Sept. 11/Rules tweaks/Thursday notes

(We won’t forget. We can’t forget.)

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The NHL announced some major minor rule changes. Some follow what the AHL already announced about overtimes, but most are brand-new; the AHL has adopted in essence the same package.

The changes:
–Almost every shot attempt that winds up out of play will lead to an offensive-zone faceoff; feels sort of like the attacking team keeping the ball in lacrosse. I like it.
–No spinorama on penalty shots. Fine. Hashmarks further apart. Keep ’em separated. (The NHL is just testing this one, but the AHL plans to use it all year, one way or the other.)
–No more sending in a winger to delay the faceoff after an icing: if he delays enough to get tossed, he gets the warning but still has to take the draw. That’s OK.
–If you dive to trip an attacking player, you’re still getting a minor even if you get the puck first.
–A bigger trapezoid, as Tim Leone reported a while ago, which gives the goalies a little more room to work behind the goal line, or to take a whack at pucks sitting just inside what had been the no-fly zone.
–The NHL will adopt the dry scrape and the ends change before overtime, as will the AHL, though the AHL is experimenting with that seven-minute, up to four of it at three-on-three OT this year.
–Aggressive and violent game-misconduct penalties: it’ll only take you two of them to get suspended now.
–There are also fines for repeat diving offenders; the AHL’s will be lower.

The NHL also tweaked its video goal judge rule, but there’s no video goal judge down here, so that’d be different one way or the other.

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Big day of local signings around the minors: Nate McIver (and Steve MacIntyre) to Norfolk. Dallas Jackson and Wallingford’s Pat Mullane to Greenville. New Canaan’s Jack Downing back to South Carolina.

Good luck to Amanda Kessel, already out for the year because of concussions.

And this was good stuff: fingerprint words. (Hat tip: Ben Zimmer)

Michael Fornabaio