from Bruce Dowbiggin at the Globe and Mail,

The insights into modern hockey being produced online by hockey number crunchers such as behindthenet.ca , Thomas Drance, Tyler Dellow, Cam Charron, Kent Wilson, puckstopshere.com and our own James Mirtle (among many) almost never find an audience on HNIC, TSN, Sportsnet or other networks doing NHL coverage.

It’s a major failing. HNIC, TSN and Sportsnet do a decent job breaking down highlights, as Glenn Healy did Saturday, showing how a poor faceoff caused Colorado’s first goal against Edmonton. But like a traffic camera pointed at a single intersection it doesn’t tell you about traffic in the rest of the city.

So Saturday we had analyst Kelly Hrudey tell us that Jamie McGinn is fitting in really well on Colorado’s top line and Garry Galley saying that all of Montreal defenceman Andrei Markov’s goals have all come on the power play.

Does McGinn fit in better because he shoots more/ less? Is Markov’s goal split unusual? We weren’t told.

Not to pick on HNIC. It’s largely the same for TSN and Sportsnet where the business of hockey is exhaustively covered, and chalk talks about” fast starts” or “taking the crowd out of it” are numbingly repeated. Likewise, raw stats are recited.

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