ST. LOUIS — The game clock at Enterprise Center was showing 0.5 seconds remaining in regulation Saturday night, and the St. Louis Blues were a video review away from beating the Seattle Kraken.

They led 3-2 and just needed the NHL’s Situation Room to confirm what they thought was an obvious goalie interference call on the Kraken’s Jordan Eberle.

“We were certain on the bench that we were going to win the game,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.

The Blues had gotten the potential go-ahead goal from Jordan Kyrou early in the third period, which would’ve been a nice redemption story after he was a healthy scratch Thursday night. But with 2 minutes, 42 seconds left in regulation, the Kraken pulled their goalie for an extra attacker, which doesn’t typically work out well for the Blues. And it didn’t.

Seattle’s Chandler Stephenson tied the score with less than one tick left. However, the NHL issued a review of the goal, which is the proper protocol with under two minutes to play in regulation.

“If this was at the five-minute mark (left in the game), we would’ve challenged it,” Montgomery said. “That’s how certain we were.”

NHL Rule 69.3 states: “If an attacking player initiates contact with a goalkeeper in the goal crease, a goal will be disallowed. The contact can be incidental or otherwise, but if it impairs the goalie’s ability to play their position, the goal is waived off. The key factor is that the contact, especially if it is initiated by the attacking player, must not prevent the goalie from defending the goal.”

The Blues believed the goal fit the description of the rule, with Eberle making contact with goalie Joel Hofer.

“The criteria for goalie interference is, the player has to be in the blue paint,” Montgomery said. “Then he has to impede the goalie from playing his position. (Eberle’s) left skate hits our goalie’s stick, and when he hits the goalie’s stick, (Hofer’s) arm has to come in.

“He cannot use his blocker because of Eberle’s foot hitting his stick and turning his arm in. The puck goes in on the blocker side. For us, it meets all the criteria for goalie interference.”

It did not meet the NHL’s criteria.

THE KRAKEN NET A BUZZER BEATER TO TIE THE GAME! 🦑 pic.twitter.com/evXzi87rAJ

— NHL (@NHL) November 9, 2025

After the review, referee Gord Dwyer announced to the crowd of 18,096 at Enterprise Center that it was a goal. The officials put 1.9 seconds back on the clock and after the game went to overtime, the Kraken got the OT game-winner from Shane Wright for a 4-3 victory.

In an email to reporters after the game, the league said that a video review “confirmed the actions of Seattle’s Jordan Eberle did not impair Joel Hofer’s ability to play his position in the crease.”

Montgomery was told that by The Athletic during his press conference, and still had questions.

“I do wonder if they have a goaltender, an ex-goalie in the (Situation) room,” he said. “Because our goalie coach (David Alexander’s) explanation to me is that it does impede your ability to use your blocker.”

Hofer had a lot of questions, too.

“I mean, yeah, my stick got hit there,” he said. “I just didn’t know if the guy was in the crease or not, and I saw on the (video board) that he was. I thought the rule was that if the guy was in the crease, or if he stops me from making the save, then it’s no goal. I don’t know what their thought process was on that, but yeah, I’ll leave it at that.”

Hofer, also told about the league’s claim that his ability to stop the puck wasn’t impaired, wondered how.

“If my stick is there, who knows if it hits my shaft, who knows if it hits my blocker?” he said. “I guess nobody knows. I thought the only ground rule was if he was in the crease and he did. Like I said, nobody knows, but you can’t be making assumptions if it’s going to hit me or not. Nobody knows.”

As officials were reviewing the goal, Hofer felt there was better than a 50 percent chance that it would be overturned.

“Yet I was still trying to stay focused because nobody really knows nowadays,” he said. “I feel like every other week there’s something that there’s always a debate on it. That’s kind of how the rule is.”

Explanation of Situation Room Initiated Challenge at 19:58 of the third period in the @SeattleKraken / @StLouisBlues game. https://t.co/lHwxeXwUbQ

— NHL Public Relations (@NHLPR) November 9, 2025

There was, in fact, a similar scoring play when the Blues hosted the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 30. A would-be goal by Vancouver’s Evander Kane was negated because of goalie interference on the Canucks’ Mackenzie MacEachern.

“The guy (MacEachern) kind of took our goalie’s stick, and they disallowed it,” Blues forward Jordan Kyrou said. “So I thought (Stephenson’s goal) was going to be no-goal, but I guess not.”

“I mean, foot in the crease, takes away his stick, like I’ve seen that called the other way before,” Blues forward Dylan Holloway said. “It’s definitely a bit of a gray area. It’s just unfortunate that we couldn’t get that call.”

The Blues and Hofer didn’t have long to regroup, as the game went straight into OT.  The Kraken controlled possession before Wright ended the game on the only shot of the extra period.

“I thought I did a pretty good job (of resetting),” Hofer said. “I’ve just got to find one extra save. We battled hard. Yeah, that one stings, though.”

It stings especially because the Blues gave up the game-tying goal on another 6-on-5 situation, which was their Achilles heel last season.

With an empty net at the other end and just over two minutes to play, Hofer took the first crack at scoring the first goal of his NHL career when he flipped the puck down the ice and it went wide by a mere two feet.

The goalie wasn’t much in the mood afterward to talk about what could have been.

“I don’t know, I missed,” Hofer said.

Joel Hofer was THIS CLOSE to a goalie goal 🤏 pic.twitter.com/Y0YJa4fvUF

— NHL (@NHL) November 9, 2025

With 23 seconds left, Colton Parayko had an opportunity to clear the puck, but it was not knocked down and kept inside Seattle’s offensive zone. Philip Broberg iced it, which led to a D-zone faceoff with 11.8 seconds remaining.

The Blues couldn’t change personnel because of the icing, so coming out of a Seattle timeout, Nick Bjugstad had to take the draw against Stephenson and lost. Seconds later, the puck was in the back of the net.

“That clearing attempt (by Parayko), we’re just trying to clear the zone because the amount of time,” Montgomery said. “You’d like it to be a cleaner play, but I’d have to look at the tape to have a better answer for you.

“(But) we iced the puck three times. We had two opportunities to end the game from just before the red line. It’s an open net. The game should be over.”

The Blues felt it should’ve been over after the goalie interference review, too.

“As a group, we’ve got to bounce back from that,” Holloway said. “We can’t be giving up a goal that late in the game. That’s on all of us on the ice. We’ve got into a bit of a habit of that last year, so we’ve got to clean that up. Calls like that are out of our control, so we’ve got to keep an aggressive mindset and, yeah, that’s something to learn from.”