When the new NHL season gets underway, we'll see two significant new rule changes.
The first is the coach's challenge, which will be limited to goals scored on potential offside or goalie interference plays, according to
NHL.com.
In order to make the challenge, a coach will need to have his time out available—a shift that could cause an interesting strategic ripple effect. Will coaches decide that the likelihood of needing to use a coach's challenge is low enough that they'll continue to use their time outs to help tired players on icing calls, as they usually do? Or will they hold them whenever possible, in hopes of being able to overturn a bad call late in a game?
If a coach is correct when he makes his challenge, he gets to keep his time out. If the ruling goes against him, the time out will be forfeited. I suppose this means that, as long as he's successful, a coach could make multiple challenges in a single game.
The use of the challenge on offside plays is straightforward enough. If a goal is scored and the defending team believes the play was offside, the challenge will allow the use of video review to confirm or deny the offside.
Goalie interference is a bit more complicated. If the defending coach believes his goalie was interfered with on a scoring play, he can challenge—but the attacking team can also challenge a "no goal" call for one of three reasons:
(i) there was no actual contact of any kind initiated by an attacking Player with the goalkeeper
(ii) the attacking Player was pushed, shoved, or fouled by a defending Player causing the attacking Player to come into contact with the goalkeeper
(iii) the attacking Player's positioning within the goal crease did not impair the goalkeeper's ability to defend his goal and, in fact, had no discernible impact on the play
It'll be very interesting to see how coaches choose to use these challenges—and how often calls end up getting overturned.
I'm not sure that Willie Desjardins is going to be a big Coach's Challenge guy. He's an old-school coach who loves routine—rolling four lines and sticking with his game plan. And he's not a hothead. I can imagine a coach like Patrick Roy being quick to pull the trigger on his challenges.
Now—3-on-3 overtime.
Rather than go with an extended seven-minute overtime period with both 4-on-4 and 3-on-3 components, as was used in the AHL last year, the NHL Board of Governors has elected to keep the overtime period at five minutes, but go directly to 3-on-3 play.
This should lead to wide-open hockey and lots more games being decided well before the shootout.
As you might expect, shootout-hater Roberto Luongo has spoken out in favour of the new format. From
NHL.com:
"It's going to be better than a shootout," he said. "There's going to be a lot of scoring chances, and I think that's what you want in hockey. There's going to be 2-on-1s and breakaways; if you miss a 2-on-1 on one side, it's going to be a 2-on-1 the other way coming back. A lot of games will end in the 3-on-3, and at times it will be frustrating for goaltenders. But it will be exciting, and that's what the fans need."
Will the Canucks benefit from this change? They should do well at 3-on-3, but I'm not sure they'll be able to conjure up more points from the change.
Though there's lots of talk about end-to-end action and odd-man rushes, the Sedins should excel in this format with their outstanding puck possession. Any time we've seen penalties in overtime that have led to 4-on-3 or 3-on-3 situations with the twins on the ice, it seems like a winning goal has been almost a sure thing.
The Canucks did well in extra time last season. According to
Sporting Charts, in 17 of 82 games that were tied after 60 minutes, they won 12 of them—six in overtime and six in the shootout. Vancouver lost three overtime games and two in the shootout.
Those five losses tie Columbus for the lowest number of "loser points" surrendered last season. The Flyers gave up 18, with seven overtime losses and 11 shootout losses.
Vancouver's 17 extra-time games were also among the fewest in the league last season. From eyeballing the chart, it looks like San Jose and Tampa Bay were lowest with 15, Toronto had 16, and Vancouver was tied with the Rangers, Carolina and Buffalo with 17.
Boston appears to have played the most extra-frame games, winning 13 of 27, followed by Philadelphia at 26.
When the rule change was first announced,
TSN's BarDown pegged Chicago, Pittsburgh, Anaheim, Tampa Bay and Los Angeles as the five teams it thinks will excel in the new format.
Off the top of my head, I would think that Dallas and Washington will also do well.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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