Idea: Allowing teams to ice a 7th D-Man

[lexlavender]

There is clearly a deficit of good defensemen in the league right now. Almost every other team is looking for "A solid top 4 D-man". The salary cap also makes it incredibly difficult to add quality defensemen. So, rather than simply wait until there is some sort of defensive renaissance, how about allowing teams to ice 7 dmen a game instead of 6.

Benefits of this:

1. You can spread out minutes more, thus allowing you, top to bottom, to get more quality minutes from every dman.

2. The emergence of specialty dmen. Far too often, specialty D, such as pp specialists or defensive minded dmen, are overlooked for "not being well rounded enough". Because of out limited D icing, every D man has to be "A solid, two way, puck moving" Dman. If we allow teams to ice more Dman, you can play niche Dman that otherwise wouldn't have a job.

3. Having spots for rookies to develop: It's hard to develop rookie d men, because no matter what minutes you have them play, you're still throwing them to the fire. With an extra spot, you can chose to throw in a rookie for limited minutes, thus allowing him to slowly get adjusted to the game.

4. Every team has a better opportunity to ice a decent D-squad, thus increasing parity and competitiveness within the league.

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[Diamondillium]

Worse defense is what this league needs right now, not better.

The defensemen are as good as they have ever been if not better. The only reason everybody wants a top 4 dman is because quality defensemen don't get redundant with the current structure of the game, and because the terminology is flawed. Top 4 should basically mean top 120 in the league, but people use top 4 to refer to top 60ish, which creates the appearance that there is a shortage.

But hey, if you want scoring to go down to even lower than it is right now to historically low levels, go ahead and skew the game even more towards defense.

 

[Clamshells]

There is clearly a deficit of good defensemen in the league right now. Almost every other team is looking for "A solid top 4 D-man". The salary cap also makes it incredibly difficult to add quality defensemen. So, rather than simply wait until there is some sort of defensive renaissance, how about allowing teams to ice 7 dmen a game instead of 6.

Teams are allowed to have 7 dmen, and do it all the time. The player limit is on total skaters, so teams decide if they want 11 forwards 7 defence or 12 forwards 6 defence.

 

[lexlavender]

Worse defense is what this league needs right now, not better.

The defensemen are as good as they have ever been if not better. The only reason everybody wants a top 4 dman is because quality defensemen don't get redundant with the current structure of the game, and because the terminology is flawed. Top 4 should basically mean top 120 in the league, but people use top 4 to refer to top 60ish, which creates the appearance that there is a shortage.

But hey, if you want scoring to go down to even lower than it is right now to historically low levels, go ahead and skew the game even more towards defense.

I'd argue that the introduction of offensively minded defensemen who otherwise wouldn't be working (That includes offensively minded rookies as well, so we are introducing more puck movers into the league), as well as having more rested dmen who thus can move the puck better, might actually increase scoring. Defense is becoming more and more an integral cog to offense, and having a better defense can lead to more offense in the long run.

 

[lexlavender]

Teams are allowed to have 7 dmen, and do it all the time. The player limit is on total skaters, so teams decide if they want 11 forwards 7 defence or 12 forwards 6 defence.

Very rarely have I seen a team forgo that 12th forward for an extra defensemen. By simply adding one more play to the ice total, you can have both.

 

[Yourself]

Very rarely have I seen a team forgo that 12th forward for an extra defensemen. By simply adding one more play to the ice total, you can have both.

Wait, so you want 6v6 on the ice? LMAO no way this ever happens. Then again I thought that about Trump having any shot at being president.

 

[SmellOfVictory]

I like the idea of allowing a 21 player roster. Certainly doesn't seem like it would hurt the game, and it also provides a small amount of insurance if a player is injured.

 

[lexlavender]

Wait, so you want 6v6 on the ice? LMAO no way this ever happens. Then again I thought that about Trump having any shot at being president.

No, you can have a 7th dman on your on ice roster. Like:

12 Forwards

7 D men

it would still be 5v5

 

[Clamshells]

Very rarely have I seen a team forgo that 12th forward for an extra defensemen. By simply adding one more play to the ice total, you can have both.

