If you could fix one thing about the NHL, what would it be?

[SoupGuru]

Keep:
1. puck over glass penalty
- No one wants to go back to the days of the 'oops, accidental' puck out of play to force a faceoff

Can we compromise? I think a puck over glass should be treated as an icing.

 

[Frk It]

I would like to hear the league justify why they think they need a lottery.

We just had SJ finish with 52 points this year which matches the 52 points the Sabres had in 13/14 when they were blatantly throwing games to try to get McDavid.

So you're not increasing the on-ice product and you are not helping the teams out at the bottom... So what are we doing at this point? Nashville won 30 games this year and is drafting 5th. That is stupid.

 

[JohanFranzenstein]

I have never heard anyone advocate for something like this, so can I ask if I have this right?

You'd want Washington to play Toronto in the first round right now, and Winnipeg to host Vegas. The Sens would be the seven seed with home ice against eighth seeded Montreal? The Wild would have had home ice against St Louis in a 7/8 matchup?

Why?

Instead of having a team scratch and claw their way into the playoffs to get bounced in 4 games (Washington last year) it makes for more competitive matchups. And potentially bigger stories further in the playoffs.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Was there evidence that they covered it up?

Unless anything else have come out, look at it from coach perspective. You are in the playoffs, you get this news with no way of proving it happened or not, and then being told it will be handled.

I kind of get the coach goes about his business of trying to win the playoffs with his team if this was told.
Though haven't read up about how exactly things went down.

There's plenty of evidence that they took no action to investigate an allegation that one of Quenneville's coaches sexually assaulted one of his player. Aldrich was given the choice of participating in an investigation or resigning. Quenneville has repeatedly lied about when he found out about it.

After Aldrich left the Blackhawks he went on to sexually assault two Miami of Ohio students, then later a 16 year old hockey player, the latter of which he served 9 months in prison for and 5 years probation and is now a registered sex offender. So known victims are Kyle Beach, Blackhawk John Doe #2, the college students and the teenager.

I don't want to derail this thread but re-litigating the incident so I won't get into it, but the short answer is yes. And that there's a full report on it available to read.

 

[Sparty]

Instead of having a team scratch and claw their way into the playoffs to get bounced in 4 games (Washington last year) it makes for more competitive matchups. And potentially bigger stories further in the playoffs.

But then you're going to end up with a team seeded no better than 5th in the conference finals, and that matchup has a higher tendency to be awful. Make it to the conference finals as a one or two seed, and that might as well be a bye more often than not.

 

[Bondurant]

Bring back the mf'n ties.

 

[SirKillalot]

I don't want to derail this thread but re-litigating the incident so I won't get into it, but the short answer is yes. And that there's a full report on it available to read.

Where can one find this report?

 

[SirKillalot]

There's plenty of evidence that they took no action to investigate an allegation that one of Quenneville's coaches sexually assaulted one of his player. Aldrich was given the choice of participating in an investigation or resigning. Quenneville has repeatedly lied about when he found out about it.

I also don't think he has been completely honest about when and where etc., but I also get when you are in that position, its difficult because unless there is video evidence, you cannot prove it beyond any doubt.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

So I find this interesting, you want Bowman and Quenneville effectively banned from the league but wouldn’t havd a Donald Sterling esk forced team sale. I mean yes the Wirtz family would have made a couple billion (hopefully helping the other settlement) on the sale like Sterling, but I would think they should also be booted out of the league with the other key players. They are the largest power brokers in the entire organization and should not get out of the steepest punishment available in my opinion.

My answer to your question regarding forcing the Wirtz's to sell was "I don't honestly know." I never said I wouldn't have a forced team sale.

I don't know what all that entails and off the top of my head I would think Bettman would need a direct smoking gun to force the sale of a billion dollar franchise. Don't get me wrong I think Rocky Wirtz was a piece of shit and hope people remember him mostly for that last press conference. But there could be other mechanisms to potentially put NHL babysitters on the leaders of the organization. Or have the NHL take over like they did for Arizona. It sure as hell should've been more than the paltry fine.

