By JD Lagrange – Growing up, I vividly remember the countless times my father and grandfather would reminisce about the “good old days.” They would recount stories of a simpler time, when life moved at a slower pace, and values seemed more grounded. As a child, I would often tune out their nostalgic tales, dismissing them as mere sentiments of the past.
Fast forward to present, now that I find myself at that age, I catch myself echoing those very sentiments, caught in a wave of nostalgia for the past. There’s a certain wistfulness that accompanies discussions about the past—the way things were, the close-knit communities, and the genuine connections formed.
In a world dominated by technological advancements and rapid changes, I can’t help but long for the simplicity and authenticity my forebears spoke so fondly of. As I navigate the complexities of the modern world, I can’t help but long for the simplicity and authenticity that defined those earlier times. It seems that as time goes on, the allure of the past becomes more pronounced, and I too find solace in reflecting on the bygone era my father and grandfather held dear. Maybe that’s why I retired in a smaller community and find solace in the wilderness.
Hockey has changed
Over the past three decades, coinciding with Gary Bettman’s tenure as NHL Commissioner, the landscape of the game has undergone significant transformations. Historically, professional sports prioritized generating profits for team owners. However, in recent years, professional athletes rightfully seek a fair share of the financial pie. Owners being as greedy as they are, the lost money that they now have to share with players must be recuperated somewhere. While past changes aimed at enhancing the game, the decisions and trends of the last 30 years seem more focused on increasing notoriety and revenue, often at the expense of on-ice dynamics.
I am not resistant to change; I recognize the importance of evolution and adaptation. Yet, in my view, any modification should contribute to improvement. Crucially, thoughtful consideration of potential consequences and impacts on various aspects of life should precede the implementation of changes. Unfortunately, this is an area where the NHL has fallen short.
For instance, the introduction of a second referee and video reviews to enhance on-ice calls, under the guise of achieving accuracy, has had unintended consequences. The added presence of another man in stripes on the ice has led to interference, and the subjective nature of most calls has introduced inconsistency, disrupting the flow of the game. The countless minutes spent on video reviews further hinder the game’s natural rhythm.
Another instance is the league’s attempt to eliminate fighting in a bid to attract new fans. This overlooks the fact that fighting has long been a cherished aspect of the sport for traditional hockey enthusiasts, serving as a means for players to uphold accountability on the ice. The result has been the alienation of dedicated, longtime fans in pursuit of a broader, often not as dedicated audience, or “fair weather fans”.
As someone who has been a fan for over five decades, I find myself gradually distancing from the game that once ignited my passion. I rarely watch games anymore, and my engagement on social media, while still present, is waning. The decision-makers of today are slowly extinguishing my enthusiasm, leaving me to feel like an old man living in the past, reminiscent of my father and grandfather. A passion that was so strong for so long, something that I thought would never fade, is getting to the point of completely vanishing.
Rules to be changed
Now that you know where I’m coming from, I have compiled a bunch of rules and ideas that, in my experienced but humble opinion at least, the NHL should implement. Some are simply reverting to what it was, acknowledging that the changes that were made don’t serve the purpose they were intended to serve. Others are possible improvements in order to right the pendulum to a more central position.
SCHEDULE & PLAYOFFS
✈️ Have two conferences with no divisions. The divisions were created when there were fewer teams, to create rivalries. It worked for a while but with more teams, rivalries are now being created in the playoffs. Which bring me to the following point: Playoffs should be within the conference, 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc. There is no need for Wild Cards that way.
✈️ It’s important for teams to play each team in the league at least once: one at home, one on the road. Fans can see star players in their home rink at least once in a season. Balanced schedule of facing the other conference twice each for 32 games. Then split the rest from within the conference as evenly and fairly as possible. Ideally, facing your conference 4 times would be great but that would mean a 92 games schedule. So dropping to 3 times each would make for a 77 games schedule.
✈️ Cutting the season down from 82 games to 77 games, as explained in the previous point. This would cut about a week and a half to the season, which would be a very good thing. The season is dragging too long, which pushes the playoffs well into the summer months. The NHL is losing fans that late, other than the teams playing.
✈️ Apply the salary cap for playoffs. As it stands, teams keep players out of the line-up and bring them back for the playoffs only because there’s no cap for playoffs. The Montreal Canadiens face a team (Tampa Bay) technically $18 million over the cap because they had replaced a few players (including Nikita Kucherov) who returned for playoffs. Now we hear that Gabriel Landeskog could be returning to the Avalanche on time for playoffs (but not a game before). By implementing the cap, teams would have to be cap compliant during the playoffs as well.
