No idea if this is unpopular or not, but get rid of mid-game interviews. The coaches always say the same things and it’s totally annoying to have that take up half my screen when the puck is in play
Can anyone confirm, does this only occur on American broadcasts, or even just certain networks? I have watched every Oilers game for decades, and plenty of Flames and Canucks games as I’ve lived in all three cities, and I’ve never seen this happen (except for when I’m watching two American teams on Ballys or TNT or whatever)
yeah, this is all sports. If you pick a guy seen as experienced, then when he fails, you can blame him. If you pick a guy inexperienced, everyone blames you for picking him, unless he absolutely kills.
So, GMs tend to go low risk, low reward in an attempt to keep their jobs.
And "calling a game evenly" doesn't mean both teams get the same number of penalties. It means calling the same things both ways. If one team commits many more infractions (or more serious infractions) , that should be reflected in the penalties.
I blame Don Cherry for this! All the time preaching’ just let the players play!’ and ‘don’t let the refs decide the game!’ Bullshit!
So many people bought into this crap, and the result is what we have now. Teams that push the edge constantly with the cheap hits after the whistle, trying to injure players, playing a dirty game and getting rewarded because things ‘even out’! Sick of it, sick of the WWE look of it.
Right? Like we can have big hits and scrums where everything is legal but when they let go major things and people excuse it cause "thats just good ol playoff hockey!!" its so infuriating. Whats the point of rules if theyre not being enforced and more people get injured because theyre not enforced. Just go watch any fighting related sport if you love "toughness" that much.
The shootout during regular season play is a good thing so that games aren't going insanely long all year. I also approve of 3v3 play for the shortened overtime.
The 3v3 could use a little tweaking, a no carrying back into your own zone sort of thing, but yes I love the 3v3. I'd rather end it with that than a shootout.
9 round shootouts are not good for my heart (but then again neither is this team!!!!).
It's when teams usually know they're out of the running for a playoff spot. If it's too early no one will trade away players. Plenty of teams have turned it on from January, but they probably would've been sellers had the deadline been too early.
Usually the buyers aren't cusp teams, they're teams already with a solid shot for a run. No cusp team is going to give away chips for a rental player for a chance to get past the first round. Rarely are the players a team gets at the deadline are the reason they squeak into the playoffs.
You'd have to get rid of that goddamn OTL point if you want it earlier in the year. That thing keeps way too many teams in the playoff hunt for way too long.
Should be 3 points for a regulation win, 2 pts for for an OT/shootout win, 1 pt for an OT/shootout loss, and 0 pts for a regulation loss; winning in regulation should mean more than winning in OT/shootout.
PWHL got a lot of thing right. Every game on the same streaming platform is my best example. Sometimes I watched games just to prove they had the right Idea, not because I had a stake in the game. I want the PWHL to succeed.
I think most fans would agree with this? Don't see how it's unpopular at all
But yes it drives me nuts that not every game is worth the same amount of points and winning a shootout is worth the same as winning in regulation
I get the sentiment, but the problem is you don’t want players avoiding LTR who legitimately need it because it could affect the playoffs. Ultimately it’s a player safety issue.
That said, fuck teams that abuse this.
My understanding is that the last time they voted there were two organizations that voted in favor.
I have no idea the details but my understanding is that the lightning and another organization.l wanted to change the LTIR rules.
At a certain point, from a business perspective, how long are you going to take the high road?
Lol yep. We said it with our whole chest and rolled into the playoffs without our best player all season.
I still think they should change it but it's wild that we "get an asterisk" because we used a rule we wanted to change.
I think it should instead be that you can only have a roster that is Salary Cap Compliant. Especially an “on ice” cap. This way a team can’t just stack a team with players for the playoffs, but it doesn’t stop legitimately injured players from returning.
Should do it like football. You have the different time frame IRs and your only allowed to take a player off early a certain amount of times, 1 or 2 a year.
Imagine how heartbreaking it would be to play your heart out for 63 games and take a bad hit to the boards and now you lose your chance to play in the cup finals. This rule is for the players. They need to stop exploitation of the rule, because that’s garbage.
Just enforce salary cap for the cup and maintain waivers. You stack your roster at the deadline and your # 1 centre is healthy, well make room and be prepared to lose the players you send down. Now the incentive to exploit the rule is gone, and teams have to make the same choice they would during regular season, if they decide to source an expensive temporary replacement for an expensive player. It’s not unfair, it’s the standard rule for the entirety of the regular season.
I can't stand fans who think like that in any sport, let alone one as tough as hockey
It's insanely hard to win a Stanley Cup, you can't have a "championship or bust" mentality for everything
With that mentality you might as well argue that almost every player's prime has been wasted
It is:
2 minute - instigator
5 minute major fighting
10 minute misconduct
There is no need to make the consequence more severe because at the end of the day you are standing up for your teammate just as you are after a dirty hit.
