A “hit” doesn’t have the clout it used to have in the National Hockey League.
“Hit” is the hockey vernacular for body check, and until recent years most coaches were convinced that hammering opponents incessantly was the best way to win hockey games. When Eddie Johnston coached the Blackhawks to a breakthrough season in 1979-80, one of his favorite cliches after a poor performance was: “We saw a no-hitter out there tonight.”
But Europeanization, experimentation and expansion have changed the way they play in the NHL.
Through Sunday, the New York Islanders had the worst record in the 30-team league. But the Islanders are No. 1 on the hit parade with 1,728. The individual leader with 241 in 52 games is Islander defenseman Zdeno Chara. Interestingly, Chara is a Czech who likes to body-check, another indication of how much the NHL has changed in the last 25 years. When Europeans were starting to trickle into the league, the stereotypical knock against them was that they didn’t do enough hitting.
Now, not only is a Czech the league-leading hitman, Russians are in second and third in the taking-the-body count. Then comes the top North American, Dan McGillis of Philadelphia, with 190 in 53 games.
But McGillis is hardly the second coming of Dave “the Hammer” Schultz when Philadelphia’s Broad Street Bullies won back-to-back Stanley Cups in the mid-1970s. And the Flyers aren’t the Broad Street Bullies anymore. They’re No. 23 in the hit column and they’re in the top third in deportment with an average of 13.5 minutes penalty minutes per game.
When the Hawks played their last home game Jan. 25, they were routed by the Flyers 5-1. But the Hawks outhit the winners 22-14.
Curt Fraser was considered an enforcer-type when he played for the Hawks. But as the coach of the Atlanta Thrashers, Fraser doesn’t subscribe to winning through intimidation.
“Last year St. Louis had the best record in the league and we were a first-year expansion franchise, but we had twice the hits that St. Louis had,” said Fraser. “The teams that have a lot of hits are chasing pucks and finishing checks.
“We want to play more of a puck-possession game. To me, zone time and winning faceoffs are far more important than hits.”
Now, Fraser’s team is No. 29 in hits … and before hitting a terrible slump in January was in position to make the playoffs.
“All you used to hear was: `You have to go out there and hit, hit, hit!'” reminisced Dallas’ Brett Hull, who played his first NHL game with Calgary in the 1986 playoffs. “They don’t have to. There are guys out there 6-5, 6-6, 6-7. You don’t have to tell them to hit–they’re so big they just bump into you.”
There still are some very good teams that also are among the top teams in the body-check category–Central Division runner-up Detroit is No. 3; Pacific Division runner-up Dallas is No. 4 and Pacific leader San Jose is No. 5.
“My first year of coaching as an assistant in Chicago [under Bob Murdoch in 1987] one of my jobs was to keep track of the hits,” recalled San Jose coach Darryl Sutter. “I found there was some correlation. At that time, 60 hits correlated with winning. That’s almost three per guy. We have guys now who don’t get three hits in a month.
“A lot of that was the Stadium–it was a smaller building and when you’re more confined you’re going to see more hits.
“Today you see a lot more containing and sealing. If you’re running around trying to hammer somebody, you won’t look good.”
Hawks coach Alpo Suhonen comes from Finland and brings a European perspective to the way the game should be played. He has de-emphasized the importance of hitting, so it’s no surprise to see the Hawks are 26th on the hit list and their individual leader, fourth-line winger Ryan VandenBussche, is in 116th place with 90.
“The main goal of hits and checking is to create the loose puck, not to kill somebody,” said Suhonen. “If you keep trying to intimidate that way you come to a point where it turns against you. It takes a lot out of you and you get tired.
“There’s a difference between Europe and North America. Here a lot of teams play hockey like football. Hockey is a different game; it’s not football. It’s a fine line–you need some checking, hitting and toughness, but the way you want to intimidate is by speed and puck control and playing strong defense.”
Hawks senior vice president Bob Pulford, who was an NHL coach and general manager for nearly 20 years, says the game today is light years removed from the game he played in Toronto and Los Angeles from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s.
“There’s more of a flow to the game,” Pulford observed. “There’s cycling in the offensive zone, which emphasizes puck possession, and the puck is moved so fast. There’s truth to what Curt Fraser is saying about zone time. It makes sense.
“I do think you still need to see some hits in a game. They show you’re in the game and that you’re trying.”
But what general managers, coaches and players see in the films often is something very different from what they see in the statistics. A hit in one building may not be a hit in another. The body-check count is made by the home team.
“It varies rink to rink,” said Hawks defenseman Stephane Quintal. “How many hits you’re credited with depends on where you play. When I was in New York with the Rangers, if you just brushed a guy you’d get credit for hit.”
The converse also is true, according to Hawks defenseman Kevin Dean. “In some rinks you have to almost kill a guy to get a hit,” he said.
“It’s subjective,” said Sutter. “And sometimes the statistics are just wrong. To me, hits are the most misleading statistic on the scoresheet.”
Longtime Chicago hockey fans who lament the lack of hitting by the Hawks might want to start checking out high school hockey games in the area. According to Grant Mulvey, the ex-Hawk player and former general manager of the Wolves, the obsession with hitting is very much in evidence at the high school level.
“If guys in the NHL and IHL hit as much and as hard as they do here in high school games, you wouldn’t be able to finish the season,” said Mulvey. “You wouldn’t have any players left.”
