After the controversial plays during this year’s playoffs, Gary Bettman has announced that the NHL will be looking to make changes in the summer.
In the NHL playoffs, everything is magnified. Every check is important, every goal is important, and when poor calls are made, it can completely shift the momentum of both the game and the series. The Stanley Cup Finals is just underway but we have already seen our fair share of ridiculous calls that were unable to be fixed because of the video review rules.
At the Stanley Cup Final press conference, Gary Bettman had a lot to say about video reviews and he said that they are considering expanding it. The biggest problem for him is that too much could impact the flow and tempo of the game but if they go about this situation properly, that shouldn’t be too big of a problem.
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In the NFL, quarterbacks have receivers and speakers in their helmets so that the coach can communicate with them when they’re on the field. What the NHL could do is have referees wear a similar style helmet and have another watching the entire game off the ice from a bunch of screens.
That way, if a ref misses a call, the person at the screens can instantly communicate with the refs on the ice to make sure that the call gets corrected. This way, referees don’t have to huddle up and stare at a grainy iPad for five minutes to get the call right.
The important thing for the NHL to do is to set up proper boundaries for a video review. Goals are the most important thing to get right.
If the goal is offside or the puck went into the netting and bounced back in, it needs to be taken back. Things like penalties should continue being referee judgment to keep the pace of the game going and to prevent the game from becoming choppy.
One of the biggest draws in hockey is that it is 20-minute segments of almost uninterrupted play. If the NHL makes video reviews too powerful, it will kill the momentum and ruin what makes the game special. At the end of the day, the point is to get the calls right and if the NHL can figure out a way to do this while keeping the game going, that’s a win.