The NHL promises that the new rules to curtail obstruction (holding) will allow for more great skating and speed the game along--if they're serious about it, they'll have to call it often at the start of the season to get the message to the players.

The faceoff rules: players have 5 seconds to get in place after linesman blows the whistle. A bench minor will be called on the second violation. If the center is not in place after the five seconds, the puck will be dropped.

The obstruction rules seem to be a major change to favor offense, so maybe the NHL has seen the popularity of high-scoring baseball games & is hoping some goal-happy games will bring some new fans. As for the faceoff changes, I'm looking forward to seeing a puck dropped when only one team's center is in place...

~Adam

From an article in today's Phila. Daily News:

[quote] And so far, so good. Thursday night's preseason opener - a 4-1 Flyers win at Washington - was played in 2 hours, 14 minutes, and obstruction was way down. They'll get another crack at it tonight when the Flyers play the New Jersey Devils in the First Union Center in the home preseason opener.

"It was good," Flyers captain Keith Primeau said. "The refs met with us before the game to go over what they were going to do. They went over the specific rule changes as far as going through the neutral zone, how they were going to call it closer and faceoffs."

According to the new league directives, the puck must be dropped within 18 seconds of the referee raising his arm at the faceoff dot. Home teams have 8 seconds to get their players on the ice, visiting teams have 5, and both have just 5 seconds to line up and be ready for the drop.

There seemed to be little consistency Thursday night. Some drops went into the 20-second range, with the fastest timed at 17 seconds. But the officials were certainly paying attention.

"The referees and linesmen aren't supposed to count down, but you can hear them counting to themselves a lot," Primeau said. "Two, three, four. But there was no hesitation lining up. There were no arguments. Guys got right in and lined up. Guys had to get in and square up and I thought it allowed the game to move a lot quicker."

Playing a hockey game in 2:14 is one thing during the preseason. Wait until the games are played during the regular season and are broadcast on television. Commercial timeouts alone will slow that down.

But as far as the obstruction is concerned, that will only change if the league loses its resolve. For now, though, teams like the Flyers with big forwards who can skate will benefit.

"It's only game one, so we'll see," Primeau said. "But you could see that the defensemen were a little more leery to go back first for pucks. But I don't think people will be running defenseman like they think. But it's definitely going to help us."

In addition to the hurry-up faceoffs and obstruction calls, Flyers fans attending tonight's home preseason opener will see the two teams experiment with limited line changes. Tonight and next Thursday in New Jersey, the teams will only allow line changes during penalty-kill stoppages. All other changes will be made during play.

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I read also somewhere in a paper on my way down to Anaheim about some new high netting the league is putting up this year as well to protect the fans. Hope it works and goes over well.