from Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star,

“You have to be able to defend, or else you’re not going to be able to win,” says Chicago defenceman Johnny Oduya. “You can talk about changing the rules or the mentality, (but) a lot of teams are more detailed, there’s more videos, there’s more systems, there’s a lot more things. I think the trend’s not going away — I think it’s tough to go back to drinking beers and smoking cigarettes in the locker room, you know what I mean?”

This is a fair point, especially about the cigarettes. There was a time where hockey featured wide open spaces and straight-legged goalies and goals by the bushel, but those days are gone. It’s just that Tampa beat the Rangers 6-5 in Game 3 of the conference final in the East and can score in bunches, and Chicago saw the winner score at least four goals in 13 of their 17 playoff games before the final, and then in Game 1 . . . well, eventually it was like watching an arm-wrestling match that took 60 minutes. These are teams of great speed and skill, and even teams of great speed and skill in this day and age can strangle each other, and themselves. Why?

“I mean, there are so many talented players that you focus so much on trying to stop them, and sometimes you get away from playing your game,” says Steven Stamkos, offering the mutually assured destruction analysis.

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