Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Are you curious as to why NHL referees can suddenly overturn major penalties? We’re here to help.
Hockey season is here and the NHL rule book has a small, but important, upgrade for the 2022-23 season.
Unlike last season, when the NHL made a note to enforce more cross checking penalties, this go around will see an actual change to the rules go through. In it, NHL referees will now be able to void major penalties completely. How exactly will this new change to the rulebooks work? Let’s take a look!
Why can NHL referees nullify major penalties in the 2022-23 season?
For the 2022-23 NHL season, referees will now be able to rescind major penalties after a video review. Previously, rule 20.6 allowed referees to knock a major down to a minor, but not erase it completely.
According to Scouting The Refs, here’s how the new rule looks, with the updated changes in bold:
The Referee shall have the following options after video review of his own call: (i) confirming his original Major Penalty call; (ii) reducing his original Major Penalty call to a lesser penalty; or (iii) rescinding the original Major Penalty altogether.
So there you go! NHL officials can now downgrade or completely nullify a major penalty if they deem it to be sufficient, while being able to change the type of penalty as well. The change will not apply to match penalties.
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