The Colorado Avalanche are facing the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday night and after two periods of play, Colorado trails 2-1. But, if you have been paying close attention to the game, you’d understand that it really should be a tie game at the very least.
Early in the second frame, a very controversial call was made by the referees, which negated a goal for the Avalanche that would have given the team a 2-0 lead.
Mammoth forward Dylan Guenther received the puck and went to play the puck. Valeri Nichushkin pressured him and Guenther back-handed the puck back into the zone, which negates the offsides. The explanation was that Nichushkin's actions forced Guenther to play the puck back into the zone, so it doesn't negate the offsides.
Here’s an explanation via NHL.com.
Both teams are having a stellar start to their 2025-26 season, with the Avalanche on top of the division with a 5-0-1 record and Utah in third at 4-2. It’s still very early in the season, so a lot is going to change from here on. The Avalanche have to get into a groove going forward and have ot outplay any sort of bad call by the referees.
Unfortunately, bad calls are going to happen, but I would just expect that whoever is involved with the NHL to understand the rules of the game and not make up some stupid reason that flat-out makes zero sense. There needs to be something done to reduce the number of bad calls in games. I don’t know the answer, but something has got to give.
As of this writing, the Avalanche have just tied the game 3-2 for the Mammoth, after Jack Drury gets one past the Mammoth’s goaltender and Sergachev of the Mammoth got one past Scott Wedgewood just past five minutes into the third period.
Scott Wedgewood allowed three goals in the second period, including one in which he was way out of position, but it was a nice play by the Mammoth altogether. Colorado has been careless with the puck at times, leading to turnovers.