Monthly Archives: July 2002

The 14-Man NHL

ONE of hockey’s greatest problems is depth. Many believe that the National Hockey League has too many teams and too few good players to go around, leaving most clubs with only one or two star players and maybe another ten decent ones, and, judging by the quality of play, that seems to be correct. The most popular solution to the problem is contracting the NHL by four, five or even six teams, with the targets pretty much unanimous, allowing the remaining teams to adequately fill the gaps in their lineup with the contracted clubs’ players. However, since the NHL may not be going to contraction, there may be another solution in the mix, and that would be to simply lower the limit of players NHL teams can carry on their roster, from the current 25 (23 skaters plus goalies) to as low as 14.