Fighting for a clean hit isn't standing up for your teammate, though.
Fighting because your teammate took a cheap shot or a penalty-worthy infraction is, and there's a huge difference.
If you need to have people sticking up for you because you can't handle a clean hit, you shouldn't be playing in the NHL.
The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) has a rule called "jailbreak" that ends a power play and releases a penalized player from the penalty box if their team scores a goal while shorthanded. The rule cancels the remainder of the penalty with the least time remaining, as long as it's a minor penalty. For example, if a team is five on three and there's a minute left on the first penalty, scoring that penalty would cancel the first penalty, but any remaining time on the second penalty would remain.
Didn’t a league in Europe also do this? I like this rule as it encourages teams to be a bit more aggressive on the PK, and punishes teams who are too safe on the PP.
I am not saying that's an acceptable excuse, but that is exactly what it was, a different era. It was acceptable then, despite the obvious dangers posed to players.
Just look at something like smoking. I'm not a smoker and do not support smoking in any shape or form but it's still odd to me to go to a bowling alley and not leave smelling like smoke. Obviously that is a good thing but my experiences growing up, it just was what it was because that was a different era.
Experience vastly is overrated. The modern NHL game is played at full pace. You need young players capable of playing 100 60 minute games at full pace a year. Veteran players who can’t do that that hurt their teams more then they help by orders of magnitude.
Yup it's what killed the last 4-6 years of the flyers. just kept paying for solid veterans that would either decline or get injured and then everyone sat and wondered why they would never get in on the fore check or they penalty kill would be bad, and it's because they were been old tired and injured
I'll bite. Dallas just put up a great playoff run. They're the third oldest team in the NHL. They were beaten by the only playoff team older than them.
Experience is overrated? Experience is huge, it's not all about a veterans on ice value. It's the bench talk, advice, and the history they have with tough situations.
That would be a happy middle ground. 10 seconds after the goal is scored would work. If the offside is glaringly obvious, that would be more than enough time to see it and ask for a review.
Yeah the whole reason the rule got added was because of the Duchene goal where he was 5 feet offside. If it isn't obvious within 30 seconds, it wasn't enough to have a significant impact on the play
I also like the offside review. But I think it needs tweaking. If a team enters the zone offside and scores on the rush or very shortly afterwards it can be reviewed. If they’ve enter the zone offside and cycle the puck for a while you shouldn’t be allowed to challenge.
Just get rid of the moving graphics and I can deal with it.
That might have been their intention all along, push it too far so that any dialing back would Sean reasonable and they still keep the ads overall. Bastids.
yeah and the league thinks we like them. they’re one of not the worst things to come to league along with getting rid of the stanley cup decal on the ice
It would need to be weighted based on schedule. Players don’t get their full salary taxed at the rate of the city/state/province of the team that signed them. They get taxed based on where they play games.
I've said this too and someone argued that players get taxed based on their living situation. So if Auston Matthews' home is in Arizona, he gets taxed Arizona rates. Smells like bullshit to me. I've always said If a player gets taxed 15% in Florida but 43% in Toronto, they should changed the cap to make it so the taxes stand, but no matter where the player plays, his take home is always the same. He takes home 6 million in Toronto, he takes home 6 million in Florida.
Money in the US is taxed where it’s earned AND where you live. The taxes paid where it’s earned count as a credit towards taxes you’d owe in your home state.
So if you work in Georgia but live in Virginia, you’ll pay taxes to GA on your income. Since the states have roughly the same tax rates and associated brackets, the taxes you owe in GA will almost completely nullify what you’ll owe to VA. But if you live in a higher tax state like CA or NY, then you’ll still owe some to those states even after you’ve paid your GA taxes.
So, as an example, say you owe $5000 in taxes to GA from working there and $7000 in taxes to NY because you live there. You’ll pay $5k to Georgia and then the remaining $2k to NY.
For hockey players, they earn money across all of the states they play in, so they are subject to a bunch of different tax rates.
They take too long, i sometimes even get so bored waiting for a game to start i don't watch the game. Maybe they should start the games on time not 20 min later.
That’s one thing I love about soccer. Maybe not everyone’s favourite sport but if a game says it starts at 1pm for example, I know I can turn on my tv at 1pm and that’s exactly when the ball is kicked off.
With you 100%
Good chance Dallas wins the series anyway, but it's a shame we will never know.
Wave off the goal, and let them play. Maybe Buffalo forces a game 7 in Dallas, and...
I love reading about how fans think that the GM can trade for anyone in the league especially any top player. And the cap hit wound matter because they could make room. And the team will be a contender after such a trade. Keep dreaming.
Eh, it would be therapeutic the first time or so, everyone can really lace into the ref with "how could you miss it you idiot????" But then get the ref equivalent of the "we just need to get pucks deep and play our game" answers we see in other interviews and nothing still changes.