It happened 525 times this season (one game both teams dressed 7 defence. LA vs OTT, Dec 14, 2015) according to the NHL.com Game Day Rosters.

Thats 21% of all rosters this season.

 

[Daz28]

Meh, trying to put someone out of the game to shorten the bench is key in contact sports. Adding a roster spot would negate it somewhat.

 

[SJGoalie32]

A decent attempt, but I just don't see it working out the way you envision it

1. You can spread out minutes more, thus allowing you, top to bottom, to get more quality minutes from every dman.

Except that spreading the minutes out like that among 7 D-men will actually hurt more than it helps.

Except for situations where a D-man is injured or ejected early in a game, defensive player fatigue really isn't a bigger factor than talent.

The problem is the lack of guys who have the talent to play high quality NHL defense for 20+ mins/night. Simply icing a 7th D-man--which, as other posters have said, you can already do with a 20-man roster, and many teams do just that at various points during the season--doesn't solve that problem.

Top pairing defensemen often play 23-25 mins/game. So a top pair D might get 24 mins/game, 2nd pair might get 20/game, and bottom pair get 16/game. Drew Doughty played 28 mins/game this season.

Taking someone like Doughty or Shea Weber off the ice for 3 extra mins per night and giving those minutes to a borderline AHL player doesn't help the team, it helps the opposition.

If teams really wanted to spread the minutes out evenly, teams don't need a 7th defender. They could just play all 3 D lines about 20 mins. The entire reason top guys get 24+ mins and bottom pair guys only get put on the ice for only 16 mins is because most teams can't rely on even their #5/#6 D-men to give them quality minutes. Now they'd throw someone even worse into the mix? I don't see it

4. Every team has a better opportunity to ice a decent D-squad, thus increasing parity and competitiveness within the league.

The lack of parity (such as it is, I think things are already extremely competitive) comes down to the fact that one team has a Drew Doughty or a Shea Weber and another team doesn't. Again, I just don't see how adding a 7th D-man solves that.

You can add 7 guys, 8 guys, 9 guys on defense....heck, call up the entire AHL squad and put them on the bench....and you still have the problem that one team can play a Drew Doughty for 28 mins/game while the other teams can't (and is perhaps now giving critical ice time to even worse players).

Bottom line: If your team suffers from a deficit of quality defensemen, increasing the quantity of inferior defensemen on your roster or increasing the amount of ice time that is given to inferior defensemen simply doesn't fix that deficit.

 

[Fondue]

I wouldn't adjust the iced roster number. Scoring is already tough. Adding an additional player to the roster on the ice will only result in less scoring.

More players (or in your case, an additional D man), will result in reduced minutes for the current ones, make it easier to play due to decreased fatigue factor.

Honestly, I would think it would be far more interesting to actually reduce the roster size. Make it 18. Reducing to 11F and 5 D. I think then you'll have stronger individual players (skill wise), increased roles, different rotation of lines/pairs, and it would make coaching that much more of a craft. I think all that will result in more scoring, and a more interesting game.

But that's just my opinion.

 

[Daz28]

I think teams would just add one enforcer, cuz there's no need to expose yourself to your 7th D man, when you're 3rd pair is only getting 12 mins anyways. I't be nice for injuries, but that's about it.

 

[Daz28]

I wouldn't adjust the iced roster number. Scoring is already tough. Adding an additional player to the roster on the ice will only result in less scoring.

More players (or in your case, an additional D man), will result in reduced minutes for the current ones, make it easier to play due to decreased fatigue factor.

Honestly, I would think it would be far more interesting to actually reduce the roster size. Make it 18. Reducing to 11F and 5 D. I think then you'll have stronger individual players (skill wise), increased roles, different rotation of lines/pairs, and it would make coaching that much more of a craft. I think all that will result in more scoring, and a more interesting game.

But that's just my opinion.

