Welcome back to Rules Court, where you submit your ideas for NHL rule changes and three of us (Sean McIndoe, Ian Mendes and Sean Gentille ) vote on them. Everything is up for discussion — on the ice or off, big or small, ideas that feel realistic and others that very much don’t. You make your case, and then the three of us reach a verdict. Convince at least two of us, and your rule is passed.

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Previous sessions have seen us change how suspensions work, overhaul the standings, a half-court rule and make shootouts roughly 10 times better. Can we continue to improve the NHL? That’s up to you, because court is back in session.

Note: Submissions have been edited for clarity and style.

Abolish offsides.

Plain and simple. It doesn’t make the game safer, it slows the game down, and it’s potentially an unnecessary challenge. If a team wants to keep one guy in the offensive zone and create a potential five-on-four for the opposing team going the other way, so be it.

We’d get fewer stoppages, more exciting opportunities, and more tired defenders on the ice (because they can’t change during the stoppage) which should lead to more scoring. At the very least, it would eliminate the potential for onside plays to be called dead incorrectly and offside plays to end up in goals that just end up getting overturned. — Joshua A.

McIndoe: I’m glad we’re doing this one, because it comes up often. And I’ve gone back and forth on it. I’m a cranky traditionalist and I’m old, so this sort of change takes me way out of my comfort zone. But I’m also a fan of scoring, and skill, and entertainment, and I don’t see how the offside rule helps with any of that. As others have asked, if you were designing hockey from scratch today, would you ever put the offside rule in there? No way. Mix in the end of the indefensibly awful offside reviews, and I’m a little surprised how easy this ends up being for me. Put me down as a resounding YES.

Mendes: In my spare time, I coach a terrific sport called ringette. It’s a lot like hockey, except it’s better because there is no offside. (Players have to pass over each blue line to a teammate, so there is always at least one offensive player in the attacking zone waiting for the pass). I love to imagine how this would translate into hockey and I think it would be a lot of fun. Good luck covering Connor McDavid now that he can slip by your defense and into the attacking zone without having to stop at the blue line.

And as a bonus, imagine the time we’ll save by eliminating lengthy video review calls for those super tight offside plays. YES

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Gentille: I’ve said this before in plenty of spots, including — I think — one of our previous sessions, and I’ll say it again. With each passing season, game, period, moment, second and breath, my hate for video replay grows unabated. Certain things just seem to happen to sports writers as we age and I’ve been able to avoid a lot of them, like strong opinions on Jason Isbell and to-the-core obsession with Marriott points. Not the replay thing, though. I can’t handle it anymore. So, yeah — if something cuts back on the amount of time officials spend huddled around iPads, parsing milliseconds and centimeters, I’m inclined to rubber-stamp it.

This one makes particular sense for all the reasons Sean and Ian outlined, so I’m not going to belabor the point, other than to say that it should’ve been a bigger part of last postseason’s “did Cale Makar control the puck” debate. There’s one very simple way from avoiding that sort of stuff. YES

Buyouts should have no cap penalty.

The way this would work is that during a buyout window, a team can choose to pay all the remaining money on a contract to a player and then that player becomes a UFA. The team retains no penalty and it’s as if the contract expired naturally.

I think this is necessary because as a fan, it stinks seeing a bad player on your team and knowing that they are going absolutely nowhere and will continue to make your team less competitive. It locks bad players onto a team, and because of the salary cap, it locks good players out.

This isn’t to give owners and GMs a free pass to terminate contracts. If you owe a player $30 million, you have to pay them every cent. What’s more, that player can then sign elsewhere and make even more cash. If the Preds buy out Ryan Johansen in order to free up $8 million in cap space, he’s welcome to sign somewhere else for a number closer to his actual value. But the fans are no longer forced to watch Marc-Edouard Vlasic for the next three years knowing that his cap space could have been spent on a useful UFA. — Joe L.

McIndoe: This is one of those cap-related proposals that feels like a win for everyone involved. The teams get more flexibility when it comes to cap management, the players getting bought out end up with at least as much money in their pocket and probably more, and the other players can get better deals from teams with more space. What’s the objection?

