The NHL product has always been fluid. In this 2004 story from THN's Archive, 90 players spoke out about the changes they'd implement to improve the NHL product.

Over the years, The Hockey News has polled NHL players about the state of the league and the game itself. In this cover story feature from THN’s Jan. 27, 2004 edition (Vol. 57, Issue 21), we spoke to 90 NHLers on the changes they’d make to the game.

(And remember, for full access to THN’s complete 76-year archive, you can subscribe to the magazine.)

Among the players polled for this particular story included NHL stars Brendan Shanahan, Paul Kariya, Ilya Kovalchuk, Joe Sakic, Luc Robitaille, Jaromir Jagr, Chris Pronger, Eric Lindros and Patrik Elias. Other NHLers polled went on to prominent team management positions, including current Calgary Flames GM Craig Conroy, Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin, Chicago Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson and New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald. 

The suggestions the 90-man group had are fascinating.

One of the most popular suggestions was widening the size of NHL rinks. Although it would be a costly move to remove a couple of rows of seats – and prime-area seats, at that – there was a sense the league’s offensive wizards could make more magic with more room to work. The NHL’s standard 83-foot-wide rinks didn’t need to be enlarged to the 100-foot-wide Olympic-sized rinks, but a compromise size of 94-foot would’ve been ideal for many players. In addition, longtime Devils forward John Madden suggested moving player benches to the opposite sides of the ice to cut down on neutral-zone congestion.

Meanwhile, Conroy promoted a few new ideas: making the neutral zone smaller, adding room in the offensive zone; putting a basketball-style key in front of the net, allowing only two players per team to enter the key; or perhaps the league could put in an illegal defense rule preventing the five skaters on a team from occupying the neutral zone at the same time. 

Whatever changes that were being made, the main thing was clear for Conroy – the game had become far too gummed up with suffocating defense, and the entertainment product suffered.

“I definitely think we’ve got to do something to open (the game) up,” Conroy told THN writer Mark Brender in the story. “Everybody’s worried about the history of the game, but I think you’ve got to make the game more exciting for the fans.”

The NHL clearly listened to players in this poll, embarking on a true crackdown on obstruction in 2005. While the game is now better, it was readily apparent that obstruction was a menace to the joy of the product.

“Call (obstruction) every time it happens and make people afraid to ever come close to hooking or holding,” Guerin said. “If it means you have to have the whole game on the power play, do it…Call it in the regular season, call it in the playoffs, call it in overtime. Call it until people stop obstructing and it’s no longer just a regular part of the game.”

One of the most intriguing ideas on changing the league came from veteran NHL forward Joe Juneau, who, like many, wanted to mitigate the trapping systems put in place by defense-obsessed coaches.

“I’d disallow players from skating backwards to the red line,” Juneau said. “Then there would be no way you could trap…Prevent all three forwards from skating backwards to the red line or even the defensive blueline.”

Other player ideas included making nets slightly bigger, moving nets back to the end boards by three feet into the spot where they stood before 1990, preventing goalies from leaving their crease to play the puck, and reducing goalie equipment sizes. Some of the suggested changes are now part of the sport, but this poll shows NHLers don’t lack fresh ideas – and the ever-looming threat of coaches curbing exciting offense necessitates the league should always be looking for new ways to improve the product. By the time this story was published, it was obvious changes needed to be made.

“I saw a highlight of the night, it was a backhand goal by Raffi Torres,” Conroy said. “Now it’s like a backhand goal is the highlight of the night? It was like, ‘Oh-oh, we’re in trouble.’ ”

WHAT PLAYERS WANT

Vol. 57, Issue 21, Jan. 27, 2004

By Mark Brender

Funny thing happened when Calgary center Craig Conroy took off his equipment. The light bulb clicked on.

Conroy would have preferred if it had never happened. It would have been far better to be in the Flames’ lineup for a mid-season surge than sitting lamely in the press box nursing a sprained knee. But once he was forced to assess the tangle of jungle from a bird’s eye perch, Conroy came to a surprising conclusion for someone who never felt the torrent of criticism directed at the state of NHL hockey was justified.

The game was far more exciting from his usual vantage point on the ice or the bench than it was from the stands. Up high, it was all clog-the-slot gridlock. He left the rink particularly vexed one night after watching his mates grind their way through a painfully nondescript 2-2 tie against Minnesota. Until the overtime it was hockey turned Seinfeld episode: Nothing happened.

