Rules Changes ’19

Not a lot of changes to the AHL Rule Book in our annual side-by-side comparison, but some somewhat big and some somewhat interesting.

10.2 – Goalies over 6-6 can request an exemption from the stick-paddle length (26″).
11.3 – Major rewrite on specs for goalies’ chest and arm pads.
11.4 – Ditto for goalie pants.
23.2 – Removes the paragraph that says automatic suspensions from game misconducts have no effect with respect to violations during playoff games, because…
23.3-23.6 – Three general-category game misconducts or two of any of the others, “in any Pre-Season, League or Playoff game,” will lead to a suspension. It used to be that three (or two) regular-season game misconducts earned you a suspension that didn’t carry to the playoffs, but two in the playoffs got you suspended. Not anymore. They’ll accumulate through the whole season.
25.1 – The awarded goal, when an attacking player would’ve received a penalty shot but the opposing goalie was pulled, used to require that the player have possession and control. The rule now allows the referee to award a goal if that player “would have gained possession and control.”
76.2 – Apparently a late addition: When a penalty leads to a power play, they will still face off in the defensive end of the penalized team. But now, the team going on the power play will get to pick at which dot they’ll face off, and the defending team won’t get to change after that. (Even if that draw comes to the neutral zone, whether because the team going on the power play iced the puck, or because its defensemen joined a scrum below the dots, the team going on the power play still gets to pick the dot.)

Michael Fornabaio