NHL Rule Book Updates for 2025-26

While there are no major changes from last year’s rulebook, the NHL has made a handful of minor tweaks and wording changes for the 2025-26 season.

Download the 2025-26 NHL Rulebook

 

Here’s what’s changed:

Common Sense Has Been Added to the NHL Rule Book

A new term has been added and defined in the NHL Rule Book’s Glossary of Terms: common sense.  Seriously.

Common Sense: “NHL Officials are empowered to use common sense. This applies to any situation or rule that isn’t explicitly covered in the rule literature.”

 

Managers Have Been Eliminated (Rules 21.2, 27.3)

References to a ‘manager or coach’ have been simplified to just the coach. 

 

Awarded Goals to Fouled Players (In-Arena Official Scorer, Rule 33.2) 

“When an attacking player is about to get to a loose puck and is fouled preventing a shot at the open net, resulting in an awarded goal, the fouled player shall be given credit for the goal.”

In the past, goals have been awarded to the last player to touch the puck. Now, the guy who would’ve scored gets the goal.

 

Coach’s Challenges for Delaying The Game – Puck Over Glass (Rule 38.12)

Reworded to be less prescriptive.  Formerly, the rule called for the Situation Room to determine that the puck “was deflected or rebounded off the boards, glass, goal net frame or otherwise.”  The 2025-26 edition only requires that the puck “was deflected.”   From a practical standpoint, we’re not expecting any actual change to the interpretation here. 

Interference (Rule 56)

The prior version of the rulebook required that “a minor penalty for interference shall be imposed…”   

The updated edition softens it, merely saying that a minor penalty “can be imposed” in the same situations.  Apparently, the league is codifying the fact that this is a judgment call, and not every incident should result in a penalty.

High-Sticking (Rule 60)

The NHL has ever-so-slightly changed the definition of what is considered a high stick. 

• • Previously:  “A ‘high stick’ is one which is carried above the height of the opponent’s shoulders.”
  • New: “A ‘high stick’ is one which contacts an opponent above the shoulders, provided their shoulders are at waist level or higher.”

That change cascades into some of the additional high-sticking rules.

Rule 60.3 for a double-minor:

• • 2024-25: “carries or holds any part of his stick above the shoulders and makes contact with his opponent’s neck, face or head”
  • 2025-26: “makes contact with his stick on an opponent’s neck, face or head (above the height of the opponent’s waist)”

There’s no change to the injury requirement for a high-sticking double-minor call. 

Rule 60.4 for a match penalty similarly simplifies the rule based on the updated terminology.

• • 2024-25: “while carrying or holding any part of his stick above the shoulders of the opponent,”
  • 2025-26: “with a high-stick.”

Hand Pass (Rule 79)

We’ve got a clarification!  In apparent response to outcries on hand pass calls in the past, an additional detail was added to the rule:

“If, in the opinion of the on-ice officials, the puck has deflected off a player’s hand, and no advantage has been gained by the team, it will not constitute a violation for the purpose of this rule.”

 

Offside (Rule 83)

Additional detail was given around the definition of a skate relative to an offside call, with the following sentence added to the existing rule:

“For the purposes of this rule, a ‘skate’ is to be considered the blade of the skate only.”

Not sure that we had any issues where to boot or laces were a determining factor, but at least we know precisely what the league is looking at.  This could also be a precursor to technological updates for offside calls, assuming that any automated systems will be using the skate blades as their reference points when evaulating an offside play.

The league also clarified the portion of the rule about possession and control on the entry.  Where, previously, Rule 83.1 required that a player have “possession and control of the puck” when crossing the blue line, the updated rule specifies that a player must have “possession and control of the puck with his stick prior to both skates completely crossing the leading edge of the blue line.” 

That might wipe out the handful of situations where a player was deemed onside after kicking the puck ahead but prior to actually playing it with his stick.

 

 

Major Penalties Tables Combined

Previous versions of the NHL Rule Book had separate tables for Major Penalties that Result in an Automatic Game Misconduct (Table 6) and Major Penalties that Result in an Automatic Game Misconduct When There is an Injury to the Face or Head (Table 7).  The league has combined both with Table 5 (Summary of Major Penalties) to give us one unified table with a handy grid:

 

As we noted, nothing major, but it’ll be interesting to keep a close eye on some of those high-sticking calls and offside plays based on the minor changes to the language of the rules.

 

Grab your copy of the 2025-26 NHL Rulebook