Rule Recommendations From GM Meetings

The GM meetings in Florida this week have resulted in several rule change recommendations, as detailed by Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic on Twitter. The front office executives will suggest to the Competition Committee that a player who loses his helmet during play must immediately leave the ice surface or be penalized, as well as a change in faceoff alignment following a penalty call. The suggestion is to have the team who receives a power play choose which side the initial faceoff will be on in the offensive zone, potentially giving them a higher chance of winning it. Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports adds that the league is also expected to remove exception iv from Rule 15.5, changing where the initial power play faceoff will be following an icing on a delayed penalty.

The league also expressed an interest in making helmets mandatory in warm-up and having clocks on the boards in all 31 rinks. One-minute penalties in overtime, an idea put forward this week, did not receive enough support to be submitted to the Competition Committee.

Meetings like this often end in discussion over major rule changes, but it seems as though this year had very few “hot-button” issues to deal with. The league instead was interested in addressing smaller tweaks and minor safety issues. That has riled up fans and media around the league who believe the playoff structure should have been front and center at the meetings, which it apparently was not.