McDavid calls out NHL for tedious offside reviews after disallowed Oilers goal
The Edmonton Oilers might have picked up the 2-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night, but not everyone on the team was happy afterwards.
Despite just two goals showing up on the official game sheet for the Oilers, the team had scored two more goals that were both disallowed on calls of goalie interference and offside.
The offside call came as part of a coach’s challenge by Chicago coach Brad Richardson. It resulted in on-ice officials spending about 15 minutes trying to find an angle that conclusively showed that Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl was offside before a third-period marker by Zach Hyman.
After about four or five angles were shown, which did not look all that conclusive, the league decided it was enough to reverse the call on the ice and call the play offside.
Zach Hyman's goal is waived off as Leon Draisaitl was ruled to be offside after Chicago's challenge#LetsGoOilers | #Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/Dd6BW93en1
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) January 10, 2024
At this stage of the game, a goal would have been huge for the Oilers, who were playing a rather sloppy game but were managing to hold on to a slim lead. Edmonton would eventually win thanks to a stellar performance from goaltender Stuart Skinner, but that didn’t stop captain Connor McDavid from airing his concerns about how the NHL handles offside reviews.
“If it takes you 15 minutes to determine if it’s offside or not, it probably doesn’t really matter,” McDavid told reporters. “You zoom in, you zoom, you keep zooming in until you can’t zoom in anymore, and I guess it’s offside.
“These are calls that change games and ultimately it didn’t go our way… I thought it should have been onside.”
"Stu held us in it & we did just enough to get a win."
Connor McDavid shares his assessment of the victory tonight. @Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/EE2pt4unz5
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) January 10, 2024
McDavid isn’t alone in thinking that the NHL has let its offside reviews get a little bit pedantic. The rule was initially brought in to correct egregious missed offsides like that of Matt Duchene back in 2013.
Now it seems like every offside review is one step short of taking out a tape measure and measuring millimetres, which is resulting in longer and longer breaks in the action as officials try to determine if a play was indeed offside.
“I think the NHL uses the analogy ‘dead wrong’… they want it to be clear and obvious, right? That was certainly not clear and obvious,” said McDavid.
This isn’t the first time that McDavid and the Oilers have been at the center of an offside controversy. Back in the 2022 Western Conference Finals, there was uproar when Colorado Avalanche defenceman Cale Makar seemingly entered the Oilers zone while his teammate Valeri Nichushkin was offside just before scoring a goal. However, in that case, there was an argument to be made that Makar hadn’t touched the puck until Nichushkin got back onside.
Either way, this time it didn’t cost the Oilers anything as they walked out of the Windy City with their eighth-straight victory. The worry is something like this could happen in a much more important game down the line.