Okay, so I was watching a game over the weekend that had gone into overtime, and at some point I recall a player getting whistled for offsides, but I’m almost positive that he was whistled at the center line, not the blue line. I know that play is a little different during overtime (i.e. 4-on-4) but I had never seen an offsides call at center ice before, overtime or not. I’ve looked at both the NHL’s and ESPN’s hockey rules websites and I’ve seen no mention of offsides with anything other than the blue line. What’s the scoop here?
It might have been a two-line pass. A pass between two players on the same team can’t cross two lines, so a pass from a player behind his own blue line can’t go to a teammate who is on the far side of the red line. I’ve heard this referred to as offsides, but I’m not sure if that’s the correct name for it.
Yes, offside is the correct terminology here, with the faceoff occurring where the two-line pass originated. There’s also intentional offsides, which goes all the way back to the offender’s blueline.
http://nhl.com/hockeyu/rulebook/rule75.html if you want the official answer.
Http://www.lakings.com/fanzone/ hockey_101.asp contains a bit mor einfo on the 2 line offside pass
Okay… that makes sense. I knew about the two-line pass but never heard it called “offsides” before.
Yes, and now that you fully understand it, there is serious discussion underway about eliminating it, making this pass legal. It’s already legal in the NCAA and other leagues. The reason is that it “opens up” play in the center zone and prevents teams from executing strategies such as the left-wing lock and the neutral zone trap. These ploys are designed to clog the center (neutral) zone with bodies, with a lot of clutching and grabbing and other interference which should be whistled but isn’t, making the game slow and boring to watch (and play). Making it legal to pass from behind your own goal all the way to a teammate at the opponent’s blue line foils these defensive schemes and creates more scoring opportunities. Critics complain that it will lead to too much “cherry-picking”, but these concerns are not borne out by the college game, and coaches note that it would be too much of a defensive liability anyway to allow forwards to lurk at the attacking blue line hoping for a cherry pass while the puck is deep in their own zone threatening their goal. IMO it is just a matter of time before the two-line pass is made legal in the NHL as well, which will greatly improve the flow of the game with today’s bigger, faster players.
Where’s Peter Puck when you need him?