The NHL just broke its silence after a controversial late call changed everything
Noah Dobson and Martin St-Louis are stuck with the call that changed everything Monday night at the Bell Centre.
The NHL has now confirmed what Montreal feared in real time.
The linesmen missed the offside on the sequence that led to Dobson's third-period goal, and Carolina's challenge wiped it off the board.
That is the kind of reversal that does more than change a scoreboard.
It changes the pulse of a building, the mood on a bench, and the feel of a series game that already had no room for mistakes.
For a few seconds, the Canadiens thought they had their third goal in a massive home playoff game.
The Bell Centre exploded, the players celebrated, and then it all got pulled back.
The league's official explanation was clear. Cole Caufield entered the offensive zone ahead of the puck, putting Montreal offside before Dobson scored.
Rod Brind'Amour challenged immediately, and the video review confirmed the mistake from the officials on the ice.
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Fans are furious after the NHL responded to the disputed late-game call
That is the part that will bother the Canadiens most.
The file points to analysts around the game saying Montreal looked rattled after the false celebration, and it is easy to understand why.
A call like that drains a bench fast.
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You go from believing you grabbed a huge third-period lead to standing there while the other side gets life back.
It also lands hard on Caufield.
The offside was his, and the frustration showed after the game. Nobody needs to tell a top player how thin that margin is in late May.
For Dobson, it is even crueler.
He thought he had delivered one of the biggest goals of the Canadiens' postseason run, only to watch it vanish on a technical mistake before the puck even crossed the line.
Montreal can complain about the swing, and fans will keep doing it.
But the league explanation leaves no gray area. The officials got the original on-ice sequence wrong, and Carolina was right to challenge it.
That does not make it sting less.
It just makes it official.
And in a playoff game where emotion is everything, that one offside may have hit the Canadiens harder than any check Carolina threw all night.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 25, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Shayne Gostisbehere | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Michael Matheson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mark Jankowski | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| K'Andre Miller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | - | - | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| William Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||