Coaches Exploring Options With the “No Escape” Rule

In Tuesday’s game against the Ottawa Charge, coach Troy Ryan of the Toronto Sceptres seemed to find a small wrinkle in the new “No Escape” rule, or at least a bit of time to create a unique circumstance. When a penalty was called on Toronto and the referee’s arm was in the air, the Sceptres were able to get different players on the ice before the whistle.

The first penalty called on Toronto was against Victoria Bach, and the four players were indeed trapped on the ice – although their configuration was Sarah Nurse, Izzy Daniel, Renata Fast, and Jocelyne Larocque, so no worries there.

However, in the third period when Jesse Compher took a penalty, Toronto hurried to send out Sarah Nurse, Hannah Miller, Allie Munroe, and Lauren Bernard.

Part of the reason they could make this happen is that Ottawa took the puck backward, setting up their temporary six-on-five situation with Emerance Maschmeyer on the bench. But since the rule doesn’t prevent the penalized team from changing during the interim before the whistle, the Sceptres took the opportunity to do so.

Fans were clamoring for Ottawa to give the puck to the Sceptres, forcing the current players to remain on the ice. But the coaches’ plans on both sides were slightly different, and Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod’s strategy backfired when Ryan countered with his regular penalty killers.

During training camp, Ryan said, “I think there are plenty of things you can do to make it fun. Some of it involves gambles. When you associate that rule with the jailbreak rule, there’s a lot of creativity that you can get within that.

“Ultimately, it’s to score goals. The gamble associated with that will create time off the bench in the league, and we’re excited to be part of it, and to work through some of the penalty kill stuff.”

In most instances, we’ve seen the rule affect penalty killing by trapping players on the ice who are both tired and not regular penalty killers. The brief delay between the penalty call and the whistle hasn’t been enough to allow any hurry-up moves by the team about to be shorthanded.

In Toronto’s first game against Boston, Hilary Knight scored a goal versus the Sceptres when four players started the kill. And the game-winning goal by Hannah Miller took place under similar circumstances after a Fleet penalty and the ‘no escape’ players on the ice.

Many analysts have said that when they know a power play is imminent, players should keep the puck away from the opposition if they are in the offensive zone, and continue to tire out the defending team. However, if they move out of the attacking zone or if the bench is close enough, the other team can shuffle players quickly and avoid an unfavorable situation as far as who starts the penalty kill.

That has led to suggestions for the team drawing the advantage to quickly give the puck to the opponent, much like they would if a five-on-three was called, to quickly get the advantage presented by the “No Escape” directive.

We’ll continue to see coaches work on the intricacies of the rule and might see some further approaches to make this an advantage, or at least less of a disadvantage.