Hence Conroy’s conversion to the swelling ranks of those who believe the game needs at least a tweak, and possibly a whole lot more. “I definitely think we’ve got to do something to open it up,” he says. “Everybody’s worried about the history of the game, but I think you’ve got to make the game more exciting for the fans.”

In December, commissioner Gary Bettman announced his intention to convene a panel of GMs, players and other stakeholders this summer to study potential improvements. With the help of Conroy and 89 other NHL players, we thought we’d give the commish a head start.

Ideas? Conroy’s got a head full of them. They could make three changes at once that would improve offense: make the neutral zone smaller, add space to the offensive zone and take out the red line. Or what about a basketball-style key in front of the net, a designated area where only two players per team could enter? That would stop the heap of bodies going down to block shots. Maybe the NHL could institute an “illegal defense” rule that would prevent five players on the same team from being in the neutral zone at the same time.

Sounds novel? In the pages that follow, there will be plenty more of where this is coming from.

STATUS QUO NOT POPULAR

To capture the Zeitgeist on the ice, we asked our 30 NHL correspondents, one in each city, to challenge three players on the team they cover with the following question: “If you were on the panel, what changes would you recommend?”

The question was purposely open-ended. Players were prompted on a variety of issues only if they were at a loss for words. It didn’t happen often. One answer we didn’t receive: “I’ve never really thought about it, let me get back to you on this one.”

The number of wishy-washy answers we received was about the same as the number of goals scored by both teams in an average NHL game, which this season could wind up being less than number of fingers on one hand. Judging by their responses, players are just as well aware of that fact as the rest of us. Out of 90 players, representing nearly one-seventh of the league, just six reported they were satisfied with the status quo.

Even when players try to mount a defense in the name of defense, they can’t help but be empathetic for the plight of excitement-starved fans. Colorado forward Teemu Selanne said he feels bad for the young players who have to play this kind of game; like Conroy, Nashville forward Andreas Johansson feels bad for the young fans who have to watch it. Said Johansson after the Preds and Kings snowshoed their way to a Jan. 13 0-0 tie, the NHL’s fourth double-doughnut of the season and one more than all last season: “It was a good game, but I don’t know that I’d bring my kids to it. We have to do something.”

Here’s something for Bettman & Co. to do in preparation for their summer pow-wow: Block off a week and invest in some comfy chairs and a good caterer. This could take a while.

The players’ suggestions range from the obvious - moving the nets closer to the end boards and removing the red line; to the novel - moving player benches to opposite sides of the ice to reduce congestion (John Madden) and instituting a penalty if all five players on the team are skating backward (Patrik Elias); to the pleading half-hearted - will someone, anyone, please follow through on obstruction?

“Call it every time it happens and make people afraid to ever come close to hooking or holding,” said Dallas’ Bill Guerin. “If it means you have to have the whole game on the power play, do it…Call it in the regular season, call it in the playoffs, call it in overtime. Call it until people stop obstructing and it’s no longer just a regular part of the game.”

We sorted the suggestions into more than 30 different categories. The most common are listed in the accompanying tables, with the percentage of players in favor of the change. Most revolved around ways to increase speed and scoring and allowing skill players to display their talents. It’s worth noting that aside from the five players who put the elimination of the instigator rule on their wish list, and one who wanted tougher sanctions for hits to the head, the issues of supplementary discipline and overall respect among players created barely a ripple.

WIDER LINES GAINS STEAM

The push for wider bluelines and center red line continues to gain momentum. Twelve players expressed interest in an idea that began to circulate last summer following Bobby Smith’s article in The Hockey News Yearbook. “It looks like you’ve got more space in the offensive zone and I don’t think that’s ever a bad thing,” said Ottawa’s Wade Redden.

Even the goalies want to give the stars more freedom to score. Phoenix’s Zac Bierk would make the nets an inch wider on either side. Mika Noronen noted 4-on-4 play is exciting because skill players have room to dazzle; if obstruction is wiped out, he believes the same would be possible in 5-on-5 play. Carolina’s Jamie Storr summed up the sentiments of many when he stressed the need to open up the ice surface: “Nobody wants to watch Minnesota go against Anaheim (in the playoffs) when only four goals are scored in the whole series.”

The debate over taking out the center ice red line for two-line pass purposes was the most frequently mentioned topic with 25 of 90 players weighing in - 15 in favor of the idea and 10 against. Opinion does not break down along easily identifiable lines. Those who have experience playing without the red line in U.S. college or internationally can fall on either side. Even teammates with abnormally abysmal plus-minus stats can fall on either side.

