What is the single dumbest thing the NHL has done since the lockout?

[Ogrezilla]

letting the reffing slide back to garbage.

 

[roboninja]

I get the complaints about obstruction returning to the game. I like offense too. But I think I know the real reason behind it. Injuries were getting out of control. With the speed and athleticism of today's player, not being able to slow them down at all meant unsustainable collisions on the ice.

You cannot regulate hitting out of the game, it changes the game way too much. So they have slowly allowed more obstruction back in. I'm not sure what the best solution here is, but I am a big proponent of equipment changes as a start.

 

[NHL Dude 120]

Guardian project
Not taking advantage of the NHL/Pokemon spinoff
oh and somehow the Oilers won 4 1st overalls

 

[DaveG]

Which lockout?

05-06, I'll go with it being 4-fold:

Trapezoid rule
Puck Over the Glass rule (should be treated like icing IMHO)
Shootout (and the current points system)
Jersey Tuck rule

but what really takes it?
Losing another half a season to another lockout

 

[Yourself]

From a pure entertainment standpoint, 4-4 ot and shootouts are entertaining. From a structural standpoint, the system is flawed.

Shootouts are no longer even close to entertaining for myself (and for basically anyone I know of who watches hockey). They killed what used to be one of the most exciting things to see for me. Now I just change the channel because I could really care less about watching it.

Shootouts still deciding games is the worst thing for the league. I don't care what people say, but continuous OT or ties are better then this by far.

 

[DaveG]

letting the reffing slide back to garbage.

Good call on this one too. I was hoping the officiating standard from 06-07 (at least in the regular season) was going to become the new standard. Now it seems we're almost back to the bad old days of the early 2000s Dead Puck Era.

 

[MilanKraft*]

Everything...

 

[Bending and Tending]

1) Hiring Chris Pronger to a job with the Department of Player Safety.

2) Hiring Chris Pronger to a job with the Department of Player Safety while he's still being paid by a team in the league.

In what way has his hiring affected anything?

 

[TheStroker]

Penalty for taking helmet off during fighting.

Forgot about this one? Why should you be penalized for taking your protective head gear off. Let's just let the players smack their head on the ice instead. What was the reasoning for this?

 

[Ola]

Not making the nets a bit bigger despite goalies becoming substantially bigger and the fox puck thing.

 

[CanadaBacon]

Agreed. Definitely not a fan of lumping OT and shootout wins in with regulation wins, but differentiating the value of OT and shootout losses with regulation losses. Simply put imo, the three point system is needed in order to incentivize regulation wins.

And I don't want to see the "it hurts the parity" argument either. The standings wouldn't be much different if you applied this format to this season for example.

PS: don't take the last sentence as me calling you out Clowe Me. It's just that I see that argument often from the 3 point system detractors.

If you want to incentive regulation wins, get rid of ot and shootout. 3 for a win 1 for a tie.

Adding gimmicks is always a terrible option.

Oh ya, gonna add the lottery. What a joke. Pick where you place.

 

[Pete Mitchell]

1. Trapezoid
2. Shootout/Loser points
3. Not making the realignment be 4 conferences with 8 teams each. Instead of 4 divisions and 2 conferences. Top 4 in each conference play for the conference champ, winner of each conference reseeded in a "Final Four".
4. Taking out 2 line offside-I know it slows the game down, but as a fan that does care about player safety, this could cut down on high speed hits.
5. Not allowed to use hands on faceoffs.

Side note, not a big fan at the puck over glass, but this had to be added to counter the no line change rule on icing. Either allow changes on icing and take out the penelty or keep it as is. The game would be delayed if teams just cleared the puck over the glass rather than icing it. Now, I could get behind it not being a penelty but instead just equal the same as an icing, faceoff stays in zone, no line change allowed.

 

[ponder719]

Putting playoff games on USA network in the states is up there for me. I can't be the only one who had a "what the hell is this" reaction.

As someone with a cable package that includes USA, but not NBCSN or CNBC, I very much appreciate the handful of games broadcast on USA.

 

[RayNibbs]

Giving the worst sports broadcasting company in Canada a monopoly

 

[ZeHockeyFan]

The USA channel isn't even a "second rate network." It's part of the package that cable subscribers pay for so they can access the channels they actually want to watch. It's a joke that the NHL is associating themselves with it. And before you go into the "but NBC is the parent company" thing, I work at an advertising agency that buys spots all the time. This particular channel is a freaking joke.

I see what you mean, but for people who have basic cable without NBCSN or CNBC (like one person here mentioned), isn't it a good way to reach that segment? And NBC being the parent company is a limiting factor for where the sport can be broadcast, is it not? That said, what would you suggest over USA?

 

[covfefe]

Glad this thread came up as I thought the Byfuglien-Perry situation perfectly captured one of the league's major problems.

From here:
http://www.tsn.ca/c-mon-ref-byfuglien-s-teammates-called-upon-to-bail-him-out-1.262893

A roughing minor was the correct assessment in this situation. If this play had happened in a regular season game I would likely assess a 10 minute misconduct penalty in addition to the roughing minor for a play of this nature. There will be no further discipline imposed against Byfuglien in this situation.

