GM's looking to penalize lateral or blindside hits

The National Hockey League's general managers met for three days this week in Florida and have put forward a recommendation for a rule change to address hits to the head.

The GM's are not looking to ban all blows to the heads but have passed a recommendation that would penalize a blindside, lateral or back pressure hit to an opponent, which would result in a minor or a major penalty.

This kind of recommendation would hopefully derail the kind of blindside hit that Matt Cooke delivered on Boston Bruins center Marc Savard or at least lead to a penalty.

The recommendation by the NHL's general managers will be forwarded to the NHL and NHLPA competition committee. The NHL Board of Governors will then have to approve the recommendation.

The GM's have also recommended that the No. 1 tie breaker for determining standings to be regulation-Overtime wins instead of overall wins (regulation/shootout wins) which will eliminate shootout wins when it comes to tiebreakers.

Changing the points system for overtime and shootout wins did not garner much support.