Fix rules before playoffs: Babcock
TORONTO — Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock — and any other National Hockey League coach who may be confused by the way the NHL’s goalie interference rule is interpreted and enforced — are in line for clarifications from the league.
Bill Daly, the league’s deputy commissioner, and Colin Campbell, senior vice-president of hockey operations, indicated Tuesday that the rule will be discussed at the GM meetings later this month in Florida.
“Obviously, it will be a point of discussion at our general managers’ meetings later this month,” Daly said in an email Tuesday. “To the extent there is any current confusion, hopefully everyone will be on the same page coming out of that meeting.”
Babcock challenged a goal by Buffalo’s Johan Larsson, who scored the Sabres’ fifth goal in a 5-3 win Monday night in Buffalo, while coming into contact with Leafs’ goalie Freddie Andersen.
Babcock later objected to the explanation he received from game officials, who upheld the call on the ice, and allowed Larsson’s goal to stand. The confusion, from a Toronto perspective, stemmed from what video replays of the goal showed as contact between Larsson and Andersen, while Andersen still had one foot in the blue paint of his crease.
Rule 69 in the NHL rules and guidelines governs goalie interference, and has nine subsections; subsection four deals with contact outside the goal crease, and indicates that “if an attacking player initiates any contact with a goalkeeper, other than incidental contact, while the goalkeeper is outside his goal crease, and a goal is scored, the goal will be disallowed.
There was a certain grey area, even with slow motion replays, about where and when the contact between Andersen and Larsson occurred — whether it was in the crease, or just outside it, and whether that contact was incidental. Babcock argued that Andersen was not outside his crease during the interference.
“Well, what I don’t like is the report that came out from the league is different than what they told me,” Babcock told reporters in Buffalo Monday.
“They (on ice officials) told me he was interfered with outside the paint, which is not true, and that tonight is goalie interference any way you look at it. That tonight, the goal is off — the coaches in the league, no one knows what’s going on. We better get it solved. Just saying, just the statement, ‘OK, we’re going to leave it the way it is.’ No chance, get it fixed. Let’s get it fixed before the playoffs so we all know the rules.”
Its something the league’s hockey operations department has been working hard to perfect for two seasons now.
It should be noted that the coach’s challenge on goalie interference was requested by NHL coaches, and the league underlined to the coaches that hockey operations had already experienced difficulty in processing most instances involving the rule, based on their experiences in a two-year period before the coach’s challenge was accepted by the league.
With confusion rising among coaches this season, and last spring, as well as players and the media, the NHL met with its teams at the all-star break last, and issued a statement to its officiating department. In it, the league said it is not further confusing the rule, but hitting the reset button, and asking on ice officials to not over think what they see on the ice.
Confusion, though, continues to surface, in part because the coach’s challenge requires a second look at the call on the ice. In the process, the plays are reviewed by the league’s offices in Toronto, and over the course of dozens of these disputes, there is a constant variety of circumstances, which makes “getting it right” even more difficult.
Campbell noted that “we too want consistency … particularly in the playoffs, with so much on the line.”
It’s almost a certainty there will be no changes to the rule — in time for the playoffs — coming out of the GM meetings later this month.
Any changes would have to first be recommended to the GMs and the owners, they turned over the NHLPA competition committee, and then approved at the league level — all of which takes time (likely a process for the off-season).