So this is effectively a blatant admission that the rules are interpreted on a sliding scale. I have so much trouble wrapping my head around how this makes any sense. If you call the 10 min. misconduct in the regular season, call it in the damn playoffs too! I love Byfuglien and understand his importance to the Jets at that point in their season. But if you do the crime you should have to pay the fine. This just makes my head hurt...


One other gripe re. post-lockout woes. A few seasons ago, Sheriff Shanny was doling out suspensions like Halloween candy. This season? There were a series of egregious plays that went wholly unpunished, while plenty of more marginal plays/hits/etc. were met with suspensions. It's one thing to mete out punishment as you see fit, but the utter lack of cohesion and consistency from the league with regard to discipline makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[Skobel24]

Shootouts.

 

[sandysan]

Not making the nets a bit bigger despite goalies becoming substantially bigger and the fox puck thing.

fox did the fox puck thing didn't they ? its not like the nhl forced it on other broadcasters.

if fox thought that they needed to make the game look like a video game to attract eyes, the nhl was in a tough spot. consent or lose all of the possible eyes.

and the nets are the one thread between generations, im fine keeping it the way it has been from the jump. guys in the nba are generally taller ( I presume) do you see people clamoring for higher nets ?

 

[hototogisu]

Glad this thread came up as I thought the Byfuglien-Perry situation perfectly captured one of the league's major problems.

From here:
http://www.tsn.ca/c-mon-ref-byfuglien-s-teammates-called-upon-to-bail-him-out-1.262893



So this is effectively a blatant admission that the rules are interpreted on a sliding scale. I have so much trouble wrapping my head around how this makes any sense. If you call the 10 min. misconduct in the regular season, call it in the damn playoffs too! I love Byfuglien and understand his importance to the Jets at that point in their season. But if you do the crime you should have to pay the fine. This just makes my head hurt...


One other gripe re. post-lockout woes. A few seasons ago, Sheriff Shanny was doling out suspensions like Halloween candy. This season? There were a series of egregious plays that went wholly unpunished, while plenty of more marginal plays/hits/etc. were met with suspensions. It's one thing to mete out punishment as you see fit, but the utter lack of cohesion and consistency from the league with regard to discipline makes absolutely no sense to me.

That rash of suspensions came as a response to the criticisms (and legal troubles) the NHL was under fire for in the off-season regarding concussions and headshots. They put on a big show of suspending anyone who threw a bodycheck in the preseason while the media made a big hoopla about "Sherrif Shanny" and how much the NHL had changed, and that they were really, truly cracking down on hits to the head. Then as soon as the regular season started things more or less went back to status quo.

Agree with you about the different rules in the regular season vs. playoffs though. Entirely illogical and frustrating.

 

[Bps21*]

I agreed with you until your last point. Do you know what odds are? Probabilities? Take a statistics course and really pay attention. Probabilities do not have any feelings, if you flip a coin 50 times and it lands on heads, the 51st could still just as likely be a heads, or a tails. It has no memory of what happened before the event, aka mutually exclusive. I'll be happy to help you better understand probabilities, because it looks like you think Gary Bettman stuck his hand in the lottery machine and hand chose the Oilers ping pong balls.

My point is clearly that there is a broken system in place. When the oilers miss the playoffs for the ninth straight season this year...there will be increased odds on them moving up...AND THREE TIMES AS MANY PLACES TO MOVE UP TO.

It's an incredibly broken system. Any system that can see the same team draft first 4 times in 6 years is flawed. And their answer is to now have a system that can move that same team up to the top 3 if they miss the playoffs again.

It's unbearably stupid.

 

[Voight]

Trapezoid and letting Bettman reign.

 

[Butch 19]

no touch-up icing.

boooring. and it's often too subjective as well

 

[DEVILS130]

1. Trapezoid
2. Shootout/Loser points
3. Not making the realignment be 4 conferences with 8 teams each. Instead of 4 divisions and 2 conferences. Top 4 in each conference play for the conference champ, winner of each conference reseeded in a "Final Four".
4. Taking out 2 line offside-I know it slows the game down, but as a fan that does care about player safety, this could cut down on high speed hits.
5. Not allowed to use hands on faceoffs.

Side note, not a big fan at the puck over glass, but this had to be added to counter the no line change rule on icing. Either allow changes on icing and take out the penelty or keep it as is. The game would be delayed if teams just cleared the puck over the glass rather than icing it. Now, I could get behind it not being a penelty but instead just equal the same as an icing, faceoff stays in zone, no line change allowed.

Really hope they make this change if/when the league expands to 32 teams.

 

[Never]

1. 2nd lockout
2. Trapezoid
3. The original Edge designs for many teams

 

[Leafs87]

The Rogers TV contract.


I don't know what's with the NHL and giving all the national rights to one broadcaster.

I'm not a fan of this either, but especially with tsn being gone