During the second day of the general manager meetings in Florida, the group of NHL executives have voted to amend the offside rule, according to several reports including Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. The proposed change would see the rule no longer require a skate to be touching the ice, but over the plane of the blue line.
This does not mean that the rule is immediately changed. The amendment will have to go through the league’s Competition Committee and then be voted on by the board of governors.
Since the introduction of offside challenges, there has been much debate over whether the rule should be changed. Many reviews produce inconclusive evidence when the requirement is contact between the blade and the ice, leading to incredibly tough decisions for officiating crews. With the proposed change, one can imagine how much easier it would be to determine if a skate is still over the blue line, however there are obviously still going to be difficulties in certain situations.
Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic notes that other things on the agenda today at the GM meetings were reports on puck and player tracking which is set to begin in the playoffs, and on player safety.
This is such a stupid proposal. Offsides challenges were intended to rectify egregious officiating mistakes, not overrule their judgement on marginal calls. Neither the current challenge system nor this proposal do that. Even with camera angles directly at ice level, determinations will not be any easier or quicker—it will be just as hard, maybe even harder, to tell if a skate “crosses the plane” as if it is on or off the ice. Not to mention, players have grown up with one consistent rule for offsides, and now would have to adjust to a new rule in the NHL. Don’t put the burden on the players.
Yeah, instead of alleviating horrible calls it ends up making a big deal out of ridiculously close calls. It’s one thing looking to see if a puck actually got in the net or not but… As far as I’m concerned for a lot the things like close offsides calls, if you can’t tell watching it once or twice at full speed, just leave it alone.
Well said. I agree wholeheartedly.
Great point. A case of trying to make perfect the enemy of the good.
Goals being taken after an offside that occurred uncalled after 45 second of game play later is just beyond stupid.