The NHL announced on Tuesday that pucks that are imbedded with tracking technology will no longer be used. The change is due to complaints regarding the puck's performance, which began being used at the start of the 2021 season.
The league began phasing out the pucks beginning with Tuesday' slate of games.
According to ESPN's Greg Wyshynski, the NHL determined that the first supply of tracking pucks that were being used didn't receive "the same precise finishing treatments during the offseason manufacturing process as were used during the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs."
At least one NHL player told Wyshynski that the pucks were "terrible" and "don't slide."
However, the league isn't completely doing away with pucks imbedding with tracking technology. The NHL expects a new supply of pucks to be "available soon" and they will "undergo appropriate quality control testing" before being used in actual games.
In the meantime, the league will be using official game pucks from the 2019-20 season in place of the faulty tracking pucks.
This marked the first time that the NHL planned to use tracking pucks for a full season. There was expected to be a large amount of new data that could improve the sport in several different areas.
