6/7 Discussion - One Thing You Would Change About The NHL
Let's face it, commissioner Gary Bettman sucks at connecting with hockey fans. It seems like he could say that tomorrow would be sunny and do it in a way which angers the populace. So it came as no surprise that after hearing commissioner Gary Bettman's State of the NHL address, there was another round of gripes concerning a multitude of subjects.
So in spite in honor of our favorite rascal, what is the one thing you would change about the NHL? There's no poll due to open-ended nature, but it can be Wild-related, league-related, rules-related or really anything that the league has power over.
__________________
Blog: First Round Bust: A Cast of Thousands celebrating a rather dodgy track record of Minnesota Wild Drafting.
"Will beats skill when skill doesn't have enough will."
-Doug Woog
allow linesmates to call minor penalties if they witness the infraction. Discuss it with the Ref to ensure that is what he would call in that case and go from there. Get rid of the other ref so there is only one.
I'd only change the trapezoid rule. I think people make too much of the shootout and the loser point. They create excitement and better playoff races so they're good for the league in my books.
Seamless glass NEEDS to be mandated league wide. I just can not fathom watching games elsewhere at how bad some of these arenas stanchions are. They just create unnecessary bounces.
Get rid of the loser point altogether. Just the very idea of it is moronic and you can clearly tell when teams are purely playing it safe for the guaranteed point (us Wild fans are familiar with this).
No touch icing. Make it happen already. You've already limited players essentially touching each other on a race, so just eliminate the risk altogether.
Biggest problems for me are the trapezoid and loser point. Also would like intentional offside to be enforced with the icing rule -> no change and face-off in own zone. Then again the linesman are already scared enough to call an intentional offside.
Well, certainly bigger than the current NHL sheet. How much bigger is Olympic ice? Isn't that what Mariucci has? The sheet on the video of the Swede the Wild are looking at looked nice and big.
NHL ice is 200x85 while Olympic (which is what Mariucci has) is 200x100. There are other arenas which for one reason or another have ice sheets between the two (two off the top of my head are Boston University's new arena and the Kohl Center in Madison), but ice sheets are usually either NHL or Olympic.
I would like to see the shootout disappear. If that happens, I don't mind rewarding the losing team one point if they make it to overtime -- but I am willing to give that up if argued properly. Also, would probably be a bad idea, especially for teams on night 1 of a back-to-backer, but I don't think ties should be allowed either. If a game has to turn into more than an equivalent of 2 games (see Dallas vs San Jose in the Playoffs 2 years ago) then so be it. With no points for losers and continuous overtime, with the grueling schedule, I doubt we'd see teams playing it too safe.
I would get rid of the instigator. If the league really wants to stop head shots, that'd be the quickest way to get rid of them. You give a head shot, you'll receive one.
If we're discussing removing fans, I'd suggest we start at the majority of Leaf fans that peruse this forum. That, and perhaps we could maybe do something about Kaberle?
I've said it before, I'll say it again. Scrap the point system and go with win/loss %.
I think either of these point systems would work, your % idea or change in points.
Either way teams would actually be playing to win rather than playing not to lose.