GM can’t grasp why goal was disallowed
Predators GM says he watched replays of Subban’s would-be score ‘at least 50 times’
David Poile couldn’t sleep. He stayed up well into the night and kept watching the instant replay of the called-off goal from the first period of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final.
The Predators general manager watched it over and over, in slow motion, in full speed, in rewind, in freeze-frame.
Poile is anything but a controversial figure. He is an NHL lifer who is clearly uncomfortable rocking the boat. He watched the replay of the disallowed goal, he said, “at least 50 times.” He still doesn’t understand the coach’s challenge offside call that disallowed a goal by P.K. Subban.
“This is where I’m going to get myself in trouble,” Poile said. “I have not seen a picture yet that is clear enough to show me that the goal was offside. I’ve seen all kinds of angles. I think it’s inconclusive.
“I have long been a proponent of getting it right, making certain we make the right calls. They’re going to say they got it right.
I just don’t see it. It could be offside — it could be — but I don’t see it, and when it’s that close, I don’t (know) how you can make a definitive call.”
Game 1 ostensibly changed on the coach’s challenge, which disallowed an apparent first-period score by Subban. Nashville had won the first game of the first three series of the playoffs on the road. It seemed it had struck first again.
Pittsburgh went on to win 5-3, scoring some odd goals — after the disallowed one — in a very strange hockey game.
In three previous rounds, the Predators had allowed just five goals against combined in openers against the Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks.
Who knows what would have happened had they scored first Monday, especially considering Pittsburgh managed only 12 shots on goal in Game 1.
The disallowed goal was that significant, and it says a lot about the way a rule intended to get calls right has had an extreme influence on the game. You could say it has had a negative influence.
Getting the call right is one thing. Having to watch replays in slow motion over several minutes — and then make a call about something that isn’t very clear — has taken away too many goals for a sport that doesn’t have enough.
A simple rule has suddenly become complicated. A wellintentioned rule has, in Poile’s words, taken on “unintended consequences.” And never mind what NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says about the rule, that it’s “working exactly as it was intended to.”
If the intention was confusion, Bettman is right. If the intention was clarity, the rule has to be scrapped or altered.
My view: If the off-ice officials, or the game officials, have to watch something in slow motion for several minutes to determine whether a play was offside or not, the rule should be rather simple. You can’t rule off a goal on anything that isn’t absolutely clear.
There was nothing clear about the disallowed goal from Game 1.
“I hate the offside coach’s challenge,” hockey analyst Ray Ferraro said. “I don’t think that the rule they brought in had any intention of being what it has become. To me, they’ve taken the easiest rule and they’ve added more grey area to it than almost any other rule. I can’t tell you how much I dislike it.
“Listen, the linesmen in the NHL are really, really good at what they do. They don’t miss much, and if they’re looking at their iPad for four minutes to get a call right, it means they can’t really tell either … I thought the goal was going to count.”
Ferraro is of the opinion the coach’s challenge rule will be changed in the off-season. He said it has to change.
“I would simplify the rule,” he said. “I can’t believe how they’ve screwed this rule up. Originally, this was put in because Matt Duchene (of the Colorado Avalanche) was 30 feet offside and somehow that got missed and they allowed a goal. If that’s the case, good — put it in for things like that. But what’s happened too often is we lose a goal — too many goals — and it changes games. That was not the intent of the rule.”
There was another element to the Subban goal that needs to be addressed. Nashville had possession of the puck as it crossed the blue-line, then lost possession. Pittsburgh defenceman Ron Hainsey had the puck before he turned it over. Fourteen seconds after the play was apparently offside, the Predators scored.
The Hainsey turnover led to the goal being scored. The offside didn’t really factor in the play at all.
“We have to get these things right,” said Poile, who didn’t believe the NHL got it right on Monday.
The linesmen in the NHL are really, really good at what they do. They don’t miss much, and if they’re looking at their iPad for four minutes to get a call right ... they can’t really tell either.