{"id":98406,"date":"2025-08-21T03:40:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T03:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/98406\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T03:40:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T03:40:37","slug":"champions-hockey-leagues-no-return-rule-is-exactly-what-nhl-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/98406\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions Hockey League\u2019s \u2018No Return\u2019 Rule Is Exactly What NHL Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NHL needs to adopt this yesterday if that was possible…<\/p>\n

PublishedAugust 20, 2025 8:00 PM EDT\u2022UpdatedAugust 20, 2025 2:45 PM EDT<\/p>\n

FacebookTwitterEmailCopy Link<\/p>\n

I really don’t know how it happens, but whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, I usually end up going down a bizarre internet rabbit hole. Sometimes I read the IMDb trivia about a movie, sometimes I just start jumping from article to article on Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

Last night, however, that rabbit hole took me to the Champions Hockey League website, where I learned about a new rule they’re introducing this season.<\/p>\n

And I need the NHL<\/a> to adopt it ASAP, too.<\/p>\n

If you’re unfamiliar with the Champions Hockey League, it’s kind of like the UEFA Champions League. It pits teams from different European leagues against each other in a separate championship that runs parallel to each club’s standard regular season schedule.<\/p>\n

There are 24 teams taking part including the Belfast Giants of the UK’s EIHL<\/a>, Eisbaren Berlin of Germany’s DEL, EC Red Bull Salzburg from Austria’s ICE Hockey League, and Grenoble from France’s Ligue Magnus (who have one of the most badass logos ever, go google it\u2026 no, wait; read the rest of this first) among others.<\/p>\n

While I was groggily clicking through the CHL website, I stumbled upon a new rule for this season dubbed the “No Return” rule.<\/p>\n

It’s simple: in 3-on-3 overtime, attacking teams are not allowed to take the puck and retreat into the neutral zone, a tactic that you see employed all the time that slows down the pace of play. If a team does this, there will be a whistle, and the ensuing faceoff will be in the offending team’s defensive zone.<\/p>\n

I. Need. This. In. The. NHL. Now.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

The Champions Hockey League’s new ‘No Return’ overtime rule could be the fix the NHL’s OT format needs.. (Photo by RvS.Media\/Basile Barbey\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

I still love 3-on-3 overtime as much as the next hockey fan, but I want to return to the early days of this format, when it was a track meet rather than a methodical exercise in puck possession. The CHL must agree with me, because when a team enters the zone in 3-on-3, they’re staying there until they cough up possession. No more retreating 150 feet for a safe line change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This would not only make OT more exciting like it was years ago, but I think this would almost effectively kill the shootout, which is good. Only a fraction of games would need to go beyond 5 minutes of 3-on-3 overtime.<\/p>\n

I’m going to keep an eye on the CHL this season to see how this works, and I have a feeling the NHL will be keeping an eye on it too.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL needs to adopt this yesterday if that was possible… PublishedAugust 20, 2025 8:00 PM EDT\u2022UpdatedAugust 20,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-98406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}