5 Major Changes That Would Save the NHL
The NHL could use some help. Luckily, Pucks and Pitchforks is here to give them a boost. We make a few major changes that could make the NHL much more entertaining and level the playing field.
We all love hockey but most fans have at least some problems with it and with how things are done. Today, let's make some changes that would overall improve the game as a whole, and though some of these will clearly never be done, some have been talked about by fans for quite a while.
1. Stick to the NHL Rulebook at all times
Now, this is the most obvious one and something that would be laughed at if you had not been watching for long, but it will never not blow the minds of fans that there is a rulebook and it is not followed. The crackdown after the last full season lockout on holding and interference had a massive impact on the game and improved it in an equally massive way. The game got faster, more goals were scored and skilled players were allowed to be skilled without being grabbed onto by players who had a third of the talent. While the holding is not out of control now, thanks to that, the NHL still has other areas that it can improve on by doing what it should have been the whole time.
Call all the stick infractions. A one-handed tap to the gloves is two minutes when it did not impact the play, and the argument is it is in the rulebook, which is fine, but big chops to the ankles and crosschecks right to the lower back along the boards are called at random. Don't take physicality out of the game but a crosscheck is a viscous play and not needed when the legal play is to use your gloves or shoulder to move the other player. It's still physical but not as likely to lead to injuries.
The third part of this first point is call the rulebook at all times, including playoffs. The NHL always puts the whistles away when the regular season is over, and the number one thing said is, "The refs don't want to impact the game," but this is a terrible take because they are impacting the play by doing nothing. Last season, Trouba destroyed Meier; this season, he could have ended Martin Necas' career if that leaping chicken wing elbow to the head landed. Sam Benett's forearm shot to Marchand was brutal and is something no fan wants to see happen to their own stars, but it will always be not just an option for teams but almost a priority with how many of the dirty teams go deep every season.
Call the rulebook every game because that is the entire reason to have a rulebook and people will 100% know the standard at all times and at all levels of play and games should not escalate due to bad reffing. People want to watch physical hockey not dirty hockey and this will let the stars and players people pay to watch do what they are supposed to do without removing the physical nature of our game.
2. Broaden Replay Review Policy
Goal reviews can be a pain and are sometimes insanely subjective, especially with what is goaltender interference, but it is not the only thing missing in real-time. Teams should be allowed to challenge a penalty with the very important point added to it that the maximum time for review is one minute to keep the flow of a game.
This season, when a player is high-sticked, some officials have gotten smart and called it a major just so they can review it and knock the penalty down with 100% knowledge that it was not a major. Instead of having to use a loophole like this, allow teams to make a challenge on some of these awful calls and put it in the coach's and video teams' hands to hopefully get it right more often.
A great example of this would be on plays where the referee only saw something out of the corner of their eye and, with a snap decision, made the wrong call on a hold or a blatant dive that was obvious to the bird' s-eye view. We all got it. It would probably take about 10 seconds for some of these to be put right if they are challengeable, and fans should be very happy with that idea.
3. Fixing the Salary Cap
There are a million complaints about the salary cap every year, and while it was 100% needed and should obviously never be removed, it is possible to make it better. Players like good teams, a better climate, and more money for the most part, and while no one can make Winnipeg warm or have made the now-gone Arizona Coyotes a good team, they could make money go further. How would that be done, you say?
Taxes in each province/state are very different, and living in a place with low taxes is a massive advantage to some cities, especially if they get good; looking at you Florida. So let's change the salary cap to only impact take-home income.
If they did this, a $10 million contract would actually be worth $10 million dollars and not $7.5 million in city A, $7.2 million in city B, and $6.1 million in City C. This would even out the playing field even more and might give players more incentive to stay in places they want to and in places they are drafted in if money is not a big issue. Yes, it is more money than most of us will ever see, but it is still a hard choice if all things were equal to basically turn down millions of dollars for no reason, especially when it does not help your team and just goes to taxes.
This would be a very messy change to do but if you just moved each deal to their take home it would have a net positive on the sport immediately and moving forward. The only complaint from this would be some of the teams that don't want to spend would have to spend a bit more despite this probably making them more competitive but if a billionaire if unwilling to drop a few extra million to win your team is never going to win anyways.
4. Get rid of the shootout
Teams already have a hard enough time catching up in the NHL Standings when they start the season slow. The season is basically done by December. For most teams, it takes an insane number of wins to make up any ground like the Edmonton Oilers did this season, and in the opposite fashion, the Canucks ran a hot start and played mediocre all the way to winning that division.
That being said eliminating the shootout would be a step in the right direction in eliminating some of the loser points. While a fair number of people will disagree, there is nothing wrong with a well-fought game ending in a tie. (Editor's note: we could always just extend 3v3 overtime to 10 minutes and give no points for ties.)
The shootout also has very little to do with hockey as a game. It is just a skill showcase that some players are much better at than others. It really doesn't fit that well into a team game. Could you imagine that deciding a playoff game? On top of that, it takes away from the rare penalty shot, which was insanely exciting because it happened only a few times a year, and now it feels so watered down. This is a very easy fix.
5. Put in a real safety department.
Sure, this might feel like a shot at the entire NHL safety department and everything they have done in making the NHL a far less safe game even more than the inconsistent reffing. A one-game suspension does not make any player think about what they did, and the $5,000 fine maximum allowed in the CBA is absolute garbage, considering a $1 million player, which is near the league minimum, makes $12,195 per game. On top of that, many repeat offenders don't even get recognized by the league despite all fans seeing it because they were never suspended before when this awful part of the league fines them for headshots. So, how is this fixed?
Any headshot is an automatic three-game suspension; leaving your feet to leap at an opposing player is 2 games automatically, and hitting a defenseless opponent from behind is an automatic 3 games. The one side note that would be needed on this final one is that players who are lined up and committed to a clean hit on the side or front of the player, but the player receiving the hit turns his back at the last second would not be a penalty or suspension. Those who played hockey all know you NEVER turn your back, and this is taught to children, yet NHL players still do it for some reason today, and you have to protect yourself.
Finally, the intent of a hit should be in the decision-making part of suspensions because it is asinine to wait for injuries, very severe life-altering injuries, to occur before something is done about it. No one wants to see a player lying on the ice with his brain scrambled so players throwing out leaping elbows need to be suspended for big numbers of games while people will definitely disagree with this one my counter to that is how would you feel seeing that leaping Trouba Elbow land on a guy like Jack Hughes or Connor McDavid hockey fans? Or a borderline AHL guy plastering a young star like Wyatt Johnson or Cale Makar right in the numbers to hit his head into the boards. Sending a message right away to these kinds of plays before a massively dirty and bad nonhockey play could stop a tragedy.
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