There are two, unfortunately. The first is that we’re letting teams spend their way out of problems, which gives an advantage to bigger franchises with more to spend. We’ve seen the Leafs spend tons of money to make people like David Clarkson or Mike Babcock go away, and they barely seem to care. They’d love this idea. But could Columbus or Ottawa or Arizona do the same? Doubtful, which means that the “even playing field” we’re all supposed to love so much gets a little crooked.

The second issue is the bigger one: escrow. Remember, the pie gets split 50/50 no matter what. So if guys with big contracts are getting bought out with no cap hit, that’s going to mean the owners end up spending more than their share, which means the players end up owing more escrow. We know how that usually goes, so my guess is that this idea would actually get shot down by the players, not the owners. Or maybe both. Me too, because I’m a NO.

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Mendes: I am usually in favor of figuring out more ways to pump money into the ecosystem for players. So I think I like this idea on the surface. McIndoe raises some decent points, so maybe there needs to be a limit on these to mitigate the potential escrow risk. Perhaps each team is allowed one cap-free buyout — up to a maximum of $20 million owing. And I’m not sure enough teams would pull the trigger on this to allow this to become an escrow issue. Maybe we’d see three or four teams doing this, but I have a hard time believing 20 or 25 teams would suddenly exercise the right to spend $10-15 million each to get rid of a player.

And as much as I like the idea of all teams being on an even playing field, I don’t mind a little competitive advantage for big market clubs because they drive the economic engine of our sport. So if we’re not going to shift to a luxury tax format, at least throw them a bone like this one. So put me down for a YES on this one.

Gentille: Gotta break the tie here, huh? I only just realized that there are pros and cons to being the last of the three to fill this out. As I read Joe’s question, my internal “this would screw up the revenue split” alarm, installed a few years ago by Allan Walsh, was tripped. I also tend to believe that there are better, more creative ways to a) throw bones to big-market teams and b) mitigate bad contracts/mangled salary caps that should be a little more feasible. Let teams, for example, trade cap space on their own, untethered from deals involving roster players or contracts.

Basically, I like the principle and not the application. Points to Joe for making sure players get the full value of the original contract, though. NO

Give the goalie two blockers and keep the game moving along. Rebounds are a lot more exciting than faceoffs. — Jon M.

McIndoe: (Laughs at the obvious joke submission.)

(Thinks about it a bit.)

(Realizes he doesn’t hate it.)

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I mean … it would keep the game moving, right? And it would make goalies mad, which is almost always a good thing. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for a good old-fashioned windmill-style glove save, but man those are getting rare in the “just stand there and be gigantic” era of goaltending. I can’t quite bring myself to vote for this one, but if the other two guys did, I don’t think I’d be all that mad about it. NO.

Mendes: You know what? Just to make this an interesting debate and force Gentille to play tiebreaker, I’m going to vote YES on this one. Besides, I’ve watched a lot of goalies who don’t even bother to make the save with their glove hand and they may as well be using an oven mitt instead of a trapper.

Gentille: This is what I meant at the start of my last answer. Mendes, you brat. This one is a relatively easy NO for me, though. I’m not interested in removing another piece from a goalie’s toolbox. Everyone whines about the trapezoid rule, but it’s for a good reason.

I’ve always thought the delay of game penalty for a puck accidentally shot over the glass was too harsh. So how about this as an alternative, an uncontested faceoff in the offender’s zone?

Players line up as they normally would, but the offending team’s center must line up at the bottom of the circle. The linesman places the puck on the dot and play starts on the referee’s whistle. The only restriction is the center can’t shoot the puck directly at the net. He has to pass it to someone.

It’s not as harsh as the full power play, but it does place the defense immediately on their heels. — Val B.

McIndoe: My annoyance at the puck-over-glass rule has been well-documented, so you know you’ve got my attention here. It’s an awful rule, and there are few things dumber than watching five guys stop playing and wave their arms in the air like little tattletales. I’ve long argued that any puck that goes out of play, whether it hits the glass or not, should be treated exactly the same as icing. It’s one of those things that seems so obvious to me that I get physically agitated when people disagree.

That said, I’ve always figured that “treat it like icing” would mean a regular faceoff in the defensive zone, with no benefit of a line change. This is different. And you know what, I don’t hate it. Part of me would worry that it was a slippery slope to phasing contested faceoffs out of the game entirely, and I wouldn’t want that. But for this specific offense? If we do it for icing too, screw it, count me in as a YES.

