Calling Back Goals Based on Missed Offsides...

[Beerz]

They should put a laser across the blue line ...and have a chip in puck that would turn laser off as soon as the puck crosses blue line. If player goes in before laser is turned off they are disintegrated.

 

[Sheppy]

They should put a laser across the blue line ...and have a chip in puck that would turn laser off as soon as the puck crosses blue line. If player goes in before laser is turned off they are disintegrated.

That would create 100 stoppages a game, lol.

 

[LokiDog]

First couple posts had it right. Simple rule and generally black and white to make the appropriate determination. However, there should be a statute of limitations on challenging an offside. Like the zone entry and scoring play have to occur within 15-30 seconds of each other. If the play has been going on in the zone with no whistle for 30+ seconds the missed offside is completely irrelevant. If the play is offside at the zone entry and in the net 10 seconds later, you can argue that the illegal zone entry lead directly to the goal. Once sufficient time has passed, perhaps both teams have had possession of the puck even, the defending team has had time to recover their defensive structure, etc. it shouldn’t matter that 53 seconds ago the zone entry was 2” offside. Since then the goalie made 2 saves, the defending team gained possession, failed to clear, the puck ended up back in the slot and the attacking team scored. There’s no reason to call that back at that point.

 

[Beerz]

That would create 100 stoppages a game, lol.

I think players would learn quick

 

[Mubiki]

The 2 minutes of play are irrelevant though. It's like if the bank makes an error in your favor and accidently deposits $1mil into your account. It doesn't matter if you went out and spent $500k already...you owe the bank the money. The activity after the mistake but before being called makes no difference. At the same time, it's also up to the coach to initiate the challenge. So there are indeed times when a player is offsides but a coach will elect not to challenge for fear of a penalty.

This analogy is fine until you incorporate instances with lost power play time, or time lost when trying to tie or win a close game.

One of the biggest issues is that a team can essentially be allowed to "waste" valuable time in the offensive zone trying to score a goal that will never actually count. I've seen this happen with a minute + of PP time.

Seeing as in most cases the offending team is actually not even aware that they are offsides, another example using your analogy could be: The bank accidentally deposits a million dollars into your account, you don't notice, and then they fine you 10k for not telling them.

You can't really argue "fairness" when the above situation is just as likely as the one you proposed.

 

[tarheelhockey]

You're avoiding the question.

The goal line question? It’s pretty simple — in your scenario the ref sees that the puck isn’t over the line, so he calls it no-goal. Why would he deliberately make a wrong call? Seems like a strawman example to me.

But I will go another step with this and grant you that goal-line reviews are not controversial and I don’t have a problem with keeping them. They are truly rare (I don’t think I’ve seen one yet this season) and directly impact the fundamental question of whether a goal occurred or not. Nobody complains about these reviews, in stark contrast to other categories of review like offside and GI which are widely hated.

High school game, that's fine. Professional league with the means to get it right, not fine. Not hard.

The NHL didn’t have these reviews 10 years ago, was it not a professional league until then? Seems like an arbitrary distinction that you’re making out of convenience to your argument.

Easy - offsides, goalie interference, questionable goal (did the puck cross the line?), puck over the glass, high stickings. These are hardly controversial happenings in a game that should have some level of ability to ensure correct call.

Didn’t you just say that waived icings should be reviewed? Or did I misunderstand?

Vocal minority do not speak for the majority. The majority likely don't care or don't see it as the downfall of the league. 99.99% of the threads here get started here by a fan of a team that gets a goal called back. I wouldn't suggest using "sour grapes threads" as evidence of wide spread consensus among fans.

This poll found that 70% of respondents wanted to get rid of offside review.

This poll found that 51% wanted to get rid of offside review, compared to only 7-8% for goal line issues and ~35% for kicks and GI.

Those proportions are validated by the non-existence of negative media (including actual articles as well as HF threads, social media arguments, etc) surrounding goalline reviews, only occasional negative coverage of kicking or GI reviews, and damned near continuous complaining about offside reviews.

There’s a clear pattern of hierarchy where some replays are viewed as harmless and useful, some are viewed as confusing and inconsistent, and some are viewed as an outright negative. Offside reviews fall into the third category.

