Just when the Florida Panthers thought they had shifted momentum on Game 6, the dreaded coach’s challenge pumped the breaks.
Immediately after the Edmonton Oilers scored their second of the night to take a 2-0 lead, the Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov cut the lead in half with a potentially game-changing goal.
Or so he thought.
Immediately, the Oilers’ video coaches were sounding the alarm, and bench boss Kris Knoblauch called for an offside review. After a lengthy meeting between officials, replays showed that as Carter Verhaeghe was carrying the puck over the blue line, Sam Reinhart had already fully crossed into the offensive zone. By the slimmest of margins, the Panthers’ goal was called back, and the Oilers’ two-goal lead restored.
This is the fourth offside review brought on by coach’s challenges of the post-season, and coaches have a 3-1 win rate, according to The Athletic‘s Shayna Goldman. Knoblauch and his video crew were undefeated on offside challenges in the regular season, going 4-0.
Since there was no offside call on the ice, the standard to overturn is high. The on-ice officials and the NHL Situation Room had to determine that the play was definitively offside.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice did little to hide his disbelief when the goal was taken down, screaming at officials from his spot behind the Florida bench.
“Huge, obviously,” the Oilers’ Mattias Ekholm said in a televised interview after the period. “Great job to our coaches and video coaches. I know they sit up there and it’s a pretty thankless job to sit there. You kind of have to get it right or we’ll be on them. They made a great call and got the momentum back on our side.”
The Oilers, after going down in the Stanley Cup Final 3-0 to the Panthers, are in the process of a historical comeback, winning Games 4 and 5 to claw back to competition. Should they complete the reverse sweep, they would be the first team since the 1942 Maple Leafs to do so.
Game 7, if necessary, will take place on Monday.
— With files from The Associated Press