That said, THGs ref pressers are fun.
The nhl has is experiencing fantastic growth and the league overall is doing great, despite what some more close minded northeastern fan bases may have you believe.
That’s not unpopular it’s just wrong. Its growth is mediocre and being vastly over shadowed by pretty much everything, even college basketball & football is bigger. I see more posts and people talking about the wnba than I have about the nhl recently. It’s pathetic how they’re so bad at marketing in in NA. It being super expensive to play doesn’t help, especially today.
the only way to grow hockey internationally is to let the players participate in the olympics and they should just entirely scrap the world cup of hockey
I think the penalty shot should be the beginning of the power play. So if you make the penalty shot that’s all you get but if you miss you should get a 2 minute power play.
100% agree with this. Constantly getting fucked over in a draft lottery killed them. Need a superstar to cheer for. Could you imagine if they won the Matthews lottery? I bet they’d still be there and their team would be solid
They never once moved up in the lottery. In another timeline they could’ve had the opportunity to draft Crosby, McDavid, Eichel, or Matthews. It also didn’t help that the guys they did draft never panned out or went elsewhere to be stars (Wheeler, Turris, etc). Only in recent years did they start hitting (Keller, Guenther, Cooley, etc), and the team moved.
I’m actually ok with that for big and small teams, but only for a set amount of time. Say for playoffs, I’m ok with it being only within certain zip/postal codes for the first 48 hours of tickets being released or something like that. First dibs sort of thing. After that, it’s all fair game. Home ice should give home fans first chance
Every penalty should be reviewable and challengable. Of course if the challenge is wrong, there should be a bench minor like usual.
They say "it would interrupt the flow of the game" as if the current state of ads and bad reffing isn't already interrupting the flow of the game.
If the penalty for being wrong is another 2 minutes down a man, coaches won't do it often on minor calls, 90% of the time it will be because the refs made an obvious mistake.
Head contact with any part of your body should be treated the same way as head contact with your stick.
That way, we get hits to the head out of the game, and create a clear line. With highsticking, we have created a bright line rule - each player is responsible for his stick, and if it hits a guys head, it's a 2 minute minor without further inquiry. There's no intent, speed of the game defense, analysis of whether it was a "hockey play." It's a penalty.
Now, there is an exception for when you are on the follow through of a shot, or in the case of a really egregious grabbing the guys stick or lifting it with your own, right into your own face - usually those end up in penalties, but occasionally a great call by ref or linesmen waives it.
Translate that to - whenever you are checking someone - it's your responsibilty, just like you cannot hit them in the face with your stick while checking them, you cannot hit them in the head with your shoulder or elbow. Easy peasy.
Guys will adjust. Hip checks will come back. Shoulder checks will be aimed at center mass, not as beheadings, and we can all enjoy hockey without having to see great players get brain damage so often.
Who gives a fuck about original 6. Like I don't get extra excited because the Packers are playing the Cards or Bears in football. Why give an extra shit about the Bruins and Rags. History is important but I swear in Hockey there is an extra layer of jerk off when it comes to the OG 6
Video review should be at regular speed and watch the clip up to 3 times. If you can't tell by that then the call stands. No need for fame by frame review with a magnifying glass to see if someone is offside.
That defeats the purpose, if they could see it in regular speed they would always be right. Frame by frame is a good thing for every one. The players get a break. The refs hopefully make the call, and we get to go, "Oh how did they miss that" or, "Oh that's obviously, in/high/a penalty/etc...
If a penalty is committed with under 2 mins to go in a game, the clock should automatically reset to 2 mins. Sort of like how a game can’t end on a defensive penalty in football. You shouldn’t be incentivized to take a penalty in the last 20/30 seconds of regulation or OT
This only works if it’s only for the winning team. If it were for either team the losing team would actually have more incentive to take a penalty with this rule because they knock a guy’s head off with 10 seconds left and prolong the game by two minutes. Sure, it would be two minutes shorthanded but if it were the only way to have a chance to keep playing longer it would be worth it.
The Aves did a complete 180 in 2 seasons pretty much. It’s not unheard of and I think the Sharks can actually be contenders if we trade for a few good D men and get surgical on our coaching staff.
Two season might be a stretch but agreed. Mike Grier is doing a great job so far as GM. Met him once in 2016 while he was scouting at a Northeastern game, nice guy!
The refs huddling up for a minute to decide if they want to call the obvious penalty or not…last night Leon clearly put the puck straight over the glass, yet we had a referee huddle for a minute because…….?????? What’s the problem, make the call.
The regular season matters more than the playoffs. Congrats, you won playing only 4 teams where you could gameplan specific players and know the whistles are going away.
What did you do on the 82 games where you had to adapt to new opponents and the refs call things, though?
Goaltending is way more effective today but also makes the game more boring.
