Strudwick And Chorney Star In "The Shift"

That’s the amazing thing. Usually such fiascoes end badly with either a GA or a penalty, or at best an icing and a Pat-Quinn-forgotten timeout. But the denouement is usually in the first, say, three minutes or so. This one did ultimately end in a penalty, as Cogliano, “fresh” off his own 94-second shift, took a braindead roughing penalty in the aftermath which led directly to Franzen’s 4-0 goal in a game Oilers ultimately lost by one. His teammates should have been hugging JDD at that point for finally getting ahold of the fucking puck, instead Cogs does that.

An amazing fact about The Shift that Garth pointed out was that Strudwick and Chorney played against every Detroit skater (but just the one goalie) during that sequence. Check out The Shift chart (courtesy timeonice.com), go to the second half of the second period, find the parallel gigantic bars of 41 and 43, then just grab one and pull it up and down the table, and you’ll see 19 different Detroit players participated in this one sequence. Obviously they don’t keep records of that sort of thing, but I would wager even money that that may never have happened before ever once in the history of the 20-man roster. Play against the whole other team on one shift?? It may not have happened since the days of the 7-man roster. :)

Both 41 and 43 played with 10 different Oilers. including 8 forwards, JDD, and of course each other.

My favourite parts of The Shift are:
- that 20- or 30- or 100-second stretch where Strudwick loses his stick and it actually doesn’t make any difference;
- Strudwick otherwise slicing and dicing the puck any time it (briefly) comes into his possession;
- JDD’s Save Of The Year candidate
- Pisani, on the end of the PK that starts the sequence of pain, making the right play to pass off his stick, take advantage of one of the puck’s brief forays into the neutral zone to make a smart change, and even to engage the puck carrier on his way off;
- Chorney finally making a good play to circle and make space for himself, and make a sharp pass to Patrick O’Sullivan at the far blueline, only to have the puck rocket directly back into Oilers territory; as Chorney retreats yet again for yet another failed attempt to get the puck going in the right direction, his body language just screams “oh FFS man!”
- O’Sullivan’s entire shift, in which he shows all the defensive instincts of a Washington General: follow the puck carrier around but never even think about actually engaging the guy – literally Pisani was better without his stick than POS was with one
- the comparative quality of Pouliot’s defensive effort
- how the entire sequence resembled that Olympic game I attended between the USSR and Austria, where the Big Red Machine owned about 90% of possession and 95% of zone time, and when the Austrians did get ahold of it they would limply dump it into the neutral zone
- imagining the whole sequence from JDD’s perspective, pass, pass, pass, pass, here it comes!, where is it? head on swivel, never more than a second to relax before the puck’s coming right in over the damn blueline again, clear the puck, guys! clear the puck!! Tabernacle!!!

It shocks me that NHL teams haven’t figured out something that men’s ballhockey teams have been doing for ages on long shifts (with the far end change)…

    Instead of go forward for forward and defenceman for defenceman, swap an off-coming forward for a fresh defenceman. Have him then play D and the D switch to forward so he can get off.

Man, I never realized this. When I was playing ballhockey, this was second nature. Why in the hell doesn’t the NHL use this?

Nice call db.