Greg Wyshynski over at Puck Daddy has revealed the AHL's latest rule test.
Not only is the AHL the triple-A league for hockey, so to speak, but it is also used as a testing ground for new rules. It tried out the 4-on-4 overtimes, penalty shots, altered goal crease, no-play zone behind the net for goalies, and touch-up offsides all originated in the AHL before the NHL decided to adopt them.
Next season's rule change? One-minute overtime minors. As Greg points out,
A two-minute minor penalty can literally leave a team shorthanded for 40 percent of overtime when the same call would eat up about 3 percent of regulation.
This has been a change years in the making. Overtime penalties have been a tricky thing, as has the referee's job of calling them. Many have accused refs, sometimes rightly so, that they put away the whistle in overtime. Officials don't want to turn a momentary transgression into a penalty that will take up nearly half the overtime session. And when they do call them, the complaint is that they're supposed to let the guys play in overtime. Once OT rolls around the referee really can't win.
This new rule helps everyone. Referees don't feel restricted in calling penalties, and if a team is penalized, they have their time in the box cut in half. And while that's still 20% of the overtime, it's a lot better than 40%.
The only problem, and there always seems to be a problem, is that this rule includes penalties that carry over from regulation to overtime. Say a guy is trying to prevent a goal with a minute to go, and blatantly slashes the puck carrier, earning him 2 minutes. Well if that game goes into OT, his penalty time in OT gets cut from a minute to 30 seconds. As Greg points out, it has the opportunity to allow players to take penalties late in the game that they wouldn't otherwise take, knowing they wouldn't have to serve the full time. The rule is meant to even things out in overtime, not to be abused in regulation.
It's a good rule that needs a little bit of tweaking to really be effective. But that's why we have the AHL to test it out. If it goes wrong, the NHL doesn't even have to apply it. But odds are if it goes well enough they will, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
I have a feeling we'll be seeing some more intriguing ends of regulation and some more boring overtimes. And knowing how the league lusts after fan excitement, that final factor could kill the rule dead, whether the players like it or not.
