Paul Stewart: Coach's Challenge Flaws Highlight Rulebook Flaws

I remember when coaches could have a stick measurement (have no idea what happened to that rule) and if the player had a legal stick the team who called for the measurement got a two minute penalty.

Wouldn't the coaches challenge work alot better if it had the same rule? You don't like the call from the offical and want it reviewed, then fine, but if the official made the right call then a two minute minor is given.

Many coach challenges would stop being asked for with this penalty unless they were dam sure the official was wrong.

Would this solve things Paul?

I know you're asking Paul this question... but if you ask me, I totally agree with you that they should treat the coaches' challenges like the stick-checks.

I remember when coaches could have a stick measurement (have no idea what happened to that rule) and if the player had a legal stick the team who called for the measurement got a two minute penalty.

Wouldn't the coaches challenge work alot better if it had the same rule? You don't like the call from the offical and want it reviewed, then fine, but if the official made the right call then a two minute minor is given.

Many coach challenges would stop being asked for with this penalty unless they were dam sure the official was wrong.

Would this solve things Paul?
- sparky

That was what I had suggested as well. Challenge if you want, at risk of a delay of game penalty.

The way I see it:

1) Give the refs decent tablets to view on instead of the joke they have now. A Galaxy View is 18 inches, that would do nicely.

2) It wasn't feasible to do for the postseason, but for next season there should be high speed cameras (150FPS or better) in the boards near ice level so that you can get conclusive frame resolution as the puck and player are crossing the blue line. Maybe another one halfway up as well.

Those are the tech solutions that should easily speed up the process. The other problem that needs to be solved is, as Paul often speaks about, cleaning up the rulebook. It's one thing that the challenge process takes too much time and that's largely solvable with technology. The other is consistency and clarity. The offside rule is being enforced as it has been for a long time, just with more precision. And, the goals that are getting overturned are (mostly) actually offside. Doesn't matter whether you Duchene it or it's 1/4 of an inch -- it's offside and should be called off.

If you don't like that, the coach's challenge doesn't need change, the rule does. One good idea I've seen is making the offside marker a plane from the ice upward rather than a line (eliminate the skate-on-ice thing)

(Yeah, yeah, more goals. Streamlining goalie equipment will go a lot further to that than anything)

The penalty instead of timeout is a good idea, too. Would make it so that you want to be pretty darn sure about yourself before calling challenge.

Paul. we don't always agree, but in this case we are spot on. The NHL is legislating something that didn't need fixing. To put this another way, too many things need to happen after a zone entry to result in a goal. I also like the idea of risking a delay of game penalty if a challenge is not upheld, and also think that if something like 7 seconds or more pass after zone entry, the goal shouldn't be disallowed. This would fix most of the problems and allow the most egregious mistakes to be corrected.

Just my 2 cents...

In response to the idea that a lost challenge equates to a penalty - it seems that the penalty for losing a challenge is the loss of a timeout. Better? Worse? No idea.

I believe hockey at its root was not meant to be over-complicated

I agree with Paul's above statement. Sitting through a 5 minute review of frame by frame is ridiculous. I think they refs should have an extremely short amount of time...like 15 seconds or something...and if they can't come to a definitive solution in that amount of time, the play stands.

I think the goal should be to correct an obviously blown call. If it's not obvious enough to be found within whatever the selected time period is, then move on. And changing a losing challenge to a penalty or continuing with the lost timeout both sound fine to me. But if the coach is correct, they should still have the right to challenge again later. It's not the coach's fault if they keep having to correct the blown calls of officials.

The challenge in the isles cats game was huge, completely changed the game

Paul, do you think that you can make a conclusive call of offside from an angle that is not directly looking down the blue line?

The Tarasenko goal that was called back needed conclusive evidence that the play was offside. The angle they show in their explanation is from inside the blue line. A screenshot of this video looks like the puck is just getting to the blue line, but that is because the image is in 2D.

The puck is between Lehtera and the boards as the pass bounced off the boards from Shattenkirk and back towards him slightly. Most likely the puck was around 2 feet away from the boards when crossing the blue line entirely.

The puck is also in the air, not along the ice. Likely somewhere around the height of his knee or close to that.

You combine those two things, along with the fact that the camera angle is inside the offensive zone looking slightly out, the actual location of the puck when Lehtera's back foot comes off the ice is not where it appears in the 2D screenshot. It would be further to the left. Maybe clearing the blue line, maybe not.

I don't see how the NHL can use this angle and definitively say that the puck had not completely cleared the blue line entering the zone before the back foot comes up.

I have also wondered and argued about the fact that Lehtera's front foot didn't actually touch down in the offensive zone until after the puck had cleared the blue line completely (even under the angle looking from inside the zone) and both feet were off the ice during the freeze frame that everyone uses to call the play offside. Both feet off the ice due to the skating stride and him accelerating just as he is getting to the blue line.

I know that you have to have a skate on the ice when you clear the offensive zone into the neutral zone to tag up for a delayed offside. A skate touching the ice is required to determine that you are officially in the neutral zone. Is this also not the requirement for officially entering the offensive zone?

I don't know if this was actually looked at during the review. Or if your body over the line but still never in contact with the ice is actually considered as entering the offensive zone. If so, I can't find that anywhere in the rule book.

The wording in the rule book is definitely part of the problem. The rule for off-side directly contradicts itself in back to back paragraphs. First, it states:

"A player is off-side when both skates are completely over the leading edge of
the blue line involved in the play."

In the next paragraph:

"A player is on-side when either of his skates are in contact with, or
on his own side of the line, at the instant the puck completely crosses
the leading edge of the blue line..."

So which is it? Using the first one, Lehtera wasn't even close to being off-side. If we go by the second one...maybe he was?

The Brassard incident was already covered here, but what about the play by Huberdeau? He used his feet to get the puck into the zone; does that count as control? I feel like you could make a case either way.

Bottom line: the challenge sucks and they should get rid of it.

I think if it's a matter of if a puck is in the net or the method which it goes in (kick, high stick, interference, etc.) then it should be referred to Toronto and the reviewer should NOT know what the on ice call is. Whatever looks like the most sense is the call. This irrefutable evidence business has to go.

Offside calls should not be reviewable, obviously.
Or, scrap the whole thing altogether.

Offside calls should not be reviewable, obviously. Or, scrap the whole thing altogether.
- gforce

Best idea yet.

Best idea yet.

- Paul Stewart

Can't disagree at all