What are you talking about? They can handle the puck behind the net, in fact I’ve watched them do it all season… They can’t handle the puck in the corners, which was just part of the changes to increase scoring. Scoring is up, games are more fun when scoring is up, so why change it?
As for the attendance, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly due to the changes. Had they come back after the lockout and had the same NHL they had before the lockout I bet those numbers would be MUCH different. I’d like to see what the attendance was the first few games back while people were feeling out this “new NHL”. Fans got interested again once they saw how great it was to watch skilled players play, instead of watching wrestling on ice.