Shorthanded icing?

Monday December 17, 2007 @ 01:27 AM EST

In this week’s mailbag for John Buccigross’ column, he gracefully danced around this question from some dude named Gary:


This question is from my 9-year-old son Patrick. He’s been asking me it for 2-to-3 years and I can’t answer it. Maybe you can. He wants to know why teams are allowed to ice the puck when they’re shorthanded. He doesn’t believe a team should be allowed a privilege when they’ve done something wrong.


My thoughts on this:


First of all, this kid is darn persistent. He asks the same question for 2 to 3 years?? Even though his dad clearly doesn’t know the answer? I wonder how long it will take for Dad to answer the infamous “Where do babies come from?”


Second, I’m pretty surprised that Bucci didn’t even TRY to answer this one. I read his column religiously, and I know he actually did address this issue not too long ago. It kind of disappointed me that he didn’t at least give poor Patrick some peace for his hard-working brain.


Thirdly, what about shorthanded icing? I guess I understand where Patrick is coming from. They have a penalty – why would we want to make their lives easier by letting them ice the puck?


But really, there’s a fine line between punishment and torture here. I’ve seen penalty-killing players out on the ice for twice, even three times, as long as a normal shift. Think what happens when they finally get the puck at the end of a shift like that. They can barely freakin’ move! Even getting it all the way down the ice is a challenge. Now, imagine that they’re not even allowed to ice it. They’re looking at a faceoff in their zone, with no additional time taken off the power play, and no chance to get fresh legs on the ice. It’s suicide. All because you (actually, your teammate) accidentally tripped another guy with your stick (or usually some equally harmless offense). I understand that penalties are made to punish. That’s why you lose a player for two minutes. That’s the consequence. It seems like not allowing penalty-killing teams to ice the puck is a step beyond acceptable punishment.


That said, I can see the opposite side here. Players who can’t ice the puck on the penalty-kill are exhausted players, and exhausted players make lots of mistakes. Mistakes, in many cases, equal goals; and the NHL is always looking for more scoring. So I guess that would be a plus of sorts.


Another benefit to changing the rule could be that it might force teams to rethink the way they kill penalties. Personally, I’d love to see teams get more aggressive on the penalty kill because I think there are a lot of short-handed goals to be had. Most teams are content to sit back and let the other team shell them, knowing that they can ice the puck as soon as they got it. If that option was removed, teams might try more intently to get the puck, wanting to avoid those ridiculously long shift. And then, once players get the puck, they might try to do a bit more with it. This could actually negate a lot of the concerns that I have about calling icing during the penalty-kill, provided that teams look at it the right way. It’s something to think about for sure.


So I, for one, think that Patrick asked a good question. And I think there are a lot of different ways to answer this one.


My question now is: what do you think? Is this is a bad rule? Why or why not?

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