You know the refrain by now. Nobody understands goaltender interference. It’s a coin flip. The rules make no sense. Once the ref gets that headset on, your guess is as good as mine because nobody has any idea what’s going to happen.
But here’s a secret: It’s just not true.
OK, it’s a little true, in a few cases, and we’ll get to that. But the rules around goaltender interference aren’t that hard, and if you understand them, you’ll rarely be surprised by how a ruling works out. In fact, give me a few minutes right now and I bet I can get you there by the end of this post.
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But first, let me declare my biases upfront: I think replay review for interference is a bad concept. The rule isn’t all that complicated, but it’s filled with areas that are subjective instead of black-and-white, which means some plays are still going to be arguments even when you break them down frame-by-frame. The league has told us we have review to “just get it right,” but “right” gets hazy on the tougher calls, and that just leads to more frustration. There’s really no way around this, which is why we should scrap replay review for interference altogether, or failing that, make the bar to overturn the call on the ice significantly higher. The current system is bad and shouldn’t exist.
But it does exist, so let’s make the best of it. Let’s spend a few minutes learning how goaltender interference actually works, and why those confusing reviews aren’t really as confusing as you think.
Let’s start with the good news: The dreaded Rule 69.1, which governs pretty much everything that would get a goal called back, is only a few hundred words long. It’s not simple, but the basics are fairly straightforward. Put it this way, if you’re smart enough to have even a basic understanding of analytics or the salary cap or expansion draft rules, you can absolutely get your head around this.
So let’s try to do that. I didn’t understand this stuff either a few years ago, but eventually I got tired of posting shrug emojis on Twitter and put in some effort to figure it out. Around the same time, the NHL started to get more consistent on these plays (and if anyone wants to tell me what happened behind the scenes to make that happen, I’m all ears). These days, I don’t find most of these calls to be all that difficult to predict. Come join me.
My goal here is to help you understand goaltender interference in a way that will have you confidently predicting the result of a review maybe 80 or 90 percent of the time. That’s probably the best we can do because, again, some of this stuff is still very subjective and there are cases that are genuinely hard calls that won’t ever satisfy everyone. If you’re going to demand 100 percent certainty, I have bad news for you about how sports officiating works.
But we can get you almost all the way there. Give me the next 10 minutes of your time, and let’s see if we can reduce your stress levels on the next review.
We’ll start with a very basic point that a lot of fans and media seem to miss. If you don’t feel like reading a whole post and just want one quick takeaway you can remember before you move on, here it comes.
The rules are completely different depending on whether the alleged interference happens in the crease or outside of it.
On some level, you already knew that. But I’m amazed at how often I see commentators or fans or whoever skip over this part when trying to decide if an attacking player has interfered. They’ll go right to how much contact there was or how the goalie reacted or where the puck was. That stuff matters, but not anywhere as much as one simple question: Did it happen in the crease?
Note that there’s no “almost” or “close enough” here. One inch inside the crease and one inch outside the crease are two different worlds, with very different sets of rules.
Put simply, the crease belongs to the goaltender, and with very limited exceptions, the attacking team goes in there at their own risk. Almost anything an attacking player can do to bother the goalie is interference if it happens in the crease.
Is there contact, but it’s clearly accidental? Doesn’t matter, you can’t be in the crease.
Is the contact initiated by the goalie as he’s trying to work around or through a player? Doesn’t matter, that guy can’t be in his crease.
Is there no contact at all? It still may not matter, because even screening a goalie isn’t allowed if you’re in his crease.
You’re getting the picture. Don’t want a goal called back for interference? Stay out of the crease. When there’s a review and you see those first replays, tune out all the noise and look to see if the attacking player is in the crease. If any part of him (not just his skates) is in there, and he’s impacting the goalie’s ability to make the save, the goal is probably coming back.
Let’s take the call from Round 1 that a lot of fans were confused by.
