A room full of content GMs as NHL contemplates rule changes

There is a reason why the fixes were few among the general managers Monday, why 30 men who know the game well studied and rejected most of the proposed rule changes Monday at the NHL’s general managers meetings.

Yes, in a media world where you’re not cool unless you want fighting out, head contact eliminated, or at least one suspension per game, allow us to be different for just a moment.

The GMs like the game the way it is, and so do I. Like that old axiom about some of the best trades are the ones you don’t make, the GMs didn’t do much Monday, because the game does not require it.

Hybrid icing? Yeah, sure. If it will save a few injuries, why not?

Change the rule on hand passes in the defensive zone? OK, though we’re not sure when hand passes became top of mind.

But return the neutral zone to traffic jam by taking out the red-line? Why on earth would we do something as foolish as that?

“When we did this rule change … we wanted to up the speed of the game,” began Brian Burke, one guy who has always taken very seriously what the GMs do at these meetings. “The product we have on the ice now is as good as we’ve ever had in the history of the league. I am not interested in the red-line going back in. The game is a wonderful product right now.”

We’ve been coming to these meetings for several years now, and we’re not sure we’ve ever seen this group so content with the product.

The concussion situation has our figuring abated, when you consider that awareness is at an all-time high yet concussion numbers aren’t up from last year. Man-games lost due to concussions have risen, but that’s only because teams take the injury more seriously now, and players are more willing to ‘fess up to a concussion today than in the past.

Rule 48, the blind-side and vulnerable hit to the head rule that was founded here a few years back, has worked remarkably well.

When is the last time you saw the type of hit that Matt Cooke and Colby Armstrong used to throw? The fact is, those decimating head shots on the unaware have markedly declined over the past few years.

And the one thing we’ve always believed, that player safety would be helped the most when the players figured out how to apply the brakes when their opponent was in a too vulnerable position, has also come to fruition.

On Monday, for the first time in my life around this game, discipline czar Brendan Shanahan was able to compile a video montage of a dozen or more instances where players turned down a big hit in the interest of averting an injury to the opponent.

And that, folks, is the surest sign of progress.

Shanahan’s example of Shawn Thornton changing his hitting angle so as not to hit P.K. Subban directly in the numbers was a clip you never would have seen a few years ago. Same with the shot of Michal Handzus bearing down on Calgary’s Tim Jackman. Spying the open bench door he veered off the hit to avoid potentially serious injury.

“I just had lunch with Shanny,” said Detroit GM Ken Holland. “I think he’s doing a tremendous job. He hit hard earlier in the year with suspensions, and I think players have adjusted.”

Of course, there will still be those who rail against concussions in the game, or worse, concussions and fighting. (Just over three per cent of concussions this season have come in fights).

But what are you going to do? Shut down the Globe and Mail entirely?

“This is a full contact sport. We’re going to have concussions,” Burke said. “We’re never going to get it to zero, and the game won’t be worth watching if we do.”

Like it or not, that sentiment – and this one – is the prevailing thought among this group of men:

“There’s no place on the hockey rink where you’re safe (from contact), and it’s got to stay that way,” Burke said. “In all of hockey – all over the world – the amount of body contact in North American hockey is distinctive. And we don’t want to change that.”

The movement to remove the trapezoid and allow goalies to handle the puck all over the ice died quickly here, and there is no chance of change regarding the red-line.

They’re not getting rid of fighting, but they will get rid of players who aren’t smart enough to alter their game in the interest of minimizing injury.

The changes nowadays are mere tweaks. Because tweaks are all that is needed.