The Toronto Maple Leafs saw a late game-tying goal get called back against the Arizona Coyotes Monday night due to a hand pass. As the situation is with any close call, there’s plenty of division. And yes – we’re talking about this.
The hand pass rule should sound straightforward, meaning a player passes the puck to a teammate with their hand and play stops – but it’s a tad more nuanced, and it ended up being one minor reason why the Coyotes won the game.
Late in the third period, Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly stopped a puck in the air with his hand in a battle with Arizona forward Clayton Keller. The puck fell straight down and appeared to touch Rielly’s stick before it hit the ice. The puck appears to touch Keller’s skate, but neither he or Rielly could play the puck afterwards in the battle.
Mitch Marner arrived to the scene looking for the biscuit and dug it out of the scramble. He then shovelled it deep into the zone, which eventually led to the goal.
Rule 71.9 of the NHL rulebook states: “A player shall be permitted to stop or ‘bat’ a puck in the air with his open hand, or push it along the ice with his hand, and the play shall not be stopped.”
So far, so good for Rielly. But it continues:
“Unless, in the opinion of the on-ice officials, he has directed the puck to a teammate, or has allowed his team to gain an advantage, and subsequently possession and control of the puck is obtained by a player of the offending team, either directly or deflected off any player or official.”
Referee Kelly Sutherland said (to the wave of boos filling Scotiabank Arena) the puck was directed to a teammate by Morgan Rielly. In that case, with the puck going straight down, it seems difficult to justify.
But the other option is if the handball (handpuck) allowed Toronto to gain an advantage and if a Leafs player was the next to fully control the puck. In this case, there’s more justification for the goal to be disallowed.
The NHL situation room said Marner was the first player to gain possession and control of the puck after Rielly batted it with his hand.
Yes, Rielly stopped the puck and it fell into the scramble, but Marner was the next player to fully control the puck, giving Toronto an advantage. Or, Rielly prevented the puck from clearing the offensive zone, giving them an advantage in that case.
On the other hand, wasn’t Rielly just dropping the puck into a 50-50 battle?
Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe questioned the complexity of the rule.
“It’s crazy that we’re talking about such specific things on these reviews,” Keefe said following the matchup.
Hand passes weren’t reviewable before the 2019-20 season. The catalyst for this rule change was San Jose’s Timo Meier swatting the puck towards the middle of the crease and Gustav Nyquist immediately passing it to Erik Karlsson for the OT-winner. If the refs could’ve reviewed it, it surely would’ve been disallowed.
As for the rest of Monday night’s game, the Arizona Coyotes continued a 20-year streak of getting at least one point against the Toronto Maple Leafs on the road. That’s exactly 20 years, since Arizona’s last regulation loss in Toronto was on Oct. 17, 2002.
The Coyotes achieved 41 percent on moneypuck.com’s “Deserve To Win O’Meter,” playing a solid game against a strong Toronto squad. Whether Morgan Rielly’s puckstopping ability in the offensive zone deserved to disallow a game-tying goal remains up for debate, but if he gave the Leafs an advantage by keeping the puck in the zone and holding off Keller to allow Marner to come in, the hand pass rule was enforced correctly.
