Should NHL video review change for goalie interference, offsides?

The hockey season hasn’t truly started until there’s a goalie interference controversy.

The Edmonton Oilers have been front and center in this issue at the moment, as they’ve had several instances where they’ve been the victim of goalie interference calls. First, it was a goal from Corey Perry on Sunday against the Calgary Flames that was reviewed and waived off due to goalie interference from Perry. Then, Matvei Michkov scored a questionable goal on Tuesday night that could have been called back, but wasn’t. And then later in that game, Evan Bouchard’s goal was called back because Zach Hyman interfered with the goalie.

Has goalie interference reviews gotten in the way of offense in the game? Frank Seravalli talked about goalie interference and the underlying issue with video reviews on Daily Faceoff Live.

Frank Seravalli: I was at the GM meetings however many years ago when they decided to institute this, and that is exactly the pitch that Gary Bettman made to the GMs. “Don’t do this, I’m telling you, please don’t do this” because you’re going to have exactly what we have, which is nitpicked to death.

Not only that, I think when the situation room took back over making calls, so it’s not actually the referees that are looking at the iPads. They’re not the ones making the decision, someone in Toronto in the situation room is making the decision for them. The idea was to standardize it.

The problem is I have no idea what goalie interference is from night to night. If you had told me the Michkov goal was goalie interference, I would have been like, “I could see how you got there.” But the Perry one a couple nights earlier, I’d be totally lost, I don’t see it.

So I think there could be a huge step up in consistency. And I don’t know how to solve that because I think they’ve already tried to address it.

You can watch the full episode here…