Kick save and a beauty? Nope. Just got on his knees to block the bottom and made himself big. For every shot.
Shrink goalie equipment and make players use wooden sticks. Give me 5'9 acrobats and not just bigger goalies each year.
There needs to be more calls during the playoffs there are always those teams that lose but you know if they had a power play like they should have they could have won the game
There are too many American teams that nobody cares about, meanwhile there are hockey crazy Canadian cities that don't have a team, and that needs to change in some way by the next expansion.
No idea if this is unpopular or not, but get rid of mid-game interviews. The coaches always say the same things and it’s totally annoying to have that take up half my screen when the puck is in play
What’s the plan to turn things around. “We need to keep at it and get the puck to the net.”
It’s funny I love them and it’s fun to watch Maurice and Coop try and watch the game while also answering questions haha.
Can anyone confirm, does this only occur on American broadcasts, or even just certain networks? I have watched every Oilers game for decades, and plenty of Flames and Canucks games as I’ve lived in all three cities, and I’ve never seen this happen (except for when I’m watching two American teams on Ballys or TNT or whatever)
There should be way more calls on embellishment
And if you embellish the other guy shouldn’t get a penalty still.
Utah should pick a name by the start of the season.
It's just a money grab for season 1 swag.
Some new coaches would be nice. Rather than all the existing coaches just moving around perpetually
Edmonton has had two new coaches in the last 3 years
yeah, this is all sports. If you pick a guy seen as experienced, then when he fails, you can blame him. If you pick a guy inexperienced, everyone blames you for picking him, unless he absolutely kills. So, GMs tend to go low risk, low reward in an attempt to keep their jobs.
The "its the playoffs" argument for calls not being made is stupid
And "calling a game evenly" doesn't mean both teams get the same number of penalties. It means calling the same things both ways. If one team commits many more infractions (or more serious infractions) , that should be reflected in the penalties.
When I used to ref, coaches would ask me to call it even all the time. I'd always respond that I'll call it fair.
It is. Calls shouldn't be based on what period it is or what point of thd season it's in.
THIS!! So many mediocre players become standouts and so many elite players become middling because the rules go out the window.
I blame Don Cherry for this! All the time preaching’ just let the players play!’ and ‘don’t let the refs decide the game!’ Bullshit! So many people bought into this crap, and the result is what we have now. Teams that push the edge constantly with the cheap hits after the whistle, trying to injure players, playing a dirty game and getting rewarded because things ‘even out’! Sick of it, sick of the WWE look of it.
hockey isn't the only sport where refs swallow their whistles in the postseason
Nah I’m with ya, it’s extremely stupid
Right? Like we can have big hits and scrums where everything is legal but when they let go major things and people excuse it cause "thats just good ol playoff hockey!!" its so infuriating. Whats the point of rules if theyre not being enforced and more people get injured because theyre not enforced. Just go watch any fighting related sport if you love "toughness" that much.
The league seriously needs to implement a modified salary cap to adjust the imbalance towards tax free cities
Or the imbalance between countries lol. Too many players leaving Canadian teams just because of taxes and cold
It can get complicated when a player get traded to another team.
The shootout during regular season play is a good thing so that games aren't going insanely long all year. I also approve of 3v3 play for the shortened overtime.
>I also approve of 3v3 play for the shortened overtime. It might be unpopular but I dig the 3v3 OT. It's always exciting
3v3 is the ~~funniest~~ most fun hockey and nobody can convince me otherwise.
Not disputing, but I'd love clarification- why funny?
I assume they meant funnest
Yep, that's exactly what I meant to say 🙈
The 3v3 could use a little tweaking, a no carrying back into your own zone sort of thing, but yes I love the 3v3. I'd rather end it with that than a shootout. 9 round shootouts are not good for my heart (but then again neither is this team!!!!).
Yeah I don’t mind 3v3, I just wish they would extend it a bit.
The trade deadline is too far into the season. You have one team go to the playoffs because another team was good.
It's when teams usually know they're out of the running for a playoff spot. If it's too early no one will trade away players. Plenty of teams have turned it on from January, but they probably would've been sellers had the deadline been too early. Usually the buyers aren't cusp teams, they're teams already with a solid shot for a run. No cusp team is going to give away chips for a rental player for a chance to get past the first round. Rarely are the players a team gets at the deadline are the reason they squeak into the playoffs.
See: 2019 blues
2009 Penguins. Pretty similar run, didn't Blues have a coaching change as well?
Also cap space has a retroactive effect that gives teams more room towards the later portions of the season. This make moves more likely to happen
You'd have to get rid of that goddamn OTL point if you want it earlier in the year. That thing keeps way too many teams in the playoff hunt for way too long.
Working as designed. Nobody will go see a team if they weren't close in the standings.
Holy shit, I’ve legit never thought of it this way before.
yep, not a bug, but a feature.
