The N.H.L.’s general managers will convene at a suburban Toronto hotel Tuesday for their annual fall meeting to debate whether a rule change is needed to limit the neutral-zone trap, after exactly one mildly controversial game.

The trapping debate could divert general managers’ attention from matters many would consider more important, like a measure to adopt no-touch icing, after a serious injury early this season.

The general managers cannot formally propose rule changes at the meeting. Those proposals are made when the general managers reconvene in March, but the fall meeting is when they decide which matters to study and revisit in the spring.

The trapping issue emerged last Wednesday at Tampa Bay, when the Philadelphia Flyers refused to advance the puck against the Lightning’s 1-3-1 trap. The Lightning, in turn, refused to forecheck, so on several occasions totaling about four minutes of playing time, a Flyers defenseman stood motionless in his own zone with the puck while four Lightning players stood motionless at their various stations in the neutral zone and a fifth stood idle deep in his own zone.

It was a tactical standoff, brief and somewhat amusing, in a single game, but it drew plenty of attention.


“I think it’s been called an embarrassing moment,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said Thursday on his radio show. “We play 1,230 regular-season games, and in the course of seasons played things happen that are unusual, teams will do things that are unpredictable and unexpected.”

Yet despite the singularity of the event, there will be discussion among the 30 general managers on Tuesday about whether something should be done about the trap. The focus may be on Lightning Coach Guy Boucher’s 1-3-1 trap, which is slightly different from the 1-2-2 used by other teams.

One idea being talked about is a proposal to allow icing if a defending team goes into a passive 1-3-1.