Shap Shots Mailbag: Some new rule suggestions
Plus the future for Thomas Harley, why hits are subjective, and some thoughts on Pride Nights in the NHL
Happy Monday.
It’s mail time, let’s dive in.
With the GM meetings last week, what rule change or changes would you most like to see implemented? (From Mike Roach)
Good one. I have a wishlist of in-game rule changes I’d love to see tested.
Change the wording of the kicking motion rule to allow players to kick the puck into the net outside of the crease. Players are allowed to to kick the puck to make a pass, clear the zone, and do almost anything else, but not to score a goal. Make the blue paint a no-kick zone — protecting goalies — but if a player is skilled enough to kick a puck into the net from 15 feet away, let them do it. Same with any other part of the body that’s not the arm, if a player heads the puck in, which we’ve seen happen, it should be allowed.
There needs to be a challenge/review clock set to 60 seconds in the regular season and expanded to 90 seconds for the playoffs. If a play can’t be conclusively judged in that time frame, then the call on the ice stands.
Expand 3-on-3 regular season overtime to 8 minutes.
In regular season overtime introduce a “half-court” violation. Once a team has gained the redline, they can’t bring into their own half of the ice and if they do it’ll lead to a defensive zone faceoff for them. I’ve seen this idea tested in 3ICE, the summer 3-on-3 league, and it has limited a lot of the slow re-loads we see in NHL 3-on-3.
Take away the team’s ability to ice the puck on the penalty kill. A team is being penalized, they should be truly penalized, instead they get out-of-jail free card to break another rule, icing, because they broke another rule.
How do they decide who won a faceoff especially when it is initially contested? (From Jerry G)
In that situation where a faceoff is contested for a couple seconds the faceoff’s statistical “winner” is typically the first team where a second player, not the center, touches the puck.
It’s not an exact science, human error comes into play, but that’s the way it was explained to me once by a NHL official statistician.
Why are hits so subjective from building to building? Has the NHL done anything to try to standardize those type of things? (From Chad Barber)
So hits are technically standardized, but this is the standard.
For it to be an official hit a player must intentionally initiate physical contact with the player possessing the puck AND the player sustaining the contact must lose possession of the puck as a result of the contact.
See how that could be interpreted in many different ways? Some building statisticians are overly focused on the losing the puck part of the equation, while others only look for physical contact.
Hits aren’t really a stat that coaches use anymore, neither do GMs or agents (in most cases) when it comes to evaluating players, so for that reason it’s not really something anyone cares enough about to enforce a more rigid standard on.
How much damage do you think this season has done to the future of pride nights around the league? Multiple teams pulled themed warmup jerseys last minute, and obviously certain players have also individually chosen not to show support. Do you think more franchises will choose to avoid pride jerseys/nights going forwards to avoid the media attention on the homophobic players? (From Hannah)
I touched on Pride Nights last week in my Unnumbered Thoughts column over at EP Rinkside, here’s an excerpt on that.
The Russian argument – and I’m not going to pretend to be a socio-political scholar here – starts to fall apart when within the past week Russian players have taken the ice wearing pride jerseys, while Canadian teammates in San Jose (James Reimer) and Florida (Marc Staal and Eric Staal) did not for religious purposes.
The Chicago Blackhawks have reportedly already cancelled their pride warmup jerseys because of the so-called Russian factor, which feels shallow when those Russian players were not even part of the discussion to cancel the pre-game jersey promotion.
I believe a couple of things can be true.
Pride Nights are important, as a sport, hockey needs to be more inclusive. I know it’s just a jersey, but representation matters and players actively supporting the existence of the LGBTQ+ starts to break down barriers to the sport in the smallest of ways.
If a Russian player is really scared for their safety or a player wants to sit out for religious reasons, we can’t stop that. Let those players sit out, just like it should be acceptable for a player to kneel during the national anthem – they have the right to protest and use their platform, whether you agree or not with their stance.
From an organizational and league view, they’d like us to believe Hockey is For Everyone. And when a team cancels a charity event, these pre-game jersey auctions are charity events, because of a law in a foreign country, it certainly feels like hockey is more about pleasing Russia than being for everyone.
To me, that’s been a huge underlying issue.
The NHL has been bending over backwards to make sure it doesn’t alienate Russia or Russian players over the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The NHL, and the NHLPA, are so desperate for a best-on-best hockey tournament, and the revenue it would generate, that they’ve been willing to try to bend the rules to involve Russia, even when the IIHF has banned the country from international competition.
The NHL and NHLPA entertained the idea of a World Cup of Hockey with Russians playing together but not under the Russian flag, but other European countries pushed back. The NHL then decided to just push back the World Cup of Hockey a year, hoping the Russian-Ukrainian war ends and it would solve itself to give us a true best-on-best tournament, where they can sell Alex Ovechkin vs. Sydney Crosby at an international level, maybe for the last time.