Speaking of POS, my feeling at the time was Sterling shouldn't have been forced to sell the franchise due to an illegally made recording. Again, good riddance, but that's a dangerous game to play when you can make use an unlawful act to boot someone out.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Where can one find this report?

https://www.jenner.com/a/web/8kmbgFUEYWcNnvzFTa5h8H/4HRMZQ/Report%2520to%2520the%2520Chicago%2520Blackhawks%2520Hockey%2520Team%2520-%2520October%25202021.pdf

 

[nofehr]

Can we compromise? I think a puck over glass should be treated as an icing.

Ok, how 'bout icing on the first one, and penalties after that? I mean, I don't know that I've seen 2 puck-over-glass penalties in one game for the same team. It certainly can't be too common?

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

Stop screwing the Red Wings in the lottery. When Detroit is good the NHL thrives more...

 

[DanielMarois]

Make the playoffs 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 , etc so that there's a chance rivals could meet in the Final.

Make the draft lottery such that each non -playoff team gets an equal chance at each pick from 1-16. In a cap era teams should not be rewarded that greatly for being bad.

 

[heyfolks]

FACE OFFS - I have no idea how to fix them, but they take too damn long to get the puck back into play!

 

[Sadekuuro]

Can we compromise? I think a puck over glass should be treated as an icing.

That has been the obvious solution for 20 years, but apparently someone's going to have to lose a Cup because of it first.

 

[Winger98]

FACE OFFS - I have no idea how to fix them, but they take too damn long to get the puck back into play!

better linesmen who will drop the puck.

 

[RabidBadger]

Ban Ottawa and Toronto from having fans. That will spare the rest of the fans from suffering their vacuous, inane takes and make talking about NHL hockey enjoyable again.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

That has been the obvious solution for 20 years, but apparently someone's going to have to lose a Cup because of it first.

I hated the over the glass rule when it was implemented but have come to appreciate it.

It encourages making an actual skill play versus high and hard off the glass. Don't want to risk taking a frustrating over the glass penalty? Keep the puck on the ice and make a play.

 

[ricky0034]

But then you're going to end up with a team seeded no better than 5th in the conference finals, and that matchup has a higher tendency to be awful. Make it to the conference finals as a one or two seed, and that might as well be a bye more often than not.

also we'd probably have the top teams playing like half their team every night for like the last quarter of the season(and alternating which half to keep everyone both fresh and rested) or something stupid like that since they wouldn't care about losing games

 

[Sadekuuro]

I hated the over the glass rule when it was implemented but have come to appreciate it.

It encourages making an actual skill play versus high and hard off the glass. Don't want to risk taking a frustrating over the glass penalty? Keep the puck on the ice and make a play.

With referees routinely looking right at but ignoring the likes of boarding and cross checks to the face, how does it make sense that that is the one thing that is an automatic penalty every time?

A faceoff in your zone where the other team can change and you can't is still punitive enough to force players to try to avoid it.

 

[wingerdinger]

fix the offside rule it's annoying how many good goals that nobody was complaining about before video review have been call off due to forensic investigation. If the review takes longer than 30 seconds the original call stands.

 

[Run the Jewels]

Can someone explain what "the Gold plan" is to me in dummy-talk?

I linked to it in the first post. Basically the team that accumulates the best average points per game after being eliminated from the playoffs would get the 1OA pick and the remaining 'lottery' teams would draft in the order they finished. It incentivizes icing your best team and trying to win games.

So in theory a team that is purposely tanking would get the worst lottery pick.

 

[Run the Jewels]

fix the offside rule it's annoying how many good goals that nobody was complaining about before video review have been call off due to forensic investigation. If the review takes longer than 30 seconds the original call stands.

Added the 30 second limit for video review under enforcing the rules. Thanks.

 

[Winger98]

With referees routinely looking right at but ignoring the likes of boarding and cross checks to the face, how does it make sense that that is the one thing that is an automatic penalty every time?

A faceoff in your zone where the other team can change and you can't is still punitive enough to force players to try to avoid it.

I think you'd see teams gladly throwing the puck over the glass to relieve pressure, especially if they are a good faceoff team.

 

[Dotter]

Buy one package to watch every NHL game my team plays - or any game for that matter. I can't keep up with all these different streaming channels and schedules. Its 2025, it shouldn't be so difficult to watch hockey.