What Is Goalie Interference?

By Mike Rifkin

The Florida Panthers defeated the Boston Bruins 3-2 in Game four of their Eastern Conference Semifinal to take a 3-1 series lead. The Panthers swept the two games in Boston. 

The Bruins were up 2-1 in the third period and with the Panthers on the power play, Panthers forward Sam Bennett (who had made a controversial play in game 3) pushed Bruins forward Charlie Coyle into goalie Jeremy Swayman and was able to put the puck in the net and tie the game for Florida. The Bruins challenged the play for goaltender interference, but the play stood, which led to the Bruins being short handed again. 

Rule 69.1 in the NHL Rulebook says “If a defending player has been pushed, shoved, or fouled by an attacking player so as to cause the defending player to come into contact with his own goalkeeper, such contact shall be deemed contact initiated by the attacking player for purposes of this rule, and if necessary a penalty assessed to the attacking player and if a goal is scored it would be disallowed”. 

Here’s the thing for me: the rulebook doesn’t say how hard the shove or push has to be. Now the definition of interference is “ When a player uses their body to impede the progress of an opponent with no effort to play the puck, maintain normal foot speed, or an established skating lane”. So by pushing Coyle into Swayman that impedes his progress to potentially make a save or impedes Coyle from clearing the puck, so why did the call stand?  The ruling from the league was “Video review supports the referees’ call on the ice that the shove on Coyle and subsequent contact with Swayman did not prevent Swayman from playing his positions in the crease prior to the goal”. 

According to Scouting the refs website (Link below) there were 87 challenges for goalie interference and 40 were upheld making it 54% during the regular season. This includes five challenges where the goal was initially waved off and one of those was overturned. So far this postseason coaches are 1-4 on coaches challenges on goalie interference.

Here’s the big problem: they’re guessing what is goalie interference. There is no set standard, unless blatantly obvious. So if the players and coaches are confused by goalie interference, then the fans are also confused so what’s the solution. The league averaged 6.3 goals per game, which is the same as it was last season, which means more offense isn’t the problem. But we’ve gotten to the point where nobody knows what is going on when these challenges occur, and Sunday night it might have cost the Boston Bruins the series. We need a rule that is clear and precise on what goalie interference is because these calls are now sinking teams in the playoffs and that’s a rough look for the NHL. 

Scouting the refs link (https://scoutingtherefs.com/nhl-coachs-challenge-tracker-2024-playoffs/)