BOSTON – Once again, the Bruins found themselves on the short end of the coach’s challenge stick on Saturday night.
It appeared Torey Krug had scored a goal for the first time in 40 games in a drought dating back to early December, and that the Bruins had taken a commanding two goal lead over the Washington Capitals. Instead the goal was challenged by Capitals coach Barry Trotz, and eventually overturned when the review revealed that Loui Eriksson was offside entering the zone.
The replays shown inside TD Garden looked inconclusive, but those watching the replays furnished to the officials on the ice indicated that it clearly showed Eriksson’s skate was lifted up and hovering on the blue line making it an easy call to overturn. It was still frustrating for a coach in Claude Julien that has seen more negative than positive come out of the unpredictable coach’s challenges this season, and for a team that could have won had the goal counted.
Whether it’s the long delays, the erratic nature of the final rulings or the dubiously small tablet screens that the referees use for their reviews, Julien has clearly soured on the coach’s challenge as it’s gone on this year.
“You guys keep asking coaches. We’re not all, I guess, a hundred percent on board with some of that stuff, but you’ve got to live with it,” said Julien. “You live with it, because we always compare it to other calls that we’ve had, whether it’s with other games and stuff like that. I guess we don’t always see consistency, but who are we?”
One thing that will make the offside calls easier for everybody to swallow: an angle from cameras installed at the blue lines that can give viewers a clear idea of exactly what happened during the zone entry. While the NHL has publicly said they’re happy with the coach’s challenge, it’s expected the league will adopt that technology to take the gray area out of these situations.
It’s something the players would like to see.
Boston Bruins
“It’s too bad. It’s tough to see on those little screens – they’re going to have to come up with something else – but at the end of the day they must see something they think is right, and that’s what they go with,” said Dennis Seidenberg. “It’s tough for me to really judge on those decisions because I can’t really see, and all I can see is the screen on top. It’s tough for me to see anything.
“You have to see something in the future, I guess, on the level of the ice where you can actually see the skate coming up, like a camera on the blue line. I don’t know. But it’s tough to see; I didn’t see it, and it’s really tough for me to judge because I don’t know.”
Saturday night was the perfect example of an offside challenge where the blue line camera angle could have quickly answered everybody’s questions, so hopefully the league adopts those sooner rather than later.