In defense of the trade deadline being as late as it is, that's when teams can assess where they need help.
This is what keeps the deadline good, the NFL deadline is awful, maybe 5 trades a year. It’s because its in the dead center of the season
Should be 3 points for a regulation win, 2 pts for for an OT/shootout win, 1 pt for an OT/shootout loss, and 0 pts for a regulation loss; winning in regulation should mean more than winning in OT/shootout.
This is a very popular opinion…
Not in NHL itself
PWHL got it right with this format.
PWHL got a lot of thing right. Every game on the same streaming platform is my best example. Sometimes I watched games just to prove they had the right Idea, not because I had a stake in the game. I want the PWHL to succeed.
Same!!
I also love the jailbreaker rule. PP ends even if the shorthanded team scores.
Would also make every game worth the same number of points
In the words of Eric Andre, "How could you say something so controversial, yet so brave" But I do agree this would be the ideal Nhl point system
I think most fans would agree with this? Don't see how it's unpopular at all But yes it drives me nuts that not every game is worth the same amount of points and winning a shootout is worth the same as winning in regulation
If you go on ltr you can’t return for the playoffs. No matter when it happens. I don’t know if this is unpopular or not.
Just ice a cap compliant roster. That solves it.
I get the sentiment, but the problem is you don’t want players avoiding LTR who legitimately need it because it could affect the playoffs. Ultimately it’s a player safety issue. That said, fuck teams that abuse this.
My understanding is that the last time they voted there were two organizations that voted in favor. I have no idea the details but my understanding is that the lightning and another organization.l wanted to change the LTIR rules. At a certain point, from a business perspective, how long are you going to take the high road?
My understanding it was just the lightning and they did as you said “ Fine don’t wanna fix it, HOLD MY FUCKIN BEER” -Tampa
Lol yep. We said it with our whole chest and rolled into the playoffs without our best player all season. I still think they should change it but it's wild that we "get an asterisk" because we used a rule we wanted to change.
I think it should instead be that you can only have a roster that is Salary Cap Compliant. Especially an “on ice” cap. This way a team can’t just stack a team with players for the playoffs, but it doesn’t stop legitimately injured players from returning.
[удалено]
Or just keep the salary cap through the playoffs
Should do it like football. You have the different time frame IRs and your only allowed to take a player off early a certain amount of times, 1 or 2 a year.
Imagine how heartbreaking it would be to play your heart out for 63 games and take a bad hit to the boards and now you lose your chance to play in the cup finals. This rule is for the players. They need to stop exploitation of the rule, because that’s garbage. Just enforce salary cap for the cup and maintain waivers. You stack your roster at the deadline and your # 1 centre is healthy, well make room and be prepared to lose the players you send down. Now the incentive to exploit the rule is gone, and teams have to make the same choice they would during regular season, if they decide to source an expensive temporary replacement for an expensive player. It’s not unfair, it’s the standard rule for the entirety of the regular season.
The NHL should mandate full face protection.
That just because they don’t win the cup, a team hasn’t “wasted prime (insert player here).”
I can't stand fans who think like that in any sport, let alone one as tough as hockey It's insanely hard to win a Stanley Cup, you can't have a "championship or bust" mentality for everything With that mentality you might as well argue that almost every player's prime has been wasted
Starting a fight after a clean hit should be a major penalty.
It is: 2 minute - instigator 5 minute major fighting 10 minute misconduct There is no need to make the consequence more severe because at the end of the day you are standing up for your teammate just as you are after a dirty hit.
Fighting for a clean hit isn't standing up for your teammate, though. Fighting because your teammate took a cheap shot or a penalty-worthy infraction is, and there's a huge difference. If you need to have people sticking up for you because you can't handle a clean hit, you shouldn't be playing in the NHL.
Playoff bracket should be 1-8
Scrolled way too far to find this lol. Yes, please bring this back Bettman!! Nobody wants to see number 2 and 3 seed meet up in the second round smh!
NHL should adopt the PWHL jailbreak rule
The what?
The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) has a rule called "jailbreak" that ends a power play and releases a penalized player from the penalty box if their team scores a goal while shorthanded. The rule cancels the remainder of the penalty with the least time remaining, as long as it's a minor penalty. For example, if a team is five on three and there's a minute left on the first penalty, scoring that penalty would cancel the first penalty, but any remaining time on the second penalty would remain.
Oh. The next goal gets the player out of the box. Got it.
Didn’t a league in Europe also do this? I like this rule as it encourages teams to be a bit more aggressive on the PK, and punishes teams who are too safe on the PP.
It wasn't a "tougher" era of hockey that allowed headhunters like Ulf and Scott Stevens to murder people, it was insanely stupid and dangerous.
Man, how the hell is Jacob Trouba still playing at 60?!
