USA TODAY International Edition
GMs putting focus on league’s future
Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Lou Lamoriello said all one needs to do is look at baseball to understand why NHL general managers spent Day 1 of their threeday annual meetings discussing what hockey will look like years from now.
“You would have ( relievers) for two or three innings, now we are down to the fifth inning,” Lamoriello said. “What will we be doing?”
The GMs met in groups, and everyone threw out ideas, all of which will be discussed Tuesday to see what should be considered moving forward. Tuesday, the GMs are also expected to discuss current rules, such as whether offsides should be amended to make it fit better with video review.
“Everything is positive, but we want to be proactive,” Lamoriello said. “Where is equipment going? Where will sticks be going? We’ve seen what has transpired in other sports.”
One group talked about ideas to open up offense. “Should we look at ways to legislate defense?” Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving said.
Treliving said there was a discussion about whether “there is a way to take some tools out of the ( the coaches’) toolbox defensively.”
“There’s too much congestion around the net,” Treliving said. “Guys collapsing and blocking shots. You need an act of God to get a puck through from the point into where a goalie has to make a save. That perhaps can be addressed.”
GMs talked about forcing players to have two skate blades on the ice, an idea former general manager Bob Gainey brought up in 2008. In other words, a player wouldn’t be able to throw his body at the shooter anymore.
“I think this is an exercise, more of a fun thing to see where it might go, what could change going forward,” New York Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton said.
“We talked about what it was like 10 years ago, and you look at the changes, and could you ( have said you thought) these things were really going to happen? They have. Like 3- on- 3, who could have seen that happening? They went back 20 years, and they said nobody would have thought there’d be two refs.”
Some of the ideas discussed have been around for years, such as whether there should be three points for a regulation win or two points for a regulation win and one for an overtime or shootout win.
Lamoriello has a different idea. “I’m not one personally in favor of a three- point game,” he said. “I’m also not in favor of getting a point if you don’t win. I’d rather see the game be two points and zero ( points) or end up in a tie for one and one.”
Buffalo Sabres general manager Tim Murray said his group talked about the fact that there was no forward passing before the 1930s.
“So nothing is completely crazy,” Murray said. “If you look at the history of the game, there has been huge changes that people didn’t foresee.”
What was the strangest moment of the day? “The most unusual thing was ( Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc) Bergevin walked out with a plant,” Gorton said.
Bergevin used the plant to playfully duck the media.