Mendes: I still think every team should be allowed one penalty-free, puck-over-glass infraction per game. Do it once, you get a warning. Do it twice, you start getting a penalty. I think that would really bring down the temperature on this topic. Teams aren’t doing this multiple times per game and I don’t recall it being an epidemic that plagued our sport 20 years ago.

The uncontested faceoff idea is not bad, but I think my idea is a good hybrid solution as well. So I’m voting NO on this one.

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Gentille: Mendes! He did it again! All right — to me, this is an ideal YES. Is the suggestion kinda funky? Sure, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s also a solution to a rare, particularly aggravating problem. Plus, if the only thing we accomplish here is preventing McIndoe’s “physical agitation” over the issue, it’ll be a win. I’ve witnessed it. It’s not pretty. Most of all, I’m more sick of “puck over glass” arguments than I am of video replay. Let’s move on.

this isnt delay of game?

— Tony X (@soIoucity) May 5, 2022

Here’s a simple one — the first and third periods are the ones with the long change, not the second. I don’t know if it’s anecdotal or if there are stats supporting it, but we’ve always been reminded that “this is the period with the long change” to be on the lookout for it to be hard for a tired unit to get a change or the offense catching the opponent in a change. So why not have that happen twice a game instead? — Adam G.

McIndoe: First of all, there are indeed stats that support the idea that the long change results in more scoring. This change would increase scoring, not by a ton but by a noticeable amount.

So why haven’t we done it already? I’m not completely sure, although I’ve been told that season ticket holders have a lot to do with it. Some people prefer to sit at one end vs. the other and may pay extra for the privilege and wouldn’t want to lose that. The easy answer there is to just flip the tickets, but maybe that doesn’t work in every building. (This issue is also why my preferred solution of just going to the long change every period and doing away with switching ends altogether probably couldn’t work.)

I’m sympathetic to the issue. I’m also not in charge of season ticket sales or customer service for any NHL team, so it’s not my problem. Put me down for a YES.

Mendes: So wait, the reason why we haven’t done the long change in the first and third periods is because the NHL is listening to its fans? That would be a first.

Put me down for a YES here because the scoring absolutely increases with the long change. If we’re looking for ways to boost scoring without making the nets bigger or drastically altering the gameplay (i.e. — no offsides), this seems like a very easy solution.

Gentille: Tons of season-ticket holders care deeply about where their seats are relative to the “double attack” side, but I don’t see why that needs to change here. Just flip the benches. Then, though, I feel like the tunnel layout leading from locker rooms to said benches turns into an issue. This feels like a situation where a bunch of minor problems stack up and force the league into a state of inertia. Imagine that. Something about this one feels like the most unrealistic YES on the board, but I’ll take it anyway.

On a delayed penalty in the offensive zone, the penalized team must clear the puck beyond their defensive blue line in order for the play to be called dead. It seems touching or possessing the puck is a judgment call and takes away the excitement of a six-on-five or other potential advantage. – Jeff R.

McIndoe: I really don’t have all that much to say about this one other than that it makes sense, I’m kind of mad that I didn’t already think of it, and I’m voting YES.

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Mendes: For starters, I think delayed penalties shouldn’t be wiped out when you score a goal. But that’s another debate for another day.

I actually really like this rule. Far too often, a player on the offending team will barely touch the puck and the referee will blow the play dead. And Jeff is right when he says the interpretation of “possession” seems to be very liberal depending on the referee. So this would absolutely eliminate any issue on that front and increase the odds of some sustained six-on-five action. So put me down for a YES.

Gentille: Love it. It takes away one of the pointless opportunities for refs’ inconsistency/discretion to screw stuff up. The moments a sixth skater jumps on after a delayed penalty has underrated dramatic value, and we need more of that. No notes to the contrary. YES

Re: NHL emergency backup goalie (EBUG). The current rule is a farce. It’s great if you love chaos, but not so much if you want to see good or even competent goaltending. So here’s a solution.

Instead of having accountants/college players/Zamboni drivers serve as the EBUG, expand game-day rosters to 21 players and mandate three goaltenders on each roster. The third goaltender will be a full-time member of the team including practicing and traveling with them. Salary would not count against the cap but would be limited to comparable AHL goaltenders.

