To be clear -- the reason I put a paragraph break in the middle of that post is because I addressed replays in general (which include a distinct possibility of a 2-goal swing) and then focused in on the Stastny goal in particular.
2 points to make about this:
1) It's insane that we are deciding games/seasons on a sideline mini-game that pits the coach against the ref. I want to see hockey players battling to determine the outcome of a hockey game, not Barry Trotz and Ian Walsh trying to figure out who has worse vision.
2) The entire point I'm making is that the controversy wouldn't exist without replay. A ref waving off a goal isn't a controversy, it's a tough break for your team. If the ref is wrong, he's just wrong. There's nothing to argue about. You're mad at the ref, sure, but you're always mad at the ref about one thing or another. It's sports.
Quick, off the top of your head -- what was the worst penalty called in the Columbus game? I don't remember any more than you do. I was probably furious about at least one of them at the time, but it's whatever... refs get that stuff wrong all the time and you have a beer and forget about it. Replay is a different story, it becomes a Court TV drama where people are still arguing about frame-by-frame replays days and even weeks later. That dynamic was nearly nonexistent before replay. Even the worst calls were just that... bad calls by a dumb ref. It's like complaining about ice quality or a bad power play, just a perpetual state of the game. Replay controversies are something of a different order, and only very rarely do they resolve an obvious problem that would have existed if replay weren't available.
1) This is something that can be taken to an extreme though. If we really wanted to only see hockey players battle to determine the outcome of the game, we'd have no refs. The refs are there to ensure the rules and guidelines of the sport are appropriately applied to the situations that happen within the game. Replay helps to do that. Replay can be taken too far, of course. I think when it comes to goals, major game events that typically only happen 1-9 times per game, it's perfectly reasonable to take a second look if a coach thinks that the rules were incorrectly applied (and the coach is discouraged from challenging indiscriminately by perhaps the harshest penalty out of any of the 4 major sports for getting it wrong).
2) Controversy regarding goals/no goals has always been there. Comparing goal/no goal calls to the "worst penalty" in a regular season game 7 games ago (in a game in which we won) isn't really apples to apples. The replay thing started because missed calls became the story of every playoff game and every playoff series. Matt Duchene was very, very offsides on a regular season goal 9 years ago and I remember it. The fact that a replay is inherently more memorable because it has the opportunity to add or subtract a goal from the scoreboard
that should've been there in the first place if the correct call were made on the ice to me is a small price to pay for actually getting said call right.
An example of a case where replay would have
removed a controversy is the bogus 5 minute major they gave to Vegas in Game 7 in 2019 that allowed the Sharks to comeback. That's a memorable controversy to this day because of how bad a call that was, and how easily it could've been resolved via review. So no, it's not black and white that it "creates controversy." It sometimes
reveals controversy. It sometimes makes things right when otherwise controversy would've occurred. Now that replay is in the game, you can point at every controversy associated with replay and say "replay caused that." But you overlooking all the controversy that
doesn't occur because replay solved an otherwise missed call. Which it does do, regularly.
I agree, replay has the potential to be taken too far. I don't need every penalty reviewed. I don't need every icing reviewed. But goals are major, major events in games and deserve to be gotten right. The NFL has decided that every single touchdown gets reviewed, they don't even make you challenge it. The NHL's version of that is far less overreaching, discourages the coaches from challenging unless they're very confident, and a lot of the time gets it right. I might remember the Aho offsides thing because it was a major event. I don't think it was controversial - I think he was offside. I think the Stastny example isn't helped by the fact that we have another parallel "controversy" about how no one knows what goaltender interference is (which is actually what people here have been talking about, not that it was reviewed but that they were confused about where the interference came into play). But I'm glad the refs got a chance to get a second look since Rod thought it was interference. I'm really not bothered by the rule or the process at all, and I think it's one of very few things the league has actually gotten right in the last 10 years. To me it's a well balanced system with appropriate checks and balances.
