2005 NHL Research and Development Camp

was zum lesen ...

Zitat

For NHL, games like no others
By John McGourty | NHL.com
June 2, 2005

Mike Murphy, the NHL's vice-president of hockey operations, coached over 200 games with the Los Angeles Kings and Toronto Maple Leafs, but he's never seen hockey games like the ones he'll be coaching next week.

E.J. McGuire has been an assistant coach with three NHL teams, but he's due for an eye-opener, too.

For three days, June 6-8, these NHL officials will be coaching something akin to "anything goes" hockey at the NHL Research and Development Camp at Canlan Ice Sports in Etobicoke, Ontario. The NHL will be experimenting with a variety of ideas brought to ice to determine the feasibility and desirability of suggested rule changes.

The research and development camp dovetails nicely with this week's NHL Scouting Combine in Toronto, in which draft-eligible junior players are measured and tested prior to their being drafted.

Murphy and McGuire will be doing testing of another kind, looking at concepts like larger nets, the removal of the red line, the removal of both blues lines and restrictions on goalies handling the puck.

"We want to look at a lot of different rule ideas that are out there," Murphy said. "Some are exaggerated, such as bigger nets and some simple, like serving an entire two-minute penalty, even if your team has been scored upon during the penalty.

"The only way we can get a feel for these ideas is to try them in a game-like environment. Some will be discarded almost immediately and some will likely be recommended to a competition committee. We don't have such a committee right now, but we will after the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is signed. I think some of these ideas show good potential, but I would be only guessing if I tried to predict how they will work in game situations.

"We have some very competitive kids coming who will play hard and they will be coached to understand these rules so that they can challenge the rules. That way, we will all understand whether a particular rule will work or if we are just shooting bullets in the air."

There will be two practice sessions each day and they will focus on different concepts, Murphy said.

"We don't want to put too many things in any one session because we want to be able to identify which element is making an impact," Murphy said. "On Monday morning, we are going for an 'open-game' concept. There will be no blue lines, only a line above the offensive-zone faceoff circles that we currently call the 'ringette' line. Cross that line and you can throw the puck all the way down to the net, no offsides. You could position a player right in front of their goalie and pass all the way down ice. That's an open concept, more like a game of shinny.

"We want to try something that makes people think outside the box. We'll try to understand every aspect of this and see if some things can be derived from this that would benefit us."

Murphy and McGuire are screening NHL coaches and assistants to help them work the benches during the R&D camp. They have a large talent pool from which to choose. Many NHL general managers, coaches, player-personnel directors and scouts are in Toronto to watch the combine testing.

"This is the NHL's attempt to look outside of ourselves and see if there is a change or an adjustment we can effect to make our game even better than it already is," Murphy said. "We're getting a lot of media requests, so there should be a lot of attention paid to this. We just don't have the space there to admit the general public."

Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operation Colin Campbell and Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations Jim Gregory will supervise the officials who will be asked to referee games unlike any they've ever seen.

"We've been sending them memos as to how we want to handle this stuff," Murphy said. "They'll be fine. They'll be flexible and able to adjust."

Big nets will be the featured attraction on Monday afternoon, along with the removal of the red line.

"With those rules, you can shoot all the way down from your own blue line," Murphy said. "Maybe, there will be more shooting, with the bigger nets. We'll be interested in seeing if there is more shooting and more scoring. In other sessions, we'll be looking at banning all restraint against the puck carrier, zero tolerance for light tugs and hooking and holding. We'll have the tag-up offside in effect at times; the hurry-up faceoff; no-touch icing; no line changes permitted for a team that ices the puck, including on penalty kills. And, every game will have overtime, regardless of the score, so that we can test five-minute 4-on-4 overtime play, five-minute 3-on-3 overtime play and shootouts. Those two overtimes and a shootout will be in effect in every session."

Murphy said Tuesday will feature the "Buffalo nets," the really wide goals, and the "Bowman pass line." That's similar to the ringette-line concept, except the blue lines will be in effect. That would allow players to pass from their own zone to the offensive blue line, an action barred now by the two-line pass rule. The goalies won't be able to handle the puck outside their crease Wednesday morning. No stopping the puck behind the net, no leaving the crease to beat an opposing player to the puck. Wednesday afternoon has been left unscheduled to allow the NHL brass to review the most popular ideas and to mix concepts not previously tried in combination.

