Charlie Coyle’s “Offside” Can Tweak Challenge Rules

On Tuesday night, the Boston Bruins make their second visit to the Bell Centre in Montreal to face the Canadiens. Perhaps, it’s their final visit to Montreal of the season. Last time the Bruins played there, an initially tough game for Boston turned out to be frustrating and infuriating, to say the least.

While the Bruins recovered from three different deficits to make it a 4-4 tie at the beginning of the third period, Charlie Coyle appeared to score a go-ahead goal. The goal was taken off the scoreboard because of a supposed offside position by Coyle. There was never a doubt about Coyle crossing the blue line earlier than the puck, even though it was as narrow as they come.

However, it was the time spent on the review, and more importantly, the argument of Coyle kicking the puck even before entering the zone, that makes this memory in Montreal a bitter one. There is no definitive determination of what stands for puck possession when carrying the puck over the offensive blue line. There is an argument that Coyle simply used his skills to move the puck with his skate incipiently. Therefore, no offside should have been called eventually.

The NHL’s general managers talked about that matter last Tuesday. The GMs prepare for the bigger meeting in March in Florida to further discuss the approval of the rule changes ahead of the 2020-21 NHL season. According to The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun, the GMs were asked whether they would deem Coyle’s play as a skill play, and therefore it cannot be offside. Their overwhelming response was yes.

The NHL will probably alter the time between a goal scored and a challenge requested. Besides, there is a belief that such a situation, as we saw in the last Bruins’ game in Montreal, would result in a good-goal call.

It’s just good for the NHL to make an adjustment and further clarify its rules. Bad and damaging calls happen sometimes, but the league has to make sure it doesn’t happen anymore. Unless, of course, when a goal is called after a Blues player trips a Bruins player. That play is still legal and not challengable.