from Frank Seravalli and Steve Dryden of TSN,

The average even-strength shift length in the NHL is down to 44 seconds, significantly lower than the nearly 57-second average when the league first began keeping individual on-ice data in 1998.

The tempo of today’s game has shifted to the point that players – some of the most finely tuned physical specimens in the world – can only go that fast for that long.

“You can definitely tell the speed has increased,” said Scotty Bowman, the NHL’s all-time winningest coach. “Maybe not twice as fast, but it’s pretty close.”

Guy Lafleur used to draw oohs and aahs from the Forum faithful for the way his hair blew in the wind as he zoomed up the ice. Shelley said now “you’re standing there in between the benches and it actually blows your hair back.”

The torrid pace of today’s NHL has spurred a natural evolution process, a survival of the fittest, which accelerated the extinction of enforcers like Shelley and anyone else on the ice who couldn’t keep up.

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