The NHL’s competition committee recently announced its recommendation for two rule changes.
One was to not allow a team to use its timeout if it was guilty of icing the puck. The other change called for a faceoff to be taken at the nearest spot if a puck struck with a high stick causes play to be stopped.
That’s all well and good, but the NHL has bigger issues. The excessive stick work. Contact with goaltenders. Players cheating on faceoffs by infringing the circle and causing the restart of play to be delayed.
The game needs to be cleaned up, and maybe it’s as simple as enforcing the rules as they’re written to stop the slashing, the running of goalies in their crease and infringing the circle on faceoffs.