from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

David Poile couldn’t sleep....

“This is where I’m going to get myself in trouble,” said the Nashville general manager. “I have not seen a picture yet that is clear enough to show me that the goal was offside. I’ve seen all kinds of angles. I think it’s inconclusive.

“I have long been a proponent of getting it right, making certain we make the right calls. They’re going to say they got it right. I just don’t see it. It could be offside, it could be, but I don’t see it. And when it’s that close, I don’t how you can make a definitive call.”

A simple rule has suddenly become complicated.

A well-intentioned rule has, in Poile’s words, taken on “unintended consequences.” And never mind what Gary Bettman says about the rule, that it’s “working exactly as it was intended to.” If the intention was confusion, Bettman is right. If the intension was clarity, the rule either has to be scrapped or altered.

My view: If the off-ice officials, or the game officials, have to watch something in slow motion for several minutes to determine whether a play was offside or not, the rule should be rather simple. You can’t call off a goal on anything that isn’t absolutely clear.

Yet, there was nothing clear about the disallowed goal from Game 1.

“I hate the offside coach’s challenge,” said Ray Ferraro, the superb hockey analyst for TSN and a protector of the game. “I don’t think that the rule they brought in had any intention of being what it has become.

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