Caples: #Oshie2014 thrilled; let’s keep going with it

 

By Michael Caples –

Even if he never scores another goal, you won’t soon forget the name TJ Oshie.

The St. Louis Blues’ budding superstar captivated the hockey world when he went toe-to-toe, time-after-time, with Russian goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, eventually giving his American squad a shootout victory.

It was as if time stood still, with all eyes fixated on a 27-year-old from Everett, Wash.

Don’t you want to at least attempt to create that again?

I’m not here to argue for or against the shootout. We all have our own opinions on how our top leagues should decide a winner.

However, the shootout is here to stay, so I simply ask this – why don’t we embrace the international rules for it?

Why don’t we allow for the same shooter to repeatedly attempt to score after the first three rounds, instead of making NHL teams cycle through the whole roster?

Oshie was allowed to ‘wow’ the world because he could continue to keep shooting. International rules allow for a repetitive shooter if the first three shootout rounds can’t decide a winner.

How many NHL games go past the first three rounds? A lot of them (forgive me for not taking the time to count it out).

Why not allow for our most skilled puckhandlers and shooters to shine just a bit more when the time comes?

Wouldn’t you rather see Pavel Datsyuk take three or four attempts than see third or fourth-line forwards just hope they get the puck on the net?

Providing some more isolation time on our biggest stars could do this game some good. Give a Datsyuk or a Jonathan Toews some more spotlight time. Give them more chances to get on SportsCenter (there’s my joke for the day). More airtime for our stars would be good for the game, and spice up something that some of you are already sick of watching – especially if you watch the Red Wings.

Hockey is a team sport, yes. That’s one of its biggest selling points. At the same time, however, the sport needs to market its stars as much as its teams. In a typical 60-minute game, it is rather difficult for a casual observer to even know when a superstar is on the ice, due to the fast pace and quick line changes. When there is a shootout, all eyes are focused on a single player and a single goalie, and everyone knows exactly what is going on.

TJ Oshie’s heroics – and a stick tap for him deflecting the “hero” praise to real heroes – had people clinging to TV and computer screens across the country. Just look at the photo a MiHockey reader sent us of people crowded around a concession stand to watch on a computer screen.

The beauty of the Olympics is that it offers something so enticing, so rare. It will be incredibly difficult to duplicate the drama and the excitement surrounding Oshie’s feat.

But we might as well try for it, right? Give the stars more time to shine in the shootout. If we have to have it, we might as well get to watch the best go toe-to-toe more often.