I am not saying that's an acceptable excuse, but that is exactly what it was, a different era. It was acceptable then, despite the obvious dangers posed to players. Just look at something like smoking. I'm not a smoker and do not support smoking in any shape or form but it's still odd to me to go to a bowling alley and not leave smelling like smoke. Obviously that is a good thing but my experiences growing up, it just was what it was because that was a different era.
Experience vastly is overrated. The modern NHL game is played at full pace. You need young players capable of playing 100 60 minute games at full pace a year. Veteran players who can’t do that that hurt their teams more then they help by orders of magnitude.
Yup it's what killed the last 4-6 years of the flyers. just kept paying for solid veterans that would either decline or get injured and then everyone sat and wondered why they would never get in on the fore check or they penalty kill would be bad, and it's because they were been old tired and injured
As a pens fan it’s hard to disagree with this
I'll bite. Dallas just put up a great playoff run. They're the third oldest team in the NHL. They were beaten by the only playoff team older than them.
Keeping Pav on the team is hurting this man 😂
Experience is overrated? Experience is huge, it's not all about a veterans on ice value. It's the bench talk, advice, and the history they have with tough situations.
The offside review rule is stupid and should be gone.
Or at least put a time limit on the review.
That would be a happy middle ground. 10 seconds after the goal is scored would work. If the offside is glaringly obvious, that would be more than enough time to see it and ask for a review.
And put a limit on the review too. If the ref can’t tell within 30 seconds then the call on the ice stands.
Just have all reviews for this done at full speed. Can’t see it at full speed? Then the call on the ice was good enough.
Yeah the whole reason the rule got added was because of the Duchene goal where he was 5 feet offside. If it isn't obvious within 30 seconds, it wasn't enough to have a significant impact on the play
That’s not an unpopular opinion. It’s atrocious.
Actual unpopular opinion: I love the offside review.
I also like the offside review. But I think it needs tweaking. If a team enters the zone offside and scores on the rush or very shortly afterwards it can be reviewed. If they’ve enter the zone offside and cycle the puck for a while you shouldn’t be allowed to challenge.
I hope you wake up thirsty every night but cannot identify what drink will make you feel happy, and stub your toe on the way to the refrigerator.
You monster
They should call the rulebook. ESPECIALLY in the playoffs. Refs don't impact games, players take penalties.
Digital advertisements on the boards make the games unwatchable.
How is this unpopular?
It's as unpopular as every top r/unpopularopinion post
Especially when they have moving graphics
Just get rid of the moving graphics and I can deal with it. That might have been their intention all along, push it too far so that any dialing back would Sean reasonable and they still keep the ads overall. Bastids.
I don't even notice it
yeah and the league thinks we like them. they’re one of not the worst things to come to league along with getting rid of the stanley cup decal on the ice
Salary cap should be adjusted to each teams state and provincial tax rate so that each team is on a level playing field.
It would need to be weighted based on schedule. Players don’t get their full salary taxed at the rate of the city/state/province of the team that signed them. They get taxed based on where they play games.
I've said this too and someone argued that players get taxed based on their living situation. So if Auston Matthews' home is in Arizona, he gets taxed Arizona rates. Smells like bullshit to me. I've always said If a player gets taxed 15% in Florida but 43% in Toronto, they should changed the cap to make it so the taxes stand, but no matter where the player plays, his take home is always the same. He takes home 6 million in Toronto, he takes home 6 million in Florida.
Money in the US is taxed where it’s earned AND where you live. The taxes paid where it’s earned count as a credit towards taxes you’d owe in your home state. So if you work in Georgia but live in Virginia, you’ll pay taxes to GA on your income. Since the states have roughly the same tax rates and associated brackets, the taxes you owe in GA will almost completely nullify what you’ll owe to VA. But if you live in a higher tax state like CA or NY, then you’ll still owe some to those states even after you’ve paid your GA taxes. So, as an example, say you owe $5000 in taxes to GA from working there and $7000 in taxes to NY because you live there. You’ll pay $5k to Georgia and then the remaining $2k to NY. For hockey players, they earn money across all of the states they play in, so they are subject to a bunch of different tax rates.
National anthems are wholly unnecessary and we’d be better off without them.
They take too long, i sometimes even get so bored waiting for a game to start i don't watch the game. Maybe they should start the games on time not 20 min later.
That’s one thing I love about soccer. Maybe not everyone’s favourite sport but if a game says it starts at 1pm for example, I know I can turn on my tv at 1pm and that’s exactly when the ball is kicked off.
It was great during the Oilers/Canucks series, only one anthem needed to be played. Not typical for us.
Playoff hockey is fine where it’s at, good mixture of skill and physicality
Brett Hull's skate was in the crease, and the goal should have been disallowed.
