For the record, the recently completed general managers meetings in Naples, Fla., produced just as little toward change in the game or its rules as it did in trades.
To be more direct, they did next to nothing.
Now that's not all bad if you like the game the way it is and it certainly is better than the way it was prior to the lockout, but if you are among the legions who think it could be better, well, the GMs offered up next to nothing.
They did ask the American Hockey League to experiment with 60 second power plays in overtime next season, but one could hardly expect much from that since NHL Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell gave the distinct impression that it was going to the AHL as a dead-on-arrival prospect.
Campbell said it was his opinion that the one-minute penalties will produce fewer goals and therefore more games will go to the shootout. The NHL does not want fewer goals; it wants more goals and fewer penalties hence it's not likely this prospective rule change is going anywhere.
The league also came out with a directive that it was about to get serious about the crackdown on goaltending equipment. Pardon us if we've heard this more times than Marion Jones said she never used performance-enhancing substances, but we shall remain cynical and suspect.
The truth of the matter is that the league has never been able to bring this about because it really doesn't care to bring it about. Instead of cracking down on equipment - an expensive and perhaps legal problem when it comes to dealing with the players association - the league has given it lip service in the hope that constant tinkering with the rules will make scoring rise and the problem appear to go away.
Well it's not happening and the NHL is essentially faced with two choices: go after the goalies hard or enlarge the nets.
Consider the words of New Jersey netminder Martin Brodeur, who has a vested interested in this subject, but makes sense nonetheless.
"It's always constant talk at the meetings of, 'How can we create more goals?' And they're always looking at the goalies," Brodeur told the Newark Star-Ledger. "Are goalies cheating? No. If they're cheating, the NHL isn't doing its job catching them. The rules are there and I haven't heard anyone get suspended yet. Guys are playing to the limit the NHL is giving them."
Now we here at Sportsnet.ca might quibble with the letter of that statement, especially when we hear of Roberto Luongo's flaps or J.S. Gigure's shoulder pads, but for the most part Brodeur is right. The simple truth of the matter is the equipment is good to great and so are the goalies as athletes. The other truth is that the NHL doesn't want to pay the cost of rigid enforcement; not in dollars, not in loss of goodwill toward the players. It especially does not want to incur the wrath of fans or an owner who might lose his best player in a tight playoff contest because, well, simply because that would be when he most likely would resort to using illegal equipment.
"Cracking down" on a vast array of cheating that simply isn't there is also disingenuous when the real issue is you either shrink what the goalies have - something no one has been inclined to do for over a decade now - or acknowledge that the equipment is good and safe and that the goalies are superb athletes and that the only equipment that will equalize this is larger cages.
Now before you go all "traditional" on me I might point out that the league no longer restricts players to the use of "traditional" wooden sticks or "traditional" double post skates with leather boots (let's not even bring up the fact that some players are allowed to use heated blades but not others). It has not stood in the way of giving way when it came to "traditional" soft pad elbow or shoulder pads. I don't remember the tradition of helmeted players in the 1940s, 50s and 60s and certainly the markings on the ice aren't "traditional" given the rules regarding the red line or where goalies can go or the size of the neutral zone or the space behind the goal cage.
Look, baseball didn't die a "traditional" death whenever it changed the strike zone or lowered the pitcher's mound or moved the fences in or out. It even appears to be surviving an era of non-traditional players who have been juiced perhaps more than the balls and the bats and the congressmen they sit in front of.
North American football hasn't gone out of business since it narrowed the goalposts and moved those back 10 yards. I certainly haven't seen the end of basketball as we know it since the three-point shot came into the game or since the zone defence was allowed and then disallowed.
In short, the NHL has a problem. It can't shrink the goalies or diminish their athletic ability and it doesn't seem at all able or even willing to downsize the equipment so do what's not only obvious but logical, change the size or shape of the net.
Stop using the threat of larger nets to change what you can't or don't really want to change. Larger nets make the change easy to monitor and impossible to cheat and you never have to worry about them ever getting hurt. Can you say you've ever been able to do that regarding the goalie equipment?
Moving on …
The league was wise not to change the rule on shooting the puck over the glass (yes, it was addressed again) largely because like so many other rules that have been changed and backed, the players have learned to adjust. Sure it happens once in a while and the players get all upset, but generally it happens because a player wants to make a play while avoiding a hit and if you give him that out he'll take it and there will be less hitting in the game and that's something no one wants.
The powers that be also opted not to go to five shooters instead of the now traditional three (you didn't really think I was going to let that change slide by did you?) in shootouts and that too is a concession to something that works most of the time so leave it alone.
The league also passed on Anaheim's proposal to drop the instigator rule or at least extend it from three to five incidents before a player is suspended. Even Brian Burke had to acknowledge that the instigator penalty isn't called all that often and so except for his team and one or two others (and yes, we do mean the Philadelphia Flyers) it's a non-issue.
They did try to redefine what a distinct kicking motion is and separate it from the allowed redirection motion, but few people, including many in the so-called War Room will ever get that right and so, as it did so obviously in the playoffs last spring, the confusion will continue.
My approach: I'm fine with kicking the puck into the net as it requires a good bit of skill all by itself. Heck, if you want to increase scoring and still protect goaltenders, let the guys with the courage to go to the front of the net be rewarded for their efforts. Kick it in, bat it in, bunt it in, even high-stick it in providing the stick isn't allowed to rise to the level where it puts another player's head at risk.
People seem to love the mayhem and senselessness of the Ultimate Fighting Challenge, why not let the boys scrap for a few goals as well, eh?
