Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman is reporting that the NHL will be making a few adjustments to rules regarding offside challenges, icing, and power play puck drops.
The league will now attempt to make offside coach’s challenges more meaningful by handing the challenging team a 2-minute penalty if they lose an offside review. This was one of the NHL’s most controversial aspects last year in both the regular season and playoffs, with many feeling that the pace and spirit of the game were being tarnished by dubious offside calls that had often taken place 20-30 seconds earlier.
Now, if a head coach wants to challenge a goal for a potential offside violation, they need be sure that they have obvious and indisputable evidence or risk their team going down a man for two minutes.