3 Modest Proposals

...for a better NHL:

1. Impose an automatic 5min major on any player who leaves his feet with clear intent to make contact regardless of consequences, with an automatic 10min game misconduct for a second offense, followed by automatic 5 and 10-game suspensions with escalating fines, etc. No pseudo-Solomonic, result-driven "discretion" from the league office in Toronto which does nothing to stem the concussion problem.

2. Eliminate the 2min boarding penalty- behavior linked to more than half of all in-game injuries resulting in a player on IR for more than 30 days over the past decade- and replace it with a 5min major. See #1 above for additional consequences.

3. Once you have the above in place, get the second referee off the ice- put him in a box with a top-down, full-ice monitor and give him discretion to rule on reprisal contact for additional penalties/ minutes- and no stripes behind the goal lines except to break up player contact after a whistle or reset the net. The current arrangement slows down the game by compelling refs to position themselves in traffic (a far more common tendency now than when the 4-man officiating teams were introduced in the late '90s) and, more importantly, it forces players to make tentative obstacle-avoidance decisions which lead to injuries.

If the league is serious about injury prevention, these steps will take us much further toward returning the game to a contest of skills than the alleged "beefing up" of rules we've seen over the past 2 CBA cycles.