Most significant part of the article:
So, do you think it will last through the playoffs??"How are we going to go about it? Every player will have a choice: commit the foul or not to commit the foul," said Walkom, a 41-year-old native of North Bay, Ont. "I'm not going to predict how many penalties there are going to be in a game, all I'm going to predict is that our guys are going to call the standard as they're directed to do. And whatever the result is, it is."
...
everyone from GMs and coaches and players got involved in coming up with this crackdown. And perhaps more significantly, the NHL took one of its top referees - still in his prime - and put him in the boardroom to lead the crackdown from up above