NHL Roundtable

Yup, we were having some techincal difficulties with posting in Groups. I'm not sure if it was just limited to our group, but it appears to be fixed now.  I'll try to round the masses to get their thoughts in on the conversation now that all is well at the Roundtable.

Getting back to the conversation, though...

I don't see how they're going to be able to eliminate "staged" fighting. Half the time non-staged fights result from an exchange of words. Let's say two players have words earlier in the game, and don't get to drop the gloves until much later, off the face off. The obligatory "your mom" gets yapped and all hell breaks loose. Unless referees have their Miracle Ear in, how in the world are they going to know if the enforcers staged it a la George Laraque ("You wanna go? Square off? Good luck, man. " -- fast forward to 0:45)?

Ross, I think you're nuts. Offsides like soccer? I played soccer for years, so I get the concept. Casual NHL fans have a hard enough time getting the idea of icing in hockey (how hard is it to understand the puck crosses three lines without being touched?).

I kind of like the idea of not counting empty net goals in stats. They're (for the most part) cheap. General Managers would love that. The player's union would not. (Warning: hypothetical situation ahead) Can you imagine George McPhee telling Alex Ovechkin, "Sorry, we're only paying you for 47 goals; four of them were empty-netters.)

I think offsides should be like soccer. Screw lines....just make it that you can't take a pass if you're behind the last defender. Might be a little hard to officiate, but that makes it fun!

I also think they shouldn't give a point to a guy for an empty-net goal. Maybe half a point.

Hi Erin, the CBS site must've been acting up, because this post kept saying there were two comments in there, but I couldn't see anything until now.  Every time I clicked on the "2 comments" link before, it kept saying there weren't any..

Anyway, I'd be OK with goalies being made fair game outside the crease in exchange for a more rigid crease rule.  That pretty much was the rule until recently, and it seemed to work OK.  It also made for some great fireworks if a goalie got checked (legally) because the unwritten rule was that this was automatic grounds for fisticuffs.  IMO, any goal should be disallowed if an attacking team's player is in the crease, whether the player obstructs the goalie or not (with the natural exception of someone who is forced into the crease by a defender).  Even if a goal isn't scored, goalies should be allowed to take a jab or two (within reason) at crease hogging players without having to worry about a penalty.  In return for this protection, though, goalies would be fair game outside the crease, and would also be free to play the puck anywhere on the ice.

I gotta agree with you 100% on the fighting; done correctly, it's a part of the game that needs to stay.  I don't mind the league going after "staged" fights, though.  It's pretty ridiculous when two guys waiting for a faceoff do something like:

"Ya wanna go?"
"OK.  How 'bout helmets?  Straight up?"
"Let's leave 'em on just to make it interesting."
"OK.  Good luck to ya."
"You too.  Loser buys first round after the game, eh?"

The instigator rule needs a major overhaul.  A big part of the problem is that enforcers are handcuffed and don't get a chance to ply their craft against the agitating pipsqueaks who create the chippy situations in the first place.  Usually, a heavyweight bout is just the end result of a "have your people talk to my people if ya got a problem with Avery" type scenario where the enforcers doing the actual fighting never had a quarrel with each other in the first place.  If the refs would allow a guy like Derek Boogaard to tattoo someone like Claude Lemieux instead of hastily preventing a mismatch, agitators would quickly learn to mind their Ps and Qs, and most of the cheap shots going on these days would solve themselves.  And best of all, the fans who don't like violence so much would be treated to more civilized hockey games: who says fighting is bad for the game??

I had a couple of topic ideas stewing, but I'll hold off and let WarpedMind incite this week's riot.

If the crease is protected, goalies who leave the blue paint should be fair game. That means all the puck-moving goalies like Martin Brodeur and Rick DiPietro can get clocked (I'm sure the Islanders would love that.)

I'm curious as to the extent this would be implemented, though. Is a violation only called when a player scores? Would play be whistled dead if any body part -- foot, head, elbow, pinkie finger -- crosses the line, regardless of where the puck or play is? I could see that being very annoying to fans and disruptive to the game.

The referees seem to do a decent job of calling interference if a goalie is messed with on a goal. I've seen several goals called back this season at Panthers games because someone got in Tomas Vokoun's way. And even those were somewhat questionable since Vokoun plays at the top of his crease.

It doesn't seem like the NHL can really bring back a crease rule because of their desire to keep scoring up. Goaltenders are already head and shoulders above the netminders of the past because of the way the position has evolved. Even with the equipment being regulated, they're still giants. I can see the league bringing back a no-players-in-the-crease rule if they had to shave more padding off netminders. It would be a matter of safety.

I'm actually riled up about the recent uproar about fighting. Let it stay. I know those north of the border aren't too fond of it (or at least this is what recent polls show), but would this have come up if Don Sanderson hadn't passed away? It's tragic, no doubt. But it was a rare incident. If the rule makers keep thinking like this, soon they'll be playing in sneakers because of what happened to Richard Zednik last year. ("Oh my! Skate blades can kill people! We must get rid of skate blades!")

Besides, half the time players in fights aren't even throwing good punches. They're either missing or trying to tackle each other to the ground. I kind of blame that on the decline of fighting in general. Enforcers are so rare nowadays that the whole technique has kind of become bastardized. You rarely see a good heavyweight bout anymore.

Fighting is part of hockey. Period. It puts casual fans in seats. A couple of friends I've taken to their first hockey games in recent years have always said the same thing: "I want to see a fight."

I'd like to see the league focus head shots before they go after play fights. I'm sick of all the chatter from the league on how it is going to step up and get serious, but it is really hard to do that when players like Chris Pronger, Ryan Hollweg, etc. keep getting off easy. If head shots are as serious as the NHL is trying to make them out to be (and the are), then guys should be getting 20-game suspensions. Yet they are not, and we're supposed to believe the league is really, really, really intent on fixing this part of the game.