Rule changes may be coming to the NHL

     The National Hockey League Board of Governors met on Thursday to discuss several rule changes that may be making their way into the NHL in the upcoming seasons. These changes to the rules are widespread, from draft changes (timely, eh?), to shootouts, to embellishment.

     First and foremost, the NHL Draft. The draft ordering is a strange and occasionally confusing thing, but it appears that some work is being done by the league to try make the draft more fair. As is necessary to preserve the "honesty" of the sport, the league appears to be discussing some rule changes that will tweak the draft lottery in order to discourage purposeful losing, or "tanking", in which teams lose on purpose late in the season in order to line themselves up in a better draft spot.

     TSN's Peter LeBrun explained the changes:

The league has proposed smoothing or compressing the odds among the 14 non-playoff teams for the 2015 draft and then increasing the number of selections determined by the lottery in 2016.

      I'm a fan of the change, because "tanking" just ruins the sport, and can have unfair impacts on the teams battling it out at the top of the ladder. These changes could be in effect as early as next year's draft.

     Another changes that may be occurring are some altering to the embellishment rule (cough cough, Tomas Plekanec), as well as banning spinarama's from shootouts (although it may be even better to ditch the shootout as a whole). Further changes would expand the trapezoid behind the net, allowing goalies to play the puck more. According to Damien Cox of the Toronto Star, seven of these changes were passed by the board today, so changes may be on their way.

     Of course, all of these will have to get through the NHL Player's Association before they are implemented. Stay tuned.