NHL has room for improvement

Updated: February 6, 2004, 2:02 PM ET

Drastic rules changes are needed to bring excitement back and increase scoring.

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By By Jim Wilkie
NHL Insider

Aside from perhaps the goaltenders, nearly everyone in hockey and particularly the media covering the NHL agrees that drastic rules changes are needed to bring excitement back and increase scoring. With the end of the league's current labor contract with players expiring in September, the next season (whenever that comes) will be the perfect opportunity to introduce a radically different NHL.

Defensive, low-scoring hockey is fine when the action goes back and forth and includes a good amount of scoring chances. But too many games are spent dumping the puck in, chipping it back out and choking off the flow in the neutral zone by hooking, holding and clutching and grabbing.

Just before the new year, I received an e-mail from Insider reader Brian Kern of Boston with this suggestion:

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