My personal opinion that the single biggest issue with the NHL is officiating. It's bad. Really, really, really bad. From night to night you have no clue what kind of game they will call and what's a penalty to some officials is not a penalty to others. I can't remember a playoffs like last season where officiating played such a big role in deciding the outcome of the games. The NHL really needs to fix this because to me it's ruining the game for fans across the league.
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This is not serious as a way to fix the NHL but it would be fun to watch:
Instead of a set period of time, try first team to score 5 goals wins. This would eliminate the stifling defensive systems of modern hockey and would really showcase offensive talent.
This might make a good format for an all-star game or something like that.
I always wonder what it would look like if you started every game with the visiting team up by half a goal. I feel like it would make for an entertaining game, solve the ot/so dilemma and would make for a pretty fair test to determine the best teams over the course of a season.
Personally, the biggest things that would improve the game are:
- Make officiating more consistent. Bad reffing ruins the game
- Allow a player to get puck in the net with any part of his body. Allow kicking motion with skate, punching it in with glove, and allow a high stick. Who cares if you kick it in or not, or if you swing at the puck with a high stick and redirects it in. If you commit a foul in the process (i.e. high stick a player) you go to the box and maybe the goal is disallowed...
- Allow the goalies to handle the puck anywhere in the D zone. No more trapezoid. I've hated this rule since it came into force. It's dumb, and only limits skill
- Define what is and isn't goaltender interference and be consistent in enforcement
Keep the salary cap, completely and in its total form.
Take the referee's off of the ice and put them in official chairs in the broadcast booth. Have the face offs administrated via dropping pucks from the ceiling, in flames.
If there's a fight, its allowed to last for 1 minute or less, the linesmen are in the broadcast booth with sniper rifles loaded with elephant tranquilizers.
Have the goal review done by a computerize Robot that can potentially learn and an exponential rate and will eventually view humanity as an enemy of hockey.
Replace over time with a doubles ice skating competition, who doesn't want to see Brouwer catching Johnny in his arms and then spinning him down the ice?
Coaches have to cosplay.
Trade deadline trades. Trades are no longer announce until after games are played. and players are revealed like wrestlers coming to a territory. All games on the day after trade deadline are played at the same time no matter the time zone to increase the suspense.
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I really want to get rid of the shootout. Every game I have gone back to check, the time it takes to prep for the shootout and for 6 shooters to shoot, you can almost have another full 5 minute 3v3 OT. Anytime a shootout goes beyond the initial 3 shooters you would easily get another 5 minutes of OT. Just make OT 10 mins so there isn't that extra stoppage. If you can't win in that time then the extra point isn't awarded.
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Ever since I've started watching hockey all they've talked about is fixing the game, growing the game, but there's nothing wrong with it. All the 'fixes' they've attempted have just made it worse and worse leave it alone
The thing about NHL officiating is that I wouldn't use the word "bad".
This isn't a bunch of amateurs or idiot replacement refs who don't know the rules or can't follow the fast pace. Bad to me denotes a lack of talent or understanding.
It is the intentional inconsistency, game management, putting away the whistles in close games, late in a game, the entire playoffs, even up calls, being afraid to call too many penalties against one team, changing the standards of a call if a team is already shorthanded. The result is poor officiating but it isn't incompetence, it is by design.
And all of that is because the league refuses to deal with the issue. I'm not sure if it is because of the refs tight brotherhood and union, that the league doesn't want to rock the boat but along with the lack of transparency on ref ratings and evaluations, it seems to me that the NHL is totally fine not just allowing inconsistent reffing to continue, but to actively encourage it.
Last edited by Cecil Terwilliger; 03-16-2018 at 11:05 AM.
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Get rid of the shootout. Play 3 on 3 until someone scores. It won't take long and the games where it DOES take long would be unreal.
Ban fighting. Knowing what we do about concussions now you can't have it.
Reduce goalie equipment to promote scoring. Or angle the posts so that if shots hit the post more of them go in. Small change like that could add 1 or 2 goals a game.
Evolve the definition of hitting and what is legal and what isn't.
