Opem up baby

First, the title’s not a typo, it’s the title of a great Big Sugar song.

Now, some hockey thoughts.

On Tuesday night, I sat in $125 seats at the Saddledome here in Calgary to watch one of the worst hockey games in recent memory (huge thanks to Matt and Old Dutch chips for the ticket). Blues at Flames. Solid-defensive-team-with-great-coaching-making-strides-toward-being-a-good-club at Poor-defensive-team-making-strides-toward-firing-a-coach-they-never-should-have-hired. Even though my ticket was free, I still kinda want a refund.

Especially after watching the third period of the Oilers-Penguins tilt Wednesday night.

Memo to MacT: your team has the speed to skate with the Penguins. I saw it happen. Even better, despite allowing four third-period goals and blowing a 2-0 lead, your team played really well in the third period, and played great defensive hockey. The third period was wide open. It looked like the World Junior Championships. Both teams were up and down the ice. The Oilers stayed in their lanes, knocked down passes, and generally made good decisions without the puck. In fact, the Oilers played better team defense during the third period than the Penguins did. They lost because the Pens have more skill. But it sure was fun to watch.

I think there was one odd-man rush in the Blues-Flames game the night before.

It’s no secret I’m not a big fan of fighting in hockey, but the best part of the Blues-Flames game was a scrap between Dan Hinote (a SWS favourite) and Mark Smith (a scrub by any measure, other than the fact I really liked him when he was a Shark). These two middle-weights traded punches for 30 or 40 seconds, throwing bombs the whole time. It looked like a school-yard scrap-- and had all the energy of one, too. The full 60 minutes of playing time had all the energy of a funeral. Or your great-aunt’s fourth wedding.

I went to the game with non-hockey people. To illustrate: I explained icing to Matt’s girlfriend because Matt was unable to. They enjoyed it. They cheered for the goals (with umph!). They cheered for the hits, including a huge one by Robyn Regehr. They cheered for Mikka Kiprusoff’s big saves. And my buddy Jessie was throwing punches into the air with the same force and tenacity Hinote and Smith were throwing punches at one another during the fight. I sat stewing, lambasting the Flames’ poor defensive-zone coverage, noting the scoring chance created by Regehr being out of position, skewered the defense some more, and enjoyed the fight in the same way I enjoy my morning coffee. Clearly, I was a miser.

But I was looking for defensive breakdowns, and watching the finer points of the game, not allowing myself to enjoy the fun aspects of it-- despite the fact they’re so rare in today’s game.

That all went out the window watching the Oilers and Penguins skate like madmen. First, the Penguins trying to tie the game, then taking the lead; then the Oilers trying to tie the game. It really was wonderful, and we certainly won’t see the Flames open up and try to skate with Pittsburgh Thursday night.

Which brings us to this fan’s impassioned plea.

Let’s lose the defense-first hockey. The Senators, Rangers and Penguins (and to a lesser degree the Hurricanes) are all showing an offense-first style leads to wins-- lots of them. It helps to score more goals than the other team. The Sens are great defensively, partly by staying in their lanes and picking up their man, but mostly by having the puck more than their opposition does. The Rangers, Penguins and Hurricanes all do pretty well defensively, despite having relatively faceless defense corps. Despite Detroit’s careful attention to defense, they always outscore most of the league. The Anaheim Ducks didn’t out-defense the Senators last fall. They opened up, skated better, and stormed the net. In Chicago, highly-touted young defensemen Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook didn’t turn into Norris Trophy-winners in the off-season. The Hawks are winning games this season because they opened it up, and added some real high-end talent.

Imagine a Minnesota-Atlanta game featuring Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra trading scoring chances, and blazing down the wings every third shift with Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk and Marian Hossa replying for the Thrashers. Instead, these four world-class talents are reigned in, in favour of team defense.

How about Marc Savard and Tomas Vanek trading chances up and down the rink in an old Adams Division battle between Boston and Buffalo? Marco Sturm is a very defensively-responsible forward, thriving under Claude Julien in Boston. But he can skate like the wind, and would like as good riding shotgun with Savard in open ice as Max Afinogenov would with Vanek.

Calgary’s Jarome Iginla, Alex Tanguay and Kristian Huselius are much more formidable blazing from zone-to-zone than defending their own zone against Colorado’s equally gifted Joe Sakic, Milan Hejduk and Paul Statsny-- and vice versa. Columbus’ Nik Zherdev trading head-spinning shifts with Mike Modano of Dallas; Florida’s Olli Jokinen and Nathan Horton trading chances with L.A.’s Mike Cammalleri and Alex Frolov, with a dash of Rostislav Olesz and Anze Kopitar to taste; Alex Kovalev and Alex Radulov working stick-handling magic all the way from Montreal to Nashville and back; Patrik Elias bringing New Jersey’s new stadium to their feet night-in and night-out while Mike Richards and Dan Briere try to put them back in their seats-- elating the Philly faithful in the process; Mike Comrie ripping it up against his old Phoenix teammates, while rookie Peter Mueller tries to beat his future U.S. Olympic teammate Rick DiPietro. And the thought of Joe Thornton, Paul Kariya, Vinny Lecavalier, Mats Sundin, Markus Naslund and Alex Ovechkin running roughshod around the rinks in San Jose, St. Louis, Tampa, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington and all the way ‘round is the kind of thing the championship-starved fans in those cities (save for Tampa) deserve to see.

The biggest upshot of 22 more teams focusing their efforts on scoring goals rather than preventing them? More room on the ice for Eric Perrin, Bryan Little and Pascal Dupuis; Peter Schaefer, Phil Kessel and Glen Metropolit; Jochen Hecht, Ales Kotalik and Drew Stafford; Owen Nolan, Craig Conroy and Daymond Langkow; Marek Svatos, Tyler Arnason and Wojtek Wolski; Jason Chimera, David Vyborny and Jiri Novotny; Jussi Jokinen, Niklas Hagman and Antti Miettinen; Ville Peltonen, Stephen Weiss and Dickie Zednik; Dustin Brown, Derek Armstrong and Patrick O’Sullivan; Eric Belanger, Mikko Koivu and James Sheppard; Tom Plekanec, Chris Higgins and Andrei Kostitsyn; Radek Bonk, Martin Gelinas and Vernon Fiddler; Jay Pandalfo, Travis Zajac and Sergei Brylin; Josef Vasicek, Trent Hunter and Bill Guerin; R.J. Umberger, Scott Hartnell and Jeff Carter; Steven Reinprecht, Martin Hanzal and Radim Vrbata; Milan Michalek, Steve Bernier and Devon Setoguchi; David Perron, David Backes and Mike Johnson; Ryan Craig, Michel Ouelette and Jason Ward; Alex Steen, Chad Kilger and Boyd Devereaux; Ryan Kesler, Taylor Pyatt and Brad Isbister; Chris Clark, Brooks Laich and Tomas Fleischmann to play the offensive style they were meant to. Those 66 players would all be 20-to-30-to-40-goal scorers, and more importantly, house-hold names in a wide-open NHL.

But hey, the recently-fired Bob Hartley probably didn’t need another 90-odd goals; the Sabres probably don’t need another 90-odd goals this season after losing Dan Briere; the soon-to-be-fired Mike Keenan doesn’t need any more offense in Calgary; Dallas’ recent front-office shuffle couldn’t have been prevented by another 100 or so goals… you get the picture.