I was watching the LA Kings vs San Jose Sharks game tonight and saw something I hadn't see or realized before. There was a face-off in one of the defensive zones. The referee fake the puck drop and the players came together, the referee in the neutral zone blew his whistle (I am assuming to indicate an infraction). Instead of throwing a guy out of the face-off, the linesman held up his pointer finger indicating a "1" and showed it to the referee that blew the whistle. The face-off went on as usual, but I hadn't seen that before. My questions are:
- Is this new?
- What does it mean?
- If it was an infraction, why wasn't a player thrown out of the face-off?