July 25, 2005
Rink Notes
Ok, with an end to the lockout comes a return to Off Wing normalcy. With today, we'll be returning to half of our regularly scheduled hockey blogging, namely the lunchtime Rink Notes feature. And the morning after the regular season begins, I promise NHL Roundup will return as well.
(For new readers: NHL Roundup recaps every NHL game from the previous night, and runs Monday to Friday. Rink notes is a digest of features from around the league that usually runs at lunch time. Once the regular season starts, I'll finally lift the strikethrough off the links in the left hand margin.)
Colby Cosh looked at the totality of the NHL rule changes over the weekend:
[O]ne strong effect of the new rules would seem to be a risk of running older players out of the game. Aside from goals and penalty calls, there are four major causes of stoppages in play (am I forgetting any?): offside, icing, the goalie covering the puck, and shooting the puck into the stands. The NHL has taken steps to reduce all of these--reintroducing the tag-up offside; giving the linesman the option to wave off unintentional icing; and imposing delay-of-game penalties on goalies who stop play needlessly and on defensive players who put the puck over the glass deliberately. Moreover, teams that ice the puck have lost the right to make line changes before the next face-off. All this would seem to add up to a big advantage for young legs, and a big problem for the Roenicks and Chelioses (Cheliotes?) of the world.
Like Colby, I initially failed to realize that the shootout loser will still get one point, and as Matt Fenwick points out, this is going to result in a lot of boring thrid periods.
For other takes, check out Tom Benjamin, Tim Ballisty, Right in Philly and Uber Cool Space.
Hockey's Mr. October is looking for work. How many fantasy league rosters has that guy ruined?
Mike Modano wants to stay in Dallas, but says he'd play in Phoenix with Brett Hull if he can't. And as we know, Phoenix has got more than enough cap room to pay him.
Harley Hotchkiss is re-elected to another two-year term as Chairman of the NHL Board of Governors. Feel the power, Harley, feel the power.
If you missed it over the weekend, John LeClair and Tony Amonte became the first victims of the new league salary cap when the Flyers bought out their contracts. For a complete look at all the potential victims, click here. And thanks to Matthew Never Knew, who is compiling a master list of jilted veterans.
For those of you who would like to look back in anger, here's the NHL CBA Wiki. Thanks to Athens Blog for the pointer.
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12:35 PM