NHL Replay Review Needs To Change After Hosing Bruins With Brutal No-Goal Call
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Hockey is my No. 1 sport. It's the only one I started playing before age 5. It's the only one I continued to play all throughout high school. And my favorite thing about hockey is the constant action. The constant movement. The consistent flow of action, and relative lack of stoppages and extended replay reviews, is what sets the NHL apart from the other major sports.
The NHL's current replay review system is killing that momentum, and because the officials couldn't even get the call right, it killed the Bruins' chances of beating the Florida Panthers Thursday night.
In fairness to the officials, it's not their fault that the Bruins played lethargic, disorganized hockey for the rest of that game. It's not the referees' fault the Bruins committed a crucial too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty that set up the Panthers' back-breaking power play goal to make it 3-1. But the egregiously 'baffling' (as Claude Julien put it) no-goal call certainly accelerated the Bruins' collapse in the third period to further jeopardize the team's playoff hopes, and it plainly exposed the incompetence going on with review crews in Toronto and reflected the need for changes to the procedure.
As much as I can't stand the way reviews are grinding games to a halt, they can't necessarily be eliminated entirely. That would not have helped the Bruins Thursday night, anyway, since the call on the ice was "no goal." For calls regarding the puck going in the net, it's OK to want the referees to get it right. Which makes it all the more disheartening that they could not get this call right.
Here's a screenshot from Comcast SportsNet New England, highlighting the puck being in the net on replay:
The post is the same as the goal line. The puck is clearly behind the post. So by the transitive property, the puck is in the net. Yet, the officials ruled that the video was "inconclusive in determining whether the puck completely crossed the Florida goal line." As NESN's Tom Caron put it so succinctly on Twitter, "Puck in net = conclusive evidence to me."
For conclusive evidence's sake, let's zoom in on the clip to show the puck being behind the post. Which, again, means it was behind the goal line. ENHANCE!
LOOK AT THE COLORS, NHL! IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND DECENT, LOOK AT THE COLORS!
I know that freeze frame looks like a Picasso painting, but just look at the colors. "What's that black thing?" Jack Edwards asked on NESN. That would be the puck, Jack. White space between the puck and post = white space between the puck and goal line = GOOD GOAL. It's unfathomable that they would review this clip for several minutes and be unable to come to that conclusion, while millions of people with eyes can look at the colors (I can't stress that enough) and see that the puck is in.
You can't expect the referees to get a call like this correct on the ice in the moment 100 percent of the time. Can't blame an official for seeing that play in real time and ruling that the puck never went in. But that's why these replay reviews exist in the first place, to correct their honest, human mistakes. The NHL had itself an epic fail in that department on Thursday night.
Something needs to change with the NHL's challenge and review system. Better cameras? New employees? Considering the insufferable "was his toe touching the line?" offside reviews bogging games down, maybe just get rid of it altogether?
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem sensible to remove goal reviews entirely. That's something the officials ought to get right - but when they have this system in place and still get it wrong, something is awry in Toronto. Whatever the league does with replays and reviews, it can't keep doing what it did in Boston last night. And with the Bruins in a tailspin and threatening to collapse out of the playoff race for the second straight season, gross incompetence from the league offices is the last thing they need.
The Bruins have not been at their best in their five-game losing streak and can't score from anywhere right now. But horrendous rulings like this only exacerbate the problem.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.