What constitutes goalie interference?

The inconsistency of rule’s interpretation gets more troubling as playoffs approach

The puck went in, but Tomas Plekanec didn’t raise his hands in the air. Better wait for the replay, he thought.

That’s where we are with goalie interference these days. No one knows what will be allowed and what will be called back anymore, not the players or the goalies or the coaches or GMs. Not even the referees seem to know.

So when Plekanec accidentally made contact with Montreal Canadiens goaltender Charlie Lindgren’s head moments before Toronto’s Kasperi Kapanen scored on a rebound, he wisely held back on the celebration even though the referee behind the net had signalled a good goal. “You never know with these things with what’s going to happen, so I wasn’t sure,” Plekanec said after Saturday’s 4-0 win against the Canadiens. “I bumped into him but I didn’t even know about it. I thought first it was going to be disallowed so it didn’t surprise me. We won the game so it didn’t really matter.”

Plekanec was right. Kapanen’s goal was overturned after on-ice officials — with the help of the Toronto video room — declared Plekanec had violated rules 69.1, 69.3 and 69.4. That the NHL needed to reference three sub-sets of the rule to determine Plekanec had interfered with Lindgren tells you everything you need to know about why goalie interference has become the complicated mess it is today. Referred to as Rule 69 in the official documentation, goalie interference has nine different appendixes and spans three pages. It’s wordy, filled with jargon and open to any interpretation. Section 69.1, which is five paragraphs long, states that “incidental contact with a goalkeeper will be permitted, and resulting goals allowed, when such contact is initiated outside of the goal crease, provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact.” In other words, the on-ice official not only has to determine if contact was made, but also had to ascertain whether it was incidental contact and if the attacking player made a reasonable effort to avoid it. Then he has to crossreference that with the other rules.

As retired NHL referee Kerry Fraser joked, “You shouldn’t have to be a lawyer to read it.” “I’ve stated this many times: The most difficult call that a referee has to make live and then through review is Rule 69,” Fraser said. “It’s subjective to a large degree in nature. They’ll look at a play (in the booth) and you’ll get one of them saying it’s goalie interference and the other half will say that’s what an attacking player is supposed to do.” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told on-ice officials at the all-star weekend to stop “overthinking the review” by searching for reasons to overturn the call on the ice, but nothing really has changed. Ultimately, the league wants consistency — and they want it in time for the playoffs. The problem is they want it with a rule that is not designed to be black and white.

For that to happen, the league needs to scrap Rule 69 and adopt the International Ice Hockey Federation’s stance on goaltender interference by making the crease off-limits for everyone but the goalie.

“The only thing that would make it cut and dry would be to go to European rules, where blue paint, you blow it down and the faceoff is outside,” said TSN hockey analyst Jamie McLellan, who is a former NHL goalie. “That’s the only way to make it non-subjective.”

Unlike the NHL’s Rule 69, Rule 186 of the IIHF code does not require a law degree to understand. If you’re in the crease and you make contact or obscure a goalie’s vision, it’s no goal — simple. If a goalie ventures outside the crease and gets bumped while battling for position, he’s out of luck.

Of course, consistency comes at a cost.

The Leafs’ Auston Matthews recalled a goal he had in Denver against the Colorado Avalanche that was called back because he touched the goalie’s stick while trying to play the puck.

“I was in the crease, obviously,” Matthews said. “I can’t score if I’m not going in there. It’s kind of tough to pinpoint what they need to do.”

Still, something drastic has to be done in time for next month’s playoffs. If not, a league that is still haunted by the Brett Hull foot-in-the-crease non-call in the 1999 Stanley Cup final could be headed down a familiar path if no one knows what the rule is. “We’re at a critical moment here,” Fraser said.

“My hope is they don’t BandAid it.”