Monday night, Taylor Chorney was one of several defensemen who took a face-off during the team’s 4-1 loss.

The NHL is trying to encourage more goal-scoring this season by rigidbly enforcing previously agreed upon face-off rules. Three bench minors were issued for face-off violations during the Caps first preseason game of the year.

Numerous players continued to be kicked out of face-offs for bad alignments Wednesday night. And late in the first period, Brooks Orpik stepped up and took a short-handed face-off after Chandler Stephenson got kicked out of the dot.

Tomas Plekanec won the draw easily, but this is what we’ve come to: defensemen reguarly taking face-offs.

For the record. We've had three of these already in this contest. pic.twitter.com/AqyacV0sGK

— Mike Morreale (@mikemorrealeNHL) September 19, 2017

“The rule is not a new rule,” Barry Trotz said Monday in New Jersey. “It’s supposed to be getting it to the standard it was when it was implemented, but that standard seems to have gotten real tight. … I think the whole intent is two things with the face-off. The NHL always tries to make the game better for the fans and for the fan experience, so we want more goals and we want the pace of play to be quicker. Quickening the face-off rule is one way. Spreading them apart a little bit in terms of the initial drop of the puck where everybody was in sort of a mosh pile, we’ve sort of spread that out.”

I’m all for increasing goal-scoring, but why can’t we making goalie gear super small or something?