PLAYER SAFETY & REFEREES
👮♀️ Player safety should be a panel. This panel should consist of one former referee, one former player and one former executive, and it must be independent of NHL office. This would allow for more transparency as today, it sure looks like some teams are getting preferential treatment.
👮♀️ Punish the act, not the results of the action. When issuing penalties or suspensions, both the referees and the NHL player safety need to focus on the act itself, and not if there’s injury or not. A little nick with the tip of the blade will draw blood in the face of a player while a harder hit with the flat part of the blade won’t. Why should blood be a deciding factor? Or a two-hand swing of a stick on a player’s helmet (Jacob Truba) may not result in an injury but an innocent crosscheck in the back of another may result in a player getting hurt. It’s the action that should be punished.
👮♀️ Get rid of the two-referee system. Two referees adds another body on an ice surface that’s already crowded, as players are bigger and faster than ever. Through over-expansion and going to the two-referee system, the NHL has promoted people for whom the game is just too fast. They are bringing in incompetence and with it, inconsistency. Further, they have added a second judgment on the ice. How many times have we seen the closest referee shake his head “no” looking straight at a play, deeming it wasn’t penalty worthy, only to see the bozo 100 feet away raise his arm to call the so-called infraction?
👮♀️ While we’re on the referees topic, create some sort of referees evaluation committee and those not performing up to par could be sent down to the AHL and others more deserving could be given a shot. They do it for players, so why not for referees? Just having a carrot dangling with a promise to work in the playoffs simply isn’t enough.
👮♀️ All referees should be mic’d. That should be the very least and media or teams should be allowed to request those recordings from the NHL at any given time. Those should also be reviewed by the referees evaluation committee. Some even suggested for referees to have to meet the media after games, like coaches do. It’s all about transparence and accountability.
👮♀️ Ban plastic (and any hard material) elbow pads and shoulder pads as they serve more as weapons than for protection. If the league is serious about concussions, they must do that. There has to be some cushioning on those peaces of equipment to better protect the players’ head. Watch this clip from Don Cherry’s Coach’s Corner from 2011, when he pulls a clip from 1999 showing the difference in equipment. It starts at about 2:38 minutes of the segment. And that equipment (weapons) was from 1999! It’s even more elaborate and dangerous today.
POINTS & OVERTIME
🧭 Get rid of the ridiculous skills competition you call shootout. In my opinion, it should have never been implemented to start with. Hockey is a team game and even by going 3 on 3 in overtime, that’s a situation where it’s a team against a team. If you must, extend the overtime from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. If still tied, give the poor guys a point each and call it a night.
🧭 Get rid of the loser point. I like my colleague Bob Trask’s suggestion of awarding 2 points for a regulation win, 1 point for an overtime win and zero points for a loss. It provides added incentive to win in regulation. Teams would be going all out for that 2 points rather than sitting back an playing for the regulation tie knowing they still have a shot at 2 points while being guaranteed 1 point. The number of games going to OT or shootouts would be reduced.
🧭 Instate a new rule for the 3 on 3 OT. Make it so that the players cannot go back further than the red line to regroup once they’ve gained the offensive zone. Too many times, players circle back out of the offensive to make changes, or because they don’t like what they see. This slows down the game and makes it boring.
ON ICE RULES
🏒 Get rid of the 4 minutes for drawing blood on high stick. As explained above, this makes no sense at all. The angle of the stick alone will be the difference between blood or no blood. It goes back to punishing the act, not the result. An errand stick should be two minutes. A deliberate one, 4 minutes.
🏒 Amend the instigator penalty. I know that it might be difficult to completely remove it from the rule book but it should be amended. The additional 10 minutes (and potential suspensions) should be in the hands of the referee. This would allow for more severe punishment to protect against so-called “goons” going after star players, the excuse the NHL gave to add to the instigator rule.
🏒 Forget hybrid icing, blow the whistle immediately when the puck crosses the line no matter who’s in front in a so-called race for it. An icing is an icing. Too often, there’s controversy as to who is ahead anyway. Plus, you save time on the clock.
TRADES
💸 Teams should not be allowed to trade players on LTIR for cap relief. Instead, teams should have the option of one buyout per year that wouldn’t count against the salary cap. The player would still receive two thirds of his salary. If not utilized during the buyout period, it’s gone and you don’t get another one until the following season.