Pride Nights aren’t a league-mandated initiative, which allows Bettman to keep his hands clean of saying he forced them when dealing with the Russian Hockey Federation in the future. It was up to the teams, not the league, and if anything the willingness to sit on the sidelines only helps Bettman’s stance when it comes to keeping Russia happy and trying to land the World Cup of Hockey.
It really makes any “best on best” tournament feel kind of frivolous frankly. In 2026, at the Olympics, when the United States is playing Canada or the Finns play the Swedes, it’ll be awesome, and they’ll be the underlying reminder we could have had this sooner if the NHL wasn’t so dedicated to keeping Russia happy.
To answer Hannah’s question, I don’t think we will see teams ditch Pride Nights. But I do see a reality where teams start being more selective about whether they use a pre-game warmup jersey or not.
For example, when the Carolina Hurricanes did pride night, the team did not wear a pre-game pride jersey. This allows Jordan Staal to avoid being a potential story, like his brothers were in Florida, and the team could still promote the Pride Tape, like they did, on Twitter.
Kind of surprised we haven’t seen Thomas Harley called up this year. Do you think they prefer to have him playing top minutes with Texas, or they don’t think he ready for Dallas? Is it a cap issue to call him up? Clearly everyone not named Miro have had their issues of late, feel like it would be beneficial to try him out this final month of the regular season. (From DT)
The Stars expected Thomas Harley to play NHL games this season. Not by design, but he is effectively their eighth defenseman on the depth chart, and they expected he would get chances because of injury at some point.
Now the Stars have been incredibly healthy on defense, almost annoyingly so, that Harley hasn’t had a chance to break into the lineup because of injury or even get that cup of coffee.
That being said, Harley long-term development in the Stars’ view, and I co-sign this actually, is better spent with him in Texas this season.
Consider the following, when looking at Nils Lundkvist and Thomas Harley’s season.
Lundvist is averaging 16 minutes, 19 seconds per game with an average of 1:18 on the power play and 0:09 shorthanded per game.
Thomas Harley is averaging 20:56 per game, with an average of 1:04 on the power play and 2:13 shorthanded according to InStat.
Harley has 10 games this season where he’s played at least 23 minutes and his season high is 27:45. He has played 20 minutes or more in a game 39 times this season.
Lundkvist has only cracked the 20-minute mark five times this season, he has yet to play 23 minutes in a game this season.
So which young defenseman is a better spot to be a long-term top-pairing defender? The one that’s dealing with in-and-out NHL assignments, or the one that’s playing in all situations and big minutes as a 21-year-old?
For this season, I think Harley is getting the better development in Texas. It’s also important to remember that the only player the Stars brass would consider scratching for Harley would be Lundkvist and Joel Hanley. Lundkvist isn’t eligible to go to the AHL without waivers anymore, so getting Harley in the lineup would actually hurt the long-term plan in some cases.
What changes do the Stars coaches need to make for the Stars to hold on and win the Central? Who do you think ends up winning it? (Paul M on the Blue Line)
The Stars woke up this morning (Monday) in third place in the Central Division and it’s a three-team sprint now between them, the Minnesota Wild, and Colorado Avalanche for the division title.
Colorado has to be a favorite in that sprint, right? Plus the Avalanche have one extra game in hand on both Dallas and Minnesota.
For the Stars, I honestly don’t think there’s many changes a coaching staff can truly make at this point. There are lineup decisions and in-game adjustments, but after 73 games, this is who the Stars are. They could win the Central, they might not, either way they’ll be a tough playoff matchup for someone as long as they don’t botch player health down the stretch.
What do you make of the change in save pct for Jake Oettinger in 3x3 vs regulation. It's well below 80%, which puts him near bottom of league. Is this mostly due to Stars defensive structural issues in OT? It's easy to blame the breakaways, just wondering your thoughts. (From Bing)
To be fair to Jake Oettinger, he’s played more 3-on-3 overtime than any other goalie in the NHL. And 3-on-3 is specifically designed to lead to more goals and is built to be more difficult for goalies.
That being said, I don’t like that fact that Oettinger’s save percentage at 3-on-3 is .778 and his goals save above average is minus-1.73 in 3-on-3 overtime.
Part of this is the Stars structure, part of it is on the goalie, and we’ve seen situations this season where Oettinger has been beaten clean on 2-on-1s — in regulation, not just in overtime — more than a goalie who wants to be one of the best in the world should be.
The Shaw goal was also knocked in wile the puck was above the height of the crossbar. Do you make an argument that that rule should also be “reviewed” or just disallow goals struck above the crossbar with a stick?