“I’m all for taking out the red line and expanding the ice surface,” said Dallas’ Mike Modano, based on his experience at the 2002 Olympics: “To me, it opened up the game and forced the other team to really play defense and not just hook and hold. Whatever we can do to get our game more like the Olympic game, I’m in favor of that.”

Modano will have a tough time convincing his own power play point man. “Do not take out the red line,” insisted Sergei Zubov. “I have played in this game and people sit back more than ever. You never pinch, you never feel like you can join the offense. It’d be the worst thing.”

There’s little doubt some coaches would respond to no red line by trying to instill an even more patient, passive game plan. As Zubov suggests, defensemen at the offensive blueline would be yanked into premature retreat, giving hockey its own version of the game-long prevent ‘D’.

But would it be any worse, advocates might respond, than what happens now? It’s not as if defensemen get caught pinching more than once or twice a game anyway and when they do, the ever-present third-man high forward is usually there to cover up. At least the threat of a long pass would stretch the defense and allow players to gain speed in the gaps, which would also reduce the effectiveness of the “backside pressure” coaches keep harping about.

“You’ve also created more room for players to skate, so that would increase the flow of the game,” said Buffalo’s Miroslav Satan.

RETURN TO TOUCH-UP OFFSIDE?

Taking out the redline could be combined with a return to the touch-up offside rule, as advocated by 11 players surveyed. Touch-up offside was scrapped in the 1990s because it was believed defensemen weren’t learning to handle the puck. It was felt if defensemen were put in risky positions, there would be more neutral zone turnovers and scoring as a result. What ended up happening, though, was that instead of regrouping and forechecking, the defending team regrouped and fell back into a trap.

“You can just blast it in, knowing you just have to get back out, get speed and go back in,” said St. Louis’s Chris Pronger. “Isn’t that better than waiting and waiting and waiting and have that time without anything happening, just to dump it in again?”

As for a wider ice, standard thinking has held that an Olympic-style ice surface actually slows down the game and results in fewer scoring chances, not more. A player holding the puck in the corner on a 100-foot-wide ice surface is six or seven feet farther from the goal than on an NHL-regulation 85-foot-wide rink, and therefore six or seven feet farther from a scoring opportunity. With little reason to chase forwards into the corner, defensemen can afford to stay at home and protect prime real estate in front.

The concern now is that with defensemen like Pronger and Zdeno Chara and their pterodactyl-like wingspans, the rink is too narrow for any forward to get by on the outside. There is a push among players to adopt a middle ground between NHL and Olympic-size rinks.

But Bettman is fond of saying changes to the game don’t come without a price and this comes with a big one. According to architect Murray Beynon of Stadium Consultants International, designers of Vancouver’s GM Place and Toronto’s Air Canada Centre among other buildings, taking out one row of seats on one side of the rink would add two feet, nine inches to the ice surface. To get up to a 94-foot width, then, would require taking out three rows (two on one side of the rink, one on the other).

Each removed row is about 100 seats lost, Benyon says, from the most expensive seating section in the house. At an average cost of $200 a seat for the regular season, translates to a loss of $2.5 million per team - and in almost all cases with arenas built in past two decades, those are seats that can’t be replaced. “So we’re talking about a capitalized loss here of between $20 and $25 million,” Beynon says. “It’s huge. The renovation cost pales in comparison.”

There are issues of sightlines, loadings on the floor and seating pitch to be dealt with during a renovation, but Beynon believes those could probably be dealt with for between $1 million and $3 million per rink.

DOWNWARD GOAL SPIRAL

The cost to the game of not making changes? That’s something Bettman and Co. finally appear to be taking seriously. Without new measures, there’s little reason to believe the goal slide will abate and plenty of reason to believe the opposite. Think of it this way: As goals decrease, the value of each goal becomes that much more important. Seeing how tough it is to score, teams invest even more of their efforts on goal prevention. More and more players find themselves in extended goal slumps, which leads to more players gripping their sticks tighter knowing how long it has been and we all know what kind of an effect that has on performance.

Craig Conroy the spectator, by the way, couldn’t get enough of 4-on-4 OT. He’d love to find a way to incorporate more of that kind of up-and-down, crowd-roaring excitement into the game full time, even if he has a nagging worry the coaches might find a way to take the life out of that, too. But he’ll take his chances then, because something’s got to be done now.

“I saw a highlight of the night, it was a back-hand goal by Raffi Torres,” Conroy says. “Now it’s like a backhand goal is the highlight of the night? It was like, ’Oh-oh, we’re in trouble.’ “

The Hockey News Archive is a vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 articles exclusively for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit the archives at THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com