NHL executives Brandon Manning Jersey Womens , coaches and players are quick to say the game is faster than ever and there is technology available to track how quickly players skate and how hard they shoot.Vegas Golden Knights general manager George McPhee calls it the ”next wave” in the evolution of the top hockey league in the world, but what happens to that information is secret for now.”I don’t tell people what we do,” McPhee said as his Pacific Division champion team prepares for its playoff opener against the Los Angeles Kings.Younger, faster – and cheaper – players are pushing out older, slower – and more expensive – veterans to kick the pace of the game up a notch. When Radim Vrbata announced he was retiring after this season, the 36-year-old Florida Panthers forward acknowledged the speed of the game played a part in his decision to leave the league.”The speed of the game has really jumped over the last couple of years,” Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill said. ”You can tell with your eyes. We don’t have any chips in jerseys or any of that stuff.”The league is working with a company, or companies, it will not disclose to use camera-based technology to track players and pucks.”We are still in the evaluation stage,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said in an email. ”We have generally shared the results of our testing as part of an overview of the technology as opposed to on a team or player basis. Ultimately, I would envision most (although maybe not all) of the acquired data would be made available to the clubs, and the public.”Iceberg Sports Analytics, which says it is working with the NHL, uses cameras to track the players and the puck 10 times per second.”We get a limitless amount of information from these coordinates collected by using machine/deep learning algorithms,” Iceberg global sales director Scott Vargas said.For a while at least, the public may be kept in the dark on some of those details.At the 2018 Winter Olympics , microchips were put in the back of jerseys tracking cameras were perched high above the ice. Data on speed, acceleration Womens Zach Parise Jersey , stopping, distance traveled, shift lengths and ice time was available to teams. How fast a player skated sometimes flashed up video boards in the arena, much to the chagrin of former NHL defenseman James Wisniewski.”I think for people on TV to see how fast you’re going down the wing, really, does it really matter?” Wisniewski asked.Daly said open questions include how quickly the tracking will grow and which technologies are used. But he believes it will eventually become prevalent in the NHL and in other major professional sports leagues.”Fans and other observers of the game want and demand more and more information all the time,” Daly said. ”It enhances the way they consume the sport. And it is incumbent on us to respond to and satisfy that demand.”The NHL Players’ Association, meanwhile, will only say it is ready for more dialogue on the topic.”We look forward to continuing our discussions with the league to ensure the successful implementation of player and puck tracking,” NHLPA general counsel Don Zavelo said.Even in the Detroit Red Wings‘ dressing room, there wasn’t a consensus.”If you track players and show how fast you’re skating, I think fans will be able to appreciate it and it will look cool on TV,” Red Wings center Dylan Larkin said .Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg provided another perspective.”I’m not a big fan of that because eventually that will be used as a disadvantage for players,” Zetterberg said. ”Even though they say it won’t be, it will be in contracts and it will be used against players in all different areas with management and coaching issues.”Daly insisted he doesn’t buy that argument.”Our experience with enhanced statistics is entirely the opposite,” Daly said. ”Players and agents have historically and virtually without exception been able to use enhanced statistics and analytics to their individual benefit. That’s just a fact.”It is also true, without debate, the league’s large Cam Ward Jersey Womens , lumbering defensemen have been replaced by smaller, faster players on the blue line. And up front, the days of having enforcers play limited minutes to rough up opponents are over because every team tries to roll four lines of swift skaters who can match up with the best opponents.When teams turn the puck over in the neutral zone, it is coming back at them in a hurry. Retreating and regrouping is more rare these days. Kings President Luc Robitaille said beyond scoring chances for and against, how quickly his team and opponents get the puck up the ice is an important statistic.”Everyone is measuring how fast you’re moving the puck end to end,” he said, declining to share details.”Teams that have success are moving faster. Look at Vegas,” Robitaille added. ”Everyone has