While you weren't being serious, pulling the 4 officials off the ice, having one puck fetcher/dropper/referee, and having officials at strategic places (blue lines, red lines, net) and with access to high def footage in real time could improve the flow of the game.
There's the added benefit that if you choose to fight, you're in it. No linesman to save you. It would reduce fighting and probably lead to a "code" amongst the players about how far to take it when a fight actually does happen.
The salary cap and the draft are two of the worst things in North American sports.
How the owners managed to convince us that these two schemes to suppress player wages is all done in the name of "fairness" or "parity" is beyond me. What a crock.
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The salary cap and the draft are two of the worst things in North American sports.
How the owners managed to convince us that these two schemes to suppress player wages is all done in the name of "fairness" or "parity" is beyond me. What a crock.
The thing about NHL officiating is that I wouldn't use the word "bad".
This isn't a bunch of amateurs or idiot replacement refs who don't know the rules or can't follow the fast pace. Bad to me denotes a lack of talent or understanding.
It is the intentional inconsistency, game management, putting away the whistles in close games, late in a game, the entire playoffs, even up calls, being afraid to call too many penalties against one team, changing the standards of a call if a team is already shorthanded. The result is poor officiating but it isn't incompetence, it is by design.
And all of that is because the league refuses to deal with the issue. I'm not sure if it is because of the refs tight brotherhood and union, that the league doesn't want to rock the boat but along with the lack of transparency on ref ratings and evaluations, it seems to me that the NHL is totally fine not just allowing inconsistent reffing to continue, but to actively encourage it.
The officiating is exactly the way the BoG wants it. Tight during the start of the season, loosening up in January, and then tight again during the first round of the playoffs. And then only decapitations being called during the fourth round.
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I really like the 3 on 3 OT until someone wins concept. The NFL model of non guaranteed contracts instead of getting rid of the salary cap is intriguing.
Removing guaranteed contracts would just bail out GMs who have made bad decisions
The thing about NHL officiating is that I wouldn't use the word "bad".
This isn't a bunch of amateurs or idiot replacement refs who don't know the rules or can't follow the fast pace. Bad to me denotes a lack of talent or understanding.
It is the intentional inconsistency, game management, putting away the whistles in close games, late in a game, the entire playoffs, even up calls, being afraid to call too many penalties against one team, changing the standards of a call if a team is already shorthanded. The result is poor officiating but it isn't incompetence, it is by design.
And all of that is because the league refuses to deal with the issue. I'm not sure if it is because of the refs tight brotherhood and union, that the league doesn't want to rock the boat but along with the lack of transparency on ref ratings and evaluations, it seems to me that the NHL is totally fine not just allowing inconsistent reffing to continue, but to actively encourage it.
This, 100%.
It's an internally inconsistent system and it's stupid. Everybody knows there are these unspoken rules that less is called in the 2nd half of a game and in the playoffs. But that leads to a situation where there is a penalty that just has to be called even in spite of that rule, so the refs are faced with not calling the rulebook or not calling the "unspoken" rulebook, and one team and its fanbase inevitably feels like they got jobbed.
Bettman said that every fanbase feels like they are getting screwed by the refs means it is working. No, it means the exact opposite, you dolt. There are two different rulebooks in the NHL and that is just ridiculous, and it means everybody feels like they're getting screwed because there is just way too much discretion involved in refereeing a game.
Call the god damned rulebook. Even if that means one team gets 16 penalties and the other gets two.
They've already thrown the "slashing crackdown" right out the window. Goalie interference is legendarily inconsistent.
No one should ever again utter the phrase "oh come on, you haven't been calling that all game!"
This has to be fixed.
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And all of that is because the league refuses to deal with the issue. I'm not sure if it is because of the refs tight brotherhood and union, that the league doesn't want to rock the boat but along with the lack of transparency on ref ratings and evaluations, it seems to me that the NHL is totally fine not just allowing inconsistent reffing to continue, but to actively encourage it.
You ever read the released emails of former Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell?
If that is the level of professionalism still shown by NHL executives, well its not surprising that the officiating is the way it is.