The thinking here is that the position would be filled by guys who used to be NHL-caliber or close to it, rather than complete amateurs. Think Devan Dubnyk this year.

Lastly, the “practice goalie” isn’t allowed to start any NHL game, can’t be allowed to appear in any more than five games, and can’t be sent down to the AHL. And like the NFL practice squads, any NHL team can sign any “practice goalie” from any team in the league to an NHL contract if one of their two rostered goalies goes on LTIR. — Benjamin L.

McIndoe: In the aftermath of the David Ayres game, I made the case that while that moment was indisputably cool and good, we should get rid of EBUGs before the inevitable game where some pudgy dude came in to face NHL talent and either got lit up or (worse) seriously injured. People got mad and said I hated fun, but I was right, and so is Benjamin. Teams should have third goalies who are treated like the NFL used to handle third QBs: Not officially on the gameday roster, but available, with the understanding that once they go in they can’t come back out.

I’m not sure you’d get guys like Dubnyk, because why would a former Vezina finalist want to deal with all the travel and hassle of an NHL schedule while making league minimum and getting basically no glory? But some guys would want the job, and they’d be better than what we have now. I know we all love a good EBUG story when it works, but we’re playing with fire here. For once, let’s fix the issue before it blows up on us. I’m a YES.

Mendes: This EBUG thing comes up once per season — if that. I mean prior to David Ayres and Scott Foster, it seemed like we went 20 years without hearing about the emergency backup goalie. For whatever reason, I think we’ve had a weird run of these, but I don’t think it’s time to overhaul the entire system.

And I simply don’t think there would be 32 quality Devan Dubnyk-types interested in staying loose, limber and ready in every NHL market on the slim chance they might get into an NHL game. If we get five more EBUG situations in the next five years, I’m willing to reconsider my position. But for now, I’m voting NO because I don’t think this problem has risen to the level where it needs to be addressed just yet.

Gentille: I don’t quite know what’s stopping NHL teams from having better EBUGs on hand. Find a former ECHL-ish dude in your city, give him a cushy gameday job that pays actual money, and if you need him, you have him.

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Also, I do love chaos, and EBUG situations happen too infrequently to necessitate any real agita. As far as Benjamin’s line about “competent goaltending” is concerned, I’ve already prevented the elimination of gloves. My work is done. NO.

If there’s a penalty call during three-on-three overtime, instead of bringing on a fourth player make it a three-on-two. — Frank B  

McIndoe: I just want to point out that Frank signed his proposal by noting he’s been a hockey fan since the 1950s, and I kind of love that. Here we have a genuine old-timer writing in about the gimmicky three-on-three overtime format, and instead of hiking up his pants and grumbling about going back to how it was in the good old days, he wants to make it even crazier. Frank is a good dude.

And he’s right. Would three-on-two power plays be ridiculous? Sure, but it would also be fun, and “fun but ridiculous” is overtime’s whole vibe. Let’s embrace it. YES.

Mendes: I really like this concept. I’ve seen people suggest that if there is a penalty in three-on-three overtime, it should result in an automatic penalty shot. I think that’s a little too harsh and would result in the referees being too reluctant to call any penalties in overtime.

But Frank’s idea? It’s brilliant. The defending team is likely going to put two defensemen on the ice to kill the penalty, so there’s a high probability they won’t have a scoring chance themselves. But just imagine the pure chaos that unfolds when that situation inevitably arises and a short-handed team scores an overtime winner with two defensemen teaming up for the winner. Pure chaos. And I like it. YES.

Gentille: Easy YES. Overtime is already a simulacrum of regulation hockey, so we might as well lean into the absurdity. We love Frank.

So there you have it. Eight proposals, all given their due consideration by our wise judges. And of those eight cases, we have five new rules:

• We’ve abolished offside
• The puck-over-glass rule is replaced with an uncontested offensive-zone faceoff
• We’re now using the long change in the first and third periods
• Delayed penalties now require the defending team to get the puck out of their zone before getting a whistle
• Power plays during three-on-three overtime will now be three-on-twos

That’s not bad at all, especially when you factor in that the three proposals that didn’t pass were all split decisions. Nice work everyone. And if you’d like to get in on the fun with a rule change proposal of your own for a future edition, you can email us here.

(Top photo of David Ayres: Frank Gunn / The Canadian Press via AP, File)