Will the NHL’s rule changes achieve what’s intended?

Photo credit:Sergei Belski/USA Today Sports

4 years ago

Over the weekend, the 2019 NHL Draft unfolded. But on Thursday, the NHL’s general managers approved a few rule changes that were formally announced that afternoon by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. Several of the changes are seemingly designed in response to the challenges faced by officials during the 2019 playoffs, but it’s unclear if they’ll achieve their intended objectives.

As outlined by Bettman and other NHL officials at Thursday’s press conference, the rule changes include minor tweaks designed to improve offense, flow of the game, and to improve player safety, in addition to expanded video review to ensure they get the calls right.

Bettman had this statement in regards to what led to some of the changes:

Our officials are the best in the world in any sport. They have the most difficult job possible. And overwhelmingly they do a great job, but there is a human element. And based on the speed of the game, there are things that can get missed or they can get wrong. It happens infrequently. I will acknowledge, as I did before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, that we had some controversial plays at most inopportune times.

Improving offense

Occasionally, goaltenders will try to get a whistle when playing a puck that’s been dumped into the zone from outside the blue line. Freezing a puck that’s been dumped in from outside the red line will still be allowed, but the team freezing the puck won’t be allowed to change players. (This change might impact Flames netminder David Rittich, who occasionally drew the ire of officials for scrambling out of his crease to free dump-ins to the point where he was dinged with a delay of game midway through the season.)

Similarly, when defensemen take out the net on two-on-ones – most often it’s an attempt at a sliding shot block – the attacking team will get tot choose the side the face-off is on and the defending team won’t get a line change.

After icings and on face-offs to begin power plays, the offensive zone team will choose the side of the zone they want to have the draw. Similarly, any time a puck goes over the glass in the offensive zone, even if the attacking team is the one that fires it out, the face-off will be in the offensive zone. The gist is the NHL would like to have most of the face-offs in a game taking place in the offensive zone.

Players losing helmets

From the league’s release:

Subject to further consultation with the NHL Players’ Association on precise language, a Player on the ice whose helmet comes off during play must (a) exit the playing surface, or (b) retrieve and replace his helmet properly on his head (with or without his chin strap fastened). A Player who is making a play on the puck or who is in position to make an immediate play on the puck at the time his helmet comes off, shall be given a reasonable opportunity to complete the play before either exiting the ice or retrieving and replacing his helmet. Failure to comply with the above will result in a minor penalty being assessed on the offending player. A Player who intentionally removes an opponent’s helmet during play shall be assessed a minor penalty for roughing.

When asked what the standard would be for how long a player would be allowed to remain on the ice without a lid before departing, it was noted that it would be up to the officials to enforce.

“Initially, it’ll be new to the players,” said director of officiating Stephen Walkom. “What we found in the American Hockey League and some of the players that came up to the National Hockey League is when they had their helmet dislodged, they went over and got their helmet immediately. They didn’t want to run the risk of a penalty. It’s a good thing to wear a helmet in the game of hockey.”

The subjectivity of the rule is likely something that the NHLPA will want to be made a bit clearer.

Expanded coach’s challenge

There are two fairly big changes in regards to the coach’s challenge. First, they’re adding a third category of coach’s challenge: “plays in the offensive zone that should’ve resulted in stoppages.”

This change will allow Challenges of plays that may involve pucks that hit the spectator netting, pucks that are high-sticked to a teammate in the offensive zone, pucks that have gone out of play but are subsequently touched in the offensive zone and hand passes that precede without a play stoppage and ultimately conclude in the scoring of a goal. Plays that entail “discretionary stoppages” (e.g. penalty calls) will not be subject to a Coach’s Challenge.

There is no longer a limit on challenges that can be made per game, but the first failed challenge will result in a two minute delay of game minor and all subsequent failed challenges in that game will result in a double minor for delay of game.

This sounds cool but as a few colleagues mentioned to me over the draft weekend, the standard for goaltender interference is unclear and it’s possible for people with the same knowledge of the rules to come to completely different interpretations of what constitutes interference. Before, it would’ve resulted in a lost timeout. Now, it’ll result in a minor penalty (and could swing a game).

Referees reviewing their own calls

All major penalties will be subject to a mandatory video review by the official, where they will be given the ability to confirm the major or reduce it to a minor. The idea is that they don’t want to give officials the ability to fully wash out something that they felt was an infraction.

High-sticking double minors will also be reviewed, at the referee’s discretion, to determine whether it was the offending player’s stick that made contact or a “friendly fire” stick from the receipent’s own teammate. High-sticking double minors can be wiped out completely if it turns out a player was clipped by the stick of his teammate.

Flow of play concerns?

If you’ve been at a Flames game where there have been any coach’s challenges, you’ll know that they cause the game to drag a bit. They could be potentially be more frequent, though the logic is that more frequent challenges will lead to longer games but the games will have more power plays and possibly more goals as a consequence. With only the timeout loss consequence, there were 172 goalie interference challenges in the 2018-19 regular season (with 127 challenges failing) – the thought process is likely that with a penalty attached, there will be fewer in 2019-20.

But Bettman noted that there were 39 majors in the 2018-19 regular season that would be subject to mandatory review. Since not all high-sticking penalties would need to be reviewed, the referee’s “checking their work” wouldn’t substantially add to the length of games.

The rule changes are well-intentioned and are a decent start. But the explanations thus far are pretty incomplete, and it’s likely that the league and its players will be in for some pain in the pre-season as everybody tries to develop a shared understanding of exactly how the new rules will be used and interpreted.

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