New Rules

[Corp000085]

After watching some games last night, as well as the Sabres game on friday, I really do enjoy the two changes in the rules. First, the faceoffs for powerplays result deep in the zone every time. Last night, I saw a delayed penalty that happened as the puck was being transitioned through the offensive neutral zone. The canadiens had the puck and the laffs got a penalty. Rather than running the same play into the zone to ensure the faceoff would remain deep (as the old rules were), the canadiens imediately dropped the puck back into their defensive zone and set up a play with the extra attacker, not caring where the laffs would touch the puck cause the next faceoff would be deep. I see a lot of goals being scored on a delayed penalty situation.

 

The second rule that I really love is that there will be no commercial break after icings. Before, a team might have iced the puck at the 14 minute mark to get a 2 minute break. Sure, they had to stay on the ice, but 2 minutes of break is 2 minutes of break, no matter if you're standing around or sitting on a bench. Now, the commercial breaks get pushed back to the following non-icing stoppage. If your defensemen have been caught on the ice for 3 minutes and they ice the puck at a commercial break time, too bad! I saw a couple of these plays in the sabres game on friday. Now, granted, the sabres will get burned a few times this year, but these changes are examples of simple rule tweaks that have very little bearing on the actual gameplay but will have big results on the scorecard and through strategy. I normally am not an advocate of rule changes, but these two rules are actually good. No "average" or new fan will know a difference, hockey purists honestly won't care where the commercial break gets placed (they might take issue with a 180 foot faceoff swing, but oh well), and the general flow of the game will improve. In this case, way to go NHL.

[tom webster]

After watching some games last night, as well as the Sabres game on friday, I really do enjoy the two changes in the rules. First, the faceoffs for powerplays result deep in the zone every time. Last night, I saw a delayed penalty that happened as the puck was being transitioned through the offensive neutral zone. The canadiens had the puck and the laffs got a penalty. Rather than running the same play into the zone to ensure the faceoff would remain deep (as the old rules were), the canadiens imediately dropped the puck back into their defensive zone and set up a play with the extra attacker, not caring where the laffs would touch the puck cause the next faceoff would be deep. I see a lot of goals being scored on a delayed penalty situation.

 

The second rule that I really love is that there will be no commercial break after icings. Before, a team might have iced the puck at the 14 minute mark to get a 2 minute break. Sure, they had to stay on the ice, but 2 minutes of break is 2 minutes of break, no matter if you're standing around or sitting on a bench. Now, the commercial breaks get pushed back to the following non-icing stoppage. If your defensemen have been caught on the ice for 3 minutes and they ice the puck at a commercial break time, too bad! I saw a couple of these plays in the sabres game on friday. Now, granted, the sabres will get burned a few times this year, but these changes are examples of simple rule tweaks that have very little bearing on the actual gameplay but will have big results on the scorecard and through strategy. I normally am not an advocate of rule changes, but these two rules are actually good. No "average" or new fan will know a difference, hockey purists honestly won't care where the commercial break gets placed (they might take issue with a 180 foot faceoff swing, but oh well), and the general flow of the game will improve. In this case, way to go NHL.

 

The rule on power play face offs is huge and again underscores the importance of having as top notch face off center. You give me a guy who excels on face offs and shoot outs and I have my perfect twelth forward.

As for not dumping it in, my wife thought I was nuts when I started screaming at the TV during the Red Wing pre-season game when Buffalo's defensemen cleared the puck behind the net in order to get a face off in the Detroit end. Hopefully that was just a pre-season learning experience.

[carpandean]

The rule on power play face offs is huge and again underscores the importance of having as top notch face off center.

Oh, you mean like Hecht. :rolleyes:

 

I think I know somebody that you might like:

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"No Panic" Yanic!

(OK, he's actually only about 25% for his career in shootouts, which is still better than most of our players, but his FO% has ranged from 61.2% to 65.2% over the last eight years.)

[nobody]

I think the icing non-tv timeout is going to take the announcers and tv folks a few games to get in pace with.