The NHL has been searching for ways to increase scoring on and off for the past 20 years. Ever since the New Jersey Devils trapped their way to success in the mid-1990s, the league has taken measures to make life easier for the game's top goal scorers.
Following the 2004-05 lockout, the NHL abandoned the two-line pass rule, ceased tolerating all of the hooking and holding that slowed the game to a crawl, and added a trapezoid behind the net to prevent goalies from handling the puck. It all translated to an additional goal per game during the 2005-06 season over the 2003-04 campaign.
But as time progressed, teams learned to work around the rules, and once again, goal-scoring began to decline.
That's when the NHL thought it had another solution to the problem: Goalies would wear smaller pads, and there would be more room behind the net starting with the 2013-14 season. The theory was more pucks would find the back of the shallower nets than in recent years.
Through one month, howeve ...
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Article written by Dave Lozo