ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski recently polled NHL players to find out what changes they’d make to the rulebook. Some of our favorite suggestions – with commentary – are below.
Power Play Penalty Tweaks
“If you score on a power play, they don’t come out of the box,” suggested Matt Coronato of the Calgary Flames. “You just keep your power play. Full two minutes, no matter what.”
Coronato’s trying to wind the clock back to 1956, when the league changed the rulebook to allow a goal to end a penalty. Prior to that change, a player would remain in the box for the full two minutes regardless of how many goals were scored, similar to how a major penalty works today.
Back in those days, the Montreal Canadiens’ power play was just too effective; the Habs’ Jean Béliveau once scored three goals in 44 seconds on a single power play, prompting the league to make a change. Not surprisingly, Montreal was the only team to vote against that change.
STR Ruling: The NHL did it once, and it doesn’t seem like they’ll want to make penalty calls more impactful, so we think this one’s a skip.
Jailbreak!
“I just think if you score a short-hand goal, the guy’s penalty should be done,” Jake Guentzel of the Tampa Bay Lightning offered.
The PWHL implemented the jailbreak rule back in 2024. The league has seen 41 jailbreak goals scored over three seasons, per our tracking, including 16 in 2025-26. Europe’s Champions Hockey League also implemented the jailbreak rule, but nobody else in North America has.
STR Ruling: It opens up the ice for teams that want to aggressively kill that penalty by scoring a goal… which means more scoring at both ends. Let’s do it!
No Free Pass for Icing
“Icing the puck on the penalty kill,” said the Flyers’ Trevor Zegras. “Hate it.”
It’s not like this is anything new. The original icing rule from way back in 1937 includes the exception for shorthanded teams: “The rule will not apply, of course, when the defensive team is short-handed.” It’s been this way for 89 years. Only USA Hockey (18U and below) calls icings on shorthanded teams. The WHA called shorthanded icings, but, unlike their teams, that rule never made the jump to the NHL.
STR Ruling: Look, as much as it defies logic to let a team get away with something shorthanded that they’re not allowed to do at even strength, we think this one’s sticking around.
Puck Over Glass
“Delay of game. Puck over the glass,” said defenseman Jamie Drysdale of the Philadelphia Flyers. “I don’t think there’s a person in the history of the game who purposefully puts the puck over the glass.”
Perhaps young Drysdale wasn’t around when exhausted players used to pitch it out of play to get a break. The league’s rationale was that exhausted players pitched it out for a breather — Don Cherry made that case in 2008, and he’s not necessarily wrong, but concrete examples are scarce. Besides, it was always supposed to be a penalty if done intentionally even if it was rarely called by the refs.
In 2003-04, only 92 delay of game penalties were called across the NHL; that includes all reasons for delay of game, like puck over glass, players freezing the puck, goalies covering the puck outside the crease, etc. That exploded to 416 minor penalties for puck over glass after the rule took effect in 2005, as Sean McIndoe once said, “solving a problem that never existed.”
Carolina’s Jaccob Slavin concurred.
“The puck-over-the-glass penalty. I’ve had too many of those,” said Slavin, who’s been whistled for puck-over-glass 8 times in his 784-game career. “I won the Lady Byng and my one penalty was puck over the glass. That’s not why I’m against it, but that’s just a good example of it being a silly penalty.”
The worst part about it is the post-season. When other, more discretionary calls drop off – especially in overtime – the automatic puck over glass is still whistled every time. During the 2025-26 regular season, 2.7% of penalties were for puck over glass. That rose to 3.4% in the playoffs and jumped to 7.7% in playoff overtime (admittedly a tiny sample, with only 13 overtime playoff penalties).
Making things even messier, there were five puck-over-glass penalties in 2025-26 that were overturned via Coach’s Challenge — so now we have challenges nobody likes for a rule nobody likes.
