NHL to refs: Focus on the hand slashes

in New York

The NHL’s referees are about to come to Johnny Gaudreau’s defence. The league’s department of player safety has instructed officials to crack down on slashes to the hands this season following several wrist, hand and finger injuries inflicted by such dangerous stick work.

It’s unlikely any player in the league will benefit more from such a crackdown than the Calgary Flames’ Gaudreau, whose gifted mitts were targeted all season long, resulting in a broken finger last November that cost him 10 games of service after being surgically repaired.

“Over time it became a whack-fest in and around the hands and players were getting hurt,” said the NHL’s VP and director of officiating, Stephen Walkom, during NHL meetings in New York.

“If you slash a player’s hands with force, we are looking to shore that up because we’ve let it go for too long. If we really want to increase scoring in the game, why are we allowing players to wield their sticks six or eight feet away from the puck? It’s an area I believe we let slip.” No longer. Last year there were 791 minor penalties called for slashing. Hundreds of others went uncalled and resulted in high-profile injuries — you can expect that number to skyrocket this season.

Players and fans have more than just Gaudreau to thank for that.

“This was a direction given to us by Garth Snow and 31 general managers,” said the NHL’s senior VP of hockey operations, Mike Murphy, whose group responded to the hue and cry of the hockey community that saw Gaudreau’s finger broken by Eric Staal and Marc Methot’s pinky partially

Just like the water-skiing that was done behind players hooking and hitching rides right through to the 2004 Stanley Cup final series involving the Flames, the trend had to stop.

It was around that time hooks started turning into whacks.

The night Gaudreau left thanks to Staal’s slash, the Minnesota Wild had been targeting Gaudreau’s wristarea so heavily that a video breakdown showed he’d been hit there 21 times that night.

Flames fans and management of the sticks and tugging of the hands, and this is good. Since the beginning of time taps have been going on, but as injuries happen it has come to the forefront more.”

Executive VP and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell outlined how several other rules would be more strictly enforced this year including ensuring centres lining up for a faceoff would be kicked out of the circle for not positioning their skates behind the markings.

The goal is to further eliminate unfair advantages being gained by players, as well as reduce head butting and making it a safer area for the official dropping the puck.

The tucking in of jerseys in any fashion won’t be tolerated, nor will players wearing their visors improperly.

At a league briefing, Flames forward Sean Monahan’s visor was shown in a picture sitting too high on his helmet, failing to adequately protect his eye line.

One of the rule changes prohibits teams that just iced the puck to follow that play with a timeout.

Another big rule change dings coaches with a delayof-game penalty if their challenge of an offside ruling prior to a goal is incorrect.

Previously, coaches simply lost their timeout while fans lost their minds over the endless delays.