In response to P.K. Subban’s electrifying first goal being waved off after a controversial offside challenge, the Nashville Predators have learned their lesson. Today players practiced with rulers affixed to their skates to ensure they are always onside, even under scrutiny of several slow motion cameras.
“It was our mistake to assume that hockey was about speedy and creative zone entries instead of constantly being aware of the precise position of your toenail at any given time” Subban said in between drills.
The players were seen skating hard to half ice, where they were then instructed to gently coast to the blue line make sure the rulers never crossed the threshold. Taking personal responsibility for last night’s reversed goal, Nashville forward Filip Forsberg spent most of the practice gliding along the blueline wearing a trench coat and holding a detective’s magnifying glass pointed at his feet.
“You always hear this is a game of inches, but last night showed it’s a game of millimeters” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “Luckily the rulers we bought the guys are double sided and have both.”
Some critics say that the offside challenge ignores the spirit of the rule and runs counter to the fast paced nature of the game. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman responded by clarifying the league’s reasoning behind the rule:
“People are always telling me ‘Booooo, boooo!’ and sometimes ‘Gary, you have to be more like the NBA’. So we took the best part of the NBA, the constant stopping of play, and added it to the NHL with a rule that can cancel a goal because of something that happened 10 minutes earlier.”
Despite the growing number of people who emerged seemingly out of nowhere to boo Bettman, he went on to say “I mean how exciting was it to see a superstar who is the story of this year’s playoffs, blast a shot to score the first goal of the Stanley Cup Final, and then have it followed with 5 minutes of blurry zoomed in shots of a skate blade that all conclude with the fantastic goal being taken away. Now that’s what we call a good on-ice product!”
Although the offside challenge will remain in effect the rest of the playoffs, change may be coming. Bettman hinted that the NHL may begin to review stadium security footage to disallow goals from players who parked over the line.
