Toronto Maple Leafs: Rules Changes the NHL Has to Make

The Toronto Maple Leafs have played five games over the last eight months.

Since the Toronto Maple Leafs, or any team for that matter, won’t be playing hockey for a couple more months still, I thought it might be a good time to go over a few things the NHL could do to improve its on ice product.

The NHL in recent years has done some good things. After the 2005 lockout, they moved towards a more wide open game, and while that didn’t exactly take, the game is much better now than it was in the dead puck era.  I also think 3 on 3 overtime is an absolutely fantastic innovation.

Here is what else I think they should do.

 Changes the NHL Needs to Make

The NHL needs to fully legislate the elimination of fighting.  They’ve more or less gotten rid of the worst kinds of headshots, and the next step is fighting.  The after-career effects of allowing bare knuckle boxing on ice are almost too horrible to think about, so this is long overdue.

The offside challenge needs to go. This might be the worst rule in all of sports.  Who honestly cares if the refs get it wrong once in a while? They are human afterall.  The wasted time, the momentum killing delays,  and the fact that most overturned calls had nothing to do with the goal.  Factitious dedication to the rules as written almost always leads to unintended consequences, and the NHL’s offside rule is no exception.

Even-up calls are the norm in the NHL.  Someone who teaches critical thinking and logical fallacies needs to host a seminar with all the NHL’s referees and linesman to explain to them the fallacy of their thinking: Your attempts to not influence the game’s outcome influence the games outcome.

An infraction in overtime should be called the same as one in the first period. The rules shouldn’t change if its triple OT or a 9-0 blowout.  But its not just the bad calls, its the fact that they are artificially kept even.

If one team takes three penalties in a row, they basically have carte blanche to break rules until the other team gets a few calls against them.  This stupidity of this should be self-evident.

The last thing I think the NHL needs to look at is the fact that it currently takes approximately seven crosschecks to the neck to hear one two-minute minor penalty.  The amount of things NHL players are allowed to do before they get  a penalty should not include things that would get you criminally charged in any other situation.

One cross check to another player’s back, no matter how close he is to your goalie, should send you to the sin bin.

That’s it!  Four rule changes that would make the NHL much, much better.  If ex Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke didn’t have to scream outdated takes at me every intermission that would be nice too, but I guess that one isn’t really up to the league.