What about?
Here are the scenarios that will be tested at the NHL Research and Development camp:

* Strong standard of enforcement against obstruction
* Tag-up off-side
* Hurry-up faceoff
* No-touch icing (with exceptions: attempted pass, pinching defenseman)
* No line changes following an icing
* Smaller goaltender equipment
* No icing the puck on penalty kills
* Offensive team (rather than defensive team) sets up second in faceoff situations
* No substitution on offsetting penalties
* Overtime (4 on 4, 3 on 3, shoot-out)

Camp Schedule
Monday (a.m.):
"Open Game" hockey: A concept suggested by the Boston Bruins. A line is drawn across the tops of the face-off circles and the blue lines are erased. The puck can be passed from anywhere past the new line to any other location on the ice surface without creating an offside or an icing infraction.

Monday (p.m.): Big nets & no red line
Big nets: The crossbar height remains at four feet but the goal posts are curved outwards, creating a wider net that is 17 percent larger.

Tuesday (a.m.): Zero tolerance on infractions again the puck carrier

Tuesday (p.m.): Oval nets & "Bowman" pass line
Oval nets: The goal posts and crossbar are pushed outward, creating a more oval appearance and an increase of 13 percent in net area.
"Bowman pass" line: A concept suggested by Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman. A line is drawn across the tops of the circles and passes are permitted from anywhere past that line to the attacking blue line.

Wednesday (a.m.): Complete restriction on goaltenders handling the puck

Wednesday (p.m.): TBA

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von nhl.com

denke mal, derzeit das wichtigste neben den (anscheinend diesmal konstruktiver laufenden cba-verhandlungen), was sich in na punkto hockey tut ...

gfallt ma, daß wenigstens mal probiert & getestet wird, wie man das spiel wieder mehr öffnen und zum spiel machen könnt ...

und gleich noch was zum lesen dazu ...

Zitat

NHL Research/Development camp opens

Canadian Press

6/6/2005 2:30:48 PM

TORONTO (CP) - The offside whistles for the entire three-period scrimmage could be counted on one hand, and Glen Sather was grinning.

"Could you imagine Wayne (Gretzky) and Mario (Lemieux) playing that kind of game?" Sather posed. "They'd have a field day."

The New York Rangers boss was among general managers and coaches at an airport-area arena Monday for the first of three days of NHL rules experiments. Things got started with a look at the "open game" concept put forth by the Boston Bruins.

Bruins president Harry Sinden contends that offences would be liberated and neutral zone trapping obliterated by removing the centre red line and the blue-lines and putting in thin lines a few feet above the faceoff circles at each end of the ice and allowing passes to go anywhere on the ice, without creating an offside or icing infraction, once the player with the puck reaches the pass line in his zone.

"I don't know if I'd want to rush into it but I sure like the idea," said Sather.

The Sinden System has about as much chance of being implemented next season as the NHL and the NHLPA had of agreeing on a new collective bargaining agreement before midnight Monday night. But this camp is all about opening minds and taking a look at whatever bounces out of the brains on board. For three days, anything goes.

"There's a lot of things that have happened since the '80s," said Sather, who coached the Edmonton Oilers to a record level of offensive output 20 years ago. "Our game has changed from a free-wheeling game to a very tight defensive style.

"A lot of that has got to do with the techniques the coaches have developed. It's a lot easier to defend than create offence. (The Sinden System) is not a lot different from the style of play (the Oilers) used in the '80s - free-wheeling, changing lanes, defencemen getting involved. It goes a step further because you've distorted the size of the rink. It becomes a lot bigger without the blue-lines. There's so much skating involved. I think it's exciting. I think it's a great idea."

It should be tried in the AHL, Sather suggested.

The scrimmage consisted of three 15-minute, stop-time periods and each took about 21 minutes to complete because whistles were so infrequent. The final score was 5-2.

The players being used during the three-day camp are free agents who have graduated from major junior teams and skaters from university teams. They had never tried the Sinden System so it's not as if it was executed at peak efficiency.

The goalies wore equipment smaller than used in recent NHL seasons. Leg pads were 11 inches wide - two inches narrower than pads used in the NHL last year - and sweaters were close fitting rather than baggy as has become the vogue.

While the Sinden System probably won't see the light of day, it's lights out on the issue of smaller equipment for goalies. It's a done deal, although the NHLPA would have a say in the final decisions.

"We've worked with the players' association closely on reducing the size of goalie equipment," said Colin Campbell, the NHL vice-president in charge of hockey operations. "We've got to get moving on this now with the manufacturers."

