Trevor Zegras was sent to the penalty box midway through the second period of Thursday’s preseason game against Boston, and for a moment nobody in the building seemed to know why. The Philadelphia Flyers forward wasn’t guilty of anything he did with the puck. His jersey was tucked into the back of his pants.
The two-minute minor for delay of game, officially logged as improperly wearing equipment, came at 9:51 of the second. Zegras and alternate captain Travis Konecny both pleaded the case to referee Jon McIsaac without success.
What is the NHL’s jersey tuck rule?
Elliotte Friedman explained the background on X, and it comes down to a league-wide push on equipment this season.
“League has indicated it will warn players if equipment – neck guards, visors, helmets during warmup – is not being properly worn,” Friedman wrote. “Jerseys are supposed to be untucked at the beginning of a player’s shift. If it rides up during a shift, no issue.”
The procedure is a warning first, then a minor, then a misconduct for a third violation. Zegras had been warned in the first period, which made the second offense automatic.
“My jersey was tucked in before the shift, so after a warning they said that’s an automatic penalty,” Zegras said, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I started the game obviously with it tucked because that’s how I usually play. Must have just went back down the bench and came out and forgot.”
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What makes it notable is how long the rule has sat dormant. Rule 9.5 requires padding to be covered by a player’s jersey, but the last tucked-jersey penalties on record came in 2013, when Alexander Semin was whistled in a preseason game and Evgeni Malkin was penalized in Tampa Bay that November after repeated warnings. Enforcement then quietly disappeared for more than a decade.
That 2013 crackdown wasn’t popular. Alexander Ovechkin, a lifelong tucker, called it “kind of stupid” at the time.
The Flyers survived the sequence anyway, killing off both the Zegras minor and a Jett Luchanko hooking penalty that briefly left them two men short. Philadelphia won 2-0, with Matvei Michkov scoring and Joseph Woll posting the shutout.
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