NHL's dry ice scrape taking heat

WHEN THE horn blew at the end of regulation on Saturday night and the Zambonis rolled onto the ice, there had to be an audible sigh of relief from the Flyers' bench.

On the other side, the Canadiens had to groan at one of the NHL's new wrinkles for this season: a dry scrape of the whole ice surface by both Zambonis to scoop up loose snow.

Coupled with the teams changing sides for overtime, forcing both to be at the disadvantage of a long line change, the dry scrape was put into place to create a faster surface of play and theoretically produce more scoring.

The idea is to reduce the number of games decided by the shootout, something the Flyers would wholeheartedly support.

The only fear is that the dry scrape kills the momentum and flow from the third period. Previously, in every season since 2005, the Zambonis would clear only a space in the middle of the ice before shootouts - which takes only a minute or so.

Flyers head ice technician Chris Jennings had the surface cleared on Saturday in a speedy 4 minutes, 15 seconds. Last night, the ice scrape before the Flyers-Ducks overtime took 4:07.

The league has set the ideal time as 4:30, though we've already seen a few this season longer than 6:20.

That's a long time for players to sit around on the bench.

The delay might have played to the Flyers' advantage on Saturday. They had just narrowly staved off a furious Montreal push to win in regulation, barely making it to overtime after starting the third period with a three-goal edge.

The Canadiens ended up outshooting the Flyers, only 1-0, in overtime before winning the shootout, and didn't seem nearly as threatening as they did at the end of regulation.

The new wrinkle has not been very popular among fans. Sports Illustrated quoted an unnamed team executive yesterday, saying he expects the "dry scrape" to be eliminated by Christmas.

The Ontario Hockey League also adopted the dry scrape to start the year, but quickly scrapped it after clearing the ice took 11 or 12 minutes in some arenas. Could the NHL be next? An NHL spokesman said yesterday he hasn't heard much chatter about a change on the horizon.

Forget the dry scrape: A better solution for the NHL to further minimize the impact of the shootout would be to adopt what the AHL enacted this season.

The AHL increased overtime to 7 minutes instead of 5, choosing to switch from 4-on-4 play to only 3-on-3 action for the remaining 4 minutes of overtime.

The result? Through only one weekend, an admittedly small sample size, all six of the AHL contests were decided in overtime without the need for a shootout. Sounds promising.

So far, only one of the NHL's six games to go to overtime has avoided the shootout.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

Struggling without their leading scorer from last season and limping to a 1-3 start, the Bruins turned to a familiar face yesterday. They inked a patient Simon Gagne to a 1-year, $600,000 contract, which completes his long road back to the NHL.

Gagne, 34, will play his first NHL game in 536 days when he makes his Bruins debut in Detroit tonight. He accepted a training-camp tryout with Boston and hung around for another week, missing the season opener against the Flyers, while general manager Peter Chiarelli sorted out his final roster and salary-cap issues.

Even after sitting out all of last season and contemplating retirement following a bitter discord with then-Flyers GM Paul Holmgren, Gagne never gave up hope.

"I am always a positive guy, so I stayed positive the whole time," Gagne told reporters yesterday. "My conversation with Peter was, 'Whatever it takes. If I have to be the extra guy, or on the fourth line, or a guy that replaces other guys when things aren't going well, or because of injuries.' Whatever it takes, I'm here to help the team win. I'm really happy to get a chance to get back into the rink with a really good team."

For Gagne, the climb back into a league many thought passed him by years ago was not about the money, but about being able to leave the game on his own terms. The Stanley Cup winner and Olympic gold medalist is fourth all-time among Flyers left wings with 524 points.

Darnell Nurse, better known around here as the nephew of former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, made his NHL debut for Edmonton last night in Los Angeles. Working in Los Angeles as an NFL analyst for Fox Sports 1 made it convenient for McNabb to attend his nephew's debut. He was the only member of the Nurse family to make it to the game.

Nurse, 19, was nabbed by the Oilers at No. 7 overall in the 2013 draft, four spots before the Flyers selected fellow defenseman Samuel Morin. Nurse spent a significant amount training and prepping for his draft with McNabb, who was also a big presence on draft day.