 

[absolute garbage]

Another option is like what the NFL does, where every TD is reviewed but that would be unnecessary in hockey imo.

You make a fair point here, I don't have an answer in the moment to how I'd address that. But being able to score because of a bad missed call doesn't sit right with me. Maybe I'm biased, but the goal that eliminated the Leafs from the playoffs in 2022 and 2023 was directly off a missed penalty which led to the scoring chance/gwg against.

It wasn't an offside but 2 blatant missed holding calls led to those goals, I wish we could have reviewed and challenged it.

I think it's ridiculous that a teams season can be ended because of a missed call which is so easily reviewable with todays technology.

So how many minutes you would go back to look for a wrong call every time a goal is scored? Like if there's a missed hook at 2 minute mark that "directly" leads to an offensive zone faceoff 1 minute later that then "directly" leads to a goal 1 minute later, you think that should be challenged? If not, why?

 

[AvroArrow]

So how many minutes you would go back to look for a wrong call every time a goal is scored? Like if there's a missed hook at 2 minute mark that "directly" leads to an offensive zone faceoff 1 minute later that then "directly" leads to a goal 1 minute later, you think that should be challenged? If not, why?

Only the immediate play, once there's a whistle and the pucks dropped again you cannot review anything that happened before that.

That's how it is in NFL as well, once the next play commences, you cannot challenge the previous play.

If the coaching staff saw the hook for example, they should challenge it immediately during that sequence, if they miss it too bad game goes on. Once the next play starts, you cannot challenge anything that happened previously.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

I used to be pro-offside review. But then you accept that human error is baked into the game. If you accept a tight game can swing on refs making a bad call, why not the same for linesman?

That said, if we are going to have it, the current system is fine. Black and white + coaches have ~90 seconds max to figure out if it's worth a challenge or burn a timeout to keep looking, which most coaches don't do.

 

[Golden_Jet]

They should put a laser across the blue line ...and have a chip in puck that would turn laser off as soon as the puck crosses blue line. If player goes in before laser is turned off they are disintegrated.

Not feasible, or would have already been done for the goal line, before the blue line.

you don’t know if puck is on end, or which position, puck is in. They don’t have chips that encompass the whole shape of the puck.

There is a chip in it, for tracking speed. Even that took a while to get an approved version, as complaints puck felt different.

Only the immediate play, once there's a whistle and the pucks dropped again you cannot review anything that happened before that.

That's how it is in NFL as well, once the next play commences, you cannot challenge the previous play.

If the coaching staff saw the hook for example, they should challenge it immediately during that sequence, if they miss it too bad game goes on. Once the next play starts, you cannot challenge anything that happened previously.

That’s how it works now, once puck drops for next play, you cannot challenge it.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Not feasible, or would have already been done for the goal line, before the blue line.

you don’t know if puck is on end, or which position, puck is in. They don’t have chips that encompass the whole shape of the puck.

There is a chip in it, for tracking speed. Even that took a while to get an approved version, as complaints puck felt different.

And even then, it still has trouble registering when the puck crosses the goal line. As someone who works with that technology, if the puck is jammed up against the side post, it’ll occasionally register as a goal in the tracking. So no matter what, there’s going to be a human element to review whether the puck crossed the line or not.

The same thing will happen in offside calls. Even if we use technology to measure it, it won’t be perfect and we’ll get the same reviews we have now.

 

[qc14]

I'm a fan of human error, if that makes sense, unless it's completely insane where a guy is offside by like 3-4 feet, which never really happens anymore.

Basketball half the players travel resulting in baskets. Baseball umps miss strikes and balls here and there.

If a linesman misses an "offside" because a skaters blade is a sesame seed offside, so be it.

I'm just not a fan of getting excited for your team to score and never be confident it's counting until the puck is dropped. Half the goals they zoom in on the opposing teams coach nuts deep into an ipad and they delay, and delay until there's a puck drop.

If they're going to review it, review it at real time speed and give it 30-40 seconds. There's literally zero reason to slow it down to 100 frames per second. If you can't see it at real time, take the L and f*** off.

