Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

HOCKEY 101:

An all-important primer on hockey’s icing and offsides rules

Icing and Offsides

Mark Zaleski / AP FILE

Anaheim Ducks defenseman Brandon Montour skates off the ice after the Ducks lost to the Nashville Predators in Game 6 of the Western Conference final in the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs Monday, May 22, 2017, in Nashville, Tenn. The Predators won 6-3 to win the series 4-2 and advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Hockey is relatively whistle-free compared to sports like football and basketball. Occasional stoppages occur but the game flows more freely and has fewer commercial breaks — allowing average games to end in only two hours and twenty minutes. That’s the second-fastest among the four major sports, only five minutes longer than the average NBA game despite basketball having 12 fewer minutes of action.

There are an average of 81 stoppages in an NHL game, with icing and offsides the most common culprits. Understanding the infractions goes a long way in appreciating hockey, so let’s get familiar with both of them.

Icing

The rule is designed to prevent teams from shooting the puck all the way down the ice to waste time while protecting a lead. It would disrupt the flow of the game, and watching a team shoot the puck the length of the ice repeatedly would get tiresome quickly.

So in 1937 the NHL implemented the icing rule.

According to the NHL rulebook, a player is not allowed to, “shoot, bat or deflect the puck from his own half of the ice beyond the goal line of the opposing team.”

That means a player must cross the red centerline before dumping the puck into the offensive zone. When the puck is hit across the rink, it counts as icing only if the defending team gets to the puck first. If a player on the team that iced the puck wins the race down the rink, no icing is called.

Players used to have to race all the way to the puck, but in 2013-14 season the NHL adopted, “hybrid icing,” which means the players only race to the defensive zone faceoff dots.

If icing is called, the puck returns to the offending team’s zone for a faceoff and the offending team must keep the same players on the ice. This punishes players who ice the puck to catch their breath during a long shift.

“If you’re caught out there tired that’s your punishment,” said Golden Knights Senior Vice President Murray Craven, who played 18 seasons in the NHL.

The biggest advantage though, Craven said, is being able to put whatever players the team wants on the ice to exploit the tired players who committed the icing.

“You get to catch a line that’s out there tired, and you put your top line out there against them,” Craven said. “That’s where you can get a real advantage and create scoring opportunities.”

The major exception to the rule is when a team is shorthanded. When one team is on a power play, the penalized team is allowed to ice the puck without stopping play.

The referee can also waive icing if he determines a defensive player could have reached the puck before it crossed the goal line.

Offsides

The goal of every hockey team, obviously, is to put the puck in the net, but first the puck has to enter the offensive zone.

Hockey, therefore, is a game of the offense trying to get the puck in their offensive zone — and keep it there as long as possible — while the defense tries to get it out.

Players are not allowed to cross the blue line into their offensive zone until the puck does. This is why players will commonly skate along the blue line, with one foot in and one foot out, until the puck crosses the line.

A player is called offsides if both skates cross into the zone before the puck. Once the puck enters the zone, players can enter the offensive zone.

If the defense gets the puck out of the zone, every offensive player must clear out of the zone before bringing the puck back in to avoid offsides.

Sometimes players will mistime their entry into the zone — skating slightly ahead of the puck — and get whistled for offsides. Other times, a player will fail to keep the puck inside the blue line.

Whenever offsides is called, the following faceoff takes place at the nearest neutral zone faceoff spot.

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