💸 Get rid of trades for future considerations. Teams can no longer trade for cash, so why is this allowed? Trades should be hockey related, equitable and not to bail a team from a contract or help another get to the cap floor.
💸 No games should be scheduled on trade deadline day. For one thing, trade deadline is a huge stresser and distraction for the players to start with. That day, it’s at it’s peak. Further, it’s not fair to the teams having to deal with travelling and preparing for a game when one of them could be traded that day. Those players don’t have time to travel to join their new team for that game anyway.
💸 Amend the salary retention rule. Make it so that if a player has multiple years remaining to his contract, a team should have the option to retain salary for the current season only, instead of having to retain for the entire contract as the rule currently states. For example, a team is interested in David Savard, who has one year left after this one with a cap hit of $3.5 million. The Canadiens should be able to retain salary for the rest of this season but the acquiring team would be on the hook for the full $3.5 million next year.
VIDEO REVIEW
🎥 The video reviews are too often not working, there is no consistency. I don’t know what the solution is but we don’t know what goalie interference is anymore. Some plays are clearly offside on replays that we watch yet, a goal is allowed (or vice-versa). It must be remedied but I don’t have the solution. Someone smarter will have to come up with something.
🎥 Limit the time referees have for video review. The NHL doesn’t want to extend overtime because games are too long yet, they let referees take 10-15 minutes to review a play. Pick a number, say a couple of minutes. If they can’t tell by then, the call on the ice stands. Enough of this waiting.
NHL DRAFT
👨🎓 Lottery draft needs adjustments. There are too many teams right now with a chance at getting the number one overall pick, as low as their odds are. Cut the number of teams eligible by half of what it currently is.
👨🎓 Bump the draft age to 19 instead of 18. They could instate something where and 18 year old could be drafted in the top-5 of the draft but from the sixth pick onwards, draftees must be 19. This would allow for exceptional talent to come to the NHL sooner. The league would have to come up with a way to make this fair for the one transition off-season, perhaps by creating an incentive, or a combined record of two seasons, to determine the draft order. But then, it would return to normal.
👨🎓 Change the US College rules. It is unfair to teams when a prospect can become UFA without dressing up for the team that drafted him. Teams invest a lot in the Draft and with a hard cap, prospects are too valuable to lose quality prospects that way, as we’ve touched on a while back on this site.
OTHERS
👨⚖️ Gary Bettman (or any future commissioner) should need 51% approval, not just a few owners as it is now. This is too easy to form collusion.
🪢 No more expansion. 32 teams is already too many. Instead, relocation is key. The NHL, under Bettman, has been using expansion as (fake) revenue and that must stop. It’s killing the one ice game by over-diluting the product and putting a strain on quality refereeing.
🏆 Create the Bobby Orr Trophy. Perhaps having an award dedicated to the best offensive-minded defenseman would allow for the Norris Trophy to be returned to what it was originally intended for: the best all-around defenseman? The Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) as lost sight of what it is for, so this may serve as a reminder, providing them with a clear difference, as we’ve recently described.
💵 Compensation for Canadian dollar. Each year, Canadian teams should have some sort of compensation based on the value of the dollar. Having your revenue in Canadian dollar and expenses in US dollars puts the teams located in Canada at a disadvantage every year. You compensate poorer teams, so why not these teams?
🪑 Players benches on opposite sides of the ice. Return to the old format where benches were on opposite side of the ice, with the penalty bench on the home side. Yes, this give home teams an advantage but each team has the same number of home and away games. Avoid pushing on line-changes but also, avoid having a bench gate in the offensive or defensive zone. This will avoid the pushing and shoving on line changes, and keep coaches away from each other, as well as getting rid of the ridiculously long changes in the second period for all teams. It would even out in the course of a season as teams play the same number of games at home and on the road.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it, folks. I’ve been repeatedly questioned on social media about why I’m discontented with the current state of the game and why my interest is waning. This dissatisfaction hasn’t materialized overnight; it’s been accumulating for the past thirty years and continues to grow. What’s disheartening is the absence of any indications from the league to address these concerns. The predominant focus on greed has overshadowed the essence of the game on the ice. This is where the disconnection arises.
Hockey is meant to be a source of entertainment, but when it brings more frustration than joy, a decision needs to be made. That’s the crossroads I find myself at. It’s crucial to acknowledge that this perspective is solely one individual’s viewpoint, shaped by years of experience, highlighting the issues prevalent in today’s game. However, it’s essential to remember that an opinion devoid of knowledge is not an opinion at all; it’s mere imagination.