The Hurricanes tie the game, but John Hynes and the #Preds challenge for goaltender interference. Hynes didn't challenge any goals in the 2020-21 season, and this is his first of the 2021 playoffs. The goal is overruled after review. pic.twitter.com/giM085YXO4
— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) May 26, 2021
What? The Hurricanes player is Warren Foegele, and he barely even touches Juuse Saros before the puck goes in from the other side. But it doesn’t matter — he’s in his crease and makes Saros look around him. Move Foegele a few inches forward and that’s a textbook screen. But he can’t be in the crease, and being there prevents Saros from getting a clean look at the play. No goal.
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Here’s the key passage from the rulebook: “The overriding rationale of this rule is that a goalkeeper should have the ability to move freely within his goal crease without being hindered by the actions of an attacking player. If an attacking player enters the goal crease and, by his actions, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to defend his goal, and a goal is scored, the goal will be disallowed.”
“Defend his goal” is too vague for my liking, but the officials seem to interpret it to mean pretty much anything, from making a save to moving around to seeing a shot to tracking a pass. The crease belongs to the goalie and you have to let him do his job there.
As I said, we want to get you close to 90 percent here, so we won’t spend too much time on exceptions that don’t come up all that often. But let’s quickly cover a few.
As most fans know, it’s not interference if the attacking player is pushed into the crease by a defender. If the defenseman cross-checks you hard enough to send you into his own goalie, well, that’s a dumb play by him. But let’s be clear on what that doesn’t mean. A little nudge doesn’t give you a free pass to go into the crease and set up camp. If you go into a crease on your own, getting bumped while you’re there doesn’t mean you’re OK to stay. Even if you do get launched into the crease, the rule says you still have to make “a reasonable effort” to try to avoid the goalie, and you’re not allowed to stay there — you have to get up and out and soon as you can.
Let’s look at another goal that didn’t count, this one from the Wild/Golden Knights series.
When you first saw this one, maybe you were confused or even outraged. Now I hope that you’re zoning in on whether Alex Tuch is in the crease. He is, and while Matt Dumba isn’t giving him any easy path out, he doesn’t have to; Tuch went in on his own. He can’t be there, so it’s going to be no goal. (And despite all the feigned confusion that always goes with these calls, that Tuch is already looking for the referee before he knows the puck is in the net is a pretty good sign that he knows it’s not going to count.)
The other area that causes confusion is an exception for loose pucks. On a rebound, attacking players have some leeway to go after the puck, and incidental contact that results from that may be allowed. But the puck being in the crease doesn’t mean it’s suddenly prison rules, and you can’t bulldoze the goalie and the puck into the net. If a player’s stick and the goalie’s glove are reaching for the puck at the same time and there’s some contact, they’ll usually allow that. But using the ol’ pitchfork play is still going to get the goal overturned, like this key moment from the Lightning/Panthers series.
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Attacking players can’t be in the crease. That’s the goalie’s space, and he has virtually free rein to do his job there. Almost anything, from contact to a simple screen, by a player in the crease puts a goal at the risk of being called back.
Stay out of the crease. We’re halfway there.
OK, so what about outside the crease? Very different situation.
The goalie still has a right to play his position outside the crease. But the key is that now the attacking players have a right to be there too.
To be clear: The goalie is never fair game for intentional contact. Players are still expected to try to avoid him, and they certainly don’t get to run him, no matter where he is on the ice. But incidental contact? Outside the crease, that’s OK. So is screening. So is setting up camp where he wants to be and making him work around you.
Basically, the script flips. The crease is for the goalie, and attacking players aren’t allowed in. But outside the crease, it’s everybody’s ice, and the goalie goes there at his own risk. You can’t intentionally initiate contact with him, but now there’s an onus on him to fight through incidental contact, and a bump here or a stick there won’t overturn a goal. It’s why recent challenges like this one from the Blues or this one from the Habs had zero chance. Inside the crease, both of those might be waived off. Outside? No way, play on.
Here’s a play from late in the regular season:
Mathieu Perreault very clearly bumps Jake Allen’s glove just as the puck is on the way. Textbook interference, right? You might have thought so at the time, but now you know better because you see Perreault is outside the crease. The contact is accidental, or at least looks close enough, and Perreault is allowed to be there. That goal is going to count.
