Hockey is a game, games are supposed to be fun. Right?

Some Sunday musings after I watched a lot of hockey.

Happy Sunday.

It was a busy day for me at/around the rink, first I was at the Detroit Red Wings 4-2 win against the Washington Capitals in downtown Detroit, then spent Sunday evening doing pre and post-game work for the live shows over at DLLS surrounding the Dallas Stars 5-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks.

In between that I also spent sometime watching the 2025 World Junior Championship, and editing some of the fine work from other scribes over at Elite Prospects.

Moral of the story — this piece is a bit scatter brained and more of a hockey “think piece” than a proper focus.

And it really goes back to Saturday’s practice in Detroit, where new Red Wings coach Todd McLellan loudly told his team, “Play fucking hockey. You've done it your whole lives.”

For McLellan it’s a message built on preaching more creativity, begging his players to show a little more chutzpah and be less robotic in their game. Detroit looked robotic and uninspired under Derek Lalonde, a trend that continued into Game 1 of the McLellan era — a 5-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In Game 2 under McLellan the Red Wings looked less structured, they looked more creative, and perhaps most importantly they looked like they were actually enjoying playing hockey.

There’s not enough time in the season, in my view, for Detroit to reach the playoffs, but I’m encouraged the Red Wings will at least be more entertaining for all of our sakes.

From that game, which was entertaining, I watched the slog of a contest between Dallas and Chicago.

And if you want to talk about joyless and robotic, all you need to do is watch the Stars power play — even in a game they won in blowout fashion.

The Stars had gone 0-for-17 on the power play in their last four games entering Sunday, and while Dallas did score with the man advantage against Chicago, the power play once again felt like more of a detriment on a night Dallas went 1-for-7 and had 13 power play shots.

I don’t care if you score one goal on the power play, when you fail six other times it’s not a good night for the unit.

Most of the Stars power plays featured perimeter shots, the one time they scored was actually a broken play, where Jason Robertson ended up in an abnormal position and was able to score from a bit of chaos.

Robertson scored because he wasn’t robotic, he was adapting to the situation, not checking a box of positioning like he normally does.

Farther north, up in Ottawa, Canada beat Germany 3-0 on Sunday at the World Junior Championships. Canada won, sure, but it was another ugly performance for a Canadian team that also had a historic loss on Friday to Latvia.

One of the things that stands out about this version of Team Canada is the lack of creativity, it’s much more of a team of blunt objects than finely-sharpened scalpels, especially after the injury to Matthew Schaefer (who to me, is looking more like the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft.)

Team Canada didn’t bring Calgary Flames defender Zayne Parekh, despite him being one of the best offensive defenseman in his age group. Even after Schaefer was injured and with an open roster spot, Team Canada didn’t give Parekh a call.

My pal Cam Robinson, picked up this quote over at Elite Prospects about the lack of a call to Parekh.

“It’s unconscionable that the country’s top offensive defenceman isn’t available to them. They even had a second chance to make up for the mistake, but didn’t.”

I really like Parekh’s game, he’s incredibly fun to watch and to me he really represents what Chris Lazary is doing with the Saginaw Spirit, allowing players to have fun and express themselves within a system.

Note: you should listen to this podcast I did with Lazary, it’s a good listen.

Team Canada chose safer options in their mind, just like the Stars power play has been overly safe, and the Red Wings were overly safe and too focused don defense before the coaching change.

This isn’t to say hockey should be completely structureless, when that happens you get the worst-in-the-league Chicago Blackhawks under Luke Richardson, but it is a game and games are supposed to be fun.

Hopefully some, or any, of this made sense.

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OK, I’ve got some mailbag questions I hadn’t answered in a bit, so wanted to dive into those before we close out this fun Sunday.

The sport of hockey has undergone a revolution in the last decade or so with scoring especially being something that has come back in a big way. As you look at the next up and coming stars what sticks out to you as something that this group and other recent groups have that previous generations did not? (From Tyler King)

Individual skill development, that’s the biggest thing players have in this generation compare to prior ones.

Players, from the moment they are deemed elite at any level, spend extra time working on individual skills and many have parents that invest in additional coaching (hockey is a rich-person sport, remember). So by the time players reach the NHL level, they tend to have a high base level of skill than any generation before them.

At the same time players also get to the NHL quicker, this is reflective of the salary cap era, which means players are given a chance to be themselves in the NHL as opposed to many prior generations who had to be hammered into a structured/defensive-reliable players before they ever got an NHL sniff.

When will Stars fan know when Bichsel is a permanent fixture for the rest of the regular season with the big club? Is this dependent on the Dumba injury? Any idea what he is dealing with? (From Jennifer)

I’m not in Dallas, so I’m not there to ask the question, but at some point the Stars will have the “get a place” conversation with Lian Bichsel, meaning it’s time to move any belongings from Austin to DFW.

For me, and I’ve written this before, he’s won his spot and the Stars are better with him in the lineup, even once Matt Dumba is healthy.

Sean, in the Stars-Wild game last night, the first Wild goal was a pretty soft 5-hole Otter surrendered, taking a 2-nil game to the always nervous 2-1 down the last minutes. And we saw how this one ended. Otter appeared to me to be too far out in the crease on that and had he been a couple feet farther back, probably makes that stop. You’ve written about this approach he has vs being deeper toward net. Curious your take on that goal. Seemed to really change the course of the game. (From Joshua Theodore)

First, let’s pull the screen grab of Oettinger’s position on the goal.

To me the positioning and depth aren’t the problem, he’s got this tracked well, it’s more so an execution issue where he doesn’t seal the ice with his pads. Oettinger, because his stick tends to hover, can be burnt down low if he doesn’t get his pads activated quickly.

We also have a good related question to this.

Goalie question, how come goalies don’t put the blade of their stick on the ice? I’m guessing it has to do with the positioning of their blocker, but isn’t that what the stick shaft allows by just moving their hand up/down on the shaft? So many 5 hole goals scored (mostly while dropping to the butterfly) so their huge (way to long imo) leg pads cover the bottom of the net post to post. (From CScotty)

I actually wrote something about this earlier this season when the Stars and Bruins played.

The $132 million American goalie duel

Here’s an excerpt that covered this, and why Oettinger’s stick hovers.

Oettinger’s stick isn’t on the ice nearly as often, if you focus on him while tracking the play and in his stance you’ll notice how the blade tends to hover a couple inches above the ice. This is a relatively newer approach, one that came with the monstrous goalie revolution, it allows Oettinger’s arm and body to move as one when he drops into a butterfly.

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OK, with that, thank you for reading.

We’ll have more this week at Shap Shots, I’ve been feeling invigorated lately by the readership, and can’t thank you enough for supporting this venture.