
Sun 16 May 12:16:25	Round 3!!!!!
Sun 16 May 12:17:52	Mitchell gets opening faceoff? Huh?
Sun 16 May 12:20:59	Okidoki... First 3rd round I cared about since 1993
Sun 16 May 12:24:42	Almost in after a soupy turnover ... Sharks pp keep
Sun 16 May 12:29:38	Both teams are nervous.
Sun 16 May 12:31:05	Please let soupy choke
Sun 16 May 12:31:21	Thornton won a foot race
Sun 16 May 12:31:56	Sharks pp let three good shorthanded opportunity for hawks. not good
Sun 16 May 12:34:39	joe is skating hard... I wonder
Sun 16 May 12:37:09	Hawks are big... Very big
Sun 16 May 12:39:33	Vlassic step away from byfugliest
Sun 16 May 12:41:18	byfuh two mins for interference and Boyle scores on a weak shot.
Sun 16 May 12:41:50	Nope it was Demers...
Sun 16 May 12:44:33	Antti let in a weak goal
Sun 16 May 12:46:29	Both teams are playing disjointedly
Sun 16 May 12:49:35	The Zebradonkeys got a call right? I thought mitchell was getting the goalie interference
Sun 16 May 12:54:09	Sharks on pp against a great pK... interesting thornton on point
Sun 16 May 12:54:24	Their top line is good.
Sun 16 May 12:56:00	This game feels like chess.
Sun 16 May 13:15:34	did Pavs use his luck up in round 1?
Sun 16 May 13:17:19	Wallin is playing like crap.
Sun 16 May 13:20:08	Antti is playing better.
Sun 16 May 13:20:27	Hawks came out playing well.
Sun 16 May 13:22:06	Not good. Antti is playing well ... Seabrook is doing well
Sun 16 May 13:25:59	Crowd is tense.
Sun 16 May 13:28:12	Ouch. Nabby. Enf. Ouch.
Sun 16 May 13:32:01	Fewest goaltending mistakes wins.
Sun 16 May 13:36:58	Hawks took over last little bit
Sun 16 May 13:38:39	Hossa stripped thornton amazingly
Sun 16 May 13:43:01	Seabrook is a beast.
Sun 16 May 13:45:50	Hawks play really good pK...
Sun 16 May 13:46:46	Antti is playing too well.
Sun 16 May 13:51:09	Sharks pushed back...
Sun 16 May 14:19:09	Sharks have Outshot hawks 17-5 over the last little bit
Sun 16 May 14:22:51	A 5-0 push by hawks
Sun 16 May 14:26:29	Sharks... And hawks are good teams...
Sun 16 May 14:27:51	Sharkie needs to go back to go sharks!
Sun 16 May 14:29:19	Keith and seabrook are beasts.
Sun 16 May 14:32:37	Oh well. Down by one...
Sun 16 May 14:36:24	Mech. Sharks played well. But Antti and his backups seabrook and keith are killing us
Sun 16 May 14:37:54	Fans stunned silent.
Sun 16 May 14:38:26	I mean anything is possible but still.
Sun 16 May 14:43:26	6on4
Sun 16 May 14:44:07	Great game.
Sun 16 May 14:44:41	Time out san jose.
Sun 16 May 14:46:05	And the clock struck twelve on Pavs.
Sun 16 May 14:46:56	Wow. Not over yet. but harder.

Rock Paper Scissors or why the habs are not lucky.

The Habs defeat of the Penguins was astonishing. The Habs defeat of Washington was astonishing.

To the statistically and mathematically inclined, the answer, the only answer must have been luck.

Let me make a couple of observations.

1. Halak's record when he gets 40+ shots is 15-0-1.

2. Montreal's record when they win is to consistently get out shot

3. Teams that are losing tend to get more shots than teams that are winning.

The problem, and I believe it is the crux of the problem, is that the mathematically inclined are focused on balanced teams. A creature that no longer exists in the NHL.

I also believe that the mathematically inclined are looking at top-teams, all of which have BAD goaltending. And using their analytical tools are expecting all good teams to be the same. In other words, the statistics are bad because they are using the data in the wrong way.

A balanced top-team would never get out shot as consistently as the Habs. But in the new NHL, there is no such thing as a balanced team. It's like a game of rock-paper-scissors. Your weakness and strength played against his weakness and strength.

The Habs strength is it's goaltending. uniquely among the teams they played, their Goaltenders are actually MORE talented than the bulk of their defense. The Habs defensive strength is it's basic immobility and reach. They can't fly out of the d-zone but they can control the d-zone with their reach.

In that context, it actually makes sense to play a style that relies on the goaltending to play well and rely on your defense to make it hard to make plays that force the goaltender to be out of position.

Watch Hal Gill on a 5-3 and you understand why Halak looks brilliant. You can't make a pass through the slot. It's not actually possible. His body is 6+ feet and his stick is another 6+ feet. There is NO space.

So the strategy is to let teams shoot, but not let them move the puck across the slot area or to set up in the slot.

The last four goals against Montreal were goals set up in the slot as a deflection. This is not by accident. There were no bang-bang plays that criss-crossed the zone. The best scoring chances involved Crosby and Malkin taking the puck themselves to the net. Crosby's best chance occured on a Gil powerplay.

JM has a plan and it's working.

Giving credit to the other guy

Granted, the Bruins did choke, but you have to give credit to the other guy.

And this video does that.

Because the other guy has to want to take take both hands and place them on your throat. And the Flyers, and Pronger did just that.

Maybe the reason Joe choked is Boston not the other way around?

Today we stand on the precipice of a new era. The era that begins with the phrase, "The last time a team came back from a 3-0 deficit in the playoffs was 2010". This team, this group, will forever be immortalized by announcers, and fans who cling to whimsical fate that it is possible to recover from a 3-0 deficit.

And as I stare at this collapse, and consider it's mirror from last year -- where a much better team went down 3-1 before losing in game 7 to Carolina, I wonder, I just wonder:

Maybe the problem with Jumbo Joe was that he spent too much time in BOSTON? Maybe the problem is that Boston is a place where hockey players go to learn how to choke.

Consider the 1971 Bruins, the long legacy of failure in Baseball, perhaps the problem is Boston, not the players.  

This wasn't a collapse for the ages, it was THE collapse for the ages. 

Up 3-0 in the series, up 3-0 in the first period, they managed to lose on a TOO MANY MEN ON THE ICE penalty.

It doesn't get more ridiculous than that.

Having said all of that, the reason this series was possible was because of the team's in question. Great teams don't lose 4 straight games. It just doesn't happen. But these are two crappy teams. One lousy injury and a four game losing streak can happen.

The fact that the Flyers beat an injury depleted squad of a team that had problems playing all year long, means nothing about the Flyers. It means nothing about the Bruins. Except, as of this moment, the phrase "Too Many Men on the Ice" becomes meaningful for a whole new generation of Bruins fans....