Retroactive offside sinks Edmonton Oilers' chance to tie Leafs late

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The Edmonton Oilers put the puck in the net right when they needed to Saturday.
Except it didn’t stay there.
Trailing 4-3 in the dying minutes to a Toronto Maple Leafs squad reinforced by the return of both Matthew Knies and John Tavares, the Oilers top offensive weapons came alive just when they needed them most.
Connor McDavid connected with Leon Draisaitl for a one-two punch out of his usual spot at the top of the right circle for one-timer from a sharp-angle that punched past the shoulder of Joseph Woll.
Of the 45 saves the Maple Leafs goalie made on the way to a 4-3 win Saturday, this wasn’t one of them. But it turned out he didn’t need to stop it.
Back up 20 seconds earlier, and Oilers defenceman John Klingberg’s skate appeared offside on the play. At least, it looked like it could have been enough for the Leafs to call a timeout before officially calling a coach’s challenge.
And for a few anxious minutes, the home crowd — the actual one, not the visitors who were able to match cheer for cheer in volume all game long — was left wondering if the Oilers were going to be back down a goal if successful, or take the tie and go on a power play if not.
So, you had to feel for the newest kid on the Oilers block, who had played just one NHL game in the previous 441 days after coming back from double hip resurfacing surgery, whose skate blade ended up being half an inch short for the goal to stand.
Klingberg was offside.
The goal was overturned.
And the Oilers went on to lose, though not for a lack of offensive effort over the remaining 2:04 in regulation.
Ecstasy to agony.
“I had no idea in the moment,” Draisaitl said of his disallowed goal. “At the end of the day, it is offside, that’s the rule.
“Sometimes it is unfortunate when it is just centimetres.”
He’s not arguing the call. The film doesn’t lie, after all. And this video review appeared cut and dry.
“We saw it on the bench, kind of felt it was coming,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. “It was very close, and sometimes too close to overturn it.
“But, yes, we did feel it was offside and we were getting prepared as if the call was getting overturned and there was going to be a faceoff. So, we’re set for it.”
Both physically and mentally, to their credit, which can be a chore when a team has the rug pulled out from underneath by a play-negating rule.
“We had a couple of great chances after that,” said Oilers forward Corey Perry. “We had a plan in place and executed it, it just didn’t go into the net.
“We had our chances, we just couldn’t find one at the end.”
Well, not one that ended up counting, anyway.
And if there was a statistic for when coaches call a strategic timeout, Craig Berube would have added a big tally for that one, giving his players a chance to catch their breath and his staff an extra minute to ponder the coach’s challenge.
In the end, he happily settled for exiting Rogers Place with the win Saturday.
“We couldn’t get quite the angle we wanted, so I called a timeout to give them more time,” Berube said. “And they made a great call.”
The retroactive offside rule didn’t exist back when Perry entered the NHL in 2005-06 with the then-Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
If an offside was missed on the fly, it simply stayed missed. No going back — which, incidentally, is the same approach the Oilers are taking to the missed opportunity to tie things up Saturday.
“Offside is offside,” Perry shrugged. “That’s something you learn at five years old. It doesn’t matter if there’s a challenge or not, it’s offside.
“You put it behind you and you have to move forward.”
E-mail: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge
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