Twitter has been buzzing with discussion of increasing scoring in hockey over the past few days. Fueled by Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock’s comments about the size of goalie pads, everyone has offered their own suggestion.
Yesterday, a Draglikepull from Pension Plan Puppets submitted his own simple and reasonable suggestion to increase scoring. Now it’s our turn. We’re gonna put our five best ideas forward.
1. Increase the number of pucks on the ice
Right now, there is only one puck available on the ice at any given time. No wonder teams can’t score if defenses just have to focus on one puck. If you put multiple pucks on the ice, scoring would increase in short order. If teams can combine to score 5 goals per game with just one puck, imagine what they could do by controlling two pucks? The simple conclusion would be a doubling of goals, but teams will develop trick plays and grow accustomed to the situation quickly. My best guess is that this would at least triple scoring in the NHL.
Another benefit of this is that you can up the ante as much as you want. There is simply no limit to the amount of pucks you can have on the ice at once, unless you fill the ice surface so full that literally no more pucks can be added. This might be overkill, in my opinion. It would make it rather difficult for the players to skate. They’d have to sort of walk over the pucks. It would be a mess.
2. Legalize the purchase of goals
We always hear about how players and teams “can’t buy a goal,” but this seems like nonsense in this day and age. Why can a player turn over his hard earned cash to buy stupid things like guns and weed when he could instead purchase goals that help his glorious hockey team to victory.
There has long been stigma about purchasing scoring, but I think it’s time for that to end. Everyone loves to score, and pretty much everyone loves watching scoring on their televisions and computer monitors. It might be a little strange to watch unfold in a hockey arena in person, but I think we’d all get used to it. This would definitely increase scoring in the NHL.
3. Make every play of the game a penalty shot
Penalty shots are the most exciting play in hockey. If two teams exchanged penalty shots for three 20 minute sessions, scoring would increase in a prolific manner. All of that scoring would make a tie game at the end of regulation unlikely, and would ultimately lead to the end of the worst thing in hockey: shootouts.
4. Designate one “all-time goalie” like when we were kids
I think that there were never more goals scored than there were when we were kids playing half-rink hockey. My friends and I scored goals almost all of the time. Moreover, we played against the greatest goalie I ever competed against: Little Jeremy Werner. If we could combine to score 10 goals on little Jeremy, I think that actual hockey players should be able to put up all kinds of goals on Carey Price.
To make things even more wild, the goalie has to skate the length of the ice to tend goal for each team at the same time. This would make neutral zone play even more crucial than it already is. One turnover and poor Ryan Miller is left crying in the center ice circle because his life has become a horrible hell. What more could one want than the torture of men like Ryan Miller?
5. Clone Dan Cloutier and force every team to sign him
If you want more than one goalie in your game, then our next best option is to make both goalies literally the worst goalie in the league. This would also lead to an increase in goalie fights, as the already-feisty netminder probably hates himself for how bad he is at hockey. Imagine a Dan Cloutier tag team duking it out every night. The best part is that we wouldn’t have to feel bad about their concussions because they are replaceable with more clones with no actual experiences or memories or lives. Dan Cloutier himself, the original one, could sit out his grotesque life of being scored on dozens of times nightly while literally fighting himself. We will pay him for his DNA and allow him to coach his own clone army on the art of tending goal.
These are just some of the suggestions I have come up with. I think that you should write in your own in the comments below or tweet them at @EricJFTC on Twitter. Thank you.