NHL GMs have been moving cautiously toward improved safety, trying not to alter the game's nature. (Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

An alarming spike in concussions earlier this season caused some NHL general managers to propose rolling back rule changes and possibly returning the game to the somnolent Dead Puck Era, but as of mid-Tuesday afternoon there seemed to be little coming out of their Boca Raton Florida meetings that indicates they favor stiffer penalties or longer suspensions for players who willfully target an opponent’s head.

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The NHL game is faster because the players are in better shape and there's less obstruction to slow them. (Jeanine Leech/Icon SMI)

The NHL’s general managers will gather for their annual March meeting next week and hints have been dropped by some to members of the media that they’d like to revisit the rule that makes possible one of hockey’s most exciting plays — the two-line stretch pass that leads to a breakaway.

Ostensibly, this would be the GMs’ way of helping address the game’s concussion problem, the idea being that the NHL has gotten too fast in part because the two-line pass increases players’ speed and thus the force of collisions and the possibility of concussions. But various league sources say the GMs as a group won’t allow this rule — if it makes it onto the agenda — to be overturned. While there is certainly ongoing concern about concussions, the notion that the game is going to be somehow slowed to prevent them is not the direction the majority of managers want to take. Some of the less progressive GMs are still trying to turn back the clock, but they are in the minority.

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A better helmet would not have stopped the internal action in Sidney Crosby's skull that caused his concussion. (Jeanine Leech/Icon SMI)

Last month, we spoke with Hockey Hall of Famer Ken Dryden, who has been publicly discussing his concerns about concussions and traumatic brain injuries in hockey. Nearly every time this subject comes up, emails arrive and comments are posted here wondering why the sport does not merely improve the helmet, which should go a long way toward solving the problem.

So it was worth a phone call to Minnesota to discuss that question and some other concussion-related topics in hockey with  the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Michael Stuart, that institution’s  Vice-Chair of Orthopedic Surgery and the co-director of its Sports Medicine Center. Dr. Stuart is also the Chief Medical Officer of USA Hockey and a hockey dad — he has three sons who have played in the NHL: Mike, who played briefly with the Blues; Mark, with the Bruins and now with the Jets; and Colin, with the Thrashers and Sabres. Colin is currently captain of Buffalo’s Rochester AHL team.

Dr. Stuart is certainly a good person to evaluate the helmet issue, even as manufacturers claim their new designs will help limit concussions. He, along with his colleague at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Aynsley Smith, created the first Ice Hockey Summit: Action on Concussions  in Oct. 2010, to specifically address this rising problem in the sport. They plan a second such summit in the Fall of 2013.

“One of the conclusions of the group, and also the prioritized action items of this summit, was to look at hockey helmets,” Dr. Stuart told Red Light. ”I’m not giving up on them. I think we need to continue to look at materials, designs and novel technologies. But the bottom line is the hockey helmet does what it was designed to do, which is to prevent skull fractures and intracranial bleeding.

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Sidney Crosby's injury is the most high-profile on the Penguins, who lead the NHL in man-games lost to injury. Yet they're still winning, which isn't true of other similarly battered teams. (Jeanine Leech/Icon SMI)

It’s back to work for the NHL after a long weekend of All-Star frivolity. But even amidst the laughs, pranks and ridiculous amounts of skill coming out of Ottawa, the cloud of injury — to players’ brains and otherwise — continued to darken the league’s sunny skies.

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Will there come a time when people look back and wonder why more wasn't done to stop concussions? (Chaz Palla/AP)

It was another bad week for concussions in the NHL. Sidney Crosby, who many hoped would be back in the Penguins’ lineup by now, is still unable to practice. Unsure of his return, he sought help from a specialist in Atlanta and is seeing another in California. Center Danny Briere was concussed in Saturday’s game against the Devils. He’s the sixth Flyer to suffer that injury this season.  Teammate James van Riemsdyk is still sidelined; Chris Pronger is out for the rest of the season, maybe longer, and his wife Lauren went public with their struggles (video). The Jets’ leading goal scorer, Evander Kane, joined the ranks late last week. The Bruins’ Marc Savard (photo above), whose career is in doubt after repeated concussions, disclosed the problems he’s having with headaches and memory.

When 28 players were concussed in December, we titled our post on the subject  ”An Awful Month for NHL Concussions.” The way Hockey Hall of Famer Ken Dryden sees it, however, it would be a mistake to believe that this epidemic of head injuries is a temporary condition, and that the game will get past it the way one gets over a cold. We’re better off thinking that this painful situation is the way things in the NHL will continue to be.

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The Rangers and the Bruins have clearly been the class of the NHL so far. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

The NHL’s  regular season is at the halfway point. A number of teams have hit the 41-game mark and the 615th contest of the 1230-game schedule was played on Monday. So here are some things that have struck us so far, in no particular order.

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Car Bomb strikes again: Repeat offender Dan Carcillo of the Blackhawks will be sitting for a stretch yet again after boarding Tom Gilbert of the Oilers on Monday night. (Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)

At what point does the NHL really decide to get serious about suspensions? Brendan Shanahan gave the Blackhawks’ Daniel Carcillo a mere seven games for yet another illegal and dangerous play this week.  Given Carcillo’s record as a multiple offender, he probably deserves to sit out at least twice that number.

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Too tough for his own good: Maple Leafs winger Colby Armstrong did not tell team doctors about the concussion symptoms he felt after a playing the Canucks last Saturday. (Gary Angus/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Should the NHL adopt the NFL’s newest concussion protocol that’s designed to help teams spot injuries and sit players who want to play through head trauma? The only intelligent response has to be, “Why not?”

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The Flyers are showing signs that they'll remain competitive after the loss of captain Chris Pronger, but the NHL still has work to do in preventing harmful head contact. (Christopher Szagola-US PRESSWIRE)

When the Flyers traded for Chris Pronger during the 2009 draft, GM Paul Holmgren said, “I made it sort of clear I would like to get a hammer, a guy who makes life miserable for the other team. This is one of those guys.”

Today, that hammer is broken, perhaps for good.
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Darryl Sutter has salvaged struggling teams as a coach, but his firebreathing approach takes a toll. (David E. Klutho/SI)

UPDATED, DEC. 24: It appears that former Flames coach and GM Darryl Sutter has now decided to join the Kings as their new bench boss, according to Rich Hammond, who is the club’s official blogger. All that is preventing Sutter from taking over is immigration issues that are expected to be ironed out early this week, when it will become official. Is this a good hire?

Not according to Eric Francis of The Calgary Sun. Francis notes that when Sutter took over coaching the Sharks in the late ’90s under then-GM Dean Lombardi, the team’s record improved for five consecutive seasons. Then, when Sutter took over as the Flames’ coach, he turned that franchise around as well, “pushing a rag-tag bunch of muckers to within one game of the Stanley Cup Final in 2004.”

But Francis adds, “In Calgary, his act as a miserable taskmaster who couldn’t differentiate between winning and being a human being, wore thin with the players who were thrilled he finally booted himself upstairs to be GM.

“The question is, can his ball-breaking, reign-of-terror approach work in today’s NHL?

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