STR Ruling: The punishment doesn’t fit the crime here. Treat it like icing. If you want to keep it in check: first one’s a warning, second one without clearing the zone is two minutes. The officials will always have the option to call a minor penalty if they deem it intentional. Let’s do it!
Kick It!
“The league’s always looking for more goals. Fans want more goals,” offered Buffalo Sabres’ forward Tage Thompson. “If you took away goals being taken down because of a kicking motion, I think that’s something that would instantly change it. You’d have a lot more goals. I think, also, if you’re skilled enough to be able to use your feet to redirect the puck or kick it when you’re tied up in front of the net, I think that should be a goal. I mean, obviously, you don’t want guys just kicking at it all the time. I get the injury-prevention stuff there. But, at the same time, it’s not as much of a true kicking where your blade’s coming up. If you’ve worked hard enough and you put the puck in the net, it should be a goal.”
He’s not wrong. The WHL started allowing kicked goals in 2016 — with the only restriction being that a goal can only be scored on a puck that is outside the goal crease at the time of the kick — and without any notable spike in skate-related injuries that we’ve seen.
STR Ruling: More scoring? Fewer disallowed goals? Let’s do it!
No More Geometry!
“I like goalies playing the puck, so I would take out the dead space in the corners. The trapezoid. Especially with our goalies,” said St. Louis Blues forward Robert Thomas.
Agree. It’s not like it was back in 2004 when you had a few good stickhandling goalies – which, somehow, inspired the NHL to legislate their talents out of the game. “Sorry Marty and Marty, you guys are too good at this, so we’re going to make a rule.”
Only three penalties were handed out last season for trapezoid violations.
It’s frankly disappointing that NCAA men’s hockey actually added a trapezoid to their rulebook for the upcoming season.
STR Ruling: There’s as much – possibly more – excitement that comes from wandering goalies. We say let ’em play. Get rid of the trapezoid in the NHL, the NCAA, and everywhere else. Let’s do it!
Enough With Offside Reviews!
“The one thing is the offsides [review]. It’s so hard, but at some point, it’s like if you’re a centimeter off 30 seconds before the goal, I think just leave it as a good goal. I think it’s better for the game,” said Wyatt Johnston of the Stars.
Dallas had three goals disallowed last season on Coach’s Challenges for offside — including one scored by Johnston against the Wild that was waved off.
Since offside reviews were implemented by the NHL, 756 goals have been overturned due to offside challenges — an average of 68.7 per season.
“I think that’s where it gets hard though, because it’s like in a playoff game you might be upset that it was offside, but I don’t know what the right way to do it is,” Johnston adding. “You think with AI now, you could almost just have it automatic, like they have in soccer for the offside.”
Now we’re talking. If technology can accurately get offside right in real-time – eliminating the need for a review or Coach’s Challenge completely – the league could get the calls right without impacting the game.
Anaheim’s Leo Carlsson also wants to wipe out offside reviews.
“The offside review, when it’s long after the play. If it’s offside and they score right away, it should be offside. But if it’s 30 seconds after and then the team scores, it’s like, ‘Oh, come on.’ It doesn’t affect the play,” said Carlsson. “But I do love it when the other team scores, and then it’s offside.”
Or, hey, the NHL could just get rid of offside altogether!
“Just take off offsides completely,” said Chicago’s Frank Nazar. “Play it like it’s roller hockey where you could just be anywhere on the ice. The whole game would change. Like, do you take the power play and let the guy just cherry pick all the way down? But then he might have a breakaway. And I think the whole game would be different.”
STR Ruling: We agree with Nazar there — the whole game would be different. But that might be a bit much. The horses have left the barn here, and there’s no way the NHL will ever go back and allow more missed calls when their objective is to get them right. The only way out is through… and that means relying on technology to help get more calls right faster, or ideally in real-time.
Check out Greg’s full article with the rest of the players’ rule recommendations and a whole lot more from the NHL’s Player Media Tour in Las Vegas.
