Pat LaFontaine's Idea For Powerplays

by Apocalyptic0n3 on Oct 6, 2009 9:28 PM CDT

Yahoo! Sports has an interesting article up regarding an interview they had with Pat LaFontaine (for those of you who don't know him, which is hard to believe, he'd be the unsung hero of the 80's and 90's hidden behind the likes of Gretzky, Sakic, Yzerman, Hull, Lemiuex, Borque, etc. He was inducted into the hall of fame nearly a decade ago). This is what he said:

"Maybe if there's five minutes to go in the third period, if there's a penalty taken, maybe there's an optional penalty shot?

"Here are your options: You either get one penalty shot or a two minute penalty where the player doesn't come out of the box. You have a chance to go for two goals instead of maybe one goal. But what if the penalty occurs with, say, 30 seconds left in the game? What it does is allow some excitement into the game. You need to put the breakaway back in the game."

So, basically, if time will run out before a penalty would expire, the team would get to decide between sending out their best player to go one-on-one with the goalie or a two minute major where you have the possibility of scoring multiple goals. This would make for a tough strategic decision for teams and could make for an interesting last two minutes of a game.

Personally, I like the idea. It's radical, sure, but I think it would change the dynamic of the game in a good way. Maybe have one of the minor leagues test the idea as is common for sports nowadays?

Another idea in the article is to bring back two minute majors all game long, perhaps for more severe penalties such as slashing and cross checking.

What are your thoughts?

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Its alright

i dont much care for the picking a penalty shot or two minute penalty, i think the penalty shot rule is fine the way it is. i do however like the idea of making certain two minute penalties into two minute majors. now penalties like delay of game and such should still be minors but more violent penalties that are two mins should be majors. Also i read a comment by someone the other day on this same thing saying that if a team is down by a goal and gets a PP with under two mins in the game then the game should extend until the end of the PP. I think this idea is pretty good and would stop stop a lot of the dirty cheap hockey in the last few mins of close games.

by akattack2003 on Oct 9, 2009 2:07 PM CDT reply actions