The Vancouver Canucks wiped out a goal from the Vegas Golden Knights with a Coach’s Challenge for a missed stoppage after the puck deflected off a camera lens.

Canucks defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson fired the puck around the glass, where it took a strange bounce and stayed along the boards as a piece of debris bounced into the slot.  That debris, later determined to be a camera lens hood, drew the focus of Vancouver’s Brock Boeser, who attempted to play it in the slot.

Vegas retained possession of the actual puck, scoring 15 seconds later. Vancouver challenged the play, citing a potential missed stoppage.

Rule 38 covers the missed stoppage challenge, allowing teams to contest “a play that results in a “GOAL” call on the
ice where the defending team claims that the play should have been stopped by reason of any play occurring in the offensive zone that should have resulted in a play stoppage caused by the attacking team but did not.”

The interesting part of this play is that the stoppage was not caused by the attacking team, as specified in Rule 38.2.b., but by the defending team, when they attempted to move the puck around the boards.

Rule 38.10 handles overturning the play.

The standard for overturning the call in the event of a “GOAL” call on the ice is that the NHL Situation Room, after reviewing any and all available replays and consulting with the On-Ice Official(s), determines that the play should have been stopped but was not at some point after the puck entered the attacking zone but prior to the goal being scored; where this standard is met, the goal will be disallowed.

Potential infractions that would require a play stoppage in the offensive zone include, but may not be limited to: Hand Pass (Rule 79); High-Sticking the Puck (Rule 80); and Puck Out of Bounds (Rule 85). Such infractions will only serve as a basis for overturning a GOAL call on the ice if video review can conclusively establish that a game stoppage event had occurred in the offensive zone and was missed by the On-Ice Official(s). 

Goals will only be reviewed for a potential “Missed Game Stoppage Event in the Offensive Zone” if the puck does not come out of the attacking zone again between the time of the “Missed Game Stoppage Event in the Offensive Zone” and the time the goal is scored.

The latter rule does not include the requirement that the stoppage be caused by the attacking team, but that any missed stoppage would permit a goal to be disallowed.

Rule 85.1 is what came into play on this review:

When a puck goes outside the playing area at either end or either side of the rink, strikes any obstacles above the playing surface other than the boards or glass, causes the glass, lighting, timing device or the supports to break, it shall be faced-off at the nearest face-off spot in the zone from where it was shot or deflected out of play.

Clearly, the puck hit an obstacle other than the boards and glass, knocking a piece of the camera on to the ice.  The officials also could have considered a stoppage under Rule 63.5:

In the event that objects are thrown on the ice that interfere with the progress of the game, the Referee shall blow the whistle and stop the play…

“After reviewing the play for a missed game stoppage, it was determined that the puck hit the camera in the hole,” announced referee Corey Syvret. “The whistle should’ve went, therefore we have no goal.”

The goal was wiped out and the clock wound back to the moment the puck struck the camera.

“You can’t have an instrument that’s out of play and then hit it and come back into play,” said Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau. “To me, it was an easy challenge…Once I found out it was a piece of the camera — I didn’t know what it was but I knew it was something.”

This was Vancouver’s first-ever Coach’s Challenge for a missed stoppage. They’re now 1-for-2 on challenges this season, after going 5-for-6 last season.

Bruce Boudreau has challenged for a missed stoppage once before, with the call on the ice being upheld when he was behind the bench for the Minnesota Wild.

Despite their lost goal, Vegas went on to win the game 5-4.

Referees were Corey Syvret (#23) and Chris Lee (#28), with linesmen Michel Cormier (#76) and Mark Shewchyk (#92).