The avalanche was sunk by a bad rule, badly applied

Act like you do not know anything about hockey. Take a look at this moment of frozen action. Where is the puck? Where is the piece going on, and where is not it? Who is involved in the action and who still has the potential to affect it? Who breaks the rules? More importantly, who breaks the rules and influences the game so much that a goal four seconds later should be dismissed?

If you said Colorado No. 92, Gabriel Landeskog, at the top right of the picture, leaving the ice – congratulations! You are the NHL Rules Book and you are right. But maybe you should not be.

Welcome to another edition of NHL Ruletalk, where, instead of going back on a tight series between the Sharks and Avalanche, or waiting for the Western Conference finals, or even dissecting a tight match of the seventh match we spend our time wasting our time. the book of rules and another outlaw criticism. (Hockey Fever: grab it! … and then wait for the video review to see if a guy's skate was one-eighth of an inch above the blue line.) The Sharks won 3-2 , and they might have won anyway. if the tying goal of Colin Wilson in the second period was allowed to stay up. But here we are again.

San Jose managed to challenge the game as offside. Landeskog was in the area when the Sharks briefly pulled out the puck and he skated to the bench to clear. But he was still at the door – on the wrong side of the blue line – when the Avalanche pushed back the puck. It's offside.

"It's a tough call to make, so hopefully they did it right," Landeskog said. "Listen, there are 10 things I could have done differently in this room. I wish I could get out of the ice a lot faster and I should have jumped boards. If I could do it again … "

The people responsible for the retransmission did indeed understand, in the terms of the law. But by the spirit of the law, the on the ice the officials have also understood well, by calling nothing (or perhaps missing it completely, which leads almost to the same point). The purpose of the offside rule is to prevent the attacking teams from benefiting from an unfair advantage, ie one or more players are in the zone. offensive before the puck reaches it. Landeskog, coming out of the ice, gave no advantage to the avs.

Let's take a look at the rule book, because nothing has more excitement about hockey than a sports bar or a morning meeting after the cooler that discusses the paragraphs on page 126. Rule 83 deals with Offside, and rule 83.3 in particular, was when the puck came out of the area but Landeskog was still inside. Finally, 83.3 arrives at this exact situation.

If, in a delayed offside, an attacking player in the offensive zone chooses to go to the bench of his players (who extends into the offensive zone) to be replaced by a teammate, he is considered to have cleaned the area is completely out of the ice and his replacement arrives on the ice in the neutral zone. If his substitute arrives on the ice in the attack zone, if the delayed offside is still in effect, he must also release the attack zone.

(I do not know what that means, if any, but the NHL's official explanation of the decision, which they post after each video replay, does not even include that. as the most basic definition of offside, and lets you find the part that actually applies to this piece.)

So, to be on the side, Landeskog should have been completely back on the bench, not just leaving. I think it's fundamentally wrong. The application of this rule is arbitrary, when the same basic concept is interpreted much more liberally dozens of times per game.

At almost every line change, the new skaters jump on the boards just as the skaters they replace slide on the bench, but before they are completely out of the ice. It's very good. That's what the NHL looks like in 2019. Everyone agreed that as long as a skater is out of the game, he's leaving it for all intents and purposes. In other words: according to the law, the Avalanche could have been penalized for too many men on the ice here, as Wilson was absent before Landeskog was absent. . But the officials would never have called this sentence, not for a million years, and if they did, it would bring a scandal that would put an end to all outrages. But what is the difference between the two? Why treat Landeskog as "on the ice" in last night's decision, but not in the case of a normal line change?

The normal and relaxed definition of who is on the ice and what is not is the one that is spiritually correct and practical, because of the even more fundamental contradiction with the judgment of last night: Landeskog n did not participate in the game. He did not touch the puck and did not try to do it. He did not remove a defender from the action. It has absolutely nothing to do with the goal that followed, it is not the case, and it did not give the advantage to the Avalanche. A sensible reading of the rulebook leaves little doubt that this rule needs to be rewritten, or at least reinterpreted. It would be more logical for the players, and better for the fans – the old, who must be so tired of this, and the new ones, who might be convinced that they will never, ever, understand the offside rule.

And now, I've written 850 words about a playoff offside review and, believe me, I'm very bored by that.