Blackjack
Registered User
I think that is the only way to even begin to claim they have conclusive evidence. The two angles had to be synced, but you can’t see the puck on one angle.
They should be able to sync the time code up to fractions of a second, but even then I’m not sure you could see for sure that the puck is clearly over the line and his skate is clearly off the ice at the right times. We are literally talking a one frame difference.
And you are right if it comes down to this it shouldn’t be overturned.
When they showed that ice level blue line shot I knew we were f***ed. I agree that you can't say for 100% sure that he was offsides, and strictly speaking, that's how the challenge rule is written. But in practice I think it's not unusual for a play like this where it seems much more likely than not that he was offsides for the call to get overturned.
But here's the biggest lesson in all this for me: the whole reason that we have this appeal and replay system is so that if there's a bad call, the fans don't have to feel cheated. So now we have it, and yet here we all are feeling cheated. So it didn't really do what it was intended to do, did it? NJ Devils fans should know better than anyone that the league feeds you a shit sandwich sometimes, and no change to the rules, or replay system is going to change that. If they did get rid of offsides challenges, I guarantee you that the first thing that would happen is that Chris Kreider would score a game winning goal on us on a breakaway where he was 20 feet offsides and the refs missed it.
The best thing to do is to realize that the league fed us a shit sandwich, it happens sometimes, and there's nothing to be done about it. 'Cause sometimes that contract that you signed that follows all the rules of the CBA is rejected and you lose a 1st rounder. Other times you play hockey for 30 years and then become allergic to your pads. What can be done? Thank god we only have to wait 24 hours to play again.