ANAHEIM, Calif. — It took 60 seconds, maybe more, for officials on the ice at Honda Center to make their decision. It took four minutes for the NHL to confirm it. It took the league another hour or so to fully explain it.
Eventually, though, Game 4 between the Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks, a 4-3 overtime win by the Ducks that gave them a 3-1 series lead series lead that’s commanding and shocking in equal parts, ended the way it should have. Ducks forward Ryan Poehling officially flung a puck off Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse’s skate, past goaltender Tristan Jarry and far enough over the goal line to register, fairly, as a goal.
A fraction of an inch in the other direction, and the Oilers, who began the series as a prohibitive favorite, keep playing and still have a chance to tie the series going into Wednesday’s Game 5. A fraction of an inch in the other direction, and perhaps Jarry’s reputation, beleaguered at best, still has a chance to change. A fraction of an inch in the other direction, and there would have been no doubt about the play.
Instead, what already had been the most chaotic first-round series in the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs went into orbit, then spent a few minutes in purgatory.
Poehling had begun to loop behind the net when he noticed the puck behind Jarry. At first, he didn’t celebrate. He pointed. Even as referees Francois St-Laurent and Jake Brenk convened behind the net — both were well above the goal line when the puck appeared to cross — the rest of the Ducks took their cues from Poehling.
“It looked like it could have gone anywhere, but when I saw (Poehling) go behind the (net) and celebrate like he knew it was in, it reminded me of somebody else that saw something like that in an overtime period,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said, nodding toward the Chicago Blackhawks’ 2010 Stanley Cup-winning goal against Philadelphia, when Patrick Kane was the only person who seemed immediately certain that his bad-angle shot beat Flyers goaltender Michael Leighton.
On Sunday, it took an uncommonly long time — as the crowd roared and the Ducks celebrated — for St-Laurent and Brenk to make their initial on-ice decision.
Through it all, Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch hoped the situation would play out as so many he’d seen before and that a lack of conclusive evidence would rule the day.
“I thought we were going to get away with it,” Knoblauch said, adding that he didn’t see space between the goal line and the puck. Complicating the review angle was Jarry’s skate, which was hovering over the puck and preventing viewers from officially seeing white paint between the goal line and the puck. Geometry dictates that such space existed; video, to a reasonable viewer, may not have.
“There’s been many times where I’ve seen (an apparent offside call) and they don’t have the absolute proof of it,” Knoblauch said. “I thought that was gonna be the call (Sunday), also.”
It wasn’t. After the league’s video review concluded, Brenk skated to center ice. “After the review,” he said, “the puck completely crossed the goal line …” The crowd drowned out the rest of the announcement.
The Oilers searched for proof of whether Ryan Poehling’s game winner actually crossed the goal line. (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Later, the league sent an email to media members re-stating two important bits: that the initial call was a good goal, and that the official review confirmed as much. The second element makes the first less important. If the review had been deemed inconclusive, the on-ice call — made by referees who were far from the play itself and made their decision amid celebrating players and a turned-to-11 home crowd — would’ve stood.
In a quiet post-loss dressing room, Connor McDavid called the goal “not exactly an oil painting,” but the kind of reward teams get when they throw pucks at the net. Jarry accepted the ambiguity, even if he disagreed with the call.
Mattias Ekholm disagreed most strongly, but he maintained perspective and an even keel.
“You guys saw it on the screen, we saw it on the TV down on the bench. I don’t know how they see it as a conclusive goal. I just don’t, to be honest. Maybe there’s somebody that can prove me otherwise,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter, to be honest. They call it a goal and we’ll have to vie with that.”
Indeed. Now, the Oilers are one game away from a first-round elimination by a team, nearly identical regular-season point totals aside, that they were decent money to take care of in short order. They still have no answer for the Ducks’ speed or shot-clock dominance, and they seem to be getting a diminished version of McDavid. Asked about the state of his health — McDavid is thought to be playing on an injured ankle — the superstar gave an all-time non-answer, saying the Oilers are “all doing the best we can out there. We’re all working, and we’re all trying to get it done.”
Jarry, for what it’s worth, played well in his first game since taking over for Connor Ingram, and he figures to get the start in Game 5. McDavid said he gave Edmonton a chance to win, and it’s hard to disagree. Jarry finished the game with 34 saves on 38 shots and was particularly good in the first period.
“He made some big saves,” Knoblauch said. “That’s what we wanted from him, a solid performance, and he played well.”
If Poehling’s shot bounced differently off Nurse or stopped sliding a moment earlier, the performance might be viewed as something more than solid, especially for a goalie who began the night 2-6 in playoff games and 0-3 in ones that went to overtime, including a series-deciding loss in 2021 for the Pittsburgh Penguins, when he passed a puck directly to Islanders forward Josh Bailey.
Beyond that, in his last two NHL seasons, Jarry has offered worse odds than a coin flip — in 69 appearances, he’s saved more goals than expected 32 times, with a lower-than-average percentage of quality starts and a string of truly brutal games trailing him into the postseason. Sunday would’ve been a step toward changing the narratives surrounding both himself and his team.
“It’s just unlucky. An unlucky bounce,” Jarry said. “It goes off of the skate and just kind of bounces right between my legs, and it just kept going and just died behind me.”
The Oilers’ season, meanwhile, is still alive. Just barely.