been wondering why they’re winning and it is because they have a lot of guys with speed.”Rule changes, philosophical shifts by teams and improved training are among the contributing factors to create the need for speed.After the league emerged from a lockout in 2005, players were allowed to make longer passes up the ice to create more scoring chances and officials were told to have zero tolerance for clutching-and-grabbing defensive tactics.”When the red line was taken out of the game that sped the game up,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. ”Now, players come into the league more recklessly fearless. They’re not afraid to skate as fast they can. They’re not worried about what’s waiting for them at the other end. The game has become all about stretch passes into two and three zones. That is making the game look really fast.”—AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.— NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Calle Jarnkrok’s three goals sent many Nashville Predators fans home with a serious case of hat head.Jarnkrok recorded his first career hat trick to lead the Predators to a 5-3 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night.“That was a good night for him,” Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said. “I thought he played terrific, forget about the goals, just the game in general. I thought he was really moving.”Kyle Turris and Nick Bonino also scored for Nashville, which snapped a three-game losing streak. Nashville defensemen Ryan Ellis and Roman Josi each had a pair of assists.Anze Kopitar had a goal and an assist, and Nate Thompson and Alex Iafallo also scored for the Kings http://www.islandersfanproshop.com/authentic-adam-pelech-jersey , who have lost four of five.Jarnkrok scored at even strength, on the power play and short-handed, with the short-handed goal being the eventual game-winner at 11:54 of the third period.Skating into the Kings zone on the left side, Jarnkrok fired a wrist shot over the glove of Los Angeles goaltender Cal Petersen, prompting the sellout Bridgestone Arena crowd to shower the ice with hats.“I felt pretty hot, so I just tried to hit the net, basically, and it went in,” Jarnkrok said.Jarnkrok joins Scott Walker as the only players in Predators’ history to score even strength, power play and short-handed goals in the same game.“He’s an important player in here, whether it’s offensively or defensively,” Ellis said. “You put him out on the power play, and he showed what he can do. He got us going when we needed it.”The teams battled to a scoreless tie through the first period and combined for five goals in a span of 6:57, beginning at 3:18 of the second.Turris scored the game’s first goal, a rare power-play effort for the Predators.Standing at the top of the left faceoff circle, Turris received a touch pass from Ellis at the center of the blue line. Turris’ one-timer through traffic beat Petersen high to the glove side.“Again, it comes down to the specialty teams,” Kings coach Willie Desjardins said. “It’s something I do believe that we can be better in that. We’ll get that part going.”Petersen made 38 saves in his second career start. He recorded his first career win in Friday night’s shootout win in Chicago.“I appreciate the opportunity to be able to play against high-end teams in hard buildings Anders Lee Jersey ,” Petersen said. “It is a little bit of a baptism by fire, I guess, and get it out of the way. When you play those games, you kind of realize that you can compete at that level and compete in that environment.”Nashville entered Saturday with the league’s worst power play, clicking at just over 10 percent.Thompson and Kopitar scored 19 seconds apart to take the lead.Thompson’s goal, his first of the season, came just five seconds after a penalty to Nashville forward Filip Forsberg expired. At the right of Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne, he found the rebound of Tyler Toffoli’s shot from the point.On the next shift, Dustin Brown stepped in front of Kevin Fiala to intercept a pass. He then skated toward the Nashville goal and slid a pass to a Kopitar in the slot, and he beat Rinne low to the stick side.Rinne finished with 25 saves.Jarnkrok snapped a wrist shot from the high slot over Petersen’s glove at 8:05, but Iafallo found a rebound of a Kopitar shot in the left circle 2:10 later and beat Rinne on the stick side.Nashville tied it at 3 at 5:44 of the third on Jarnkrok’s second of the night, another power-play goal.Bonino concluded the scoring with an empty-net goal with just under a minute remaining.NOTES: Kings D Dion Phaneuf played his 1,000th career game. He was taken ninth overall in the 2003 Entry Draft, which was held in Nashville. … The Predators scored two power-play goals in a game for just the second time this season.UP NEXT:Kings: Visit St. Louis on Monday.Predators: Host Tampa Bay on Monday.