Head knocks weigh on NHL general managers

Chara was penalized for interference on the play (and it was a rare major penalty for interference, which I had never seen called in 20+ years of following hockey), but I would hardly call it a blatant penalty.

Pacioretty was in the process of playing the puck while Chara was angling over to cut him off and prevent him from moving up the ice with it. That was why Pacioretty reached out and chipped the puck forward as Chara engaged him. Chara rode him into the boards, but I've made plays pretty similar to this myself and usually never had a penalty called. Hockey players are always taught to follow through on their checks, which is why NHL rules allow a player to check an opponent without the puck as long as it is done immediately after the player loses direct possession of the puck (this is part of Rule 56.1).

There was a good discussion on NHL Network the other night. The GM meetings in FLA. They showed the GM’s a 2 hour video about concussions. Most were not from illegal contact.

One commentator suggested bringing back the red line as a way to shorten 2 line passes and slow the game down.

It won't happen, but I wonder what the ratio of concussions before and after the rule change.

That's very interesting. I knew the elimination of the red line for two-line passes was probably a factor, but I didn't think it was serious enough that the NHL would consider putting it back in.

I think there's another possible measure here that would go a long way toward addressing this problem while at the same time making the game far more exciting: Increase the size of the ice surface.

These concussions -- especially the ones that occur on perfectly legal plays -- are the direct result of large players skating at high speeds (often in the opposite direction to each other) on an ice surface that has effectively shrunk over time as players have gotten bigger and faster. Increasing the ice to Olympic standards would help address this problem in two ways: (1) by giving players more room to move and reducing the physical contact between them, and (2) putting more of a premium on smaller, faster players who simply won't cause as much damage to each other.

I'd be curious to know how the frequency and severity of concussions in the NHL compares to European leagues.

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