Goaltender interference keeps turning into one of the NHL’s messiest calls, and the league still hasn’t cleaned it up.
The latest flashpoint came early in 2026, when the Devils had a go-ahead goal waved off in a ruling against the Winnipeg Jets that immediately set off debate. Jonas Siegenthaler’s goal was taken off the board after review, and the question that followed was the same one fans keep asking: did the officials actually get it right?
The NHL’s 2025-26 rulebook says a goal can be overturned for goaltender interference in two situations. One is when an offensive player “impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal,” whether that’s intentional or not. The other is when an offensive player intentionally makes contact with the goalie, inside the blue paint or outside it.
But the rule also makes room for contact that isn’t the attacker’s fault. If a defending player pushes an offensive player into the goalie, that can cancel out the interference.
And the rule is also clear that a player’s position alone should not be enough to wipe out a goal. Crease goals can count, too, as long as the goalie isn’t being impeded.
That’s where the confusion starts.
On this play, Paul Cotter appears to be pushed into Connor Hellebuyck. He ends up pinned between Hellebuyck and defenseman Dylan Samberg and falls to the ice.
Hellebuyck also follows the play outside the crease, where the contact happens. Replays showed there was nearly a foot of space between Hellebuyck and the blue paint, so this wasn’t a tight crease collision.
Still, the on-ice call was a goal, the Jets challenged it, and after review the goal was overturned, tying the game again.
The officials may have decided that the contact outside the crease pulled Hellebuyck away from his net, which would fit the rulebook’s broader language about a goalie being able to defend his goal freely. The wording matters here.
The rules say, “If an attacking player enters the goal crease and, by his actions, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to defend his goal,” and a goal is scored, the goal should come back. Cotter does briefly enter the blue paint before the contact, and that likely factored into the review.
There is also the rule that says an attacking player who is pushed into the goaltender by a defenseman has to make a “reasonable effort” to avoid the contact. That may have played into the decision as well, though it is easy to argue Cotter had little chance to do anything about it.
And that is the problem: the standard still isn’t clear enough.
The rulebook says a player’s position alone cannot be the basis for goaltender interference, yet it also lays out situations where being in the crease matters. That contradiction leaves too much room for interpretation. The NHL needs cleaner language that makes it obvious when a goal in the crease is legal and when it is not.
It also needs to define what counts as defenseman-initiated contact and what “reasonable effort” actually means. Those are the gray areas that keep producing different results from one review to the next.
The questions keep piling up. If an attacker is steered into the crease by a defenseman and then hits the goalie, is that interference? What if a player goes into the crease, comes back out, and then makes contact with the goalie?
The rulebook should be able to answer those questions. Instead, the league keeps leaning on referee discretion, and that has not been a reliable fix. Even the NHL’s own video rulebook says these decisions are often left to the referees, and that has only added to the inconsistency.
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