ICE HOCKEY AHL reviews rule changes

"Automatic icing" was implemented to prevent injuries.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
PHILADELPHIA -- Even if the NHL gets onto the ice this season, the rules changes currently being implemented in the American Hockey League likely won't be adopted.
Not until the NHL general managers meet again, say next summer. Yet the AHL is giving the changes a decent look this season.
The changes:
The "tag up" offside rule. On a delayed offside situation, offending players are permitted to negate the offside by "tagging up" with the blue line. The tag up was present from 1986 to '96 and is intended to bring more flow into the game while reducing the number of stoppages.
Avoiding injuries
The "automatic icing" rule. Icing infractions are called and the puck is whistled dead when it crosses the goal line. This prevents violent collisions and head injuries (read: concussions) behind the net during the chase and crunch to the back boards to touch the puck.
The goal lines have been moved back two feet -- from 13 to 11 -- toward the boards while the blue line has been adjusted to maintain a 60-foot attack zone. In conjunction with this change, the blue line's width has been increased from 12 to 24 inches, allowing more room to catch a pass and stay onside.
After a few Phantoms games under these rules, the two that seem to have made the most difference are the expanded neutral zone -- wider blue lines -- and the automatic icing.
Because of the additional width between blue lines, a defenseman can hit a breaking winger with the so-called "home run" pass coming out of the zone without it being offside. There's an extra foot on each blue line to catch the puck on the fly and stay legal.
"It gives you a little more speed in the neutral zone," said Flyers forward Patrick Sharp, who is playing with the Phantoms this season. "That is good for a forward like myself. Now you can really stretch those blue lines and go for the home-run passes."
About the automatic icings: We witnessed a half-dozen icings that would have been negated because the attacking player would have gotten there in time to begin a forecheck or make an offensive play.
"They're trying to prevent injuries," Sharp said. "But I also liked the hustle of the old rule where the forwards had a chance to beat that puck down the ice and create something offensively. Now that takes it away. But if that rule prevents people from getting hurt, then I am all for it."
The goalies are part of the changes, too. For the first seven weeks of the season, the AHL won't allow the goalies to play the puck in an area marked on the ice behind the net and three feet to each side of the goalposts.
Phantoms goalie Antero Niittymaki, who doesn't play the puck very much anyway, says that the only change that will have an effect on his game is the one that moves the goal line two feet closer to the back boards.