The Situation Room taketh away, and the Situation Room giveth back, as the Colorado Avalanche found out on Tuesday against the Seattle Kraken.
Colorado’s Artturi Lehkonen preceded the puck into the Kraken zone, allowing the Avs to maintain possession leading to a Mikko Rantanen power play goal.
Looks like a pretty obvious offside, right? Seattle thought so, as they challenged the play. A quick review later, referee Graedy Hamilton announced that the play was offside and the goal was disallowed
The Avs, though, weren’t ready to give up on this one. Players were still talking with the officials, with head coach Jared Bednar gesturing towards the Avs’ end during a lengthy discussion with referee Francis Charron. Moments later, the Situation Room sounded the horn, summoning the refs to the headsets.
The review was not quite over.
The Avalanche – and apparently, at that point, the Situation Room – were aware of a twist in Rule 83.1:
If a player legally carries, passes or plays the puck back into his own defending zone while a player of the opposing team is in such defending zone, the off-side shall be ignored and play permitted to continue.
Everyone was so focused on the location of the puck that nobody realized it was Seattle’s Yanni Gourde who sent it down the ice after his shot missed the net.
Had it been a pass from an Avs player it would’ve been offside.
Since the puck was played back by Gourde, there was no offside.
Hamilton once again stepped up to the mic, this time with some better news for the Colorado fans: the goal would stand.
So, wait, what about the original Coach’s Challenge? The one Seattle issued nearly ten minutes earlier?
Since the challenge (eventually) failed — the play was not offside after all — the Kraken were given a minor penalty for delay of game, much to the chagrin of head coach Dan Bylsma.
The Colorado Avalanche went on to win the game 6-3. Referees for the game were Francis Charron (#6) and Graedy Hamilton (#41), with linespersons Brandon Gawryletz (#64) and Jesse Marquis (#86).
