Delay of Game Penalty: An ode to hindsight

"The puck over the glass rule may be my fault."

My jaw dropped. And I might have gasped. I didn't mean to. This is, after all, the commissioner of the American Hockey League, David Andrews, we're interviewing and I'm desperately trying to hold together whatever professionalism I've been able to muster.

But, really, who admits this? Does anybody appreciate that forehead slapper of a penalty? Is there anybody who watches a player launch an unfettered puck into the crowd on a clearing attempt who thinks, "Yeah, you deserve 2 minutes for that. Lousy cheating punk." Of course not. Pucks just want to be souvenirs sometimes. They need a rule for that?

So, I guess it takes a certain kind of guy to say, essentially, that one's on me. At least he appeared rather contrite while talking about how, prior to the lockout year, he sold the idea to the AHL board, consisting of representatives from both AHL and most NHL teams, who voted it in unanimously.

"First of all, it would give an advantage to the offense, which all those rule changes that year were about creating more offense," Andrews explained the rationale. "So, why would you let somebody fire it over the glass to take the heat off?"

"Secondly, we'd not long before that put the netting up, so if we make it a penalty to throw it into the crowd and there's some kind of safety benefit, great."

The argument seems rather thin in hindsight, and Andrews' tone seems to acknowledge this. Confession is good for the soul though. I respect this.

But after one season, it was voted out just as unanimously. "The coaches hated it. The players hated it." Andrews said coaches felt they were losing games because of the rule, that the rule was excessively punitive.

"In a perfect world, that rule would not apply if you were a man short, in my opinion," Andrews said.

"All of a sudden, it's a 5-on-3 and basically an automatic goal. And that's a big price to pay for the puck clearing the glass instead of chipping off someone's stick or chipping off the glass or whatever."

The "over the glass" delay of game penalty stuck in the NHL after the league resumed play post-lockout, and returned to the AHL this season to align the league with the NHL rulebook.

Andrews was blunt that they don't always like the rules they have to implement in the name of the NHL and this is one of them. Still, both leagues see such alignment as a necessity given the number of players who shuttle back and forth between leagues (over 200 this year alone).

He also said he has not seen anything noteworthy coming down the pipe for next season and rules should be relatively status quo. He does anticipate some calls for the 3-man shootout to apply in the AHL, but Andrews is willing to push back on this one.

"[It] would be a mistake. If you like the shootout, 5 is better. If you don't like the shootout, 5 is better. The reason people don't like the shootout is it's not a fair way to decide it, but if you're going 3 shooters, first goal wins pretty much," Andrews said.

Asked about the points allocation for wins and losses (currently 2 points for a win and 1 for an overtime or shootout loss), he said the subject has not come up in a while and he didn't expect it to change.

The league has run the numbers to see if points allocation changes (such as 3 for a regulation win, 2 for a SO/OT win and 1 for a SO/OT loss) would have affected the standings and the answer was no.

"It didn't really change what was happening there, and it just gave an appearance of greater gaps between teams" making leads in the standings look nearly insurmountable in the current paradigm, Andrews explained.

So, don't expect the rules of the game to look too different next season. And don't be too hard on Andrews for that "over the glass" thing. I get the feeling he'd take it back if he could.