I think this is a perfectly reasonable position, but the only solution then is to get rid of replay entirely and live with the consequences of a Duchene situation possibly happening again. The point of replay is getting the call exactly right 100% of the time.

As soon as you give them a time limit or no extra angles or that it has to directly impact the goal or any other half-measure it just combines the absolute worst of both worlds. The game's still delayed and goals are still taken off the board but you also are not going to even get all of those decisions right.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

I am going to beat this drum till I die, but if they made the review so where they couldn’t zoom in or slow down the footage (meaning the offside play would need to be readily apparent in real-time) then it would significantly reduce these challenges and keep the flow of the game going.

Goal reviews are a totally different beast, and for good reason.

 

[absolute garbage]

Only the immediate play, once there's a whistle and the pucks dropped again you cannot review anything that happened before that.

That's how it is in NFL as well, once the next play commences, you cannot challenge the previous play.

If the coaching staff saw the hook for example, they should challenge it immediately during that sequence, if they miss it too bad game goes on. Once the next play starts, you cannot challenge anything that happened previously.

So actually you don't care about "missed calls" in principle, just ones you think feel bad. Vibes based.

What if there's like 8 minutes of continuous play without whistles after an obvious hook penalty that was missed by the refs. Do you go back those 8 minutes, or is there some arbitrary time limit? Can the team that "took" the penalty challenge a goal if the other team scored it?

 

[SEALBound]

The goal line question? It’s pretty simple — in your scenario the ref sees that the puck isn’t over the line, so he calls it no-goal. Why would he deliberately make a wrong call? Seems like a strawman example to me.

But I will go another step with this and grant you that goal-line reviews are not controversial and I don’t have a problem with keeping them. They are truly rare (I don’t think I’ve seen one yet this season) and directly impact the fundamental question of whether a goal occurred or not. Nobody complains about these reviews, in stark contrast to other categories of review like offside and GI which are widely hated.

No, it's not a strawman, it's exact same scenario as the offsides question. Two well-defined rules for the game. Both have the ability to be reviewed to ensure the call is correct. The problem is, you think one is okay and the other is not. You are no longer arguing from an objective principle point of view. Everything is merely a "I don't like it" emotional argument from here on out.

This is probably my last reply to you because we are merely going in circles. Unless you want to answer the initial questions that I asked: What is the exact distance a player can be offsides before it is blown? In feet or inches or CM, whatever. The exact distance. If you can't come up with an exact distance, how would you ensure consistency among linesmen? Because right now, they have a standard. It's 0 inches. You can't be offsides, even by an inch. That is the rule. If you are openly willing to say "the rule is no longer the rule, it's okay if some players break if there's a goal" then what is the distance that is acceptable?

Is the Briere goal in 2012 playoffs okay? Is the Duchene goal okay?

The NHL didn’t have these reviews 10 years ago, was it not a professional league until then? Seems like an arbitrary distinction that you’re making out of convenience to your argument.

Not really, I would be an advocate for additional external reviews to increase officiating accuracy. Again, I even suggested icing reviews that are incorrect that result in goals. I'd be supportive of "puck over the glass" reviews. High sticking reviews. I'm okay with GI interference reviews though I'd like to see some better consistency (because with the subjectivity of what can constitute GI, that is tough (NOT true with offsides, BTW)). If a team has 8 players on the ice, actively in the play, and scored, I would be okay with that being reviewed.

10 years ago, did the NHL have the blue line cameras?

Didn’t you just say that waived icings should be reviewed? Or did I misunderstand?

Obviously it is circumstantial but lets say the following happens: A player shoots the puck from their dzone all the way down the ice. Two players, one from each team, give chase, and the dman beats the forward clearly but there is no whistle even though it was initially called an icing by the first linesman. He goes to dump it out but the forward intercepts and scores. Clearly there is a missed icing call. I'd be fine if that was challengeable. Obviously a very rare circumstance but the review would ensure a missed call that results in a goal is rectified. The principle behind it is the same as the offsides review. As defined in the rules, the dman getting possession of the puck, in this scenario, should have resulted in the play being blown dead, thus the goal should not count. Going back to what I initially said, saying "Oh geez, it's an intense game, we can't review that!" or "Man, we can't look at a replay, the fans have already cheered!" is absolutely ludicrous.

