Three-on-three overtime will be great, with a minor adjustment in the rules.

Last season, Ryan White got a mondo huge amount of penalty minutes late in a game and was sent to the dressing room, his night over.  Except that the Canadiens mounted a furious comeback so all of a sudden they were headed to overtime, and there was a chance the game would last long enough that Ryan's penalty time would be served and he could be used by the coach.

As the equipment managers burst into the dressing room and explained all this to him and tried to help him put his gear back on, Whitey quipped: "The thing is, I haven't had an OT shift since before Junior."

And that's my problem with the 3-on-3, it will just be more of the same, the Daniel and Henrik show for the Canucks, and Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane with Duncan Keith for the Blackhawks, etc.  And good Canadian kids like Whitey looking on for the bench.

Hooey, I say.  Let's get these boys in the game.

I've advocated in the past that enforcers should be forced to take penalty shots in the shootout, to dissuade teams from dressing one or three of them.  That shootout attempts be taken by the players with the least icetime that game.  Encourage the Lightning to keep and dress Jonathan Drouin and not Pierre-Cédric Labrie.

So let's do the same with 3-on-3.  Sign Shawn Thornton for his character and his leadership, for his Don Cherry Seal of Approval certification, for his great work in the community, his charitable endeavours?  Good for you, but now he's taking the first shift of 3-on-3.

Try to change the chemistry and character of your Sharks, Doug Wilson, by taking on John Scott and Mike Brown?  Eff you, play them, they're on against Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg.

Love the grit and toughness Radko Gudas and Eric Gryba and Roman Polak bring?  Well you're getting a great big helping of that surliness in O.T.

That kind of forward, lateral, out-of-the-box-left-field-blue-thinking and more is the kind of innovation you can expect when you install me as your benevolent
despotCommissioner of the NHL, for the good of the game.