The American Hockey League’s Board of Governors announced new rules changes to be applied for the 2014-15 season. The largest change was to overtime in the regular season:

Rule 85 (“Overtime”)

• During the regular season, the sudden-death overtime period will be seven minutes (7:00) in length, preceded by a “dry scrape” of the entire ice surface.
• Teams will change ends at the start of overtime.
• Full playing strength will be 4-on-4 until the first whistle following three minutes of play (4:00 remaining), at which time full strength will be reduced to 3-on-3 for the duration of the overtime period.
• If the game is still tied following overtime, a winner will be determined by a three-player shootout.

The NHL has traditionally adopted rule changes after the AHL has used them for a year or so; most recently was the addition of hybrid-icing. The current overtime/shootout has been largely discussed amongst analyst/fans/players/etc. and if this style works to eliminate the number of shootouts, we could see this in the NHL in 2015.

Other changes included:

• a game-misconduct for accumulating either two fighting majors or three major-penalties of any kind in a single game
• a minor penalty for a player’s helmet coming off unless he either leaves the ice immediately or puts the helmet back on with the chin-strap fastened

The only other official news is that the Adirondack Phantoms are now officially the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

Gotta love that Electric Blue (wikipedia)