This poll found that 70% of respondents wanted to get rid of offside review.

This poll found that 51% wanted to get rid of offside review, compared to only 7-8% for goal line issues and ~35% for kicks and GI.

Those proportions are validated by the non-existence of negative media (including actual articles as well as HF threads, social media arguments, etc) surrounding goalline reviews, only occasional negative coverage of kicking or GI reviews, and damned near continuous complaining about offside reviews.

There’s a clear pattern of hierarchy where some replays are viewed as harmless and useful, some are viewed as confusing and inconsistent, and some are viewed as an outright negative. Offside reviews fall into the third category.

Oh wow, 159 and 69 people in the poll. On HFBoards. Clearly this is a true representation of all fans. Lol. Did you work the election polls too?

 

[AvroArrow]

So actually you don't care about "missed calls" in principle, just ones you think feel bad. Vibes based.

What if there's like 8 minutes of continuous play without whistles after an obvious hook penalty that was missed by the refs. Do you go back those 8 minutes, or is there some arbitrary time limit? Can the team that "took" the penalty challenge a goal if the other team scored it?

I do care about missed calls, but they happen in every sport. I just don't think it's realistic to pause the game every minute to review the play.

If there's a blatant missed call, the coaching staff should spot it and could challenge it right away.

 

[Golden_Jet]

A player shoots the puck from their dzone all the way down the ice. Two players, one from each team, give chase, and the dman beats the forward clearly but there is no whistle even though it was initially called an icing by the first linesman. He goes to dump it out but the forward intercepts and scores. Clearly there is a missed icing call. I'd be fine if that was challengeable.

Not sure I follow.
…but there is no whistle, even though called icing.
How is there is no whistle if was called icing.?

I don’t see a review in whatever scenario you mean here, as it’s subjective to who passes an imaginary line first (around hash marks), or who would have won the race to the puck.

 

[Toby91ca]

I am going to beat this drum till I die, but if they made the review so where they couldn’t zoom in or slow down the footage (meaning the offside play would need to be readily apparent in real-time) then it would significantly reduce these challenges and keep the flow of the game going.

It would, but it would also totally defeat the purpose of replay, which is to get the right call. I don't have a huge problem with not using replay on offside plays as I don't think mistakes are made often enough for it to make a huge difference, but they could have never adopted what you are suggesting....if you go to replay, you are doing it to get the right call.....what you are suggesting doesn't get there, so why do it? I would have definitely been ok with that....don't do it. Since they are already there, they are stuck....I don't think they could take a position now to go back to no review as that would be the league suggesting they don't care about getting correct calls.

 

[SEALBound]

Not sure I follow.
…but there is no whistle, even though called icing.
How is there is no whistle if was called icing.?

I don’t see a review in whatever scenario you mean here, as it’s subjective to who passes an imaginary line first (around hash marks), or who would have won the race to the puck.

The linesman in the dzone initially calls the icing. When initially signaling icing, the first ref raises his arm and says "ice!" and then the 2nd linemans closer to the play makes the final call. So in this scenario, the player ices the puck, the first lineman calls it an icing, the dman (by a very clear margin, call it 10 ft. And let's say for argument sake, the puck hit the end board and bounces back to the dman) gets possession, but no icing call is made by the 2nd lineman.

It's a niche/nuanced situation and likely very rare but it still illustrates the point that you could implement similar reviews for blown icing calls but like you can offsides.

 

[Toby91ca]

The linesman in the dzone initially calls the icing. When initially signaling icing, the first ref raises his arm and says "ice!" and then the 2nd linemans closer to the play makes the final call. So in this scenario, the player ices the puck, the first lineman calls it an icing, the dman (by a very clear margin, call it 10 ft. And let's say for argument sake, the puck hit the end board and bounces back to the dman) gets possession, but no icing call is made by the 2nd lineman.

It's a niche/nuanced situation and likely very rare but it still illustrates the point that you could implement similar reviews for blown icing calls but like you can offsides.

I think icing is pretty subjective though.....even calling a potential icing to start can be a bit subjective, but as it plays out, it's not just about who gets to a spot first, but you need to judge whether the defending team could have reasonably gotten to the puck before it made it to the goal line as well.