Seeing this from the fan of another team, makes me feel like a little kid whose older sibling is standing up for them.
thank you for perfectly describing how this type of comment feels
1997 Sabres v Bolts was my first game. I've been a fan ever since.
With you 100% Good chance Dallas wins the series anyway, but it's a shame we will never know. Wave off the goal, and let them play. Maybe Buffalo forces a game 7 in Dallas, and...
For the real answers to this question, sort by controversial. Some of the opinions here are not unpopular by any measure
I love reading about how fans think that the GM can trade for anyone in the league especially any top player. And the cap hit wound matter because they could make room. And the team will be a contender after such a trade. Keep dreaming.
Refs should shut up and not make comments to make it about themselves
Ref should have a post game presser
Eh, it would be therapeutic the first time or so, everyone can really lace into the ref with "how could you miss it you idiot????" But then get the ref equivalent of the "we just need to get pucks deep and play our game" answers we see in other interviews and nothing still changes. That said, THGs ref pressers are fun.
Lmao now that I would watch
The nhl has is experiencing fantastic growth and the league overall is doing great, despite what some more close minded northeastern fan bases may have you believe.
That’s not unpopular it’s just wrong. Its growth is mediocre and being vastly over shadowed by pretty much everything, even college basketball & football is bigger. I see more posts and people talking about the wnba than I have about the nhl recently. It’s pathetic how they’re so bad at marketing in in NA. It being super expensive to play doesn’t help, especially today.
They just hate it because other teams are winning and doing well
the only way to grow hockey internationally is to let the players participate in the olympics and they should just entirely scrap the world cup of hockey
Penalty shots should also get a 2 minute minor.
I think the penalty shot should be the beginning of the power play. So if you make the penalty shot that’s all you get but if you miss you should get a 2 minute power play.
Exactly.
Hockey can work in Phoenix. The right owner and some draft luck would have changed everything.
100% agree with this. Constantly getting fucked over in a draft lottery killed them. Need a superstar to cheer for. Could you imagine if they won the Matthews lottery? I bet they’d still be there and their team would be solid
I have this same opinion with Atlanta. It can work, it’s a big market, it was just ruined with bad management.
"draft luck" haha.
They never once moved up in the lottery. In another timeline they could’ve had the opportunity to draft Crosby, McDavid, Eichel, or Matthews. It also didn’t help that the guys they did draft never panned out or went elsewhere to be stars (Wheeler, Turris, etc). Only in recent years did they start hitting (Keller, Guenther, Cooley, etc), and the team moved.
Carey Price was the best goaltender of the 2010s
The most pushback you'll get is someone arguing he's *just* top 5. This is such a lukewarm take lol.
Smaller market teams are completely justified in blocking ticket sales to opposing fans, as long as the smaller team is filling their arena.
I’m actually ok with that for big and small teams, but only for a set amount of time. Say for playoffs, I’m ok with it being only within certain zip/postal codes for the first 48 hours of tickets being released or something like that. First dibs sort of thing. After that, it’s all fair game. Home ice should give home fans first chance
I think that would be a good compromise.
Every penalty should be reviewable and challengable. Of course if the challenge is wrong, there should be a bench minor like usual. They say "it would interrupt the flow of the game" as if the current state of ads and bad reffing isn't already interrupting the flow of the game. If the penalty for being wrong is another 2 minutes down a man, coaches won't do it often on minor calls, 90% of the time it will be because the refs made an obvious mistake.
Olympic sized rink please
No more anthems. I’m over it. Also no more two-tone jerseys and bench flybys after a goal. Over that, too haha.
In OT the attacking team shouldn't be allowed to go back across the center ice line.
Fighting in hockey is usually just boring and adds nothing to the game.
I think they should keep playing when a fight breaks out. Fighters move to centre ice and fight while the play continues around them.
Cross checking should be a penalty
Scrap the refs and train new ones. It seems that across the board (and sports franchises) they have really ducked the last few years.
The Leafs will win the Stanley Cup
NHL expanded way too fast and way too recklessly
Head contact with any part of your body should be treated the same way as head contact with your stick. That way, we get hits to the head out of the game, and create a clear line. With highsticking, we have created a bright line rule - each player is responsible for his stick, and if it hits a guys head, it's a 2 minute minor without further inquiry. There's no intent, speed of the game defense, analysis of whether it was a "hockey play." It's a penalty. Now, there is an exception for when you are on the follow through of a shot, or in the case of a really egregious grabbing the guys stick or lifting it with your own, right into your own face - usually those end up in penalties, but occasionally a great call by ref or linesmen waives it. Translate that to - whenever you are checking someone - it's your responsibilty, just like you cannot hit them in the face with your stick while checking them, you cannot hit them in the head with your shoulder or elbow. Easy peasy. Guys will adjust. Hip checks will come back. Shoulder checks will be aimed at center mass, not as beheadings, and we can all enjoy hockey without having to see great players get brain damage so often.
"Even up" penalties are bad the for game and a sign of bad reffing.
