David Kirouac-Imagn Images
The NHL’s pre-season is always a point of contention. Many think it’s too long.
As we saw in an emotional pre-season game between the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens Tuesday night, the emotions involved in these games can boil over and lead to injuries that can hamstring teams’ regular-season aspirations.
It started when the Senators’ Ridly Greig hit Canadiens center Kirby Dach up high, just below the head. Greig received a minor penalty after being reviewed for a major. Dach left for the first period but returned in the second, eventually fighting Greig later in the match.
A late shot from Greig send Kirby Dach to locker room
Play under review for a major penalty pic.twitter.com/7xYaTEvMBw
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla) October 1, 2024
At the intermission, the Canadiens’ Jake Evans told RDS it was a “stupid, meaningless hit.”
“There might be some more dumb things now because he just hit a guy blindside, which is just not… there’s no need for it in pre-season, especially,” Evans said.
Surely enough, Canadiens defenseman Arber Xhekaj hit Tim Stutzle up high, causing Stutzle’s stick to hit his face. Senators captain Brady Tkachuk responded by fighting Xhekaj. The latter received a major penalty and game misconduct, while Tkachuk also left the game. Stutzle and Tkachuk didn’t return because of upper-body issues.
Arber Xhekaj was ejected for this hit on Tim Stützle. pic.twitter.com/QxeIeY6zpp
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 2, 2024
The Senators also lost defenseman Thomas Chabot for precautionary reasons in that game, and all three are integral to Ottawa’s season. Missing any of them for any time would be costly, although Senators GM Steve Staios told the Locked On Senators Podcast on Wednesday they’re all OK.
Xhekaj, meanwhile, earned the ire of Senators players and received no supplemental discipline just days after being fined for unsportsmanlike conduct for instigating a fight against the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Cedric Pare. Even that came after Pare laid a knee-on-knee hit on Canadiens right winger Patrik Laine, injuring the Hab and keeping him out of the lineup for months.
All in all, it felt like much ado about nothing, which is what pre-season games ultimately amount to.
Yes, it’s another way to add to the NHL’s hockey-related revenue pile, but at what cost to the regular-season product? It would be much more understandable if these injuries came in regular-season games, as physicality is the nature of the game and rivalry matchups tend to get intense. But when players are sidelined from sustaining these types of injuries in games that don’t matter at all, it feels like a waste of time and good health.
'I can understand why they were pissed off'
Ridly Greig on his hit on Kirby Dach: pic.twitter.com/ZqCz76ApP3
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 2, 2024
Injuries are one of the reasons we’ve argued for years that the pre-season should be shortened significantly. The old argument that players need these games to get into game shape has been rendered obsolete, as players are now in game shape virtually every day of the off-season and, certainly, the days leading up to the regular season. There’s a lot of time in training camp and the first few pre-season games for players to earn spots in the lineup and figure out the chemistry.
We’d much rather see the regular season extended to 84 games if it meant reducing the pre-season to two or three games per team. That way, you’d still get a bump in revenue, but you’d be doing it by playing games that actually influence the playoff picture.
The NHL and NHLPA have already chatted about it and will do so more seriously in CBA talks: reduce pre-season to 4 games (and add 2 games to regular season to make it 84).
That’s the idea anyway. We’ll see where it goes in CBA talks.— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) October 2, 2024
To be sure, there’s always going to be emotion when games are played against divisional rivals. And there’s probably no chance the number of injuries can be mitigated by shortening the pre-season. But let’s debate and discuss the true impact of the pre-season – and when we do, let’s be open to the possibility that shortening it is an idea whose time has come.
In retrospect, the Senators, in particular, probably wouldn’t mind having not played Tuesday’s tilt against Montreal. If Dach did turn out to be injured on top of Laine and David Reinbacher from Saturday’s tilt, the same would have probably applied to them. But what’s done is done, and both teams must live with the ramifications of otherwise useless games. Still, the NHL can always be as proactive as possible, and in this case, that means cutting down on an antiquated component of the hockey calendar.
Shortening the pre-season doesn’t hurt anyone, but pre-season games often do. And the Sens and Habs’ game is a perfect example of that.
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News Summary:
- Canadiens-Senators Ruckus Shows Why NHL's Pre-Season Should Be Shortened
- Check all news and articles from the latest NHL updates.