Until you have a couple injuries, and your down to 3 D men, and you pray you got 2 guys in your farm that can fill in well. I don't even think adding players would decrease scoring. It'd be a guy who should be in the pressbox taking time away from a better D man.

 

[Fondue]

Until you have a couple injuries, and your down to 3 D men, and you pray you got 2 guys in your farm that can fill in well. I don't even think adding players would decrease scoring. It'd be a guy who should be in the pressbox taking time away from a better D man.

Injuries are definitely part of what I think would be "interesting." Especially mid game. Picking up the additional slack on a smaller roster would definitely affect player fatigue, and again, would increase scoring.

THose same injuries, where call-ups are necessary, will also likely increase scoring.

I believe the game itself would look a lot better. Smaller roster = more good players. Also salary cap-- you can fit better players under the cap when there's a smaller team size.

 

[Roboturner913]

I kind of like the idea, with the stipulation that the 7th dman would have to declare himself "eligible" or somesuch and replace the 6th for let's say the remainder of the period.

It could make the ending of a 1-goal game a lot more interesting if you bring out an offensive d-man with fresh legs and go for broke. It would also let teams play around with younger players, in a lot of cases your 6th guy is going to be young and if he totally falls apart you have another option rather than just watching him get beat on all night long.

 

[Sens Rule]

I'd argue that the introduction of offensively minded defensemen who otherwise wouldn't be working (That includes offensively minded rookies as well, so we are introducing more puck movers into the league), as well as having more rested dmen who thus can move the puck better, might actually increase scoring. Defense is becoming more and more an integral cog to offense, and having a better defense can lead to more offense in the long run.

I think this is quite possible as well. I don't know if the answer is 19 skaters instead of 18. But specialist offensive defencemen that might be small or poor on defence get stuck in the AHL a lot. If they could play in a limited role the could increase offence.

 

[McNurse]

Teams do this a lot. Last year Tampa cycled Nesterov and Sustr as their 6th through the playoffs( and I'm pretty sure the regular season too)

 

[Space Herpe]

So, basically, the OP wants to expand the game time roster by one; expressly for a d-man.

 

[Jerzey Devil]

NJ used to do this all the time (11 forwards and 7 defense). Comes in handy when you have someone like Eric Gelinas who is basically only good for Power Plays.

 

[DJJones]

probably will happen more as the grinders are phased out more and more. I wouldn't mind if Calgary dressed a 7th over Bollig or something. We have too many players as it is though haha.

Run 4 pairing of wingers and rotate in your 3 best centers. Could work

 

[Steal Your Faceoff]

I'd argue that the introduction of offensively minded defensemen who otherwise wouldn't be working (That includes offensively minded rookies as well, so we are introducing more puck movers into the league), as well as having more rested dmen who thus can move the puck better, might actually increase scoring. Defense is becoming more and more an integral cog to offense, and having a better defense can lead to more offense in the long run.

I really don't think roster size has anything to do with limiting the number of offensively skilled defensemen in the league. Every team would love to add more of them but not at the expense of them having flaws in their defensive game. And there is no other reason if they were already a strong 2 way player that they wouldn't already have roster spots. It's not a common skill set to have which is why there isn't more of them in the league. Speaking as a Devils fan, this is why Eric Gelinas wore out his welcome. He has an absolute cannon of a shot that was impressive when he scored from the point but his frequency to misread plays and end up out of position made him a liability on D.

 

[Skobel24]

Very rarely have I seen a team forgo that 12th forward for an extra defensemen.

Actually, it happens a lot.

 

[UnknownNasty]

I'm all in favour of an international-format roster (13 F, 7D)

 

[Michael Farkas]

Opposite. Go 10 F and 5 D. Slow the game down, don't create specialties with excess roster spots, force them to be prudent with less roster spots. Skill can shine with lesser rosters, therefore more ice time, longer shifts, less back pressure, less "destroyers"...game is too fast for its own good...you're talking about adding 60+ NHL jobs to this thing if expansion comes to pass and now dressing more players...? Doesn't make sense to me personally.