March NHL News

TFP

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Dec 10, 2007
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NHL GM meetings going on, one change for next year that I do like:

 

Haunted

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Any chance you can recap for those of us on mobile and can't see that?
 

cshea

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It is the league making a change to the bye week structure for next season. Half the league will be on a bye one week, the other half the next week.

They apparently talked about the offside rule and reviews as well, but they aren't making any changes. They focused on the skate in the air issue but decided it wasn't a big enough of a problem for them to change the rule. The league numbers were 100 offside challenges, 29 involving skate in the air, 9 overturned.

Personally, I think the change to be made with offside is to make the blue line part of the offensive zone. So basically the puck just needs to be touching blue for a play to be considered onside. It doesn't have to be all the way across.
 

TFP

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It is the league making a change to the bye week structure for next season. Half the league will be on a bye one week, the other half the next week.

They apparently talked about the offside rule and reviews as well, but they aren't making any changes. They focused on the skate in the air issue but decided it wasn't a big enough of a problem for them to change the rule. The league numbers were 100 offside challenges, 29 involving skate in the air, 9 overturned.

Personally, I think the change to be made with offside is to make the blue line part of the offensive zone. So basically the puck just needs to be touching blue for a play to be considered onside. It doesn't have to be all the way across.
But would this mean the skate couldn't touch the blue line before the puck does? I dunno, seems like it'll just cause the same problem like 6 inches earlier.

I would completely trash the offsides review. It's entirely useless and brings nothing to the game. If they need to keep it, only allow the refs to watch it in full speed, no slo-mo. Will catch the obvious ones and remove the rest.
 

cshea

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I'd have it so the skate could be touching the line like it is today. My only change would be the puck doesn't have to fully cross. I feel like that would eliminate most of the problems.

I'd gas the review first and foremost though. It needs to go. Same for goalie interference. Just go back to the days of reviewing if the puck went into the net or not.
 

cshea

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I guess the other change that could come from the meetings is that teams can't call timeout after an icing. I'm rather indifferent towards this. I'd probably leave it as is. They only get 1 timeout and there are enough consequences (like losing challenge ability) to burning the timeout after an icing as is.

 

TFP

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These would be my suggestions:

1. Make the entire All Star Game weekend a bye week for the whole league.
2. Gas the offside and goalie interference reviews.
3. Make the delay of game penalty the same as an icing (and not a penalty).
4. Change ROW to just Regulation wins for a tiebreaker.
 

LogansDad

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I hereby nominate TFP for the role of GM of an NHL hockey team. I agree with you on all of those, especially the delay of game. And the idea of not allowing timeouts after an icing seems to me to be trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. But hey, NHL gotta NHL, I guess.
 

Red Right Ankle

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I wonder if the game would be better if offsides was only called if no defensive team skaters were in the d zone.
 

PedroSpecialK

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Wouldn't that effectively negate breakaways?

Or only call offside if a player is in the zone before the puck, and there are no defensive team skaters in the d-zone?
 

Red Right Ankle

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Yes, exactly. It would get rid of all the silly offsides calls where someone bobbles the puck while carrying it over the line and puts themselves or a teammate offsides, too. It would, however, make it really hard to breakout since the offensive team could take any neutral zone turnovers in faster if they still have a player in the O zone.
 

Red Right Ankle

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It would make for some interesting (and brutal) PKs. There would be longer offensive zone possessions since clears that don't go the length of the rink will make it very risky for the PKers to change and the offensive team won't draw a whistle if a D to D pass goes back behind the blue line and then crosses back over without all the offensive players clearing the zone.
 

cshea

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This is also dumb. Apparently the league has no plans to release the expansion protection lists to the public.


Feels like the expansion draft is something the league could market as an offseason event.
 

kenneycb

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I assume the players will know if they're on it though (Twitter blocked at work so not sure if it says it already), so there will be some leaky ass faucets the closer we get to knighting the newest Golden Knights.
 

TFP

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This is also dumb. Apparently the league has no plans to release the expansion protection lists to the public.


Feels like the expansion draft is something the league could market as an offseason event.
I agree. This is basically Fantasy Hockey in real life, they could make this a huge thing.

Instead they're going to bungle it.
 

Red Right Ankle

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I assume the players will know if they're on it though (Twitter blocked at work so not sure if it says it already), so there will be some leaky ass faucets the closer we get to knighting the newest Golden Knights.
Stupid Vegas kniggets
 

veritas

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Getting rid off offsides altogether, at least 5v5 would be a fascinating experiment. A three line pass rule would eliminate any extreme exploits I think.
 

Red Right Ankle

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I think offsides is fine. Ditch the review and live with it.
I would be cool with this, too. I suggested the change for 2 reasons: 1) I think hockey is at its best when stoppages are minimized and 2) I think the intent of the offsides rule is to prevent the offense from getting behind the defense and this does that while better achieving objective 1.
 

kenneycb

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Carolina is in the midst of putting up an 8 spot against the 75 point Isles, which is good news in the fight for the final wild card spot. The Lightning continued their playoff push by beating the Rags 4-3 to win their 6th of 8, with an OTL tossed in there. They've played the same amount of games as the B's and are 3 points behind.
 

cshea

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Not really surprising, but looks like no official NHL participation in the Olympics next season.


I know Leonis said he was going to let Ovechkin go either way, so curious to see how some of this plays out. There was some chatter about the league scheduling the bye weeks during the Olympics next year. That could allow some owners to OK sending a player overseas and have the player only miss 2-3 NHL games.
 

twothousandone

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Stamkos is close.


Cooper said Stamkos is now in "day to day" category. Not playing Thursday. But after that ...
RawCharge, the SB blog, noted that Vermin's demotion opens a spot for someone to return. Cedic Pauqette makes most sense, since he was only supposed to miss a couple of games. Stamkos skated with the team, but Tyler Johnson is still only skating on his own. Seems Stamkos may be back first.
 

cshea

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The NHL has come to their senses and announced that they will make the expansion protect and expose lists public. They'll be released when they're due in to the league, 6/17.