I don't think you'd have to try too hard to have every coach say that finding quality practice time is a problem for their teams throughout the NHL season. The shorter training camp and going to essentially two preseason games for veterans only exacerbated that.
I've talked to a few teams about how much practice they had in training camp, and it ranges from 13-15 days for the entirety of training camp. With four preseason games in there, plus 2-3 days off, you're down to 7-9 potential practice days to get ready for the season.
I think that's an uneasy thing for coaches to go through. It was a challenge to planning training camp.
Assuming that teams use the last two preseason games for the veterans to play, the other two preseason game days could be utilized as practice days for the group. But there is the challenge of having 55 players in training camp.
If coaches don't use the first three days for getting their NHL team together and practicing, then those practices are intermixed with those 55 guys.
There are some coaches that believe they need to get to their team right away during training camp, so that they can practice together and can implement systems and can get on the same page. Just having fewer of those days is an uneasy thing.
I was watching the Pittsburgh Penguins-Washington Capitals game Wednesday, and early in that game the Capitals got a 5-on-3 power play. The question that immediately pops into my brain is, “Have they practiced this yet?”
I'm sure they did, but how much?
When you're going over your training camp plan and you say you have seven days and you have 20 system things to get to, you start getting real tight on how many times you hit defensive zone coverage, how many times you hit forecheck, how many times you hit your tracking sort-out on line rushes against. It turns out to be not very many.
I think, as a result, through 100 games or so at the beginning of the season, we've seen a lot of scrambly play. We've seen a lot of goals against.
The Calgary Flames (5.40) and Vancouver Canucks (5.00) are allowing at least five goals per game. The Chicago Blackhawks (4.33), Los Angeles Kings (4.25) and the Philadelphia Flyers (4.00) are giving up at least four goals per game.
So we’re seeing more scoring and we’re seeing more breakdowns.
I hear that the world is saying that players come to training camp in good shape, but there is nothing like skating at an NHL pace. There's nothing like the physical contact and speed of playing in a game. No one is in shape for that, so you have to get up to that speed during training camp.
We’ve had seasons where we had shorter training camps before, such as following the lockout in 2012-13, which was cut to 48 games. So this is not the first time that something like this has happened.
But this is something that coaches will study and discuss with each other to use their experiences to possibly approach training camp differently next season.
Surprisingly, there's a lot of variation in teams' training camps. If you started Sept. 29, which was the first day of regular-season games, you might have been dealing with 6-7 practice days. If you were the Ottawa Senators and played your season opener Oct. 3, you probably had 11 practice days, and that's a lot different than six.
So different coaches had different scenarios and different situations, but training camp was short in previous seasons. There are so many things in a game in terms of your system and how you want your team to play and it's tough to get to it all.
Some coaches have taken the approach of they're going to learn as they go on, saying, "We're going to go do seven things, we're going to do seven things really well, and we'll get to the other things as the season goes on."
At this time last season, we talked about the importance of starts for teams and the precarious position you can get in right off the hop. We have teams that are in that position now.
The Flyers (0-5-2) haven't won a game yet and they're in a precarious position. The Flames (0-5-0) are in the same spot. The Kings (0-2-2) have a new coach in Peter Laviolette, a new system and they've allowed 17 goals in four games.
So there are teams in the midst of this scramble, in the midst of giving up a lot of goals and maybe not being on the same page that have found themselves in a tough spot.
I think this will work itself out. Again, teams don't get a ton of practice time in the NHL during the season, so they're going to have to make the most of the practice time that they do get to get back and stay on the same page with the group.
But having a slow start could make a difference at the end of the season.