Two minutes into this clip is one of those frustrating moments where the announcer doesn’t know the rules. “The glove, is it outside of the crease? Does it matter?” It sure does. In a lot of these plays, “is it outside of the crease” is all that matters.
Let’s wrap this up by taking a look at two very similar plays. Consider this your final exam.
Here’s a Minnesota Wild goal from Round 1. There’s light contact between Marcus Foligno and Marc-Andre Fleury, who’s screened on the play and barely even reacts to the puck until it’s by him.
Should this goal count?
Here's the review for goalie interference. pic.twitter.com/syPlJspzhD
— Giles Ferrell (@gilesferrell) May 23, 2021
And here’s a very similar play between the same two teams from a few weeks earlier, this time featuring Mattias Janmark and Cam Talbot.
Shea Theodore knots it up at 1 with his 8th tally of the year!#VegasBorn pic.twitter.com/dnWcQOLG5G
— Hockey Daily 365 (@HockeyDaily365) May 4, 2021
These two plays, which look nearly identical, yielded different results. One counted, one didn’t. Are they flipping coins?
A few minutes ago, there’s a good chance you would have thought so. But now you know better, right?
In that first play, Foligno is in the crease, if only barely. Note that it’s not about where his skates are — in this case, a butt in the crease still counts. Is Fleury pulling off a bit of a veteran move here, initiating contact he knows could wipe out a goal? Maybe, sure. But he’s allowed to do that because it’s his crease and Foligno can’t be there.
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How is that different from the second play, with Talbot initiating similar contact? You already know: Janmark is outside the crease. It’s only just barely, by his tippy-toes, but that’s fine. He’s allowed to be there. Same situation, same actions, but an inch or two makes all the difference.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: Wait for the overhead view. It’s usually not the first one we see, so go ahead and try to figure out what’s being challenged and where the problem might be while you’re seeing the more dramatic shots. But don’t make up your mind until you see the overhead view, because that’s probably the one that will tell you whether we’re inside or outside the crease. And in most cases, everything else flows from that key detail.
There are other cases we haven’t covered, because they come up rarely and we said we’d be happy to get you to 80 or 90 percent. Every once in a great while, officials will determine that a goalie couldn’t have made a save even without interference, at which point the goal can stand. The interference has to actually impede the goalie, meaning it’s possible for there to be contact that’s so minor it can be ignored, although they tend to almost always lean toward the goalie’s side here. Interference isn’t like offside, where it can wipe out everything that happens afterward no matter how long it takes — the goalie has to work to recover and keep playing, so if enough time elapses before the goal then it’s going to count.
And of course, the player in the crease has to actually interfere with the goalie, which is why this Maple Leafs challenge didn’t work. Jack Campbell vacates the crease on his own and doesn’t fight to get back until the puck is already on the way into the net, so Tyler Toffoli having both feet in the crease doesn’t matter.
But honestly, you don’t need to worry too much about those kinds of outlier plays. The vast majority of reviews come down to a pretty simple question: Did the interference happen in the crease? If the answer is yes, it’s probably coming back unless the player was obviously forced in or clearly had no impact. If it’s no, it’s probably going to stand unless the contact was intentional. Remember this paragraph, and you’ll find the vast majority of reviews aren’t that confusing after all.
Will you agree with all of them? Of course not. First of all, you’re a fan, so you’re wired to always think your team got screwed. And even if you do understand the rules, there really are grey areas where it’s just hard to tell. Sometimes it’s not clear exactly where contact takes place and whether it was in or out of the crease. Some of this comes down to subjective questions of intent, and we’re not mind-readers. Some of these are just really close calls where we’re never going to all agree. These are all good reasons to scrap the review system entirely or to modify it so only really blatant missed calls can be overturned. I’ve been banging that drum for years.
Maybe you agree. Or maybe you’d like to change the rules to something else. I’m open to that too, as long as you’re not proposing a return to the terrible skate-in-crease rule of the late ’90s. I think this league needs more offense, not less, so if you want to loosen the rules so that more goals are allowed to count, I’m probably on board.
Just don’t act like the current rules are incomprehensible, and the results of every review are random. They’re not, as long as you know what to look for. And now you do.
(Photo: David Berding / Getty Images)