Most NHL teams are represented at the camp, and there is a strong conservative faction that favours limited changes.

"We should go back to the tag-up rule," said Toronto Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn. "And we still need a firmer crackdown on interference away from where the puck is so we can get some give-and-go back into the game.

"I don't know what else we can do."

While Sather liked the Sather System, Quinn was skeptical.

"I don't like the idea that you can throw the puck 160 feet down the ice," said Quinn. "It takes away from teamwork rather than building it.

"I don't want to see a ping pong game. Something this drastic might not be the answer."

But he's willing to have a look.

"You don't know how it's going to work unless you actually try it," he said. "To me, we've got a heck of a game right now.

"We can clean up a few things but, to make drastic changes? I don't know. A lot of us will have to be convinced it'll make our game better and I'm not sure we're there yet until we watch and analyse more. One thing I know is there's no hitting out there, which I don't like."

Quinn is all for thwarting neutral zone trappers - but not at any cost.

"If we're just going to throw the puck down (the ice) and play like basketball - zone sort of hockey - I'm not interested in that," he said.

But, as Campbell reminded, the Sinden System is merely an experiment.

"What we're working on with this experiment is opening up the game," he said. "The trap has stymied our game.

"What the end result of this (experiment) is, I don't know. At least it's an attempt to open up the game."

Quinn joined the chorus supporting smaller goalie equipment. It'd been growing too big for a long time, he said.

"What happened with our goaltenders was not right," said Quinn. "It was less about ability and more about equipment and blocking the net.

"You can look down at the game we're watching right now and you can see (net) space (behind the goalie). That's the way it was in the 1970s and before that.

"We still want them protected properly because guys shoot the puck harder . . . but if we want to increase scoring that's going to be a big step towards it."

Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff agreed. Anything would be better as it was in the past, he said.

"Your run-of-the-mill, 170-pound goalie was looking like 240," he said.

A second scrimmage made use of nets four inches higher and eight inches wider than the normal 4x6 nets. The score ended up 5-3. Eric Tobia of Cloyne, Ont., who played for the OHL's Belleville Bulls this year, was one of the goalies.

"In the warmup, there was a lot of room for shooters," he said. "When they had time to look, they were picking a lot of corners.

"But in the game we didn't find it too much of a setback. We adjusted by stepping out an extra foot to take away the extra inches on both sides of the net. Movement-wise, I had to work a little harder to push from side to side but, overall, it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

"The majority of the goals went in more because of the smaller equipment."

Curtis Darling of Portland, Ore., who plays college hockey at Waterloo, said in conversations with the forwards afterwards, "They said that when they had time to shoot in the warmup they saw more net but in the game they didn't notice too much of a difference. Those NHL guys can place the puck a little better. Maybe they can take more advantage of it."

Quinn doesn't favour larger nets.

"I don't care so much about making bigger nets," he said. "My thoughts were always on making the equipment smaller, and not the nets larger."

In the morning scrimmage, defencemen could move the puck to the pass line and fire it off the far glass as teammates scurried after the loose puck. Skaters were out of position and wandering all over the ice. It was like shinny on a pond.

Phil Knapp, a York University forward from Athens, Ont., was one of the skaters taking part.

"There's so much room out there that there's not much checking going on," he said. "It's really open.

"When the puck leaves your end, you can just stand there in front of the other team's net."

At first, defencemen were standing up at their blue-line as if the blue-line setup was normal. But forwards began circling in behind them to get breakaway passes so the defencemen began staking territory further back towards their goalie's crease.

The smaller goaltending equipment wasn't too big a handicap for goalie Brad Topping of London, Ont., who played for the OHL Windsor Spitfires.

"You have to play like you did in your minor-hockey days when you were smaller," he said. "You have to come out and challenge the shooters and play your angles well and use your reflexes."

GMs huddled in small groups assessing what they were watching.

"The purpose is to get hockey minds in a room together and decide what we like and dislike about these different things and balance all those things to come up with a final product we hope will be more entertaining, with more scoring chances, for the fans," said Edmonton GM Kevin Lowe.

"We're trying to come up with something new," said Montreal GM Bob Gainey. "Unless we try these things, we won't know."

Like his peers, he's all for smaller goalie equipment.

"For me, it's good to look down the ice and see the goalie standing in front of the net at the other end in different equipment and in a different size net," said Gainey. "It gives me an impression I wouldn't otherwise get."

