Inside the Blackhawks' process for challenging goals: Camera angles, radios and eagle-eye vision

When Capitals forward Aliaksei Protas carried the puck over the blue line during the first period March 9, Blackhawks video coach Matt Meacham saw two things that looked suspect.

A couple minutes later, the Hawks’ offside challenge was deemed successful and the Capitals’ goal came off the board.

The process between those two events is complicated and intricate, but the Hawks have it down to a science. Meacham, in his 11th year in the role, and fellow video coach Adam Gill, in his second year, have quietly established themselves as two of the best in the business.

Since Luke Richardson took over as head coach, the Hawks are 13-2 on challenges, and both losses happened when coaches on the bench decided to override Meacham and Gill’s advice.

Last season, Richardson was one of only two NHL coaches to attempt at least seven challenges without losing any. This season, Richardson’s six successful challenges are tied for fourth-most among NHL coaches.

“You’re not watching it live out there, nobody can see you, and you can change the game in an instant,” Meacham said.

The process

Deep inside the United Center (and every other arena), Meacham and Gill set up a war room with all the feeds they can directly access. That includes both teams’ TV broadcasts, four blue-line cameras, two over-the-net cameras and one full-rink overhead camera.

Every single time the puck crosses the blue line, they immediately begin checking for offside. Most of the time, there’s a stoppage or the puck exits the zone before they even reach a conclusion, rendering it moot. But every once in a while, someone scores and their work becomes crucial.

“It’s nice when you have that four or five seconds before the puck goes in the net that we have a head start on it,” Meacham said.

Added Gill: “I’ll go back and look at things that I think are questionable, but [Matt] already knows. He’s probably the best — seriously.”

The head start also helps with challenges for potential missed stoppages — such as hand-passes or the puck hitting the netting or a high stick. But there’s no head start when it comes to potential goalie interference, and those challenges are the trickiest to predict.

Meacham, while monitoring challenges around the league to track precedent rulings, often sees nearly identical goalie-interference situations called different ways from one night to the next. Goalie coach Jimmy Waite, who watches every game from the press box, will help out by sharing his opinion in those cases.

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Meanwhile, Meacham and assistant coach Derek Plante, located behind the bench, have a direct radio connection through which they relay everything. Plante and Richardson have a screen at their feet on which they, too, can watch replays.

“I’ll be telling [Derek]: ‘Hey, we’re looking at it,’” Meacham said. “Sometimes we’re telling the coaches to stall, [to] say it’s not working. Say ‘technical difficulties’...[while we’re] trying to find that one extra feed.”

Once the video duo decide whether the play was legal or not, Gill puts ‘good goal’ in bold, green letters — or ‘bad goal’ in bold, red letters — on the coaches’ screen, and Meacham verbally informs Plante.

“When you’re on that radio, sometimes it gets cut out and you only hear certain words,” Meacham said. “So I won’t say ‘don’t challenge.’ If you hear ‘challenge,’ we’re challenging. I try to use verbiage where, even if they hear every third word, [they] know.”

The evolution

In Washington, Meacham noticed Protas’ skates technically entered the zone before the puck did, but since he had possession throughout the sequence, that seemed unlikely to get the goal overturned.

Meacham also noticed, however, that Capitals forward Max Pacioretty was very close to being offside on the opposite wing — and it turned out he indeed was. The TV broadcasts initially incorrectly scrutinized Protas, but Meacham’s eagle eye saved the Hawks a goal.

"[But after] three, four, five minutes...you’re starting to second-guess,” he said. “You’re looking like, ‘Am I looking at it right?’”

Back in November, Lightning forward Brayden Point’s skates crossed the blue line before the puck in a similar possession instance. Although it was iffy, Meacham thought it would be considered legal; Richardson disagreed. The Hawks lost the challenge but killed off the ensuing power play.

“Sometimes if you’re feeling it, if you think your [penalty kill] is good enough, that’s his call,” Meacham said. “I know he said he relies on us, but at the same time, he’s the one telling the refs.”

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When Meacham first got this job, a punishment for a failed challenge was only losing a timeout — not a delay-of-game penalty, as it became in 2017-18. Former Hawks coach Joel Quenneville would sometimes challenge something simply to create an extended stoppage for regrouping.

“Joel would be like: ‘Well, we’re challenging it,’” Meacham said. “‘We’re using it as a timeout. Maybe it’s a 50-50 shot that it was goalie interference or something.’”

One of Meacham’s proudest moments nonetheless came during that era. In Game 2 of the 2016 Hawks-Blues playoff series, he greenlit a challenge that took a third-period, go-ahead goal by Blues forward Vinni Lettieri off the board. Andrew Shaw gave the Hawks the lead for good a few minutes later.

Conversely, Meacham endured a memorable learning moment during a Hawks-Wild game in October 2017, shortly after the penalty punishment went into effect. After Wild forward Chris Stewart scored a go-ahead goal with nine minutes left, the Hawks challenged it and lost, and the Wild doubled their lead on the ensuing power play.

Perhaps the most chaotic moment came in a Hawks-Rangers game in January 2019, during the brief window when then-66-year-old Barry Smith was a Hawks assistant coach. Smith couldn’t hear the radio, so Dylan Crawford — Meacham’s video assistant at the time — sprinted through a fan-filled area of Madison Square Garden to physically tell the bench to challenge.

Things may change again for Meacham and Gill in the near future. Two types of penalties — high-sticking and delay-of-game for clearing the puck over the glass — may soon become challengeable, based on recommendations made this week by NHL general managers. But since those are penalties in themselves, an additional penalty for a failed challenge could create a five-on-three power play, further heightening the stakes.

No matter what twists are thrown at them, though, it seems like a good bet they’ll remain among the league’s best.

"[Sometimes] I’m thinking, ‘That’s for sure offside,’ and I get the ‘no’ on the screen from down below,” Richardson said. “I almost don’t believe them. But they’re almost always right.

“Even though sometimes I don’t like to, I trust Matt and Adam.”