The NHL General Managers are currently at their yearly meetup in Boca Raton, Florida, and the agenda is filled with discussions on how to make the game better and more appealing to fans. Goaltender interference reviews were one of the biggest issues heading into the meetings, and one brought up today in a long discussion behind closed doors. Out of that meeting, several reports surfaced that the general consensus was to work towards centralizing the decision making to a league office or war room, though Chris Johnston of Sportsnet adds that no final decisions have been made.
Interestingly though, Emily Kaplan of ESPN tweets that NHL Executive VP Colin Campbell believes there is a growing problem with goaltender embellishment and that it is being coached into them. Notably, Frederik Andersen was fined earlier this season for embellishment after his second such incident, though he has since been free of supplementary discipline.
If goaltenders are being coached to react to contact, it may be partially due to the fact that the review process has been so inconsistent up to this point. Players and coaches have actively spoken out against the decisions, explaining that no one knows the rules or how they will be enforced. The meetings are meant to correct some of this process, but obviously there are various viewpoints including the one held by Campbell. Reviews already underwent a change at the All-Star break, when officials were instructed to go with the on-ice call more often, but it didn’t quell the tide of anger and confusion felt by fans all around the league.
I’m normally a strong supporter of the goalies but they can’t have it both ways. They benefit from having equipment that is massive compared to what existed a few decades ago. The trade-off for that advantage is a loss of mobility which will inevitably result in more contact. Time to suck it up and leave the over-acting to soccer players.
On ice officials have not seemed to take into consideration the fact that many opposing players are pushed into a goalie by their own defensemen and that is supposed to negate the goaltender interference call. Several goals have been disallowed but the only reason contact was made was because the player scoring the goal was hit/pushed into the goalie by a member of the defending team.
Contact does not automatically equal interference and that has left the on ice officials in a murky no man’s land. They have to determine if the contact was an intentional act by an opponent to prevent the goalie from making a save attempt – not the easiest thing to do when several bodies are crashing the net.
I just want everything to be consistent and, across the board, it’s just not. If they spent as much time trying to sort this kind of stuff out as they spend splitting hairs on these offsides reviews, about whether a skate blade is in contact with the ice or not at the moment the puck goes over the line…
Consistency would require a review every time there is contact, regardless of whether a goal was scored or not. That would result in games lasting well beyond any time limit fans would tolerate. The only practical solution would be to allow defensemen to be more aggressive in shielding goalies or create a extended crease area and both of those ideas would likely meet significant resistance.