The NHL’s competition committee met in Nashville and made two recommendations for rule changes.  They are dull and boring.

For the record they are:

Rule 87 Time-outs: The Committee recommends a change so that no time-out shall be granted following an icing for the team that committed the icing infraction.

Rule 80.4: The Committee recommends a change so that when a team has a power-play and a player on the team at full strength causes a stoppage of play as the result of striking the puck with a high stick in the offensive zone, the resulting face-off shall be made in the neutral zone on the nearest face-off spot. This makes the rule consistent with the how the face-off is addressed when there is a stoppage under the same circumstances when both teams are at full strength.

The committee is made up of players and a group of general managers.  They together, managed that bit of dulllery.  I hear they all fell asleep halfway through the meeting, as well.

PPP decided to make up our own rules. Not pie in the sky stuff, and we aren’t even going to suggest the NHL get rid of the Coach’s Challenge for offside calls.  We have abandoned all hope that sense will ever prevail there. Instead, we have these simple fixes to speed up the game and improve scoring:

  1. Change the power play rules so that it doesn’t end when someone scores.
  2. Make it so there is no minimum number of players on the ice.  If you’re guilty, you go to the box.
  3. Put a time limit on the Coach’s Challenge. If it goes over, the call on the ice stands.
  4. Put the same time limit on the anthems, if they go over, fine the home team.
  5. Put a time limit on the linesman dropping the puck at a faceoff.  No more of this fooling around while we all wait like we’re in line at the grocery store on Saturday afternoon.  Drop the puck!
  6. Take it a step further and stop kicking people out of faceoff circles for “violations”.  No one cares, and we’ve gone for a beer and never see the faceoff by now, anyway.
  7. Enact Ray Ferraro’s goal rule. Unless you throw it in with you hand, it’s a goal.  Kick all you like.
  8. Make the nets bigger.
  9. Look into the ripple effects of removing offside altogether (try it in a preseason game or something).
  10. Call the fucking rulebook.
  11. Call the fucking rulebook in the playoffs too.
  12. Make overtime longer to get rid of more shootouts.
  13. Stop whistling the play dead on hand passes. No one cares which body part the guy moved the puck with.

Now we have one more rule idea.  Bear with us on this, just hear us out.  What if there were two pucks....

Which rule would you want if you could only have one?

The full power play51
The time limits40
Ray Ferraro’s rule76
Bigger nets24
Longer OT81
Something else we haven’t even thought of22