On the Bench: NHL Preview

With October in full swing, that can only mean one thing: hockey season is officially back. And while it has not been the best of starts for the Florida Panthers, a number of interesting talking points have emerged in the early going.

After last fall’s lockout, it was announced that this season would be the first with a new conference alignment. This change has seen six five-team divisions transform into two divisions with eight teams and two with seven. The 16-team Eastern Conference got two new members in the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets, while the Winnipeg Jets moved to the Western Conference.

The Panthers are in the Atlantic Division, joined by the rival Tampa Bay Lightning, as well as the Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators. This is a bit confusing to me. Why would you stick the two Florida teams in a division with six teams that are all north of Pennsylvania?

Looking at a map of where each team is, a division comprised of the old Southeast Division holdovers — Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina Hurricanes, Washington Capitals — plus the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia Flyers would make more sense as an “Atlantic” division. Detroit’s not even close to the Atlantic. But, hey, I guess the NHL wanted to keep some of the “Original Six” teams like Detroit, Toronto, Montreal and Boston together.

One new rule that has been introduced, which I quite like, is that of visors. These plastic helmet attachments, which cover about half of the player’s face, are not worn by all players despite the obvious safety hazards that can come from not doing so. Starting this year, however, all players new to the NHL, with less than 25 games’ experience, will be required to wear visors. Players who have been in the league longer and don’t wear visors may continue not wearing one.

The institution of this rule is a huge step forward for the league. After watching Rangers defender Marc Staal take a puck to the eye last year, it is hard to believe that anyone would consider not wearing a visor. In such a fast-paced game like hockey, you never know when a loose puck, stick or arm will catch you in the face. Better safe than sorry, as they say.

A couple of in-game changes are also worth noting. The first is “hybrid icing,” wherein an icing call can be made if the defender is clearly going to make the touch and reaches the faceoff dot. While it still allows for attacking players to chase it down, it will certainly alleviate some of the collisions that can occur when every icing comes down to who reaches the puck first.

The other notable change is that nets have been made four inches shallower. While this may not seem like much, that extra space will give offensive players extra room to operate behind the net, leading to more chances for wrap-around goals or just additional space to pass the puck and confuse the defense.

Perhaps the strangest rule addition is that officials will now be calling penalties on players who have shirts tucked into their pants. This violation has been in the rulebook for 50 years but will start to be enforced this year.

Most times, this just happens by accident: a player has an untucked shirt, then swings to take a shot and the jersey pops up. As it comes back down, it can easily slip in behind the common backpad, which makes it look like the shirt is tucked in. Still, the number on the back of a player’s jersey cannot be covered.

The one positive about this is that the first violation is only a warning before a minor penalty can be enforced on further infractions. But it’s still a silly rule.

Regardless, now that we’re back to playing a full 82-game schedule this season, we’ve got plenty of time to see how some of these changes affect games. Hockey is easily the best sport to watch on television because of its fast pace, hard hits and superb skills. Even if your home team isn’t playing, or isn’t playing well, you can’t go wrong with turning on a good old hockey game.

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