The NHL's offside rule is stupid and needs some changes

The NHL's offside rule has a lot of problems, and that was the problem with Friday's Chicago Blackhawks vs. St. Louis Blues game. Not instant replay and video review.

The ending of the Chicago Blackhawks-St. Louis Blues game on Friday night, where the Blackhawks picked up a 3-2 win thanks in large part to the new coach's challenge rule, is going to be another key talking point in the never-ending instant replay debate.

Should the NHL keep it? Are plays like Vladimir Tarasenko's disallowed goal in the third period what replay is supposed to be about? So on, and so on.

This discussion hides the real issue in this game. It was not replay. It was the offside rule. 

I consider myself a pro-replay person in sports. The technology is there, and the most important thing is getting calls right so the right teams win.

And in this case, I think the NHL got it right. 

I say I think the NHL got it right because the NHL's offside rule is stupid. And that is the rule that is creating the problem. Not replay. 

Here is a look at the play again, where you see that as the puck enters the offensive zone Jori Lehtera's left skate is still behind the blue line, but is not directly in contact with the ice. 

The NHL's offside rule (Rule 83.1) has two very specific definitions for what makes a player offside, and what makes a player onside. Together, they help create the gray area we see here.

By rule, Lehtera is not offside on the play above because the league's rule specifically states that a player is offside when: both skates are completely over the leading edge of the blue line involved in the play. And that is where it ends. It says nothing else about what makes a player offside other than having "both skates completely over the leading edge of the blue line."

That obviously does not describe Lehtera in that situation because both skates are not completely over the leading edge of the blue line.

Then you get to the very next sentence, where the league defines what makes a player onside:  A player is on-side when either of his skates are in contact with, or on his own side of the line, at the instant the puck completely crosses the leading edge of the blue line regardless of the position of his stick.

That also does not describe Lehtera, because even though his left skate is not completely over the leading edge of the blue line, it is not in contact with the line or his own side of it.

In other words: He is offside on the play because he is not considered to be onside, and if he is not onside, he would have be offside. Right? Right. But his position does not fit the league's very specific description of what makes a player offside in the sentence that directly precedes the one describing onside. 

He fits both definitions. This is stupid. 

So how can the NHL fix this?

The first option is to simply change the wording of the rule so it doesn't create a void for players in the situation Lehtera was in. For example: A player is offside if both skates are completely over the leading edge of the blue line, or if one of his skates is not across the blue line and is not in direct contact with the ice, before the puck crosses the blue line.

Simple. It eliminates the confusion. It clearly describes what makes a player offside in every possible situation and doesn't create a situation where a player isn't offside by rule, but also isn't onside.

The other -- and perhaps best -- alternative is to eliminate the skate in contact with the ice portion of the rule. The whole purpose of the offside rule is about positioning. Are you completely over the blue line before the puck is, or are you not? Should it matter if a skate is a quarter of an inch off the ice as long as that skate is still behind the blue line? 

The only reason this is an issue now is because we're watching referees disect plays on a tablet screen (this would be one of the flaws in the replay system) to determine if a player's skate, that might still be behind the blue line, is barely off the ice, something that would not impact the result of the play. There were five other goals over just the past month-and-a-half alone that were disallowed under similar circumstances where a player's skate was behind the line, but barely off the ice.

It's hard enough to score goals in the NHL right now and we're taking away what should, in theory, be good goals because a skate that is behind the line isn't touching the ice.

The more drastic solution -- and one that would never happen -- is to just completely eliminate the offside rule. It never actually existed in the NHL until the 1929 season, shortly after the league made the forward passing all in three zones legal. When that happened teams would start sending players into the offensive zone and wait for the puck to come up the ice.

From a 1929 Ottawa Citizen article that described the new offside rule:

Under the rule which has been governed play this season and which was responsible for more action and greater scoring power, there was no restriction as to who should cross the line first. The rule, before revision, permitted players to down to the defending cage and wait for teammates to bring the puck down, similar to a “basket hanger” in basketball.

More action? Greater scoring power? If that sounds like a more entertaining style of play, it's probably because it was. Forget changing goalie equipment and making the nets bigger. Just let guys hang out in the offensive zone all night.

Still, that's not going to happen and the league doesn't need to go back to 1929 and eliminate a decades old rule to fix this.

But it does need to at least fix the way the current rule is worded, or make a slight change and allow players to have a skate behind the blue line without it having to be in contact with the ice. 

If you are angry (Blues fans) about the way Friday's game was decided, your issue is not with replay. It is with the offside rule. 

Which is stupid. 

By rule this play is offside. It should not be. (NHL)