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Players continue to find ways to deal with the NHL's new rule that penalizes a player two minutes for removing his own helmet before a fight.
In the preseason we saw two fighters remove their opponent's helmt for them and avoid penalties. On Tuesday night in the first game of the season, we saw a different approach; negotiations for both players to remove their helmets.
After Brandon Prust of the Canadiens and Mark Fraser of the Maple Leafs had a couple of run-ins in front of the net, Fraser shoved Prust to the ice and Travis Moen came rushing in to fight Fraser. After his scary injury last season, Fraser wears a visor. Moen doesn't. That led to a long negotiation where it looked like Fraser was trying to get Moen to remove his helmet so they were both penalized and eventually Moen olibged.
At least going this route both players get penalized so the only consequence is the play will be 4-on-4 instead of a power play for one side or the other.
What that doesn't take care of is the fact that this continues to make the NHL's new rule took awful. It's there for a great reason, to make sure players don't fall to the ice after a fight and end up seriously injured, but it's also very understandable why fighters don't want them on, especially when there are visors involved. The NHL has a long way to go to figure out how this will work best.
In the meantime, get used to a lot of pre-fight waltzes.
