Goals Really Are More Exciting Than Rule-Book Technicalities
Here's a hockey question you've never been asked.
When Jean Valjean, protagonist of Victor Hugo's masterpiece, Les Misérables, steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, does he deserve to be eternally punished?
Inspector Javert, a letter-of-the-law guy if there ever was one, certainly thinks so. He pursues Valjean through France for most of 1,000 pages. Eventually, unable to reconcile his by-the-book approach with the clearly moral choice, Javert commits suicide.
The NHL is facing just such a dilemma, made clear by two game-changing events Thursday night in the province of Alberta. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Seattle Kraken, who meet Sunday at Climate Pledge Arena, both had recent games monumentally altered by the abomination known as the "Coach's Challenge."
Maple Leafs Get Helping Hand(-Pass)
In Calgary, the Leafs were clinging to a one goal lead in the 3rd period. They kept that lead when Toronto's video crew noticed the Flames' tying goal might have been preceded by a hand pass.
Friends, from the time Calgary's Blake Coleman grazes the puck, eight seconds elapse before Connor Zary puts home the apparent tying goal. Zary is the third Flame to handle the puck, which travels from left point to right wing to a shot on net, which Leafs goalie Martin Jones actually makes a save on, but can't control.
If the officials had called the hand pass in real time, fine. But they didn't. The TV announcers didn't see it in real time, either. "I didn’t even notice that play happening." You know who admitted that after the game? Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe!
Worst of all, the life is sucked out of a sellout crowd; an abrupt halt for five full minutes while referees at the Saddledome and the situation room in Toronto talk it over. As I've written before, what a buzzkill.
Best Goalie Assist Of Season Didn't Count
A greater injustice was taking place the same evening, 279 km to the north at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Kraken goalie Joey Daccord, a superb stick-handler, had fed a pass all the way from his crease to the Oilers blueline.
Alex Wennberg gratefully accepted, proceeding to light the lamp for what appeared to be a game-tying goal late in the 2nd period. Making this an even bigger deal was that the Oilers were attempting to extend an already franchise-record 11 game winning streak.
Completely unrelated to the play, Seattle's Kailer Yamamoto skated to his bench as Wennberg crossed the blueline. Could Yamamoto have exited quicker? Who knows.
What we do know is that the bench door is inside the zone, Yamamoto has his BACK to the play, the linesperson is close enough to rub elbows with him - and NONE OF THIS impacts whether goalie Stuart Skinner or his mates could have stopped Wennberg or his wrister.
Seattle never recovers to score again. Edmonton wins 4-2... but a 3-3 game heading into the final frame might well have resulted in a different outcome.
Even Rules Need Wiggle Room
One more point for the Life Is Only Black And White crowd. Back in the 1990s, the NHL made a well-intentioned rule to protect goalies. To wit:
"If a player has entered the crease prior to the puck, and subsequently the puck should enter the net while such conditions prevail, the apparent goal shall not be allowed."
Unambiguous, right? Either a toe's in the crease, or it ain't. Except when Brett Hull scored the triple-OT goal in 1999 to win the Stanley Cup for his Dallas Stars, Hull's tootsies were prematurely in the blue paint.
Sure, the NHL performed verbal gymnastics to explain why the goal should count, and technically, they were probably right. But Buffalo Sabres fans are still mad 25 years later, and with good reason - many goals in earlier games had been waved off under the same circumstance.
The takeaway: the NHL recognized the absurdity of a no-wiggle-room rule - one they had magically found wiggle room for on the biggest goal of the season - and modified it. It's past time to apply the same common sense and discretion to offside and hand-pass plays.
As Victor Hugo himself once wrote, "Humankind's wounds, those huge sores that litter the world, do not stop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps."
Or the blue and red lines drawn on hockey rinks.
