The Avalanche was shutout at home Wednesday night because Tyson Jost was in stride.
Naturally.
Jost was ruled offside because his back foot/skate was hovering over the blue line, not skating over the frozen paint. His entire body didn’t cross the blue line before Nathan MacKinnon pushed the puck into the Tampa Bay’s zone, but the Avs’ ensuing goal by Gabe Landeskog didn’t count because Jost’s skate was above the blue line — and not on it.
What’s the difference? Whether Jost’s skate is on the ice or in the air doesn’t change where he was on the playing surface. Furthermore, Jost had nothing to do with the goal — other than being the guy who didn’t make it count in a game Tampa Bay went on to win 1-0.
The NHL needs to adjust its offside rule. Or get rid of it altogether and worry more about questionable plays that directly factor into goals. A hovering skate should never negate a good goal.
Three stars:
- Nikita Kucherov. Lightning right winger had the game’s only goal.
- Semyon Varlamov. Avs goalie made 23 saves.
- Andrei Vasilevskiy. Goalie made 22 saves for Tampa Bay.
What you might have missed: Colorado resident Brad Watson — the NHL’s senior referee — worked the game.
Next up: Friday, vs. the Ottawa Senators at the Pepsi Center.
“Right now, I wish it wasn’t (the rule) but the other way, we’ll take it. So it’s just the way it is,” said MacKinnon, who saw his nine-game points streak end.
Said Landeskog:“Those calls go both ways. If it was the other way around, I would have wanted the same call. That’s not where the game was won or lost. They scored on their (third-period) power play and we didn’t score on ours. That’s the difference. We had enough chances to score.”
The Avs have now failed to score in five consecutive periods at the Pepsi Center. But even coach Jared Bednar said he can’t dispute Landeskog’s disallowed goal.
“The hovering skate — that’s the rule. Puck enters, your skate’s in the air, it’s off-side,” Bednar said. “Sometimes you get lucky on those blue-line cameras where you can’t tell if the skate is in the air. On this one, it looked pretty clear to me. You could see the puck not across the line yet and you could see his foot in the air. It’s offside. Sometimes you catch a break on those and hopefully it evens out at the end of the year.”
In the end, the Avalanche lost a one-goal game against one of the league’s best teams.
“Hard-fought game all the way through. I would expect nothing less fro our group than the compete we showed out there,” Landeskog said. “We can compete with the best teams in the league and I think we belong in the top so far this year.”
Added Bednar:“We competed hard. We had good energy. We weren’t perfect but we did a nice job. The difference in the hockey game is a power-play in the third. I liked a lot of the things that we did. That’s one of the best teams in the league, no doubt, and I thought it was a hard-fought hockey game and I think our guys keep their chins up after that one and make sure we get our rest and bounce back on Friday.”
