NHL provides clarity to GMs on goaltender interference ahead of playoffs

MANALAPAN, Fla. — The NHL says that after the coach’s challenge for goaltender interference was initially instituted 10 years ago, there were upwards of 200 of them per season.

On Monday, at the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa in Palm Beach County, Fla., they presented data to all 32 general managers (and the media thereafter) that showed only 105 calls pertaining to goaltender interference had been challenged so far this season.

It’s more than there were last season — it’s actually the most there have been since 2019, when it was deemed an unsuccessful challenge would cost teams a minor penalty rather than a timeout — and 60 calls have been overturned versus the 48 that were overturned then.

But Kay Whitmore, who represents goaltenders as one of the four executive managers of the NHL Situation Room that rules on the challenges, provided a simple reason for why the numbers have significantly decreased over time while the percentage of successful challenges has risen.

“The coaches have a better understanding of how the rule is applied,” Whitmore said.

Still, he was the one who referred to Rule 69.5 as “a convoluted rule to begin with” earlier, and he said that because he knows it’ll remain the NHL’s most controversial one no matter how well executives and coaches come to understand it.

There’s subjectivity necessarily baked into every aspect of it — from whether or not a player incidentally or purposefully makes contact with the goaltender, to whether contact is sufficient enough to impede the goaltender from playing his position, to where contact with the goaltender is made and whether the goaltender has enough time to reset if contact initially did impede him — and that’s why the NHL spent more time on it Monday than it did going over other challenges for offsides, kicked pucks, pucks sent out of play, pucks touched by high sticks and gloved pucks.

There may never be a consensus amongst GMs on every call. It’s rare two of them will see one the same way in a game involving their teams, and even the decision-makers in the Situation Room said they aren’t always unanimous.

But the process involves the four executive managers — and at least three other people on every decision — and majority rules, with the same principles consistently applied. They run through their elaborate checklist and refuse to overturn a call unless there’s conclusive evidence it should be overturned.

Still, 60 of 105 have been overturned because a rule with so many conditions is naturally the hardest one to apply in real time.

The NHL starts there with its officials when a challenge is issued. The Situation Room shows the sequence in real time to officials on first review because it wants them to relive it as they saw it live and hear how they processed the play.

Then they provide overhead replay before going through all the other angles.

Ultimately, a retired official is on every call with the on-ice officials, and that person relays the final decision rendered by the Situation Room.

The goal on Monday was to ensure every general manager was up to date on the elaborate deliberation process, and that they were given the opportunity to review upwards of 70 challenges from this season and provide feedback.

“It was really interesting,” said one general manager, who added he gained equal insight from the people running the Situation Room as he did rival general managers he met with in his smaller breakout group.

We found it interesting to hear an NHL PR representative say a decision questioned by one reporter in the media session was deemed to have been correctly assessed by seven out of eight GMs who were shown the play in one of the breakout groups.

“These aren’t black and white,” said vice president of hockey operations Kris King. “There’s a lot of judgment that goes into these… They’re never the same. They’re snowflakes. There’s a lot of different things that go into it.”

He was repeating what senior VP and director of hockey operations Colin Cambell said several times in the one-hour media session.

“Anytime you have a coach’s challenge, someone’s going to be mad,” Campbell added.

He understands it’s doubtful that’ll change following Monday’s information session, but that didn’t make holding it any less important.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are rapidly approaching, and the league wants to ensure the people running its teams have the clearest understanding of how coach’s challenges are processed.

These meetings also provided an open forum for the general managers to suggest rule changes or tweaks, and their input on removing any further grey from a naturally “convoluted” rule is encouraged.

No rules will be changed in season, and any tweaks would have to be approved by the players before going into effect.

Other key data points

The NHL also briefed the GMs on league-wide trends, including average goals per game being above six for the fourth straight season.

• Even strength scoring accounts for 77.8 per cent of all scoring, which is the highest percentage since the 1972-73 season.

• Meanwhile, as the debate rages outside of these meetings on whether to extend three-on-three overtime and eliminate the shootout, 74 per cent of games that have gone to overtime this season have ended in overtime, making it the lowest total of shootouts since the shootout was adopted in 2005-06.

• Seventy-five per cent of this season’s games have been decided by a goal — or two because of an empty-netter — which is the highest rate of close games in NHL history.

• We’re looking at the second-highest rate of comeback wins in the history of the NHL so far this season.

• The Eastern Conference Playoff race hasn’t just felt tight, it’s been insanely tight, with 14 of 16 teams occupying a playoff spot at one point or another since American Thanksgiving. Eight different teams have occupied a wild-card spot since Jan. 1.

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