The Suitcase and The Scribe: Former NHL referee Dave Jackson discusses Cale Makar’s controversial goal
During his long career as a National Hockey League official, Dave Jackson refereed more than 1,600 games (including 83 in the playoffs).
He joined Scott Burnside and Mike McKenna on today’s edition of The Suitcase and The Scribe to discuss Cale Makar’s goal on Edmonton Oilers goaltender Mike Smith in Game 1 of the Western Conference Final, which was ruled onside after video review.
Dave Jackson: I was sitting on the couch watching it, and from my first view of it, you just see a real quick play when they show a replay, my first thing was, “Oh, that’s offside. That’s offside.” And in real time, it’s offside.
I gotta give credit to that linesman, and I’m going to say he knew what he was doing, he didn’t guess, he got it right. And that is a tough thing to get right because before we had an offside challenge, which goes back, what, four or five years, that would probably be called offside. Right? Because in real time, with a human eye, that looks offside.
Now, once they brought the offside challenge in, and they’re able, in high-definition television, to slow that play down frame-by-frame, that is when you get into the literal interpretation of the rule. And all it really was, if you slow it down to the — you can slow it down as slow as you want, you can pretend Makar was standing still. It doesn’t change the application of the rule.
Makar’s teammate was in an offside position. Makar was in an onside position. He propelled the puck across the blue line, did not touch it once it crossed the blue line until his teammate was tagged up. People are getting caught up in the whole “possession versus control.” I can ice the puck and I’m still in possession of that puck until the icing’s completed. I was the last guy to touch it. But I’m not in control of that puck.
Makar basically dumps the puck in, but he only dumps it in an inch. And it happened so fast, in a nanosecond, that in that time when that puck crosses the line to when he touches it, in theory, it’s a delayed offside of a millisecond. He’s in possession of the puck but he’s not in control of it, for the purpose of that rule. He’s not touching the puck.
You can watch the full discussion of Makar’s goal between Jackson, Burnside, and McKenna here…
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