GMs discuss coach's challenge for goalie interference at meetings

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- NHL general managers spent about three hours discussing the coach's challenge for goaltender interference and debating examples of it on the first day of their annual March meetings Monday. They hope to have a plan or recommendation to clarify or potentially change the review process for goaltender interference before they leave the Boca Beach Club on Wednesday.

"There should be a change and there will be," Toronto Maple Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello said. "It's just making sure it's the right thing."
What they think the right thing is remains unclear, which is why the discussion on the coach's challenge for goaltender interference is expected to continue Tuesday.
The GMs, though, don't expect the change, if there is one, to be major, and there is no stated desire among them or the NHL Hockey Operations Department to make changes to the rule governing goalie interference.
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It's also not clear if anything will change this season.
"I think we made progress on how to make the [review] process better," Vegas Golden Knights GM George McPhee said. "The rule is not going to change. The process is going to be improved in a way that seemed pretty unanimous in the room, how we could do things better. So, we'll discuss it a little bit more here in the next day or so and have a solution."
The GMs also stressed the discussion and any potential adjustments to the review process they are contemplating are not an indictment on the coach's challenge for goaltender interference itself or the reasons it was implemented prior to the 2015-16 season. (That expansion of video review also included the coach's challenge for offside.)
They said the rule is generally working as it was intended, but because goaltender interference is not a black-and-white call, their goal is to try to compromise in a way that shrinks the gray area, which they discovered is not easy Monday.

The GMs were shown 14 clips of plays that involved a coach's challenge for goaltender interference. On at least some plays, there was disagreement as to whether the goal should or shouldn't count.
"You're always going to have that element of judgment because goaltender interference inherently is a judgment call," Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff said. "The constant conversation is always there to try to make it better. That's obviously what we spent a lot of time on today, talking about it. Will there ever be a conclusion? I don't know that you'll ever have a conclusion to a judgment call. I think you have to define the criteria, feel comfortable with the criteria and then in the end accept the judgment call."
The GMs discussed a change to have all final decisions on video review be made by the Hockey Operations personnel in the Situation Room in Toronto. The referees currently have the final say on reviews for goaltender interference.
However, Kris King, the NHL's senior vice president of hockey operations, said four of the 170 reviews for goaltender interference this season would have had a different outcome if the Situation Room had final say.
"It's not really a problem from our side because for the rest of those we're seeing the same thing," King said. "The referees are looking at the replays, they're taking our direction, asking us for our opinion but we're also following the rules of how it's written out where they get the final call. So, in those [four], maybe we would have liked them to change, but they didn't."

The GMs also discussed having Hockey Operations put a current or retired official in the Situation Room to communicate with the referees.
The League already has retired officials on the headset during the Stanley Cup Playoffs communicating with the referees during the review process.
"It wouldn't really matter, I don't think, who has the final say," said Stephen Walkom, the NHL's senior vice president and director of officiating supervision, who was in the meetings. "I don't know if that's relevant. I think we'd still have plays like we're talking about today. We would still have five or six plays that are debatable, that maybe half the GMs agree with, half of them don't."

Colin Campbell, the NHL's senior executive vice president of hockey operations, said the League began releasing videos explaining the process and the reasoning for the final decisions on every goalie interference review to each coach and GM about three weeks ago.
He said the coaches and GMs want to paint a consistent picture of what is being called and that the GMs are discussing the possibility of releasing those videos to the public, similar to what the NHL's Department of Player Safety does for suspensions.
Walkom said the on-ice officials have been receiving weekly videos detailing every review for goaltender interference and offside since the coach's challenge was implemented.
"We discussed being more open," Campbell said. "What would help this whole process? We had a lot of points we talked about. Which is the best plan? We're not done with this meeting yet."