Arizona Coyotes center Alex Galchenyuk scored the game-tying goal late in Wednesday night’s game against his former team, the Montreal Canadiens.
The goal, though, would not stand.
A coach’s challenge by the Canadiens saw Galchenyuk’s power-play goal overturned.
Habs video replay coaches Mario Leblanc and Eric Gravel alerted head coach Claude Julien of the offside prior to the goal being scored.
Coyotes defenseman Alex Goligoski was unable to keep the puck in the zone at the blueline earlier in the play. The puck exited the zone briefly at the 4:11 mark, a full 32 seconds before the goal was scored.
“Every time the puck crosses the blue line, they check the replay,” said Julien. “Good work on their part. They deserve all the credit because I didn’t see it. They said it was offside and they showed it to me. That saved us.”
“I saw white between the puck and the blue line.”
While Montreal’s overall success rate on Coach’s Challenges this season is just 2-for-7 (29%), the Habs’ video coaches are a perfect 2-0 on offside challenges.
It was a close play – one that wasn’t caught in real-time, and one that understandably may only be detectable with multiple angles of high-resolution, slow-motion replay which allowed the league to isolate the few frames the puck crossed beyond the blue paint.
“From the bench it was tough to see,” Montreal captain Shea Weber told TSN. “The guys on the ice said it was possibly offside. That was the difference in the game right there.”
Montreal held on for a 2-1 win.