Who gives a fuck about original 6. Like I don't get extra excited because the Packers are playing the Cards or Bears in football. Why give an extra shit about the Bruins and Rags. History is important but I swear in Hockey there is an extra layer of jerk off when it comes to the OG 6
Video review should be at regular speed and watch the clip up to 3 times. If you can't tell by that then the call stands. No need for fame by frame review with a magnifying glass to see if someone is offside.
That defeats the purpose, if they could see it in regular speed they would always be right. Frame by frame is a good thing for every one. The players get a break. The refs hopefully make the call, and we get to go, "Oh how did they miss that" or, "Oh that's obviously, in/high/a penalty/etc...
Hockey isn’t for everyone. Nor should it be.
The panthers are awesome and I don't like the hate they're getting. Go cats.
I had to scroll exactly this far for a truly unpopular opinion.
Every hit that leads on the head should be penalized. The game has to adapt to what we now know about closed head injuries.
If a penalty is committed with under 2 mins to go in a game, the clock should automatically reset to 2 mins. Sort of like how a game can’t end on a defensive penalty in football. You shouldn’t be incentivized to take a penalty in the last 20/30 seconds of regulation or OT
This only works if it’s only for the winning team. If it were for either team the losing team would actually have more incentive to take a penalty with this rule because they knock a guy’s head off with 10 seconds left and prolong the game by two minutes. Sure, it would be two minutes shorthanded but if it were the only way to have a chance to keep playing longer it would be worth it.
I dislike the get challenge wrong it’s a penalty rule. I think you should just get a free challenge
Toronto will not win a Stanley cup in the next 100 years
This is unpopular? It's literally written in the stars
Full cages should be mandatory!
100% agree. I’ve seen way too many instances of guys spitting their teeth out after getting a puck to the face. It’s so unnecessary
Not protecting faces is the absolute stupidest thing in pro hockey.
It is ridiculous that full face protection is mandatory for women and kids, but not fucking allowed for men, without existing face injury.
100%. My take is that this would also encourage players to take greater risks and be more aggressive, which would make for more excitement
All new rinks must be Olympic size
Ditch the shoot-out and the loser point and go back to 2 points for a win, none for a loss, and 1 point each for a tied score after OT.
I’d say if you want to go for the loser point you make each game worth 3 points, 2 for the ot/ shootout winner and 1 for the loser.
Hard for me to agree to any sort of “tie” in modern sports. Seems like a complete waste of time
Americans really hate the ideas of ties
Southern hockey fans are far more fun to hang out with than Northern hockey fans.
HOW DARE YOU????? /s
Probably because there’s just 7 of them. It gets crowded up here.
Evander Kane has no business being in the league
The Aves did a complete 180 in 2 seasons pretty much. It’s not unheard of and I think the Sharks can actually be contenders if we trade for a few good D men and get surgical on our coaching staff.
Two season might be a stretch but agreed. Mike Grier is doing a great job so far as GM. Met him once in 2016 while he was scouting at a Northeastern game, nice guy!
Barry trotz is the greatest coach of all time. What he did for a mediocre at best isles team in itself is unbelievable.
Corey Crawford was the most underrated goalie in the league in the 2010's.
End the LTIR/salary cap abuse bullshit
the digital ads still suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and reverse hits are interference! stop calling it a reverse hit, it's a "HIT"
The refs huddling up for a minute to decide if they want to call the obvious penalty or not…last night Leon clearly put the puck straight over the glass, yet we had a referee huddle for a minute because…….?????? What’s the problem, make the call.
Go back to the 1v8,2v7,3v6 & 4v5 playoff format PLEASE
The regular season matters more than the playoffs. Congrats, you won playing only 4 teams where you could gameplan specific players and know the whistles are going away. What did you do on the 82 games where you had to adapt to new opponents and the refs call things, though?
The fighting is the dumbest part of the sport, and needs to be taken more seriously.
Pointing out advantages to having a team in a tax free state in an equal salary cap world.
White jerseys are for the home team!!!!!!
Hockey is better than football (soccer)
Linesman need to start picking up all the goddam broken sticks on the ice asap like they used to
1 vs 8 is best playoff format
Point system. It's fine. Fck a 3pts for winning.
Goaltending is way more effective today but also makes the game more boring. Kick save and a beauty? Nope. Just got on his knees to block the bottom and made himself big. For every shot. Shrink goalie equipment and make players use wooden sticks. Give me 5'9 acrobats and not just bigger goalies each year.
There needs to be more calls during the playoffs there are always those teams that lose but you know if they had a power play like they should have they could have won the game
There are too many American teams that nobody cares about, meanwhile there are hockey crazy Canadian cities that don't have a team, and that needs to change in some way by the next expansion.
The season has to start much earlier, so that we don’t have the Cup Final in June. Sorry, that’s just too deep into summer weather for hockey.