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One part of the penalty killing rule makes no sense

November 15, 2020, 12:33 PM ET [16 Comments]
Kevin Allen
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In preparation for a podcast with former NHL player Tom Laidlaw last week, I sent an email telling him that we both needed to come up with one NHL rule that we want changed

We would discuss both of our rule changes on our live podcast. That was the extent of the discussion on that topic until I brought it up live on our show.

The surprise: we both wanted to adjust the same rule.

It wasn’t the “delay of game” penalty for players shooting or batting the puck out of play. That would have been less coincidental because it was a hot topic during the recently completed NHL playoffs.

About that rule, my comment is everyone has forgotten how many times players shot the puck out of play when there was pressure prior to the debut of that rule in 2005. It was like youth soccer when parents scream for their kids to kick the ball out of bounds when there is trouble. But we’ve discussed that rule enough, and I’m in the minority on that one.

The rule that Laidlaw and I wanted to change was the allowance of penalized teams to ice the puck when they are killing said penalty.

How does that make sense? Why do they gain that advantage?

Considering that we are always looking for ways to bring more goals to games, how about just allowing the normal icing rules to be in place for penalty killing situations.

A shorthanded team can still ice the puck, but the team’s tired players will have to stay on the ice for the faceoff while the power play team can use fresh troops.

Since shorthanded teams always change personnel when the puck is fired down the ice, we could see penalty killers logging more minutes, at least initially before coaches adjust how they kill penalties.

It seems fair to predict that would lead to more power play goals. One could also guess that there would be a higher excitement quotient created by shorthanded players trying to skate the puck out and power play performers aggressively trying to prevent that. More turnovers equals more goals.

Shorthanded teams will be looking to pass more from their zone so we could see more shorthanded forwards breaking out looking for more passes. More shorthanded goals? Maybe.

Changing the rule increases the shorthanded emphasis on pure skill because it takes more skill to skate the puck out, or to pass the puck out, or to loft the puck into the neutral zone like you are hitting a wedge into the ninth green.

It would be nice to have the American League experiment with this rule change to see what would happen before it was implemented. My guess is that everyone would be pleased with the rules.

But the real reason we should change the rule is that it lacks logic. A penalized team shouldn’t have an advantage that the non-penalized team doesn’t have. The way it is now isn't very logical.
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