Being a fairly new hockey fan I have several questions regarding a penalty shot.
How many reasons are there for a referee to award a PS? The two I am familiar with are if; a) a player throws his stick at the puck and b) if the defending player drags down an attacker on a break-away to the extent the attacker can’t get his shot off. Are there other cases that a ref can award a PS?
I’ve seen dozens of PS, both live and on TV, and all cases the shooter starts at the center line and skates toward the goal at which point he fires the puck. Is it allowed that the skater instead of shooting the puck could say go behind the goal and try a wrap-around shot? Or could he skate toward the goalie and at the last second cut back up the ice and come back and at the net a second (third?) time to try and get the goalie out of position?
Usually when a PS is called the shooter is a bit winded. Can the coach call a time-out to rest the shooter (and maybe discuss some strategy) before the PS is taken?
The shot can be taken by any player on the ice at the time of the infraction; not necessarily the offended player. Therefore, a player who had just stepped onto the ice, and is not winded, could take the shot. Although, the stamina required to skate half the ice unimpeded and take a shot isn’t great.
Not necessarily. Although there are certain penalty situations where any player on the ice at the time of the call may take the shot, most are the result of a foul on a specific player, who is designated by the referee to take the shot (see Telemark’s link).
Although I believe it is possible to call a timeout immediately prior to attempting the penalty shot.
Seems to me there is always a good deal of time (relatively speaking) between the call of the penalty and the player actually lining up to start the shot. I have seen several penalty shots live, it takes a couple minutes for the ref to talk to the scorer about the penalty, and then talk to both coaches to explain why he called the penalty.
In the minor leagues, if the game ends in a tie, they have what is basically a penalty shot shoot-out to break the tie.
I know when I played there was also time for the ref to talk to the goalie to remind him what not to do. i.e. Don’t go out of the crease until the shooter crosses the blue line, although this may differ in the NHL.
Not just the minor leagues … this happens in international games as well.
I must apologize for my inaccurate statement. However, in my defense, in all my years watching hockey I have never remembered seeing the ref designating the shooter.
It doesn’t. The same rule is in effect in the NHL as well.
ccwaterback wrote:
[nitpick]
The ref would talk to the penalty timekeeper, not the scorer. The scorer’s responsibility is to determine who got the assists on a goal and has nothing to do with penalties.
[/nitpick]
Referring to Q#3 of the OP… The coach could call a time out, but there would really be no reason to. See cc’s response. Further, a team only gets 1 time out a game. To burn it right before a penalty shot is, well, pretty stupid.
Keep in mind also television time outs. Any NHL game you see on ESPN has at least 2 built in commercial time outs per period at 30+ seconds each. Same goes for any televised minor league game.
This is only the case in the last two minutes of a game when there isn’t time to serve a full two minute penalty, otherwise the infraction results in a regular powerplay.
Only problem here is that the goalie is allowed to move as soon as the shooter touches the puck.
