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NCAA considers delayed penalty rule change; Should the NHL alter penalty shots?

Martin Erat, Antti Niemi, Dustin Byfuglien

Nashville Predators right wing Martin Erat (10), of the Czech Republic, is interfered with by Chicago Blackhawks right wing Dustin Byfuglien (33) as Erat closes in on Blackhawks goalie Antti Niemi, left, of Finland, in the third period of a first-round NHL Western Conference hockey playoff game on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, in Nashville, Tenn. Erat was awarded a penalty shot and scored. The Predators won 4-1 to take a 2-1 lead in the series. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

AP

As was discussed on Puck Daddy Tuesday, the NCAA is considering a few interesting potential rule changes. Those ideas include a much-needed enforcement for hits to the head, a baffling plan to call icing on a team trying to kill penalties, and maybe the strangest proposal of them all: allowing a team to score on a delayed penalty and then score another goal on the powerplay.

If you’re a little newer to hockey, when a team is called for a penalty, play isn’t stopped until the offending club touches the puck. The reasoning is pretty simple: while someone is guilty of an infraction - often to illegally interrupt an opposing team’s offense - the other team might still be able to convert on that scoring chance. The delayed penalty situation also allows the team poised to go on the powerplay to assume an extra attacker while pulling its goalie for that time period (which infrequently leads to some interesting situations if a player - see: Ryan O’Byrne - sends the puck toward his own net).

In that normal delayed penalty situation, the offending team is absolved of the penalty if a goal is scored. The logic is pretty simple: many times a player commits a penalty in desperation while trying to kill a scoring chance. If a goal is scored anyway, then their infraction may have been ineffective. So, giving a team a team a powerplay on top of that would seem excessive. In my opinion, anyway.

Feel free to dissent in the comments; I’m sure there are at least a few points that can be made in favor of the proposed change. Now, this proposal makes me think of one minor penalty change that I think would make a lot of sense.

This was discussed a bit during the Olympics, but I’ve always found that a team should be given the choice between taking a penalty shot or receiving a two-minute powerplay. It’s a pretty simple idea, really; what if a player of a lower skill-level (say, a goon?) gets taken down during a rare breakaway opportunity? My guess is most teams would prefer a man advantage to, say, Georges Laraque taking a low-percentage penalty shot.

What do you think? Feel free to vote on the subject in a poll below. I added two other options just in case there are people who want to go in a different direction with the idea.