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What is the criteria for a player on the Stanley Cup winning team to actually have his name on the Stanley Cup? Prior to 1977 only players who had completed the Stanley Cup playoffs were eligible. Since then, players appearing in 40 regular-season games or one final-series game for the championship team have seen their names engraved on the Cup. The NHL makes exceptions for players who do not meet the standard because of injury. That's why Jiri Slegr is the luckiest guy in the NHL. Acquired by Detroit at the trade deadline, he played just eight regular season games as a Red Wing and did not dress for a single playoff game for the first three rounds. But he was called on to play game five of the final in place of Jiri Fischer, who received a one-game suspension. So Slegr gets his name on the Cup, and has a Fischer cross check to thank for it. I am relatively new to hockey and I am wondering what the statistic "plus/minus" means and how it's calculated. When an even-strength or shorthanded goal is scored, every player on the ice for the team scoring the goal is credited with a plus. Every player on the ice for the team scored against gets a minus. A player's overall total is calculated by subtracting the minuses from the pluses. A high plus total is taken to suggest that a guy is a good defensive player. I am a high school goalie. I am contacting college coaches in order to play at the college level. They all want to know my stats. How are goalie stats figured? Goaltender's should keep track of games played, wins, losses, shutouts, goals-against average and save percentage. Goals-against average is the number of goals allowed per full game played, rounded to two decimal points. Divide your number of minutes played by 60 and divide that number into the number of goals allowed. For example, if you have allowed four goals in 180 minutes your GAA is 1.33 (180 divided by 60 is three. Four divided by three is 1.33). The result suggests that for every full game you play, you will allow 1.33 goals. Save percentage is the number saves made divided by the total number of shots on goal, expressed in three decimal places. If you have faced 45 shots and allowed five goals, your save percentage is .888 (40 saves divided by 45 shots). The number suggests that if you were to face 1,000 shots you would stop 888 of them. What is the average player salary for 2002 in the NHL? This year's average salary will be determined in July when the NHL and its players' union agree on bonus money owed on individual player contracts. The average player salary for the 2000-2001 season was $1.4 million, triple what it was in 1992-1993. What was the highest scoring hockey game? The most goals scored by one team in an NHL game was 16. The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Quebec Bulldogs 16-3 on March 3, 1920. That Montreal team also helped set the record for most goals by two teams in a single game. The Canadiens and Toronto St. Patrick's combined for 21 goals on January 10, 1920, with Montreal winning 14-7. The Edmonton Oilers and Chicago Blackhawks tied the record on December 11, 1985. The Oilers won 12-9. I know what a hat trick is but I'm curious why it's called a hat trick? What's the history behind it? Where did the phrase "hat trick" originate from? As with many sports traditions, the true origins of the hat trick are a mystery. A likely explanation is that fans celebrating a three-goal performance were literally interpreting the phrase, "I take my hat off to him." But my favourite theory is that hockey borrowed the hat trick from cricket. Sometime in the 19th century, a bowler for an English team took three wickets with consecutive balls - a rare and remarkable "trick" - and was awarded a new hat by the team in honour of the accomplishment. More and more teams are using the "trap". Could you explain what the trap is and how the players line up when developing it? I'm from the Quad Cities, Illinois. Our team was eliminated in the playoffs. Coach said the Muskegon Fury did an excellent job of trapping, although he despises it. But I'm not sure exactly what it is. Can you help? The term originates with a defensive system called the "neutral zone trap," but is now used to describe any passive, defense-first strategy. If the game you're watching is dull, chances are one team is playing a variation of the trap. Trapping teams don't pursue opponents, don't attack the puck and generally don't seem very interested in scoring. It works something like this: Team A has the puck in its own zone and is starting an attack. Team B - the trapping team - retreats back to form a staggered line in the neutral zone (between the bluelines). When the Team A puck carrier nears center ice he finds little room to maneuver or make a safe pass. This often forces him to ice the puck, lose it, or try a high-risk pass. If they can force a turnover, the trappers of Team B might get a good scoring chance going back the other way. Who was the last goalie to go mask-less in an NHL game? I say it was Gump Worsley playing for the Minnesota North Stars in 1973, but somewhere else I read it was another goalie. On April 7, 1974, Andy Brown tended goal for Pittsburgh in a 6-3 loss to the Atlanta Flames, marking the last appearance by a bare-faced goaltender in the NHL. (Brown moved on to the World Hockey Association, where he played until 1977). Gump Worsley played without a mask for most of his career, but donned one for his final NHL season, 1973-74. I grew up in the Detroit area, now I live in Utah. I know back in Detroit, we had a tradition in the playoffs of throwing octopus on the ice. But I can't for the life of me remember why! The Motor City's proud tradition of saluting the Detroit Red Wings with slimy creatures of the deep dates back half a century. The first octopus landed on the ice during the Red Wings' 1952 Stanley Cup run, courtesy of a couple of lads from a local fish shop. If you know your cephalopods, you will know that an octopus has eight tentacles. In those days it took eight playoff wins to claim the Cup, hence the supposed symbolism of the gesture. Can you please tell me why the Canadiens are called the Habs? I always felt bad asking. Habs is an abbreviation of "les habitants," the informal name given to the original settlers of New France, dating back to the 17th Century. In the next round of the playoffs how do they rank the teams? Is it by points or do the division winners still get their one, two and three rankings? Is this a bracket format like the NCAA, where your next round opponent can only be one of the teams playing in the bracket next to yours? Or do they get re-seeded every round? The criteria used to set up the first round apply to all subsequent rounds as well. Division winners are seeded 1-2-3 for as long as they survive and all other teams line up behind them according to point total. To pick a current example: If the Carolina Hurricanes make it to the second round in 2002 they retain their division-winning privileges. They will be seeded above everyone except Boston and Philadelphia. You can get further clarification on this at the NHL Stanley Cup page. Previous page > Home ice advantage and the fine art of icing > Page 1, 2
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