AHL to experiment with one-minute minors in OT

Greg Wyshynski, over at Puck Daddy, has reported that the AHL will, at the behest of the NHL, experiment with one-minute minor penalties in regular season overtime games next season.

The theory is the same one that Jacques Martin has used every time his Panthers team commits a penalty in overtime. The four-on-three advantage for a full two minutes is usually too much for the offending team to deal with. He links to an article in the Toronto Star, which tells us just how damaging that scenario is:

This season, 39 per cent of the penalties in OT that have resulted in a 4-on-3 power play have produced the winning goal in NHL games. It stands to reason, Campbell said, that one-minute penalties will produce fewer goals, and therefore more games will go to shootouts.

He goes on to bring up another of the points behind this experiment. A two minute minor in regulation is 10% of a period, or 3.33 % of the entire game. A two minute minor in overtime is 40 % of the period. The argument is that the punishment is much more severe for the same crime.

The way it would actually be practiced is kinda silly, especially in regards to carry-over penalties. Any remaining time from a regulation penalty would be cut in half entering the overtime period. If a player commits a hooking penalty at 19:20 of regulation serves the first 40 in regulation, then only has to serve 40 more seconds in overtime as opposed to the 80 that he actually owes. Wyshynski tells us what he thinks of that:

"Raise your hand if you think a defensive player might kill or maim to prevent a goal knowing that his team would only be shorthanded for, at most, under a minute in the OT?"

I'm with Puck Daddy on this one. I don't like it. You put youself in a serious hole if you commit penalties in overtime, so the solution is to be better disciplined. In my opinion, that is exactly the point. It should be set up so that you're very much behind the eight-ball if you commit an overtime penalty. That's the beauty and the difficulty of it. Every mistake is magnified.

I don't like the idea of comparing overtime to regulation. They're not the same. Nothing about them is the same. We all know that officiating standards are not the same in the extra frame as they are in regulation. Teams are already getting a break on law enforcement, and I don't think they should get an additional break on sentencing.

I suppose the next thing will be to play the full overtime period instead of sudden death. Either that, or they just stop playing overtime altogether and go straight from regulation to shootout. I'm against both of those ideas. They seem like ideas that might be brought up in rules committee meetings, but I hope they never are. The first quote that I lifted seems to suggest that the NHL wants more games going to shootout. They think that the fans and players like it. They think wrong.

In addition to the one minute minor experiment, the AHL is going to modify its rulebook to parrot that of the NHL. Specifically, they're going to change their rules about icing, high-sticking and delay of game (puck over glass).

Kick it!

The GMs had their meeting down in sunny Florida, and they walked away having made a couple of changes. One, a pretty big one, will take effect immediately.

No, the nets are not getting bigger. We're not going to see Esurance ads on player sweaters. We're going to see a drastic change to the rules about kicked-in goals.

We all know that a goal will be disallowed if there is a "distinct kicking motion" which propels it into the net. Rule 39.4 (iv), relating to video review, reads:

Puck directed or batted into the net by a hand or foot. With the use of
a foot/skate, was a distinct kicking motion evident? If so, the apparent
goal must be disallowed. A DISTINCT KICKING MOTION is one
which, with a pendulum motion, the player propels the puck with his
skate into the net. If the Video Goal Judge determines that it was put
into the net by an attacking player using a distinct kicking motion, it
must be ruled NO GOAL. This would also be true even if the puck,
after being kicked, deflects off any other player of either team and
then into the net. This is still NO GOAL

Rule 49.2 says pretty much exactly the same thing, but says that a puck that is first kicked, then touches any player's stick shall be ruled a good goal.

Anyway, this rule will be changed. From now on, a puck CAN be kicked into the net. According to Luke Decock's article:

As long as the player's skate remains on the ice, he can turn his skate or even slide his skate to redirect the puck. That guideline replaces the "distinct kicking motion" previously used for rulings.

Basically, this means that we will see fewer disallowed goals. Whereas now, the officials look for knee flexion and foot thrust to determine "distinct kicking motion", they'll now look to see only if the skate is on the ice. On the ice, good. Off the ice, no good.

I don't understand why the rule is being changed during the season. I guess the War Room is getting tired of getting calls about kicked-in goals.

back to the mail bag

I don't intend to make this a regular feature, but I feel compelled to write about this. According to my statcounter details, a reader in Hancock, Michigan queried "NHL rule 78j" to get to this site.

The rulebook is rewritten every year, and this year they did away with the alpha sub rules. Now they're numerical. They've also been renumbered.

At any rate, I think this, from the 2005-06 rulebook, is what the reader was looking for:

78j -- In the event that a goalkeeper has been pushed into the net together with the puck after making a stop, the goal will be disallowed. If applicable, appropriate penalties will be assessed.

In the event that the puck is under a player in or around the crease area (deliberately or otherwise), a goal cannot be scored by pushing this player together with the puck into the goal. If applicable, the appropriate penalties will be assessed, including a penalty shot if deemed to be covered in the crease deliberately

I think they were specifically looking for the part about the puck being under a player in the crease. There have been suggestions that this happened in game two of the Sabres-Sens series and that the Sabres should have been awarded a penalty shot. Forgive me, but I can't remember the specific players involved in the play, but the Sens player on all fours in the crease looked like he wanted to smother the puck. To the left of the goal was another Sens player who used his stick to clear the puck out of the zone. The player wanted to cover the puck, but he didn't actually do it.

This is now rule 67.4 and reads thusly:

If a player, except a goalkeeper, while play is in progress, falls on the puck, holds the puck, picks up the puck, or gathers the puck into his body or hands from the ice in the goal crease area, the play shall be stopped immediately and a penalty shot be awarded to the non-offending team. See also Rule 63 - Delaying the Game

I hope this helps.

Also, an undefined reader queried "jared staal draft eligible"
No. Jared Staal will turn 17 this summer. In order for a North American skater to become eligible for the NHL draft, he must turn 18 before September 15 and he remains eligible until he turns 20. After that, he is a free agent. Non-North American skaters are eligible for the draft even after they turn 20.
To answer the question properly, he won't become eligible until the 2008 draft.

Also, a reader in Jamestown, New York asked "has anyone ever met Ryan Miller of the Buffalo Sabres". I'm sure that someone, somewhere has. I used to work with a guy who went to school with him at Michigan State and knew him, so there's at least one.