The NHL has decided to respond to some of the complaints from all around the League with the changing of some rules. Fans were calling for some modifications, as well as the coaches and managers. In the past Stanley Cup playoffs, we have seen many controversial calls. Cody Eakin’s five-minute major penalty in Game 7 of the first round series. Artemi Panarin´s goal after the puck hit the net. David Perron‘s goal after Tyler Bozak tripped Noel Acciari in the Stanley Cup Final. These and many more situations required the NHL rule changes from the beginning of the upcoming season.
#NHL expanded coaches challenge: a third category – in addition to goalie interference and offside – are missed stoppages of play in a zone that leads to a goal. Consequence of being wrong in a challenge is an automatic minor penalty for all three categories now.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) 21. júna 2019
New Rules In 2019-2020
The League’s commissioner Gary Bettman announced several NHL rule changes for the upcoming 2019-2020 season on Thursday. NHL’s Board of Governors, league general managers, and the NHL’s Competition Committee all approved these changes. From now on, there will be three different categories of video challenges. The first two will stay the same, for the goaltender interference and the offside. The new one will be about missed calls in the offensive zone that lead to goals. Therefore the hand passes or pucks hitting the netting won´t be good for legal goals this time around. No Timo Meier or Artemi Panarin situations anymore.
What if the challenge will be wrong? The team that fails the challenge will receive a minor penalty. If that happens for the second time four-minute double-minor penalty for delay of game will take place. Losing the timeouts won´t happen anymore as the coaches used to take these challenges just to give the breather to their team. Only a penalty will result if the coach fails the challenge.
“The theory there is we don’t want lots and lots of challenges,” Bettman said. “We don’t want to disrupt the flow of the game. We only want challenges where it’s crystal clear that an egregious mistake has been made,” Bettman added on Thursday while speaking with the media.
Another change allows the coaches to pick the side a faceoff will take place on to start a power play and after an icing. Players who lose their helmet during play – and don’t have a chance to play the puck – will either have to go to the bench or put his helmet back on or will be hit with a minor penalty.
NHL Rule Changes To Prevent Blunders From Recent Playoffs
The other changes realized will include major or match penalties. Let´s say that if Cody Eakin’s case will repeat from October, the referee will have to review that play on a tablet at the timekeeper’s bench to reinforce that the right call has been made. However, if the referee deems that he has failed, he cannot cancel the penalty, just downgrade it to the minor penalty at least. These will include double-minor penalties for high sticking. Just to make sure the player was struck with the opponent´s stick. No penalty will be called if the video review deems that it was not a restricted action on the play.
Let´s recap what will these changes affect. Cody Eakin´s match penalty against Joe Pavelski from the San Jose Sharks will get a review. Same as Panarin’s goal against the Boston Bruins or Erik Karlsson‘s goal against the Blues. Perron’s goal from Game 5 versus the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final would stand pat. The new video review category will not include any kind of discretionary play like a penalty call. That one won´t be reviewable in the 2019-2020 season.
These NHL rule changes are accepted as positives ones. The NHL does indeed address the issues from the past few weeks, for instance. “We don’t want it to be perceived as an overreaction,” Gary Bettman reacted.
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