Cam Talbot let loose on the NHL about what is and is not considered goalie interference to Edmonton Sun reporter Rob Tychkowski in an all-time post game rant. TL;DR – He’s going to have to put a few quarters in the swear jar.

In the third period of today’s game against the Coyotes, Patty Maroon beat Raanta to temporarily tie the game up at one apiece with 8:52 left to go. Unfortunately, the late comeback was too good to be true. As we’ve come to expect with almost every Oilers goal, the Coyotes went with the coach’s challenge and had the call go their way, as per tradition. That disallowed goal meant that the Coyotes were able to hang onto their one-goal lead and ultimately close out the game with two points.

After the game, Cam Talbot let loose:

Considering the Oilers are now 0-18 in challenges going against them over the past year+ it’s no surprise that someone finally went off about it. Actually, the Coyotes’ only goal from today’s game was remarkably similar to what happened with Pat Maroon’s disallowed goal though Todd McLellan never challenged. In hindsight, he probably should have thrown the flag considering any contact seems worthy of a review these days, and you never know which way the NHL will go. That said, the Oilers seem to be blacklisted from having these calls go their way and so maybe it wasn’t worth risking a penalty.

As for Talbot, I assume he’s going to get a fine for calling it like it is and it will be incredibly soft. The fact that he’ll have to open his wallet for blasting the league for this is a joke, and it will be interesting to see how they react to his comments. I mean, how dare he question one of the NHL’s biggest guessing games? Question the thrown? How dare you. The inconsistencies in what is and is not goaltender interference swings wildly from game to game, and I applaud Talbot for speaking out against it. Even though there is no black and white answer here, the NHL still fails to call things consistently as their standards seem to be all over the place and it’s nice to see a player say what so many fans are thinking.

To me, the goal reviews are getting completely out of hand and are cancelling out goals that should count. I mean, how many times have we seen controversial calls this year? What is the NHL going to do when these controversial calls keep happening in the playoffs, ruining more games after a five minute frame-by-frame reviews that they’ll probably weird decisions on anyway. I understand that the point of these goal reviews is to make sure that the call on the ice is right, but what’s actually happening is that it’s slowing the game down to the point of being annoying. At the very least, goal reviews should not be viewed in slow-motion but rather at real time speed as to avoid confirmation bias.

Considering how the season is going, and how goals have been so difficult to come by for an Oilers team that is struggling immensely, it’s not exactly surprising that Cam Talbot finally snapped and I appreciate the showing of emotion. At this point, I don’t know why coaches wouldn’t review any goal that has some kind of contact in the crease. To take that a step further, if I was an NHL goalie I would completely yardsale in the crease anytime someone touched me. Why not turn this thing into an Italian soccer league if the league is going to allow incidental contact to knock countless goals off the board?