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von https://www.eishockeyforum.at/www.tsn.ca

versuch mir grad die sinden-idee vorzustellen - das wär open-hockey ...

und ein dritter artikel:

Zitat

NHL: Shootouts, smaller equipment coming

Canadian Press

6/7/2005 2:32:50 PM

TORONTO (CP) - Ties could be broken by shootouts after regular-season games whenever the NHL restarts.

It's not official yet, but club executives agree they need a more entertaining product, says New York Islanders GM Mike Milbury.

"If they don't have a shootout, I'll be shocked," says Milbury. "That's an easy one.

"The fans want it, and it's the least we can do after spitting at them for the last 12 months."

Fans in the AHL and elsewhere have grown to enjoy shootouts, says Steve Tambellini, director of player personnel for the Vancouver Canucks. The trend is obvious.

"It sounds like most people want a definite outcome - a win or loss - one way or the other," Tambellini said during a break on the second day of the three-day NHL research camp Tuesday.

After watching free-agent junior and college players test on Monday a radical plan by Boston Bruins president Harry Sinden that allows passing from the top of the faceoff circles to anywhere on the ice, and the use of nets four inches (6.5 centimetres) taller and eight inches (20 centimetres) wider than normal, club representatives took in scrimmages Tuesday to test zero tolerance on obstruction fouls and weird-looking nets with arced posts.

The most likely changes in NHL play for the next season are shootouts, smaller goalie equipment and tag-up offsides. Some of the radical stuff being tested is too over the top for many GMs.

"We have, traditionally, been very conservative as a group," said Milbury. "There isn't any doubt about that.

"We've tried to be respectful of the game's history and heritage but the coaches haven't. They've coached the hell out of it. They've coached defensive hockey and worked the trap and angles and crowding in front of the net, and goalies have cheated like a son of a bitch over the last number of years.

"We've got to respond. Other sports respond."

To Milbury, the essence of an NHL game is the players' passion, skating, speed and aggressiveness.

"It's not the rules," he said. "The rules have changed all the time, and I don't think we should be afraid of that."

The no-tolerance obstruction scrimmage saw a parade of players to the penalty box for interfering even in the slightest ways with opponents who didn't have the puck. There were constant whistles and, it seemed, power plays most of the game.

It's only a start though. Players will adapt, said Milbury, adding that the next crackdown on obstruction during NHL games will succeed.

"There's more resolve on the issue this time around," he said. "You could see in this scrimmage they were picking it up little by little.

"Over time, players will get it and stick with it."

The camp is all about opening minds to changes that will make the NHL brand more fan-friendly.

"My definition of that is more entertainment through scoring chances," said Milbury. "We want to change things to make it more fun.

"That's all we want to do. We want to open things up. I love the game. It's a great game. But it's been coached and goaltended to a point where it needs to be adjusted."

There's no time to hesitate.

"We've been categorized publicly as being nothing short of being neanderthals over the years when it comes to change," said Milbury. "Hockey is revered in Canada but we're in trouble south of the border."

He suggests a committee that has authority to make decisions on rules changes. As things are now, the NHL holds meetings with representatives from the 30 clubs and things get bogged down. Often, nothing gets done. A committee of five GMs, a coach and a player would be more effective, Milbury said.

"One with teeth," he said. "Not one that comes back and says, `Gee, we want you to consider this.' I want it to come back and say, `Here it is. We're going with bigger nets, we're going without red lines.' Whatever."

Tambellini is not as adamant as Milbury in seeking changes, but he loves what he's been seeing.

"The intent of the whole few days is to see things that everyone has been talking about for some time, and I think it's been great," said Tambellini. "It gives you a chance to actually see the changes we're talking about.

"We're trying to do things that show how great our players are. It's the responsibility of everyone in the game to explore ways to see how great the game can be."

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von.https://www.eishockeyforum.at/www.tsn.ca

bitte keine shootouts in der nhl - nur weils am schluß einen sieger gibt, heißt das noch nit, daß das spiel damit besser wird (sondern meist eher gegen ende noch defensiver - zwecks dem zusatzpunkt) ...

da is ma ja fast schon gewillt, eine bürgerinitiative für das remis aufzustellen ...

goalie-equipment wieder bissl zu reduzieren find i okay, die idee nach einem icing die linie nit wechseln zu dürfen, gfallt ma ah ... mir würd ein versuch mit 5 blocks je 4 mann statt 4 blocks je 5 spieler mal interessieren ... finde die 4:4 situationen wesentlicher offener und ah um nix weniger fürs hockey-gemüt interessant als die 5:5 formation ...