Why Offside Challenges are Total Crap And Why That Won’t Change a Thing
Ah, the coaches challenge. A staple in the NFL, this was added in the NHL in the 2015 offseason and allowed coaches to have the referees look at goals that potentially had offside play or goalie-interference. Challenges can take several minutes, especially in offside reviews, and they have to be reviewed in Toronto, the HQ of the NHL. The referees have no direct effect on the call, they can only talk to the people in Toronto. Both sides look at video and try to judge if a player was a tenth of an inch over the line or if their skate was in the air.
That’s not the worst part. There were 274 challenges in the 2017 regular season, and 69.7% of them didn’t change a thing. Of the 274, 116 of them were for offsides, and the goals were upheld 66.3% of the time (77–39).
Possibly the biggest call of the season, P.K. Subban’s goal was disallowed in the first game of the Stanley Cup Final. That goal would have been the first goal of the game if another Predator’s skate hadn’t been in the air when the puck crossed the blue line almost 30 seconds before. The Predators ended up losing that game 3–5, with the 5th coming on an empty net. If that goal had been allowed, it could have gone into overtime. Obviously, it didn’t. This shows that these challenges can be very powerful, to the point of possibly winning a game for the team. So why keep it when it can change the course of a championship?
Because, there is a chance.
Because of that chance, the reviews will stay. They can’t take it away because the coaches would get angry at possible missed offside and interference calls. The referees can’t get the call correct every single time; it’s the fastest team sport in the world. The 30% chance that they can’t see a player’s skate in the air or that a player stood in the wrong spot and the keeper was tapped the wrong way. It gets annoying when a goal gets allowed after being looked at for upwards of 10 minutes or gets disallowed because of a fraction of a fraction of an inch and ultimately had nothing to do with the game.
Should offside challenges be taken out of the game? Yes, it probably should. It’s inefficient and it takes way too long. Will it be taken out? No, it’ll stay in the game for many years to come. Humans aren’t perfect, and are the only thing keeping this in the NHL.