 

[absolute garbage]

I do care about missed calls, but they happen in every sport. I just don't think it's realistic to pause the game every minute to review the play.

If there's a blatant missed call, the coaching staff should spot it and could challenge it right away.

Well yeah, that's one of the arguments against offside reviews too. There's already way too many pauses in the game. They kill the flow and emotion in the game.

And giving coaches the ability to stop the play? Is that what you imply?

 

[nturn06]

First couple posts had it right. Simple rule and generally black and white to make the appropriate determination. However, there should be a statute of limitations on challenging an offside. Like the zone entry and scoring play have to occur within 15-30 seconds of each other. If the play has been going on in the zone with no whistle for 30+ seconds the missed offside is completely irrelevant. If the play is offside at the zone entry and in the net 10 seconds later, you can argue that the illegal zone entry lead directly to the goal. Once sufficient time has passed, perhaps both teams have had possession of the puck even, the defending team has had time to recover their defensive structure, etc. it shouldn’t matter that 53 seconds ago the zone entry was 2” offside. Since then the goalie made 2 saves, the defending team gained possession, failed to clear, the puck ended up back in the slot and the attacking team scored. There’s no reason to call that back at that point.

But, by your rule, the same offside is relevant if the goal was scored 29:87 and the goal needs to be taken back, right?

That's the issue with having a time limit, which is the correct time that 1 millisecond earlier it is offside but 1 millisecond later is not offside anymore.

And people who propose this change fail to realize that it will sometimes lead to even lengthier reviews. If a goal is scored about 30'' after the offside, the refs need to spend a huge amount of time figuring out the millisecond when the puck entered the zone (was it at 15':45'':87''' or 15':45'':93''' because in one case it is a goal, in the other is offside) and then the millisecond it crossed the line.

 

[Golden_Jet]

The linesman in the dzone initially calls the icing. When initially signaling icing, the first ref raises his arm and says "ice!" and then the 2nd linemans closer to the play makes the final call. So in this scenario, the player ices the puck, the first lineman calls it an icing, the dman (by a very clear margin, call it 10 ft. And let's say for argument sake, the puck hit the end board and bounces back to the dman) gets possession, but no icing call is made by the 2nd lineman.

It's a niche/nuanced situation and likely very rare but it still illustrates the point that you could implement similar reviews for blown icing calls but like you can offsides.

In your scenario the second linesman obviously is in a way better position to make the call.
This is always a subjective call on who gets to the puck first, as there is no line to go by.

I don’t think the ref is going to blow a call by 10 feet, and in your scenario he didn’t blow the call, as no icing was called.

There is no need for a review, nor should there be on a play with no lines involved.

 

[wintersej]

First couple posts had it right. Simple rule and generally black and white to make the appropriate determination. However, there should be a statute of limitations on challenging an offside. Like the zone entry and scoring play have to occur within 15-30 seconds of each other. If the play has been going on in the zone with no whistle for 30+ seconds the missed offside is completely irrelevant. If the play is offside at the zone entry and in the net 10 seconds later, you can argue that the illegal zone entry lead directly to the goal. Once sufficient time has passed, perhaps both teams have had possession of the puck even, the defending team has had time to recover their defensive structure, etc. it shouldn’t matter that 53 seconds ago the zone entry was 2” offside. Since then the goalie made 2 saves, the defending team gained possession, failed to clear, the puck ended up back in the slot and the attacking team scored. There’s no reason to call that back at that point.

You would change the review process to trying to figure out at which millisecond the play was offside and which millisecond the puck went into the net. In addition to the current part of the review.

Shoot me.

 

[AvroArrow]

Well yeah, that's one of the arguments against offside reviews too. There's already way too many pauses in the game. They kill the flow and emotion in the game.

And giving coaches the ability to stop the play? Is that what you imply?

After the whistle. Say play goes on for a minute, there's a missed high stick calls. Whenever play is whistled, coach can challenge for the missed call.

Or say there's a holding that goes missed that directly leads to a goal, after the goal before puck drop, coach has a chance to challenge it.

Not stop it mid play.