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Colin Campbell will again try to convince GMs to tweak offside reviews

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If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Colin Campbell, the NHL's director of hockey operations, says he'll once more attempt to impress upon the league's general managers that a player's skate that's in the air, but not over the blue line, shouldn't be considered offside.

"I’ll try it again at the March (GM) meeting(s),” Campbell told The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun on Wednesday. “I think I’ll try to buy the managers over again as a group. People might say, 'Who cares about one inch?' A whole city would care in the playoffs about one inch if it was offside. That’s why we have the offside coach’s challenge."

Connor McDavid expressed displeasure with offside challenges as a whole Tuesday after the Edmonton Oilers' late tying goal against the Nashville Predators was overturned upon review that showed teammate Jujhar Khaira with his back skate lifted as he entered the offensive zone.

Campbell also brought this up at last year's meetings, and the GMs couldn't reach a consensus at the time, but he's hopeful it will resonate among more of them this time around.

“I’ll try it again, because I think it’s an adjustment to this rule that we experienced," he said. "This is our third year with it where I think we’ve experienced it enough where you can put some goals back on the board. The basis of it is, the player is still onside because he hasn’t crossed the blue line. I don’t think you need to be touching the ice.”

Campbell told LeBrun he counted eight times this season that a goal has been reversed on a skate-in-the-air call.

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