Quote:Written Task: We've all seen the lacrosse goals, the attempts to flick the puck over the back of the net and in-- but these are few and far between. It might even be a stretch to call those things "trick plays." The only actual trick play I can think of off the top of my head is Ted Nolan pulling one over on Team Canada at the 2014 Olympics. That said, you almost never see this kind of thing happen in the NHL. Why not? Is there a lack of creativity in the game? Is it just too complicated without enough payoff? Why do you think we don't see much of this coaching style in hockey, and would you like to see more of it? (150+ words).

I think the biggest reason is that there's a high amount of priority placed on the safest play. Let's use an example. If you have a player screaming in alone on a breakaway, do you go for a trick shot with a high chance of being spectacular on the small chance that it works, or do you go with the tried and true forehand backhand deke? Sure, you love to see creative goals and they make great highlight reel fodder but it’s hard to swallow the heat you’d get as a player if you squandered a chance to even the game all for a chance to get fancy.

I think it comes down somewhat to culture. Hockey is a very conservative sport in its behavior and expectations of players. There isn’t a huge appetite for flamboyance and drama on the individual level. I do genuinely think this hurts hockey’s potential for entertainment, and on a strategic level this restricted kind of thinking may be keeping coaches back from finding ingenious solutions to tried and tested situations with little to no chance of succeeding.

As an example to end this prompt, consider the following: I remember Patrick Roy was a big instigator in changing head coaches’ mentality of when to pull the goalie. You had this guy that would empty his net with three or four minutes left in the third, with the norm being a minute and change. Why? Because it’s common to run out of time when trying to even the game up. Pull the goalie early, and you at least give yourself some leeway when it comes to the clicking clock. It’s fine if the other team scores on you; they could very well have anyway. But at least you lessen the chance of the attack petering out due to the buzzer sounding. That is something of a trick shot in that it’s a creative deviation from the norm, and one I think that has a lot of merit.